Professional Wrestling (WWE, TNA, ROH, etc)

[koberulz]

Watching Best of Bryan Danielson in WXW. Essentially every match is the same: 20 or so minutes of fairly even wrestling, after which Danielson gets sick of being out there, maneuvers the ref out of the way, kicks his opponent in the balls, gets a rollup for the win, and gets to the locker room before the crowd even realises what's happened. It's hilarious.

[koberulz]

Watching Best of Bryan Danielson in WXW. Essentially every match is the same: 20 or so minutes of fairly even wrestling, after which Danielson gets sick of being out there, maneuvers the ref out of the way, kicks his opponent in the balls, gets a rollup for the win, and gets to the locker room before the crowd even realises what's happened. It's hilarious.

Got the perfect payoff, too. In what I'm assuming was one of his last matches prior to his callup, and possibly his very last, there were about five different variations on that spot. The first time Danielson pulled it out, the kick was blocked. There was then a period of the two wrestlers exchanging low-blow/rollup combos every time the referee wasn't looking. Which was a lot. It was so much more awesome than can be conveyed here.

The production values are beyond terrible, and the lack of English commentary makes things hard to follow at times, particularly involving wrestlers I'm not otherwise familiar with, but as far as the actual in-ring product goes I've found WXW extremely enjoyable. There's a "shoot-style" match on the end of the Danielson set, from when he was fired by WWE, which worked really well (other than the fact that it took me several minutes to work out what it was). WXW did an entire event solely consisting of a "shoot-style" tournament, which by the sound of it went over really well. And by isolating it as its own event, you lose some of the Russoesque "everything in wrestling is fake except what you're watching right now" aspect of it, although any time you use the word "shoot" in pro wrestling it applies to some degree. But then, in the indies the fans are generally smart enough that you can get away with that sort of thing. It'd never fly in WWE, obviously.

I vaguely recall hearing about entire Japanese feds based on "shoot-style" matches. It'd be interesting if something like that could get over in the States. On the one hand, it capitalises a bit on the popularity of MMA, although it probably compromises entertainment value too much to make up for being "fake", at least to most fans. But then the Joe-Angle match at Lockdown 2008 was a tremendous success. A realistic MMA style could well be the new "hardcore", and anyone trying to replicate the Attitude Era's success in targeting young adult males might well be better served to hit that niche than going for the elements actually present in the late 90s.

Having watched the entire Attitude portion of the Raw 20th Anniversary set, by the way, I've come to determine that the Attitude Era was terrible. Anyone who wants to replace what we have now with what we had then either has no taste or is suffering serious nostalgia. I'd much rather watch Danielson, Punk, The Shield, etc put on 20 minutes of good wrestling than the "announce a match, send one or both competitors out there, and either have one beat down before the match can even start or send a group of people in to turn it into a giant schmozz, never actually have the match" formula Raw was using back in the day. And the matches that did actually happen were terrible and basically never had a clean finish. People complain about the story:match ratio now, and back then it was entirely story. More of the story was in the ring rather than backstage, sure, but it was story nonetheless.

How they can advertise that set as "uncut and unedited" is beyond me. There are quite a few blatant cuts. All "asshole" chants are replaced by booing, for reasons that are utterly beyond me given that everything Billy Gunn-related made it through fine, and it's such a shoddily done job that you can still clearly hear the chants half the time anyway. All of Chris Benoit's entrances are removed, as are segments primarily featuring him and any commentary in which he's mentioned by name. Presumably, the thought is that either people won't have a clue that it's Benoit, or that people who know nothing about Benoit won't be able to look him up and find out who he is. Which is ridiculous. Anyone who is familiar with Benoit knows what he looks like, and sticking a guy in a match who is never identified is just asking people to Google him. Or just look at the match listings on the packaging, where he's mentioned by name. The commentary removals are awfully jarring, and it's blatantly obvious that it's been edited, often cutting someone off in mid-sentence. His first appearance was a six-man tag match, announced by Lillian Garcia as a 'six-person' tag match, The Hardys come out, with Lita, then Edge, Christian and Kurt Angle. I figured Lita was in the match for whatever reason, only to later see her on the floor rather than the apron. It wasn't until about a minute later that it Benoit became active enough that I noticed him and the entire thing made sense.

[shadowgrin]

Having watched the entire Attitude portion of the Raw 20th Anniversary set, by the way, I've come to determine that the Attitude Era was terrible. Anyone who wants to replace what we have now with what we had then either has no taste or is suffering serious nostalgia. I'd much rather watch Danielson, Punk, The Shield, etc put on 20 minutes of good wrestling than the "announce a match, send one or both competitors out there, and either have one beat down before the match can even start or send a group of people in to turn it into a giant schmozz, never actually have the match" formula Raw was using back in the day. And the matches that did actually happen were terrible and basically never had a clean finish. People complain about the story:match ratio now, and back then it was entirely story. More of the story was in the ring rather than backstage, sure, but it was story nonetheless.

