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Raging Justice
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by Raging Justice Sat Aug 20, 2022 2:57 pm

Lot of drama now with CM Punk going into business for himself and doing an unscripted promo last Wednesday burying former champion Adam Page. All this amongst talk that there is a lot of drama happening behind the scenes in the locker room. It's starting to becoming clear why Cody Rhodes left AEW. This is starting to sound a lot like WCW when things started going downhill in that company or when things started going south in TNA.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/rece ... -wrestlers
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by Raging Justice Tue Sep 06, 2022 4:33 am

Aaaaand now we have Punk completely going into business for himself during a media scrum swearing and going off on Colt Cabana, The Young Bucks, Omega, and calling Hangman an empty headed, f***ing idiot. Tony Kahn was looking pretty uncomfortable, but awkwardly nodding in agreement with some of Punk's comments and you could tell that Punk, not the actual owner of the company Tony Kahn, was the boss and running the show. This was embarrassing for Tony Kahn

This was followed by a back stage brawl involving Punk, the Bucks, Omega, and one of Punk's friends Ace Steel who is a producer there. Steel's wife was there too but wasn't hurt. Steel apparently bit Omega and threw a chair at Nick Jackson giving him a black eye. You could actually see security running back there at one point during the media scrum

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/cm-p ... um=twitter

So the champ, the executive vice presidents, and the producer all got into a backstage brawl. Crazy. Apparently we have a civil war brewing between the people who were the heart and soul of AEW (Omega, Hangman, and the Bucks) and CM Punk along with all of his friends (FTR, Ace Steel) and his lapdog Tony Kahn

No wonder Cody Rhodes left AEW. I guess he saw the writing on the wall. It seems like CM Punk will ultimately be the downfall of AEW. Though something must also be said for Tony Kahn's lack of leadership. Punk is not the only talent getting out of hand, but he certainly seems to be the one causing the most trouble and reportedly things were great backstage with people getting along...until the company signed CM Punk

All of this while WWE's ratings are going up, their shows are getting mostly good press (despite a few boneheaded booking decisions these past two or three weeks involving some of their titles), and the overall future of the company is looking brighter than ever. There's also reports that many people within WWE are wondering what the hell is going on in AEW right now with all this backstage madness.

What a mess. Was WCW like this before they went out of business, did things get this bad?
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by Raging Justice Thu Sep 08, 2022 1:49 am

Tony Kahn made a live appearance tonight and got booed. Wow. So ONCE AGAIN, the company is without a world champion as Punk is not only suspended...but injured...AGAIN. Is Punk's body made out of glass?

No Trios champs either as the Bucks and Omega have been suspended 3 days after winning those titles. Hangman seems to be the only guy not being punished by Tony Kahn, which is fitting, since all of these problems started when that idiot Kahn took the title off of him. Hangman got massive pops at the PPV. Things would be so much better if he was still the champ. Hangman saying he needed to protect AEW from Punk before being forced to drop the title to him was prophetic. It's a good thing he was not around when that brawl happened.

This has been an embarrassing week for AEW. There was even an article in ESPN about that disaster of a media scrum.

Oh well, this thread is pretty dead so I should just stop posting.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:02 am

I appreciate the updates! I wouldn’t really know what’s going on otherwise.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by Raging Justice Tue Sep 13, 2022 12:35 am

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I appreciate the updates! I wouldn’t really know what’s going on otherwise.


I'm gonna leave a link because this is fascinating to watch in the same way a car crash is. Seeing a guy publicly embarrass an entire company and throw its entire roster under the bus with the CEO sitting right next to him looking uncomfortable the whole time, right after that guy just became the company's world champion...and moments before he would then get into a fight backstage that we are now being told involved a number of talent and was witnessed by the chief legal officer of the company.

I'm also going to post the awkward follow up a few days later where Kahn has to vacate both the world title and the trios title without even giving the audience or viewers an explanation. This is because the backstage fight involved both Punk, the world champ, and the trios champs. They all had to be suspended, along with everyone else who was involved in order for an investigation to be conducted for legal reasons. You can actually briefly hear the crowd booing Tony Kahn after he appears onscreen, which may be the first time that has ever happened. He looks like a joke after that media scrum. Anyway, by vacating the titles he made everything that happened on the pay per view days earlier meaningless, so it's like everyone who paid for it paid for nothing...and all because of CM Punk being an immature, unprofessional, toxic, jerk and Tony Kahn being an ineffective leader who didn't shut up Punk and put him in his place once he started going off the rails at the media scrum.

