Wrestling shows (AEW/IMPACT/NWA/ROH and others)

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I've almost built up enough courage to try and watch 2.0 again.

Almost.

I might need a drink... Or several.
 
Wargames was as good as always imho. The new guys proved they could hang with the veterans. The tag match was really good though. Imperium have gotten better.

The tag division in NXT is pretty good right now. You've got the champs, Briggs & Jensen, Grizzled Young Veterans, MSK, Creed Brothers, KUSHIDA & Jiro and Legado as the main teams. That's a better roster than the main brands have tbh

One thing you'd find funny is the show before Wargames. Gargano called Breakker the "Big Bad Bootie Nephew". Breakker couldn't help but laugh. I think he enjoys it when they poke fun at his family ties without directly stating he is a Steiner.

It is funny how the new guys are all being turned into heels (when some were not originally), and all the veterans are kind of fan favorites (even when some were heels). I think the feud they're building to between Pete Dunne and Tony D'Angelo should be fun, as D'Angelo is an accomplished amateur wrestler. So he can hang with the Bruiserweight. He's my favorite 2.0 guy right now.

the man formerly known as Brawn Strowman showed up at RoH's Final Battle tonight.
 
Gargano is a frustrating man
Wargames was as good as always imho. The new guys proved they could hang with the veterans. The tag match was really good though. Imperium have gotten better.

The tag division in NXT is pretty good right now. You've got the champs, Briggs & Jensen, Grizzled Young Veterans, MSK, Creed Brothers, KUSHIDA & Jiro and Legado as the main teams. That's a better roster than the main brands have tbh

One thing you'd find funny is the show before Wargames. Gargano called Breakker the "Big Bad Bootie Nephew". Breakker couldn't help but laugh. I think he enjoys it when they poke fun at his family ties without directly stating he is a Steiner.

It is funny how the new guys are all being turned into heels (when some were not originally), and all the veterans are kind of fan favorites (even when some were heels). I think the feud they're building to between Pete Dunne and Tony D'Angelo should be fun, as D'Angelo is an accomplished amateur wrestler. So he can hang with the Bruiserweight. He's my favorite 2.0 guy right now.

the man formerly known as Brawn Strowman showed up at RoH's Final Battle tonight.
So it's the NXT version of The New Blood?

Kidding aside, I'll probably pick back up with Wargames, it's a special event that defines NXT and rarely less than great.

Having a better tag roster than WWE's big shows is damning with the faintest of praise...

Breakker IS the kind of guy to build your promotion around, I just dread his main roster debut. Obviously the sooner he gets a name that doesn't sound like it's the stupid evil henchman in an 80's cartoon, the better.
 
Oh yeah, this whole 2.0 vs Black & Gold is a common retread. They did it before with NuECW, copying the WCW storyline.

What's funny is that not all the new guys are fighting the established stars in this. Xyon Quinn is feuding with Santos Escobar, but it revolves around Quinn turning down an offer to join Legado. The Creed Brothers & Ivy Nile are part of Diamond Mine with Roderick Strong, so it's the young following the established star. Briggs & Jensen just like to drink and fight, so again, new guys not trying to push out the old. So it's a limited New Blood compared to the previous storylines.

I'm making my way through Full Gear. I like it so far; in fact, I think it's been better than Wargames overall. Punk vs Kingston was a great brawl, and Danielson vs Miro was better than I thought it would be. The street fight with Inner Circle vs Men of the Year/Americas Top Team has been fun. Baron von Rasche was ringside, and even he got involved when Ethan Page was messing with Hager's wife. I will say that Junior Dos Santos picked up a few moves (he did a pretty good moonsault). Jericho using the frog splash in honor of Eddie Guererro was kind of cool. Jay Lethal showing up was pretty cool, as I've always admired his in ring work. Just have the main event left, which I'll get to soon
 
I'm @ least a couple weeks, if not a month, behind on AEW, but I'm just gonna pick up from the latest episode & maybe go back & watch the others if I feel like it.

Also, prolly have some folks coming over for Impact Hard to Kill in early January. Haven't been following Impact recently, but I generally find them entertaining & their video packages @ the PPVs usually do a good job of catching viewers up on storylines.
 
Deeb/Shida was good too. Serena really is the woman they need to agent all the women's matches.
Deeb is now doing producing and training, so it looks like she's doing that currently (which is what she did in WWE before she was let go). Other than Sara Amato, she's definitely the right person to be guiding the women's division in AEW. I've noticed improvement in most of the matches so far.

