OT: New Wrasslin’ Fed

[11thEagleFan]

AEW (the brain child of Cody Rhodes) with the financial backing of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Tony Khan, announced today that they have signed a TV deal with TNT that will include coverage from Bleacher Report. I haven’t regularly watched wrestling in 15 years or more. Anybody else gonna check this out?

 

[Drebin]

AEW (the brain child of Cody Rhodes) with the financial backing of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Tony Khan, announced today that they have signed a TV deal with TNT that will include coverage from Bleacher Report. I haven’t regularly watched wrestling in 15 years or more. Anybody else gonna check this out?

It has to be a good thing. Vince’s product has blown chunks for a while now.

 

[jack daniels dog]

Mid south wrestling for life

 

[ll Martain ll]

I’ve got tickets to Double or Nothing in a couple weeks. AEWs second show and I’m already a mark.

I very much miss watching GOOD wrestling—after a 10 year run, I haven’t watched Raw or Smackdown since before WM33. I just hope AEW is good.

For any wrestling fans who aren’t familiar with what the elite have been doing, YouTube Being the Elite. It’s AEWs origin story.

 

[Drewbowski]

NWO 4 life

 

[aTotal360]

Interesting. I wondered what Jericho was doing these days. I'll check it out.

 

[11thEagleFan]

I usually try to watch WWE once or twice a year but it’s just so terrible. The wrong company won the Monday Night Wars. I only just started watching some stuff here and there about a year ago. I was on a business trip in Denver, lying in a hotel bed flipping through channels when I came across New Japan Pro Wrestling. Some guy named Kenny Omega was wrestling Cody Rhodes. I figured I’d give it a shot. They wrestled for probably close to an hour and I was hooked. Since then I’ve kept up with both of them. Kenny Omega is unreal. Glad Dusty’s kid is doing good. I’ll watch their show.

 

[Seinfeld]

I don’t know if the wrong company won, but you’re right that today’s WWE doesn’t even slightly resemble the product from the attitude or RA eras. Vince has basically taken a giant crap on the demographic that kept him from going bankrupt, and all he cares about now is expanding his global footprint as quickly as he can.

I was really excited to hear about AEW’s deal with TNT because that pretty much guarantees decent production value. As watered down as WWE is these days, I also think we’ll see a steady stream of talented guys headed AEW’s way. I’ll check it out

 

[aTotal360]

The right company won the Monday night wars. The problem is that rasslin' is too PC now. Zero edge. Go back and watch some of the WWE stuff during the "Attitude" Era. Degeneration X, the Godfather and the Ho Train, Val Venus, "puppies" etc. Any of those would cause the WWE to lose 10s of millions of dollars in revenue today.

 

[Drebin]

The right company won the Monday night wars. The problem is that rasslin' is too PC now. Zero edge. Go back and watch some of the WWE stuff during the "Attitude" Era. Degeneration X, the Godfather and the Ho Train, Val Venus, "puppies" etc. Any of those would cause the WWE to lose 10s of millions of dollars in revenue today.

The problem is that Linda McMahon decided that she wanted to be a politician so they cleaned everything up. No more blading, no more chair shots, no more cursing on air, and no more T&A. In other words, no more of anything that made the attitude era so great.

 

[MSUDC11]

WWE's problem nowadays is that they have zero mega stars or household names. Not even a John Cena level guy, who was not popular at all with adult fans but was an enormous hit with kids, which is who they decided to cater their product to in the mid to late 2000's. They have a very talented roster right now, but their constant micro-managing and Vince's obsession with making a star out of somebody he hand picked instead of letting it happen organically has stifled any creative momentum they've had in recent years and put a ceiling on how high certain guys can rise in the ranks.

Quite frankly, they insult their fans' intelligence on a weekly basis with the storyline inconsistencies and booking that makes no sense. And they can be SOOOO over the top cheesy with how they promote social media and try to stay current with the times. It's cringe-worthy how they constantly seem like the dork trying to fit in with the cool kids.

 

[aTotal360]

I'll admit that I don't hardly watch anymore. I just listen to everyone ***** about it on Busted Open on XM.

