Professional Wrestling

Exactly. He could have chosen to act as the bigger man and ignore CM Punk as Punk ranting in his interview w/ Helwani makes him come across as the thin-skinned one who takes everything as a personal insult who can be easily baited by journalists not to mention as a selfish prima donna who chose to talk more about himself and his grievances than promote Wrestlemania w/c his other peers were doing (even the Rhea Ripley and Beckly Lynch confrontation in the same show still had the objective of promoting Wrestlemania). Instead, Tony petulantly does this (not to mention the Adam Copeland promo last week that sounds like Tony himself wrote it) and it now makes him look like the 2nd coming of Herb Abrams.

As someone who spent his teen years watching the Monday Night Wars, I was kinda blinded by nostalgia and the novelty of it all. Then after watching Wrestling Bios' Reliving the War series, I realized how much of the Attitude Era and NWO's Reign of Terror really were garbage. Also WCW's attempted Take Thats to WWF were just as petulant as Tony Khan's handling of CM Punk (see Eric Bischoff directly challenging Vince McMahon on Nitro to a fight).

Edited by KRider on Apr 10th 2024 at 7:20:43 AM

So while not wrong, I have found as I've gotten older I am far less sympathetic to claims someone needs to act 'The bigger man' whenever people constantly and endlessly talks shit about you, because more often than not it just causes them to do it louder and more publically, and when people are just as loudly and publically cheering on said shit talking I can't help but be a little sympathetic to Tony's position.

Edited by The_Reptile_ on Apr 10th 2024 at 7:21:18 AM

I do see your point. I guess the issue here is that CM Punk will never stop talking crap and not make everything about him no matter what anyone's responses will be and his fanbase is too diehard nothing will ever cause them to turn on him or question him. He could practically go off-script in WWE and start adopting a homophobic MAGA gimmick and his fanbase will still wholeheartedly defend him. The same fanbase were (and in light of the Brawl-Out of 2022 still are) even trying to rationalize his abysmal time in the UFC while at the same time insisting that he can single-handedly beat the crap out of everyone in the AEW locker room.

Edited by KRider on Apr 10th 2024 at 7:26:51 AM

I actually goes well beyond Punk, I saw an interview a couple of weeks ago where Dave Lagrecea said he just 'didn't know why' Tony stopped doing his weekly segments on Busted Open Radio which honestly the double take I did reading that gave me whiplash cause dude, your co-hosts make a regular habit of dragging a guy through the mud every opportunity they get, including on segments right after he has his appearances where you play nice with him, and then you act shocked when dude decides he doesn't want to give you the time of day.

There's plenty to criticize about Tony, whether it's his sporadic, stop-start booking style, his tendency to try and play nice with talent when he needs to play boss, or his colossal inability to avoid putting his foot in his mouth, but it's also very clear there is a cottage industry in the wrestling coverage community dedicated to just making him out to be an utter buffoon and getting shocked and appalled when he tries to call them out on it.

Edited by The_Reptile_ on Apr 10th 2024 at 7:34:01 AM

That part about Busted Open Radio I didn't know but I do know Eric Bischoff now having a podcast where he constantly criticizes Tony Khan while trying to come across as a wiseman in the broadcasting and wrestling business when in reality it's more like the pot calling the kettle black given Eric's screwups in WCW and TNA.

There's a whole section of the IWC that want nothing more than Tony looking as incompetent as possible so they can spout as much anti-AEW rhetoric as possible and that section of reporters doesn't help matters.

I criticize the company a decent bit but I wouldn't want them to go out of business like those people do.

It's honestly unfortuante, because while ratings and attendance have not reflected it at all, AEW television since the new year - with the humongous exception of the Undisputed Kingdom - has been really good, but because AEW's advertising game is so bad and they just don't have that killer, must see angle right now it makes it very hard to offer up any defenses on the Anti-AEW Brigade as the numbers get lackluster while WWE is on an unprecedented hot streak.

The key thing here is that these shots against AEW all happened in interviews outside of WWE TV. Triple H didn't cut a promo on Raw burying Ospreay, Punk didn't spend an hour of Wrestlemania time griping about AEW. But AEW did spend too much of their limited TV time talking about the WWE and that doesn't do them any good, you don't want your audience thinking about the other company rather than your product.

Also AEW has started copyright striking the footage in Twitter.

Okay we can talk shit about them showing the Punk footage all day long but I will absolutely say Will was 100% justified in taking a jab at Triple H for that utterly tone deaf 'More Pay For Less Work' jab of his own after the 2023 Will had. If I were him I would also be like 'Yo screw being the bigger man in this instance, fuck you!' I could have gone without the 'Slept with the bosses daughter' dig, but other than that on point.

Edit: Actually Triple H has been having some very weird media fumbles the past few months himself, between completely botching the Vince issue at the Rumble scrum, to clearly being salty he missed out on signing Okada about a month ago when he said the Forbidden Door as a concept was stupid, to the whole taking a swipe at guys who 'Want to get paid more for working less' last week, which is just honestly shocking cause he used to be really good at this and some of these are Tony level foot in mouth comments.

Edited by The_Reptile_ on Apr 10th 2024 at 8:15:43 AM

"I realized how much of the Attitude Era and NWO's Reign of Terror really were garbage."

