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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 16, 2024 6:06:53 GMT -5
For me? Probably around 1999, or whenever it was I first saw Wrestling with Shadows on A&E.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 16, 2024 5:58:32 GMT -5
The Mets are at .500
Now let us never speak of the first five games of the season again.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 15, 2024 19:58:21 GMT -5
So apparently if Arizona gets a new arena built within the next five years, the Coyotes will return as an expansion team. The current owner was looking to bid for some land opening up right outside Phoenix, but the league didn't want to wait anymore. Meantime, the last Devils game is tonight, and I can't say I'm not kind of happy to get off this Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of a season. Sucks to see it end now, but too many injuries, too many young guys having to step up more than they initially wanted them to, and most of all not enough goaltending until late in the year...so the upside is that they should be able to address most of that and get back on track to contending next season. Heal up, Jack Hughes, pleeeeeeeease heal up. The Devils are more than fine for the future. Just as everything went right for them last season, the exact opposite happened this year. Their advanced stats (when healthy) still put them in the top 6 in the east. What Washington and Pittsburgh are doing analytically is an outlier. Kinda absurd Washington could make the playoffs while not being in the top 16 in an major stat except the standings. Hockey is a cruel game I can't count the number of games before the trade deadline where the Devils were pulling in high percentages on the "Deserves to Win-o-Meter", where they created a bunch more high-danger chances than the opposition, etc., but where they'd give up a few juicy turnovers and because of the goaltending they'd all end up in the back of the net. I still think their offense could've been better in a lot of situations, not enough variation in their attack to get defenses to move around more in a lot of games, but their overall attack was the right idea, they just didn't have the horses in net to make it work. That's going to be Priority 1 this offseason, along with a new full-time coach.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 15, 2024 10:14:13 GMT -5
So apparently if Arizona gets a new arena built within the next five years, the Coyotes will return as an expansion team. The current owner was looking to bid for some land opening up right outside Phoenix, but the league didn't want to wait anymore.
Meantime, the last Devils game is tonight, and I can't say I'm not kind of happy to get off this Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of a season. Sucks to see it end now, but too many injuries, too many young guys having to step up more than they initially wanted them to, and most of all not enough goaltending until late in the year...so the upside is that they should be able to address most of that and get back on track to contending next season. Heal up, Jack Hughes, pleeeeeeeease heal up.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 15, 2024 10:11:11 GMT -5
Well, hey...the Mets just might not suck!
All seriousness, if Jose Butto is for real, that significantly changes the equation with this team; Butto looked strong last year, had a great spring, and now has a couple really good starts in the bigs early this season, so if he at least settles into being a decent mid-rotation arm it gives the Mets the depth they need to avoid what happened to them last season. Hopefully he keeps running with this opportunity; Mendoza says the spot is his now, especially with Senga and Megill out, so let's see what he can do. It'd be nice to get to a point where most of the arms are healthy and they could potentially slot Megill and Houser into the bullpen to give that more depth, too.
It's funny; they went into last season as potential playoff favorites due to having Scherzer and Verlander at the top of the rotation, but both guys are up there in age and ran into injuries or less effectiveness. They hoped they could rely on their depth after that, but so many guys were hurt last year, too, that they ended up scraping the bottom of the barrel for starting arms. This year, they, they entered the season with more mid-range arms (e.g. Houser), guys with some upside if they can work out some issues (Severino), and better health among their depth pieces (Butto, Lucchesi, etc.), and that could end up making the difference. Would also be nice if JD Martinez could get healthy and into the lineup; the Mets' DH's have been fine so far, but they need that extra right handed power in the lineup as the year goes on.
Also, it was just really nice to have a 2-1 pitchers duel on the day the Mets retired Doc Gooden's number.
