AEW Rampage - Holiday Bash - December 25, 2021

[Rah]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm not aiming to fuck someone up with my face. 

[sek69]

Hook has that aura already of someone not to fuck with which is pretty much unheard of in anyone his age/experience. 

[strobogo]

6 hours ago, joeg said:

@strobogo Its not just his physical appearance which is youthful, its the way he carries himself, the way he moves, his body language, and the way he works. He looks and moves like a d1 athlete. He moves like somebody who could handle themselves. If you really think his youthful face makes him look less credible, I don't know what to tell you. 

I don't at all disagree that he looks and moves like a real athlete. He just has a literal babyface and doesn't at all have that angry man who will try to break your neck aura that Taz had, imo. He's very very chill. 

[NintendoLogic]

Get it right, people. His name is HOOK.

Like MF DOOM, just remember all caps when you spell the man name.

[MoS]

10 hours ago, Migs said:

I thought Cody was great here. First time in forever it felt like they've gotten good heat with him.

Yeah I think this Sammy feud has been the first time this new meta Cody character has hit with me. When Cody went to Sammy and talked about both of them being good guys like he is human Mr. Peanutbutter, that was when I felt he started hitting the right notes.

I also agree that Cody as TNT champ is a lot more interesting than Sammy as TNT champ. I like Sammy but his win came out of nowhere and his title run always felt stilted and an afterthought. It was probably the first time in AEW that a singles title win and reign didn't feel over or like a good idea. 

[Loss]

The key to making Cody an effective heel is to change nothing about him except his opponents. It works really well against babyfaces, but not so much against Malakai and Andrade. If I was them, I'd drop Dan Lambert nonsense midstream and move him into a feud with a babyface.

[El-P]

Cody is "not a heel". Just booking him against babyfaces would hurt that perception. Plus, as per Meltz Cody actually gets a lot of cheers too, but the people booing him make more noise. It's the odd dynamic that makes him interesting. No one wants a straight heel turn anymore at this point (unless you're a Corny idiot troll like the ones popping up on shows with idiotic signs now, including transphobic shit about Nyla last week, and yes I realize we don't know if he was a Corny idiot guy but I'm just gonna assume he is considering Corny's idiotic stance on the same kind of subject before, unfair I know). Cody is "not a heel" and is "not turning". Except of course having beat Sammy was gonna get him more boos from the people who hate him, despite the completely babyface-like celebration after the match (because he's "not a heel").

Sammy's reign could have been more, but the matches have been great and he has been over. Interestingly enough, now Cody is gonna get a guy from ATT, much like Sammy. Sammy's gonna be fine. He just need a focused single feud again, which really he did not get with his title reign.

[Loss]

The idea is to get heat by being a heel while denying that he is. All evidence points to the opposite, but he just refuses to admit it and never will. I don't even think he should cheat or change anything about his presentation. Just the opponents. If he keeps being programmed with heels, they are all going to come out of those feuds looking awful. I'm not sure that feud did Malakai Black a ton of good despite all the wins because he was getting a reaction that isn't translating outside of that was context. If Cody feuds with Sammy Guevara or Jungle Boy or PAC, and they get to call him out for what he really is, everyone wins.

[El-P]

7 minutes ago, Loss said:

The idea is to get heat by being a heel while denying that he is. All evidence points to the opposite, but he just refuses to admit it and never will. I don't even think he should cheat or change anything about his presentation. Just the opponents. If he keeps being programmed with heels, they are all going to come out of those feuds looking awful. I'm not sure that feud did Malakai Black a ton of good despite all the wins because he was getting a reaction that isn't translating outside of that was context.

Malakai has totally came off the Cody feud looking like a star. And he won most of the matches too. It doesn't matter what *kind* of reaction he was getting, what matters is he was getting huge reactions. And he does look like a star and could be pushed tomorrow against Hangman Page and be a credible threat. Mission accomplished.

7 minutes ago, Loss said:

If Cody feuds with Sammy Guevara or Jungle Boy or PAC, and they get to call him out for what he really is, everyone wins.

But the issue is that he's "not a heel". You can't call him out for being something he isn't. He's not *actually* a heel. He's a meta-heel for a part of the audience, and that's what they are now playing off on. It's tricky as hell but at least it's fun to watch.

[Loss]

He is a heel because he's being booed. Heels are people that are booed and babyfaces are people that are cheered. He's a heel pretending not to be one but he is a heel.

[Dav'oh]

30 minutes ago, El-P said:

considering Corny's idiotic stance on the same kind of subject before

It hasn't changed. He tweeted on Christmas Eve basically saying what a pussy/bunch of pussies Nyla and AEW were for getting upset about a sign. Which conveniently completely ignores the context of said sign.

“Boy, times have changed. When wrestling drew big crowds, fans got tossed out if they committed physical assault or pulled out a knife. If you’d tossed them for saying horrible things & hurting the wrestlers’ feelings, the buildings would have been empty–like they are now.”

I'm not going anywhere near his "empty - like they are now" brainfart.

[Jmare007]

I'm not a fan of Sammy Guevara, at all, but I think his TNT title run being underwhelming falls on AEW way more than him. Before he got the title he was more featured and got more chances to shine. As champ he was barely on TV and didn't really have real feuds, he only had his matches. Felt like booking abandoned him for no real reason.