 

[MSUDC11]

I usually try to watch WWE once or twice a year but it’s just so terrible. The wrong company won the Monday Night Wars. I only just started watching some stuff here and there about a year ago. I was on a business trip in Denver, lying in a hotel bed flipping through channels when I came across New Japan Pro Wrestling. Some guy named Kenny Omega was wrestling Cody Rhodes. I figured I’d give it a shot. They wrestled for probably close to an hour and I was hooked. Since then I’ve kept up with both of them. Kenny Omega is unreal. Glad Dusty’s kid is doing good. I’ll watch their show.

Omega is probably the best wrestler in the world today. WWE apparently threw a lot of money at him to try to sign him, but he wanted to start this new company with his friends (Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks). I highly recommend going to YouTube looking up his matches with a guy named Okada from the last couple of years. Every one of them is one of the best pro wrestling matches you'll ever see.

 

[$altyDawg]

Degeneration X's run in with Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie was as good as it gets.

 

[TheStateUofMS]

The right company won the Monday night wars. The problem is that rasslin' is too PC now. Zero edge. Go back and watch some of the WWE stuff during the "Attitude" Era. Degeneration X, the Godfather and the Ho Train, Val Venus, "puppies" etc. Any of those would cause the WWE to lose 10s of millions of dollars in revenue today.

I actually don't think they would lose money unless the advertisers demanded it because the fan base sure as hell wouldn't ditch wrastling bc someone called a lady a hoe or Val Venis exposed some puppies.

 

[Dawg_4_lifes]

NWO 4 life

The 4 Horseman say Hi

 

[Carbaryl]

The "attitude era" is highly overrated.There wasn't much of wrasslin product being put out during that time either by WWE.It was just covered up by tits and *** and two stars that caught on at the right time.

Hopefully we'll one day see the WWF,NWA,AWA days of the 80's and early 90's where there is actual wrasslin and not a badly written stunt show with nothing but high spots and a guy kicking out of a finish in a match 5 or 6 times.Fingers crossed that AEW isn't TNA 2.0.

If Verne Gagne would not have been as big of ahole as he was then the AWA would still be running right now because Hogan would have stayed there and WWF would never had reached the levels it has.

 

[Seinfeld]

To each his own I guess, but I thought the AE was great for a lot of reasons. Stone Cold, DX, Taker & Cane, Rock, Foley, Edge & Christian, Hardy Boyz, Jericho, Trish & Lita. I mean... there’s a lengthy list of top tier hall of famers before you even get to a lot of the guys that came over late from WCW.

In terms of top notch wrestling, I’ll give you that we rarely saw phenomenal matches on Raw at that time, but Raw was a different show then. It was there to entertain you for 2 hrs while setting up the “real” matches held at PPVs. Some of the best matches of all time happened at those PPVs.

Either way, we can probably all agree that today’s product sucks, but I’ve come to the realization that Vince isn’t worried about the American male 18-35 demographic anymore. He wants a global demographic that includes men, women, and children of all age, and he won’t get there with cursing, violence, and sex. Sucks for us, but take a look at what WWE stock has done over the last 2 years. The man knows what he’s doing

 

[aTotal360]

Highly overrated? You couldn't be more wrong. You can say you didn't care for it, but saying it's overrated is dumb. Here's a google search of "most watched wrestling era". I guess all the wrestling bloggers are wrong.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mos...e..69i57j33.6511j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Seinfeld]

Speaking of which, I just saw that Flair is in the hospital again in extremely critical condition. Hate to say it, but it does feel like he's been living on borrowed time for about 5 years now.

I hope he pulls through

 

[Drebin]

The "attitude era" is highly overrated.There wasn't much of wrasslin product being put out during that time either by WWE.It was just covered up by tits and *** and two stars that caught on at the right time.

Hopefully we'll one day see the WWF,NWA,AWA days of the 80's and early 90's where there is actual wrasslin and not a badly written stunt show with nothing but high spots and a guy kicking out of a finish in a match 5 or 6 times.Fingers crossed that AEW isn't TNA 2.0.

If Verne Gagne would not have been as big of ahole as he was then the AWA would still be running right now because Hogan would have stayed there and WWF would never had reached the levels it has.

You had Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero dropping five star matches every time they took the ring. Shawn Michaels could still go from time to time, and you had really compelling characters in there too. The tag team division with E&C, the Hardyz, the Dudleys, and even the fringe teams like Shelton Benjamin and his partner (World's Greatest Tag Team), was the best ever. Those TLC matches were always unbelievable. Of course, the really charismatic guys like Steve Austin and the Rock were the upper level. Never really understood HHH as a main eventer, but whatever. I don't know how you can call any of that overrated. We'll never get that aGAIN.

