Chiral
Salacious Crumb
Posts: 73,792
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Post by Chiral on Jan 23, 2022 23:18:33 GMT -5
I think I'll welcome the feeling of a jankier regular GCW show in a tinier locale with deathmatches again after this too. It's awesome that they're growing and this was definitely one of their biggest shows ever, but with the limitations they weren't able to go full GCW the whole time.
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Post by MrElijah on Jan 23, 2022 23:19:56 GMT -5
The real main event will be me versus this piece of shit in the front of me who won't sit down despite already being in the front row. Is it the Cammy cosplayer cause if it is I'm sorry but she's allowed GCW vs. Street Fighter: New Age of Violence.
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chazraps
Wade Wilson
Better have my money when I come-a collect!
Posts: 27,990
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Post by chazraps on Jan 24, 2022 0:15:57 GMT -5
Can't stop smiling. What a show! What a statement.
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lucas_lee
Hank Scorpio
Heel turn is finished, now stripping away my personality
Posts: 6,741
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Post by lucas_lee on Jan 24, 2022 0:27:33 GMT -5
I think I'll welcome the feeling of a jankier regular GCW show in a tinier locale with deathmatches again after this too. It's awesome that they're growing and this was definitely one of their biggest shows ever, but with the limitations they weren't able to go full GCW the whole time. Yeah I so miss the grimier venues and such. But Im so proud of this company and its a home promotion so its a plus
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2022 0:42:01 GMT -5
What is the scoop on Double J choking Vlad...Out of everything that pissed me off. Also was Virgil getting into it too?
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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Jan 24, 2022 1:35:17 GMT -5
What is the scoop on Double J choking Vlad...Out of everything that pissed me off. Also was Virgil getting into it too? Smelled like it was planned to some extent, considering commentary was quick to point out who he was.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2022 2:02:53 GMT -5
Also that was the first full Effy match I've seen and honestly?? Incredibly mixed feelings. He’s better than that. He had to work around JJ’s limitations.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2022 2:07:55 GMT -5
It was great to see Mance moving around so good. He’ll be back in the ring in no time.
Really good show.
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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Jan 24, 2022 2:33:18 GMT -5
Also that was the first full Effy match I've seen and honestly?? Incredibly mixed feelings. He’s better than that. He had to work around JJ’s limitations. Plus, the story seemed to be that EFFY completely underestimated this iteration of Jeff Jarrett, maybe going in overconfident because his record against ex-TV stars and outsiders of GCW is really good with recent victories over The Cardonas, Psycho Clown, Too Cold Scoprio, and Ricky Morton. Such a storyline can only work if Jarrett controls much of the offense and works his pace.
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Post by Super Duper Dragunov on Jan 24, 2022 8:23:24 GMT -5
Just finished it...my first full on experience to GCW that wasn't small clips here and there, and I'm not 100% sold.
There were things I liked, and I get it was a HUGE show for them, so I forgive production stuff and all that, but the wrestling just seemed so...clunky...at best.
Some thoughts:
Thunder Rosa peaking the audio from the crowds roar was cool.
Great to see LuFisto get some love, always felt she deserved a higher profile career.
Grim Reefer is a great f***ing name.
Alex Zayne would be killing it on NXT 2.0 (and I mean that as a compliment)
The crowd layout is weird for Hammerstein (but they explained why later)
I don't like the lighting, it's too bright.
Tony Deppen coming out to "We Built This City" was great.
G-Raver still looks f***ing cool as hell.
The ladder match was horribly planned out. I think it was a mistake making it the first match on the card. It did not deliver.
What the Shit was Gray trying to do there?
ASF needs to expand his presentation to more than "Do flashy move, then kip up and put your hand in the air". But I will always have a soft spot for wrestling twinks.
Gringo Loco is a LOT more athletic than I expected him to be.
Botchy as f*** end to that match. Lots of botches so far.
Blake either needs to grow the beard in or shave it off, what he's got looks awful on him. His promo photos makes it looks like he has a nose bleed.
This shows how good Ian is on commentary. I dunno who the other people are, but the one dude is super f***ing annoying.
