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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Aug 25, 2020 8:22:32 GMT -5
This was my fault, because I watched that promo on the Bellas and I just couldn’t believe how mummified it was. It might as well been in black and white with jaunty silent era music. AJ’s like “I’m here cause I’m good!” and she’s wearing a top hat and monocle.
It wasn’t even the hypocrisy or AJ being flirty with the men that shocked me, it was how much it had rapidly aged in simply a few years. You can’t cut that promo today anywhere.
As for her work overall, she was alright but not as hard-hitting or slick as today’s women roster.
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Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
Posts: 41,511
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Aug 25, 2020 8:36:25 GMT -5
As for her work overall, she was alright but not as hard-hitting or slick as today’s women roster. Off the top of my head, 4 Horesewomen, Asuka, Ruby, Nattie, Alexa, Cross, Bianca are all better than AJ was at her best, and that's not getting into the NXT talent. Not to say she was bad, but on today's roster she's middle of the pack at best
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Post by Tyrannosaurus Sex on Aug 25, 2020 8:55:40 GMT -5
As for her work overall, she was alright but not as hard-hitting or slick as today’s women roster. Off the top of my head, 4 Horesewomen, Asuka, Ruby, Nattie, Alexa, Cross, Bianca are all better than AJ was at her best, and that's not getting into the NXT talent. Not to say she was bad, but on today's roster she's middle of the pack at best I don't know that it's entirely fair to compare her best at that time with what's around now regularly, I somehow doubt any one member of the current roster would be having pretty good matches on the regular back then.
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Post by Confused Mark Wahlberg on Aug 25, 2020 9:01:42 GMT -5
I just wanted to throw in that I had never been prouder of a fan base when #AJALL won one of the online polls during the show. Yes, I know the implications and all that and it is not the greatest thing in the world but when you’re used to fans voting wrongly in online polls (We could have had Dude Love vs. Carlito, YOU DUMB MOTHER F***ERS!), the small victories feel more important. Never forget. There is a gangbang option?
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PKO
King Koopa
Posts: 12,613
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Post by PKO on Aug 25, 2020 9:24:13 GMT -5
Her push is one of the most confusing in WWE history. A woman that didn’t fit into the mould of what WWE wanted their women to be like (and she was told that in person) then, for some reason, gets the biggest push they had ever given a woman. She was not over when the push began (so it was not as if they were giving in to the fans demands) and it would take weeks and months of a solid push before the fans really got behind her. She most certainly had talent in the ring and on the mic, but so have many others that came before and after her. I just don’t understand how they went from “you’re not good enough”, to giving her such a colossal push, with whole episodes of RAW built around her. The quintessential divas like Sable and Trish got no where near the screen time she did. Even once she was put in the divas division full time, she was completely elevated over the other women, to their detriment.
All that said, she did become hugely popular and (whatever the reason for her rise to the top) her becoming the #1 woman was the first step to more variety in the women’s division. Lita could have (and should have) opened their eyes back in the 2000’s, but it seems like AJ was the one to really make it sink in that variety works.
If you were to somehow magically take AJ from back then and put her in todays division then, yes, she would be outclassed by many in the ring. But she was trained in WWE at a time when training the women was not a priority; when cat fighting was encouraged and punches and kicks discouraged; when the trainer situation for the women was so bad in FCW that AJ was actually leading classes for the newer women at one point. Take AJ and put her in the Performance Center and I think she would have been even better than she was. She had the passion that I think she could have put on matches the quality of Sasha/Bayley.
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Post by grungesmurf on Aug 25, 2020 9:27:50 GMT -5
Always loved AJ. Miss her immensely.
That’s all.
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Post by eJm on Aug 25, 2020 9:30:34 GMT -5
Never forget. There is a gangbang option? Basically, yeah. I think that’s what I loved about it. Just the idea that we could vote in a poll to set up a wrestling orgy. And if there isn’t fan fiction of that very thing, I will be genuinely disgusted with this community. What a missed opportunity.
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Post by Confused Mark Wahlberg on Aug 25, 2020 9:53:11 GMT -5
Seriously, I see her name and all I think about is how Big E almost knocked her head into orbit that one time
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Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
Posts: 28,961
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Post by Sephiroth on Aug 25, 2020 9:53:50 GMT -5
Agreed. She was a good all round talent, but I think she was highly overrated in her time. She was also one of Vin e’s pet projects that I personally got worn out on. The AJ vs a Total Divas and AJ vs Paige programs were all terrible, in no small part because she was booked so dominantly even though she was a heel-or at least trying to be most of the time. I thought the matches with Paige were pretty good, but yeah, the program was garbage. Paige is an anomaly to me. She blew the world away as the first NXT women’s champion, in no small part because her look and character were so unlike anyone else at the time, which is why the idea of a showdown between her and AJ became so anticipated. Yet once she got moved up to the main roster she just seemed to implode through a combo of her shortcomings as a performer being exposed, atrocious booking that totally changed her presentation, and her own antics outside the ring. Even with the injuries, you can’t help but think she could have done more.
