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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Dec 28, 2021 2:59:15 GMT -5
Tonight, the fact he not only didn't sell AJ's finisher but the fact he tried to attack him afterwards and AJ had to punch him back to the ground with a regular punch. Not his finisher, but a regular punch. AJ Styles. Like, no. This is beyond just being uncoordinated, dude didn't even stick to the plan he was given and he made AJ look worse. He's terrible. I haven't seen a male member of the roster this bad in a very long time. The crazy part is? Shanky seems equally terrible on the opposite brand. He's had less match exposure than Azeez but the brief time he had in that 12 man Gauntlet was dire. He went for a corner boot that Ivar dodged but even if Ivar hadn't moved, Shanky would have missed him by three feet. These are the guys they kept on in the seeming reassurance that they could make them big hoss stars and do without Braun and his big contract... they're paying dearly for it. I garauntee their thought process is something along the lines of Braun wasn't great when he first started either... ignoring that he had people like Kane, Big Show, and Luke Harper around to teach him to wrestle a big man style... and even then he took to it pretty quickly. Azeez has had 6 years to learn...
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Dec 28, 2021 3:25:59 GMT -5
Even with having guys like Big Show and Kane and Harper and Rowan as mentors, it still took about a year and a half for things to really click for Strowman. Three and a half, really, given he’d been in the PC for two years before he even debuted on TV. And even then, he still had his moments, just look at all the times Lesnar had to smack him around to put him on track.
Now all those guys, including Strowman himself, are gone. On paper there isn’t really anything wrong with being around Styles or Crews as mentors, I mean, they’re awesome workers and I’m sure they have a wealth of knowledge to hand down, but they’re not monsters. They can’t teach those intangibles to Omos or Azeez because it’s not their style.
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Kalmia
King Koopa
Happy to be here
Posts: 12,534
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Post by Kalmia on Dec 28, 2021 5:57:33 GMT -5
Best I can do for now! Damn, AJ even had to spin him around and position him correctly. And this was after no-selling a Phenomenal Forearm. Azeez is lucky he was in there with a pro like AJ instead of one of the grouchier and more dickish experienced guys that might have put him down for real.
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Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,984
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 28, 2021 6:22:51 GMT -5
The crazy part is? Shanky seems equally terrible on the opposite brand. He's had less match exposure than Azeez but the brief time he had in that 12 man Gauntlet was dire. He went for a corner boot that Ivar dodged but even if Ivar hadn't moved, Shanky would have missed him by three feet. These are the guys they kept on in the seeming reassurance that they could make them big hoss stars and do without Braun and his big contract... they're paying dearly for it. I garauntee their thought process is something along the lines of Braun wasn't great when he first started either... ignoring that he had people like Kane, Big Show, and Luke Harper around to teach him to wrestle a big man style... and even then he took to it pretty quickly. Azeez has had 6 years to learn... Braun also has a significantly more imposing look. Azeez is just... not very intimidating. He looks like Dave Lister went through a taffy puller. He's not the least scary giant they've ever had, but Omos, Shanky, and Azeez don't exactly have a lot of presence, either. I understand Braun likely made more than Azeez and Shanky put together in terms of how much he was paid, but there's a reason for that.
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Post by xxshoyuweeniexx on Dec 28, 2021 9:44:23 GMT -5
They really thought “let’s get rid of all our veteran big guys and we’ll just have the green ones we do have learn from world famous cruiserweight, Shane Helms, on how to wrestle like a 7 foot 300/400 pounder”.
Like nobody had any foresight on putting these big green guys on tv without anybody teaching them how to work like a big guy. Shit, Omos is the best of the bunch..but that’s not really saying a lot.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Dec 28, 2021 10:14:05 GMT -5
The funny thing to consider is that basically all of Vince McMahon's runs of greatest success as a promoter have revolved around him, well, promoting established wrestlers who were either already famous (Hulk Hogan, various 80s guys who were territorial champions) or who were already experienced TV wrestlers (Austin, Taker, Foley, Triple H) to varying levels of notoriety. There've been a few exceptions in there (e.g. Rock starting pretty damn early with WWF), but Vince and building someone from the ground up just doesn't seem to be the best combination. Dwayne is basically the exception that proves the rule at this point. And even then, he had a few matches under his belt before signing. Like, they weren’t anything major but it wasn’t like he went into the company with nothing like others have.