WWE was great, if for no other reason than Angle and Jericho. But the rest of it was awesome. Even the filler stuff, like the hardcore title with "falls count everywhere" was must-see TV.

The announcers were much better too. It didn't get better than Good Ol' JR with a fully heel Jerry Lawler.

 

[aTotal360]

I got 2 words for ya...

 

[aTotal360]

So what's the deal with Omega? I don't know much about him, but I watched about an hour of his matches on Youtube. He's a badass for sure. I think he suffers from the same thing Taz did when he got to the WWE. Everyone else is a giant and he's under 6 foot.

 

[MissStFan87]

The announcers were much better too. It didn't get better than Good Ol' JR with a fully heel Jerry Lawler.

Speaking of JR, he'll be the announcer for AEW.

 

[Drebin]

Speaking of JR, he'll be the announcer for AEW.

"My GAWD king! He might be dead!"

 

[11thEagleFan]

I’ve only watched probably ~10 of his matches, but already consider myself a fan. He doesn’t look short to me. If I had to guess, I’d say he hits 6 feet right on the nose. Besides, most guys aren’t 6’5 and above anymore. Look at guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle, Randy Savage, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, etc. None of them were 6 feet tall and they did fine.

 

[MSUDC11]

So what's the deal with Omega? I don't know much about him, but I watched about an hour of his matches on Youtube. He's a badass for sure. I think he suffers from the same thing Taz did when he got to the WWE. Everyone else is a giant and he's under 6 foot.

WWE would love to have Omega if we wanted to go there, but he turned them down. WWE still favors bigger guys but they have gotten behind some smaller guys the last few years, namely AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan.

 

[Dawg1979]

its all been **** since WCW. Goldberg, Brett Hart, Sting, NWO, Mean Jean. Those were the days. hell Goldberg could probably still beat these punks now.

 

[aTotal360]

He's billed as 6 foot which means he's probably 5'10".

 

[Seinfeld]

If there was a ever guy that was in the right place at the right time, it was Goldberg. The NWO was absolutely dominating the business at that point, and there were plenty of guys that they could have thrown into the hero’s role, but none as believable as Goldberg. He was a monster

It’s still funny to me when I go back and watch some of the old Nitros because it was pretty much the last era of kayfabe, and it’s hilarious listening to Tony Schiavani get hysterical about how Luger or Sting’s buddies aren’t there to help him one week. Then, without fail, something wild would happen in the last 5 minutes of the show, but you’d hear... “Sorry folks! We’ve run out of our allotted time! See you next week!!”

One crazy thing I read not too long ago was that Bischoff’s original plan was to have Sting lead the NWO. However, he was dealing with some injury that was going to require some time off, and the rest is history

 

[Drewbowski]

Sting was the backup plan if Hogan decided not to turn heel.

Bischoff has a podcast called 83 weeks that really interesting.

 

[josebrown]

WWE's problem nowadays is that they have zero mega stars or household names. Not even a John Cena level guy, who was not popular at all with adult fans but was an enormous hit with kids, which is who they decided to cater their product to in the mid to late 2000's. They have a very talented roster right now, but their constant micro-managing and Vince's obsession with making a star out of somebody he hand picked instead of letting it happen organically has stifled any creative momentum they've had in recent years and put a ceiling on how high certain guys can rise in the ranks.

Quite frankly, they insult their fans' intelligence on a weekly basis with the storyline inconsistencies and booking that makes no sense. And they can be SOOOO over the top cheesy with how they promote social media and try to stay current with the times. It's cringe-worthy how they constantly seem like the dork trying to fit in with the cool kids.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

On a slightly different topic. Anyone see what Jack Swagger did this weekend? His new gig, MMA, Jake turned heel in the cage. Ariel Helwani had him on his podcast Tuesday I think. Sounds like he's very excited to find a new career. And, while choking a dude out and not letting go when he tapped out or when the ref first told him to, he has turned heel in his new sport quickly... He did bring his WWE self-promotion and camera antics over to a sport a far cry different from the other kind of wrasslin he was doing. And he does use his real name now, not Jack Swagger.