All Elite Wrestling

[sek69]

Plus they just did their big post-Elite rebuild around Lifeblood, and since then Teneille left and Juice reportedly told New Japan he doesn't want to go back to ROH since it diminishes the folks that are there. 

[C.S.]

9 hours ago, fakeplastictrees said:

I would love for Vince to do an 'undercover boss' episode with the fans. Put on makeup, etc. and go sit with regular fans for all the Raws and Smackdowns for 3-6 months. Sit in the cheap seats. Make small talk and take mental notes. I think it will change the product (for the better?).

Steph actually did one of those shows. It was a P.R. puff piece, of course, but still entertaining for what it was.

[Log]

On 6/15/2019 at 9:47 PM, C.S. said:

Steph actually did one of those shows. It was a P.R. puff piece, of course, but still entertaining for what it was.

The most entertaining part was her horrible disguise.

[Mad Dog]

On 6/15/2019 at 8:30 PM, sek69 said:

Plus they just did their big post-Elite rebuild around Lifeblood, and since then Teneille left and Juice reportedly told New Japan he doesn't want to go back to ROH since it diminishes the folks that are there. 

Their attendance numbers without the Elite absolutely tanked the second half of last year too so this wasn't unexpected.

[El-P]

Speaking off, here's hoping Teneille get picked up by AEW.

[C.S.]

31 minutes ago, El-P said:

Speaking off, here's hoping Teneille get picked up by AEW.

Talk about a massive wasted opportunity by ROH.

Even when they're handed major signings and cool developments, they have no idea what to do with them.

[Dewar]

Dashwood should have won the title tournament, but she also has not had a match in approximately nine months. Not entirely their fault.

[JNLister]

On 6/15/2019 at 5:27 PM, fakeplastictrees said:

 I would love for Vince to do an 'undercover boss' episode with the fans. Put on makeup, etc. and go sit with regular fans for all the Raws and Smackdowns for 3-6 months. Sit in the cheap seats. Make small talk and take mental notes. I think it will change the product (for the better?).

IIRC, one of the first things Bill Watts did when he was brought in as booker-of-sorts in 95 was watch an MSG show from a regular seat in the top deck and listen to the audience.

[FMKK]

Kinda cool that they're bringing in Laredo Kid to work the main at Fyter Fest. I don't know much about the guy but he's clearly got some buzz atm and it's nice to see them doing something spontaneous like that and giving the guy a platform 

[FMKK]

Seeing Tony and Jake contributing to this video was awesome. They both put over the tag match so well.

[El-P]

I concur. I would love to get Tony call a match from time to time. I doubt MLW would not let him do that, especially since they are already using MLW talent.

[Mad Dog]

So after two shows of her, I'm willing to call Aubrey Edwards the best referee in pro wrestling. She is just a fucking machine out there. Her facial expressions for some of the moves are just great. She inserts herself perfectly into the action and adds to the action like a referee should.

[Log]

1 hour ago, Mad Dog said:

So after two shows of her, I'm willing to call Aubrey Edwards the best referee in pro wrestling. She is just a fucking machine out there. Her facial expressions for some of the moves are just great. She inserts herself perfectly into the action and adds to the action like a referee should.

She had a nice moment in the aftermath to the Spears chairshot on Cody. Brandi got in the ring and Spears turned toward her with the chair. Edwards jumped in front of Brandi right away to shield her. 

[Mad Dog]

7 minutes ago, Log said:

She had a nice moment in the aftermath to the Spears chairshot on Cody. Brandi got in the ring and Spears turned toward her with the chair. Edwards jumped in front of Brandi right away to shield her. 

I didn't even notice that until someone pointed it out. It was just such a natural move on her part it slipped by me. 

[PeteF3]

My bolting last night was as much about me being tired as hell as much as it was about the pre-show, though the pre-show is still one of the worst shows I've seen in years. Finished the rest of it and it was obviously going to be a downgrade from DoN, but on the whole it left me way less excited about AEW than DoN did, because other than swapping out Alex Marvez I don't really feel like they learned anything from what they did wrong the first time--and despite what a great show DoN was, there were opportunities to be fixed that they didn't take. The hokey shit on the pre-show was as bad as the hokiest WWE shit that Moxley was complaining about, and it climaxed with...someone explain the appeal of Joey Janela to me, please. I don't give a shit about how he books Spring Break shows, explain to me what he does in the ring that I should care about him in a main event role. To me this came off as bush-league proto-ECW when hardcore legends like Funk and Sabu were forced to try to carry guys like Rockin' Rebel. I have low tolerance for torture-porn to begin with, but that main event was not something that made me want to keep tuning in, even if Janela was only doing a one-shot. 

Again, the main show was actually enjoyable, but was it more enjoyable than the last IWC indy show in Pittsburgh that I went to? Jury's out on that, and AEW still has that outlaw-mud-show mentality and vibe permeating a lot of the product where it doesn't belong. I know it comes off as incredibly reactionary, but I've gone from thinking that AEW is a genuine competitor in some sense to being an indy rec-center product with more money behind it. I have less and less faith that these guys are going to be able to switch gears when it comes time to run a weekly TNT show to hook in new viewers and not the fanbase already predisposed to like their product.

