The strangest thing about AEW is how much groupthink exists surrounding it. Double or Nothing was a pretty bad show, overall, complete with one of the dullest ladder matches I've ever seen in my quarter century of fandom, and the ME was everything I think is wrong with modern wrestling wrapped into one "match" that felt more Dungeon of Doom than anything else has in decades, yet it's being praised all over because it was funny.

People hated this shit when WWE did it with the Wyatts. Now, though, they're eating it up because...why? The jokes are bad, the "wrestling" is bad (Matt Hardy can barely fucking walk and has no business beating anybody at this stage)...oh, but they smiled because they're so desensitized to garbage after the last decade plus of western pro wrestling delivering some of the worst the industry has ever offered.

Fuck that. I'm sticking to my indies. At least David Starr knows how to work a headlock and sell a knee. At least Tom Lawlor can cut a promo and get heat.

In terms of the cinematic matches that have been taking place since wrestling started doing empty arena shows, I thought the Stadium Stampede match was barrels of fun. I also really liked both of the cinematic matches at Wrestlemania. I didn't watch Money in the Bank because it looked like it was gonna be a giant clusterfuck, and all the reviews I've read of that match seem to confirm my suspicions.

I hate cinematic matches, though. I didn't even care for the Boiler Room Brawl back in the day. The beauty of pro wrestling, to me, has been how it's done in one take and, at best, based on a rough outline of what's going to happen. The moment it became scripted spot-for-spot is when its allure started to slip, and seeing it now being done more like a mini-movie reveals how bad at acting virtually all of the talent is.

I say "virtually" only because MJF exists. That man is going to be AEW's saving grace, if only because he's the rare talent on the roster who understands psychology. I'll tune in when he's champ.

For anyone into tape-trading we've seen these cinematic style matches before in IWA-Japan for example. Shopping mall brawl, bath house brawl etc. It wasn't fun then and it isnt fun now.

I get why some do like it but to me it's neither or. Its not good and funa ction as it could be in a movie and its not good or fun wrestling either. Its in a no mans land in between. Now I do think its the right thing to do in the era of no crowds for the comapnies that go for a more crazy presentation.

I'd have preffered for the small things to take a bigger place. Cut the in ring promos and do more sit downs (very effetive in MMA and Japan). Start focusing on a wrestling style that isn't so much based on temporary spots and crowd reaction (beacuase, you know, there aren't any to be had). I think this is a prime time to actually slow things down and put more focus into what is being presented.

I've been saying for years, but the MMA flavor that was introduced by LowKi, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, etc. during the indies boom should've been the template for the next generation. It kinda was, in a sense, as Roderick Strong and early Davey Richards utilized more dramatic cases of it, but we just went full-on into spot-spot-EPIC DRAMA that it seems so many talents forgot that the art of pro wrestling was in making the audience forget that it was fake. That's what "working" meant.

It's easy to forget, but Dusty Rhodes outdrew everybody but Hulk Hogan for the first half of the 80s because of how "real" he felt. His schtick was never 100% super serious, but it was grounded enough to where the more outrageous stuff wasn't as big a leap as the bulk of modern stuff.

Hell, the most successful PPV TNA/Impact ever put on is still LockDown 2008, mained by a pseudo-MMA match between Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe that built gradually from a very Pancrase-flavored first act to the standard "epic" finale, but it all mattered because that early realism laid the groundwork for gradual leaps in the suspension of disbelief.

And they wonder why ratings and live attendance were dropping even before COVID.

Agreed. I still watch WWE but it's more just to keep up to date with it as I've been watching for 22 years. I do like AEW and NJPW but I find myself having it on the background more and more.

Going back to your point, I only really get interested these days when certain wrestlers are on the screen. Shaynor Bayzler being the main one. Sonia Deville also. I find the womens division of WWE quite a hard watch but these two work for me.

The above being said, am I the only one enjoying The Viking Prophet's? It's so silly it's funny! Akita Tozawa, king of performance centre ninjas!

I really want to like AEW, but it is so fucking stupid. I can't stand any of The Elite. Kenny Omega seems to think he's a man of rennaisance, but when he speaks he just comes across like such a fucking moron. The Young Bucks seems like they honestly believe they are the worlds best tag team, which must have been a name they gave themselves. They don't sell anything, and they seem to believe that wrestling is about high spots for the sake of it rather than telling a story.
As acid_bukake said, there is such a circle jerk about AEW. It was sold to us as a genuine alternative to WWE, which we've needed for 20 years. The problem with it is that it's in many ways somehow even more ridiculous than WWE. As far as I can work out, instead of having the WWE writers come up with stupid shit, the AEW wrestlers instead are coming up with their own stupid shit. That recent stadium match at Double or Nothing was fucking painful to watch. Chris Jericho has long been one of my favourite wrestlers, but even the shit he's coming up with is cringe inducing.
Something worth mentioning is that AEW has not cracked any other market other than guys who dig certain quarters of wrestling. In other words, the guys already watching Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy. The fans who have walked away from WWE over the past 20 years are still out there, but they're not tuning into AEW.