ETA: Looking at how awful Angel Hernandez has been...this dude's gonna be the reason they go to robot umps/automated strike zone, isn't he? I really don't like the idea of doing that, but guys like him make it seem inevitable.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 15, 2024 9:56:18 GMT -5
It's fascinating because the top of the roster is stacked but the flipside of that is you can't please everyone. Controlling perception is difficult. It runs the risk of people overshadowing the champion, for example many of us think Danielson should have held that title. Others think Switchblade made more sense than Joe. Maybe in future Omega wins the continental title and overshadows the world champion. There's also a risk of homegrown stars being overshadowed. Especially as all four current men's singles champions were former world champions elsewhere. Swerve winning would help that but if Hangman screws him out of victory and say Ospreay wins gold instead I can imagine a backlash. I also think Mercedes will be forced to turn heel quickly. Former aew champions winning the title again could also prove unpopular to some even if objectively MJF and Hangman could both hold it many more times. Basically I think they're in a good place, being able to avoid stagnation is a positive, need to be careful with the booking. I agree with this. I also think they currently encountering an issue where the world title isn't the be all and end all. And that is because of the strength in depth. Joe vs Swerve (and briefly Hangman) has been going on for 3 months now and nobody else has eyed the title or even really mentioned it. Except Wardlow and Hook but they both up and coming mid card guys. Like Ospreay vs Danielson is all about who the best wrestler in the world is but hold on, surely the world champ is. Neither of them have mentioned the World Title. Why's Mox not talked about it or even say Garcia saying 'my dream is to be champ, I'm working toward reaching that one day'. Say what you want about his run but MJF was really good at this. He made sure everyone knew he was the best, and always had people gunning for him. Joe's run has been good in isolation but it needs to be a bit more intergrated into show as whole, especially when you have Okada being a boss mid card champ and Danielson facing Ospreay for the GOAT title. They need to get a bit tighter at having all roads leading to the champ. Yeah, I like a lot of what Joe's done as champ (and as an unabashed mark for the guy I'll be thrilled if he's basically champ forever), and the storyline with Swerve and Hangman is strong, but there's no getting around that while the recent segments Joe and Swerve have done have been good, it still feels too isolated from the rest of the show and like the focus of the emerging top guys isn't squarely on the main championship. Some of that is a product of having this new slate of guys you're working to get over as main eventers: Danielson is Ospreay's first major marquee match as a full-time roster member, Okada is being established as, well, Okada (and as a heel) by holding a title and firmly establishing his dynamic with the Bucks, Mox/Hangman/MJF are or have been away, etc. So I get not wanting to get all these guys straight to the top, ergo you have them focused on other matters for the time being. But the result is that Joe's run doesn't have all the heat it should right now, which sucks, because he's awesome and the build to Swerve potentially winning should have a little more juice to it. Hopefully this is kind of a result of one PPV cycle; Revolution wasn't that long ago, now Dynasty happens, then we get the build to Double or Nothing, so depending on which storylines conclude this Sunday there could certainly be a reshuffling on the near horizon.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 14, 2024 16:50:51 GMT -5
What I saw of both was strong, but I have rewatch a batch of things: I was just having far, far too much fun doing my taxes during the show, so I was pretty distracted.
In spite of that distraction, though, I was thrilled to see that AZM always @#$%ing rules.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 14, 2024 16:48:13 GMT -5
You also had like, normal-er kinds of dislike? Raw was hilariously bad and you'd have people going 'Wow damn that was a bad show' and most of the verbotten AEW criticism or whatever tends to not even engage with the show. There's people who want to talk a lot about the AEW section or about the company but who almost never drop like. An opinion about a match. An episode. Something to dislike. A thing that says they actually perceived a moment of it. And you could say that about the WWE section back then, sure, but every week there'd be threads about things that happened that night and people would dunk on the bad stuff because they actually experienced it. It wasn't this lopsided. That last point is definitely something that's jumped out to me in the wider wrestle-talk ecosystem; "normal" post-show positivity or negativity usually revolves around talking about actual aspects of the show that were good, sucked, or were funny for people. We got some of that with the White/Gunn match thread, for sure, but AEW gets so much more "discourse", instead, both here and elsewhere; there's nothing inherently wrong with that, such conversations can be really interesting if they're open and informed, but it's weird when it seems to happen to the exclusion of discussing aspects of an individual show, itself. Saw it elsewhere in relation to last night's show: most AEW fans seemed to like it quite a bit, but instead of individual things like specific matches or characters being discussed the conversation is back to "there are no stories" vs. "there are plenty of stories", or "too many ROH titles" vs. "why do you care about that", etc., which seems to enter the "discourse" side of the ledger.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 14, 2024 5:24:51 GMT -5
