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March 28, 2024, 10:06:34 PM

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Wrestling 2021: The Big Thread Machine

Started by madhair60, March 07, 2021, 08:36:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ja'moke

When the sparklers went off I legit thought it was a joke, like meant to be a joke. I expected Kenny to come back out and be like, "SIKE! Got ya!"

If I was booking my way out of that mess, that's the way I'd go with it on Dynamite. It fits Kenny's character that he'd leave Mox in the ring with the countdown going just to play mind-games.

Like I've said, it'll be explaining Eddie's selling that'll be the tougher part.

I forgot to mention, I really enjoyed the street fight. But I wish they didn't have commentary over it. Darby apparently produced 90% of it himself. Talented lad.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Ja'moke on March 08, 2021, 03:58:50 PM
When the sparklers went off I legit thought it was a joke, like meant to be a joke. I expected Kenny to come back out and be like, "SIKE! Got ya!"

If I was booking my way out of that mess, that's the way I'd go with it on Dynamite. It fits Kenny's character that he'd leave Mox in the ring with the countdown going just to play mind-games.

Like I've said, it'll be explaining Eddie's selling that'll be the tougher part.

I forgot to mention, I really enjoyed the street fight. But I wish they didn't have commentary over it. Darby apparently produced 90% of it himself. Talented lad.

Yeah I really thought we were going to get some kind of swerve (although can we stop with outside interference in title matches on PPV? It makes the whole point of PPVs redundant). But AEW do have a good track record of writing around their mistakes rather than ignoring them so I expect we'll get something to try and make it make sense.

If they had any sense they'd upload that streetfight to Youtube without the commentary over the top, the match worked really well. Darby films and edits all his own vignettes too doesn't he?

gmoney

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on March 08, 2021, 03:51:28 PM
What level? Big Show spending 10 seconds talking about it on tv, or TK spending 30 seconds talking about it on a podcast?

Saying it was a "huge, huge star" and hall of fame worthy when its a signing about the level of Jeff Hardy. They really shouldn't have said anything and just let it be a surprise and then people would have reacted much more positively.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: gmoney on March 08, 2021, 04:13:59 PM
Saying it was a "huge, huge star" and hall of fame worthy when its a signing about the level of Jeff Hardy. They really shouldn't have said anything and just let it be a surprise and then people would have reacted much more positively.

Well that's where we'd disagree, I think he's HoF worthy and in the world of wrestling he is a huge star (probably more for his tag team work than his singles work but I'd say that was more because Vince didn't like him, he could work and was over as fuck). And people in the venue seemed to react positively. It will be interesting to see what the PPV buy numbers are like and whether this hyping helped at all.

Ja'moke

Quote from: gmoney on March 08, 2021, 04:13:59 PM
Saying it was a "huge, huge star" and hall of fame worthy when its a signing about the level of Jeff Hardy. They really shouldn't have said anything and just let it be a surprise and then people would have reacted much more positively.

Big Show's statement was fine I think. Christian is easily Hall of Fame worthy, and should already be in to be honest. Tony perhaps overegged it by then saying "major star... huge, huge star."

But I was happy to see Christian as I've always been a fan, and I was just so glad it wasn't Angle, who I was still kind of dreading.

BeardFaceMan

Angle definitely would have been worst-case scenario, that would have been a lot more than disappointing. I'd rather have seen Punk than Angle, and he can fuck right off.

Edit - saying nothing is what they did with the ladder match reveal and I thought that was a damp squib, but that was mainly based on me never having laid eyes on Ethan Page before. You mileage on suprises will vary depending on how happy your are with the suprise itself, not how it was presented to you. You don't see too many people saying they are Christian fans but disappointed with the reveal. The "aww, Christian, really?" reaction would have happened if they hadn't hyped it and just left it as a secret.

Deanjam

As someone online put it, they brought out Sting with no build on free TV, then brought out Christian with a big mystery debut build on PPV. They should've been the other way round.

Christian's signing has raised an interesting debate about where he sits in terms of the greatest of all time. I guess the main criteria of this is wrestling ability and popularity.

