AEW Rampage - Holiday Bash - December 25, 2021

[Coffey]

On 12/26/2021 at 7:56 PM, strobogo said:

Hard disagree about Hook looking like a guy who could fuck you up. He looks like a teenager. Maybe in a few years when his face starts to mature. He doesn't have that aura of fuck you up that Taz had despite being taller and in better shape. It might come as he matures and gets more experience, though. Certainly looks like he's going to have a high ceiling but I'm not buying him doing all the Taz no selling shit at all yet.

Yeah, he still has a literally babyface & it's tough for me to buy him as an ass-kicker but he certainly has promise. What's irking me right now is the way he keeps putting on the Tazmission so lazily. Like, that's your finisher, man. Slap that shit on. Why is he like doing the leg grapevine part first? So awkward. 

[MoS]

HOOK has a literal babyface, but as he gets older and reaches his prime years, that will help him be a great face. He doesn't need to have his dad's personality to be cool and badass.

[Jmare007]

Yeah, I guess it's just backlash to people marking out for dude so hard. He's an awesome prospect, let him develop and then we'll see what he's really made of. Right now I think it's fine to focus on all the positives and enjoy the spark he provides to the show.

[Sweet Brown Koko]

23 hours 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.

What was this promo? I must have missed it.

[NintendoLogic]

The one where he unironically cast himself as an 80s-style flag-waving patriotic babyface in a feud with an Englishman.

 

[sek69]

Part of me thinks Cody got so defensive about that promo because it's the one time he kind of let his latent MAGA tendencies slip through to TV and he was legit offended at the backlash. 

[Sweet Brown Koko]

Thanks for sharing that promo. It absolutely sucked but at least I have some context as to what’s happening. I would boo Cody too…..if I cared about his character at all. He’s been tone deaf since the start of AEW.

[sek69]

What I've been noticing about Cody is he clearly wants to be the all American babyface like his dad, his actual personality is much better suited to being 80s Ric Flair. 

Also they seem to be rolling with it now, but AEW was 100% trying to fight the fans with this stuff which made it stick out even more in a company who's MO has been "we give the fans what they want". 

[sek69]

Also Rampage did a good rating despite being on a different day and time, so that's a good sign. 

[MoS]

The fact that more people watched Rampage on Christmas than they have been doing generally shows just how awful the Friday night 10 PM slot is. It truly is the death knell of time slots. If you're up and about on Friday at 10 PM, then chances are you are probably not watching television 

[gonzalez]

12 hours ago, sek69 said:

Also they seem to be rolling with it now, but AEW was 100% trying to fight the fans with this stuff which made it stick out even more in a company who's MO has been "we give the fans what they want". 

Well when you’re one of the top exces in the company, you get a longer rope than others.

I think it’s really funny that Cody wants to be his dad, but he’s modeled his look, and style on the old “Traveling World Champ”. He should know better that those guys would constantly flip from face to heel to in-between depending on the territory. It’s so stupid that he wants to be just a face dressing the way he does. Virgil Runnels wore stylish, and expensive clothes, but they weren’t the clothes of a man who inherited wealth, but of a man who fell into it.

[El-P]

16 hours ago, sek69 said:

Part of me thinks Cody got so defensive about that promo because it's the one time he kind of let his latent MAGA tendencies slip through to TV and he was legit offended at the backlash. 

The worst part, by far, was the whole "Hey, there used to be segregation but hey I'm having a half-black baby so everything is fine now fuck yeah 'murica !" bit. Sure, white boy. 

13 hours ago, sek69 said:

Also they seem to be rolling with it now, but AEW was 100% trying to fight the fans with this stuff which made it stick out even more in a company who's MO has been "we give the fans what they want". 

Yes, that was the first bump in the road from that perspective. Well, that and announcing a HOF newcomer and having Christian show up (no disrespect).

But the booking is clearly meta now. In a half-conscious way only though, as I'm sure they expected Cody to get more cheers against Lambert. That "He's a bigger dick than I am" line the following week was killer though and made it right. The booking of Cody as TNT champ should be interesting at the very least (and yes, I realize it could also be a disaster if they aren't very careful).

[gonzalez]

I would really like to know where that Cody, Arn, Tully, and FTR tease in 2020 was going, and why they stopped it cold, then went with MJF & The Pinnacle.

[SteveJRogers]

25 minutes ago, gonzalez said:

I would really like to know where that Cody, Arn, Tully, and FTR tease in 2020 was going, and why they stopped it cold, then went with MJF & The Pinnacle.

Personally I still love to know if MJF’s plan was more to cause a division within The Inner Circle as opposed to absorbing most of them into the yet unnamed Pinnacle. 