I'm caught up through the Rampage before Winter is Coming, but I'm taking a break to binge Hawkeye (as I just went through a month's worth of Dynamite and Rampage)

As an aside, I saw that EC3's Free the Narrative shows are available to watch on Youtube. I started to watch the first one. Honestly, it's not doing much for me. The first one starts with this overly long monologue by EC3, which I ended up fast forwarding on. The matches have a voice over to them (not a play by play), which grated on me. The matches so far have been kind of meh. I'll likely finish the first one, but not sure I'll take the time to watch the second one.

 
I've read enough posts saying that Free the Narrative is awful to make me interested in finding out for myself, haha.
 
I checked out the MLW show where they do a variation of Wargames (set in one ring). It was an ok match, but it was events tied to it that was more interesting.

MLW brought back characters from Lucha Underground, including the promoter. Now going by Cesar Duran, he runs a faction called Azteca Underground. He made a deal with the MLW owners to aid them against Contra Unit (the heel faction that has been running roughshod over MLW for 2 1/2 years). One of them was Matanza, who then takes off the Matanza outfit, revealing himself as Jeff Cobb!. At the end of the show, Duran has drinks with a short haired woman, who is Katrina.

Basically, MLW is going to bring back LU as Azteca Underground, with a new temple (which Duran called a cathedral). They have plans for a second show as well. Might finally get me watching MLW on a regular basis now
 
I absolutely loved Lucha Underground (well, I loved seasons 2 & 3, at least), so I will have to check this out!
 
I only saw a few episodes from the first season of Lucha Underground and found it far too silly for my tastes, my lack of interest meant I lost track of it after that, except for all the contract nonsense for wrestlers who wanted to leave.

Was there anything worth paying attention to as it went along?
 
I absolutely loved Lucha Underground (well, I loved seasons 2 & 3, at least), so I will have to check this out!

So far, the people who came over is mainly King Muertes (formerly Mil Muertes). Savio Vega and the L.A. Park and his sons are part of the faction, and now Catrina is back. I don't know if Cobb will be semi-regular, since NJPW is my main home these days. Not sure who else is there.

Davey Richards (Eddie Edwards old tag team partner and Kyle O'Reilly's trainer) is there. He's pretty talented (and a former RoH world champion), and Kevin Von Erich's sons wrestle there. MJF and Pillman jr were both on their roster before joining AEW. They have some talent; I just have felt their shows have been uneven from the ones I saw. But if they do a separate show with the Azteca Underground faction, I'll be all in on that one.
 
If only Jake Hager was still possessed by that Aztec God, and Brian Cage still possessed the gauntlet. Team Taz and America's Top Team would be blood smears on the mat.
 
Please tell me this is a joke.

Someone.

Anyone?
You say 'silly', I say glorious.

Professional wrestling is inherently absurd. It's just that the so called 'realistic' bits are just accepted as such, even though you can quickly see how much of that wouldn't actually work as presented, if you really start thinking about it. Not unlike comic book fans who scoff at sillier elements showing up in stories, but what they think of as realistic wouldn't actually work the way they think it would in the real world.

Oh, and the cop-themed blowoff match between Reyes and Meehan, IIRC, included a cup of hot coffee being poured into the opponent's trunks, and a tazer being used. Because of course it did.
 
There's degrees though... True, WWF long ago killed off any notion that it was a competitive sport, though I doubt that deception would have lasted once the internet came along even if it was intensely well-guarded, which it wasn't when McMahon came out and admitted it in court. But I still don't like my wrestling to look like a gymnastics routine or comedy sketch.

I mean, I like my matches looking legitimate, but wouldn't want them all to look like amateur matches or half-an-hour of headlocks and chilocks as were common decades ago. I like my high spots too. But for someone with more tolerance for comedy and silliness, surely there's still a cut-off point for absurdity.

Plus... Y'know... Fuck Joey Ryan.
 
So two interesting things today/tonight:

1) Mercedes Martinez is now officially with AEW. I really hope besides in ring competition, she works with Serena Deeb as a trainer, etc. Between Mercedes and Serena, they could really help some of the women who need it up their in ring skills.

2) Toni Storm requested and was granted her release from WWE Yesterday. She is likely under a 90 day no compete clause, but come March 29th, I suspect she will be in AEW. Just the thought of matches she could have with Deeb, Shida, Rosa, Soho, Conti and Baker is tantalizing.
 
NXT 2.0 is growing on me. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I've been enjoying it more as time goes on.
 
NXT 2.0 is growing on me. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I've been enjoying it more as time goes on.

