|
Post by Joe Neglia on Sept 1, 2019 16:06:41 GMT -5
What they mean is he doesn’t look nearly as cool as he looked at 28. Mid life crisis Jericho is a great look. He's in good enough shape to not look out of place in n a ring with Page but he's not hiding the fact he's nearly 50. I think the difference between Jericho and say Hogan is Jericho can still go and he absolutely makes his opponent look good at the same time. I think one thing that helps tremendously is that Jericho is in on the joke. We watched guys like Hogan and Savage and Undertaker go through very cringe-worthy mid-life crisis eras, where they kept trying to be the cool guy and failing at it. Jericho is doing it intentionally and leaning into the trope to help build his heel character. Like in the post-show stuff where he's completely alone in his celebration and no one wants to be around him.
|
|
|
Post by One-Armed Drummer of Defrebel on Sept 1, 2019 16:12:43 GMT -5
I was reading some tweets about how out of shape Jericho looked and caught some highlights/pictures of the match today and he looks f***ing fine. He's 48 god damn years old he's in great shape for that age. He looks exactly as an old wrestling heel should and he almost always brings it during his matches. Like, everything about Jericho right now screams wrestling to me and I just don't understand the problem. It's not like Shane McMahon where he literally can't do shit and is more protected than a majority of the roster. Jericho still puts on sick matches regardless of any cardio issues.
|
|
|
Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Sept 1, 2019 16:14:23 GMT -5
IWGP IC Title Jericho was absolutely out of shape. The Jericho we're getting for AEW is a Jericho putting in the work. He looks great. There's a bit of gut but there is also clear definition in that gut, he can move aorund the ring, he might not be able to move like he did in his twenties, but as far as losing a step in age goes, Jericho is far from a Shane McMahon--someone who was never in good shape--in terms of what he can do. Age reduces, but when you're coming down from heights like Jericho was, that doesn't mean so much. He's hitting the gym hard to be the headline guy when TV starts up and I honestly can't fathom how anyone can look at him last night and think he looks in perfectly fine shape.
I don't know, all the issues with old guys and Brock for me have little to do with the mere fact of their age. Brock coming in to work a lazy match every few match but be treated as SO MUCH COOLER AND BETTER AND WELL HUNG than everyone else is absolute garbage. All the old dudes shambling through awful headline matches they can't get through is miserable. Showing people who aren't just good or even main event but actively better in every way than your main event wrestlers who are 'the real stars' is how you bury your roster. Jericho is full time, he's committed, he's putting in great work in his matches and caring about the show rather than only his bank account, and in feuding with Hangman, who isn't actually yet in what I would consider 'his prime' as he still puts the pieces together, he did everything he could to elevate Hangman. Jericho's promos put Hangman over huge and built him up as something special, and in the end he won through veteran instincts rather than just being The Besterest. All the gravest sins of WWE's use of old guys aren't really being committed here.
We can't take WWE repeatedly f***ing up what could be sensible tropes and ideas and then throwing our hands in the air in panic when AEW does them once and not even with all the baggage and bullshit.
|
|
Greer
Unicron
Points. Don't. Matter.
Posts: 3,199
|
Post by Greer on Sept 1, 2019 16:48:59 GMT -5
Jericho has the psychology and carries himself like a star. Hangman doesn't.
|
|
|
Post by Viking Hall on Sept 1, 2019 19:46:04 GMT -5
Bad move. The first thing you're showing your new tv audience is an old, out of shape guy who looks like he got tossed out of a Misfits reunion concert. It's bad optics. Did you ever have a problem with Ric Flair holding a title, or Harley Race, or Jerry Lawler, or Terry Funk or to bring it closer to AEW, Dusty Rhodes for that matter? If there's ever been a sport or form or entertainment where looks can take a back seat, it's wrestling. Many of the best and most beloved champions of all time were more than imperfect when it comes to aesthetics but they became champions due to their ability in the ring and their inherent star quality. In fact there's a very good argument to be had that the downturn in the quality of wrestling as a whole is due to image being placed over far more important attributes. You may say it's a bad look for this young guy to lose to an older man but the flipside to that is that this young man, in his first ever title match, went toe to toe with one of the few men on the planet today who has a legitimate claim to be one of the best of all time and came within a whisker of beating him. That's Pro-Wrestling 101, that's the kind of story that are the foundations of the entire wrestling industry and if people can't see that, well, then maybe wrestling has finally jumped the shark.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2019 20:08:46 GMT -5
It makes the most sense. Really strong match, too.
|
|
|
Post by HMARK Center on Sept 1, 2019 20:57:20 GMT -5
I really don't care about a wrestler's age; yesterday before All Out we had a NJPW show where three of the most over people on the card, who happened to be involved in three of the card's best matches, were 40+ year olds Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii and 50+ year old Minoru Suzuki. Age matters to a degree, but if the performance, story, fan investment, and ticket sales are all there, who cares? I won't put current Jericho on the same level as those guys, but the guy has absolutely shown up for his marquee matches in recent memory and still puts on a strong performance while drawing eyes to the shows he's on.
