AEW TV - 9/6 - 9/9 - Fearing For Our Collective Safeties

[sek69]

Bryan promising to go balls out in his final year is something that sounds both amazing and terrifying at the same time. 

[The Thread Killer]

Thank Gawd the second half of that show was better than the first. Still not at all a fan of Penta singles matches, though.

[Jmare007]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Bryan promising to go balls out in his final year is something that sounds both amazing and terrifying at the same time. 

I guess Tony will add all the days Bryan "owes" because of injury by making him full blown booker after 2024

[Timbo Slice]

Bullet Club Gold entrance was the best thing on the show. Cardblade, man. 

[Gramsci]

It is a work, he has said more than once that he will never retire and plans to wrestle until he’s 70 years old and that he doesn’t want to have a retirement match. Also, how much time Tony will have to add to his contract after he has missed all that time because of injuries?

I think he plans to be more of a part time wrestler, which is basically what he is now. Maybe he’ll do 15 or 20 matches a year, who knows, but he will not retire and I’m sure Tony wants to keep him in AEW in some capacity.

It’s funny how wrestlers talk about wanting to be home more often, maybe it is because they have never had a real job in their life, but they work like 1 day a week (+ 1 or 2 if you count travelling), they can spend more time with their children than anyone who has a regular office job.

[Tetsujin]

This might trigger people, but Mox reminds me of Tenryu in that his offence is unbelievably inconsistent (some awesome shit and some lame as fuck stuff mixed together in almost every match) but he has such personality and charisma that he hooks you in no matter what, and that makes you appreciate him as a great wrestler even with his flaws. A perfect example of a "the whole being better than the sum of the parts" wrestler, just like Tenryu was.

[Jmare007]

I...guess? If Tenryu is a 10 in the Tenryu scale, Mox might be a 3.

[DMJ]

Ehh. Around these parts, Mox is not considered very good. But when I found this place 10ish years ago, I was shocked to read the many, many posts about how overrated Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels are. Some of the takes here can be jarring to read at first, but in many cases, the valid criticisms are stated so eloquently that they might make you rethink your own opinion. That's a good thing.

Ultimately, though, even the most objective reading of entertainment/art doesn't hold up against the visceral emotional response. For example, yes, objectively, The Ramones buzzsaw bubblegum punk is not as musically complex or rich as Dream Theater's more progressive rock. But one band kicks ass, blew my mind when I was 12, and will never not make me smile and the other is...well, I'll just say, not for me. 

So, yea, people can shit on Mox all they want and, to be sure, if you put his matches and moves under a microscope, you're going to see lots of flaws. I'll also add that I think his current ring gear sucks too and he probably shouldn't be working as much as he does because I think he should have a stronger aura/mystique. But when the music hits, he's clearly very, very over with the AEW crowd and if he came back to WWE, he'd be very, very over with the WWE audiences too. The guy connects with the general wrestling audience in a huge way.

This is the same conversation many of us had about Rob Van Dam and Jeff Hardy 15-20 years ago. Sloppy? Predictable? Did lots of meaningless dangerous things to pop the crowd but lacked real psychology? None of this is new and none of this takes away from these guys' popularity and star power.
 

[MLB]

I like Moxley but he's always been polarizing to fans. Jon wears his heart on his sleeve and you feel the passion he has for it. Brock phoning it in with him at Mania along with the Austin podcast really brought out his critics.

If I'm Mox, Corny's getting slapped if I see him around. Cornette and Last have done a lot of damage to Mox's reputation, I mean they absolutely rip the guy week after week, month after month. Camp Cornette goes super hard on Moxley, yet the Dirty White Boy didn't look like a plumber? Cornette even attacks Mox's hairline and shit like that, the "Moxley-Good" snark, but that's the WWE side in JC.

I agree with @DMJ that Mox's ring gear has been going in the wrong direction for a while and he can't seem to figure it out. When Moxley left rehab he was in top shape and it seems like it has regressed and Mox cares even less about the cosmetic side of it because he knows he's the only hardcore wrestler on the roster aside Jericho and Kingston occasionally. 

[Embrodak]

Corny is an asshole to everybody, but I think his critique of Moxley is basically correct.

[MLB]

You also have a savvy politician like Heyman with ties to Austin (an original Heyman Guy) and Brock, who got the green light to throw Moxley under the bus publicly.

[Embrodak]

39 minutes ago, MLB said:

You also have a savvy politician like Heyman with ties to Austin (an original Heyman Guy) and Brock, who got the green light to throw Moxley under the bus publicly.

Ambrose v Brock seems like it was just ill-conceived from the start. If Brock wasn’t willing to fuck around with weapons, why put him with somebody like Moxley, who doesn’t have the size, speed, or technical wrestling chops to create the illusion of being competitive with him? I get that it’s a marquee matchup for the time, but shouldn’t this all have been figured out from the first meeting?

[sek69]

1 hour ago, MLB said:

Cornette goes super hard on Moxley, yet the Dirty White Boy didn't look like a plumber?

He sure looked like one to Vince. 

Also at this point I don't know why anyone goes to Corny for opinions on modern wrestling. I could listen to him talk about working for Fritz and Watts all day but I'd rather have a root canal than listen to his Opinionz 4 U about AEW 

[Embrodak]

Just now, sek69 said:

He sure looked like one to Vince. 

Also at this point I don't know why anyone goes to Corny for opinions on modern wrestling. I could listen to him talk about working for Fritz and Watts all day but I'd rather have a root canal than listen to his Opinionz 4 U about AEW 

I listen sometimes because I think he’s basically correct, despite being an asshole.