WWE is actually not happy with 2.0 right now. Ratings have not gone up, and other than Bron, fans haven't really taken to all the new talent like they were expecting (no surprise there). Even the episode where AJ wrestled Waller had lower ratings than the week before. They're not going to can it anytime soon, but the change was too sudden I think, and it cost them worse than going up against AEW (because rating are lower than when they were on Wednesdays). That is just sad. I like the new setting and being brighter is cool, but that garish logo sucks imho.

I do like the new talent, but fan reaction has been mostly negative. Add in the overblown debacle regarding WALTER's new name, and WWE has really dropped the ball on NXT of late
 
WWE is actually not happy with 2.0 right now. Ratings have not gone up, and other than Bron, fans haven't really taken to all the new talent like they were expecting (no surprise there). Even the episode where AJ wrestled Waller had lower ratings than the week before. They're not going to can it anytime soon, but the change was too sudden I think, and it cost them worse than going up against AEW (because rating are lower than when they were on Wednesdays). That is just sad. I like the new setting and being brighter is cool, but that garish logo sucks imho.

I do like the new talent, but fan reaction has been mostly negative. Add in the overblown debacle regarding WALTER's new name, and WWE has really dropped the ball on NXT of late

Well, they've pretty much eliminated Triple H's influence from NXT now. Most of his picks are gone, most of the guys he wanted as agents and producers are gone. The indy-inside-WWE vibe is gone. The decision was clearly made that HHH's influence was not what McMahon or Nick Khan wanted, which is not entirely a surprise, but it is a shame.

What is no surprise at all is that the majority of new signings and performance centre wrestlers haven't caught on at all. Too many too soon is part of it. The other part is that they are just not good, just not ready to be on tv, or have horrible gimmicks. Or all three. Imagine if Steiner wasn't there... Fuck, that would be an embarressingly bad class.

Though, in the hyper-competitive world of WWE, having one stand-out new talent come up every year might not be so bad. True, everyone but Steiner is doomed from the start, but he's got a chance to do well... Y'know, as soon as he gets his name back.

As for 'Gunther', the name change bothers me less than the simple reality that his wrestling style isn't what McMahon and Dunn like, and without that he's just a weird baby-looking guy.
 
I don't agree everyone other than Steiner is doomed from the start. I think Solo Sikoa is doing well, and to a lesser extent, Xyon Quinn. The rest though I can agree with. Then again, they're not pushing Sikoa and Quinn like they did the others. Pushing all the gold except for the women's and tag titles on new people so fast was just a stupid mistake.
 
It's more their chances outside of NXT that I doubt. Call-ups have a poor success rate as it is, and only Steiner looks like has got a real chance on the main brands. He's actually got that 'it' factor, plus size, plus a good look, plus instinct waaay beyond his experience and he wrestles the way Vince likes.

So long as no-one higher up decides to fuck with him because of residual heat from his family, he's got a good chance of success. Everyone else in his class is missing something... Size, look, promo, ring style, whatever. More time on NXT might help, but in this fast-forward version of the show, I don't know if anyone is going to get the time they need anymore.

Steiner's got star written all over him. No-one else from 2.0 has it to his level. And for NXT call-ups, that probably means future endeavoured.
 
Solo Sikoa is one of the Uso's. He's got plenty of charisma, and he looks good in the ring (honestly, I think he's as good looking, if not better than Steiner is with his in ring work). Xyon has exactly the kind of look and ring style Vince likes. I think the two of them have been used better. Instead of just pushing them as top guys, they've been letting them both build up slowly. I find the angles they have been involved with better than the guys they're trying to force feed us. Steiner may be great down the road, but he was given the gold too soon. Reminds me of Randy Orton (and we know how badly that turned out). I don't think Steiner will blow it like Randy did, but I just don't find him a credible champion yet. Sadly, the ratings back that up by being worse than they were when they were up against AEW.
 
Solo Sikoa is one of the Uso's. He's got plenty of charisma, and he looks good in the ring (honestly, I think he's as good looking, if not better than Steiner is with his in ring work). Xyon has exactly the kind of look and ring style Vince likes. I think the two of them have been used better. Instead of just pushing them as top guys, they've been letting them both build up slowly. I find the angles they have been involved with better than the guys they're trying to force feed us. Steiner may be great down the road, but he was given the gold too soon. Reminds me of Randy Orton (and we know how badly that turned out). I don't think Steiner will blow it like Randy did, but I just don't find him a credible champion yet. Sadly, the ratings back that up by being worse than they were when they were up against AEW.