So someone in WWE tested positive for Covid after last week's TV tapings, and aside from cancelling/postponing tonight's TV taping to test people, WWE are gonna go along with business as usual. It's since come out that the majority of WWE personnel have not been tested for Covid a single time, and that it was a WWE mandate that no one in the crowd was allowed to wear a mask at Raw last night.

WWE can eat a dick. Shouldn't expect any different since Vince is butt buddies with Trump.

Does the term Over the Edge mean anything to you?

You've been on this board, but haven't replied, so I'll jog your memory. I was referring to the PPV where Owen Hart died. Vince decided the show must go on. You literally had WWF wrestlers coming out to their ring entrances in tears.

It doesn't fit with the narrative, but the WWE vs Coronavirus thing is misguided. AEW has more or less stayed open, and I don't see any criticism thrown their direction. Moreso, in any particular circumstance, Vince will demand the show continue. If anything would have stopped the show, it would have been the death of one of his own stars during the show.

I think because TK at AEW has been very supportive publically of wrestlers who want to stay away people have taken a kinder view, but as you say in truth AEW and WWE have both just carried on regardless. Vince is just so easy to hate!

Sooooooo...@ExposeWrestling has been sharing accounts of a metric shitton of indie/UK wrestlers being more than inappropriate throughout the past few years. Most have a lot of merit (David Starr's career is practically over because of how he treated an ex, lot of allegations against Marty Scurll and Wolfgang for going after underage girls), including chatter about Jim Cornette and his wife, but some are questionable at best (like how a woman that Matt Riddle had to file a restraining order against for stalking is claiming he raped her while driving).

I saw a brief news piece on Cultaholic. Apparently Jordan Devlin has had accusations against him, and David Starr has had several! It's strange how all these things seem to come out at once. I know there will be a lot of genuine cases but there will be fakes too.

David Starr was the first one to get accused, actually, and he pretty much admitted to them in an Aziz Ansari "I'm sorry you feel like this, and here's why you should feel sympathy for me during this time" way. That opened the floodgates to like 50 different wrestling personalities getting accused of sexual misconduct, most of them from the British scene.

I've seen this list. There are some really odd names on this list. Is it all people accused of sexual assault?

Sexual assault, sexual misconduct, general harassment and abuse, etc. Already Progress have cut ties with a ton of people that were accused of doing bad shit, AEW put Jimmy Havoc in rehab, Dave Lagana resigned as the co-president of NWA, who are suspending all operations immediately (and this might be the death knell for NWA since he was essentially running the promotion day-to-day since the beginning of the Corgan era), and WWE straight up fired Jack Gallagher.

What have Jimmy Havoc and jack Gallagher been accused of?

Vince Russo is on that list. While he deserves to be listed for crimes against wrestling, the guy is devout religious family man. What's he supposed to have done?

Jim Cornette has come out denouncing the accusations made against his wife.

Joey Ryan. Who would have thought it? *rolls eyes*

Jimmy Havoc is a known alcoholic with a litany of mental health issues. He's on the list because an ex brought up all of the mental and emotional abuse she suffered under him, usually whilst drunk. No mention of physical or sexual abuse on him, and, IIRC, she outright said he never laid a hand on her inappropriately. That's why he's getting rehab.

Gallagher has been accused, and the story corroborated, of intentionally feeding women alcohol and trying to force himself upon them while younger.

Russo...you can't use the "he's religious" argument when, even after becoming a Born Again, he still pulled all his usual tricks backstage and in the writers room. He's an ass through and through.

I'm not using anything to defend Russo. Everyone knows he's an ass. I'm not a fan of Russo at all, but I can't imagine him putting himself into a situation where he could end up being accused of sexual assault.

Conversely, I generally like Cornette. He gets plenty of criticism, some of it valid. Again though, I do find it hard to believe he would put himself in such a situation. However, I know very little about Stacey, and from what I read, she seems to be the main source of the accusations thrown Cornettes way.

Edit - I've spent the last hour listening to a podcast discussing this, with a large segment dedicated to Cornette, and I'm starting to believe I might be wrong about what I discussed with regards to Cornette.

Even when I agree with Cornette he often comes off as a nutcase. A man who can't control his feelings and has no sympathy for whoever might think otherwise than him. I often tend to ean his way when it comes to views on wrestling but the way he puts down others is quite revolting (not every day is a wrestling promo). I don't know what he's accused of in this instant but I always saw him as a loose cannon - as someone who couldn't quite control himself.

On the whole thing in general, the wrestling business is filled with questionable behaviour so I'm not surprised about this. However, just like the #metoo-movement it will be hard to actually prove anything and we shouldn't judge people based on accusations alone. We've seen how that backfired in many cases a couple of years ago. It's sad because that means some guilty men won't see the consequencs but at least no one innocent will be judged.

He's effectively being accused of using his position within a variety of wrestling organisations to coerce talent to join him and his wife.

The Undertaker appears to have officially retired. Colour me sceptical, but I do believe we will see him in the ring again. It'll likely be something like Saudi Arabia, or some other money spinner ppv.

