May 11, 2023 14:39:25 GMT Emperor said:

May 11, 2023 8:38:51 GMT Big Pete said:

Minoru Suzuki.

What about guys/girls singing their own theme song?

I'm fine with that in principle.

I do like little snippets of the song being interactive, like the WHOA in Cody's theme or the BOOM in Adam Cole's theme. Or Minoru Suzuki.

When it goes beyond the entrance and the wrestler stands in the ring for 5 minutes to conduct the audience...piss off.

I see, so you're sitting there going 'this is not sing-a-long with the great one!'

I'm not huge on it either. I think it's become a crutch for Rollins and while it draws a nice reaction, Rollins should be above it and booked in better programs. In a way, he's become the WWE version of AEW's Cody - drifting from one feud to another to help showcase the opponent. I would have thought the Riddle program could have been something since they have 'real heat' but here we are.

The one exception to the rule is Sandman. However, it was time and place, it was the right character and the right song. Even if you didn't know Pro Wrestling, chances are you knew Enter Sandman and if you were drunk/high enough you'd naturally be pre-disposed on that entrance alone.

Enzo and Cass... does that help or her their entrance?

A catchphrase or two was all Enzo & Cass had.

And, you can't teach that.

Smoking skull and any custom belt. Fuck em.

I don't like the term fight forever because it is very selfish. These people are human beings, assholes!

Wrestlers get what they deserve. They look down on us marks so the least they could do is die in the ring for our entertainment pleasure!

May 17, 2023 15:05:46 GMT @ness said:

Wrestlers get what they deserve. They look down on us marks so the least they could do is die in the ring for our entertainment pleasure!

That's rich hearing from you buddy. Considering you're the mark that looks down at the rest of us marks!

Disease: The Tiny Invincible Underdog Babyface.

Examples: Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin, Riho.

Symptoms: Smaller-than-average wrestler. Spends 90% of matches getting beat up. Spends 20% of that time taking finisher-level moves. Spends 50% of time kicking out. Spends 10% of matches dealing offense at less than 50% of the power of the offense received. Despite being nearly-crippled, always defeats the bigger, stronger, better wrestler with a weak move that said bigger, stronger, better wrestler would never lose to against any other opponent.

Isn't that just standard WWE style? Or wrestling psychology as the talking heads say. Get heat, comeback and 5 moves of doom fans go home happy.

In WWE style the heel gets heat with low-impact moves and restholds, and the babyface coeback has strong offense. That said a guy like Rey Mysterio also fits the pattern although not as obnoxiously as the three I named.

Mar 7, 2024 20:39:49 GMT Emperor said:

Disease: The Tiny Invincible Underdog Babyface.

Examples: Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin, Riho.

Symptoms: Smaller-than-average wrestler. Spends 90% of matches getting beat up. Spends 20% of that time taking finisher-level moves. Spends 50% of time kicking out. Spends 10% of matches dealing offense at less than 50% of the power of the offense received. Despite being nearly-crippled, always defeats the bigger, stronger, better wrestler with a weak move that said bigger, stronger, better wrestler would never lose to against any other opponent.

Also known as the WWE Rey Mysterio

Babyface Dom is a good example. He's absolutely useless as a babyface. And gloriously purposely absolutely useless as a heel.

I blame wrestling for people genuinely believing Conor McGregor beats Brock Lesnar.

Believability died when a generation decided they'd rather be body positive than actually fit.

Mar 7, 2024 20:39:49 GMT Emperor said:

Disease: The Tiny Invincible Underdog Babyface.

Examples: Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin, Riho.

Symptoms: Smaller-than-average wrestler. Spends 90% of matches getting beat up. Spends 20% of that time taking finisher-level moves. Spends 50% of time kicking out. Spends 10% of matches dealing offense at less than 50% of the power of the offense received. Despite being nearly-crippled, always defeats the bigger, stronger, better wrestler with a weak move that said bigger, stronger, better wrestler would never lose to against any other opponent.

Breaking News! A new case of The Tiny Invincible Underdog Babyface has just been discovered!

Name: Sami Zayn

Date and place of discovery: Monday Night Raw, March 11 2024.

How would you book them?

Good question.

Brian Danielson plays that role perfectly. He's generally the smaller wrestler and he often on defense the majority of the time but he has a grittiness that others lack. He's always fighting from underneath, looking for opportunities whether it's grappling or striking. He has very strong offense and the way he wears down larger, stronger opponents is believable. I never get the feeling he's cheating by being literally invincible, which I can't say for Orange Bollocks, Darby and Riho.

Sami Zayn is also very good in this respect. I just brought him up because on Raw he won a gauntlet match beating three guys in a row. He took a sore-loser finisher after beating the first guy then beat two wrestlers in a row. However that's an exception, it's more a booking issue than a problem with Zayn himself. It did trigger my pet peeve reaction though.

It doesn't hurt that Danielson has about 50lbs on Darby and Cassidy.

AJ Styles is all of 5'8 and 215, but I reckon I've only seen him booked as the underdog once in WWE, and that was against Brock. And in TNA, he was the elite of elite despite his size.

Always thought Rey was a fantastic under-dog and rarely got carried away with near-falls. I wish more matches were like this, Rey dominates the majority of it, but one blunder and it costs him. The tension isn't on whether Rey will kick out, it's whether he'll escape the Last Ride which they sell really well.

One of my favourite TV matches of all-time. Plenty of action, Taker sells everything nicely and it leaves you wanting to see more. That's what TV wrestling should aspire to be more often than not.

I assume that video isn't the whole match but what I saw looked really good. I especially love the setup for the 619. Little things like that make Undertaker one of the all time great workers. The problem is that AEW matches have to drag on for 15+ minutes, apparently the only way to pad out these matches is to have Orange/Darby take endless offense kick out of everything. Except there is no tension because everyone knows they will kick out.

