Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[El-P]

1 minute ago, KawadaSmile said:

[1] Yes, bubba, I know. When later I mentioned how convenient it was to single out a wrestler and said "you" and "your", it was referring to the Fed.

Oh, ok ! Misunderstanding on my part right there.

2 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

MJF does nothing for me, man. I'm not gonna say he sucks ass, which he doesn't, and he is a very good heel and very good talker - which means he can easily do the most important thing in pro wrestling, make people spend money to see the show. He's very young too, which means he can improve on any given area he's lacking (he's sometimes too much of a tryhard, and sometimes he's lacking in the ring - even JR pointed out on commentary that he "seemed lost" at All Out). He does have a very high ceiling. He just ain't for me. 

It's funny, I really like him a lot, but at the same time I can see why some people would not. Not sure exactly why though, I can't put my fingers on it. He's only 24, so obviously he's got a lot of time to improve his game too.

[KawadaSmile]

I mean, he's pretty ahead of the curve for someone so young. Austin was barely in the business, The Rock was on the verge of turning heel, Cena was The Prototype... MJF is good. He better not rest on his laurels, tho. 

[El-P]

3 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

I thought that was more because he was seen, at that moment, as a TNA guy rather than an AEW guy. He was the "foreigner".

Nope. His stint in TNA was like 15 years ago and if anything he was seen as an oversold upper-midcard WWE guy. He never got the great star reactions in AEW. The biggest one is when he won the IMPACT title on Dynamite, that was a legit big time pop, because Omega had not been beaten for ever. But despite that win (which was tainted because of the use of a chair, which was smart to protect Omega), it's obvious Cage was a "weak" main event (which actually was both smart and pretty cool, because they could allow themselves to book Christian in that spot considering what they had in their hands ie Danielson debuting, thus trying to establish him as a legit main eventer and also giving this guy a great main event he really never got in WWE). Rey Fénix & Jungle Boy got much bigger reactions wrestling against Omega on Dynamite earlier in the year.

[C.S.]

10 hours ago, El-P said:

NOOOOO !!!!!! Leave my beloved promotions alone people ! Don't fantasy book your shitty WWE guys in it ! I already have to deal with completely shitty W. Morrissey matches !  

Face facts: That's exactly what Impact is now - a place for bland big men and lower WWE midcarders to reinvent themselves.

It sounds like you haven't watched WWE in a while though (not that I blame you). Corbin has been - dare I say - one of the highlights of the show.

10 hours ago, El-P said:

Hager > Corbin. Faint praise, I know. Corbin is the ultimate WWE-lite go-away heat guy. Plus Hager did not come straight from WWE when he was hired, he had been in LU and MLW before. 

Faint praise here too, but Hager has never, ever been as good as Corbin is right now. 

Edit: Does this mean I think AEW should hire Corbin? No. But he'd be a much better and more valuable "get" than a stiff like Jake Hager, that's for sure.

[Dale Wolfe]

I would take the time to watch the last couple of months of Corbin's backstage stuff for WWE if you haven't already 

Their overlong tv shows can be really dull but he's been honestly great for at least 3 months now if not more

[El-P]

53 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Face facts: That's exactly what Impact is now - a place for bland big men and lower WWE midcarders to reinvent themselves.

No, not really (IMPACT is deeply rooted in indy wrestling and its TNA heritage, of course WWE firing shitloads of people makes it a good place for them to work now too), but whatever. The fact is Morrissey still sucks. He's been a total miss, he hasn't redeemed himself at all, he hasn't improved at all and he's a weekly lowlight of the show. Oh, you weren't talking about Cass ? 

And no, I'm not gonna watch WWE backstage stuff with Baron Corbin (which is pretty much an idea of pro-wrestling hell for me, and yes, I'm aware of his new character) when I have barely enough time to watch stuff I actually care for and enjoy without burning out. 

[El-P]

1 hour ago, C.S. said:

Does this mean I think AEW should hire Corbin? No. But he'd be a much better and more valuable "get" than a stiff like Jake Hager, that's for sure.

