Tag: wrestling

AEW Full Gear: What is Kenny Omega trying to prove?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I really want to like AEW more, but I’m finding it really difficult to not see all the parallels between it and WCW.  Don’t get me wrong, AEW isn’t a bad product after six weeks, but given the hype, the mission statements and even more hype, it was envisioned to be this grand WWE-killer promotion, but honestly if I could be objective, isn’t even remotely close at this point.

The roster is bursting with potential, but there’s no denying that a lot of the talent is still really raw and unrefined, and could definitely use a lot of polishing.  Private Party is the first that comes to mind with two guys that have athleticism up the wazoo, but you can literally watch them talking and calling spots in the ring, and they rush all the time and are often seen waiting for someone to jump off the top rope or springboard, and it looks really sloppy to the smark’s eye.

Commentary is also really sloppy, as JR and Excalibur can’t stop plugging the global real estate company that actually has AEW.com, and nobody seems to have told them that.  Tony Schiavone is still “accidentally” saying “WCW” instead of “AEW” and after 30+ years in the business doesn’t know the difference between a running clothesline and a Buff Blockbuster.

It’s no secret the involvement of the promotion’s management, and how the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes are executives, as well as primary talent.  But there are two sides right now, which is Cody Rhodes who is acknowledging this on screen, but at the same time is very much in the main event picture, having fought Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship.  Also benefitting is Elite member Hangman Adam Page, who has probably had the most screen time of anyone on the entire roster.

However, on the other side, is the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, who have basically jobbed themselves to oblivion.  I get that they’re afraid of being accused of whatever nepotism executives elevating themselves would be considered, but at the same time, these guys were gods in New Japan, but have rendered themselves to be glorified jobbers to the stars in their own federation.  And not just that, they’re also repeatedly taking losses from almost solely former WWE or TNA guys, which can’t help the perception that they were ever better than the competition.

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WWEShop fail

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In 2000, the WWE changed from the WWF to the WWE because the World Wildlife Fund out in Europe kept suing them over the acronym WWF, or something along those lines, I don’t really care to cross-research the whole story in order to sound smart.  Either way, the WWE ran this whole campaign for about a month afterward, where they showed all these bumpers about how the WWE was “getting the F out” on a sophomoric play on words, but also literally, explaining that they were eliminating the F from the company’s name effective immediately.

Well, if it were up to me, I’d like to give the WWE their F back, mostly as it pertains to WWEShop.com, because their selection of replica title belts, fucking fails.

Despite the fact that the number of championship belts in my collection continues to grow and mythical wife continues to ask me how many more belts I need, there’s one belt in particular that I would really like to get my hands on: an NXT UK Tag Team championship belt.  It’s the one belt in all of NXT UK that I like the most, and it would kind of put a nice cap on my collection of NXT belts in general, as I have the NXT Championship, the NXT North American Championship, and the NXT UK Tag would represent the one tag title for the NXT brand outright.

But for whatever reason, the WWE and WWEShop have yet to make the NXT UK Tag Team championship belt available in their shop of replica belts.  As it stands right now, it is the only active championship belt in all of the WWE that they are not selling replicas of currently, and I don’t really know why.  The excuse of it being the newest belt doesn’t apply anymore, since the WWE introduced the 24/7 Championship, which once R-Truth isn’t in the picture holds any importance, but WWEShop is selling replicas of it already.

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I thought AEW was trying to compete

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Leading up to October 2, I was actually starting to get excited about the launch of All Elite Wrestling’s new flagship show on TNT, Dynamite.  All-In last year was a pretty good show, and I thought there was some definite potential with Double or Nothing, despite the fact that I felt that the performer/owners spread a little too much agenda into the show, but the wrestling was solid.

I like the idea of there being a solid alternative to the WWE, as I definitely feel that they’ve gotten very stale and more predictable than ever, and the only good shows now in my opinion really are NXT and NXT UK.  And with the WWE, despite the fact that they’ll never admit it, preparing for competition with AEW, by putting the WWE Network original NXT on the cable USA Network, they effectively bone cord-cutters like me who don’t want to have to pay for cable television.

For those not aware, the USA Network’s app does not show any WWE programming, for whatever reason; at least not live.  App users can watch old episodes, back a month or so, but for the intent of watching it live, it’s not an option.  As the arrival of AEW Dynamite approached, I was curious on whether or not TNT’s app would show professional wrestling live, and I was optimistic and pleasantly surprised when I realized that I could watch wrestling on Wednesdays again.

So as I began settling into watch the new alternative, I already began envisioning myself watching AEW regularly, since the WWE still hasn’t figured out what it’s doing with NXT yet, since at first it was one hour on USA, one hour on WWE Network and then it was all hours on USA and fuck you WWE Network, and then in preparation for episode 1 of AEW Dynamite it was entirely on USA with limited commercial breaks (also fuck you WWE Network).