[Badlittlekitten]

15 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

 

Again, the main show was actually enjoyable, but was it more enjoyable than the last IWC indy show in Pittsburgh that I went to? Jury's out on that, and AEW still has that outlaw-mud-show mentality and vibe permeating a lot of the product where it doesn't belong. I know it comes off as incredibly reactionary, but I've gone from thinking that AEW is a genuine competitor in some sense to being an indy rec-center product with more money behind it. I have less and less faith that these guys are going to be able to switch gears when it comes time to run a weekly TNT show to hook in new viewers and not the fanbase already predisposed to like their product.

Yep, that's the feeling I got unfortunately. It feels like Tony Khan needs to put his foot down with some of the ideas that are filtering through. 

[El-P]

5 hours ago, Mad Dog said:

So after two shows of her, I'm willing to call Aubrey Edwards the best referee in pro wrestling. She is just a fucking machine out there. Her facial expressions for some of the moves are just great. She inserts herself perfectly into the action and adds to the action like a referee should.

Agreed. She's awesome.

[rovert]

On 6/30/2019 at 12:50 PM, Mad Dog said:

So after two shows of her, I'm willing to call Aubrey Edwards the best referee in pro wrestling. She is just a fucking machine out there. Her facial expressions for some of the moves are just great. She inserts herself perfectly into the action and adds to the action like a referee should.

A lot of big name indie wrestlers who work North American, UK & Europe and Australia have said she the best referee they deal with. 

[King of Debt]

23 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

 I have less and less faith that these guys are going to be able to switch gears when it comes time to run a weekly TNT show to hook in new viewers and not the fanbase already predisposed to like their product.

Maybe I should actually watch the product before I scramble in my wallet for cents but the vibes I've been getting from it all so far has been of a company who looks at all the studies showing that the average age of wrestling watchers is about 30-50+, says "Great! We know how to work those guys!", and forgot to ask the reason why, in a post-kayfabe MMA-era world, an adult of such an age would want the best for an art about two people pretending to hit each other and go ouch. I appreciate wrestling as a world-weary chap but if I didn't have that youngin's belief to trace it back to I wouldn't even know how to start admiring it in a fully unironic light. You can survive off the IWC but you won't be beating anybody with just the IWC. When we find a kid who gets excited for some guy smashing a prop chair with a sledgehammer, that's when we can have the discussion about AEW becoming #1

[El-P]

Between WWE fanboys, professional haters and people talking about it without even bothering to watch, I feel like AEW as a topic will soon become pretty fucking insufferable, sadly... 

[Slasher]

29 minutes ago, El-P said:

Between WWE fanboys, professional haters and people talking about it without even bothering to watch, I feel like AEW as a topic will soon become pretty fucking insufferable, sadly... 

...and AEW fanboys of course. Don't forget them.

[El-P]

26 minutes ago, Slasher said:

...and AEW fanboys of course. Don't forget them.

I guess, but thus far what is out there is mostly people in denial of the actual success of what's happening until now, and/or who display an irrational desire to see this fail. Which is really odd, really. You can't blame people (including me) to be really excited because something *new* is happening on the big stage... 

[Slasher]

5 minutes ago, El-P said:

I guess, but thus far what is out there is mostly people in denial of the actual success of what's happening until now, and/or who display an irrational desire to see this fail. Which is really odd, really. You can't blame people (including me) to be really excited because something *new* is happening on the big stage... 

Oh no not the people who want to see a new promotion succeed. The ones who have already decided that it is the greatest thing ever and that it smokes everything WWE has ever done in their history. I feel like at this point, the "lines have been drawn" and people have chosen sides. Objectivity or speaking from a place of neutrality or unbiased opinions seem to be a thing that have gone out the window or dismissed out of hand by the super-stans.

[El-P]

8 minutes ago, Slasher said:

Oh no not the people who want to see a new promotion succeed. The ones who have already decided that it is the greatest thing ever and that it smokes everything WWE has ever done in their history. 

Oh, ok. Since there doesn't seem to be such cases around here, I wasn't aware of those ones either.

8 minutes ago, Slasher said:

I feel like at this point, the "lines have been drawn" and people have chosen sides. Objectivity or speaking from a place of neutrality or unbiased opinions seem to be a thing that have gone out the window or dismissed out of hand by the super-stans.

Oh, yeah for sure. Social media don't help at all, because people remain in their own little bubble where they validate each other all the time and can't handle any other different opinions without screaming for a safe space.

BTW, I wonder what the "Metlz is AEW" crowd will say now that he stated how much he hated the pre-show and that he made quite a bit of reservations of other stuff like the chair shot and running Janela vs Mox cold instead of it being the culmination of a feud... 

[PhilTLL]

1 hour ago, Slasher said:

Objectivity or speaking from a place of neutrality or unbiased opinions seem to be a thing that have gone out the window or dismissed out of hand by the super-stans.

Objectivity and neutrality are the domain of journalists, not pro wrestling fans. But I agree that the combination of "hot take" culture that only embraces the loudest, simplest, most brazen opinions and "fuck the haters" and superfan cultures that reject all criticism has led to much louder, less interesting conversation.