Yeah, on the one hand "too many singles titles" doesn't usually phase me thanks to years of NJPW viewing, but there's a delicate balance to having belts with different purposes that suit and fit different parts of the roster when you're a weekly TV product; for all the talk over the years in various companies that it's good when main eventers pursue midcard titles, you also risk devaluing the World title if you do that too often, so having some of these clearer lines of delineation (which can be stepped over from time to time, of course) is important. I'm hoping that the next C2 tournament, in lieu of maybe the belts of three different companies/brands, permanently unifies a couple of the more extraneous titles, namely the Continental and International titles. I think their roster might be large enough to support as many belts as they've got (e.g. WCW even before it was at its biggest that roster supported a World, US, TV, and Cruiserweight singles titles), but yeah, I'd consider merging those belts if they can't really come up with a solid way to fully distinguish them from one another in terms of gimmick and/or what part of the roster tends to fight over them, as, again, you want your top names focused on the World title most of the time. I think they could potentially make it work by setting some clearer parameters for each belt: the TNT belt should have an emphasized short time limit and demand regular televised defenses (they at least have babyface champs doing the latter), the International belt can be one where the champ regularly travels overseas or to the indies to defend it or can bring some of those foreign/indie/non-contracted talents onto the weekly shows/PPVs for defenses, and the Continental Crown can keep its rule-set and maybe serve as a de facto #1 contender's title ala the NWA's US belt. Problem, of course, is that as with all things in wrestling, especially in the era of weekly prime time shows, parameters like that are essentially made and then broken whenever a booker needs it to be, and once you've done that it's tough to get back on the bike. If that's the case, then yeah, merge a couple of 'em.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 14, 2024 5:00:48 GMT -5
I mean, I said it in the show thread, but look at the adjective: "wrestle".
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 13, 2024 22:05:30 GMT -5
please don't say where the best wrestle to close the show they better not Look at the adjective, "wrestle"!
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 13, 2024 20:19:49 GMT -5
Hell yeah Chicken
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 13, 2024 18:32:51 GMT -5
I've been wanting to comment about this but been reluctant because I'm a pretty casual viewer of AEW and I didn't want to say anything if I was missing some important details, but I'm stuck home sick with nothing better to do so let's go for it. I honestly don't see what the point of doing this was. I think it's been pretty well accepted by most ( most, not all) wrestling fans that AEW did the right thing with the All In fallout. Punk was out of line and needed to go. And everybody, including the fans, have moved on from it. So what do they get out of reminding people of it now? Why re-litigate an argument that you were largely accepted as being in the right for? It really does feel petty. Think a lot will boil down to how much this pays off for Jack Perry upon his return, since that's the storyline this all seems mostly set around.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 13, 2024 17:13:13 GMT -5
Something I feel is overlooked in all this. I’ve read many people, and done podcasters, mention how fights happen in locker rooms or how Punk dealt with it. That is the exact culture AEW did not want. AEW is made of people who don’t want that kind of macho dude bro bs to permeate the locker room. Punk wanted to fundamentally change the culture of AEW which goes against the very foundation of AEW. That’s not me ragging on Punk. I just don’t think he fit in with AEW. Adam Copeland on the other hand seems to get it and is fitting in perfectly. Going back to the Trish and Sarah podcast, they talked about that with regards to Punk seemingly wanting that “the star gets special treatment” locker room that AEW also seemed to avoid a lot as a part of its founding philosophy. It’s insane how quickly the guy took the feel good moment of the decade, his initial return, and turned it into utter misery…well, ok, some fun memes, too, but mostly misery.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 13, 2024 16:19:56 GMT -5
He's gotta go babyface. Plenty of support for him in Chicago of all places last night. And he was trying to play the superheel. If this is how his reactions go, I could see him starting out heel, but eventually turning on the Bucks…or them being super petty over something in storyline and attacking him first.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 12, 2024 21:16:40 GMT -5
I really never consistently watched WWE through the 2010s, but whenever a topic like this comes up I've always said a major low point to me was circa 2010-2011, whenever it was they did the "walkout" angle.
