WWE TV 10/09 - 10/15 Brrrrrrock Purrrrrdy is the guy

[Johnny Sorrow]

I love the consistency of authority figures who never wrestled in WWE. 

[El-P]

11 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

Why is Aldis wearing his dad's suit?

He's the oldest looking 36 years old since Arn Anderson. Not in the same way of course, but he doesn't look a day younger than 45. His much more talented wife, who's 44, looks younger than him. 

I checked the video debut on Youtube, because Aldis is a guy I've seen quite a bit of during my TNA watch (and the "glory days" of Corgan's NWA) so it was kinda intriguing to see his face on a WWE program, and they managed to already make him vanilla as fuck. Not that he is *isn't* vanilla as fuck once out of his NWA Champ cosplay role anyway, but still. The really funny thing about it is Bruce Prichard working with him, considering how badly he buried the guy in the past.

[KawadaSmile]

I think he did fairly well. Dude is HUGE, can speak well and most of his segments and appearances did their job. Him being 36 surprised me considering how long he's been around, so I am 100% sure Triple H will run an angle where Aldis wrestles some chickenshit heel.

 

Now, it's funny when we talk about wrestlers' ages nowadays. Carlito is 44, which is considerably younger than Sheamus and Lashley. Chris Masters, who I think deserves a return to WWE, is just 40. Like, Piper and Lawler, when they hit that age, were seen as dinosaurs.

[NintendoLogic]

TV age is more important than chronological age. Carlito may be older than Randy Orton, but he feels fresher because he hasn't been a featured act in WWE forever like Orton has.

[El-P]

50 is the new 40, which was the new 30.

[KawadaSmile]

Also, speaking of age, overexposure and that Very Special NXT Episode, people are on Twitter talking about Undertaker as an in-ring performer. Is there anyone who's been around for so long who had so few good and great matches?

[El-P]

17 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Also, speaking of age, overexposure and that Very Special NXT Episode, people are on Twitter talking about Undertaker as an in-ring performer. Is there anyone who's been around for so long who had so few good and great matches?

In the last 30 years, probably not. Especially since his best and most famous in-ring work came after his physical peak (so he only worked a very limited schedule), which happened before the notion of having really good matches on top got almost systematic in WWE (basically with the 00's, whatever one think about what WWE considered really good matches then).

Bob Backlund was only 43 years old when he made his comeback and was presented as a relic from a bygone era. Seems totally crazy these days.

[strobogo]

7 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

I think he did fairly well. Dude is HUGE, can speak well and most of his segments and appearances did their job. Him being 36 surprised me considering how long he's been around, so I am 100% sure Triple H will run an angle where Aldis wrestles some chickenshit heel.

 

Now, it's funny when we talk about wrestlers' ages nowadays. Carlito is 44, which is considerably younger than Sheamus and Lashley. Chris Masters, who I think deserves a return to WWE, is just 40. Like, Piper and Lawler, when they hit that age, were seen as dinosaurs.

Sheamus is 45, Lashley is 47. Considerably younger at 44 lol.

[NintendoLogic]

Lashley is an interesting case. He may be in his late 40s, but he doesn't seem old because he's looked pretty much the same for the past two decades.

[KawadaSmile]

32 minutes ago, strobogo said:

Sheamus is 45, Lashley is 47. Considerably younger at 44 lol.

I remember looking up Sheamus' age a while ago (aka years) and didn't bother checking my estimations teehee was thinking like 48 or something

 

27 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Lashley is an interesting case. He may be in his late 40s, but he doesn't seem old because he's looked pretty much the same for the past two decades.

He's the opposite of Greg Valentine. Even in Mid Atlantic that man looked old.

[DMJ]

20 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Also, speaking of age, overexposure and that Very Special NXT Episode, people are on Twitter talking about Undertaker as an in-ring performer. Is there anyone who's been around for so long who had so few good and great matches?

Yup, his kayfabe brother Kane.
 

I don't consider Taker to be some all-time great worker, but he has at least 10 matches that I would consider very good-to-great against Foley, Michaels, Bret, Lesnar, Angle, Batista, Edge, etc. Throw in some good multi-man matches and Taker's resume is perfectly respectable. Not good enough to be in the GOAT discussion, but fine.

Kane, on the other hand, only  had good matches when they were multi-mans and his best singles matches aren't anywhere near as good as Taker's best matches. Even going through my own spreadsheet of reviews, the highest-rated singles matches I have for him were against Daniel Bryan (a match that many, many people completely shat on at the time but that I found to be pretty fun in a goofy way) and a 2002 match against Triple H that I still basically said was "above average but not must see." 

So, while I think we all could somewhat safely agree that Taker had at least 6 great singles matches, I don't think we'd ever reach a consensus on whether Kane has had even one great singles match.* His ceiling was just "good." I pretty much hate Kane, but he had perfectly fine matches against guys like Rey Mysterio over the years. I just don't think any of them were truly great.  

* I will readily admit that I haven't seen or reviewed every Kane match ever. Maybe one of the Austin matches during the title switcheroo in 98' was really good? I remember those being more "angles-presented-as-matches" than "real" matches, though. 

[NintendoLogic]

I don't know if I'd call it great, but I do recall Kane's match with Benoit at Bad Blood 2004 being quite good. If you put a gun to my head, that'd be my pick for the best Kane singles match. He also had a surprisingly good match with Daisuke Ikeda in PWFG.

 

[The Thread Killer]

On 10/9/2023 at 11:33 AM, KawadaSmile said:

Let's go Niners

They lost to the lol Browns.

[Timbo Slice]

That defense is great. Perfect storm of a lot of issues. 

