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Post by Big Pete on May 4, 2024 11:47:19 GMT
Sorry c that's spladle's gimmick.
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Post by Big Pete on May 4, 2024 13:12:16 GMT
I don't think Brandi was lying when she called Ethan a favour hire. It seemed like they never wanted him there from the out-set and only used him when they wanted to push somebody else. I don't think AEW necessarily dropped the ball, but Page would be one of those guys I would have made a concerted effort to develop that with the hope by 2023-24 you could have him mixing with Jay White, Hangman Page, Swerve, Ricky Starks etc.
It just seemed like once Jay Lethal came along and cornered the dead-end goofy jobber shtick that Page was out of a job.
TNA seems like an obvious destination, but I wonder if Cody pulls some strings for him?
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Post by Emperor on May 4, 2024 13:22:29 GMT
What are people seeing in Ethan Page that I'm not? He's a bore.
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Post by c on May 4, 2024 13:30:32 GMT
His indy work was really good. His AEW was not, but his work elsewhere was really good. Some great stuff vs MJF, Cage and others before he joined AEW. Did not watch him in TNA but many said he was great there too.
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Post by Big Pete on May 4, 2024 13:33:45 GMT
What are people seeing in Ethan Page that I'm not? He's a bore. It just seemed like he was never given an opportunity to succeed.
He makes his debut in a multi-man ladder match with little fanfare. Then weeks later he's randomly thrown into a tag team with another directionless wrestler in Scorpio Sky and they take a back-seat to Dan Lambert without ever getting to do much. When that ended, he just did the typical AEW thing where he'd pop up randomly, win a match or two only to put somebody over and that was that.
Like I said, it seemed like Tony never really wanted him and only brought him in as a favour and used him to put others over.
On paper, I see a guy who is just about to hit his prime who has the size and the wherewithal, has something of an exotic look but little was done to help get him to the next level.
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Post by Ness on May 4, 2024 14:01:26 GMT
What are people seeing in Ethan Page that I'm not? He's a bore. Sometimes I personally just accept there are guys where you had to "be there" to truly appreciate certain runs. Headband Lashley in TNA, Giant Bernard in New Japan, etc.
Like maybe some guys just aren't good, but in a certain environment with a limited run they can be. The Johnny B. Badds of the world. They aren't good workers, but they are good at playing a very specific character under certain creative conditions. When you divert from that they get exposed. Perhaps it's what made Heyman so good at hiding weaknesses. When they get signed it gets exposed because well, they have to actually give us material and they can do their schtick.
I thought there was a point in there, but I lost it.
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Post by Emperor on May 4, 2024 14:04:38 GMT
It just seemed like he was never given an opportunity to succeed. That's fine, he's a victim of bad booking, but at the same time he did have a decent amount of airtime to present himself, and nothing about Ethan Page says anything more than mediocre. There's nothing he did to suggest he deserved more than what he got. Decent enough talker, decent enough in the ring. That's it.
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Post by Big Pete on May 4, 2024 14:27:22 GMT
It just seemed like he was never given an opportunity to succeed. That's fine, he's a victim of bad booking, but at the same time he did have a decent amount of airtime to present himself, and nothing about Ethan Page says anything more than mediocre. There's nothing he did to suggest he deserved more than what he got. Decent enough talker, decent enough in the ring. That's it. That was what I was aiming at when I said that AEW didn't necessarily drop the ball on him.
However I see him as somebody who was coming into their prime, that you had three years to make something out of and they really didn't do anything exciting with him or follow-up on matches that had potential. It wasn't like his matches were bad, in fact I recall his match with Darby showing promise but little was done to follow up on it and we'd barely see Page again until he was inexplicably pushed in that one tournament where he did the honours for Starks.
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Post by c on May 4, 2024 14:30:22 GMT
Tony gave him shit piled on shit for a gimmick. No one would have succeeded in that situation.
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Post by Todd on May 4, 2024 15:10:38 GMT
I don’t mind Page. I doubt WWE sign him and their current cost cutting phase, but he’s solid in the ring, he’s a talker, and he has a bit of range.
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Post by RT on May 4, 2024 15:41:34 GMT
What are people seeing in Ethan Page that I'm not? He's a bore. Sometimes I personally just accept there are guys where you had to "be there" to truly appreciate certain runs. Headband Lashley in TNA, Giant Bernard in New Japan, etc.
Like maybe some guys just aren't good, but in a certain environment with a limited run they can be. The Johnny B. Badds of the world. They aren't good workers, but they are good at playing a very specific character under certain creative conditions. When you divert from that they get exposed. Perhaps it's what made Heyman so good at hiding weaknesses. When they get signed it gets exposed because well, they have to actually give us material and they can do their schtick.
I thought there was a point in there, but I lost it.
This is a really good way of putting it. The North being a good example of why people were so high on Ethan Page. You had to be there. Great indie worker with a ton of potential joins TNA and is one half of a bad ass tag team with Josh Alexander. Felt like they would both erupt eventually and when Page got to AEW and just kind of floundered it was a let down.
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Post by KJ on May 4, 2024 17:24:34 GMT
Drew re-signed with WWE?
Huh. This thread gave the impression that was impossible.
