All Elite Wrestling

[NintendoLogic]

It's not just Jericho's opponents who get flattened out and lose momentum, though. The same thing happened to Hangman, Wardlow, and Thunder Rosa. There just seems to be something inherently broken about how the company tries to create stars. I think at least part of the problem can be traced back to the Punk/Kingston feud. As successful as it was, it seems to have convinced the company that feuds should be like battle raps where the wrestlers just roast each other and leave it up to the audience to decide who they like more, which is a terrible idea on a number of levels. Look at Hangman/Moxley. This past week on Dynamite, Mox was entirely correct when he pointed out that knocking out your opponent is the whole point of a pro wrestling match and it's not his fault Page has a glass jaw. On the other hand, mocking an opponent's serious injury isn't exactly noble. So who are we supposed to get behind?

On a much happier note, Athena murdering jobbers on Dark and Elevation is my favorite thing in wrestling at the moment. Great way to use the bad faith outrage over the Jody Threat match and make lemons out of lemonade.

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, NintendoLogic said:

So who are we supposed to get behind?

Glorious violence? It’s not tenable but it’s fun in the moment. My gut says that part of the problem is too much sports/MMA and not enough comic books in Khan’s heart.

[NintendoLogic]

I'd argue that if anything, TK's too influenced by comic book storytelling-specifically, Marvel. It seems like Marvel's superheroes fight each other more often than they do the supervillains, especially in recent decades. That's part of Marvel's tradition of presenting its heroes as characters with realistic flaws. DC's superheroes are more idealized representations of what heroic figures are supposed to be, so inter-hero conflict is a lot less common in the DC Universe outside of scenarios where some heroes are being mind-controlled by Brainiac or whatever. That arguably makes Marvel's characters more compelling, but I don't know how if it works better in a pro wrestling context because wrestling lacks the tools available in the comic book world to restore the status quo and preserve the illusion of change.

[Matt D]

Isn’t Chris Jericho the living embodiment of “illusion of change?”

[KawadaSmile]

5 hours ago, Matt D said:

Isn’t Chris Jericho the living embodiment of “illusion of change?”

He is considered as the wrestler who has reinvented himself the most, which I always found a ridiculous claim past the aesthetic level, so I would say so, yes.

[Strummer]

I do think his 2008 heel run was a lot different than his Y2J run which was different from the late 90s wcw heel run. I mean I could see not liking his aging rock star gimmick but I think he was pretty good at reinventing himself until the 2016 heel run (not many here liked it but seemed to get a bunch of praise)

[strobogo]

He just gets a new nickname or catchphrase every 3 months and draws attention to "reinventing himself". Still lolling when I think about his NJ run where he just took his opponent's name/look and called it a day. Outside of literally a handful of months, Jericho has been stale and tired since 2002.

[Dav'oh]

4 hours ago, strobogo said:

Jericho has been stale and tired since 2002.

Looks pretty energised and enthusiastic to me. More accurate to say YOU'RE tired of what YOU think is a stale act, no? Comes back to my belief that it's not Jericho/TK/Whoever having problems, but rather fans having a problem with them. Pretty sure Jericho's loving life and not pulling his own hair out about Orange Cassidy or whatever the whinge-du-jour is.

[sek69]

I feel it should be mentioned more that while Tony has done better than anyone who's tried to run against Vince/WWE in decades, he's still a newcomer to the business. Yeah he's been reading Observers/posting on DVDVR/fantasy booking forever, but he'd never had to deal with the realities of injuries or egos before starting AEW.  Sure he has business experience running football teams on both sides of the pond, but we all know the wrestling biz is it's own animal. It's one thing to come up with storylines and feuds, but it's another having to deal with guys you booked months of plans around blowing out a knee. I think it's probably clear he most likely underestimated having to deal with egos and people "that doesn't work for me brother"'ing his ideas.  The key is going to be how he learns from these bumps in the road going forward. 

[Stiva]

I thought Jericho’s early AEW stuff was fantastic. He did a great job as the first heel champ, showing enough of his ass during the Cody and Moxley feuds and always made sure Guevara, Santana and Ortiz got moments to shine in things like Stadium Stampede. This current JAS is way too bloated and he keeps insisting on cutting all the promos when he’s like the third best promo in the stable.

[Embrodak]

18 hours ago, strobogo said:

He just gets a new nickname or catchphrase every 3 months and draws attention to "reinventing himself". Still lolling when I think about his NJ run where he just took his opponent's name/look and called it a day. Outside of literally a handful of months, Jericho has been stale and tired since 2002.

It’s pretty much his feud with HBK where he was an extremely bitter and salty heel, for me. I think the big difference now is you just can’t count on a decent wrestling match to counterbalance the schtick. Sometimes he has a good one, like that first match with Kingston, but it’s almost by accident at this point.

[Jmare007]

To be honest, the most interesting stuff from the Dax podcast seems tobe what he didn't say but kinda implied...sounds like they don't plan on leaving AEW. Though of course, he might just be doing a great job at carnying it up.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/dax-harwood-recalls-speaking-cm-punk-after-brawl-out-says-punk-didn-t-want-aew-title

[KawadaSmile]

17 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

Looks pretty energised and enthusiastic to me. More accurate to say YOU'RE tired of what YOU think is a stale act, no? Comes back to my belief that it's not Jericho/TK/Whoever having problems, but rather fans having a problem with them. Pretty sure Jericho's loving life and not pulling his own hair out about Orange Cassidy or whatever the whinge-du-jour is.

Pretty sure Hulk Hogan was loving life during his WCW stint, too. He even gave Kidman that win!