On a funny side note, Kahn announced a tournament to crown a new world champion, and in naming the participants he actually tried to put some of them over by referencing their multiple title wins in WWE....which is just embarrassing. It's like saying, "yeah, these guys are special not because of anything they did here, but because of their multiple title reigns in WWE". Bryan Danielson literally has no title wins in AEW...so when Kahn calls him a 6x time world champion, he is effectively insulting the intelligence of his audience since Bryan has won none of those titles in AEW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBAvjOYD6hs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6r_KkXXTt4
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by prfsnl_gmr Tue Sep 13, 2022 11:36 am

It sounds like AEW’s collapsing, and I think it will collapse if they don’t right the ship soon.

What I saw with WCW in the ‘90s was an increasing reliance on old talent. The promotion started doing well, and became a viable challenger to the WWE, when it started promoting new talent with just a touch of old talent for context and name recognition. You had wrestlers like Conan, Goldberg, The Giant, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Raven, and lot of other wrestlers that built their reputation at either WCW or an independent promotion, like ECW. It also recruited some of the WWE’s most exciting younger talent (e.g. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, etc.). It fell apart when, after it became more popular, older, big name wrestlers from the ‘80s (e.g., Hogan, Randy Savage, etc.) took over. At that point, it was a lot of overpaid older guys trying desperately to stay relevant and less exciting rematches from over a decade ago.

When WCW started recruiting a lot of established talent, the WWE was forced to start promoting more of its younger talent. Incredibly talented performers like Steve Austin, HHH, The Rock, etc. got more attention, and some of the wrestlers that had been serving as “jobbers” actually got real matches they weren’t required to lose. The product just became so much more exciting, and while WCW’s product started stagnating, the WWE’s product really took off.

I hope AEW can right the ship since I think the industry is more exciting with more competition. I am not hopeful, however. It sound like Tony Khan is falling into the same trap that doomed WCW: relying too much on wrestlers past their heyday that built their reputations in the WWE. To get things back on track, he should keep a few of the best, most exciting talent (that are good team players and willing to share the spotlight) and then focus much more on establishing new, homegrown talent. We’ll see, I guess!
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by Raging Justice Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:28 pm

prfsnl_gmr wrote:It sounds like AEW’s collapsing, and I think it will collapse if they don’t right the ship soon.

What I saw with WCW in the ‘90s was an increasing reliance on old talent. The promotion started doing well, and became a viable challenger to the WWE, when it started promoting new talent with just a touch of old talent for context and name recognition. You had wrestlers like Conan, Goldberg, The Giant, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Raven, and lot of other wrestlers that built their reputation at either WCW or an independent promotion, like ECW. It also recruited some of the WWE’s most exciting younger talent (e.g. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, etc.). It fell apart when, after it became more popular, older, big name wrestlers from the ‘80s (e.g., Hogan, Randy Savage, etc.) took over. At that point, it was a lot of overpaid older guys trying desperately to stay relevant and less exciting rematches from over a decade ago.

When WCW started recruiting a lot of established talent, the WWE was forced to start promoting more of its younger talent. Incredibly talented performers like Steve Austin, HHH, The Rock, etc. got more attention, and some of the wrestlers that had been serving as “jobbers” actually got real matches they weren’t required to lose. The product just became so much more exciting, and while WCW’s product started stagnating, the WWE’s product really took off.

I hope AEW can right the ship since I think the industry is more exciting with more competition. I am not hopeful, however. It sound like Tony Khan is falling into the same trap that doomed WCW: relying too much on wrestlers past their heyday that built their reputations in the WWE. To get things back on track, he should keep a few of the best, most exciting talent (that are good team players and willing to share the spotlight) and then focus much more on establishing new, homegrown talent. We’ll see, I guess!


At worst, they end up like WCW, which means out of business. At best, they end up like TNA/Impact, which means still in business, but with like 80% of their former audience gone.

On another note, I have complained about the world title situation in AEW...which is a mess. In fairness, I have to criticize WWE's title situation, which is not much better. Two of the company's three world titles (if we count the NXT world title) are being held hostage by Roman Reigns...a part timer, for over two years now. They blew a golden opportunity to drop at least one of those titles to Drew McIntyre at Clash at the Castle in front of a crowd that very much wanted him to win. Now, they are building up Roman's next double title defense against Logan Paul, some youtube celebrity who has been in WWE for barely longer than a cup of coffee. What a joke.

Both companies need to sort out their world title situations because it's making both companies look stupid. In a perfect world, Drew McIntyre would be holding one or both world titles in WWE, and Adam Page would STILL be holding the world title in AEW having never dropped it to the disaster that was CM Punk.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by prfsnl_gmr Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:47 am

Raging Justice wrote:[Now, they are building up Roman's next double title defense against Logan Paul, some youtube celebrity who has been in WWE for barely longer than a cup of coffee. What a joke.


