Any indy feds you don't get the hype about?

[MolotovMocktail]

CZW gets a lot of love now. I remember it being a glorified backyard fed whose only redeeming qualities appear when it was compared side by side with XPW.

[froggyfrog]

I'm a big fan of ROH, CZW, Chikara, and especially at the moment PWG.

I don't get DGUSA. They run shows so infrequently and release them even less frequently idk how anybody can really get into it

[SOR]

May 6, 2013 19:00:39 GMT -5 carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) said:

May 6, 2013 18:20:41 GMT -5 SOR said:

I actually did a search before I made this post for SHIMMER and saw a commercial for their shows that happened in April and I counted three women in the audience during the music video. Nothing wrong with it being a majority of men but this is a "I don't get it" thread and I don't "get" SHIMMER or why men outnumber the women at these shows.

I mean, the answer is probably because men are the wrestling fans, because most wrestling organizations have, for like a hundred years, gone out of their way to appeal specifically and directly to men.

If SHIMMER is going to appeal to women, it's going to have to happen really slowly, with guys bringing their daughters and female partners. I actually think the attitude of "guys who go to these shows must be creeps!!" probably just adds to that social segregation.

Though, of course, I haven't been to a SHIMMER show, so maybe there is a terrible creep vibe.

I think initially it was meant to appeal to Women. I mean it's like Women's Soccer. Most of the crowd at Women's soccer is Women, Same with Women's Basketball, Net Ball etc.

I think after the first few shows they recognized a majority of their audience was Internet Wrestling Community Men and decided to just aim towards men. This is why 90% of the women on the SHIMMER roster are really hot and why they run those after parties where the fans that go are usually 100% men (From what I've seen anyway)

I say good for SHIMMER though, they're obviously making money so I guess I don't have to "get it" as long as their audience does.

[thirteen3]

May 6, 2013 20:32:54 GMT -5 froggyfrog said:

I'm a big fan of ROH, CZW, Chikara, and especially at the moment PWG.

I don't get DGUSA. They run shows so infrequently and release them even less frequently idk how anybody can really get into it

Eh, DGUSA only exists as an excuse for the Japanese guys to go on American vacations.

[Andrew is Good]

I've heard a bit about DG USA, and from what I understand, match 1 isn't too much different from match 8. Would that be correct to say?

[Brainbustaaah!]

May 5, 2013 12:06:37 GMT -5 @spindoc said:

May 5, 2013 11:50:16 GMT -5 Djm Doesn't Find You Funny said:

Is it wrong of me to assume that this may be a thinly-veiled "I don't get CHIKARA" thread?

*tombstone piledrives you on a pile of sprinkles for your assumptions*

YOU'RE A SICK MAN! SICK! I can't believe you'd introduce that kind of...of BARBARISM in this thread!

[SOR]

May 6, 2013 21:14:55 GMT -5 Andrew is Good said:

I've heard a bit about DG USA, and from what I understand, match 1 isn't too much different from match 8. Would that be correct to say?

Somewhat, It's spotfest after spotfest after spotfest. If you're into that the Dragon Gate product is amazing.

I personally can only watch a spot fest once before it gets old though so I'm not a massive fan of the Dragon Gate product.

[chazraps]

Question for those of you who dislike "current ROH."

Would you at least say there's been a marked improvement over the past six months or so?

[Can you afford to pay me, Gah]

John Zadig's CZW was always this for me. Back in the tape trading and buying days this was one the one company people keep telling me. Get there events there so amazing. I did and most of them where just plan crap. No matches stood out it was mostly pointless blood baths. The only events I liked was the BOTB tournaments. Everything else I was like "This is cool because?"

The same goes for anybody trying to sell me on XPW. Which believe it or not there been people who tried.

[BigJerichool222]

Every single Indy Fed EVER.

OK that's a lie; I was pressured into watching Wrestling Is Fun once and enjoyed it. But other than that, it's as if I can never enjoy indy wrestling because it bores me. I should start watching chikara probly.

[Deleted]

May 6, 2013 18:20:41 GMT -5 SOR said:

May 6, 2013 17:39:59 GMT -5 Steveweiser said:

That guy clearly hasn't ever watched SHIMMER. It's 250 people, a lot of women, a lot of great guys who all respect the product, have fun, and some of them have become good friends with each other. It's a community. Though there are some bad eggs in there, including "Cheesecake Man", but they're very much the minority.

I've seen SHIMMER before, I can't comment on how the community is since I've never been live but it's one of those shows where there's a handful of women and a lot more men.

I actually did a search before I made this post for SHIMMER and saw a commercial for their shows that happened in April and I counted three women in the audience during the music video. Nothing wrong with it being a majority of men but this is a "I don't get it" thread and I don't "get" SHIMMER or why men outnumber the women at these shows.

Definitely didn't mean to offend anyone though.

I think you're dancing around it a little. If you're the typical wrestling fan you're a guy, you think women are attractive, and wrestling is cool. You put attractive/talented women and base a wrestling organization around it, it doesn't surprise me that it gets a heavy guy-oriented fan base at all.