Hager *is* part of AEW, so it's easy to gauge if whatever he did there was positive or negative. And really, from his history in the Inner Circle, although I'm not a Hager fan at all, I even tend to dislike him and wasn't happy about him getting signed, he was nothing but a positive element of the roster for the first year and a half. He has been part of major angles with the Inner Circle and was good in them, as he was good in the enforcer/bodyguard role. He was never part of something that sucked, unless you really want to bash that Wardlow MMA match (which wasn't any good as a match to me but was also a success in the ratings, so there). He was part of some of the most memorable matches in the promotion : Stadium Stampede, the Wargame stuff, and was pretty decent in those and certainly did not drag them down. He had some pretty funny vignettes with his wife leading to his match with Mox (which again was not that good to me, but it's not like it was deemed a miserable failure of anything). If you balance negative/positive when you look at Hager's career in AEW, it's obviously a positive one thus far.

Now, we have established that a guy like Corbin would get go-away heat from the AEW audience, especially now. Would Hager get go-away heat if he was signed right now coming off let's say his latest MLW stint ? At best I believe it would be received by indifference. But the situation is, one has had a positive (if minor in the grand scheme of things) output in the company while the other one would probably be straight rejected.

So there, it's easy to establish that Hager, signed when he was and booked the way he was, was a much better get than Baron Corbin would be if he jumped now.

[Ricky Jackson]

With all the great stuff from the last few weeks, we're debating the merits of Corbin the last few pages? Come on guys : )

Edit: whoops, thought this was the All Out thread. Still, Corbin blows

[El-P]

2 minutes ago, Ricky Jackson said:

With all the great stuff from the last few weeks, we're debating the merits of Corbin the last few pages? Come on guys : )

I thought about the same thing !  It's like we need some sort of downer to be able to sleep again after All Out. Who betta than Corbin ?

[Coffey]

I stopped reading when you said Corbin has no charisma. 

[El-P]

He's the look alike of French singer Pascal Obispo.

That alone makes him a no-no.

[TheDuke]

I think Corbin would be great in the role that Cutler and Nakazawa are in right now. It would be fun seeing him interact with Omega and Callis as their lowly toad.

[Stiva]

Corbin feels like someone along the lines of The Miz. Not sure he’d work anywhere else or really fit in anywhere but he seems tailor made to WWE and will often make the most of the shit he’s given. Not sure you can discount that attribute considering how many people fail at it. 

[sek69]

8 minutes ago, El-P said:

He's the look alike of French singer Pascal Obispo.

That alone makes him a no-no.

 

This photo is fucking me up more than it should. That's some freaky shit right there. 

[El-P]

Yeah, no shit ! 

[Mad Dog]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:42 PM, joeg said:

@WingedEagle Better question is who is left that's worth poaching? Everybody left in WWE has had their marketability ruined by terrible booking or is incredibly stale from over exposure. 

AJ Styles and Cesaro. 

[SirEdger]

 

Probably not related to what we're discussing but with everything that has happened in recent months backstage, can't be a stress-free environment for Triple H.

[El-P]

Also, roids are bad for the heart.

[NintendoLogic]

Genetic heart issues are far more likely to surface in people who spend most of their adult lives carrying too much muscle mass for their frames. Best wishes on a speedy recovery and hopefully this serves as a wakeup call for him to drop some weight.

[Jmare007]

Not sure how HHH looks like these days but I remember he was very lean not long ago.

If he gets a full recovery (hopefully he does), I'm fully expecting Vince and/or Bruce to work "Cardiac Event" into the name of an NXT or WWE show.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Anyone know how long Steve Austin’s legends deal runs?

[Coffey]

12 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Genetic heart issues are far more likely to surface in people who spend most of their adult lives carrying too much muscle mass for their frames. Best wishes on a speedy recovery and hopefully this serves as a wakeup call for him to drop some weight.

Somewhere Chris Masters is awaiting his opportunity to send a Tweet... 

[Blehschmidt]

I just need to know if the "Cardiac Event" was taken care of at a "Local Medical Facility"

[El-P]

Just now, Blehschmidt said:

I just need to know if the "Cardiac Event" was taken care of at a "Local Medical Facility"

I laughed.

[NotJayTabb]

There was a really nice tweet from Mustafa Ali about HHH, saying that when he'd relocated to Orlando in the 205 Live days, he'd asked for a week off to visit his pregnant wife in Chicago. HHH told him not to visit, but to move back so he could be there to be a father. That, coupled with people like Tegan Nox referring to him as "boss man" in the tweets, suggests that for all his faults he's almost certainly a better man-manager than Vince, the guys he's hired seem pretty loyal to him.