Professional Wrestling

Some people have already turned to disliking him. Smarks are assholes like that.

Has anyone (person, database, etc) ever done the math on the whole "Person who goes over on the go-home show loses at the PPV" thing? I'd like to know if it is still, or was ever, accurate. At least for WWE ppvs.

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

You know, I'm almost starting to believe they're really gonna make Kofi champion.

Then again, it's not the first time WWE has dropped the ball at the very last second.

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Well, Daniel Bryan did beat down HHH at the go-home show for WM 30, and beat HHH and won the title on that show anyway, but that was a special case and there was no way D-Bry was walking out without the belt.

So it looks like yet another "holy grail" of wrestling footage has been found:

https://deadspin.com/lost-tape-of-bret-harts-finest-artistic-achievement-in-1833629409

First the "Last Battle of Atlanta" and now this, it's a good time to be a fan of old school wrestling.

I'd have loved to go to Walemania and the Bullet Club Block Party this weekend. And the G1 Special at MSG. But to see so much celebration on the weekend, I'm happy people are having fun.

For something more serious, this post is right about how we can't just decide to look past a minority person's chance for a positive experience, after so long ignoring them (us) or playing them up as negative.

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

So...Bret Hart got attacked by a very, very stupid fan at the Hall of Fame today apparently.

Needless to say, jumping a well loved Wrestler when numerous other Wrestlers are nearby (and the policy for jumping over the barricade has always been now you're fair game) provoked exactly the reaction you'd expect it to.

Hope that dude burns in hell...while still getting beaten.

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Oi, don't call that asshole a fan, he's nothing of the kind.

Creed of the Happy Pessimist:Always expect the worst. Then, when it happens, it was only what you expected. All else is a happy surprise.

...You know what?

Fair enough.

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Not that he's not an asshole, but I've already seen lots of fanbases pointing the finger at each other going "Our fans aren't like that, it must be their fans." Tons of wrestling fans are assholes.

Oddly enough, near-simultaneously, Enzo and Cass jumped the barricade at the G1 Supercard. Given Enzo previously tried to put himself over by crashing Survivor Series (and was escorted out), this isn't surprising for him, but it is a little for Cass. But they were taken out through the crowd from what I heard, and the (tag) match went on, so it may be an ROH work.
I want for it to not be a work, because I really don't want them, and while they do have name recognition, it could be another sign that the actual quality of ROH is on the decline.

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

I'm surprised Cass stuck with Enzo.

I thought they were on the outs.

At the least, the little troll is a lot more trouble than he's worth with all the shit he's been up to.

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Kayfabe News is on point with their articles on the situation.

KOFI!!!!!

KINGSTON!!!!!

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

Hell yeah.

But what the hell just happened with the Rey vs Joe match?

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Rey supposedly got hurt last week, so he wasn't 100%.

Triple H's entrance was over 4 minutes long, and longer than the US and Universal championship matches combined.

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

Yeah.

I knew he was hurt, but I didn't think it was that bad.

Fucking Baron Corben.

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Double post for how stupid WWE is. I can't believe they actually let Baron Corben win....then again I'm baffled that they had him be Kurt's last match anyway so I shouldn't be shocked.

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I'm glad they let Baron Corbin win. That's what wrestling used to do: have retiring greats go out losing, to put over new talent. It's not a practice I was ever a big fan of, but I appreciate the consistency. Kurt has had tons of spotlight and got to beat plenty of other people on his retirement tour.

My problem is that WWE is still not actually letting Corbin be the heel that they hired him to be. Every now and then they punish him for doing his job too well, or let him take the fall.

While I'd have rather the story behind this match be different so they could've had either Chad Gable or Shelton Benjamin retire Angle, I don't mind that it was Corbin.

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

Mania was pretty good and kind of had an experimental edge to it in terms of booking.

Lesnar v Rollins as booked smartly and the right man went over.

If you told me Kofi would be WWE Champion 3 months ago I would have called you a liar.

Women's Main Event was great as well.

Pretty good, 8/10.

GIVE ME YOUR FACE

What did you guys think of the women's match?

I thought it was good. They all brought it. Ronda should probably continue to be a heel when she gets back. I think she does it better than face.

Meanwhile, it looks like they are planning to unify the universal and world heavyweight championships.