Some big shit happened on tonight's AEW Dynamite. Sting debuted out of nowhere and was announced to have signed a multi-year deal with the company, and Kenny Omega finally won the world title, becoming the first person to pin Jon Moxley in the entire history of AEW. Even bigger was that Kenny won by cheating, breaking the gentlemen's agreement that he himself offered for the match to not cheat or use weapons, and bailed from the arena immediately with Don Callis, the former Cyrus from ECW and Kenny's longtime friend and mentor. Callis said that if people want to know why this happened, they need to tune in on Tuesday night to the promotion Callis is the executive director of: Impact Wrestling, the former TNA. Then they stormed off in a waiting SUV. The instant intrigue from the angle actually caused Impact's website to crash from all the sudden traffic.

And thus kicks off the biggest angle in the history of AEW: Kenny Omega, the new World Heavyweight Champion, defects to another promotion with the belt, thus seemingly kicking off a war between AEW and Impact.

Fuck I popped real hard for Sting, even though he's past his prime and I would've loved to have seen this kinda stuff after he left Impact to join the E, I'm still very excited to see what's done - hopefully we see matches, and he's not just an on screen character or manager. So many possibilities.

Also excited for the Impact partnership too, this is a great time to be a wrestling fan. Also did anybody hear about a supposed WCW reappearing? Looks like it could be a work from WWE, or another failed ECW V2, but apparently there'll be a PPV in October 2021, and they have the rights to the WCW2000 logo. Smells like a work

Yeah, that turned out to be a bunch of bullshit. The production company that this "rebooted" WCW said they were working with Tweeted that they weren't involved in this at all. It also didn't help that this unknown group of people claimed that WWE granted them 50% of the WCW intellectual property to use, seemingly out of the goodness of their hearts.

Ahh bugger, that surely would’ve been interesting if true

Kenny Omega, KA and DG reviving the Bullet Club in the west? This is the first time it's been mentioned outside of NJPW for ages. I wonder if the Japan club was across this and if this is potentially setting up a storyline with cross-promotion, or if it slipped Kenny's tongue during the promo. It just got announced that on the Impact PPV they'll be known as "Super Elite", so I'm thinking the latter may be the case. Hopefully not

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJSFmNyhweL ... uc1n24bh8m

Brodie Lee from AEW just died today. For the non-AEW watchers here, he was Luke Harper in WWE for many years. His wife said he died of a lung issue that wasn't Covid. He was only 41. He last appeared in AEW at the beginning of October, where he dropped the TNT Title to Cody Rhodes and disappeared afterwards. Guess we know now why that happened.

Rest in peace to an incredibly underrated talent.

Shocking... I keep reading that he was booked to be the new world champ shortly too

I'm certain he wasn't gonna be the next world champion, but everyone who watches Dynamite anticipated that he'd return to take back control of the increasingly comedic and babyface-ish Dark Order, especially if they were successful in recruiting Hangman Page into the group.

Nothing but respect for Brodie as a person. Wasn't a big fan of his work, even from the indie days, but he always stood out with his "trailer park badass" look and was, by all accounts, one of the truly good human beings in the business.

RIP

This really is some of the most shocking news of the year. I remember being a teenager and seeing him wrestle locally numerous times when he was making his start. Watching him even then, you could tell that he was a really special talent. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time before he would break out. It was really cool to see someone from Western NY really make the big time, just adding to this being one of the saddest passings to happen in the wrestling world in some time. R.I.P. and he will missed.

I was a huge wrestling fan growing up but stopped watching around 1999/2000. Just the other day I got hit by a wave of nostalgia to watch the Attitude era Raw's and PPV's again, as well as early 90's/late 80's stuff. Anyway, I signed up for the WWE network two days ago, and I am already pissed about it. It's so frustrating to watch if you use the WWE app on your phone. When I play videos, I switch it to full screen, and when I want to check my text messages of look something up on the web, I pause the video, undo full screen, and minimize the app. When I go back into the app, the videos have RESET, so I have to fast forward to where I left off. It's such a stupid design flaw.

The worst part of the Network design is that the features users complain about not having (chapters, remembering where you left off on a video, playlists) USED TO BE THERE. I had it back when contracts were for six month cycles and enjoyed all of that but cancelled because all the footage worth watching was stuff I already owned or could find "taped from TV" versions of. Haven't cared to get it again.

Yeah, I see myself canceling it in a few months. I love the content but man, that app really sucks.

Let's get a debate going. Among the women's wrestlers, who's better as a babyface or heel? I'll start with a few picks of my own:

Awesome Kong: Definitely a monster heel cut from the same cloth as Vader.
Piper Niven/Viper: Effective as both a fan favourite (as seen in NXT UK) and monster heel (indies and World of Sport).
Toni Storm: Much more of a natural babyface. Just can't get into her as a heel.
Alexa Bliss: She can do both but much more effective as a villainess.
Charlotte Flair: She's had a few face runs but like her dad Ric, she's better when she's bad to the bone.

Ijjnico I agree with your list. One I’d like to add is Tessa Blanchard, but I can’t decide whether I liked her better as cocky heel or as the underdog babyface whilst still portraying the heel character (much like Austin in the late 90s). Either way she’s a superb performer and great character