I'd argue the mistake with Randy was the babyface turn and being put up against HHH at the height of his mid-career ego-trip more than it was being the young champion. Besides, you can hardly say Randy's career his suffered...

But yes, I agree, Solo and Xyon are promising, very good actually. I was somewhat overlooking them in my earlier post.
 
I'd argue the mistake with Randy was the babyface turn and being put up against HHH at the height of his mid-career ego-trip more than it was being the young champion. Besides, you can hardly say Randy's career his suffered...
I was thinking more how he acted backstage after he won the belt. He wasn't around Hunter or Flair as much, and he started to act his age at the time. That affected his on screen performance, and lead to him going downhill. Randy has admitted as much too. Sure he course corrected eventually but for a good while, he was throwing his career down the toilet.
 
I was thinking more how he acted backstage after he won the belt. He wasn't around Hunter or Flair as much, and he started to act his age at the time. That affected his on screen performance, and lead to him going downhill. Randy has admitted as much too. Sure he course corrected eventually but for a good while, he was throwing his career down the toilet.
True, I recall dirt-sheet stories that he and Maven were both acting like prize arses together. But Maven got released (to the deafening protest of no-one, ever) and Randy got married, which might have settled him down. He might have only kept his job because of his family name.

Still, he's a genuine veteran now, and is easily able to hop back into the main event whenever needed without it looking out of place.
 
WWE is actually not happy with 2.0 right now.

Do we know this for sure, or is this just dirtsheet speculation? There are always plenty of things they say are happening or will happen that don't.
 
Do we know this for sure, or is this just dirtsheet speculation? There are always plenty of things they say are happening or will happen that don't.
Given the ratings are lower than they were when they were on Wednesday nights, and they are not up against AEW, I'd say it's more than speculation. A few weeks ago AJ Styles was in the main event against Grayson Waller, and the ratings for that show was lower than the week before. If AJ Styles can't boost the ratings of the show (and his appearance on the show was known the week prior), something is wrong. Usually a main roster star appearing boosts ratings (and with lower card guys to boot), a top guy like AJ should have boosted the ratings.
 
Especially since A.J. still has a lot of indy credibility... Which makes you think that fans of his and fans of the "WWE's indy-NXT" from a few years ago would watch.

I know the Triple H/Regal GM era isn't coming back, but man do I miss it. It's as much of a bore to get through as Smackdown! and only better than RAW by having a shorter run-time.
 
Let's say all of this is true, for purposes of this discussion. Why should I, as a wrestling fan who enjoys the new version of NXT, care?

The ratings and the opinion of WWE management don't mean anything to me personally. I liked the old version of NXT too for a long time, but for me at least, it was getting old. I liked the break from the former "Super-Indy" style, as well as the greater use of color and how it no longer looked like it was being held in a dark warehouse.

I get that not everyone cares for the new version, and I'm not going to try to convince anyone to do it. People can like what they want. Plus, these days I find myself less and less interested in all the backstage gossip and industry rumors and am happy to be on the more casual side of wrestling fandom.
 
If NXT draws low ratings, the advertising money that USA can draw for that time slot will be less. Which means now they're not happy, because it now affects their profit. Ratings = Money from advertisers. If the ratings dip far enough, there is the chance it gets cancelled, and then you can't watch it anymore (unless they keep it going for Peacock, which has far less viewers than USA does). I don't think anyone wants to see that happen.

NXT is, besides a show, an important tool in preparing up and coming wrestlers in the WWE system to prepare them for working on Raw/Smackdown if they get called up to either brand. Not just in ring preparation, but doing promos in front of crowds, backstage segments, etc. Sure, they do some of that off camera, but even at its smaller scale, the tv show is great experience for them (more so for many of the newer members who don't have any wrestling experience prior to being signed by WWE).
 
I'm way behind on AEW & NXT again, but I saw a link to this video on facebook, and thought I'd share. It's something Hikarus Shida is involved with since she went back to Japan for awhile. Looks interesting
 
So Matt Cardona dethroned Trevor Murdoch to become the new NWA World Heavyweight champion. Cardona has been on a bit of a roll since he won the GCW title. Some of the potential match ups he could have, not just in NWA itself, but in IMPACT for the belt, could be pretty interesting.
 
Tony Khan has just announced that he has purchased Ring Of Honor.
 
Y'know, I had the sneaky supicion that either WWE or AEW was making moves towards this when RoH went weird last year.

Must be nice to have daddy's infinite wallet, eh?
 
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