Although if they have Kofi lose the belt a day after getting it, that's gonna be like a bullet to the head.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Apr 8th 2019 at 6:13:50 AM

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Also, nice work given, by some accounts, Ronda was wrestling with a legit broken hand.

Really?

Then she needs that break I'd say...well, a different break.

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From what I heard, she broke it during the match. Which is an ironic end to a feud that included killing kayfabe.

I'm just glad they didn't give Kofi the Ryder treatment and have him lose right away. He at least needs to have a longer reign than Vince. Preferably a reign of at least a month.

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

DS 9 guy, unfortunately yes. TNA was just as bad ass WWE was, and WCW was better to most of the wrestlers who worked for it for awhile but worse for the industry as a whole...albeit not by much since they at least weren't intentionally out to kill any company that wasn't WWF.

Ring Of Honor also does the independent contractor thing, but isn't quite as bad, mainly because Sinclair Broadcast Group couldn't be as controlling as Vince McMahon if they tried, not as controlling of surly wrestlers anyway. They just don't treat the promotion like they do most things. It's an entertainment property they didn't make and like poking at sometimes but are more interested in having it than actually using it, so there is a larger degree of freedom for the guys who actually do the work. Sinclare isn't interested in running 300 days a year, so there is a lot more leeway to work somewhere else before you take the agreements with NJPW, CMLL and whatever else into account. A select few pets even get compensation for missed shows, sometimes even salary.

It's not an ideal situation, but with WWF/E/WCW/TNA to measure against it's an improvement. Of course ROH used to have no "formal" contracts at all, you can thank Ric Flair for that reverse in course and the fact their "roster" won't be bullied for the reason it hasn't reversed further. I don't know what the situation of not!TNA Impact is right now. It was worse than WWE, but apparently losing Matt Hardy taught them a lesson.

AAA is pretty controlling, although I don't speak Spanish so the finer details probably escape me. From what I can tell it's still better than WWE/TNA. AAA luchadors still pop up all over. CMLL offers more freedom than AAA, if you want to use a sliding scale, which just makes WWE's independent contractor situation more absurd because CMLL is one of the few feds that may run more shows in a year than WWE if they feel like it and business is good. You know, by not using the same guys all the time and getting into mutual beneficial agreements with other companies to take some of the heavy lifting and overhead out. CMLL aren't saints, they still try to kill companies they don't like for petty reasons, but again, if you use a sliding scale they're miles ahead of WWE.

I speak even less Japanese than I do Spanish, but from what I gather All Japan not paying for a wrestler's injury they were responsible for was seen as "shocking", so the idea I get is that they take more responsibility than WWE. New Japan historically has been better than All Japan, Inoki's MMA driven insanity slips aside. And again, NJPW is the kind of company that will fire wrestlers as scapegoats to appease their sponsors, but yeah, they only ones I can think of as bad or worse than WWE are either no longer in existence or tiny independent outfits who are somewhat more forgivable.

But hey, as John Oliver said, no oversight. That means WWE can do whatever it wants as long as it makes money. Lucky for us there are alternatives wrestling outfits to watch. All Elite Wrestling and ROH both proved non lucha libre feds can draw in the 10,000s directly underneath WWE's shadow and and hey, lucha libre feds have been proving they can do it since the 1990s. Fans continuing to help other companies find success is the only solution to the McMahon problem, in my opinion.

Luckily even many of the tiny by indie standard feds have streaming, subscription services, websites or at least a "social media" presence in this day and age. Ring Warriors even had/has TV. It isn't hard to find non WWE wrestling. So with more luck more of these come and go indies can become established stops for talent to get paid(and for fans to be entertained-CZW has done it, it can be done), some of these larger feds can collectively let more wrestlers make a decent living(Cody Rhodes makes more outside E than in). The territories aren't coming back. Five major companies in the US seems like a child's dream, much less 39, but I still think McMahon is a problem that can be worked around. We've already made some progress.

Incidentally, that 10,000 number... I'm still wary to see if it can actually be counted on and repeated outside of WWE.

We say All In was basically an AEW event, and it sort of was, but it was riding not only on promotion from the AEW guys via BTE and other means, but also was promoted to a lesser extent via, and used some of the roster of, NJPW, TNA, and CMLL. Granted, most of the people on that card are now with AEW, but still, it was effectively a multi-promotional push. Plus, you have some people, myself included, who might not have gone had it been one of several ppvs a promotion did, instead of being treated as a special one-off. It was a lot of fun, but I'm not certain they can consistently use that lightning captured in a bottle.

