Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[joeg]

@Hawkeye12 You take all the fun out of making an argument when you go and fact check everything with sportref and wikipedia. I guess I assumed he was all conference his junior year because his production and stats dropped off as a senior, if I recall. Where did you read he had a 6th round ceiling and when was it written? 

[joeg]

1 hour ago, strobogo said:

I'm willing to bet the WWE fans/college football fans crossover is pretty minimal and nearly no one but Jim Ross gives a shit about Roman's football history

This is true, and it makes me sad. 25 years ago I think there was a huge crossover, but as WWE's fanbase shrinks (and ESPN's fanbase for that matter), the overlap between wrestling fans and sports fans has gone away. 

[pmo]

13 hours ago, MoS said:

When the Roman-Rock feud happens, I really really hope this happens once 

 

Yeah they have a lot to go on here if they play it right with family history.  IIRC Peter Maivia brought the Anoa’i family to wrestling as they were just diehard fans in San Francisco.  The cousin piece with the The Rock was due to the loyalty the family had for the Maivias for bringing them to the table.  
 

Also more interesting to me is that fact the High Chief Peter Maivia is a shoot not a work.  He was a actually elected high chief and descended from royal Samoan blood.  Since the Rock is his grandson (I know not technically blood related) he would be of a royal Samoan lineage and could claim to outrank Roman as the Anoa’is are not of royal descent.  I would love to see them play on this in the angle and be catalyst for the Usos turning on Roman as they take their issues to the Current high chief The Rock who overrules Roman.  They probably won’t but it would be fun.

[Coffey]

An observation that I made: in WWE, Zack Ryder felt like just another guy. Had he went to AEW, it would have felt like he wasn't a big enough star to make a dent. In Impact, Matt Cardona would fit right in, really. In GCW, he felt like he was too big of a star. 

Kind of funny how that works. 

[Hawkeye12]

3 hours ago, joeg said:

@Hawkeye12 You take all the fun out of making an argument when you go and fact check everything with sportref and wikipedia. I guess I assumed he was all conference his junior year because his production and stats dropped off as a senior, if I recall. Where did you read he had a 6th round ceiling and when was it written? 

http://draftscout.com/dsprofile.php?PlayerId=10830&DraftYear=2007

Can't find the exact date, but his pro day stats were updated 3/15/07 for Georgia Tech.  You can see he had no NFL combine numbers.  I'm surprised he didn't do the bench press for his pro day workout, but that's more for my own curiosity.

[strobogo]

4 hours ago, joeg said:

This is true, and it makes me sad. 25 years ago I think there was a huge crossover, but as WWE's fanbase shrinks (and ESPN's fanbase for that matter), the overlap between wrestling fans and sports fans has gone away. 

I don't think there was ever much of a crossover with WWE's fanbase and the collegiate history of wrestlers. In places like Mid South and JCP/WCW pre-Hogan, a little more but I also don't really think it was ever important unless it was a truly star player in that region. JR's hard on for talking about who played what sport where over stated its importance to fans, imo. 

[Laz]

It also stemmed from the old-school mentality of "legitimizing" pro wrestlers compared to other professional athletes. "So and so played college football" was an easy way to get audiences that thought all wrestlers were beer gutted pretenders to stop and think "well, this guy is a real athlete," or at least the philosophy was.

You'll still see it to one degree or another, but now the oft-touted real sport background is MMA or some other combat sport. Rousey/Brock with the UFC (and Rousey's history as a world class judoka), Bryan and his training in judo, Tommy End/Malakai Black with his kickboxing, the various puro talents and their assorted MMA/sumo backgrounds, etc.

[Migs]

"But she said she felt far safer about wrestling events than she did about the Olympic Games. Athletes weren’t converging from around the world, and she trusted wrestling’s promoters far more than the International Olympic Committee to prioritize safety and to be transparent with fans, Hasnain said."

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-07-25/olympic-seats-empty-tokyo-pro-wrestling-seats-full?fbclid=IwAR3I_7ZuLcj9GsY9wHqBJW9LZrY4NpcpWcZeqgCJKR7jsIo57VZYTjMIu5k

Man, what does that say about the IOC when it's below wrestling promoters in prioritizing safety and being transparent?

[joeg]

58 minutes ago, Laz said:

It also stemmed from the old-school mentality of "legitimizing" pro wrestlers compared to other professional athletes. "So and so played college football" was an easy way to get audiences that thought all wrestlers were beer gutted pretenders to stop and think "well, this guy is a real athlete," or at least the philosophy was.

You'll still see it to one degree or another, but now the oft-touted real sport background is MMA or some other combat sport. Rousey/Brock with the UFC (and Rousey's history as a world class judoka), Bryan and his training in judo, Tommy End/Malakai Black with his kickboxing, the various puro talents and their assorted MMA/sumo backgrounds, etc.

Exactly.  Pro wrestlers are playing the part of a professional athlete. If they have a legitimate athletic background and look the part, it makes it easier to buy in and suspend disbelief. 

[funkdoc]

21 hours ago, strobogo said:

I don't even know how you can truly define a draw or not in an era where WWE has its most profitable years and TV deals after 20 years of declining ratings and attendances. 

An interesting point some of the old posters brought up here back in the days before the first GWE project was that "draws" in the traditional sense had become a thing in the indies while disappearing from WWE.  In that brief period when AJ Styles was in between TNA & NJPW, he'd guarantee a 1k+ crowd for ROH when they were never hitting that number otherwise.

You also had a lot of posters looking at merchandise numbers in WWE to try to tease out some sort of "drawing" metric from that environment.  idk, i feel like it's kind of a dead concept there at this point?

