Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[Pterois]

WWE became PG in 2008. You can check on the WWE Network. The PPVs from the first part of the year are TV-14 but from the Great American Bash 2008, they are TV-PG. Shawn Michaels once said the reason why WWE became PG in 2008 is because his feud with Chris Jericho from that year was so violent that WWE had to make a change. So the company became PG. For me, Ruthless Agression Era has always been the period between the attitude era and 2008 (2001-2008). And as far as I'm concerned, unlike many people from the board, it's my favorite period from the company. I love the runs of Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels, Triple H etc. to death. I think also what's great about this period is that it wasn't as trash as the attitude era nor as asepticized like nowadays. I love bladejob and chair shots. I also much prefer the PPVs theme songs from that era that the ones from nowadays. I also love this period for reasons that I prefer not elaborate on because I don't want to be polemical.

[funkdoc]

From what i've seen, the people who actually use "Ruthless Aggression Era" mostly seem to treat it as 2003-ish through the rest of that decade.  For example, Wrestling With Wregret's video on forgotten RA Era wrestlers includes guys who debuted in 2009 (like Kizarny) or even lasted into 2010 (like Mike Knox).

Guess it depends on whether you consider that period to be defined more by edgelord content or by its pre-NXT developmental system...

[Migs]

4 hours ago, Pterois said:

WWE became PG in 2008. You can check on the WWE Network. The PPVs from the first part of the year are TV-14 but from the Great American Bash 2008, they are TV-PG. Shawn Michaels once said the reason why WWE became PG in 2008 is because his feud with Chris Jericho from that year was so violent that WWE had to make a change. So the company became PG. For me, Ruthless Agression Era has always been the period between the attitude era and 2008 (2001-2008). And as far as I'm concerned, unlike many people from the board, it's my favorite period from the company. I love the runs of Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels, Triple H etc. to death. I think also what's great about this period is that it wasn't as trash as the attitude era nor as asepticized like nowadays. I love bladejob and chair shots. I also much prefer the PPVs theme songs from that era that the ones from nowadays. I also love this period for reasons that I prefer not elaborate on because I don't want to be polemical.

Michaels would be wrong, since that feud stretched well into the latter part of the year. 

I do think it''s fair to break up the PG Era into something like '08-'11, and '11-'14, with the break being the Pipe Bomb. The Pipe Bomb brought a lot of older fans back and changed the vibe of the shows and the crowds.

[Pterois]

The feud stretched well into the latter part of the year but became a little bit less violent (no blood anymore).

[Loss]

The Ruthless Aggression era was July 2002-July 2002. I think it ended around July 2002.

It's a worthwhile topic to try to break down the eras of WWE history at some point, I think. Rock-n-Wrestling, New Generation, and Attitude are pretty self explanatory and clear, but then it gets fuzzy and complicated.

[Migs]

2 minutes ago, Pterois said:

The feud stretched well into the latter part of the year but became a little bit less violent (no blood anymore).

That feud got more violent as it went on, not less. 

[Badlittlekitten]

The tv production has barely changed in over 20 years so its harder to break down. When did 50/50 booking become so prominent? Feels like we've been stuck there for a while.

[Alucard]

On 4/18/2019 at 9:43 AM, Pterois said:

WWE became PG in 2008. You can check on the WWE Network. The PPVs from the first part of the year are TV-14 but from the Great American Bash 2008, they are TV-PG. Shawn Michaels once said the reason why WWE became PG in 2008 is because his feud with Chris Jericho from that year was so violent that WWE had to make a change. So the company became PG. For me, Ruthless Agression Era has always been the period between the attitude era and 2008 (2001-2008). And as far as I'm concerned, unlike many people from the board, it's my favorite period from the company. I love the runs of Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels, Triple H etc. to death. I think also what's great about this period is that it wasn't as trash as the attitude era nor as asepticized like nowadays. I love bladejob and chair shots. I also much prefer the PPVs theme songs from that era that the ones from nowadays. I also love this period for reasons that I prefer not elaborate on because I don't want to be polemical.

Co-signed. Loved a lot of the PPV themes of that era.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I agree the Attitude Era ends in 2001.

Cena & Batista winning in 2005 usher in a new era. I think of it as the First Wave of Cena. It is a very stable crew of main eventers that include Cena, Batista, HHH, HBK, Taker, Edge, Orton. At first Angle is in this crew but then Jericho replaces him. JBL, Big Show, Kane and REY Rey are fill ins. This era ends in 2009.

2010 is a crazy year in WWE history. HBK, Batista, Edge & Jericho leave. Taker & HHH are not full time. 75% of your main event is gone. People underestimate how different WWE is in 2010. It is the Second Wave of Cena but now HE IS THE MAN! There are no Attitude Era leftovers supporting him. It is just him & Orton. This is the Era that features a ton of one-off pushes like Miz, Sheamus and Swagger. Only really Punk sticks and eventually Bryan. Bryan's health & Punk's ego/impatience stop them from ushering in a new era.

