The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

I skipped Smackdown, because who the fuck cares at this point? I'm hearing that The Rock had a good segment though, which has been the norm throughout this entire thing.

I don't know if LA Knight has it in him, but he needs to have a match of the year contender at Mania as a "fuck you" to WWE and the way they've booked him. It's certainly possible with an opponent like AJ Styles. I hope they have an "Ospreay/Takeshita at Revolution" quality Mania match and steal the whole fucking show because he's been the most interesting thing in that company in months, other than Drew's heel turn, and the Bayley face turn. If you're someone who follows AEW and WWE, seeing Bayley at Dynamite and that funny video she put on Twitter just makes you want to root for her more at Mania. Hoping her match with Iyo and LA Knight's match with AJ Styles are 5 star classics. Poor Chad Gable, it doesn't look like he will even BE at Mania. Imagine having a Wrestlemania years ago without Kurt fucking Angle on it. Also, Booker T reported that Sami Zayne is very upset with the backlash he's gotten from the fans. I sympathize, but it's not HIS fault, It's WWE's fault.

EDIT: You know if AEW and WWE put their petty rivalry aside, Mercedes Monet could help BOTH companies grow. Bayley is embroiled in a feud with Damage Control. Naomi is helping her out, but the numbers game is still completely against them. A lot of WWE fans expected Mercedes to return and help Bayley, having no idea she's been signed with AEW for two months prior to her debut there. You could STILL do that. She could be in Bayley's corner at Mania along with Naomi, and WWE could promote what she's doing at AEW.

I wonder sometimes if this is actually the REAL key to both companies growing their audience, which they are NOT doing on their own. I'm just saying, I would fully support a future that looks like this:

[Raging Justice]

The Rock is doing some of the best promo work of his career. Talking about Cody's mom, taking the kid friendly Moana and turning it into something very sinister, Jesus. He's a fucking psycho, but so fucking entertaining half of the crowd still wants to cheer for him (and his crowd reactions have been insane by the way). Also, as a board member, he's like this megalomaniacal, modern Vince McMahon now. Even scarier than Vince because he has that star power and Hollywood backing. Every now and then he just comes out with it in his promos, "The Rock is on the board, he can just strip that clown emoji jabroni of the world title if he feels like it!!!"

It's fucking great honestly.

Meanwhile, Cody is crying like a bitch on TV with his crocodile tears, and as usual is trying to use his parents as a way to manipulate the audience like he always does. "Sob, sob...my mom. sob, sob...The American Dream. Sob...sob"

"Are you f**king kidding me? You start f**king crying? You start crying? That's how you respond? 'I can't give the belt to Dusty, but I can give it to my Mama. I can give it to my mommy.' Shut the f**k up," - The Rock

I wish Christian was in WWE right now







The dude is literally Homelander, the most insincere piece of shit you'll ever see. Here's a surprisingly, fucking, great comment from the former Dolph Ziggler

"I appreciate this two-year story, I really do. I just think it's so funny that finishing the story isn't like the end of the storyline, it's like 'No, he has to win 'cause his dad wasn't champion.' That's the story?"





Anyway,

“Regarding Shayna Baszler at Bloodsport and other WWE talent doing indie dates that week, we were told it was a Paul Levesque decision and that Paul Levesque has a different view on these things than Vince McMahon had.”

"Shayna Baszler announced for GCW Bloodsport. More WWE talent expected to be announced"

[Reprise]

I hate the whole 'finishing the story' angle.

"What's the 'story'?"

"To win the world title"

"But that's what everyone wants... It's the whole point of being a wrestler. And that's not a 'story'..."

"But my father..."

[Raging Justice]

Nice to have the forum back, though I can't shake the feeling that we lost a page or two in this thread. A lot's happened in wrestling right around the time the forum crashed and I had no place to share my thoughts. Did you have to go done right before Wrestlemania weekend? LOL

I'm actually pretty down on wrestling right now, at least as far as the big two are concerned. WWE is officially dead to me right now. Mania went down exactly as expected, boring, predictable, and not worth discussing at all. The people saying it was one of the greatest ever with the best main event of all time really need to seek mental help. At this point, I really do think WWE fanboys/fangirls are some of the most delusional people on the planet. The product is worse than ever right now, and Wrestlemania sucked. Also, WHY THE FUCK DID THE UNDERTAKER JUST RANDOMLY SHOW UP IN THE MAIN EVENT FOR NO APPARENT REASON!?!?!