All time, he is for me below the likes of Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Jericho, Daniel Bryan. Probably sitting on Tier 3, if we consider the above wrestlers Tier 2 and the likes of Austin, Bret Hart and Sting Tier 1.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Deanjam on March 08, 2021, 04:38:23 PM
As someone online put it, they brought out Sting with no build on free TV, then brought out Christian with a big mystery debut build on PPV. They should've been the other way round.

I think the reasoning behind that, and why Christian was hyped as a huge star, is because he was in the Rumble a month or two ago. He's a big WWE name and it's a way for AEW to say "Look, even the established and current WWE stars want to come here, you should watch us instead".

Quote from: confettiinmyhair on March 08, 2021, 04:42:45 PM
Christian's signing has raised an interesting debate about where he sits in terms of the greatest of all time. I guess the main criteria of this is wrestling ability and popularity.

All time, he is for me below the likes of Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Jericho, Daniel Bryan. Probably sitting on Tier 3, if we consider the above wrestlers Tier 2 and the likes of Austin, Bret Hart and Sting Tier 1.

That's probably a fair assessment. I'd still consider him a big name though, just for the tag team/TLC stuff. It was his Vince-hampered time as a singles guy that stopped him getting to tier 2.

Ja'moke

Quote from: Deanjam on March 08, 2021, 04:38:23 PM
As someone online put it, they brought out Sting with no build on free TV, then brought out Christian with a big mystery debut build on PPV. They should've been the other way round.

Based on what Tony Khan said last night, the Christian signing seemed to come a bit of nowhere. Christian called Tony and said that he'd like to wrestle for AEW regularly, and Tony said, well, I would love for you to do that.

Compared to Sting where Tony had been touting him for a while to come in and had clearly set up this whole angle with Darby and Team Taz. So Sting coming in unexpected to help Darby worked so well. It would have been a real shame had that been announced in advance.

But yeah, maybe Christian should have just turned up out the blue too, rather than been hyped up ahead of time. Honestly, it might have been better if he was the surprise person in the ladder match.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Ja'moke on March 08, 2021, 04:50:44 PM
Based on what Tony Khan said last night, the Christian signing seemed to come a bit of nowhere. Christian called Tony and said that he'd like to wrestle for AEW regularly, and Tony said, well, I would love for you to do that.


That's also why this is a big deal, wrestlers who have been with WWE for years and had never thought of going anywhere else are now seeing that there is an actual alternative place for them to work. If someone like Christian thinks that, and if he's treated well by AEW and has a good little run, who else is going to be looking at AEW and saying to TK "I want to work for you"?

Deanjam

As for the shit-plosion and how to deal with it on TV. I would just ignore that it was a damp squib. Find some half-decent camera shots, edit them together and pretend it worked. Then shoot a really hot angle on Dynamite and move on with your lives. No need to come up with some bullshit about Omega fixing the explosion that'll make Kingston look stupid.

Deanjam

Also you need to have Christian take on the biggest stars first. Who knows how much he has left. He could go down permanently at any time, or may get exposed in a full one on match. Put him in with Omega, and give Kenny the win while you're certain Christian has something left to give.

Timothy

I wonder who Christian's first feud is gonna be. I don't really expect him to be near the title picture but have no clue who they are going to have him feud with first.

Ja'moke

Quote from: Deanjam on March 08, 2021, 04:59:47 PM
As for the shit-plosion and how to deal with it on TV. I would just ignore that it was a damp squib. Find some half-decent camera shots, edit them together and pretend it worked. Then shoot a really hot angle on Dynamite and move on with your lives. No need to come up with some bullshit about Omega fixing the explosion that'll make Kingston look stupid.

This looked so bad though I'm not sure they can just pretend it worked. I don't think they should turn it into a long-running storyline, but for this week I think you just say Kenny was playing mind games to make Mox (and by proxy, Eddie) look like fools. And then building to Eddie v Omega from there but don't mention how it started ever again after that.

Old Thrashbarg

I do wonder how it was supposed to look and what actually went wrong. Even some explosions along the lines of Kane's old entrance could've just about been sold, and would presumably have been safe enough to put in place. But with all four corner-posts having the same pathetic sparklers attached it makes it seem like they were a deliberate choice. Which to me suggests that they were meant to visually complement some larger explosion(s) that just didn't happen at all.

BeardFaceMan

It was Eddie doing his job and selling that makes this such a hard fix. But if they did go with Omega shenanigans and it made Eddie look stupid then that's better than the current situation where everyone looks stupid.

