The Wrestling Discussion Thread

What happened?

@sombre: Dante Martin broke his leg taking the most unsafe thing I've ever seen in wrestling. Probably up there with one of the grossest looking injuries too.

Sometimes you just see a spot is going to end up bad. That spot was one. I skipped through it because it just felt so wrong. Turns out I was right to do so. Top Flight is never going to get momentum at this rate.

Besides that, what a fucking PPV. Felt almost surreal. Lariat McLariat is back on commentary too.

Dumb

Seeing people legitimately mad that the bad guy won reminds me of that promo Brian Pillman cut when he debuted in ECW. If they were going to have Reigns lose, they would've had Sami win.

Got to wonder what's going on in the heads of guys like Andrade, Bald FTR man and Miro, now that Vince is officially back and deciding the big picture.

Weird that the guy currently accused of sexual assault would merge companies with a public wife beater to create a $20 billion company with zero repercussions for either.

@brian_: Jeez man, Vince said he's owned up and moved on!

Seriously though, I just wish I could be even a little bit surprised that both guys got a virtual slap on the wrist and then generously rewarded for the shit they've pulled. With both it's that they also have a history of doing heinous shit besides those recent things, but it's all just supposed to be okay because they're rich and white in the United States of America. Isn't that what the American dream is all about?

Does Vince have enough years in him to build an underwater city?

"And they called it .... RAAA...SSSLEMANIA!"

@shindig: What I'm wondering is if Vince will genuinely try some weird shit to lengthen his life. Dude seems like he would.

Turns out Vickie Guerrero is also a gigantic piece of shit. Takes a special kind of turd to manage to break the news barrier on a week like this in the wrestling world.

Pretty fucked up when Rick Steiner being a public transphobe has multiple challengers for the grossest news to come out of Wrestlemania week.

Vince returning was the most obvious thing. It's been obvious since he announced his retirement: he LITERALLY lies all the time. He's like Odin in GoW: Ragnarok: he lies for the sake of lying, because lying comes more naturally to him than the truth.

@retris:If you think this is exclusively an American problem, have I got a federation full of diddlers and sexpests across the Pond for you...

@undeadpool: Weird whataboutism dude. I don't know why you'd assume I don't know about the problems in the UK wrestling. Even in that contest, this is absolutely fucked up. Spoilers because it's very non-PG Vickie making a post trashing her daughter for not liking her husband after she raped her, calling her daughter a narcissist because at 12 she was hard to manage because her father died tragically, talking about how she ruined their holiday by getting raped and blaming her for getting drunk, and finally, the cherry on top of the shit cake: saying she should've forgiven him for raping her because he bought her things to make up for it. Then, when the response was bad, she kept reposting it and making more comprehensive lists of the things that were bought, not understanding that it's not helping the situation.

Just unbelievable tone deafness and not realizing that none of it makes her side of the issue look any better.

Edit: also, lol at Shaul doing the same thing. These people are fucking unbelievable.

Yeah, that's a complete mess from start to finish.

My mate said AEW are doing Wembley Stadium later in the year. That's like an 80k stadium

@sombre: Yuuupp. That's a real... ALL IN moment for them. It's also amusing that I remember that there was talk of Wembley Stadium courting WWE to have a PPV there or something and WWE weren't interested?

The timing didn't line up for WWE. Wembley wasn't available until around Summerslam.

@retris: Uh...my comment was in-response to you saying "With both it's that they also have a history of doing heinous shit besides those recent things, but it's all just supposed to be okay because they're rich and white in the United States of America. Isn't that what the American dream is all about?"

as a pretty light piece of "heh, well if you think it's bad here, wait'll see how it is elsewhere" banter. Steady on.

@retris: Vince absolutely has a cryogenic chamber ready to go. Or he gives himself the Lenin treatment in the lobby of Titan Towers.

@shindig: Well, he already looks like Walt Disney...

The worst part is he'll be unthawed every Monday evening to rewrite Raw.

@undeadpool: ahh, didn't know what you were replying to. True, the US isn't the only place that has... problems. It's just that as a non-American the American exceptionalism combined with their lack of rule of law has always been a baffling phenomenon.

Someone must have wished for Sanada to become world champion on a monkey paw or something. All it took for New Japan to put the belt on him was becoming the leader of the dorkiest group in all of wrestling.

A group they're pushing as legit, and has Taka, who hasn't been over since the 90s, and Douki, the biggest weirdo geek in New Japan.