Is that "cinema" and "storytelling"?

AEW embarrassed itself with that CM Punk footage and I see some places online literally claiming once again that AEW is dying and on it's way out. I don't actually believe that and think it's just closet AEW haters saying this, but it just shows that the product is not in a good place. I don't know if it's true, but I'm hearing that their attendance is not in a good place right now. Mercedes Monet has been a flop. The women's division has more potential than ever, but is being held down by that joke that is Toni Storm, and the way they have used Mina Shirakawa and AZM so far does not inspire hope, which is a shame. Those are some immensely talented women. I am enjoying Okada and Ospreay still though, and Swerve/Samoa Joe has been enjoyable, though it lost a little something with Hangman out of the equation. I'm not really sure what to make of Moxley being the NJPW World Champion, but I guess it makes things interesting for Forbidden Door and at least makes Mox feel like a big deal again



Things are fascinating on the women's side of pro wrestling right now. Battle lines have been drawn. Stardom and Tony Kahn are clearly working together now with AZM, Mina Shirakawa, Tam Nakano, Saya Kamitani, Mei Seira, Mohmo Kogo, and Maika appearing on American TV. In fact, Stardom just seems interested in America in general. Tam and some of the other girls worked three shows in Philly including Spark, ROH, and Stardom's own show during Mania weekend, and some of them were in the audience it seems for Mania itself. I think this was the first time some of these ladies were in America. Meanwhile, WWE pulled the trigger and showed Giulia and Rossy Ogawa on TV, apparently without telling Giulia ahead of time as she did not seem prepared to be on camera. It's all but been confirmed that she will be debuting in NXT at some point. Meanwhile, Ogawa has announced his new promotion Marigold and it does seem that it will have ties to WWE. So there you go, Marigold/WWE vs. Stardom/AEW(ROH). Ironically, rivals Tam and Giulia are on opposite sides of this thing LOL. To further drive my point home about battle lines, both Kenny Omega and Tony Kahn have bad mouthed Rossy Ogawa, a guy who clearly is in WWE's good graces right now, while Tony Kahn has also praised Stardom's new management. I read a rumor that Ogawa wants to get Kairi and Iyo to make an appearance on a Marigold show, not out of the question with Shayna Bazler being on a GCW show, where she decisively beat Masha Slamovich (who is kind of a big deal outside of WWE/AEW). WWE is officially working with other companies and Marigold is probably very high on that list.






The Stardom match at Supercard of Honor was great. It was surreal to see these girls in front of an American crowd. To put things in perspective, that match featured the world champion, the former world champion, the high speed champion, a former high speed champion, and I think three former white belt holders (Stardom's main secondary title, though some believe it's on par with the world title). So yeah, Stardom sent some real high level talent to Tony for that show. The women's matches on Supercard of Honor were great, maybe the strongest AEW/ROH PPV we've had in terms of women's action. Although I hated the finish to the Aminata/Starks match and I think Shida should have taken the title off Athena. Anyway, we also had AZM on Rampage and Collision. With Utami in Marigold, I guess maybe AZM's the face of Queen's Quest now. So much potential in her, she's so young. Mina was on Dynamite too. I think Tony Kahn is high on her the same way WWE is high on Giulia. Both of these girls have international appeal. Tam Nakano and Natsupoi are two of Stardom's biggest stars though, but I doubt we'll see them on anything other than Forbidden Door shows, but I could be wrong and hope I am. I saw a billboard in Japan for an upcoming Stardom show with Tam and Natsupoi front and center and they had that funny tiktok video not long ago with the new boss too. I think Tam is their biggest merch seller