To this day, it's quite possibly the worst thing I've ever seen in pro wrestling; I saw it because it was on one of the TVs of the gym I was at and I was on a treadmill, but the part I was seeing was the follow-up where the show opened with only Triple H, Cena, Sheamus, and Punk available, and my jaw was hitting the floor with how vile a choice the whole thing was. Bear in mind this was around the time TNA had Bobby Roode blow his chance at beating Kurt Angle at Bound for Glory (at least they made up for it with his heel title run, but my god, that moment was awful), so my patience with pro wrestling as a whole was into full-on negative territory at that point.
As for the best, again, never watched much, but Jericho coming out all smiling and then just leaving before doing his heel turn was a solid presentation, and if the Bryan as an eco-warrior gimmick and KofiMania were before 2020, they count; one could argue they kind of lucked into Kofi's run given injuries and whatnot, but they ran with it once they had it.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 12, 2024 19:56:51 GMT -5
The only thing embarrassing about that event are the amount of people who advocated for violence, defend an abuser, and use twitter bots to try and conflate it to WCW 2000 If you mean that's the embarrassing part then for sure, I agree, it's been an embarrassing week for wrestling "fans". And if it looked "Bush League" for AEW to do what they did, then I could tell plenty ways WWE's looked "Bush League" too... It's embarassing because like TNA before they can't stop mentioning wrestlers in the WWE on the shows. Tony Khan forcing the Young Bucks to do a segment they didn't want to do to air good personal vendetta is so carny and pathetic. The backlash to this has been rather humiliating for them, especially after Edge's promo the week before. Oh my God, both of you shut the f*** up with this stupid slap fight, or you're both suspended. f*** this horseshit.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 12, 2024 15:30:57 GMT -5
Jericho's about to drive Hook out into the desert and leave him there?
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 12, 2024 15:27:36 GMT -5
What are we even talking about anymore?
There's no "punching up/down" here for us as fans: they're both big companies, this isn't exactly standing up for the indies.
But where, in the name of all that is holy, has anyone gotten the idea that "being negative" is in and of itself something you can't do about any show you watch? We just had a multi-page thread after Dynamite last week that was basically a bunch of people saying "man, the booking of that Jay White/Billy Gunn match @#$%ing sucked." We've had a bunch of people saying they don't think it was the right thing to show that Punk footage on Wednesday. Some people say that, some people disagree, go the @#$% ahead.
Some people here are getting overly defensive at times in one case for a reason they need to get over, but in another for a reason that feels pretty legitimate: -The thing to get over? I know that tons of online spaces are borderline deranged right now when it comes to discussions of AEW. Trust me, I've talked to people in positions of responsibility in other wrestling-talk spaces, and they see it to, down to them having to deal with bots and coordinated swarms of over the top negative posting. But if you're posting here, we take care of those things, by and large (I'm sure something could have slipped through the cracks over time). Someone wants to say they thought something didn't work or stunk, let it @#$%ing go. Not every single criticism needs a response, just relax, for God's sake.
-At the same time, the legitimate thing? Not for nothing, but a lot of the negative posting we're dealing with come off like people not watching the show or ignoring entire threads before posting because, my god, the number of times people have had to repeat why something was done, or even what happened on the show (e.g. yes, they used this as a way to set up Perry's return, but you had to watch the Bucks' promo before the clip), was dizzying. Come on in and say why you thought showing it was a bad idea, anyway, that's fine (personally, I think it wasn't really worth doing on Dynamite), talk about why you feel that way, but man alive, if you're not watching the show but jumping into the conversation, consider prefacing a post with "hey, I don't watch, but..." or "could someone who does watch clear this up?", or at bare minimum just read the damn thread before posting or something.
In other words: critiques and not enjoying something isn't unwarranted negativity, but coming into a thread to shit on something you not only didn't watch (it's ok to have opinions on things you didn't see...just preface it with that fact!), but are also actively ignoring all context and literally ignoring facts for, actively harms our conversations here.
This week sucks.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 12, 2024 14:53:33 GMT -5
Look, I'm disappointed in Will for going for the low hanging fruit, it's petty. He should of said something about his nose or heart attack. He should've said something about Kevin Kelly and those EC3 nudes. Last two posts got me feeling
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