Now, "TV age" is a different factor, and what's often referred to when people look back on what went wrong for WCW after awhile, but even in that regard Jericho's in pretty good shape as champion; he hasn't been on regular weekly TV anywhere in a long time, only working big cards for AEW and no more than three matches in a year (plus a couple of non-match appearances) for NJPW. Since the last time he was regularly featured on weekly TV he's revamped his character and ring work style again, so he's not just going to be rehashing any of his old gimmicks.
You also get the "this was likely Plan B" issue; they wanted to have Omega vs. Jericho and PAC vs. Page to determine the first title match, and yeah, odds are it was likely meant to be Omega vs. PAC, but that couldn't happen, and Page is still in a position where he likely gains more from losing now and getting a storyline where he builds back up to his next chance, leaving Jericho as the main choice because they likely didn't want to do an "all Elite" main event with Omega vs. Page.
Finally, Jericho offers the most storyline and character arc possibilities for the people around him. He initiated the "Omega is taking this all too lightly" angle, Page gets to rebuild and likely make his name from here, and Jericho's status as "old man from the last big era hogging the spotlight" makes him a ripe target for all the younger stars who can be shown as viewing him as someone desperately clinging to former glories.
So yeah, I bet if everything had gone ideally they'd have begun with Omega as champion, but things didn't pan out that way, and it might end up leading to better business overall, given a lot of the options now available to them.
And yeah, saying "you'd complain if WWE did this" really just strips all context from the situation. Again, age is just a number; if Jericho was a part-timer being made to look multiple tiers above everyone else and who had a history of not putting people over I'd get the fear, but that all clearly hasn't been the case.
|
|
|
Post by Brian Suntan on Sept 2, 2019 2:17:52 GMT -5
I like old, get off my lawn Jericho - I somewhat question whether 50 year old Y2J really is drawing lapsed wrestling fans back in, but he can still go and is a lot of fun on the mic.
But, the Judas Effect is as dumb as it gets. I can't believe that doesn't get more criticism. Even more so given that on the same show somebody kicked out of a Canadian Destroyer off a ladder, through a table.
|
|
|
Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Sept 2, 2019 7:14:02 GMT -5
I just want to nip this whole “They want to be different but they’re signing older talent” thing in the bud because it’s annoyed me that it’s being used for years for every promotion. Look, if you’re making a wrestling promotion and you want to get lapsed fans in, you need to get talent in who people know. That’s not me saying it as having no faith in newer talent but that’s the sort of thing you want to do unless you have a really high profile and confident brand that people will see regardless. Someone here told a story about how their friend said AEW signing Moxley was akin to TNA signing Rikishi, Test or whoever so I’m going to say this; TNA’s problem was not, was not, that they brought in Booker T, Orlando Jordan, The Nasty Boys, Val Venis etc. In a way, some of those make sense. Yes, some are names associated with Hogan who he brings everywhere he goes because they’re his friends but if you do something with those talents that are different from what they did before, it can work because if the intention is to make your other talent look better in victory or defeat, then all the better. The problem, and where the perception came from, was when those talents were repeatedly put over the new guys in definitive ways. Val Venis beat Christopher Daniels, The Nasty Boys beat up the tag division, Orlando Jordan beat Samoa Joe (I believe) and you make the rest of your roster look like goobers long term so after those guys win, there’s nothing else to watch because eventually, those guys will go and do other stuff. When people leave WWE, they don’t suddenly just end up going to indies and doing the small promotions that book them against their champion to lose. I mean, they can do that and have and more power to them. But that should not nobody should hire them again if they’re just going to collect their pay cheque and leave. Hell, by this logic WWE themselves have picked up a bunch of TNA “rejects”. Samuel Shaw, Robbie E, Bobby Roode, Eric Young, Gunner, Chelsea Green, most of their new agent team. That part in particular people were saying they were signing people who failed to make a national promotion bigger when in fact, they were signing experienced hands to guide the talent who weren’t as experienced. And Gunner. So how does this lead to Jericho? Maybe I’m crazy here but I heard a crowd that was getting more into Page the more the match was going on and part of that went to Jericho for putting that work in and making him look like a beast and telling a story of the younger guy getting his shots in but getting more in his head as he couldn’t get the job done. Not that it was going to be nuclear pop city if he won but it wasn’t going to be boos and garbage if he did win. So Jericho took advantage of his younger opponent’s flaws and won. Cool. Now the next step is where do you go from here and who wins because there are enough people who could do it and you need to make it count. The beauty of their situation is they have enough BTEs, Road tos and TV weeks to start building a challenger for Full Gear but also a long term challenger to beat Jericho and be put over by it. If we’re into the deep end of 2020 and Jericho is still champ and beaten everyone, then we can have the conversation comparing him to Val Venis beating Christopher Daniels. Edit: Also to add, if you sign a talent that’s still in their prime who left another company...that’s actually a really good thing. Like, it happens all the time in sport when a player whose really good for one team isn’t suited for that team and jumps to another team to fit there better. Again, not a bad thing. This post is excellent and I agree with it wholeheartedly. The random Gunner burial was the cherry on top.
