OSW's latest has me wondering if Bret Hart should've turned his hand to booking. Unless he can only book his family.
OSW's latest has me wondering if Bret Hart should've turned his hand to booking. Unless he can only book his family.
Is it worth watching TLC other than the Black/Murphy match?
The New Day vs. The Revival was decent enough but in a way that you wouldn't remember much specific about it a month from now. Kofi has some nice spots where he's clearly warming up his balance antics for the Rumble next month.
A 50 minute gauntlet match that had no winner and no point as the prize for winning was always going to Seth sounds fun.
Well done RAW.
That is some special booking by normal standards, pretty run of the mill for WWE. It had a few of their favourite things to be honest:
- Whole point of a match taken away? Well none of them got the prize so yeah.
- Bullshit ending contrived for that particular match? Roger.
- Wrestlers with daft motivations? Double whammy! Andrade for having no interest in winning the match and Rollins for his big heel turn beginning by him aiming his sights lower than he has all year in the name of REVENGE? Alright.
O'Shea was great in the match though. And Umberto delivers a great moonsault.
And Rollins promos are much better now he's a heel again. I like what they're doing with him so far.
Anyway, decided to try and do my matches of the decade (no particular order):
- Bate vs. Dunne (Takeover Chicago)
- Bate vs. WALTER
- HBK vs. The Undertaker
- AOP vs. Revival vs. DIY (there were a lot of NXT tag matches around this time that I could've gone for but I've plumped for this.
- Lesnar vs. Cena vs. Rollins (The first or one of the first matches to be built around letting Lesnar have a good long lie down but I absolutely love it.)
Okay, long term Dave listener here. He's an absolutely incredible journalist, but his HOT TAKEZ on the current WWE product/match star ratings etc really aren't his best work.
Whilst his match reviews and ratings are fine, they're also inherently massively biased (duh) towards his own personal preferences, e.g. he fucking loves 40 minute flipathons with a million false finishes, but he can appreciate a match elevated by the story/context etc (e.g. he gave Cena vs CM Punk 5 stars at money in the bank 2011, despite it being a pretty untechnical, clumsy match).
He's basically just a really really great old school print journalist - the hours he spends researching, watching wrestling, talking to his contacts etc is just fucking mental, and his knowledge of wrestling history and minutia is probably better than anyone else, but he's basically forced to do the podcasts etc cus, as far as i can tell, that's where he gets the bulk of his money. People (myself included) will pay a monthly fee to hear him and Alvarez talk shite, but absolutely wouldn't be arsed to do it for the actual OBSERVER.
This isn't helped by the fact that within minutes of each issue being released, kwl-wrestling-newz.com etc will have already released all the hot gossip themselves for free on twitter, and obviously having actual unique breaking news in a weekly publication is hard these days anyway.
I mean, Dave is a pretty odd dude, but still a pretty decent audio journalist, as long as he's being well managed by his co-host/interviewer etc. The Lapsed Fan podcast did an episode for each Wrestlemania, and managed to somehow get Dave to come on and answer questions about historical context/clarify rumours etc for a solid 20+ mins for each one, and it's possibly my favourite journalism of any kind EVER, albeit helped massively by the host Jack Encarnacao asking great questions, and politely cutting him off when he starts veering into irrelevant shit anecdote mode. It's brilliant. Tho I guess plenty of people will just be exposed to 5 minute segments of Dave being asked shit questions on other podcasts and answering badly, or his admittedly pretty bizarre match ratings.
here's WM1
well worth listening to the eps for the WMs you care about, it's amazing stuff
Might need to give them a go.
I'm probably going to sound a complete wanker trying to answer this but I'll give it a go. Japanese crowds are a lot quieter for the most part but I think that's more of a cultural thing, they are definitely harder to get going but they tend to get more excited as the show goes on. That's not an accident either, the shows build to the main event which will almost always be the most popular guys or the biggest current storyline. The crowd follows the arc of the show and vice versa. I don't think that's the case in the WWE, there's too many meaningless matches that end inconclusively or just get repeated ad nauseam. Storylines peter out or are just forgotten, guys get pushed one week then dropped the next or simply overshadowed by one of the owners. The crowd has no idea what's going on because they've been taught not to care, there's no reward for following closely so you just end up getting excited for the high spots and not much else. That's how you fuck your crowd up. Vince has always said that they don't do wrestling (he says Sports Entertainment but I prefer Meat Opera) and I absolutely agree with him, they just use wrestlers to play the roles.Originally Posted by Ian
https://whatculture.com/wwe/wwe-edit...f-shield-debut
Vince McMahon really is the world's pettiest man.
