MoS Posted March 3, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 17 minutes ago, El-P said: Coming from the guy who had to write *every* *single* *week* how much he hated the Good Brothers (and later Matt Hardy, for a while at least) and how you wish they would go away when they were on TV with no other argument than "they're geeks", it's kinda rich, honestly. I mean, no offense, but it seems you're the one taking it personnaly now, really. I'm not ranting nor do I care one bit about the opinions of others in term of my own enjoyment. I'm discussing pro-wrestling on PWO. I know, the audacity. As I said, I don't think Adam Cole is that much of a polarizing figure, not as much as Omega was for instance (while at the same time never receiving the same kind of praise Omega got, which I guess is also why he is not as much of a polarizing figure), and I gave my reason why, recontextualizing the whole thing. Are you serious ? He was the main star on NXT for literally YEARS. Including when it was on *national TV* in the midst of a pro-wrestling war. He got a huge, main event star pop when he showed up on PPV for arguably the second biggest pro-wrestling company in the world. What, you think he would not have gotten that pop in WWE either because NXT doesn't matter ? Come one now... It's not like we're talking about a guy who was having "hidden gem" on obscure indies and then appeared magically on TV. I ranted about Good Brothers and now about Matt Hardy cuz they would never leave my screen, they were directly relevant and had nothing to do with other people's perception of them. Unlike Mark Henry and Shawn Michaels. Do you not see that the issue is not about ranting, but about specifically ranting about other people's likes and dislikes? Like you literally just did the same again. No one cares if you rant, we all rant about wrestling. But like, rant about something actually relevant or funny. I mean, when you actually did that, when you ranted the way I did/do for Dork brothers and Matt Hardy, you created one of the greatest, most enduring threads in the history of PWO. Like, surely you should get this, right. And yes, he was the main event star of a brand that got its ass royally kicked by a startup promotion while he was on top. You're not helping your case. It was such a massacre that everyone involved in it got shitcanned, and literal kids are running around on that show now and the ratings are not even that lower than they were the tail end of Cole's run. By the standard of pops, yeah he sometimes looks like a main eventer. So did Road Dogg and Ice Train. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 3, 2022 Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 17 minutes ago, MoS said: I ranted about Good Brothers and now about Matt Hardy cuz they would never leave my screen, they were directly relevant and had nothing to do with other people's perception of them. Unlike Mark Henry and Shawn Michaels. Do you not see that the issue is not about ranting, but about specifically ranting about other people's likes and dislikes? Actually, it isn't. It's about a certain kind of perception. It's been said that "Adam Cole is a polarizing figure". My point is "I don't think he is, this idea that he is very much is only part of very small bubble". And yeah, I will endlessly make fun of the old "Mark Henry is better than Shawn Micheals" little adventure, because it was typical of the way sometime, the small echo chambers effect distort the overall perception of worker X or Y. 17 minutes ago, MoS said: Rant about something actually relevant or funny. Ok. So, first I'm not "ranting". Second, you mean dropping "X is a geek, I don't want him on my TV!" every fucking week ? Yeah, sounds quite fun indeed. I'll keep on "ranting" or talking or discussing about whatever I please, if you don't mind me doing it. Respectfully. 17 minutes ago, MoS said: And yes, he was the main event star of a brand that got its ass royally kicked by a startup promotion while he was on top. You're not helping your case. It was such a massacre that everyone involved in it got shitcanned, and literal kids are running around on that show now and the ratings are not even that lower than they were the tail end of Cole's run. By the standard of pops, yeah he sometimes looks like a main eventer. So did Road Dogg and Ice Train. You're actually really getting awkward now, sorry to say. Yeah, NXT lost the ratings war. They were still very much a watched show on national TV. To say that NXT was irrelevant and under the radar in term of mainstream US pro-wrestling is just unrealistic. The bolded part exposes your point completely though. Ok, so Adam Cole is as over as Ice Train in WCW. End of debate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted March 3, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 The only way we solve this is to have Mark Henry v. Shawn Michaels in 2022 with voting on who carried whom in the match. If Henry wins, Adam Cole gets kicked out of wrestling. If he loses, then Cole can be champ for 500 more days. Stakes are high enough, so we need a good impartial ref. I suggest Shane McMahon, who has previous refereeing