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Post by HMARK Center on May 18, 2024 19:45:17 GMT -5
At least on PPV; I get needing to save time on TV, but I need full dramatic intro Shibata when he finally gets a featured PPV match. TNT Champion Shibata? I'm down for that or the International belt. Probably not the guy at this stage of his career to do a super long reign with, but make him a guy willing to defend the belt weekly against midcarders, eventually build a younger guy up to dethrone him after a PPV cycle or two.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 18, 2024 19:34:53 GMT -5
i'm not REALLY whining but please give shibata his whole theme back, it's the best one... At least on PPV; I get needing to save time on TV, but I need full dramatic intro Shibata when he finally gets a featured PPV match.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 18, 2024 19:22:53 GMT -5
I honestly felt bad when I saw Pete DeBoer consoling Zach Parise on the handshake line; those guys should've won it all in 2012 with the Devils, but so it goes. Remember reading last year that when the Isles lost that Parise just sat at his locker staring out into nothing, the realization that his time is pretty much up sinking in, and now this is really it for him.
Curious how much Trouba nonsense there'll be in a series where Tkachuk might tear his limbs out.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 18, 2024 18:53:55 GMT -5
ED-LOSE DIAZ THIS DUDE IS COOKED LMFAO Command is gone and he's 3 mph down on his stuff. I want like almost everyone gone at this point. Horrifying. Worst thing that happened to this club was that they had a good season in 2019, right before the Wilpons put the team up for sale. Cohen bought the team (albeit a little later, since the initial deal for him to buy going into 2020 fell through) and logically figured "Huh, some very good pieces on this club, I'll spend a ton to surround them with good talent and we can contend right away." Outside of one good season, that failed; Cohen, to his credit, recognized that last year and sold off a bunch of pieces, and went conservatively into this season, while still spending a lot of money the stuff the Wilpons spent 20+ years ignoring: player development, analytics, scouting, a better health staff, all that stuff. But there's a much better alternate timeline where Cohen becomes owner, realizes the 2019 team mostly benefitted from a juiced ball (homers up crazy all over the league that year) and a starting rotation that stayed healthy wire to wire for the first time in basically ever, and just sells off everything, strips the club down to the studs, and loads up the farm system. The regular WFAN caller fans would've wanted to revolt, but it'd have been a shitload better than this nonsense. Somehow they even managed to make a 101 win season feel like shit by playing most of September/October of 2022 the way they've been playing the season and a third since. Basically, it's an unwatchable lineup that's been unwatchable since about 2017, where you get the worst thing you can get in baseball: the sense that you're watching the same exact game play out every single night. The core was never that good to begin with: Nimmo's a good player, Lindor is a great all-arounder but will never be a guy who carries your lineup offensively, McNeil just isn't very good, and Alonso is increasingly a one-dimensional hitter who has Boras convincing him he's going to make Matt Olsen money at minimum, which he is not. Meanwhile Marte and JD Martinez are gone after this year, anyway, so just get what you can for them and field offers on literally everybody else.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 18, 2024 18:37:14 GMT -5
Man, a lot of guys jumping from WCW to WWF in the 90s didn't get a lot out of it, or if they did do well they still fell short of where they likely could've or should've gotten, which hurt their staying power in Stamford: Sid, Vader, Mero, even Luger to some degree, curious how things would've shaped up with Pillman if his injuries hadn't been a major issue.
Certainly some exceptions: I think the Steiners did fine coming over for a short run, since they were a legit tag team at a time when WWF was kind of lacking in them but hadn't yet seemingly given up all the way on the division, Road Warriors could've done better for the same reason if Hawk's demons hadn't gotten the better of him so often.