The G1 Supercard was also not just an ROH show. It was equal parts ROH and NJPW, and NJPW being a foreign promotion meant it brought in something more rare and special.

I also worry that given people's feedback to the ROH matches, and general dissatisfaction with bringing in Enzo and Cass and the way they did it, people may not be as high on ROH anymore.

I'd like to be wrong, and to see AEW and NJPW do better for the talent, and give WWE more competition and reason to do better.

Still, even outside of wrestling, I've always been skeptical of the "competition promotes innovation and improvement" assumption. It's not always true, and often isn't.

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Also, AEW/Elite stans are annoying as fuck. Condescending, presumptive that AEW will be the second coming of Jesus Miracle Mike Bennett, entitled to anything good in wrestling and any free agent...

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

Innovation? Sometimes. Better products, almost always. Not necessarily that competition automatically makes better products, but that it specifically punishes companies for release bad products. Innovation lead to such inspired decisions as having an empty arena match in a building WWF didn't own and didn't sell tickets in. Not only is innovation not always a good thing, but many of WWF's 'innovations' were cut and paste. Hell in the cell, for instance, was two specialty cages of JCP and WCW slapped together. Still, it meant WCW could just coast on phoned in War Games or Towers Of Doom. (now you can argue they went to far in the other direction with pointless bumps trying to get the same "wow" as the Mankind fall, but as long as WWF didn't try to sustain that, WCW wouldn't either)

All the same, a lot of people thought WWF had a better product when WCW was forcing it to try different things, rather than when WCW was gone and the fans had to borderline riot or boycott to get it. There isn't complete consensus on that but it is almost universally agreed that ECW and WCW made WWF much better than it was before it started stealing ideas from the former to compete with the latter. "New Generation" bled money before WCW stomped on WWF.

And more to the point, WWF had to treat it's wrestlers a little better than usual in the late 1990s because they didn't have as much incentive to put up with McMahon's bullshit. John Oliver mentions Hart's criticism of McMahon, he forgot to mention Hart left. Now Bischoff wasn't a massive improvement, but still, Hart only had about five places on the North American continent where he could maintain his income, there's always a good chance four out of five may not have had room for Bret Hart even if they would otherwise have use for him and he found a spot nonetheless.

The territories were not an ideal business model(and it says something about your business when they're the closest thing it's had to one). They were a trust designed to limit competition. But before McMahon fucked it up there were never less than 39 successful territories in the continental United States alone, and usually at least a couple in Canada. Meaning if McMahon has just become that intolerable and Bischoff is only slightly less so, Hart still has thirty eight potential places to go make money in his language market, and another three or four if he didn't mind learning Spanish, because a successful territorial system could have rehabilitated Puerto Rico as well. A successful territorial system is why pro wrestling escaped the clubs and concerts of Japan, it did a lot of good(Lucha Libre boomed before the territories. They weren't the end all be all, but that's just a better argument for less monopoly in my opinion).

They aren't coming back, but if we just got ROH and AWE consistently up to AAA B Show gates that would be something. Impact and Lucha Underground with them would defy all expectation. Another like GFW or Ring Warriors and it'd be borderline miraculous. Six isn't thirty nine, but six shots is better than hit one or sneak into Mexico/Japan(oh, World Of Sport is back, maybe UK). Five even less so, but it's still more than one, as is three, or two. You ever seen Triple A B shows? I've posted videos of CMLL's on this thread if you haven't. For the purpose of this discussion they're close enough. Fans love them, they give venue owners good will towards lucha libre, and if the luchadors are smart with their payoffs and self promotion, they enhance and extend careers. Especially for those not fortunate enough for long term AAA/CMLL bookings. More so than jobbing on Raw/Smackdown/NXT/WWE B Show version 3.

I'm not implying you must like AWE. If you don't enjoy it by all means find a promotion that better suits you. But at this point, I see more annoyance in WWE than All Elite. By WWE fans pretending good wrestlers being in developmental for fifteen months then being booted to the independent circuit or promoted to shows they don't even like watching is a privilege for us. By all means wrestlers, get money, trips, rooms, lunch, continue your careers but I need not follow WWE for you to do that. I'd like an industry where more of you could do without WWE. Against the odds ROH has done it for handful. TNA should have done it for a whole lot more. Maybe AWE will be another refuge.