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Post by Michinokudriver on May 4, 2024 18:18:30 GMT
What are people seeing in Ethan Page that I'm not? He's a bore. Sometimes I personally just accept there are guys where you had to "be there" to truly appreciate certain runs. Headband Lashley in TNA, Giant Bernard in New Japan, etc.
Like maybe some guys just aren't good, but in a certain environment with a limited run they can be. The Johnny B. Badds of the world. They aren't good workers, but they are good at playing a very specific character under certain creative conditions. When you divert from that they get exposed. Perhaps it's what made Heyman so good at hiding weaknesses. When they get signed it gets exposed because well, they have to actually give us material and they can do their schtick.
I thought there was a point in there, but I lost it.
I get what you're saying, I think.
We often hear, and say to ourselves, the best make chicken salad out of chicken shit. The Rock got a Fruity Pebbles chant over, where no one else could have.
But there's only one Rock. If your standard is 'we want only people who won't get laughed out of the ring calling someone Kung Pao Bitch' you're only gonna have like three wrestlers. You need people to fill out the rest of the roster and numbers 4-25, pretty much by definition, won't be able to pull that off.
So you have guys like Johnny B Badd, and I'm gonna throw Ken Shamrock in there and maybe even DDP as guys who have the potential to make it as a main eventer but Creative will need to be more hands-on (DDP couldn't make Stalks Taker's Wife work).
If Ethan Page proved he's got what it takes under the right circumstances it's worth taking a shot. Maybe you can find another scenario where he gets that level of over, maybe you can't. But he's shown that, managed properly, he can be a major asset and that counts for a lot.
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Post by KJ on May 4, 2024 18:23:25 GMT
There’s a theory in the business world called the Peter principle.
The core idea is that workers competent at their current level will be promoted, and promotions will continue until failure due to the employees lack of skills. Basically, you don’t truly know someone’s ceiling until the fail at a new level they’d never held before.
That applies to a lot of wrestlers too, and Page falls into that cycle perfectly. He was good leading into AEW, but he failed once he took a leap beyond his ability.
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Post by c on May 4, 2024 18:23:25 GMT
Drew re-signed with WWE? Huh. This thread gave the impression that was impossible. Said from the start he likely started the rumors himself he was leaving to get a better offer from WWE. Which it appears he did. Shirt sales in WWE would have made him an idiot to leave. WWE can move shirts like no one else, and Drew is going to sell a lot of shirts with his Bucks style shitpost gimmick.
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Post by KJ on May 4, 2024 19:24:40 GMT
Drew re-signed with WWE? Huh. This thread gave the impression that was impossible. Said from the start he likely started the rumors himself he was leaving to get a better offer from WWE. Which it appears he did. Shirt sales in WWE would have made him an idiot to leave. WWE can move shirts like no one else, and Drew is going to sell a lot of shirts with his Bucks style shitpost gimmick. Uh huh.
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Post by N A T H on May 4, 2024 20:58:35 GMT
It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, if you don't like the narrative, you go back and change it to one that suits.
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Post by c on May 4, 2024 21:01:04 GMT
Drew was the one who mentioned working elsewhere though starting the rumors. If he simply said he was not going anywhere originally, no rumors. As was him publicly saying he was frustrated with how WWE was using him.
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Post by KJ on May 4, 2024 21:20:42 GMT
Drew was the one who mentioned working elsewhere though starting the rumors. If he simply said he was not going anywhere originally, no rumors. As was him publicly saying he was frustrated with how WWE was using him. The fact you can’t even acknowledge you ran with it so hard is hilarious. It’s documented in this thread how certain you were.
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Post by c on May 4, 2024 21:27:37 GMT
I reported what others were. Not sure why you all are making it seem like I was the one publishing the stories.
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Post by N A T H on May 4, 2024 22:10:17 GMT
All Elite by Wembley?
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Post by c on May 4, 2024 22:19:34 GMT
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Post by N A T H on May 4, 2024 22:32:23 GMT
I've never seen a man die on a hill so many times, then later claim there was no hill in the first place... so many times.
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Post by KJ on May 5, 2024 1:51:36 GMT
New rule: take all reports as legitimate.
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Post by c on May 5, 2024 4:09:12 GMT
Hope Tony passes on Drew. Some of the wording is too close to how people would talk about Rory before the police investigation started. AEW cannot afford a Rory situation.
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Post by N A T H on May 5, 2024 6:03:56 GMT
AEW usually makes the victim sign a NDA and Jericho pays them off.
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Post by c on May 5, 2024 6:15:57 GMT
And you question the stories I share. Didn't Ace's lawyer try to imply Kylie Rae quit wrestling over it, despite her taking a year off because she had a kid? Pretty sure no one confirmed this story still.
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Post by N A T H on May 5, 2024 8:50:36 GMT
NDAs will do that.
Change the narrative that is.
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Post by c on May 5, 2024 16:22:52 GMT
People speculating that the new Queen's Quest member could be Anna Jay. Leading into Forbidden Door that def would make Anna Jay a lot more interesting. Also be a nice setup for Venus Club and Storm vs Queens Quest at Forbidden Door.
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Post by c on May 7, 2024 8:09:01 GMT
Great interview from the two great innovators. Will is a great interview too. Still these when these two start to feud it will be one of the great modern feuds as they attitudes are so similar towards wrestling and they are at the same points in their careers.
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