It's funny, but historically it was the guys who got let go from WCW who ended up doing better up north (Austin and Foley, mainly) instead of the guys who willingly jumped ship, who you'd think Vince would've been more committed to given the money and perceptions involved.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 18, 2024 18:00:10 GMT -5
Honestly, if you talk about Legentil, it basically just means "Nick Khan"; it's his guys and connections in media that have really leaned into the whole current way that WWE is shaping media narratives and trying to impact AEW's rights negotiations. Not that they wouldn't have done anything if Vince was still in charge, but the current tactics they're using are very much out of Khan's playbook.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 17, 2024 9:33:29 GMT -5
Now now, this is good news because reasons and it beat something thing or other that was on the same night Well, of course.. and a shrinking audience is absolutely fine, as long as the TV audience in general is shrinking, I guess. I mean, yeah, that's what happens; cable audience shrinks, your numbers shrink. WWE temporarily bucking the trend was a huge deal, but that's how it goes, and if overall TV viewership is down on a given night for whatever reason, it is what it is.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 17, 2024 7:42:19 GMT -5
It’s fair to say that their big storyline hasn’t really caught on fire, could it be that a lot of people just don’t want to see the Bucks as the Big Main Event Heels in 2024? Jack Perry is an unknown quantity in this role but his main beef that people would want to see is with a guy no longer in the company. The beat down of Tony can’t really go anywhere because Tony isn’t a wrestler or someone like Vince who could at least talk. I think the story has potential but possibly with different people doing it but then the Bucks are actually EVP’s so..I dunno. Something about the Bucks turns a lot of people off. Their segments a lot of times lose viewers. Could be people don't take them seriously due to size, don't like how meta they are, see them as a parody. Something about them turns quite a few people off of them. I do think The Elite need muscle if they're gonna be a powerful heel stable. The Bucks are one of the biggest draws they have for ratings. Keep an eye on which segments some wrestlers put themselves in: when it comes to, say, quarters 6 or 7 of a Dynamite, that's often a slot where they expect to lose viewers given what point it's at during the show, what point sports competition is usually at (e.g. a prime time basketball or hockey game is likely getting close to wrapping up around 9:30pm EST), etc. As such, you're often seeing a number of solid draws being put into that slot to keep the numbers higher despite the fact they know a drop is coming - Jericho, the Bucks, Copeland, Hangman for awhile, etc. often seemingly volunteer to eat the "death slots" because the company knows those guys will maintain most of the audience during the toughest part of the night, and those guys are established enough that they know a dip in the numbers during their segments won't reflect poorly on them given those circumstances. Meantime, you reserve the prime spots for the people you're looking to push to the top and turn into top draws, which is what they're doing with Swerve right now. Perry is going to need a little more time to become a consistent ratings draw, I think, but positioning him with the Bucks will help with that; it'll likely end up helping Okada, too.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 17, 2024 6:14:12 GMT -5
Not sure how many times I've thought, "You know neaxt year I really think the Canes are going to take the East" only to watch them shake hands quite a bit earlier. This might be the end of their window. Svechnikov seems like he never developed into anything more than what he was early into his career (Laine Syndrome), Pesce is likely gone, can't imagine Guentzel will be back. TT might be gone. Staal is like 100 in hockey years. None of these are huge losses, other than maybe Pesce or Skjei, but together you have to think they will be a worse team than the last couple years. It's honestly crazy, but man, watching that last night it really showed how badly Andersen held them back the last couple of years. I just suffered through the Devils' season being utterly derailed in large part by shitty goaltending, but these guys were good enough to make the conference finals last year, threaten a comeback from 0-3 this year...yet they utterly deflated the moment Andersen let in a softy to make it 3-2. Like, good lord, guys, you still have the lead! And since they deflated, Andersen quickly let in another softy, surprise surprise! I guess they could go all in on a good goalie this summer, but yeah, it makes you wonder about this core come playoff time.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 17, 2024 6:01:25 GMT -5
Of course it exists: you're living in a time where a lot of people attach their very sense of identity to corporate brands they consume or patronize, which often leads to people reacting very badly to critiques of their chosen brand. I say this as someone who owns far, far too many baseball hats and baseball and hockey jerseys, but people are weird as hell about a lot of this stuff. I said this in another thread, but my biggest complaint in issues like this is inconsistency, because to me a big part of current wrestling "tribalism" is a constant drumbeat about what you say the promotion you dislike is doing wrong, followed by praising your promotion of choice for doing something similar because, well, it happened in your promotion of choice rather than with the other guys. Like, the whole "this match is HEATLESS, where's the STORY?!" meme falls flat to me when the same people parroting it will gladly praise a random "banger" in their promotion of choice, for example. The other really negative part is people who aren't in discussion spaces to actually have, y'know, discussions about things that involve details, nuance, or just hearing or learning things that might broaden your understanding of certain issues. It's the type who will ignore storytelling happening in any context that isn't the kind they're used to in wrestling, who don't bother to listen to people with better understandings than them how TV ratings work, mostly because they need that ignorance to hold onto their preexisting biases that...I don't know, somehow make them think their lives are better for it? I have no idea how minds like that work. Tribalism in wrestling is what occurs when people imply that one has to choose between professional wrestling companies as if they were political parties or something. As just one example, something like opening a post by specifically accusing only "diehard AEW fans in defense of anybody who criticizes the product" of doing something that is very clearly done by the most fervent of fans of both major companies. Lmao right? This post starts like "What is tribalism and why do AEW fans piss the bed like little bitches?" I am sure I will get in trouble if I shit on OP (as much as they deserve it) so I am just going to concur with your post and the one that followed it. If you think you're gonna get in trouble for something, then just think before you write. If an OP makes a thread that people feel isn't done with the best of intentions, trust me, people will let them know, and nobody will have to "shit on" anybody else.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 16, 2024 21:21:28 GMT -5
Honestly, the .23 is the key, here; that's reasonably in line with a lot of recent performance, so with that in mind you probably need to take the overall number and hold it up against the rest of TV for the evening and see if it was just a down night across the board for non-playoff shows. I forget how the overrun plays into this, too, since it technically doesn't count as a separate quarter given it usually doesn't go more than 10 minutes.