The show starts off with Cody Rhodes versus some guy I’d never heard of before, Sammy Guevara, who actually thought was a woman at first, when he came out wearing like a Pablo Sandoval panda hat, but turned out to be a pretty decent worker.  My first impressions were that I thought it was interesting that AEW maintains that they’re going to keep track of wins and losses, which is hilarious considering professional wrestling is predetermined, so I can imagine the creative walls that AEW will get backed into when they try and push someone who’s like 4-10-3 and try to sell that they’re a contender for a belt and not a jobber with ten losses.

And they’re claiming to have time limits; like old WCW.  I can’t wait to see how flustered fans will become when they start having time limit draws instead of definitive finishes.  I hope fans start pelting the rings with trash like they used to in old WCW.  Speaking of WCW, Tony Schiavone fucked up on two different instances that I bothered to catch and said “WCW” when he clearly was meaning to say “AEW.”  He also called a fallaway slam a blockbuster; making me realize just how much I missed Tony Schiavone and his complete lack of knowledge of professional wrestling moves despite being in the industry for like three decades.

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Not a fan of split NXT

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When it was announced that NXT was going national, I was most definitely in the camp that met the news with a feeling of dread.  Not just because I’m a cheapskate that doesn’t have access to the USA Network, much less cable television in general, but also because I was very puzzled and dubious about the whole planned execution of NXT, with the first half of the show being exclusive to the USA Network on cable television, and the second hour being exclusive to the WWE Network streaming.

When the day is over, the medium that brings in advertising revenue is going to win out, and I didn’t have to watch New NXT to have guessed that they were going to stack the first hour and then take their foot off the gas once the cameras switched over to streaming for hour two.  Look no further to the hour by hour comparison in matches/segments and come to your own conclusion:

Hour 1 (Nationally televised on USA):

  • Io Shirai vs. Bianca Bel Air vs. Mia Yim vs. Candice LeRae, Fatal 4-Way for #1 Contender to NXT Women’s Championship
  • Cameron Grimes vs. Sean Maluta
  • Roderick Strong vs. Velveteen Dream for NXT North American Championship

Hour 2 (Exclusive to WWE Network subscribers):

  • Pete Dunne vs. Arturo Ruas
  • Xia Li vs. Aaliyah
  • IMPERIUM promo
  • Lio Rush vs. Oney Lorcan for #1 Contender to WWE Cruiserweight Championship
  • Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain

Sure, it’s hard to count the Grimes/Maluta match considering it was a squash where the entrances took 5x longer than the match itself, but two long-form matches featuring the top talents in both the men’s and women’s divisions, it’s clear that WWE is putting nationally televised first, and taking their foot hard off the gas in hour two, because fewer things denote a reduction in effort than an Aaliyah or Arturo Ruas match, regardless of whom they’re up against.

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Where I really wonder what NXT is doing with championships

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a few days since NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff, and I still can’t really get over the ending to the main event between Walter and Tyler Bate.  It’s not the fact that Walter defeated Tyler Bate to retain the WWE UK Championship, it’s how he won the match that still has me feeling perplexed and amused at the same time: Walter won the match with a clothesline, after everything else in his arsenal failed to keep Bate down for the count.

I mean, it was still a pretty good clothesline that Bate sold like the champion he really should be, but the fact of the matter is that Walter hadn’t really ever bust out a clothesline in general in the WWE until about now.  I guess the question is if he’s going to be using that as his signature move instead of the power bomb and/or big splash, to help reinforce the move, or if it really was an isolated case of an ordinary move succeeding at rendering a guy unconscious enough to end the match.

It reminded me of this classic wrestling match I saw once, where it was Rick Rude before he ever became Ravishing, versus some guy I don’t remember, and with Gordon Solie on commentary.  The conclusion of the match came when the opponent was momentarily distracted by something, leaving him open to an ordinary axe-handle smash from behind, before Rude hit him with an ordinary snap suplex, and pinned him 1-2-3.  All while Solie bemoaned the impact of a regular suplex and verbally sold that the match was over once he hit it.

Walter winning with a regular clothesline made me feel like I was thrown back into the early 80s with a finish that came from what is ordinarily a common move, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a deliberate throw back or if it was the seed to something that will continue to grow.

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GLOW, season 3: the setup season

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Just finished watching GLOW, season 3 on Netflix.  In a nutshell, it was an okay season that dealt with some heavy-handed topics, but feels like it’s straying away from everything that made GLOW, GLOW, and that everything in the season was mostly to set up for future seasons of the show.