With all indie feds I'm usually able to see what qualities people see in it but I think CZW is my best answer. I heard a snippet from a Dean Ambrose interview that made sense to me in explaining that CZW is a place that harbors all kinds of wrestlers that get complete freedom to play around with the format and really experiment and that's cool. The flipside of that is I don't really get why people stick around because it seems like for every Dean Ambrose, Chris Hero, Ruckus, or Human Tornado there's a stupid Cage of Death match right around the corner. It would have to take some really strong talent for me to sit through the rest of it.

[Heinz Doofenschmirtz]

Current RoH. I'm not a huge Kevin Steen fan plus the sheer silliness of Team SCUM made me stop watching it. It feels like booking that a sixteen year old would come up with after watching the nWo.

[grunt]

May 6, 2013 23:04:33 GMT -5 @nichotine said:

May 6, 2013 18:20:41 GMT -5 SOR said:

I've seen SHIMMER before, I can't comment on how the community is since I've never been live but it's one of those shows where there's a handful of women and a lot more men.

I actually did a search before I made this post for SHIMMER and saw a commercial for their shows that happened in April and I counted three women in the audience during the music video. Nothing wrong with it being a majority of men but this is a "I don't get it" thread and I don't "get" SHIMMER or why men outnumber the women at these shows.

Definitely didn't mean to offend anyone though.

I think you're dancing around it a little. If you're the typical wrestling fan you're a guy, you think women are attractive, and wrestling is cool. You put attractive/talented women and base a wrestling organization around it, it doesn't surprise me that it gets a heavy guy-oriented fan base at all.

True. That said, wrestling fans, at the core, are already a bit on the obsessive side, but when it comes to women wrestlers in general, and Shimmer in particular, the obsession seems to be even stronger, which can seem creepy or freak outsiders out. I mean, I totally get Shimmer (well, I used to totally get Shimmer back then, I've drifted away from the company during its "let's bring in as much joshi girls as possible, that way we won't have to come up with any sort of storylines" phase, and never really came back), but even I can sometimes get creeped out by the devotion of some fans, here and there, that clearly seem to be going beyond the simple "i like this wrestler".

And since the Shimmer fanbase is, by nature, smaller and tighter than the rest of the wrestling fanbase, such creepy elements tend to take much more space in the public eye, and are often left unchecked, whereas in the WWE fandom, for instance, they get mostly drowned out by the volume of other fans.

[Deleted]

For what it's worth (I know you said you haven't paid attention to it much lately), there have been a lot more storylines and feuds in Shimmer after the joshi arrived, compared to the previous time period.

[kidkamikaze10]

Plus, it helps that said Joshi are better than the rest of the roster. Hence why the matches that are considered the best in SHIMMER usually has a Joshi in it.

Said Joshi is usually Hamada, but still.

[Deleted]

There is only 1 indy I can really watch in Australia: TNA. I don't get TNA. People keep saying its getting better, but it never does.

[Deleted]

Shimmer and DG(as a whole).

And alot of the several different smaller indies that book primarily ex-WWE talents. But they dont get much mention around these parts.

[crowwreak was WRONG]

I honestly haven't seen an ROH show that I liked since Summer of Punk I

[SOR]

May 7, 2013 10:32:18 GMT -5 grunt said:

May 6, 2013 23:04:33 GMT -5 @nichotine said:

I think you're dancing around it a little. If you're the typical wrestling fan you're a guy, you think women are attractive, and wrestling is cool. You put attractive/talented women and base a wrestling organization around it, it doesn't surprise me that it gets a heavy guy-oriented fan base at all.

True. That said, wrestling fans, at the core, are already a bit on the obsessive side, but when it comes to women wrestlers in general, and Shimmer in particular, the obsession seems to be even stronger, which can seem creepy or freak outsiders out. I mean, I totally get Shimmer (well, I used to totally get Shimmer back then, I've drifted away from the company during its "let's bring in as much joshi girls as possible, that way we won't have to come up with any sort of storylines" phase, and never really came back), but even I can sometimes get creeped out by the devotion of some fans, here and there, that clearly seem to be going beyond the simple "i like this wrestler".

And since the Shimmer fanbase is, by nature, smaller and tighter than the rest of the wrestling fanbase, such creepy elements tend to take much more space in the public eye, and are often left unchecked, whereas in the WWE fandom, for instance, they get mostly drowned out by the volume of other fans.

I think this is probably it yeah. The fans want autographs and photos which is normal but then they attend the after parties it gets a little "out there"

I mean some guys travel from Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand to see these girls and I don't think they're good enough to warrant a 2000-3000 dollar trip. Especially when people in Australia and New Zealand can fly to Japan for probably around the same price and see a week of women's shows if they wanted too.

I think the appeal is a mixture. Sure you're going to get to see a good weekend of shows but then you get to meet them, have your photo taken and party with all these hot girls. It's definitely an appeal to the SHIMMER fan base and that to me is creepy. Not saying everyone at a SHIMMER show is creepy some may just watch the card and go home it's the obsessive fans that are a worry and I guess I just don't understand that obsession past the whole "They're hot" thing.

[Ultimo Gallos]

May 7, 2013 12:07:40 GMT -5 @kingpatch said:

Shimmer and DG(as a whole).

And alot of the several different smaller indies that book primarily ex-WWE talents. But they dont get much mention around these parts.

I am a huge fan of smaller indies. They are pretty much all I watch now.