Oh shit, did not expect him to win. The crowd isn't really "into" the matches, like there's no counting at the end or anything. They seem to be like "oh okay you won, yay".
Matt Cardona is on another f***ing level. Seriously. I think it was a mistake giving him the title so soon. Let him build this character and then beat Mox to nuclear heat, and have a nice "biggest heel in GCW" run with it. That being said I dug the match.
Joey Janela finally feels like a star. I like AEW but it feels like they don't know how to present a lot of people. Then again the roster is the size of a whale, so it's going to be difficult. Joey should be a bigger deal.
I wrote in my notes the one announcer is goddam terrible. Just call it a protective cup.
Way too much chicanery, but I'll always mark for Marko.
Mance Warner has a good wrestling voice.
Atticus Cogar is my new favorite thing.
Then Sabu shows up for reasons.
My first time seeing Allie Katch, and very much not impressed. Ruby just has a nice polish about her, and had to really carry Allie in some spots to make them happen. Plus she was clearly gassed in like 5 minutes. Sorry, I don't see the appeal, and she beat Mercedes?! Nah. I did dig Ruby getting booed when she won. I like the loyalty of the fans.
Apparently Jarrett is the E-riginal Outlaw.
f***ING LOVE Jarrett's version of My World. Fits perfectly with his presentation.
As a gay man I love how over Effy is. I never thought I'd live to see the day someone from my tribe was loved and respected by the crowd.
The chants in this match are the best of the night.
Jarrett dominated way too much of this.
Booking JJ to win sure was a decision. This match felt lethargic and Effy did not look good in it at all. Then again neither did Jeff.
Wasn't really into the World Title match. Not a Mox fan, and am indifferent on Homicide. Respect both dudes, but neither do anything for me.
Thank god he didn't come out to f***ing "Wild Thing". I'm over that as an entrance song. Wait is that L7 he's coming out to??
I hate the "flipping Paradigm Shift" so so so much.
The GCW Tag Titles are very very ugly.
"Separate Ways" is a banger of an entrance song.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is obviously better.
Nick Gage looking ROOOOOOUGH. Hope he's alright.
Who the hell is Matt Tremont?
Oh, that was the end...okay.
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Overall, they had a lot of eyes on this show, mine included for a first time "full PPV" experience.
And I can't say that I'd watch anymore of it, and might just go back to the clips of things if they came across my radar.
It wasn't the worst thing I ever saw, and it wasn't ROH in MSG or anything, but they needed a homerun with the amount of hype this had, and it didn't...I dunno..from what I've seen here and there this didn't feel like what I was expecting a GCW show to feel like. And that's disappointing. But maybe it's my fault for having the expectations I did. I was SUPER excited to watch it, and progressively my excitement was drained out of me (aside from some cool things here and there).
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Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Jan 24, 2022 9:23:18 GMT -5
I was there live last night and honestly, I feel like GCW didn't totally put its best foot forward. I'd say the show was kinda a tale of two worlds - Christian/Lio, Janela/Cardona, Trios and Mox/Homicide were pretty damn fun. Cardona/Janela specifically had heat unlike anything I've seen on a live show.
The ladder match was kind of a mess with more than a few botched spots, I'm glad G-Raver and AJ Gray didn't kill themselves. Katch/Ruby fell flat because I think the crowd was tired after Cardona/Janela and they were bummed that Katch lost. Same with Effy losing to Jarrett. The main event was cool and it was fun to see Gage back, but overall I felt like some of it could have come across better. I think putting Janela/Cardona on 4th might actually have been a misstep because that felt like the main event for a lot of people there.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Jan 24, 2022 9:47:12 GMT -5
It definitely wasn't boring, and there was a lot to like, but that was not the home run I was hoping for.
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petef3
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,783
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Post by petef3 on Jan 24, 2022 9:49:12 GMT -5
I didn't think any match on this show was any good outside of the lucha 6-man. Some of it was inoffensive, but a lot of it was downright bad. Cardona's pre-match act is great but the match was an unholy mess.
Also, they brought in a ton of "outside" talent for this show and Cardona's whole gimmick is that he's outside talent--and the outside talent went over almost every time.