[MoS]

Gordon Solie would do a great job of providing athletic backgrounds about wrestlers in a way that added to their aura and appeal. JR at his worst would just repeatedly shoehorn in the college football accomplishments because he would much rather watch college football than professional wrestling. It was mostly harmless but could occasionally get really egregious and annoying when he just wouldn't shut up about it

[clintthecrippler]

1 hour ago, MoS said:

Gordon Solie would do a great job of providing athletic backgrounds about wrestlers in a way that added to their aura and appeal. JR at his worst would just repeatedly shoehorn in the college football accomplishments because he would much rather watch college football than professional wrestling. It was mostly harmless but could occasionally get really egregious and annoying when he just wouldn't shut up about it

The ultimate nadir of J.R.'s hard-on for any sort of football background to latch onto had to be his constantly harping about how Mike Rotundo won an NFL Punt, Pass, and Kick competition as a pre-teen youth, like that's going to help him successfully defend the NWA Television Championship as an adult.

That said, while I agree there is likely little crossover now, I could totally see the logic of Southern feds in the '70s and '80s playing that up, especially those running a lot of areas where SEC and Big 12 (then the Big 8) football along with professional wrestling were THE major tickets for sports-based entertainment. And if Roman Reigns was a talented athletic greenhorn signed by WCW in 1992, having the Georgia Tech background would have played big there.

 

EDIT: I would love to know if Lawler and J.R. ever had a conversation about this promo.

 

[clintthecrippler]

3 hours ago, Migs said:

"But she said she felt far safer about wrestling events than she did about the Olympic Games. Athletes weren’t converging from around the world, and she trusted wrestling’s promoters far more than the International Olympic Committee to prioritize safety and to be transparent with fans, Hasnain said."

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-07-25/olympic-seats-empty-tokyo-pro-wrestling-seats-full?fbclid=IwAR3I_7ZuLcj9GsY9wHqBJW9LZrY4NpcpWcZeqgCJKR7jsIo57VZYTjMIu5k

Man, what does that say about the IOC when it's below wrestling promoters in prioritizing safety and being transparent?

I'm more curious about what it says about whoever is doing publicity for New Japan Pro Wrestling that they lined up and cooperated with a major Los Angeles Times feature on this past weekend's Tokyo Dome event but there isn't a single mention of NJPW USA's upcoming show three weeks from now...in Los Angeles.

[sek69]

3 hours ago, funkdoc said:

An interesting point some of the old posters brought up here back in the days before the first GWE project was that "draws" in the traditional sense had become a thing in the indies while disappearing from WWE.  In that brief period when AJ Styles was in between TNA & NJPW, he'd guarantee a 1k+ crowd for ROH when they were never hitting that number otherwise.

You also had a lot of posters looking at merchandise numbers in WWE to try to tease out some sort of "drawing" metric from that environment.  idk, i feel like it's kind of a dead concept there at this point?

A lot of the WWE shows not moving tickets sold a ton when they announced the shows Cena would be appearing on. So if nothing else, he's clearly still a draw since people had no interest in buying tickets until his name was on the card. 

[MoS]

He is spiking ticket sales so clearly and obviously that they have also now announced him for the SD MSG show, which is well after Summerslam. I don't know how to really define drawing power anymore, but I do know an obvious draw when I see one, and Cena is one of the most obvious ones

[sek69]

Drawing power always seemed pretty clear to me. If someone appearing on your show sells more tickets or raises your TV rating, they are a draw. Now to be fair after a year with no fans and TV viewers not as into watching said no fans wrestling, it's been hard to gauge recent trends. Now that crowds are back and TV ratings have gone back to pretty close to what they were before the pandemic, it should be easier to parse who is moving the needle.

[AA484]

Weird request but does anyone have a March 1990 PWI magazine, the one with the year-end awards for 1989?  I just need a page or two scanned.  PM me if you are able to help.  Thanks

[sek69]

Lol

 

Coach Tony K was playing the long game the whole time 

[Blehschmidt]

So I am watching some Keijo Mutoh matches from his run in Puerto Rico as part of the Ninja Express with Kendo Nagasaki and I just had a question.

Who is their manager guy in the red and white mask?

[Jmare007]

Rocky still giving Bret Hart props to this day.

 

[MoS]

Double

[MoS]

1 hour ago, Jmare007 said:

Rocky still giving Bret Hart props to this day.

 

Hahahaha that was amazing. I was especially tickled by Blunt not getting wrestling politics and not understanding first why there were wrestlers who were undercutting him as a rookie, and second not getting why Bret helped him then. I would honestly pay the money of a standard ticket for this movie just to listen to Rock explain to Emily about the Kliq and how Shawn and Hunter were jealous of Rock's spot and how they tried to sabotage him like they did so many others and how Bret hated Shawn and warned Rock about the Kliq. Finish it off with the story about Shawn and Hunter trying to sabotage Rock's first WM main event until Austin put his foot down and said he'd work with Rock. Make her immediately realize how wrestling politics is as fucked up as Hollywood politics, and how all wrestlers are weirdos lol. She can then cross-check this with John Cena and good luck to him being a good soldier and still defending the Fed

[El Boricua]

On 7/27/2021 at 7:18 PM, Blehschmidt said:

So I am watching some Keijo Mutoh matches from his run in Puerto Rico as part of the Ninja Express with Kendo Nagasaki and I just had a question.

Who is their manager guy in the red and white mask?

El Profe, he managed all three members of the Ninja Express.

[Blehschmidt]

3 hours ago, El Boricua said:

El Profe, he managed all three members of the Ninja Express.

Thank You!

 

[KawadaSmile]

On 7/27/2021 at 7:20 PM, sek69 said:

Lol

 

Coach Tony K was playing the long game the whole time 

Keep your future enemies closer!!