experience Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 3, 2022 Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 Mark Henry has the better catchphrase in 2022, that's for sure. I sure hope he does something else in the company too. Speaking of which, what was the purpose of Paul Wight again ? I admit I don't watch Dark anymore, does he still do the announcing ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted March 3, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 He probably also does some agenting and helps out the wrestlers.Now we have quite a few hosses on the roster and he probably does something in their matches Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 3, 2022 Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 Also, to rant about something more fun , I guess the Supercard of Honor ROH tag team titles match with the Briscoes is now pretty much 100% happening with FTR. Deonna Purrazzo working the show as ROH champ is quite interesting too, I would hope AEW keeps a good relationship with IMPACT in the midst of all of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 3, 2022 Report Share Posted March 3, 2022 Also Ian Riccaboni finding out the same way everyone else did and tweeting through his feelings like an excited teenager was downright adorable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KawadaSmile Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Cole not making it in WWE's main roster was inevitable, IMO. I've used this example some times here, but when he appeared at the Rumble he looked tiny. Not just in terms of height, but he looked less built than Rey Mysterio. With NXT's smaller stage, you could cover that up more nicely, and the competition wasn't regularly towering over him. He had his team with guys with similar build, Ciampa and Gargano were around, Finn was around, Dunne was around. All of them were guys that were in the same range of height, weight and look. It wasn't jarring to see him dominate competition then. Hell, he even had some matches against the likes of Bryan Danielson and Seth Rollins. The former is a "small" dude, although more muscular, and the latter is lean. It all seemed fine. But once they started pairing him against Keith Lee and have Cole dominate him with a headlock, things started to be a bit ridiculous. How the fuck would that guy do that to someone like Sheamus? Or Drew? Or Roman? Or Orton? The main roster was just full of BIG MEATY MEN, and Cole's portrayal would have to be changed, specially when they seemed to just want him, and not the rest of Undisputed Era. He couldn't just zerg rush his way into things anymore. Last night's main event had six guys all with similar builds, with Silver being the smallest dude, yet not dwarfed by any of the other guys. Cole feels more "at home" in this kind of setting, not up against behemoths, leviathans and jormungandrs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 For sure. Meltz made the point the other day about how Christian Cage in WWE being considered a "small guy", which played against him in term of being seen as a top level guy, and how in AEW he looks bigger than most folks (apart from the few really big guys). Guys in AEW are smaller, and even in this context, Cole looks smaller than most of them. But it's really ridiculous to me that size would play any kind of factor in pro-wrestling in 2022, big men slapping meat notwithstanding (and really now, some of the best meat slapper today are guys like Ishii and Suzuki and they are not big guys, Ishii is another one who looked small appearing in AEW). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KawadaSmile Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Absolutely, but I do feel like what made him special in NXT, specially his faction, wasn't going to make the jump with him to the main roster. Could Cole thrive there with The UE by his side? I think so. But him alone... yeah. The writing was on the wall for him, and I guess he saw that. I don't think he'll ever go solo for the rest of his career, and that's not a knock on him. (This reminds me of someone mentioning Aja Kong's height on Twitter. The realization of how she's 1.65m despite looking bigger than everyone else was mind twisting. Perception truly is everything in wrestling) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 20 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said: (This reminds me of someone mentioning Aja Kong's height on Twitter. The realization of how she's 1.65m despite looking bigger than everyone else was mind twisting. Perception truly is everything in wrestling) I really never thought of Aja as a tall woman though, plus I don't expect a bunch of japanese women to be really big anyway. But talk about perception of a tiny worker, here's Mayumi Ozaki for you. She's like 1,55 (do you think we're losing all the anglo-saxon posters with our beloved metric system talk here ?), but she absolutely was credible beating Kansai's ass into a bloody pulp. Sabu is another guy who's smaller than he probably looked. On the other hand, when Jeff Hardy shows up, he'll tower above guys like Darby & Sammy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Aja Kong had that Taz factor