All Elite Wrestling

[Flyin' Brian]

I don’t know much about Fulham, but the Jags have been atrocious since Khan became owner. Only one winning season in the last 10 years (10-6 in 2017) and an overall record of 42-119. The debacle last year that was the hiring and firing of Head Coach Urban Meyer was hopefully rock bottom. The more I see and hear the more I worry about AEW. 

[Embrodak]

1 hour ago, Flyin' Brian said:

I don’t know much about Fulham, but the Jags have been atrocious since Khan became owner. Only one winning season in the last 10 years (10-6 in 2017) and an overall record of 42-119. The debacle last year that was the hiring and firing of Head Coach Urban Meyer was hopefully rock bottom. The more I see and hear the more I worry about AEW. 

Tony is definitely spreading himself pretty thin, will be interesting to see how he handles the backstage drama and if the people he hired to deal with it are up to the task.

[strobogo]

I keep seeing talk about AEW being in a slump, and I disagree completely. I've watched Dynamite just about every week this year and am always sports entertained. Yeah maybe the booking has been scattershot lately, but Dynamite is the only show I would even consider watching weekly in the year of our lord 2022.

[Timbo Slice]

I also think the reason why this is such a big deal is because the dirt sheets have ALWAYS made gossip like this seem like a BIG deal. It’s the part of the business I’ve never really been a fan of; spend five minutes in any sports locker room and the amount of strife/differing opinions is palpable. It’s just that to be able to make it a big deal is part of the business more than anything else, when most of the time, it’s the boys laughing at how serious the coverage is. It’s a sliding scale; there are definitely issues with how Tony is handling this, but I also think it’s made to be almost too big a deal by design. 

[Embrodak]

9 hours ago, strobogo said:

I keep seeing talk about AEW being in a slump, and I disagree completely. I've watched Dynamite just about every week this year and am always sports entertained. Yeah maybe the booking has been scattershot lately, but Dynamite is the only show I would even consider watching weekly in the year of our lord 2022.

In terms of this year, I liked it when Danielson was being a grumpy dick treating Hangman like an upstart goober and MJF-Punk was running. I strongly dislike the AEW “house style” (to the extent one can say there is such a thing) and, to be honest, Moxley and Jericho are both huge turnoffs and have been the biggest focus of the show for months. 

[strobogo]

19 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

In terms of this year, I liked it when Danielson was being a grumpy dick treating Hangman like an upstart goober and MJF-Punk was running. I strongly dislike the AEW “house style” (to the extent one can say there is such a thing) and, to be honest, Moxley and Jericho are both huge turnoffs and have been the biggest focus of the show for months. 

Jericho is the biggest turn off for me as well, but I watch aew to see cool shit with enthusiastic crowds and announcers (except JR). 

[Embrodak]

1 hour ago, strobogo said:

Jericho is the biggest turn off for me as well, but I watch aew to see cool shit with enthusiastic crowds and announcers (except JR). 

I get that. I’m burned out on cool shit, been watching old Mid-South of late.

[El-P]

AEW has never seemed more WCW-like. Which in a way, warms my heart. I mean, the enthousiasm of the debut years and the peak has passed. Also, context has changed. AEW was awesome. Some of it still truly is. The fact it's a provider for backstage drama like it's WWF during 1997 is actually kinda fun as hell to follow, as it's always been part of the pro-wrestling folklore.

So, it took one year for CM Punk to behave like an unprofessional asshole ?  Strong 97 Bret/Michaels vibes from all this stuff. Can turn into some really hot shit or some really ugly debacle.

Speaking  of which, meanwhile MJF... nah, don't care.

Strong vibes of Goldy vs Hogan on Nitro with that Mox vs Punk match in Dynamite too. Is that the start of TK hot shooting shit for ratings and now we are REALLY gonna get an out of control, coked out product ? 

All good fun really. I will never forget I got the most fun years of pro-wrestling from 2019 to 2021, and really who knows what's happening in one year, two years from now ?