Yuck! This sounds awful.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by RCBH928 Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:08 pm

-Rick Flair retirement match? I watched this on wrestlemania over 14 years ago in 2008. Didn't know Jim productions was still a thing.

-I have not been following AEW. From What I hear from you sounds like they are where TNA was, they had money but did not know how to manage.

-CM Punk , I never watched this guy but was sure 100% he was not the "it" guy. Just an inflated wrestler who had a name in WWE.

-WWF had the planets aligned for them when Steve Austin and The Rock came to be, they were just The Ringmaster (a guy Bischoff threw off WCW because he saw no place for him) and Rocky Miavia a guy not going any where, a face that was booed by the fans. Vince was just lucky. They never had stars like them ever again. Maybe Cena?

-When people say WWF beat WCW in ratings, I do not know what they are talking about. I didn't watch wrestling 98---> but one show in the year 2000 when WWF was beating WCW and about a year away from WCW downfall they had a show where a 70 year old women was giving a birth to a hand (yes human hand) in backstage while smoking a cigar. I do not know how this is considered great pro wrestling TV. The ratings were crazy high and I have no idea how people back at the time found this to be exciting.

-WCW had a Dip and a closure

Dip: WCW didn't dream to ever beat WWF. They were like the AEW to the WWE. Bischoff had 1 goal and 1 goal only and that is to beat WWF in the ratings. So much so he aired NItro the same day and time as RAW. He was not willing to split the pie. They signed up Hogan, biggest name in wrestling at the time. No dice. Then poured more money to attract big names. nWo happened and it was smashing success compared to WWF more comic offering. Via the euphoria rush they were having after beating WWF and the first ever to do so they double downed on the formula. More big names were signed for any means necessary. This led to the downfall.

nWo's gimmick was starting to wether down. Lots of money spent, they didn't seem to think much on the side of profitability. They had a roster full of big names that they didn't even know what to do with them. IIRC at one time they had Flair vs Macho Man as the opening match of Nitro. Wrestlers with creativity control didn't budge. Lots of messy management decisions and bad directions. No new talent, but of course, which sane promoter will push someone like Guerrero and Mysterio over Hogan, Macho, Sting, Flair, Bret, Warrior, Nash, Hall, Luger...etc. No way. On the other side WWF had the birth Austin and Rock, unfortunately for WCW, two of the biggest star attractions in prowrestling history. They were a cultural phenomenon. This was not planned any more than the nWo angle was planned. It happened.

Closure: WCW was in a bad condition but if IIRC it was having ratings more than AEW currently and similar to WWE. Bischoff was willing to buyout the company with group of investors and restruct. The corporate guys from TNT+WB merge saw them as a none sense side show and shut the show off. Bischoff said without the TV time slot WCW was worthless and backed out of the deal. WCW did not die, it was shut down. If TNA and ROH, WCW could definitely survive. It was shut down by the new owners.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

by Raging Justice Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:18 pm

Cena is a polarizing figure. He was certainly pushed as the top guy in WWE for quite some time, and he's becoming a Hollywood star now due to the Suicide Squad movie and the spinoff show where he got the starring role. Cena has had some great matches, feuds, and promos in his career and was super popular with a lot of fans. However, many WWE fans HATED him. You can watch many old WWE shows and hear the back and forth chants of "Let's go Cena! Cena sucks!" between the two groups of fans who loved him and hated him

Many wrestling fans gave up on WWE and stopped watching or attending shows because of him. I don't have hard numbers or stats to back it up, but I think a lot of kids became WWE fans because of him, and maybe some women too. Many adult males quite watching WWE because of him though. I personally hated John Cena and still do now. Many people put him up there with Hogan, Rock, and Steve Austin. Personally, I don't agree. Why? Simple. Hogan, Rock, and Austin were almost universally loved by fans. Cena had at least 50% of the fanbase hating him throughout most of his career. The top, baby face of your company should NOT be that polarizing to the fans. To me, Cena was a substandard talent because he never learned how to get the majority of the fans behind him, something that Hogan, Rock, and Austin knew how to do. Even lesser stars like Daniel Bryan were able to figure that out. Daniel Bryan in 2014 reached levels of popularity close to Rock and Austin among live audiences. He was getting MASSIVE cheers, and at least 90% of the crowds in any given arena were cheering for him. Cena always struggled to get the majority of fans behind him throughout his career. He was one of the most awful baby faces in pro wrestling history, and yet WWE absolutely refused to ever turn him heel...and probably left a lot of money on the table as a result.
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