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Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
Posts: 41,511
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Aug 25, 2020 10:01:34 GMT -5
I thought the matches with Paige were pretty good, but yeah, the program was garbage. Paige is an anomaly to me. She blew the world away as the first NXT women’s champion, in no small part because her look and character were so unlike anyone else at the time, which is why the idea of a showdown between her and AJ became so anticipated. Yet once she got moved up to the main roster she just seemed to implode through a combo of her shortcomings as a performer being exposed, atrocious booking that totally changed her presentation, and her own antics outside the ring. Even with the injuries, you can’t help but think she could have done more. Oh no doubt. It absolutely sucks that her career derailed the way it did. She had plenty of time to rewrite her story had her body not given out the way it did. I have no doubt that she would have some stellar matches with some of the current crop
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msc
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,460
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Post by msc on Aug 25, 2020 11:08:55 GMT -5
Her legacy's quite a strong one imo. Changed the way the powers that be in WWE look at women wrestlers, by which I mean their look, their ability to interest fans, guilted the McMahons into ending the use of them as piss breaks. Do modern womens wrestlers overshadow her? Yes, but many of them benefit from chances she never had. It's a bit like Lonnie Donegan tbh. Was skiffle overshadowed by the Beatles in quick succession? Yes. But without Donegan inspiring every kid in the land to pick up a guitar you don't get Paul and John and George changing everything. That's AJ Lee.
(Also, Beth Pheonix is the Dick Dale in this analogy but I digress...)
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Aug 25, 2020 11:12:17 GMT -5
Off the top of my head, 4 Horesewomen, Asuka, Ruby, Nattie, Alexa, Cross, Bianca are all better than AJ was at her best, and that's not getting into the NXT talent. Not to say she was bad, but on today's roster she's middle of the pack at best I don't know that it's entirely fair to compare her best at that time with what's around now regularly, I somehow doubt any one member of the current roster would be having pretty good matches on the regular back then. Well no, because it took WWE a long ass time to take training the women more seriously. I was mostly time-machine thinking.
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Post by Tyrannosaurus Sex on Aug 25, 2020 11:22:45 GMT -5
I don't know that it's entirely fair to compare her best at that time with what's around now regularly, I somehow doubt any one member of the current roster would be having pretty good matches on the regular back then. Well no, because it took WWE a long ass time to take training the women more seriously. I was mostly time-machine thinking. I'm just saying, there's a consenus that she was total garbage when she was capable of good matches at the time, when I think even current roster members with the skills they have now would struggle in that environment. I can't imagine someone like Sasha having good matches like she does now if she were in AJ's position. I wouldn't say AJ's as good as her per say, but we'll never know that. It's like how Trish Stratus could have a garbage match with Jackie Gayda and others over the years, but she also had several good matches with Lita or Mickie James, and then in the modern era, she got a chance to go with Charlotte and she didn't do so bad.
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Post by turkeysandwich on Aug 25, 2020 11:27:28 GMT -5
It's still weird to me that based on her size and look she seems to have been tailor-made as a perfect underdog babyface that young kids would get behind, but they spent so much time with her as a heel, notably an authority figure heel.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2020 16:02:46 GMT -5
Hopefully her big brother, Keith, will carry on the family legacy.
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Post by Hypnosis on Aug 25, 2020 16:16:49 GMT -5
Decent wrestler and a good talker, even if the content of her promos wasn't always great.
With Performance Center training and the women's roster WWE's had within the last five years, she could have been even better.
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Dub H
Crow T. Robot
Captain Pixel: the Game Master
I ❤ Aniki
Posts: 47,877
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Post by Dub H on Aug 25, 2020 16:19:51 GMT -5
I will also remember SHE IS JUST 98 POUNDS!
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Post by mrtuesday on Aug 25, 2020 16:26:00 GMT -5
Hopefully her big brother, Keith, will carry on the family legacy. Her legacy is continued by her sister, Bay Lee.
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Shark
Hank Scorpio
The world's only Samurai Ninja Pirate
Posts: 7,045
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Post by Shark on Aug 25, 2020 19:05:40 GMT -5
Her legacy is the modern women's division. If she had not publically shamed Stephanie for her opportunistic lip service feminism, leaping on the bandwagon after a decade in charge of creative and doing a grand total of nothing to help, nothing would have changed. Experiencd womens wrestlers would be expected to carry models to passable matches in the lower midcard while being paid less than men doing the same work, getting depushed if they get ideas above their station. She spoke out while under contract, something very few are willing to do, that's her legacy. I feel like this is stretching things a bit. Change was coming for the Divas division long before #GiveDivasAChance. NXT's relaunch was already starting that wave of change. By 2015, when that hashtag started, the Horsewomen were already having major matches on big shows. Even by then on the main roster, the Bellas had their feud, say what you want about the segments or their acting, but them getting that kind of feud and that much TV time was pretty huge at that time. In fact, about 6 weeks after she sent out her tweet to Stephanie, she left. So it's not like she stayed and fought for the change we'd see later in the year. I'm not saying she had nothing to do with it, but saying that it's all because of her is too much.
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Post by DSR on Aug 25, 2020 20:08:27 GMT -5
Hopefully her big brother, Keith, will carry on the family legacy. I'm sure their dad, Ug, is proud. Though ironically enough, he doesn't salute Keith's new shorts.
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