offical wwe thread

[Stefan]

sounds like something that someone who makes their children dig vinyl records out of widows' basements and attics on their weekends would say

.

 

[norton9478]

Now I'm dragging trash out of dumpsters.

The legend grows.

 

[norton9478]

What makes the difference between a good show and a bad show? Educate me.

Depends on who you ask.

 

[BanishingFlatsAC]

Why are they wasting Cage and risking Sting in dumb promo spots. Cinematic matches are fine, but FFS don’t cripple Steve Borden.

 

[norton9478]

Is there much attention paid to the writers? Does a particular writer coming on board suggest things might improve?

It was a big thing back in the late, late 90's when hotshot bookers/writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara went to WCW. But they produced shit that was worse than WWF/WCW had ever seen.

It doesn't matter what WWE has for writers today because Vince McMahon is a wanna-be Donald trump (but actually a billionaire unlike trump). He basically is still in charge of almost every detail and exercises complete veto power. Instead of writing for the the sake of engaging the audience, writers write shit that Vince McMahon will like.

 

[GohanX]

What makes the difference between a good show and a bad show? Educate me.

Bad show is anything remotely popular. Good show is obscure shit only fami is cool enough to watch. Fami is the hipster of wrestling.

 

[famicommander]

Bad show is anything remotely popular. Good show is obscure shit only fami is cool enough to watch. Fami is the hipster of wrestling.

The two promotions I follow most closely are owned by gigantic worldwide media conglomerates.

MLW is way, way more obscure than NJPW or ROH and I just spent half the night shitting on them, until AEW came on and deserved some shitting of its own. I liked AEW when it first launched, the posts are in this thread. Then they decided to suck. You can't tell me gender reveal parties, wedding segments, Shaq wrestling, Snoop Dogg off the top rope, Marko Stunt existing, Sting wrestling at 62, Tully Blanchard wrestling at 67, Chris Jericho song and dance numbers, Kenny Omega reading storybooks to children, and people still in wrestling school debuting on national TV makes for a good show.

I also enjoy shitting on NWA which is even smaller than MLW.

And the indie wrasslin' rabbit hole goes way deeper than that. True wrasslin' hipsters only watch GCW and Japanese women's promotions.

 

[norton9478]

NWA's first 10 shows were mostly good shows.

Despite what Fami says.

 

[famicommander]

NWA's first 10 shows were mostly good shows.

Despite what Fami says.

They sucked. Bad wrestling, more talking than wrestling, extremely low rent. The only decent content they put out was when ROH guys were on their cards. Now half those guys are in AEW.

 

[norton9478]

I haven't seen much AEW, but this is better than anything I have ever seen on AEW.

https://twitter.com/nwa/status/1184235147949936640?lang=en

 

[famicommander]

Konnan has been hospitalized with COVID. A few days ago it was said his life was in danger but he appears to be through the worst of it and hopes to be discharged by Monday. Scary stuff considering he is a kidney transplant recipient.

 

[famicommander]

Throwback Thursday from Ring of Honor Final Battle 2003. This was the breakout year for Satoshi Kojima as he also worked Tokyo Dome for NJPW, held the MLW World Heavyweight Championship, won the Zero-1 Fire Festival, and in AJPW held the World Tag Team Championship and won the Champion Carnival, the Korakuen Battle Royal, and World's Strongest Determination Tag League.

 

[famicommander]

NJPW uploaded some stuff from New Year's Dash 2020 for their Roku episode this week. I guess their new weekly show is going to be 13 and a half months out of date? Pretty disappointing if they don't start uploading fresher content. I don't want to go back to sifting through 4 or 5 cards at 3-4 hours each every week trying to figure out which matches will actually end up mattering. NJPW puts out way, way too much stuff to not have a curated show keeping everybody current.

 

[BanishingFlatsAC]

NJPW uploaded some stuff from New Year's Dash 2020 for their Roku episode this week. I guess their new weekly show is going to be 13 and a half months out of date? Pretty disappointing if they don't start uploading fresher content. I don't want to go back to sifting through 4 or 5 cards at 3-4 hours each every week trying to figure out which matches will actually end up mattering. NJPW puts out way, way too much stuff to not have a curated show keeping everybody current.