We're going to get some good podcasts from those involved out of this somewhere down the line.

Edit - that's a good point, Old, what was supposed to happen because the sparklers did look intentional. I can't imagine an explosive device misfiring would produce a sparkler effect so it must have been a few of the explosions just not going off at all.

amateur

I've just watched it, and it was bad. Not good at all.

It being filmed from the hard camera suggests to me that something bigger was meant to happen, that you'd need a view of the whole ring to really take in. If they'd filmed it close up, or on an angle, I think they could have made it work.

Regarding TK's "what did you expect", well I'd probably expect some part of the ring to move.

I guess Kingston can get out of it by saying he didn't know what had happened, and so didn't look up or move because he couldn't be sure he wouldn't injure himself or Mox. Pretty thin gruel but he could probably sell it.

Quote from: Old Thrashbarg on March 08, 2021, 05:15:03 PMBut with all four corner-posts having the same pathetic sparklers attached it makes it seem like they were a deliberate choice. Which to me suggests that they were meant to visually complement some larger explosion(s) that just didn't happen at all.

Could the corner posts have been like the fuse on a stick of Dynamite? With a huge explosion after those, it could have made sense.

Ja'moke

Quote from: Old Thrashbarg on March 08, 2021, 05:15:03 PM
I do wonder how it was supposed to look and what actually went wrong. Even some explosions along the lines of Kane's old entrance could've just about been sold, and would presumably have been safe enough to put in place. But with all four corner-posts having the same pathetic sparklers attached it makes it seem like they were a deliberate choice. Which to me suggests that they were meant to visually complement some larger explosion(s) that just didn't happen at all.

I think the explosions on the floor were meant to go off first and create all the smoke (though I don't think all of them went off based on what I've read today), and THEN for the sparklers to go off once most of the ring was engulfed in the smoke.

Except the sparklers went off first and then there were only like two or three explosions on the outside.

Anyway, here's an interesting article from Variety about how despite falling ratings, pro-wrestling is in a "rights boom": https://variety.com/vip/despite-falling-ratings-pro-wrestling-is-in-a-rights-boom-1234920572/

BeardFaceMan

Kingston was selling, so there was obviously something bigger supposed to happen. Thats why we were expecting something, because Kingston was selling that something had happened, only the poor fucker had his head down and couldnt see what we saw, he just heard an explosion and went ahead with his job. Would have been nice if they called an audible and told him not to sell it so hard, that would have helped.

Quote from: Ja'moke on March 08, 2021, 05:28:06 PM
I think the explosions on the floor were meant to go off first and create all the smoke (though I don't think all of them went off based on what I've read today), and THEN for the sparklers to go off once most of the ring was engulfed in the smoke.

Yeah, that's how they make Goldberg's entrance look so spectacular even though it's just sparklers and dry ice. The sparklers light up the smoke so it looks like there's more fire than there really is.

Mobius

You'd be absolutely livid if you were Mox or Omega.

Really hard to make fun of WWE when AEW do stupid shit like that :(

But otherwise a really good show, not that it matters now.

Magnum Valentino

Feel bad for piling on, but the rope explosions were noticeably early every time someone was thrown into them. Pyro guy is likely for the chop.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Mobius on March 08, 2021, 08:32:24 PM
Really hard to make fun of WWE when AEW do stupid shit like that :(

Interesting that this happened as soon as Big Show joined AEW. Has he secretly been booking wrestling into oblivion?

Spode

Billy Gunn's lad bouncing round the ring like his Nobhead dad is not the recipe for me at all.

Deanjam

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on March 08, 2021, 08:54:02 PM
Interesting that this happened as soon as Big Show joined AEW. Has he secretly been booking wrestling into oblivion?

On the plus side, this is the longest he's gone without a turn.

amateur

I've just watched it again and it's still really bad.

Ja'moke

I can't bring myself to rewatch it out of second hand embarrassment.

Why didn't the use them old school Raw fireworks that travelled down a wire and exploded on impact, have one attached to each ring post.

Custard

First wrestling I've watched in ages, and ended up really enjoying it. Especially the tag battle royale and the ladder match

And I think Christian being back full time is enough to make me tune in each week, so job done on their part I'd say!