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MiLB Fan
Fry's dog Seymour
Posts: 20,542
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Post by MiLB Fan on Dec 28, 2021 10:24:30 GMT -5
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asuka007
Fry's dog Seymour
Posts: 23,656
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Post by asuka007 on Dec 28, 2021 11:42:33 GMT -5
Dwayne is basically the exception that proves the rule at this point. And even then, he had a few matches under his belt before signing. Like, they weren’t anything major but it wasn’t like he went into the company with nothing like others have. Also Dwayne came from a wrestling family as well.
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Post by welshpenguin on Dec 28, 2021 12:50:54 GMT -5
I’m glad for Azeez’s sake he was in there with a pro able to somewhat keep his cool & who isn’t known to stiff people. I think it’s best he doesn’t face Brock EVER 😱
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Post by welshpenguin on Dec 28, 2021 12:53:47 GMT -5
I just had a thought, although not very profession we really needed Orton with his “stupid, stupid” 😂
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 28, 2021 14:05:54 GMT -5
And yeah, on this clip I can only assume that he thought he was screwing up pinning towards the hard camera and overcompensated, and for some reason completely lost the plot on where he was. Even so, this shit should be automatic for a wrestler you've had in your system and built "from scratch" for six @#$%ing years. To repeat what I said in another thread and what others are saying here, what is even the point of having a training and performance center if you keep bringing people up who can't even do the bare essentials of working in pro wrestling? Japanese dojo systems spent years with a well-earned negative reputation for physical abuse, but in recent years many have cleaned those reputations up (always remember: Hiroshi Tanahashi helped save New Japan both in the ring *and* out of it), and you know what? Trainees out of the NJPW, NOAH, etc. dojos still come out really, really, really good at wrestling, since they're told from day one how to train to have the body, musculature, and cardio conditioning for wrestling and drilled on actual wrestling technique and basics before they're allowed to do anything else. But they don't do enough forward rolls, so maybe they're just wrong or something. The hard camera theory is interesting because it brings to the table two really big issues. One is that Azeez's second thought was making sure his pin looked a certain way for the hard camera, that they're teaching wrestlers this really restrictive style that shoehorns them in to only doing certain things from certain angles and the match needs to fumble into stuff that looks like trash on TV if you dare not pin someone looking in the right direction. The other is that Azeez's second thought was to derail his match and get to the hard camera because after six years he got turned around and couldn't tell which way 'left' was. And then I guess the third issue of there being four different camera angles in the span of that pin anyway and it seems like lunacy to make everyone obsessively work the hard camera if you're just going to jump around anyway, because he was looking initially at the hard camera and then moved to look at the one that got his angle in the end. And this is the most expensive and well equipped wrestling school in the world. It'd be like McDonalds putting together a top of the line facility to teach people how to use the deep fryer and the ice cream machine. WWE wants to drill into people the basics, box them in to not do too much and not innovate at all, and spends more per capita to do it than anyone else to produce the most limited form of pro wrestling and often invested into people who really really suck at it anyway, but it doesn't matter because a burger was technically handed to a customer and that's all that they want. I can recall years where people would compare working the independents to playing in minor league baseball, while making it to WWE was the equivalent of getting to the Major Leagues. That comparison works with regards to visibility, of course, but good God, in terms of quality it flat-out doesn't hold up. Players make the big leagues in real sports because they're succeeding in a field that is about as meritocratic as any out there (ignoring built in biases towards, say, people who grow up wealthy enough to afford trainers, better equipment, etc., but that's it's own set of issues); if you can hit, run, field, pitch, etc., and statistically do it better than the people around you, you'll get promoted to a higher level. Here, we're not seeing that at all; there's the obvious difference that wrestling is, y'know, fake, and as much theater as it is sport, so there's no statistical framework you can operate on to determine who the overall best is, but when the richest, most well known wrestling company has a training and performer development system that seems to consistently fail at producing in-ring or promo talents that can compete with what's coming out of companies mere fractions of their size and getting by with far fewer resources. This leads to having people on TV who apparently can't throw strikes, hit the ropes properly, and in this case even comfortably get a pin down. I think back to what Hulkamania was built on: a charismatic star who made his name in various different promotions and in a hit movie before landing back in New York, supplemented by an assortment of well-traveled, well-trained heels who could give him the kinds of matches and stories he needed to get his popularity even higher. Piper, Orndorff, DiBiase, Bundy, One Man Gang, and of course Andre were all established wrestlers who were trusted with the task of taking WWF's resident superhero babyface and making him look even more powerful; while no one will accuse, say, OMG of being a dynamo who'd light the ring on fire, the guy was established and knew how to bump right for Hogan, how to use his offense against him, and how to sell the right way to get the act across. The seeming move towards "@#$% that, we can build it all on our own!", but then not actually investing in getting your wrestlers prepared to be, y'know, full time wrestlers feels a tad counterproductive.