To be fair this type of match makes sense for Darby's character. He is a literal nutjob who does high octane stunts for fun, so his toughness and pain tolerance is realistic and believable. Plus a lot of his offense is pretty solid, the suicide dive he does through the ropes is the best I've ever seen. The Coffin Drop would be a good finish if he had 100 more pounds, but it's not completely terrible given how he throws his body with so much velocity. He was one of my favourite guys to watch in early AEW but somewhere along the line I got bored of him. Overexposure?

Meanwhile Orange Bollocks' gimmick is that he's super chill and doesn't try hard, but is also for some reason one of the toughest men in the world, impossible to pin or submit. Riho is a ballerina with no muscle mass, who is for some reason one of the toughest women in the world, impossible to pin or submit. These wrestlers use that underdog style as a crutch, padding out their matches with near falls to pop the crowd. It is the in-ring form of a cheap pop.

They may have shaved some time off of the Rey/Taker SD match, but the match itself was only over 3 minutes. They'd have a match at the Rumble years later that lasted longer, but it was the same formula just stretched out longer.

I'd like to see more variety as well. However it seems like the average fan views the wrestling match more like synchronised skating where the more 'stuff' you do and the bigger risks you take the better the match is. If your match happens to have call-backs that's even better than having a match where you forget which body part you were supposed to be selling or what you wanted the fans to get out of the match. Because really, you're just after the 'this is awesome' 'fight forever' chants.

Mar 13, 2024 20:30:36 GMT Big Pete said:

Because really, you're just after the 'this is awesome' 'fight forever' chants.

Yep, that's what modern wrestling is. I can feel myself transforming into the History of Wrestling archetype who sticks to watching pre-2000s wrestling.

Mar 13, 2024 23:29:16 GMT Emperor said:

Mar 13, 2024 20:30:36 GMT Big Pete said:

Because really, you're just after the 'this is awesome' 'fight forever' chants.

Yep, that's what modern wrestling is. I can feel myself transforming into the History of Wrestling archetype who sticks to watching pre-2000s wrestling.

First order of business is admitting you love BOBCORE!

Mar 13, 2024 23:29:16 GMT Emperor said:

Mar 13, 2024 20:30:36 GMT Big Pete said:

Because really, you're just after the 'this is awesome' 'fight forever' chants.

Yep, that's what modern wrestling is. I can feel myself transforming into the History of Wrestling archetype who sticks to watching pre-2000s wrestling.

New pet peeve: outdated carny bullshit.

The WWE has improved substantially with HHH at the helm, but it's still victim to outdated pro-wrestling tropes.

Take the first segment from Smackdown. Orton and KO vs Pretty Deadly. Logan Paul is hiding under the ring. The ref is distracted, KO is alone in he ring, Paul comes out and hits KO with brass knuckles, Pretty Deadly get the win. How did Paul know the perfect moment to reveal himself? The kayfabe answer is he has a monitor under the ring. Fair enough, but that theory is blown out of the water when post-match Randy Orton spends a couple of minutes looking for Paul and finds him by lifting the ring apron skirt. Paul is comically laying there doing nothing, no monitor in sight. If Paul was watching the monitor, he would have known that well in advance and made evasive action. So clearly he has no monitor and nothing makes any sense.

Not only that, but rewinding a minute, a perplexed Randy Orton (he didn't see the interference during the match) watches the replay on the big screen where Paul wallops KO. Why isn't the referee overruling his decision and awarding KO and Orton the win? The proof of foul play is right there in front of his eyes.

I know what you're all thinking "it's pro-wrestling, this is what happens, get over yourself".

No. Can pro-wrestling as a whole move on from this decades outdated intelligence-insulting carny bullshit? "If the ref doesn't see it with his own eyes he can't DQ" is insanity. So is "the ref can't undo his decisions." These kayfabe rules are insanity when they were created and 100 times more insane now. We're in a world where technological monitoring and video footage is used to make and overrule decisions in every sport because we know humans can't detect everything. It's a lazy booking crutch and it's stupid and it annoys me.

On the same theme there's another rant for the AJ Styles/LA Knight segment bubbling inside but I'll leave it there. It's nowhere near as awful as the Logan Paul stuff.

Emperor

I was thinking along those lines during the AJ/LA Knight segment when AJ looked up at the titantron. So you’ve know acknowledged the wrestlers can see the screens and can tell when someone is behind them?

Careful now. If we move away from carny bullshit it's edging closer to being a sport and ain't nobody got time for dat.

Mar 30, 2024 14:23:38 GMT @ness said:

Careful now. If we move away from carny bullshit it's edging closer to being a sport and ain't nobody got time for dat.

Even New Japan has embraced the Bullet Club interference gimmick for what the past 15 years? Rasslin' cannot survive without the bullshit.

Indeed, House of Torture is the worst offender of outdated carny bullshit. Easily the worst thing about the company.

Refs are very inconsistent with what is allowed and isn't. They can reject a manager when it appears they did something even if they don't actually see them. It IS pretty amazing how after the first ref bump/camera reveal that they didn't make that part of the ref playbook. They reverse decisions when it suits them. I think they just aren't creative enough to book things so they rely on old gimmicks. Surely there's a way to get heat beyond behind the ref's back and insulting the local team (even though most in attendance don't even live there...)

Mar 30, 2024 14:23:38 GMT @ness said:

Careful now. If we move away from carny bullshit it's edging closer to being a sport and ain't nobody got time for dat.

It's funny how the old-time wrestling folks dance between the lines of carny & sport. Picking & choosing talking points that suit their purposes.