[Dav'oh]

Does anyone think Billy Kidman gives a fig that his win over Hogan "wasn't really a win" or whatever? That, given how his career turned out, Billy Kidman wishes he'd that-doesn't-work-for-me-brother'd a win over the Hulkster? Rey curses the day he beat Kevin Nash? Ever heard of the Iron "Ignore Me, I Was Just a Transitional Champ" Sheik? Neither have I.

[KawadaSmile]

Nothing you said has anything to do with what I said, good bubba.

The point is that old man Jericho is doing the same as Hogan in WCW, although not as business busting. Both are working their bosses to give them more time and wins than they needed to at that point. Both try to disguise their obvious influence by giving charity wins that don't really matter, as the spotlight will be on them regardless.

Kidman beating Hogan, Rey beating Nash, not one of those wins impacted their career paths. It served the single purpose of giving those big boys arguments to justify their influence. "You see? I'm not using my power for self-serving purposes, I even put a cruiserweight over!"

It works exclusively for them. They are not wrong, either! If I could work my way into more TV time and more money, I'd fucking do it. The fools are those who signed their paychecks.

 

[Dav'oh]

3 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

not one of those wins impacted their career paths

Which is why I don't get the complaints (not necessarily from you, brother KawadaSmile) - if there was no negative or positive impact, why the grousing? No-one was hurt by it.  Although I'd say the wins definitely had positive impacts - live crowds weren't going "that doesn't count" when Rey pinned Nash. They were going "Rey pinned Nash!" That's the thing about hindsight, it's always 20/20. In the moment though, it painted Rey as someone who could beat anyone.

[Johnny Sorrow]

By the time Rey beat Nash nobody cared. The only Rey/ Bash moment anyone remember ms is The Lawn Dart spot into the trailer.

[Dav'oh]

No-one complains that Wimbledon didn't get a bigger push after beating Liverpool in the '88 FA Cup. That there's an asterisk because it didn't lead to "bigger" things.

We wrestling fans be weird.

And I watched Rey beat Nash recently. The notion that the crowd sat on their hands in silence, not caring, doesn't reflect what I saw and heard. 

[strobogo]

7 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Nothing you said has anything to do with what I said, good bubba.

The point is that old man Jericho is doing the same as Hogan in WCW, although not as business busting. Both are working their bosses to give them more time and wins than they needed to at that point. Both try to disguise their obvious influence by giving charity wins that don't really matter, as the spotlight will be on them regardless.

Kidman beating Hogan, Rey beating Nash, not one of those wins impacted their career paths. It served the single purpose of giving those big boys arguments to justify their influence. "You see? I'm not using my power for self-serving purposes, I even put a cruiserweight over!"

It works exclusively for them. They are not wrong, either! If I could work my way into more TV time and more money, I'd fucking do it. The fools are those who signed their paychecks.

 

I would definitely take Jericho in AEW over Hollywood Hogan in WCW. Everything Hogan was just awful in 1997/1998, promos were dogshit, ring work was the most phony/hokey/embarrassing/boring trash. And being paired with guys who certainly were not going to be carrying him like Piper, Luger, Giant, Warrior, and so on. Jericho at least has guys around him and dance partners that could drag him to decent stuff if he's having a good night. There are certainly similarities but even as a pretty long time bleeeh reaction to Jericho haver, I wouldn't go as far to say he's the same as Hogan in WCW.

[NintendoLogic]

THIS is what Danielson is doing for AEW's Seattle debut?!? He can't work Wrestle Kingdom because he has to be in Seattle to wrestle TONY NESE. Fucking hell.

[Jmare007]

Agreed. Wouldn't shock me if it was Dragon's idea and TK was like "OK!" like a happy dog.

[Tetsujin]

I enjoy most of Jericho's career, but since losing the AEW Championship he's been hurting AEW's product more often than not. And it's funny because at first It doesn't seem like it, but then time proves us differently. The Orange feud looked fine enough and grave Cassidy some spotlight to shine more than ever, but it led to nothing and they were afraid of giving him a proper, clean, pinfall win over Jericho. The MJF angle started fine and the build up to MJF shaking the Inner Circle carefully from the inside was cool, but iirc the actual turn came pretty early on, and the rivalry was too long and didn't produce any memorable matches, and to top it all of course Jericho had to win at the end. I don't even remember something cool out of the ATT rivalry, only the infamous onlyfans joke to Paige VanZant. The Kingston rivalry started super great, MOTYC included, but what should have been a big underdog victory for Eddie before pushing him to something more important, became an endless feud with the whole BCC, where Kingston wasn't even Jericho's main rival anymore, and no one got over out of it. The ROH title run was kinda promising, but it was only for Claudio to regain it, so what was the actual point in the first place? Is not like Claudio needed some reinforce or anything, he was still over as the newest AEW commodity.

Like, yeah, Jericho has been part of cool matches and moments here and there, but nothing that you could specifically say "wow this is a great Chris Jericho's run/performance", like for example his title reign was, or his first Omega match was. Anarchy in the Arena is amazing, but it's just an oasis in the middle of an otherwise looong and painful rivalry, and you can't say it's greatness is in most part because of him. He should slowly become just a manager and/or do commentary with Tazz and Schiavone, at this point.

[Dav'oh]

Why would Danielson be at WK 17 anyway? He doesn't have a program with anyone, and I thought the mantra around here (one of them) was "good matches for the sake of good matches in a vacuum suck", or sentiments to that effect.

All parties have had plenty of time to come up with something. At least one of the parties was uninterested. I take it the "he missed WK for a Tony Nese match" was tongue-in-cheek? I think he missed the show for reasons unknown, and he's doing this instead of, seeing as how he has no other bookings that day.

[ragemaster]

I wouldn't have booked the Tony Nese match for Seattle either, but when its over I bet we all be saying that was a MOTY level match.  

[KawadaSmile]

At this point I am willing to believe the hemp championship belt was not his idea. That man just does not care about being on the main event