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Squirrel Master
Hank Scorpio
"Then the Squirrel Master came out of left field and told me I'm his bitch!"
Posts: 6,691
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Post by Squirrel Master on Dec 28, 2021 16:07:06 GMT -5
The fact that Azeez, who is certainly not a ring general, is a Commander has me guessing that the Nigerian Army could be easily defeated by a Trojan horse.
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Post by Alice Syndrome on Dec 28, 2021 17:11:19 GMT -5
I garauntee their thought process is something along the lines of Braun wasn't great when he first started either... ignoring that he had people like Kane, Big Show, and Luke Harper around to teach him to wrestle a big man style... and even then he took to it pretty quickly. Azeez has had 6 years to learn... Braun also has a significantly more imposing look. Azeez is just... not very intimidating. He looks like Dave Lister went through a taffy puller. He's not the least scary giant they've ever had, but Omos, Shanky, and Azeez don't exactly have a lot of presence, either. I understand Braun likely made more than Azeez and Shanky put together in terms of how much he was paid, but there's a reason for that. I don't think it helps that his outfit is what I'd describe as "just wearing some bullshit". Like that's not threatening at all on him.
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kidkamikaze10
Dennis Stamp
Trying to think of a new avatar
Posts: 4,336
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Post by kidkamikaze10 on Dec 28, 2021 17:21:46 GMT -5
Man... I'm sick of Nigerian wrestlers being trash. (Apollo isn't trash... In the ring)
But yes, this is another advertisement that hey, the performance center is definitely not the best wrestling school in the world. It has produced good wrestlers within the WWE system, I'll give them that though.
But they aren't gonna be producing Danielson's in there, that's for sure. Nor Greshams, Moriarty's, Garcia's... Etc.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Dec 28, 2021 21:56:03 GMT -5
I’m glad for Azeez’s sake he was in there with a pro able to somewhat keep his cool & who isn’t known to stiff people. I think it’s best he doesn’t face Brock EVER 😱 If I were Brock and Vince came to me with an offer to do a program with Azeez I'd f***ing retire and go back to Saskatchewan where I can shoot some deer in peace.
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Wieners=$$$
Hank Scorpio
Gif Master Extraordinaire
I Miss You Peanut😥
Posts: 6,437
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Post by Wieners=$$$ on Dec 29, 2021 2:47:09 GMT -5
Best I can do for now! I'm going to shop him wearing rollerblades in this GIF when I get the time.
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knightboat
Unicron
The Snake Roberts Ruined My Wedding
Posts: 2,720
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Post by knightboat on Dec 30, 2021 18:04:47 GMT -5
Man... I'm sick of Nigerian wrestlers being trash. (Apollo isn't trash... In the ring) But yes, this is another advertisement that hey, the performance center is definitely not the best wrestling school in the world. It has produced good wrestlers within the WWE system, I'll give them that though. He's Polish, does that help? But they aren't gonna be producing Danielson's in there, that's for sure. Nor Greshams, Moriarty's, Garcia's... Etc.
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"Magic" Mark Hurr
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Here, have some chili dogs
Now featuring half the brain that you do.
Posts: 16,605
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Post by "Magic" Mark Hurr on Dec 31, 2021 5:44:13 GMT -5
I'm going to shop him wearing rollerblades in this GIF when I get the time.
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pinja
Unicron
Posts: 3,133
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Post by pinja on Jan 6, 2022 15:20:09 GMT -5
Just realized, a mistery has been solved! So Titus didn't actually slip up, but he hided from Azeez' Tope Suicida, who quickly turned it into a corner splash. What a pro.
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67 more
King Koopa
He's just a Sexy Kurt
Posts: 11,585
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Post by 67 more on Jan 6, 2022 15:59:01 GMT -5
Just realized, a mistery has been solved! So Titus didn't actually slip up, but he hided from Azeez' Tope Suicida, who quickly turned it into a corner splash. What a pro.
That said realisation that he's been doing this for five years and is still this bad
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