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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 23, 2022 20:36:42 GMT -5
Lesnar/Cena at Extreme Rules. We've seen a lot of Brock matches since, some good, some bad, some ugly, but that first one back had an atmosphere unlike any other. No one really knew what to expect from Brock returning. Would it be the Brock from 02-04? A new MMA Brock? A hybrid of both? Watching it live I was legit worried about Cena's safety. It felt more like a massacre than a pro wrestling match. It got to the point that the same Chicago crowd who treated Cena like a massive villain less than a year earlier in the same building against CM Punk at MITB felt so bad for him and popped huge for his comeback and win. It's the most unique match I've seen in WWE in the past decade. And I now realize I can only say that for a few more days because it's almost 10 years old now. My favorite Cena match, period. I'm sad it doesn't get played up more, Cena pulling out the win over Brock just brutally annihilating him and winning over the hostile Chicago crowd while he did it still feels like it should be remembered as his definitive slamming Andre/refusing to tap out to the Sharpshooter moment.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 23, 2022 18:51:32 GMT -5
In general, I think sinister dark characters in wrestling have the reverse ninja thing going where they're badass as loners and become steadily less threatening the more partners they have.
Murphy brings nothing to the table except for the need to keep filling the toybox with shiny new toys. Brody King is good, but Malakai still feels like so much less with muscle backing him up than when he was just going out kicking people out on his own.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 23, 2022 17:27:52 GMT -5
What kind of hollowed-out shell will WWE be if they can't come up with any better ideas than more Roman Reigns for another six years? Will the dwindling fanbase left over from the 20th century still be enough to warrant big money contracts from Fox and USA?
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 22, 2022 23:42:52 GMT -5
WWE - Hulk Hogan IC - Mr Perfect TT - Demolition Hogan, Razor Ramon, and LoD for me, but yeah, these are the only three belts that really stuck in my memory. Says a lot about when we started watching, I guess.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 21, 2022 23:50:39 GMT -5
His eye grew back?!
Must've seen the same miracle surgeon as Rey Mysterio.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 21, 2022 22:12:33 GMT -5
So is it an actual physical object? If you can use it as toilet paper, it's still a better value than any NFT.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 20, 2022 21:59:29 GMT -5
He's going by Johnny Superstar in AAA these days.
That said, I wonder if there'd be a place for him in AEW at all right now, he's in his early 40s and his best work wasn't at any of the promotions Tony Khan marks for. I can't see him being offered more than a Matt Sydal-level spot.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 20, 2022 21:42:58 GMT -5
There are people who matter in AEW who matter and people who don't, and their talent and the quality of their work is only peripherally related to that.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 19, 2022 14:45:47 GMT -5
The "Jack Evans was hired because they wanted Angelico and the two of them are a package deal" line is nonsensical. They hadn't been teaming regularly for years when AEW started; Evans was working Mexico while Angelico was back in Europe. They weren't a team on Lucha Underground. The only reason to think they needed to be a team would be if the money mark's sole knowledge of them came from that WON blurb about WWE being interested in hiring them way back when they were teaming.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 18, 2022 22:05:03 GMT -5
Dan Severn managed the extraordinary achievement of somehow displaying more charisma and showmanship in real fights than he ever did while fake fighting. They needed to have somebody go back, watch UFC 4/5, and micromanage him on how to use the same moves and mannerisms in quick jobber squashes. Give him a few months of Goldberging it up; the audience already knew he was credible, just let him destroy guys for a while until he's got the act down pat, then start moving him on to real feuds.
And yeah, give him a mouthpiece, keep him mute, and don't ever let him wrestle in that sweaty grey t-shirt.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 18, 2022 19:02:58 GMT -5
kayfabe, it's WWE, and no one has a good memory ...that's also non-kayfabe as well That's how it goes in a business where everybody repeatedly takes metal chairshots to the head.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 18, 2022 15:47:18 GMT -5
Wow, so she really did absorb the Fiend's persona.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 17, 2022 18:36:54 GMT -5
Pro wrestling as a whole has been faithfully following the playbook for a geek franchise on the downswing for years now. New fans aren't being made, the only way the existing product can keep drumming up interest out of the remaining fanbase is to grow increasingly insular and self-referential, the dwindling collection of diehards left consuming the product consequently get increasingly possessive of the hollowed-out shell that's remaining as their personal safe space, and actively scare off anybody left who isn't as monomaniacally invested, magnifying their voices further.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 17, 2022 12:22:14 GMT -5
Now that he's a former champion, can we look back on his reign? It's very safe to say that Scorpio likely will be established as the worst TNT Champion for now unless he gets another reign with meat on it, but even so, this was a nothing period with the belt. Scorpio "Title reign about as successful as Raiden as MGS2 protagonist, but maybe he'll get his Revengeance and be cool someday" Sky
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 16, 2022 20:32:30 GMT -5
I'm surprised Sammy worked as well as he did as a babyface for a while, tbh. He's got one of the most punchable faces in wrestling.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 14, 2022 16:53:05 GMT -5
Oh, here's a weirder one: Duke "The Dumpster" Droese. The story's been going around for decades of JBL supposedly assaulting and threatening to sodomize a wrestler who'd bragged about daterapeing girls, usually cited as a good thing that shows why JBL became a locker room leader. The name of the wrestler attached to the story as JBL's victim varies. For some reason, the festering depths of the internet seemed to attribute it to Droese a fair amount, probably because he's a safe name to disparage since he mostly disappeared from high-profile wrestling gigs after '96. The timeline for this would be curious; Droese left WWF a few months after Bradshaw debuted, which would mean JBL got the clout to be policing the locker room for scumbags awfully early into his run.
Whether or not any part of the story's true, no one but random people online have ever linked it to Droese, but because there's so little else to say about the Dumpster, there's still the occasional "hey wasn't he the guy who drugged women" comment here and there when his name comes up. I haven't seen it in a while, in part because we've thankfully moved on from acting like old school wrasslin's "locker room leaders" were a good thing, in part because after Brian Christopher died he became the safe name to attach the story to, but I still feel bad for Droese that a bizarre wrestling urban legend from years after his run is the closest thing he has to a legacy in the business.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 13, 2022 23:13:23 GMT -5
It's dropped off now that they're all at least semi-retired, but the Kliq as a whole spent decades on the receiving end of vastly more vitrolic smark rage than any murderer, rapist, or racist in pro wrestling for their egregious crimes of backstage politicking to win all the time and hog the main events for themselves.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 13, 2022 22:23:08 GMT -5
AEW's featured talent is such a homogenous bunch of nerdy white men that it felt fun seeing such a different composition of guys making up the main event segment.
Singh looks terrible, but AEW's been woefully lacking in terrible big men to date (Hager excepted, but he's not that big), so it was a nice change of pace.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 11, 2022 22:10:32 GMT -5
So, is our next headliner going to be known as Bron or Breakker?
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 8, 2022 23:53:54 GMT -5
Maybe when Vince sees a guy he doesn't know he just calls them the first thing that comes into his mind and then the rest of creative has to change their name because he refuses to be corrected.
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