That whole bit seemed way too much like “okay, we need to get to Point C, so forget Point B where MJF retreats from a standing tall and stronger Inner Circle and just skip to Wardlow, FTR and Spears attacking”

[sek69]

7 hours ago, gonzalez said:

Virgil Runnels wore stylish, and expensive clothes, but they weren’t the clothes of a man who inherited wealth, but of a man who fell into it

It really is understated how much of Dusty's vibe (in JCP at least, not the polka dot stuff) was "blue collar guy who came into money and started wearing stuff like big ass fur coats with cowboy hats"

[BigBadMick]

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

It really is understated how much of Dusty's vibe (in JCP at least, not the polka dot stuff) was "blue collar guy who came into money and started wearing stuff like big ass fur coats with cowboy hats"

Is it that different, though? Ostentatious displays of wealth are off-putting, either way.

[sek69]

1 minute ago, BigBadMick said:

Is it that different, though? Ostentatious displays of wealth are off-putting, either way.

There's something charming in the "poor guy who gets money and dresses like a proto-rap star because thats how he pictures rich people dressing" look Dusty would sport. Yes it was just as ostentatious in its own way but he looked like a little kid playing dressup while having the time of his life doing it, so you couldn't help but crack a smile when you saw it.  Cody just looks like the asshole in every teen movie that you just want to punch. 

[SteveJRogers]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

There's something charming in the "poor guy who gets money and dresses like a proto-rap star because thats how he pictures rich people dressing" look Dusty would sport. Yes it was just as ostentatious in its own way but he looked like a little kid playing dressup while having the time of his life doing it, so you couldn't help but crack a smile when you saw it.  Cody just looks like the asshole in every teen movie that you just want to punch. 

Also Dusty’s girth added to the idea that he was akin to Rodney Dangerfield’s character in Caddyshack, compared to Ric Flair’s Ted Knight in the same movie (and now I’m picturing both spouting iconic lines).

[MoS]

Dusty started wearing those clothes because he started out as a heel, and his American Dream gimmick was originally heel shtick. But he was so charismatic, such an amazing promo, that by the time he had come to JCP, that was a long-forgotten memory. It's sort of been the other way around for Cody, who started off as a massive, beloved babyface, but has slowly seen a lot of the audience turn on him. 

[sek69]

whoops wrong show thread

[El-P]

10 hours ago, MoS said:

It's sort of been the other way around for Cody, who started off as a massive, beloved babyface, but has slowly seen a lot of the audience turn on him. 

Well, the Cody & Brandi Rhodes act that got to AEW was first a heel act on the indies, IMPACT (if I'm not mistaken) and ROH/NJPW. The American Nightmare was absolutely not a babyface gimmick at the start. Sure, it was in AEW but that's because of the broader context, as all of these guys where IRL babyfaces to this audience, so they could not work heel at the very start (which has hurt Brandi, as she was at her best doing the Sensational Sherri valet gimmick, but she really could not do it alongside her babyface husband, which probably caused the confusion for her character during the first years). 

[Big Pete]

I'm pretty sure Cody started off as a babyface on the indy circuits where he worked everywhere and only turned heel in December at Final Battle against Jay Lethal. So there was a situation in IMPACT where he actually came in as a babyface for a brief stint and then resurfaced as a heel months later to have a feud with Moose who was getting too comfortable with Brandi.

[El-P]

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I only caught up when he was already a heel and thought he had been doing it since day 1, especially since this was the very first time I saw something in Cody (and really it was only on the NJPW shows). The IMPACT stuff sounds kinda fun actually, gotta check it out some day.

[Big Pete]

3 hours ago, El-P said:

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I only caught up when he was already a heel and thought he had been doing it since day 1, especially since this was the very first time I saw something in Cody (and really it was only on the NJPW shows). The IMPACT stuff sounds kinda fun actually, gotta check it out some day.

It's an era that gets over-shadowed by the Hardyverse stuff but there was also a lot to like. Maria/Allie, EC3/Drake, The Helms Dynasty and the World title scene really made for a well rounded show.

Of course there's some great Pro Wrestling absurdity as well like James Storm, Bram and Eddie Kingston forming an elite group of 'annonymous' hackers who continue to wear masks after demasking themselves on television.

[SteveJRogers]

5 hours ago, El-P said:

Well, the Cody & Brandi Rhodes act that got to AEW was first a heel act on the indies, IMPACT (if I'm not mistaken) and ROH/NJPW. The American Nightmare was absolutely not a babyface gimmick at the start. Sure, it was in AEW but that's because of the broader context, as all of these guys where IRL babyfaces to this audience, so they could not work heel at the very start (which has hurt Brandi, as she was at her best doing the Sensational Sherri valet gimmick, but she really could not do it alongside her babyface husband, which probably caused the confusion for her character during the first years). 

Yeah, Cody’s act is the definition of the tone deaf douche born into wealth, but acts like he hit a triple, despite being born on third base.

I agree the act had to be babyface at the start, but unlike fans turning on Cena and Reigns (and further back Hogan) for babyface characters that hadn’t evolved much from their first incarnations.  This is someone continuing a heel like persona but expecting to be treated as a face by others and the audiences.