Goodness me

I have to hard disagree. Sure, on paper the cannon fodder of Suzuki-Gun forming a stable might sound bad, but they've been over with the crowds and on the internet even before Sanada joining. They're "Dudes rock" the stable. They're this music video in faction form. They're positive masculinity in a world full of chauvinistic shitbags. Also, Taka has always been over, motherfucker. He just isn't/wasn't relevant.

On an unrelated note, I've been laughing at people who were so excited about a "scissor me, daddy Ass" shirt complain how they wouldn't wear a "Fat ass, bad attitude" shirt in public.

The scissoring shit has always been weird to me. I mean, if that's your thing, you do you, but typically scissoring isn't a male sex act. It's made even weirder when Caster goes out there and raps about stuff like two dudes being dressed the same probably means they're gay and probably just had sex with each other.

@retris: True, we tend to air our dirty laundry for the world to smell and then claim it doesn't stink. Other rich assholes are smart enough to just quietly do evil and probably never be caught.

It's ridiculous how good ROH has been. I usually tend to have spurts of excitement for wrestling promotions/shows that wax and wane, but ROH on HonorClub has been consistently just absolutely terrific. It's so minimalistic, just focus of good promos and good wrestling. It also doesn't have Tony Khan's favourite type of match, the extended squash match. All matches are either matches that can go to either wrestler, dream matches, or they're fairly short. None of that stuff from AEW shows where a main-eventer wrestles a jobber for fifteen minutes to fill up time.

Another ridiculous thing is how getting tutelage from Sting has made Darby Allin astonishingly comfortable on the mic. Dude's been making the other four pillars look bad by completely outshining them on the mic, even MJF. And it's not outshining in the Triple H / Steph way of just burying the other guys, it's just the way every sentence he says just completely fits into his character and makes you understand where he's coming from. Darby's really become a complete package. Him, Malakai and Swerve are three guys who could so well get fitted into permanent main-eventers if ol' TK felt like it.

Not a good weekend for moonsaults. Extreme Tiger got KTFO'd by a moonsault at NOAH (and it took them a while to notice) and the lil' guy from Aussie Open got his guts destroyed by a guardrail at NJPW.

Kyle Fletcher has been getting his ass kicked by guardrails all week. Busted his head open in Japan on a moonsault to the outside during the IWGP tag match too.

Amazing how much more civil CM Punk's gotten now that Vince is firmly back in-control of WWE.

Amazing how much more civil things get backstage when there's no hard exit plan.

@undeadpool: I love how Dax Harwood has suddenly gone from constantly trying to start shit to "wait, why is everybody mad at me?".

HAH! Right?

Last 4 months: Everybody's wrong except us, I dunno if I'm even gonna stick around in this company, maybe I'll go somewhere my talents, and MY FRIENDS' TALENTS, are appreciated!

Last 48 hours: Can't we all just get along, it's ALL Elite Wrestling, guys, we're here to STAY and always have been!

@undeadpool: And now his podcast is done. Claims he didn't know it would offend people and "is sorry" for it. His co-host also is playing the victim and claiming it's everyone else's fault.

When Punk said he works with a bunch of children, he must've meant himself and Dax.

@retris: It's as true now as it always has been: people who play the "look how much more mature I am" card never are.

Jesus fucking Christ, the Punk situation is just absurd. AEW is completely bending over for him and he's still having meltdowns for not getting his way. At which point do you just realize that you're in a sunk cost situation and cut bait? This is a guy who has left every company he's ever been in on bad terms except ROH, a guy who has turned almost all of his friends into enemies along the years, the only guy who has managed to have heat with a nice guy like Orange Cassidy, the guy who the CHIKARA shitlist was named after. How are they still surprised that he's impossible to work with?

@retris: You'll take him back, give him his own show, segregate him from the rest of the locker room, but you won't hire back the biter? I mean they've had Mike Tyson on the show!

As much as I dislike the Young Bucks, and it's a lot, and as much as they were wrong for charging into his locker room like that, and they were, Punk has just behaved abysmally throughout every part of this. From setting all of this off by airing his grievances publicly (and it was about a kayfabe promo he didn't like) to making things physical (absolutely unacceptable) to pretty much everything else since he has acted like a baby and a prima donna.

I think you either cut bait or you just accept that he is who he is and he's worth it for whatever reason and give him free rein, because it's pretty clear he cannot be managed, and he thinks he has leverage and has no interest in working with anyone except entirely on his terms. Even if you patch things up now you're going to have another massive issue within 6 months to a year.

Okada vs. AmDrag at Forbidden Door, let's fucking go.

@brian_: I hate to be that guy (and for you to seemingly not *get* it) but that's the joke, buddy!

@jstaunton: I have no idea which of the dozen things from two months ago you are replying to.