Getting away from Stardom talk, I watched some of TJPW's big show Grand Princess and the Minoru Suzuki vs Maki Itoh match was great, apart from one camera shot where you could clearly see Itoh's punches not making contact with the old man's head when she mounted him in the corner (that sounded dirty LOL). AEW's Emi Sakura teamed with Chris Brookes (who is awesome) to face ROH's Yuka Sakazaki and Mizuki, known in TJPW as the Magical Sugar Rabbits. It was a fun match laced with humor, just like Suzuki/Itoh. I have to watch the rest of the show. Mizuki has this amazing looking move where she twirls in the air, I think maybe R Truth is the only other person I've seen do it. Brookes thinks he's a joshi LOL so I guess this is technically NOT an intergender match LOL. Sakura is one of AEW's most underappreciated wrestlers, I think her gimmick just doesn't gel with American audiences.

[Reprise]

I can't believe the forum went down just as

1. Punk buried AEW in a 'tell all' interview with the Ariel WWE mark softball questions guy,
2. It was Mania weekend
3. We had an awesome ROH show
4. AEW/Tony shot themselves in the foot and did something stupid again

Too much to catch up on and it would too exhausting to attempt to. Mania was dull and predictable, Punk is a narcissist, Mone has flopped (although she hasn't wrestled yet... Give it time and let's see her turn heel) and Tony Khan is a child.

I'll just say I am really looking forward to Dynasty tomorrow.

Also, it is a shame that the narrative surrounding AEW shifts so rapidly and in an almost schizophrenic fashion. One dumb move (which, by the way, actually does make sense within the context of the story as it's obviously building towards Jack Perry's return tomorrow to help the and join the Elite) and we're back to "AEW is dying lol", when up until that point it has generally been accepted that AEW has been on the up lately, with much better shows, Swerve looking like a star, Revolution being one of the best PPVs in the company's history (doing 180,000 buys) and them picking up Ospreay, Mone and Okada.

It's mostly just people who hated the company helping kick it when it's down, along with lame wrestling "influencers"/pages just going with tabloid clickbait trash, I imagine.

I will say 5 years in though it's clear AEW is no competitor to WWE. There is no war and if there ever was, AEW lost. They should caring about WWE, stop taking embarrassing shots, stop thinking about Punk and just concentrate on improving their product and making it the best it can be. The only way AEW can grow its audience is by being more like WWE (which would be pointless) and there's no point doing that when WWE is so popular.

[Raging Justice]

I can't believe the forum went down just as

1. Punk buried AEW in a 'tell all' interview with the Ariel WWE mark softball questions guy,
2. It was Mania weekend
3. We had an awesome ROH show
4. AEW/Tony shot themselves in the foot and did something stupid again

Too much to catch up on and it would too exhausting to attempt to. Mania was dull and predictable, Punk is a narcissist, Mone has flopped (although she hasn't wrestled yet... Give it time and let's see her turn heel) and Tony Khan is a child.

I'll just say I am really looking forward to Dynasty tomorrow.

Also, it is a shame that the narrative surrounding AEW shifts so rapidly and in an almost schizophrenic fashion. One dumb move (which, by the way, actually does make sense within the context of the story as it's obviously building towards Jack Perry's return tomorrow to help the and join the Elite) and we're back to "AEW is dying lol", when up until that point it has generally been accepted that AEW has been on the up lately, with much better shows, Swerve looking like a star, Revolution being one of the best PPVs in the company's history (doing 180,000 buys) and them picking up Ospreay, Mone and Okada.

It's mostly just people who hated the company helping kick it when it's down, along with lame wrestling "influencers"/pages just going with tabloid clickbait trash, I imagine.

I will say 5 years in though it's clear AEW is no competitor to WWE. There is no war and if there ever was, AEW lost. They should caring about WWE, stop taking embarrassing shots, stop thinking about Punk and just concentrate on improving their product and making it the best it can be. The only way AEW can grow its audience is by being more like WWE (which would be pointless) and there's no point doing that when WWE is so popular.

To your point about Jack Perry, he had a match on the recent NJPW show and the crowd reactions were awesome. Half of the crowd hated him and were of course doing CM Punk chants, but surprisingly the other half of the crowd seemed firmly on his side...IN CHICAGO

The commentators were clearly confused about what to say given the mixed reactions he was getting.