In some degree, it’s smart that they’ve sowed the seeds necessary in order for them to have future seasons of GLOW, but at the same time, they kind of sacrificed a lot of the present in order to prepare for a future that doesn’t exist yet, as (to my knowledge) there is no future season(s) of GLOW yet ordered.  If I’m a betting man, I bet there will be, but frankly in this day and age, it’s hard to ever be certain whenever it comes to the futures of any show, because every show is one actor scandal, writing controversy or some executive going bonkers from getting killed off, regardless of if they’re already nicely wrapped up, or if the plot is as open-ended as a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

But still, I had a really hard time getting into this season as I did the previous two, because I think that the plot bounced around a little too much throughout the season.  Sure, it’s good to shine the spotlight on all of the girls in various times, but when the day is over, the show really is generally centralized around Sam, Ruth and Debbie.  And as potentially interesting the lives of Bash, Rhonda, Carmen, Cherry and the others are, ten episodes just isn’t really enough time to get into everyone, and ultimately, I felt as if the show couldn’t really decide very well which plots to stick with, and was just kind of all over the place.

And for a show that’s technically about women wrestlers, the show strayed pretty far from the wrestling itself and touched on some pretty heavy handed topics, such as homophobia, racial/religious awareness as well as eating disorders.  I’m not saying that such things shouldn’t be touched on and fleshed out, because they are most definitely very important things in today’s society, but again, going back to the fact that there were just ten episodes, I don’t think there was simply enough time to really get in on all of them, as well as try and be remotely cohesive to the rest of the show.

Ultimately, maybe it was just not being in the right frame of mind to watch, but I did think it got better as it went on.  It was a little slow starting, but did pick up a little momentum along the way.  I don’t think it’s the best season of the three, and I still maintain that it felt like they were spending more time planting seeds for the future rather than being in the present, it was still alright, and as I often say when it comes to Alison Brie, it’s very hard to not fall a little bit of in love with her, when she’s on her game, and thankfully the show made sure to give her enough screen time to get in her shining moments.

And hopefully for the writers of S3, there will be a season 4 announced soon, so that the seeds they’ve planted actually have future seasons to grow into.  And hopefully then, they won’t spend so much time re-preparing for the future that they won’t be able to shine in the present.

Johnny Dreamer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After watching Summer Slam, I had this thought in my head that I had spent an inordinate amount of time throughout the weekend watching a whole lot of mediocre wrestling.  However, despite the fact that I was looking forward to, and accordingly planned my evenings to watch both NXT TakeOver: Toronto and Summer Slam, in all honesty, I didn’t really think that there was any particular matches that I thought were going to be great.

Naturally, I prioritized TakeOver over Summer Slam, in spite of their perceived importance, and at least in my opinion, I wasn’t wrong in the fact that TakeOver was the better show.  The Summer Slam card was pretty weak, and the only match that really truly got me excited at any point was the Charlotte Flair vs. Trish Stratus match.  Becky and Natalya wasn’t a bad match, Ziggler getting squashed by Goldberg is an embarrassment to the company, Styles and Ricochet was okay, but nowhere near as good as their combined potential should have made it.  Bayley vs. Ember Moon exposed both wrestlers as good workers, but need someone to carry them to outstanding matches, and Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahon just had no real emotion behind it.  Kofi and Orton was lame now as it was the 10 other times it’s happened in the last 12 years, Finn Balor getting basically squashed by a yet-again-and-again repackaged Bray Wyatt is going to lead nowhere, and Seth Rollins basically spoiled the entire match by guaranteeing a win the week prior.

It was a mediocre show, and it really got me wondering why I put so much effort into keeping track of it sometimes.  Yet, I still feel this allegiance to the company that helped raise me, especially when compared to the rising AEW and other alternatives.

But back to TakeOver, it too was a slightly sub-par show in my opinion; it still makes it a better show than Summer Slam, since NXT’s bar is set so high, but in the grand scheme of things, I still think it was less than as good as I hoped it would be.  The best match of the night was undeniably the Street Profits vs. the Undisputed Era, which shouldn’t be surprising, because when you get four talented guys in a single fall tag team match, good things are capable of happening.  Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong and Pete Dunne probably would’ve been better if it were a one-on-one match, but as often times is the case with the WWE, they love multi-competitor matches, and in my opinion, it tends to water things down.

Shayna Baszler vs. Mia Yim was a pretty solid match, but I feel like NXT is going to get themselves in trouble if they continue to bury their entire women’s division to Baszler; they simply don’t have the depth to make her as unbeatable as they’ve done over the last year.  With Ember Moon, Kairi Sane, Bianca Belair, Io Shirai and now Mia Yim now in the dust, they don’t really have anyone else to pose a threat unless they cop out and do some sort of convoluted multi-women bought where Baszler will lose without getting pinned or some shit, and that’s more of a Vince McMahon cop out than a Triple H one.

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