It does suck that they're clicking well in a lot of ways at the moment, but they're not getting back to some of the numbers they had last year; that might be tough, regardless, given how much cord cutting continues apace, but they have a solid overarching storyline going right now that has garnered positive feedback, so you'd hope that would translate into more upward momentum, but that's a tough boulder to push up at this point, I suppose.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 16, 2024 20:33:55 GMT -5
So, hey, tell me if you've heard this one before: the Rangers play like warmed over dogshit for 50 minutes, get stomped all over by the Hurricanes, then suddenly at about the halfway point of the third just throw a few pucks at the net and win.
Cool, cool, really entertaining stuff.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 16, 2024 12:28:32 GMT -5
Dave is one of the only legitimate journalists covering the industry; where he deserves a lot of respect is the fact he takes that job seriously, does better in-depth reporting than most outlets offer, and covers stories many others avoid because they're too worried about maintaining access to big companies and whatnot, whereas Meltzer will cover literally anything.
That said, that doesn't make his analysis right every time, so if people want to disagree about his take on something happening on TV or whatever, go for it. I'd also say he's not the best for "scoops"; that's more a reporter's job, and guys like Sapp are pretty strong in that department. But Dave's actual reporting beats out nearly everyone's who follows wrestling, especially given he does it without the backing of a major publication.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 16, 2024 8:39:50 GMT -5
It all boils down to if there's a story to be told, and if you think it's necessary to use a long reign to fully build Cody up as the top face who carries the promotion, ala Cena. Forcing it for the sake of having one helps nobody.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 16, 2024 8:27:53 GMT -5
Wasn't Canadian Stampede a 3 hour show though?If you are going to run for 4 hours, you really need more than 5 matches. But of course they have all the filler business in there too. It was a two-hour show (in fact, it was the last of the two-hour In Your House events that WWF would run). If WWE wants to condense its PLEs to four or five matches, they should also condense the show's run time to two hours or 2 hours and 30 minutes. Make it a tightly-run show rather than forcing matches to be significantly longer than they warrant. Otherwise, you get matches that get entirely too much air time and overstaying their welcome (the women's tag at Backlash France getting 17:25, the tag title match at Elimination Chamber Perth getting 17:25, Seth vs. Shinsuke at Payback getting 26:05, Rhea vs. Raquel at Payback getting 17:20). That's a big one; after many, many years of ROH and NJPW shows, I can't bring myself to sit through a PPV-style show where the pacing is so drawn out and there's so much time in between matches. I'm fine with a hype video before some matches, but holy shit I just want them to get to the fireworks factory, and WWE's kind of designed around stretching out the amount of time it takes to get from the end of one match to the next. Go ahead and have longer matches, that's great (most of the time), but I can't deal with the slow pacing. The other issue with having cards with so few matches is more for people buying tickets to the show; personally speaking, I wouldn't want to drop a considerable amount to attend live if I knew I was only getting five matches, especially if it's five stretched over too many hours. Clearly a lot of people are ok with that in the last couple of years, but it's not for me.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 16, 2024 7:00:41 GMT -5
Interesting to me that Eddie is replaced by Darby, but both guys stand out as the only "AEW Originals" on Team AEW. That feels like it must be an intentional choice, though maybe I'm overthinking things.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 21:32:15 GMT -5
Every time this thread gains new pages I’m hoping it’s because the TV deal got signed and we no longer gotta hear as much nonsense. Alas. Probably gonna be waiting until August for everything to be announced. Gonna be a long few months of nonsense until then, unfortunately.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 21:31:08 GMT -5
Just said it in the show thread, but the downside of AEW doing more PPVs has been fewer really consequential-feeling matches on cable.
Upside? They've been doing a good job of really setting the stage for what stories/feuds will likely carry the company through the summer/Wembley, and they're doing a good job of using weekly TV to really drive it home.
You're getting some really good matches, but everything, matches and promos included, feel like they're feeding into the overarching stories, so that's good stuff. Hard for me to give a fair grade, since I prefer having more consequential matches more regularly, but feels like this one earned a 9 this week.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 21:27:05 GMT -5
So AEW's shift to a schedule with more PPVs a year has led to there being fewer really consequential feeling matches on regular TV.
This episode felt like a solid job of combining still strong in-ring work with some more out of ring storyline developments that it should please most audiences. They've done a really good job building up what most of the big storylines of the summer leading into All In will probably be, but finding a balance on the week to week TV is important.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 21:13:14 GMT -5
Oh damn I really thought Darby would be held back and come back as the second, more successful wave of backlash, but that works as an Eddie replacement It seems like they want one "AEW-identified" wrestler on this team; no clue if there's a reason for that or not yet.
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