In terms of the Attitude Era, I heard most of the garbage stuff was anything not to do with the big stars (and even they got crap from time to time). It was once Vince Russo left the company due to Smackdown doubling his workload and Chris Kreski replacing him that the WWF product became good all around in 2000.

Edited by DS9guy on Apr 11th 2024 at 3:13:58 AM

That was the best MMA fight I've ever seen Punk involved in.

It was fine w/ the big stars. It was tasteless crap like everything Headbanger Mosh got saddled w/ after the Headbangers split (Beaver Cleavage and lots of implied incest w/ his kayfabe mother for one example), Naked Mideon, the Kennel from Hell, etc. Then in WCW, the NWO over time came across as annoying Invincible Villains starting around the Hogan vs Sting title match and the most especially by the time of the NWO reformation via the Fingerpoke of Doom. Then when Vince Russo got into WCW it all got so much worse w/ even more tasteless crap like fellow ex-WWF writer Ed Ferrara portraying a sexist, unflaterring caricature of Jim Ross called Oklahoma, dumber pole matches like Pinata on a Pole and Viagra on a Pole, the entirety of WCW Thunder May 3 2000, much much more interferences per match compared to even the NWO's matches, etc.

Also another factor that WWF gotten better once Russo left was the acquisition of talented wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle and the Radicalz (as much as people understandably don't like to discuss Chris Benoit). Although w/ Benoit, while his matches in both WCW and WWF are undoubtedly great, his recklessness towards his head are wince-inducing in hindsight.

Edited by KRider on Apr 11th 2024 at 2:41:59 AM

Just to broach the Chris Benoit topic really quickly, as a performer and a once-in-a-lifetime generational talent, I will easily admit in a heartbeat that he was every bit deserving of the status as one of the single greatest performers in Professional Wrestling history. What he brought to the table was sheer, utter brilliance with each and every performance on the ring, and had that incredibly harrowing murder-suicide where his entire family being slaughtered by him hadn’t occurred, we would obviously be far quicker to declare him as one of the greats… but that being said, as is… persona non grata. The rule about Benoit is clear: Address very very sparingly.

But even with The Attitude Era and The Early 2000's, there was one thing that still held back even THOSE eras: Vince MacMahon. The absolute top of the pecking order. The man making pulls, pushes, pivots and swerves on a dime, where nothing good that he had, ever really sprang up with any measure other than complete fucking accident, or in the case of Roman Reigns making his Face-Heel Turn, basically having his arm twisted in. If Vince was even REMOTELY more competent than he was, we would have had Attitude Era-like hype for far longer, and not the cesspit of stupidity and despair that much of his product had become… and perhaps nothing speaks of this more than the first Wrestlemania in history where his influence was finally eradicated for good: Wrestlemania XL. Regarding Night 2 specifically, every single person performing, you can tell was relieved to finally be able to use this massive event to showcase everything, that can be great about professional wrestling, from the incredibly colorful characters, to the nuanced storytelling from body language, to the hype, to the music, to The Undertaker cutting Dwayne Johnson's ego down eighteen pegs… it felt like they were finally freed of the parasite named Vince MacMahon… and they were thriving.

Edited by Ego-Man25 on Apr 11th 2024 at 4:59:47 AM

‘The guy at the top of the company calling the shots is the one holding back the company’ is for all intents and purposes the ‘’actual’’ oldest storyline in wrestling, really.

Well, business has just picked up.

Tama Tonga (sp) has just arrived in WWE, and Jimmy looks like he's out.

Looks like Solo's doing a hostile takeover too.

Took a year but about time Solo started to go rogue.

I wonder where Jimmy goes from here. Like, I doubt he's going to team up with Jey, considering the falling out they had (which culminated in a match at Wrestlemania almost a week ago. But he may be out of the Bloodline (if there even is a bloodline anymore) so he's got nothing now.

Holy shit Jack Perry vs Shota Umino over at Windy City Riot was a masterclass and Jack had tgat Chicago crowd eating out of his hand.

Oh yeah. I think he's prepared for when he returns to AEW.

I just wonder how Jack's character is going to work in the long run because he can't be riding the Punk wave forever.

Edited by omega2900 on Apr 12th 2024 at 10:20:00 AM

AND MOX HAS PINNED NAITO TO WIN THE IWGP WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP.

And now... we can finally close the book on the "decided random bullshit on a whim" era of World Wrestling Entertainment, and get into NORMAL wrestling BS instead.

We have Cody Rhodes, the guy the fans blatantly wanted as the Champion, as the freaking Champion, Undertaker is doing his cool stuff still, proving that not even Dwayne Johnson is immune to him, we finally got freaking closure for the Seth Rollins/Roman Reigns Shield stuff, Triple H, the top dog guy in charge, is a reasonable guy, both in real life, and Kayfabe... and for the first time in fucking forever... WWE actually has its shit together.

And now that we are here at long last... where do we go from here? I don't know... but for the first time, I'm actually kind of stoked when I say that.

WWE will be pulling back much of the AR used for shows.

Honestly, good for them. Given they've got wrestlers, being able to use the word "wrestler" again, that's all they need.

...so I just heard (on the Sonic the Hedgehog movie thread mind you) that our favourite Final Boss has made some Anti-Woke comments.

I like the Rock. I want to keep liking the Rock. Even in spite of his attempts to hijack other franchises (DCMU and Fast Franchise...maybe for that last one).

So I got to know: is this true? Has anyone seen anything about this anywhere?