[MoS]

On 8/22/2022 at 4:53 AM, Timbo Slice said:

The slump is a self-own, though. There’s a reason why the Khans aren’t exactly heralded business heads with the Jags/Fulham. You have to know how to not just get into the game, but have sustained success. The free roll is long gone; time you  show you actually know how to work through even minor adversity. 

I mean, Vince McMahon was a laughing stock whenever he tried to do anything that was non-wrestling related, down to his last attempt at XFL ending in bankruptcy and him having to settle with the guy he chose to ran it because he knew his argument wouldn't pass muster in a trial. He is still the greatest wrestling promoter ever. There is often a lack of correlation between wrestling success and non-wrestling success. 

I caught the Punk promo on YouTube and I think it is clearly a work. My issue is that it is a work which does not have any endpoint and seems to be a worked shoot just for the heck of it, which is my least favourite thing in wrestling, something I have said often here. Okay, so you have made people wonder if it is a work or a shoot. Good for you. To quote Dusty, where is dah money, daddy? How does this result in increased business? It is not 1997, worked shoots for the heck of them are not going to draw money by themselves. Is there a focus here? There seems to be no Punk-Hangman match on the horizon. What's the point of this beyond getting wrestling Twitter buzzing? And honestly, wrestling Twitter is so pathetic and consists of such dorks, just posting some T&A of some mediocre American female wrestler would have achieved the exact same thing. 

[Flyin' Brian]

AEW in ring and on screen for the most part I still mostly enjoy and am interested in week to week. Cody leaving was fine if it was a unique situation, but unfortunately the disputes between wrestlers and Tony Khan and between the wrestlers themselves are ongoing and getting uglier. If it’s mostly a work, I’m fine with that. But with the way the MJF situation blew up it could have been worse but you’ve got another guy who is probably gone when his contract is up. They haven’t done anything with him in months and who knows how or if he will be pushed or presented when he returns if he’s already checked out. Punk and Hangman have been going off script on live television and while they might bring it back around to something in the ring they aren’t really interacting outside of through the media and shooty promos. Plus Kingston and Jericho and Kingston and Punk, it’s all interesting outside of the ring stuff but will we get anything interesting and satisfying inside of the ring out of any of it? Shooty stuff just for shooty stuff’s sake without a purpose or endgame that benefits the shows and AEW is veering too far into Russo end of WCW territory for my liking. At some point someone has to have control and steer all this in the right direction or tell them to cut this crap out. 

[sek69]

2 hours ago, Flyin' Brian said:

But with the way the MJF situation blew up it could have been worse but you’ve got another guy who is probably gone when his contract is up.

IMO he's going to go with whoever pays him what he thinks he's worth, and if that ends up being Tony I'd bet that would patch up any lingering bad feelings. 

[KawadaSmile]

MJeff figures he can just be Kevin Nash and get paid without doing shit. That's one way of making me root for him, tbh.

[Timbo Slice]

I again am going to reiterate that ALL AEW-based reported drama is amplified much higher than it actually is due to the news information flow out of that company. 
 

Even the stuff Trevor mentioned, while sourced, is more about how the information was presented than the information itself. MJF wanting more money is akin to the Kevin Durant NBA drama, where he tried to pull a power move, realized the market isn’t what he hoped it would be, and then once the emotions died down, an agreement will be done. 
 

Same thing with the locker room machinations with Punk and the like; Josh Donaldson used a racially-charged comment at a Black player in Tim Anderson, and his team didn’t back him up. And Donaldson has cratered as a player since then. When a locker room doesn’t back someone who does something they perceive to be stupid, it’s up to the locker room to respond to that as opposed to trying to chirp about it to the first writer who will listen to him.
 

I don’t really care about who hates who or who has the gossip about whoever; if they can go out and work together, then so be it. So much of what has been reported has been backed up with pre-conceived notions about guys because it’s what draws eyeballs; there are absolutely things wrong with the company, but the focus is on the wrong things because they’re noteworthy but not necessarily important. 

[Flyin' Brian]

36 minutes ago, Timbo Slice said:

I again am going to reiterate that ALL AEW-based reported drama is amplified much higher than it actually is due to the news information flow out of that company. 
 