[sek69]

Most of his takes are either "I don't personally like this so it's shit even if it's over/drawing money" or some variation of "what *insert modern wrestler* does wouldn't work in my day". neither of which are very worthwhile other than Corny is a very quick witted and a good storyteller so he says them in entertaining ways. 

 

[strobogo]

I didn't mean to open the floodgates on Mox, just that it truly blows my mind how he can be so good and then so unbelievably bad moments apart in any type of match.

[Embrodak]

4 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Most of his takes are either "I don't personally like this so it's shit even if it's over/drawing money" or some variation of "what *insert modern wrestler* does wouldn't work in my day". neither of which are very worthwhile other than Corny is a very quick witted and a good storyteller so he says them in entertaining ways. 

 

I am generally in favor of more people saying stuff is good/bad instead of the endless subjectivism. More fun discussion, and gets more substantively to the root of what humans do and why they do it.

[sek69]

27 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

I am generally in favor of more people saying stuff is good/bad instead of the endless subjectivism. More fun discussion, and gets more substantively to the root of what humans do and why they do it.

Yeah but in wrestling if something is getting over, then it's working regardless if a cranky ex manager likes it or not.  I get not everyone is going to like everything done in wrestling, but if something is getting over and/or drawing money it makes you look like a contrarian dickhead to devote your platform to railing on it. 

[Embrodak]

2 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Yeah but in wrestling if something is getting over, then it's working regardless if a cranky ex manager likes it or not.  I get not everyone is going to like everything done in wrestling, but if something is getting over and/or drawing money it makes you look like a contrarian dickhead to devote your platform to railing on it. 

Are people contrarian dickheads if they say that Marvel movies suck? Or that Hamilton sucks? Why is wrestling a special exemption where we have to bow to the whims of the market or of cultural tastemakers when it comes to rendering judgment? A hot crowd is nice, but it’s not the be all and end all. The crowd loved The Ultimate Warrior, too, but basically nobody defends him anymore. And if the only reason people are willing to trash Hellwig is because he was a reactionary dumbass, well, I have less respect for that than Corny’s straightforward and open contempt for those aspects of wrestling that he feels are disrespectful to what he and his colleagues held dearly.

[sek69]

The entire point of pro wrestling is to entertain the crowd and make money. Hating on someone or something that does that because it doesn't jibe with what people did 30-40 years ago isn't taking some bold stand on the state of the art. It's just being an old man yelling at the kids to get off your lawn.

28 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

The crowd loved The Ultimate Warrior, too, but basically nobody defends him anymore. And if the only reason people are willing to trash Hellwig is because he was a reactionary dumbass,

Warrior was a trash human being, but he was very successful to the point he was the heir apparent to Hogan. It didn't matter he couldn't work a six star match if his life depended on it, he connected with the crowd in a way a lot of others couldn't. If he wasn't such a head case he might have been at that Hogan level.  

All that being said, if someone says they didn't like the guy I wouldn't blame them. But you can't deny the man was (briefly at least) a huge success.  Also in terms of Corny in particular, he tends to get personal with his criticism in a way that gets uncomfortable. OK, he doesn't like Kenny Omega's style that's fine, but then he gets into the weirdly homophobic comments and its like show me on the doll where Kenny hurt you. 

[KawadaSmile]

Ultimate Warrior was literally voted as the Wrestling Observer's worst wrestler of 1988, despite being massively over. It's not like he wasn't without his detractors even with commercial success - Hogan was the same, without even taking into consideration their shitty real-life personas. 

While I think years will be much kinder to Mox's AEW run than Hellwig's entire damn career, I don't think it's out of line, as long as we keep the criticisms within the realm of professional wrestling and not dwelve into weird, freaky personal rants, to criticize someone's body of work. I think that just comes with the job.

[NintendoLogic]

Being over and drawing money are two different things. Warrior was supposed to be Hogan's heir apparent, but he failed in that role. The fact that he ultimately wasn't successful makes people more willing to dunk on him. In wrestling, though, the only rule is it has to work. No one is obligated to like something simply because it's successful, but that doesn't mean letting your aesthetic preferences cloud your judgment of the business aspect. If something is working despite going against your deep-seated notions of how things should work, you can try to figure out why or you can accept that the business has passed you by. A lot of Cornette's venom seems to be rooted in his inability to come to grips with the latter reality.

[Embrodak]

19 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Being over and drawing money are two different things. Warrior was supposed to be Hogan's heir apparent, but he failed in that role. The fact that he ultimately wasn't successful makes people more willing to dunk on him. In wrestling, though, the only rule is it has to work. No one is obligated to like something simply because it's successful, but that doesn't mean letting your aesthetic preferences cloud your judgment of the business aspect. If something is working despite going against your deep-seated notions of how things should work, you can try to figure out why or you can accept that the business has passed you by. A lot of Cornette's venom seems to be rooted in his inability to come to grips with the latter reality.

See Cornette’s firmly-held belief is that the business is not worth doing if you do it in certain ways, and in fact is actively disrespectful to the enormous time and effort that people put into the suspension of disbelief mechanism that was kayfabe. I suspect a lot of this has to do with Cornette performing largely for hayseeds who actually threw bottles and slashed tires and tried to stab wrestlers and shit, sort of a sublimated trauma response, but that’s just armchair psychologizing.

[TheDuke]

I think Cornette 's point is that the business is not doing that well compared to the boom periods of the 80s and 90s. However I don't know how you can really measure that because the metric of TV ratings really doesn't mean what it used to because all of TV the ratings are down across the board so you can't really compare.

[Dav'oh]

I listened to Cornette for the first time in a while. After referring to Takeshita as "Take a shit" several times - as condescending and dehumanising an epithet as you'll find - he then said "I really like the guy". It's like he can't help himself. Puerility and low-hanging scatology for the sake of it.