NJPW apparently turned down several big dollar offers for a weekly show, to go to Roku. They wanted a platform where they could easily track metrics on who is watching the show and for how long. They're gonna use it to gauge interest in bringing a full on weekly show to the US later on down the road.

 

[famicommander]

NJPW apparently turned down several big dollar offers for a weekly show, to go to Roku. They wanted a platform where they could easily track metrics on who is watching the show and for how long. They're gonna use it to gauge interest in bringing a full on weekly show to the US later on down the road.

I heard they turned down a return to AXS but nothing more than that.

There aren't many networks in a position to offer "big money" to a wrestling promotion. Anybody owned by Fox or NBC is automatically out because they air WWE. Warner Bros airs AEW and I would think they'd take another AEW show before they took one from a different promotion. ViacomCBS booted Impact off two of their networks already (first Spike which is now Paramount, then Pop).

So off the bat that eliminates Fox, FS1/FS2, NBC, NBCSN, USA, E!, Bravo, SyFy, Peacock, HBO/HBO Max, The CW, Cinemax, TruTV, TBS, TNT, CBS, CBSSN, Showtime, Paramount Network, Paramount+, MTV, VH1, BET, Pop, Comedy Central, etc. I didn't list their news channels or kids channels because they're obviously not happening, and the other channels those companies own are tiny.

So that pretty much just leaves Disney networks (ESPN, ABC, Freeform, FX, FXX, Hulu, Disney+, etc), AMC, or WGN as far as networks big enough to be considered an upgrade over AXS. Or maybe a streamer like Netflix or Amazon.

 

[BanishingFlatsAC]

I heard they turned down a return to AXS but nothing more than that.

There aren't many networks in a position to offer "big money" to a wrestling promotion. Anybody owned by Fox or NBC is automatically out because they air WWE. Warner Bros airs AEW and I would think they'd take another AEW show before they took one from a different promotion. ViacomCBS booted Impact off two of their networks already (first Spike which is now Paramount, then Pop).

So off the bat that eliminates Fox, FS1/FS2, NBC, NBCSN, USA, E!, Bravo, SyFy, Peacock, HBO/HBO Max, The CW, Cinemax, TruTV, TBS, TNT, CBS, CBSSN, Showtime, Paramount Network, Paramount+, MTV, VH1, BET, Pop, Comedy Central, etc. I didn't list their news channels or kids channels because they're obviously not happening, and the other channels those companies own are tiny.

So that pretty much just leaves Disney networks (ESPN, ABC, Freeform, FX, FXX, Hulu, Disney+, etc), AMC, or WGN as far as networks big enough to be considered an upgrade over AXS. Or maybe a streamer like Netflix or Amazon.

My money would be on Netflix.

 

[famicommander]

My money would be on Netflix.

That would be amazing and I hope it happens but I really, really don't see it.

It would be pretty strange for Netflix to shell out a bunch of cash for them when the last time they had a US TV show they were well behind WWE, ROH, and Impact, battling it out with everybody's favorite dead promotion:

If anything NJPW is less popular now than they were then, for the same reason ROH is: all the talent that departed both promotions to form AEW.

Prior to the pandemic their live crowds in the US were around the same tier as ROH, Impact, and MLW: anywhere from 500 to 2500 people. There's just nothing that would indicate they're capable of getting a TV deal on the level of AEW, let alone WWE. I mean, the AXS show has been off the air for well over a year and all they have to show for it is Roku Channel, where you can already find MLW and ROH every week.

 

[jro]

JR refers to Omega as WWE champion

Then we get a cringeworthy segment with Kenny Omega reading a book to school kids

That "are they in love" quote cracked me up but yeah, awful for the other 99%. Now that cover will always be two dudes in love staring at each other's junk.