Edit: I'm told the Janela-Cardona run-ins were a "joke" and "callbacks" to stuff like Jeff Jarrett's overbooked main events. Ha ha ha. You got me. You booked an intentionally overbooked mess of a match, and succeeded. Well done. In which case I'll spend time watching promotions that just try to book good wrestling instead of, "See, we booked an unfollowable mess, but we were SUPPOSED to do that, so therefore it's good!"
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Post by eJm on Jan 24, 2022 9:51:19 GMT -5
I was very much 50/50 on ordering it right until literally the last minute and decided not to and I’m sort of glad? Like I get the impression, as others have said, that they didn’t do the show they could have done. Whether because of injuries or talent not being available, it didn’t feel like, say, a Spring Break show where you could have WALTER/PCO or LAX/Rock n’ Roll Express to grab people with the WTF factor. I guess Jarrett/EFFY had that and Cardona/Janela was basically Flair/Savage redux but not quite a thing that makes me go “Shit, I need to watch this!”
Even the scramble match on the pre-show, as fun as it was, felt a bit messy and it was hard to get fully invested outside of some moments.
Also, and this is more a wide promotion thing then GCW specifically but if you know enough in advance someone won’t be there on the day…f***ing let people know. It’s nowhere near as bad as Sasha/Bianca but Brett was out there for a good 15 minutes basically doing the Paul Heyman Rah Rah speech (even though the stuff with the people who passed was touching, good for them to do that), it wouldn’t have taken 5 seconds to say “Jonathan Gresham isn’t going to be here, you’ll get G-Reaver in the ladder match and Blake Christian will now face Lio Rush”. A minor thing in the long run but you need to build trust in your audience and that small stuff turns into bigger stuff to a wider audience who wants to start watching.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Jan 24, 2022 10:01:19 GMT -5
I was very much 50/50 on ordering it right until literally the last minute and decided not to and I’m sort of glad? Like I get the impression, as others have said, that they didn’t do the show they could have done. Whether because of injuries or talent not being available, it didn’t feel like, say, a Spring Break show where you could have WALTER/PCO or LAX/Rock n’ Roll Express to grab people with the WTF factor. I guess Jarrett/EFFY had that and Cardona/Janela was basically Flair/Savage redux but not quite a thing that makes me go “Shit, I need to watch this!” Even the scramble match on the pre-show, as fun as it was, felt a bit messy and it was hard to get fully invested outside of some moments. Also, and this is more a wide promotion thing then GCW specifically but if you know enough in advance someone won’t be there on the day…f***ing let people know. It’s nowhere near as bad as Sasha/Bianca but Brett was out there for a good 15 minutes basically doing the Paul Heyman Rah Rah speech (even though the stuff with the people who passed was touching, good for them to do that), it wouldn’t have taken 5 seconds to say “Jonathan Gresham isn’t going to be here, you’ll get G-Reaver in the ladder match and Blake Christian will now face Lio Rush”. A minor thing in the long run but you need to build trust in your audience and that small stuff turns into bigger stuff to a wider audience who wants to start watching. I'm being pedantic, but the news about Gresham being out was on Reddit hours earlier. I'm sure some people at the show were surprised, but I'd guess the majority of the people who would attend a GCW event already knew.
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petef3
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,783
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Post by petef3 on Jan 24, 2022 10:02:40 GMT -5
You don't "guess" that sort of thing. You need to be up front about it instead of "assuming" everyone already knows. Also, people were directly reaching out to GCW for comment before the show and not getting any responses. Bad, bad form.