"The world is against Perry"

"Are you sure about that? He's got some supporters here"

[Reprise]

I can't believe the forum went down just as

1. Punk buried AEW in a 'tell all' interview with the Ariel WWE mark softball questions guy,
2. It was Mania weekend
3. We had an awesome ROH show
4. AEW/Tony shot themselves in the foot and did something stupid again

Too much to catch up on and it would too exhausting to attempt to. Mania was dull and predictable, Punk is a narcissist, Mone has flopped (although she hasn't wrestled yet... Give it time and let's see her turn heel) and Tony Khan is a child.

I'll just say I am really looking forward to Dynasty tomorrow.

Also, it is a shame that the narrative surrounding AEW shifts so rapidly and in an almost schizophrenic fashion. One dumb move (which, by the way, actually does make sense within the context of the story as it's obviously building towards Jack Perry's return tomorrow to help the and join the Elite) and we're back to "AEW is dying lol", when up until that point it has generally been accepted that AEW has been on the up lately, with much better shows, Swerve looking like a star, Revolution being one of the best PPVs in the company's history (doing 180,000 buys) and them picking up Ospreay, Mone and Okada.

It's mostly just people who hated the company helping kick it when it's down, along with lame wrestling "influencers"/pages just going with tabloid clickbait trash, I imagine.

I will say 5 years in though it's clear AEW is no competitor to WWE. There is no war and if there ever was, AEW lost. They should caring about WWE, stop taking embarrassing shots, stop thinking about Punk and just concentrate on improving their product and making it the best it can be. The only way AEW can grow its audience is by being more like WWE (which would be pointless) and there's no point doing that when WWE is so popular.

To your point about Jack Perry, he had a match on the recent NJPW show and the crowd reactions were awesome. Half of the crowd hated him and were of course doing CM Punk chants, but surprisingly the other half of the crowd seemed firmly on his side...IN CHICAGO

The commentators were clearly confused about what to say given the mixed reactions he was getting.

"The world is against Perry"

"Are you sure about that? He's got some supporters here"

Yeah, I saw. It was kinda awesome to see. There was some great back and forth chants.

[Raging Justice]

I don't think there's a war between AEW and WWE in the same sense as the 90s, where WCW presented a very real existential threat to Vince McMahon. However, it does feel like WWE does do a lot of things in response to AEW. They are just a bit more subtle than AEW. Like we have the big Stardom debut on Supercard of Honor where these girls get to show their stuff to a potentially new audience and immediately the next day, we get Giulia and Rossy Ogawa on camera during the NXT pay per view. Giulia looked blindsided and later stated that she didn't know that the camera was on her and thought that the crowd was cheering for someone else.

Triple H does throw shade at AEW from time to time, but again, he's not quite as obvious about it as the 13 year old child that is Tony Kahn. He doesn't have a wrestler do a whole TV segment talking about the competition, but he'll do a press conference where he says something like, "WWE is only competing with itself right now" knowing full well that journalists will put headlines the next day about how WWE doesn't see AEW as competition.

He knows what he's doing.

[Reprise]

Triple H and WWE throw shade and take shots all the time. In fact, it was getting pretty intense in the week leading up to Mania, with everyone from Cole, Punk, HHH, Rhea, Pat McAfee (and I forget who else) taking shots. It felt pretty coordinated.

It's definitely subtler though. In some ways, it does make Triple H look like a bit of a douchebag at times tbh. When he was asked about how he felt about missing out on a few big signings lately and he made that comment about how if they don't come to WWE because "they don't want to put in the grind" or whatever it was he said, then he doesn't want them anyways, I kinda just thought he sounded like a nobhead. Even if Ospreay's response was unnecessary and cringeworthy (who knows if he was even talking about Ospreay?). Seriously, AEW just needs to ignore it. Every time they respond, it makes them look inferior and amateur. I get they're trying to revitalise that spark during the 90s, and trying to appear to be the underdog fighting back, but it just isn't working. I don't even believe the company and Tony are often as angry and full of rage as they are often portrayed as being, I just think it's partly a misguided marketing strategy (like "Sega does what Nintendon't" and those adverts Sega did showing off SNES gameplay to demonstrate how "slow" the console was), when that kind of direct and aggressive marketing doesn't really work anymore.