For two companies that have a chronic inability of having matches that feel important, Forbidden Door sure was fucking banger. Fuck them for putting LIJ on the pre-show though.

Sorry, but I didn't really rate Okada x Danielson

For all the immense hype it got, and the once in a generation dream match stuff...I honestly just...thought it was a regular ass match. It just didn't feel special

I liked BD coming out to Final Countdown- That was awesome. The finish too...having Okada tap? I don't understand how the ace of NJPW can tap to someone (Kayfabe power level fartery aside) like Danielson

Omega x Ospreay was okay. Lots of spots and a dumb interference spoiled it though

@sombre:I guess we're different regarding Okada x Danielson. I was glad that it didn't feel like a regular Okada big match where the first 20 minutes are stalling, then Okada does the Rainmaker pose and the match turns into a Dragon Gate match. Heck, the way they managed to bring Danielson's bone legitimately snapping in two into the match was just terrific. And I've never had or understood the WWE mentality of tapping being bad, to me it makes the wrestler look better than getting pinned.

As an aside, lol at how this makes Kaito and NOAH look even worse in retrospect, given how totally Okada fucking schooled him. Kaito was buried as NOAH's ace to the point that a crazy fangirl rushed the ring at a show and tried to cheer him up. That has to be the most humiliating thing to ever happen in a wrestling ring, even counting Vince's booking.

I feel the same about Omega x Ospreay. The core was good and Ospreay downplayed his awful McGregor impression, but the shenanigans were fucking awful. If anything, the feud has cemented Ospreay as we have Omega at home. Which makes Kyle Fletcher as the dime store Ospreay look even worse.

My favourite match was the BCC vs. the others match. Mostly because Kingston is just so good.

However, I do not like that now that ROH has gotten good reviews, Tony has started treating ROH as the new AEW Dark. A company with a long history is now just a developmental/show for guys who Tony doesn't have the hard on for booking. And they're doing the same thing they did with Dark: If something gets popular enough, it gets brought up into the main shows (as with Willow and Kingston/Claudio). That's a problem in two ways: One, it assumes that everyone watching AEW watches all the content under the banner, which is completely fucking bonkers. You end up in situation where they quickly try to give you the jist of the storyline, but that's not good storytelling and kinda kills the heat. Two, cannibalizing shows just makes them look less significant and makes people less invested in storylines because they know they'll just get moved elsewhere if they're good.

Also, while I love Stoke, him being ROH GM with Tony and Jerry Lynn has brought absolutely nothing to the show. The skits thusfar have just been bad and I don't think ROH needs sketch comedy segments to work.

Next week, Ibushi, but before that we've got this. Shit's gonna be so good.

@retris said:

Next week, Ibushi, but before that we've got this. Shit's gonna be so good.

Just a reminder why Nakajima rules:

@sombre: And him vs. Miyahara is a dream match 15 years in a making. Miyahara really deserves to be called AJPW's ace. I know people complain about his formulaic offense, but the thing I like about him is his selling, dude just knows how to make his matches look like wars. Plus, his offense is fucking good too, he has the best German suplexes in current wrestling.

They're going to fucking drop bombs and it's going to be glorious.

I wish NOAH and AJPW got as many eyes on them that their contemporaries did. They have some utterly world class wrestlers, but because they're not top three, they just don't get the attention they deserve

Just look at Kiyomiya when he features in NJPW. Geeked out to fuck.

I'd argue that Nakajima is top ten in the world. His offense fucking rules.

@sombre: TBH, NOAH has been booking Kiyomiya like an absolute geek even when he's supposed to be their ace. To the point that during one show a crazy fangirl ran into the ring and tried to give him a peptalk. NOAH's booking and dropping balls is a classic combination. AJPW on the other hand has been getting more eyes on it in Japan. They've constantly gotten bigger gates. Biggest problem with the companies is that they don't really have a proper strategy for English speaking viewers. NOAH's English commentary fucking sucks (even more than NJPW's) and AJPW doesn't even have English commentary nor a proper global streaming service.

What a legendary run for Eric Young in WWE. Get hired in November 2022, return to Impact in July 2023. While I like Impact, it's a shame to see guys having to come back due to contract shittery.

Damn that G1 match between Eddie and Shingo was good. Both dudes seemed so happy to be having the match. The match just exuded joyful energy.

So who coined "AEW tries to get ratings with a star's legitimate assault arrest" on you 2023 bingo cards?

On other news, Multiverse United 2 will be absolutely bananas.

@retris said:

So who coined "AEW tries to get ratings with a star's legitimate assault arrest" on you 2023 bingo cards?

On other news, Multiverse United 2 will be absolutely bananas.

Bring back The Timesplitters