Some people would rather see how a story turns out than watching 'fake rasslin'.

[bowdown]

LOL. I recently watched a ton of attitude era full shows on youtube and all I did was skip to the parts where the storylines would progress further. I watched some matches but only the real exciting ones.

[shadowgrin]

And there's nothing wrong with that. That's why the Attitude Era was popular as to even attract people to become fans who were not into the wrestling part of rasslin.

[JaoSming]

Regarding Daniel Bryan, actual spoiler via a house show

Looks like they didn't wuss out and prevent his "transformation"

[Andrew]

Just remains to be seen where they go with the angle. Presumably, it'll be him bringing them down from the inside.

[koberulz]

Having watched the entire Attitude portion of the Raw 20th Anniversary set, by the way, I've come to determine that the Attitude Era was terrible. Anyone who wants to replace what we have now with what we had then either has no taste or is suffering serious nostalgia. I'd much rather watch Danielson, Punk, The Shield, etc put on 20 minutes of good wrestling than the "announce a match, send one or both competitors out there, and either have one beat down before the match can even start or send a group of people in to turn it into a giant schmozz, never actually have the match" formula Raw was using back in the day. And the matches that did actually happen were terrible and basically never had a clean finish. People complain about the story:match ratio now, and back then it was entirely story. More of the story was in the ring rather than backstage, sure, but it was story nonetheless.

Some people would rather see how a story turns out than watching 'fake rasslin'.

But those, generally, aren't the ones demanding the return of the Attitude Era.

[shadowgrin]

Because they are viewing it from the microscope of their limited view same way you are with your dismissal of people as being tasteless or nostalgia crack addicts for not sharing your own point of view.

Either that or proof or ban.

[[Q]]

I think they could go either way with DB. Supposedly the Undertaker wants him at WM, so maybe he'll work as a hell until then

[Andrew]

I haven't heard that one. Taker/Brock is supposedly what they're looking at doing, assuming Taker is healthy enough to work.

[JaoSming]

I dirtsheet read the Brock Taker was the initial plan, but that he called for Bryan. Who knows, its all basically crap at this time of year anyway.

[JaoSming]

Jarrett, Toby Keith, and JR might be starting a new promotion together. That'd be coooooo, especially with TNA in full reboot (and again, without a home base) and E resetting Bryan again.

[koberulz]

TNA in full reboot (and again, without a home base).

What's going on over there?

[JaoSming]

AJ Styles gone, Jarrett gone, bigger names probably not coming back when their contracts come up this year (angle, hardy), Bully Ray is going all supervillian, cementation of the Carter familia angle, Park to Abyss, Storm breaking off with Gunner. Evidently the sound stages at Universal Studios are booked through 2014, and TNA is on the outside looking in with that.

The shows are still entertaining, all the storylines are making sense and again, entertaining (still cringy stuff though), same with the great in-ring stuff. Its just a lot of changes appear to be happening, on screen and off. A lot of the old storylines that carried each show have disappeared, in good ways, but now they are just starting a lot of new ones up, its a building phase I guess.

[PepsiWithCoke]

And now a new rumor, Jeff Jarrett might be looking to found a new company.

http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/tna/Kon ... olved.html

[JaoSming]

[PepsiWithCoke]

And Lawler is in the hospital with chest pain.

http://www.sescoops.com/breaking-news-j ... pitalized/

[Andrew]

Apparently there's no truth to the rumour that JR is involved with any efforts by Jeff Jarrett and Toby Keith to start a new wrestling promotion.

[Lean]

Beat Cena for two straight PPVs should be an achievement in the next WWE 2K games.

I'm also interested on where Daniel Bryan goes from the Wyatt Family. I was kinda hoping that he'd decline the offer to join and go on and win the Rumble, I mean he's still very over to the crowd.

[[Q]]

Beat Cena for two straight PPVs should be an achievement in the next WWE 2K games.

Or if you pick Cena they should give you random title shots

I mean he's still very over to the crowd.

Despite many authority figures in recent years saying "we listen to the WWE Universe", this is one case where they have completely ignored the fans in favor of Vince's/HHH's old-school views.

[shadowgrin]

Not surprising given the way WWE handled Punk when the fans initially had a massive orgasm over him then.

[koberulz]

WWE Network is now a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en8lldW ... e=youtu.be

[JaoSming]

$10 a month makes it worth it alone. I'd pay it.

[koberulz]

Given that it's online streaming, rather than an actual TV channel, why is it February in the US and "late 2014" in a bunch of other countries, "with more countries to come"?


at the baseball guy saying McMahon is "fan-first".