Sounds like Ripley / Baszler was a bit of a banger to cap off an already excellent-sounding episode last night.
NXT was as good as the reviews suggested and Ripley / Baszler was a brilliant ending. Helped, as discussed the other day, by the crowd being massively up for it.
I just watched last weeks and that Garza/Rush match was brilliant.
Not too sure about Balor getting a shot at Cole (Goldie should have gone home for Christmas) but that triple threat was also great.
Neither Balor or Cole do much for me so that wasn't a match I was looking forward to but I really enjoyed it.
This is one thing where NXT crowds not giving a shit about face/heel alignments works because they were still hot for it.
Best pure striker in the game.
Also, Fandango has had Tommy John surgery and will be out for 7+ months.
It's a surgery that usually only MLB pitchers have and they're usually out for 12-18 months but the hope is that because he wont be needing to throw balls at 90mph+ that the recovery will be quicker. Batters who have it usually are out for 7-9 months.
Sucks as the Fasion Police have been great since 'dropping down' to NXT.
You watched this week's NXT yet, 'How?
Cole v Balor finished how I thought it would but it was very good and by far the best I've personally seen of Balor.
Also, that Grimes/Kushida match was ruined by Grimes clearly kicking out way too late (it was a three) from that near fall. Not sure about Kushida losing to Grimes too.
Banks v Dunne
I had the outcome of Ripley/Baszler spoiled for me but it was still awesome. Rhea is a genuine star.
I liked how annoyed Trevor Lee was at having his hat stolen.
NJPW free Monday match is one of the first strong style matches I watched that got me hooked. Suzuki vs Goto in a hair match, if you don't want to watch the whole thing at least skip to the finish (about here https://youtu.be/ZvA_YR0pBoE?t=1321 ) and watch the best reaction to losing a hair match ever.
If anybody's still not seen it the Andrew doc is on Sky Atlantic this evening.
Jeff Gerstmann has gone through every character in WWE2K20 and ranked how bad they are. This is why I pay this man 40 dollars a year. To do this dumb shit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/eftsnb/d/
Sorry for linking the whole thread, doesn't seem you can directly link the video.
Oh fuck.
It’s mad how big wrestling is. I was walking around Ledbury with the parents buying Christmas food and the only poster you can see isn’t for a gig or theatre, it’s for the wrestling. No stars. No names. Just blokes.
Walter better pin Cole in the middle of the ring.
Really liked the look of Austin Theory and Shotzi Blackheart too.
I've not watched any of this week's yet but I heard that Austin Theory was pretty solid.
Lars Sullivan is trending on Twitter and I implore anyone to avoid checking why.
Alright so they need to give his return long enough that fans won't chant Mitch at him....
Ah, I see Boatman has now officially become the Big Show:
Can't for them to try and pitch him as an uncaring destroyer again.
So in about forty years then. Americans will forget the racism but not this I don't think.
Fair.
It's fake.
Yeah I googled it before I posted it and couldn't see anything, it just amused me.
Mitch is going to off himself sooner rather than later.
You weren't paying attention to the video. Other people get him off.
A surprise lesbian angle was exactly what this Lana / Rusev / Lashley story needed. Great writing.
Masters at work.
This must be that good shit that Vince was on about.
https://sport.bt.com/wwe/nxt-and-nxt...11364421557178
NXT and NXT UK are officially going to BT Sport.
Still on the network I hope?
Riddle and Dunne is a seriously intriguing partnership.
Baroque entering the Rumble and at 1.
He's the champ and should he go the distance (he has to) then he'll have wrestled for longer in one night than he does in most years.
"Wrestled." He'll put out entrants 2, 3 and 4, perhaps, then shenanigans will see him put through an announce table and he'll have a kip for most of the rest of the match.
He'll be in the last two with whoever they're having face him at Mania. Given Brock's character is basically him and mostly about doing as little as he possibly has to putting him in this makes absolutely zero sense but I guess they're building to something. Probably. Sounds like it was a decent enough show.
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