 

[famicommander]

MLW has hidden the like/dislike ratio on their videos now and they're deleting any negative comments from the comment section and banning anyone who criticizes the product from the live chat.

They banned me a couple weeks back for asking why they have so many squash matches.

 

[famicommander]

The winner of the US bracket of the AEW women's title shot tournament has leaked out

Spoiler:

Nyla Rose. Not Britt Baker or Thunder Rosa, two actual stars that are good at wrestling and who fans actually care about. Nyla Rose.

 

[famicommander]

https://www.f4wonline.com/new-japan-news/njpw-significant-talks-return-axs-tv-333681

Looks like AXS is probably gonna happen after all. I guess NJPW is just holding out for a more favorable deal.

 

[famicommander]

Moxley is everywhere right now.

Only problem with this is the outcome to title matches.

If Moxley beats KENTA, NJPW is still stuck with a part-timer who can't easily get in and out of Japan holding one of their belts.

If Moxley loses to KENTA, then nobody will buy him as a credible threat to Omega. If he then loses to Omega he's pretty much buried losing two straight title matches. If he beats Omega then the booking essentially says that the IWGP US Title > AEW World Title.

I'm sure Bullet Club shenanigans will be involved in one or both of the outcomes but it's still an example of how these working agreements are usually better on paper than in practice.

Or maybe they're going to have him lose both matches and write him off TV for a bit to be with his pregnant wife?

 

[famicommander]

If I'm Anthem I do what it takes to get NJPW on AXS again. They were shortsighted to boot them and Women of Wrestling off to begin with. Their channel isn't particularly well known but the one thing they did have was a history of airing wrestling. They aired ROH before Sinclair bought them, then NJPW and WOW. They can carve out a niche as the wrestling channel. Nobody watches anything else they air anyway.

We know that ROH and MLW don't do exclusive deals because their shows air everywhere. Anthem already airs ROH on Fight Network in Canada. So it probably wouldn't be too difficult for Anthem to syndicate ROH and MLW too. Throw in NJPW Strong too, and Xplosion.

That way every single fan of a US wrestling show outside the top two promotions can come to AXS TV to watch it. Before the Impact, Impact, Xplosion, NJPW's main show, NJPW Strong, MLW Fusion, ROH TV. Bring back Women of Wrestling too; the LA Lakers own the promotion and they have no plans to shut it down.

Then they could have wrestling on every night. Or they could do programming blocks.
Mondays - ROH
Tuesdays - Before the Impact and Impact
Wednesdays - MLW
Thursdays - NJPW
Fridays - NJPW Strong
Saturdays - Xplosion
Sundays - Women of Wrestling

Or make blocks and avoid counter-programming Dynamite, Raw, Smackdown, and NXT
Tuesdays - Before the Impact, Impact
Thursdays - NJPW, NJPW Strong, ROH
Saturdays or Sundays - WOW, MLW, Xplosion

That would be more meaningful co-promotion than a few wrestlers or belts hopping between shows temporarily.

 

[famicommander]

Nick Aldis says multiple AEW guys have made a terrible impression among the roster in Impact. We know one of them was Sammy Guevara as he was supposed to go to Impact for a few tapings but tried to change all his matches via text messages and was banned from entering the tapings upon arrival and sent back to Jacksonville.

As far as the others, the only ones to appear so far are
Matt Hardy, who has had two separate runs with Impact
Private Party
Kenny Omega, whose friendship with fellow Canadians and Impact executives Callis and D'Amore is why this relationship happened to begin with

So it sounds like Private Party has been a pain in the ass. Could be them refusing to take a pin at the PPV, which resulted in Impact throwing Sabin and Storm into that match.

 

[famicommander]

Arn Anderson called out WWE for having a rapper on their show. He says nobody wants to see celebrities in wrestling and their matches suck.

He's right, of course. So what the fuck is AEW doing with Shaq, Mike Tyson, Snoop Dogg? Does Arn not remember he's managing a guy in a mixed gender tag team match against a 48 year old basketball player and a girl literally still in wrestling school?