How has Cody's stuff done in terms of ratings? I think that's the main metric that should dictate if this meta stuff is really working or not.

[Loss]

Guevara's title run seems like it was fine to me, it's just that he was also doing other stuff like the Dan Lambert feud. It's not like the matches themselves were disappointments or anything like that, although I do think Miro was working and there was no reason to move on from him.

[El-P]

41 minutes ago, Loss said:

He is a heel because he's being booed. Heels are people that are booed and babyfaces are people that are cheered. He's a heel pretending not to be one but he is a heel.

He may be a dick at times, but he's "not a heel". Which is why the celebration after the match was 100% straight forward babyface stuff, which you would never do for a heel-in-denial. He's only a heel on a meta level, and only for a portion of the crowd. He could be what you say he is, and he could have been what I thought he would be at one point (the obnoxious Hollywood type star couple character, which I would have enjoyed quite a bit as Brandi would probably have shined in this role), but obviously that's not where they are now. The booking of Cody is so meta at this point it's what makes it so fun to watch to me.

25 minutes ago, Dav'oh said:

It hasn't changed. He tweeted on Christmas Eve basically saying what a pussy/bunch of pussies Nyla and AEW were for getting upset about a sign. Which conveniently completely ignores the context of said sign.

“Boy, times have changed. When wrestling drew big crowds, fans got tossed out if they committed physical assault or pulled out a knife. If you’d tossed them for saying horrible things & hurting the wrestlers’ feelings, the buildings would have been empty–like they are now.”

I'm not going anywhere near his "empty - like they are now" brainfart.

Oh, well. The guy is stuck in 1985 forever. Let him rot over there. I was glad that that awful transphobic shit got pulled and the guy apparently got kicked out. 

2 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

As champ he was barely on TV and didn't really have real feuds, he only had his matches. Felt like booking abandoned him for no real reason.

The big feud was really Inner Circle against ATT and Sammy got the match against Ethan Page out of it, but after that point, yeah, he would kinda put in the back. Can't win them all I guess. It's not like he's ruined or anything either.

[Loss]

I still think it's all about that Anthony Agogo promo. Maybe it's evolved since then into a little more than that but it all goes back to that promo.

[MoS]

10 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

How has Cody's stuff done in terms of ratings? I think that's the main metric that should dictate if this meta stuff is really working or not.

I will have to check the quarters, but from what I remember, his stuff does well most times, but it's never a massive ratings hit (Shaq match excepted) the way Omega-Hangman was, or the way Punk-MJF is right now. But CM Punk is the biggest individual difference-maker in wrestling right now (since Cena left), and for all our criticisms of MJF, the guy has always been a ratings draw. 

[MoS]

1 minute ago, Loss said:

I still think it's all about that Anthony Agogo promo. Maybe it's evolved since then into a little more than that but it all goes back to that promo.

Do you think he knew, when he cut that promo, that it would lead to some inevitable backlash and his popularity cooling off a bit?

[Loss]

I don't. I think he thought he was doing something transcendent. He seemed blindsided by it and has been really defensive when it comes to the jokes that he thinks the birth of his child ended racism in America.

[El-P]

11 minutes ago, Loss said:

I still think it's all about that Anthony Agogo promo. Maybe it's evolved since then into a little more than that but it all goes back to that promo.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Was the baby gender reveal before of after that though ? I mean, to me it was about as offensive/annoying.  (EDIT : oh yeah, of course the gender reveal was before, so there, his daughter was actually patient 0 of the Codyverse)

[Jmare007]

22 minutes ago, El-P said:

The big feud was really Inner Circle against ATT and Sammy got the match against Ethan Page out of it, but after that point, yeah, he would kinda put in the back. Can't win them all I guess. It's not like he's ruined or anything either.

No doubt. I guess it feels more of an issue because it came at the cost of Miro's run that was basically perfect. Then again, it does seem Miro got injured either during the November return or before it. It looked like his leg wasn't 100% in the Danielson match and he hasn't been back since. So maybe he was going to drop the title soon anyways?

[NintendoLogic]

There is literally nothing heelish about Cody's act except for the crowd reaction. Look at the past decade and a half of WWE to see how this sort of thing plays out. When someone the audience views as a heel is pushed as a dominant babyface, more often than not it damages if not outright kills the heat of whoever he feuds with.

[Loss]

The heelish qualities, to the extent they exist, are in the self importance and in refusal to admit how people see him. Also, I think having a ringside second is more of a heel thing, but that's just me.

[Migs]

I think it all works if the responses are intentional and they're not fighting the audience. That means he probably does need to work mostly against faces, unless they can find a way to keep him a face in certain scenarios. If you look at the Omega feud from 2017-2018, Cody was able to play hell against Omega but be a face if he has teaming with the Bucks (which also happened less when they were ramping up to the blowoff with Omega). Right now he's struggling so badly to get cheers even against heels that I'm not sure how effective he'd be, although I think they'll at least take a swing with a Scorpio Sky match.

[Timbo Slice]

I genuinely think Cody sees himself as Cena, which is about as delusional as it gets.

[strobogo]

I don't think Sammy is a likeable face in the least so I'm not surprised his title run didn't amount to anything. In general, getting dragged back into Inner Circle stuff completely killed Sammy and LAX.