[Ricky Jackson]

Similar fate for the Eagles, tough defense on the road. Also sad to see their 12-0 all-time record against the Jets finally have a blemish 

[sek69]

8 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

They lost to the lol Browns.

As a devoted Steelers fan it pains me to say the Browns are pretty good, even if they did mortgage their future to a QB who's trying to beat Vince's sex charges record. 

[Norwegian Rudo]

10 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

They lost to the lol Browns.

Played very badly and still would have won if not for two horrendous ref calls on the Browns last drive and a missed mid-range field goal.

[El-P]

18 hours ago, DMJ said:

Yup, his kayfabe brother Kane.

Wow , yes of course, obviously. But I answered thinking about guys who actually had some great matches, not dogshit workers (and dogshit human beings) like Glen Jacobs.

[KawadaSmile]

3 hours ago, El-P said:

Wow , yes of course, obviously. But I answered thinking about guys who actually had some great matches, not dogshit workers (and dogshit human beings) like Glen Jacobs.

Yeah, Kane is almost never regarded as a good worker on his own (actually good in tags) and certainly is not as revered as Taker, be it by fans or his peers.

[NintendoLogic]

Taker's in-ring track record prior to the Mankind feud might actually be worse than Kane's over the same time period. In fairness, he wasn't given much to work with.

[sek69]

I always felt Taker got a bad rap, he was stuck working with a lot of lugs for years. Once he was paired up with someone able to hold up their end of the deal his matches were usually good to great. Unfortunately by the time he was able to get a chance to show what he was capable of, his body was already breaking down. Dave famously said he heard people back in 1998 or so being like "I don't think Taker can make it another year, he's in bad shape". 

 

Also it really seems like Endeavor sees Vince as a bigger liability  by the day. Ari Emmanuel is making sure Vince doesn't have any creative control in WWE, and seems to be making sure he's more or less just kept at arm's length. Should be interesting to see how long Vince puts up with that. 

[pmo]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

Also it really seems like Endeavor sees Vince as a bigger liability  by the day. Ari Emmanuel is making sure Vince doesn't have any creative control in WWE, and seems to be making sure he's more or less just kept at arm's length. Should be interesting to see how long Vince puts up with that. 

Yeah there are few bigger cutthroats than Emanuel in show business, I mean multiple TV shows have parodied him.  Vince, even when not in the seemingly diminished mental state, has struggled outside of his wrestling bubble.  So it doesn’t surprise me that a guy like Emmanuel would blow smoke up Vinces ass and then turn around cut him out making the job a sinecure essentially.   I just wonder if he lowered the boom or was able to sweet talk Vince into letting it happen.

[El-P]

It's weird that it's not been discussed more. Vince basically already lost his power as far as creative goes what, one month after the fusion ? This is pretty big, since he basically came back and orchestrated his little coup for the sheer reason of remaining in complete power. Which I guess is a very good news for WWE fans as far as the product goes. But if I'm Nick Khan or Lesveque, I'd not feel super safe, it's obvious there's one guy who has the real power around here, and his name is not McMahon. This Emanuel guy sounds like a piece of work. Pulling out of the Saudi deal after they murdered and dismembered a journalist in an embassy, then going back because, hey, no one really cares and other companies are doing it so why not us ? He won't give a fuck cutting anyone if the results aren't what he expect.

1 hour ago, pmo said:

Yeah there are few bigger cutthroats than Emanuel in show business, I mean multiple TV shows have parodied him.  Vince, even when not in the seemingly diminished mental state, has struggled outside of his wrestling bubble.  So it doesn’t surprise me that a guy like Emmanuel would blow smoke up Vinces ass and then turn around cut him out making the job a sinecure essentially.   I just wonder if he lowered the boom or was able to sweet talk Vince into letting it happen.

You can always find someone more cynical and powerful and you. Also, one day, it will have to be told how the Vince story is a lot of embellishment. The guy was the most privileged pro-wrestling promoteur in the game. What made WWF the #1 company in the world is a mix of luck and predatory tactics. Vince is not as incredibly smart as people think he is, and as we are being told he is for 40 years by the suck-ups (hi Brucie). The idea that he got kinda fucked out of his power one month after he sold his company is pretty fucking funny.

[sek69]

Vince did have the balls to go all-in on the first Wrestlemania, but he was able to get to that point by being the son of the guy who's territory covered some of the biggest markets on the East Coast. Having NYC/Boston/Philly/DC/Baltimore/Pittsburgh in your area is going to make it a little easier to succeed than if your main market is some podunk southern or midwestern town .

[El-P]

18 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Vince did have the balls to go all-in on the first Wrestlemania, but he was able to get to that point by being the son of the guy who's territory covered some of the biggest markets on the East Coast. Having NYC/Boston/Philly/DC/Baltimore/Pittsburgh in your area is going to make it a little easier to succeed than if your main market is some podunk southern or midwestern town .

Yep. And he did so after buying the hottest new star in the business (and arguably the best heel of the time as his antagonist), who already had appeared in Rocky III thanks to Terry Funk, and who had the connection to Mr. T because of it too. Mr. T which was key in the mainstream success of WM, among other things (Cindy Lauper, which is an entire different story). The myth of the entrepreneur who had the instinct and the genius ideas and who started from nothing and bet everything he had and changed the world is, as always, complete bullshit. The Attitude Era was pure luck. Steve Austin never was supposed to get over and WCW self-destructed because of their own incompetence. How many "genius" creative ideas Vince really had over the years ? How many how his best ideas where actually Pat Patterson's ?  How many truly shitty ones he had ? How many years of his company treading water despite being the #1 company in the US ? Vince is the most successful promoter ever, for many many reasons, but he is also wildly overrated in so many aspects. Not even talking about his outside of wrestling ventures of course.