2015 feels like the start of the current era. Cena's reign as The Man comes to end at the hands of Brock Lesnar. Smart money was this would be the Reign of Roman Reigns but bad booking and health has made this Brock Era the Reprise. 

[SteveMPunk]

Most interesting or enjoyable Coliseum exclusives? Looking for some that haven't necessarily been talked up

[TheDuke]

I like to think of the second brand split as the start of the current Era. Probably mainly because I prefer Smackdown to Raw, and before the  brand split it just felt like a B show. I understand though that roster wise and booking wise, a lot of the key elements of this current era started before the brand split. However, if somebody who wasn't watching the current product wanted to go back and start watching this current period from the beginning, I would tell them to start with the second brand split. 

[SomethingSavage]

On 4/19/2019 at 7:49 PM, Superstar Sleeze said:

I agree the Attitude Era ends in 2001.

Cena & Batista winning in 2005 usher in a new era. I think of it as the First Wave of Cena. It is a very stable crew of main eventers that include Cena, Batista, HHH, HBK, Taker, Edge, Orton. At first Angle is in this crew but then Jericho replaces him. JBL, Big Show, Kane and REY Rey are fill ins. This era ends in 2009.

2010 is a crazy year in WWE history. HBK, Batista, Edge & Jericho leave. Taker & HHH are not full time. 75% of your main event is gone. People underestimate how different WWE is in 2010. It is the Second Wave of Cena but now HE IS THE MAN! There are no Attitude Era leftovers supporting him. It is just him & Orton. This is the Era that features a ton of one-off pushes like Miz, Sheamus and Swagger. Only really Punk sticks and eventually Bryan. Bryan's health & Punk's ego/impatience stop them from ushering in a new era.

2015 feels like the start of the current era. Cena's reign as The Man comes to end at the hands of Brock Lesnar. Smart money was this would be the Reign of Roman Reigns but bad booking and health has made this Brock Era the Reprise. 

At the time, 2014 felt like the beginning of a new era - ESPECIALLY coming off the heels of Mania 30. Bryan, Cesaro, a resurrected Beast Lesnar, BRAY, and the whole Shield trinity felt like fucking superstars. But it was almost entirely undone by that summer.

And so yeah. We get another attempted reset in 2015, which led to the Seth push, the "failure to launch" Roman trope, and so on.

Moving along...

Doesn't warrant a thread, but...

Looking back, I fucking love the Batista/Undertaker series from 2007. I mean, I REALLY fucking love those matches. I caught myself scoping out their Mania 23 match on their YouTube channel, and I just spiraled from there & ended up revisiting all of them.

The Mania match is tremendous fun. Just a high-energy, fast-paced sprint from bell to bell. Their LMS is a nuclear bombfest, and it serves as a blockbuster sequel to the original encounter.

Their cage match doesn't redefine the stipulation or anything, but it's a quality TV match that establishes both guys on even ground.

And then their HiaC is an awesome WWE main event style gimmick match. It doesn't quite reach the heights of the Hunter/Tista one in terms of violence or finality for me, but it's not too far off. They bring the brutality with the weapons, and the Edge interference doesn't do anything to detract from the finish for me. I actually find it to be a neat callback to the original HiaC ending. Deadman can't catch a break!

Oh. And the Cole/JBL combo on commentary really hit their stride & found their chemistry together around this time, too. Bradshaw in particular was on point at the booth. He went on to become pretty terrible during his last run, although I always found him to be among their better commentators during his SmackDown run.

[SomethingSavage]

On 4/20/2019 at 9:28 AM, TheDuke said:

I like to think of the second brand split as the start of the current Era. Probably mainly because I prefer Smackdown to Raw, and before the  brand split it just felt like a B show. I understand though that roster wise and booking wise, a lot of the key elements of this current era started before the brand split. However, if somebody who wasn't watching the current product wanted to go back and start watching this current period from the beginning, I would tell them to start with the second brand split. 

I would tell them to watch SmackDown only from the brand split of 2016 up until Mania 2017.

They can stop watching full shows at that point & only cherry pick selections from the big shows. That'd be my recommendation.

[...TG]

I figured if a Japanese wrestler was going to do a crucifixion gimmick, it would be Onita. Nope, it's Inoki: 

 

(h/t some dude on Twitter)

[DMJ]

So, in my years-long quest to watch all the WCW PPVs I've finally reached Starrcade 2000 and Sin.

I'm not sure when it started, but on these shows, as I was watching them this weekend, the level of "sweetening" of the crowd noise really, really stuck out to me. I'm not sure why I didn't catch it before.

I mean, the crowds here are just visually dead. You can clearly see that nobody, not a single person any of the first few rows from any angle, is standing or screaming or shouting. And yet, the crowd noise for the duration of a 10+ minute Goldberg/Luger match is deafening. When Goldberg does hit a big move, you can hear a clear (and likely real) pop...but you're hearing it over a constant din of crowd noise that is coming from some mysterious portion of the audience that is, inexplicably, as excited and vocal for Goldberg's entrance as they are for both guys selling their exhaustion on the mat in minute 9.  