Even the stuff Trevor mentioned, while sourced, is more about how the information was presented than the information itself. MJF wanting more money is akin to the Kevin Durant NBA drama, where he tried to pull a power move, realized the market isn’t what he hoped it would be, and then once the emotions died down, an agreement will be done. 
 

 

Pro Wrestling is a little different than other sports though. The players don't grab a mic in the middle of the game and start calling out ownership or other players over the PA. lol 

[Log]

17 hours ago, Flyin' Brian said:

Pro Wrestling is a little different than other sports though. The players don't grab a mic in the middle of the game and start calling out ownership or other players over the PA. lol 

They do it after the game in the post-game presser.

[Al]

Alexander Bedoya called out congress. Does that count?

 

 

[Jmare007]

How much does AEW want or need it's video game to be a commercial success?

I've seen the latest gameplay preview and while it certainly looks like a fun game (a cool 2022 version of "WWF No Mercy"), it does not look like it's worth the US$60 that they will charge for it and I have a hard time picturing a lot of people paying full price for it.

[sek69]

People have been clamoring for a No Mercy type game since....well.....No Mercy, so you might be underestimating the market. People still speak highly of the Def Jam fighting games mostly because they were designed by the Aki folks and have the same engine as the classing WCW/WWE games. 

Will it sell like the latest WWE 2K game? Probably not, but a modern No Mercy style game with modern quality of life enhancements (and DLC I assume) will scratch a lot of people's itches. 

[El-P]

9 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

How much does AEW want or need it's video game to be a commercial success?

I've seen the latest gameplay preview and while it certainly looks like a fun game (a cool 2022 version of "WWF No Mercy"), it does not look like it's worth the US$60 that they will charge for it and I have a hard time picturing a lot of people paying full price for it.

Last pro-wrestling game I played was Wrestlemania from 1995 (yeah, the one with Doink and Bam Bam Bigelow and Lex Luger and Razor Ramon). I would surely play the AEW game. Waiting for next year's Black Friday or something though. I'm not putting 60€ into a video game, whatever it may be.

[Jmare007]

12 minutes ago, sek69 said:

People have been clamoring for a No Mercy type game since....well.....No Mercy, so you might be underestimating the market. People still speak highly of the Def Jam fighting games mostly because they were designed by the Aki folks and have the same engine as the classing WCW/WWE games. 

Will it sell like the latest WWE 2K game? Probably not, but a modern No Mercy style game with modern quality of life enhancements (and DLC I assume) will scratch a lot of people's itches. 

For 60 bucks? I don't see it man. I'll love to get it for 10-20 bucks but that's it. And I'm someone who has no issue spending full price for next gen games.

[sek69]

Being around the video game world a lot, it's always amazing how many of those famous LAPSED FANS I come across that still get hyped for N64 era rasslin games and aren't even fans of the current stuff. 

AEW fans + lapsed fans who recognize the play style + Aki fans who have been dying for a new game in that style might just equal a larger audience than you'd expect is all I'm saying. 

[KawadaSmile]

Well, if it's available on XBOX/PS5/PS4/Steam, it's not absurd to think it could break 2million copies sold if they manage to market it to people outside the conventional wrestling bubble, and showcase fun, fast-paced gameplay. 

Your average 2K game was selling around 3million copies, as reference. 

[El-P]

What was the deal with the No Mercy game that apparently made it so precious to all ? Not the first time I hear reference to this game.

[sek69]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

What was the deal with the No Mercy game that apparently made it so precious to all ? Not the first time I hear reference to this game.

The Aki series of wrestling games had the best control scheme, and No Mercy was the apex of their output in terms of graphics (the early WCW games played great but look kind of rough these days). 

[KawadaSmile]

Not just graphics, but in terms of Create A Wrestler options (it didn't have the same variety as Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 in terms of outfits, but it did have props, more moves, songs etc).

Also, it featured an in-game store where you could spend your bucks earned from either the 100 Man Battle Royal mode or the Storyline Mode, which followed storylines for all the belts at the time.

Plus it featured backstage areas, which wasn't a thing in previous games.