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Post by eJm on Jan 24, 2022 10:03:39 GMT -5
I was very much 50/50 on ordering it right until literally the last minute and decided not to and I’m sort of glad? Like I get the impression, as others have said, that they didn’t do the show they could have done. Whether because of injuries or talent not being available, it didn’t feel like, say, a Spring Break show where you could have WALTER/PCO or LAX/Rock n’ Roll Express to grab people with the WTF factor. I guess Jarrett/EFFY had that and Cardona/Janela was basically Flair/Savage redux but not quite a thing that makes me go “Shit, I need to watch this!” Even the scramble match on the pre-show, as fun as it was, felt a bit messy and it was hard to get fully invested outside of some moments. Also, and this is more a wide promotion thing then GCW specifically but if you know enough in advance someone won’t be there on the day…f***ing let people know. It’s nowhere near as bad as Sasha/Bianca but Brett was out there for a good 15 minutes basically doing the Paul Heyman Rah Rah speech (even though the stuff with the people who passed was touching, good for them to do that), it wouldn’t have taken 5 seconds to say “Jonathan Gresham isn’t going to be here, you’ll get G-Reaver in the ladder match and Blake Christian will now face Lio Rush”. A minor thing in the long run but you need to build trust in your audience and that small stuff turns into bigger stuff to a wider audience who wants to start watching. I'm being pedantic, but the news about Gresham being out was on Reddit hours earlier. I'm sure some people at the show were surprised, but I'd guess the majority of the people who would attend a GCW event already knew. Of course but I, personally, have never used Reddit and I’m sure a lot of people don’t because of their reputation. Hell, I’m trying to cut down on my social media so I likely missed it there, too. All of that is besides the point because you should say that stuff for the people who aren’t aware. If you want people to come back next time, you need to start on a good note and not mess people around. You always have to think “people are going to come for this match” even if it’s the Midcardiest of Midcard matches.
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Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Jan 24, 2022 10:07:48 GMT -5
I'm being pedantic, but the news about Gresham being out was on Reddit hours earlier. I'm sure some people at the show were surprised, but I'd guess the majority of the people who would attend a GCW event already knew. Of course but I, personally, have never used Reddit and I’m sure a lot of people don’t because of their reputation. Hell, I’m trying to cut down on my social media so I likely missed it there, too. All of that is besides the point because you should say that stuff for the people who aren’t aware. If you want people to come back next time, you need to start on a good note and not mess people around. You always have to think “people are going to come for this match” even if it’s the Midcardiest of Midcard matches. I am still very active on the internet and I somehow totally missed the Gresham news, but I get why Brett didn't use that forum to break that news. That was the rah rah inspirational speech moment of the night. That wasn't the time to drop card change news, IMO.
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Post by eJm on Jan 24, 2022 10:09:48 GMT -5
Of course but I, personally, have never used Reddit and I’m sure a lot of people don’t because of their reputation. Hell, I’m trying to cut down on my social media so I likely missed it there, too. All of that is besides the point because you should say that stuff for the people who aren’t aware. If you want people to come back next time, you need to start on a good note and not mess people around. You always have to think “people are going to come for this match” even if it’s the Midcardiest of Midcard matches. I am still very active on the internet and I somehow totally missed the Gresham news, but I get why Brett didn't use that forum to break that news. That was the rah rah inspirational speech moment of the night. That wasn't the time to drop card change news, IMO. Oh, understandable but you also had a bunch of commentator segments throughout the pre-show and nobody brought it up?
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Convoy
El Dandy
Rusev admits to being a sex addict to large applause.
Posts: 7,532
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Post by Convoy on Jan 24, 2022 10:17:32 GMT -5
My opinion is that Brett’s biggest misstep was booking this show as a building block instead of a celebration. It’s okay to give the people what they want, and instead it felt like the idea was to give outsiders victories to build for growth in the future. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when those decisions come after a “rah-rah” speech about making it on their own, it feels hollow. It definitely killed the crowd a few times, especially the Jarrett win.
Yes, there were a lot of botches and general sloppiness, and I’m not excusing those, but there’s a reason most of these competitors are on GCW and not on TV. Although I’d argue the first half of the show felt like the beautiful car crash GCW can be. To me it was the latter half that disappointed. Everything from the preshow to Cardona/Janela felt right, and then everything else felt like someone put GCW through a filter.
I’ll also go on record saying that I did like Cardona/Janela. It was an overbooked mess, but if nothing else it was entertaining. Probably didn’t need to be 1/6th of the show’s runtime though. That was the biggest reason the main event was like 10 minutes with entrances.
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