WCW was putting on these shows in arenas that held 15-20k fans but only filling a third of them. Obviously, 6000 fans can be plenty loud...but when you can visually see a majority of the audience is sitting completely still, yawning, and casually sipping sodas while the audio makes it seem like you're at WrestleMania III, there's a huge, huge disconnect and now that I've seen it/heard it, I can't unsee it. 

It makes me wonder how long the "sweetening" was going on and how much of it still goes on today with the WWE. And, if I'm wrong about this, and that was actual crowd noise, then WWE really dropped the ball because if you listen to just the audio of the Mike Sanders/Ernest Miller rematch at Sin, you'll think you're hearing a Road Warriors entrance that's been put on slow motion. Based on the audio, the Natural Born Thrillers were basically DX meets peak-era Horsemen.

 

[SomethingSavage]

5 hours ago, DMJ said:

So, in my years-long quest to watch all the WCW PPVs I've finally reached Starrcade 2000 and Sin.

I'm not sure when it started, but on these shows, as I was watching them this weekend, the level of "sweetening" of the crowd noise really, really stuck out to me. I'm not sure why I didn't catch it before.

I mean, the crowds here are just visually dead. You can clearly see that nobody, not a single person any of the first few rows from any angle, is standing or screaming or shouting. And yet, the crowd noise for the duration of a 10+ minute Goldberg/Luger match is deafening. When Goldberg does hit a big move, you can hear a clear (and likely real) pop...but you're hearing it over a constant din of crowd noise that is coming from some mysterious portion of the audience that is, inexplicably, as excited and vocal for Goldberg's entrance as they are for both guys selling their exhaustion on the mat in minute 9.  

WCW was putting on these shows in arenas that held 15-20k fans but only filling a third of them. Obviously, 6000 fans can be plenty loud...but when you can visually see a majority of the audience is sitting completely still, yawning, and casually sipping sodas while the audio makes it seem like you're at WrestleMania III, there's a huge, huge disconnect and now that I've seen it/heard it, I can't unsee it. 

It makes me wonder how long the "sweetening" was going on and how much of it still goes on today with the WWE. And, if I'm wrong about this, and that was actual crowd noise, then WWE really dropped the ball because if you listen to just the audio of the Mike Sanders/Ernest Miller rematch at Sin, you'll think you're hearing a Road Warriors entrance that's been put on slow motion. Based on the audio, the Natural Born Thrillers were basically DX meets peak-era Horsemen.

 

Mike Sanders was a pretty big deal at the time tbf.

[Blehschmidt]

8 hours ago, SomethingSavage said:

Mike Sanders was a pretty big deal at the time tbf.

He was above average at best....

[C.S.]

Mike Sanders' mic work seemed great at the time, but it has aged like moldy cheese.

[SomethingSavage]

Guess you could say he's SOL, and you know what THAT means...

[Mad Dog]

Starting to dive back into the NWA Anarchy TV. The Devil Rejects era is one of my favorite eras of wrestling TV ever. I've been slowly getting the TV on DVD and I am really looking forward to watching it all again. 

[El-P]

I guess it doesn't warrant a thread, which speaks about how there's no hype about it at all, but the Crockett Cup redux is this week-end. Could be a fun show actually on paper. Scurll vs Aldis, Mack vs Cabana, a bunch of fun teams including PCO & Brody, Kojima & Nagata, the Briscoes, the Rock'n Roll (yeah, I know, but they had actually a good match at Spring Break).

[The Thread Killer]

If that show was on iPPV I'd probably watch it, but I don't see where it's available anywhere.  I assume it's going to be filmed?

EDIT: Oh wait, it's available on Fite TV.

[sek69]

So the reviews are out for Mortal Kombat 11 (it's good except for some single player grindy bullshit), but one review in particular complimented the voice over work "with the exception of former UFC fighter and current WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey". 

To be fair, I didn't think she was that bad. There was just a noticeable difference between her and professional voice actors. Her character had to hit some emotional beats that might have been a little above her acting range, but it showed she can deliver a good performance when not trying to work her way through a WWE word salad. 

[Mad Dog]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

So the reviews are out for Mortal Kombat 11 (it's good except for some single player grindy bullshit), but one review in particular complimented the voice over work "with the exception of former UFC fighter and current WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey". 

To be fair, I didn't think she was that bad. There was just a noticeable difference between her and professional voice actors. Her character had to hit some emotional beats that might have been a little above her acting range, but it showed she can deliver a good performance when not trying to work her way through a WWE word salad. 

Microtransactions and lootboxes in full retail games have turned into a no buy for me.

[sek69]

It's weird, there's actually not any lootboxes in the game. There's stuff unlocked with currency earned in game, and right now the payouts for the things that earn those currencies are stupidly low at the moment.  The only stuff you can actually buy that would be considered a microtransaction are the crystals used to buy the featured items in the shop.