I hope things settle down for AEW and they stick to putting on solid shows and ignoring WWE, because I prefer what they have on offer and I don't want to see them struggle.

[Raging Justice]

Yeah, beating WWE isn't possible. They have too big a grip on people's minds. Some people will always see them as the best thing ever no matter what. Some people are just so blindly loyal (and some are just delusional). "I've been watching WWE my whole life and I'm not gonna stop". For some people it's a generational thing, "I watched WWE with my dad and now I watch it with my kids". And for some people, WWE literally is professional wrestling. Like you tell some people you watch wrestling and they come back with, "Oh, you like that WWE stuff". If you talk about AEW or New Japan or even mention Japanese wrestling at all they'll just look at you funny. And lastly, some people only like whatever they view as most popular or mainstream. I generally view people like that as having no taste, but clearly that's not a view that everyone shares.

It is what it is.

AEW needs to just focus on putting out the best product possible, while understanding that even if you do there will be people who hate it. I've seen people online hate on literally every single wrestler there is and every type of wrestling there is. No community is more diverse in there opinions than pro wrestling fans. You'll never get anything that is universally praised or loved in pro wrestling. Plus, no one hates wrestling more than online wrestling fans, they'll always complain about something even if AEW or WWE had the most perfect product possible.

I hope Dynasty is great. It seems a bit unpredictable. I think Swerve and Samoa Joe could go either way, same for Julia and Willow, though I'm inclined to think that they'll keep the belt on Julia. Willow has gotten a big push since Mercedes showed up though, due to their history. Her and Julia have benefitted tremendously from Mercedes being there. There's interesting stuff surrounding Toni Storm and good talents interacting with her (Mina Shirakawa, Mariah May, Thunder Rosa, Deonna Purrazzo), but her lame character and dumb gimmick just ruin everything she's attached to for me. Get the belt off of her already so we can focus on some serious feuds and serious story lines. I'm starting to hate Toni Storm fans as much as Cody fans as they act like she's playing this brilliant, compelling character with an amazing story when it's literally just a dumb comedy gimmick that people are ascribing way more too than what AEW actually puts on screen. Toni Storm having a mental break could have been an interesting angle, but they never actually told that story. Timeless Toni Storm fans are praising this brilliant story that AEW never actually told...just like Cody fans. It's delusional. Here's some insane post I saw on a forum, word for word:

"She is absolutely killing it in AEW has to be one of the most compelling characters/gimmicks in wrestling at the moment, Improved leaps and bounds with her promo work.

One of TK's best signees from the fed she's right up there with Mox and Danielson easily the best woman they have."



I also don't know why they keep Athena in ROH. She's so good they should have promoted her to AEW by now, and let Shida have the ROH women's title. It's a good fit for a part timer like her, and it's another thing in Shida's career that she could brag about. That crowd at Supercard of Honor WANTED Shida to win.

Queen Aminata is someone I see great potential in by the way. She looked like a million bucks on that show and I love her HARD hitting strikes.

Bryan/Ospreay might be a show stealer tomorrow, so could Pac and Okada. FTR/Bucks will of course be great, how could it not be? Everything on the card looks great except maybe Jericho/Hook. Jericho is so directionless right now. Him being on his own has not been good, and losing Judas just gives crowds no reason to look forward to seeing him now. Maybe it's time they put him in a manager role for someone, just as a straight baby face. I Kind of wish Jericho could be consistent in choosing a Darby to his Sting. First it was Sammy, then MJF, then Garcia, and now this Hook thing. Stick Jericho with someone and just be consistent with it or put him back in a faction. I feel like all of Jericho's best work in AEW has involved him being in a faction. Everything's gone down hill since he started to go on his own. The Jericho Appreciation Society was the last time it felt like AEW was utilizing him well. A faction also keeps Jericho out of singles matches, which a lot of people seem to not want to see him in lately