where the badass factor somehow makes you not notice the lack of height. Shorter folks that are thick don't come off as smaller people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Yep. See also, Ishii. The fact she would kick the fuck out of people and bash their head in with that damn uraken (that really no one has mastered since, sadly) also helped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss Rock Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Cobb is another one who's not particularly tall but carries himself and wrestles like a behemoth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Mad Dog Vachon FTW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Pete Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 Cole is such a strange case. From my perspective, he's somebody who makes a good first impression. He's a good all-round performer who has/had movie star looks, could work a match and in a rarity could actually rock a microphone. However he suffered a serious knee injury right around the time he was trying to establish himself and right as he was beginning to find his feet, the WWE came knocking. I don't think there is that one moment his fans can really point to in that run as Cole establishing himself as THE man. He had one match with O'Reilly in 2012 that earned him a push but beyond that it just seemed like he surrounded himself with talented people. Same can be said of his NXT run. Cole fared better but he surrounded himself with reDragon and Roderick Strong. The bulk of his run took place right as NXT was beginning to lose steam and was running in competition of AEW, so fans started to pick him apart a lot more. When he was in ROH, it was out of sight, out of mind and fans were happy to accept he was the highlight of an otherwise stale show. In NXT he had nowhere to hide. Now he's facing a similar wave of criticism, but it's largely coming from bitter WWE fans. Once again he's surrounded himself with talented people, but these same people aren't everybody's cup of tea and if you don't enjoy the Elite melodrama chances are you don't care about Cole. If you don't care about The Best Friends or Dark Order either, chances are that's also impacted your enjoyment of him. He's been a workhorse for the company, but I don't think he's had that Hangman/Danielson or Darby/MJF stick that up your pipes and smoke it type of match yet. If anything, that Cassidy match may have confirmed a lot of things to his critics. I think with Cole right now, the issue is that he's about to have the biggest match of his AEW career and it's being over-shadowed with the Elite vs. reDragon stuff. If I had to make an argument in terms of where he stands out in modern wrestling, how many guys can play to the crowd like him and get that reaction? It may sound like hyperbole, but I don't think there's anyone better in that department. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strobogo Posted March 4, 2022 Report Share Posted March 4, 2022 I think Adam Cole is pretty good and his size doesn't really matter too much because he carries himself and is presented as a star. However, he got into some really bad habits in NXT that then spread to all the NXT main events. There are times when his size does matter because he's doing shit like getting into the hockey fights with Luchasaurus or controlling Keith Lee with headlocks and it looks absolutely laughable. That's just bad psychology, not unlike those Nia Jax vs Alexa Bliss matches where Alexa somehow physically dominated most of the match instead of controlling with technique or cutting her down. My biggest issue with him is the Panama Sunrise is the worst Canadian Destroyer variant and makes no fucking sense even in wrestling physics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 With all the excitement around the PPV, I forgot Rampage was live tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 That three way was pretty rad, planting seeds of doubt for the PPV too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 ROWAN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 Another great Punk promo, I love that the result of this story is Punk embracing the dark side to become an asshole again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 Rampage has been paced better as a live show than when they do a taping and have to edit a million segments together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 29 minutes ago, sek69 said: Another great Punk promo, I love that the result of this story is Punk embracing the dark side to become an asshole again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirEdger Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 Didn't he cut a similar promo in ROH during his feud with Raven? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted March 5, 2022 Report Share Posted March 5, 2022 2 hours ago, SirEdger said: Didn't he cut a similar promo in ROH during his feud with Raven? The "this is real, this is straight edge" (WrestleRave, I think) promo? That was nothing like this promo besides Punk being bloody. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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