|
|
|
Post by eJm on Sept 2, 2019 7:20:53 GMT -5
This post is excellent and I agree with it wholeheartedly. The random Gunner burial was the cherry on top. I don't even dislike Gunner that much but when I was listing everyone there, it would have been weird if I didn't put a jab in. I couldn't resist.
|
|
|
Post by Muskrat on Sept 2, 2019 11:32:49 GMT -5
I like old, get off my lawn Jericho - I somewhat question whether 50 year old Y2J really is drawing lapsed wrestling fans back in, but he can still go and is a lot of fun on the mic. But, the Judas Effect is as dumb as it gets. I can't believe that doesn't get more criticism. Even more so given that on the same show somebody kicked out of a Canadian Destroyer off a ladder, through a table. Almost All strike finishers fall apart if you can’t suspend disbelief. Oh, dude kicked out of a jumping tombstone but a short arm clothes line ends it? Oh, and jumping Destroyer is a near fall but a running knee gets a 3 count? Styles clash is a 2 but a springboard forearm is a 3 Etc. And that’s listing moves that are done by the same dude in the same match, without factoring in what else has been kicked out of on the card. Big Show’s punch is one of the few exceptions to this.
|
|
Wieners=$$$
Hank Scorpio
Gif Master Extraordinaire
Smokin' Bones
Posts: 6,028
|
Post by Wieners=$$$ on Sept 2, 2019 12:03:37 GMT -5
I hope we get a heel Jericho concert. It doesn't have to be Fozzy. Just the image of too out of shape for leather pants, Jericho using the belt like a guitar, while a band backs him up, would be incredible.
|
|
Captain Stud Muffin (BLM)
FANatic
You can either sink, swim, or be the captain....Long live the cheif
Posts: 113,331
Member is Online
|
Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Sept 2, 2019 12:27:27 GMT -5
The most important thing is Jericho can still go at his age
|
|
|
Post by sportatorium on Sept 2, 2019 12:31:15 GMT -5
I have zero problem with Jericho as champion & they do need to let him keep it for a bit. I’m sure TNT got to weigh in on who they want as champion. To start the show off & he was likely at the top of their list. Going with Cody or Omega out of the gate would seem a bit off due to their positions with the company. There is money on the table with a bunch of guys chasing Jericho until they pull the trigger on a challenger.
|
|
|
Post by Cyno on Sept 2, 2019 12:44:38 GMT -5
Think back to 2008 and Wrestlemania 24, where arguably the most celebrated match of the night was a 42 year old Shawn Michaels vs. a 59 year old Ric Flair. Even though both weren't in the primes of their careers, the storytelling and the work involved was exceptional.
|
|
|
Post by Muskrat on Sept 2, 2019 12:51:56 GMT -5
I have zero problem with Jericho as champion & they do need to let him keep it for a bit. I’m sure TNT got to weigh in on who they want as champion. To start the show off & he was likely at the top of their list. Going with Cody or Omega out of the gate would seem a bit off due to their positions with the company. There is money on the table with a bunch of guys chasing Jericho until they pull the trigger on a challenger. Cody would’ve been my #2 pick for first champ if he weren’t EVP. He legitimately would deserve it, can get awesome heat when he wants to and could’ve been a great heel first champ while building up faces. But with him being EVP, him being first champ would’ve sent a terrible message and might’ve burned up some goodwill with people.
|
|
Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
Posts: 28,896
|
Post by Sephiroth on Sept 2, 2019 18:31:38 GMT -5
It’s sensible. Jericho needs to be for AEW what Terry Funk was to ECW; outing over new abs rising stars. Having him as the first heel champion sets the stage for an up and comer to be the savior of the promotion.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2019 18:35:51 GMT -5
It’s sensible. Jericho needs to be for AEW what Terry Funk was to ECW; outing over new abs rising stars. Having him as the first heel champion sets the stage for an up and comer to be the savior of the promotion. Yep, that up and comer Cody!
|
|
Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,045
|
Post by Mozenrath on Sept 2, 2019 18:43:55 GMT -5
When is Wrestle Kingdom again? Wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't still the champion by then, given I'd imagine he'll want to be on that show, and if he's losing to Tanahashi or something, they probably wouldn't want him bringing the belt there to do that, especially if NJPW is still annoyed at the Elite.
|
|
Captain Stud Muffin (BLM)
FANatic
You can either sink, swim, or be the captain....Long live the cheif
Posts: 113,331
Member is Online
|
Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Sept 2, 2019 18:58:40 GMT -5
When is Wrestle Kingdom again? Wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't still the champion by then, given I'd imagine he'll want to be on that show, and if he's losing to Tanahashi or something, they probably wouldn't want him bringing the belt there to do that, especially if NJPW is still annoyed at the Elite. January 4th and the 5th In regards to Jericho/Tana yeah they set that up at Dominion but they could also flip the script on that if they really don't want to go there. With Tana having the British HW title you can do other things with him and it is not like he doesn't have options However, I think Jericho probably drops it by then or he doesn't bring it with him to Japan and they treat it like a whole different thing. Jericho is also smart enough to know he can't pull a power play meaning he can't say i'm AEW champ and don't want to lose.
|
|