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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 21:11:47 GMT -5
WHAT THE @#$%ING HELL, HOW IS HE ALIVE
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 21:04:27 GMT -5
Okada is fully capable of working as a babyface, but man, it makes too much sense to have him as a heel while he's on weekly prime time-style US wrestling - straightforward offensive repertoire, super expressive, easy cocky demeanor, etc.
It worked in many ways in Japan when he often worked as "the final boss", the ultimate obstacle for whomever was challenging him, but that works better as a character type in a live events-based promotion. For weekly TV, "smug dickhead who knows how great he is" is a strong way to at least introduce him.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:49:11 GMT -5
This is a much better promo, to be honest. I’m glad they went ahead and turned her heel. Not trying to retroactively justify anything, but I think her turning heel has been the plan from the moment she signed and they set up this first storyline.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:45:52 GMT -5
Honestly, Mercedes' last couple of promos have been fine. Gonna see what she gives here.
Whatever she says, though, just feel like we know we're getting that heel turn at DoN, then Willow having to chase her down to get the belt back.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:42:31 GMT -5
I can't unhear Seth Rollins when Roddy speaks during this segment, and now you can't either. Nah, I can never unhear Dino Winwood introducing Jerry Lynn, Seth Rollines, and Kaitlyn from WWE as a family, so I'm already used to it.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:40:46 GMT -5
I know some folks aren't super keen on AEW sometimes drawing storylines out of stuff from other promotions, e.g. here with Ospreay citing how he felt Strong treated him in ROH and elsewhere, but it does add a little something extra sometimes, doesn't it?
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:36:31 GMT -5
Toni working babyface here, which is the natural role for her in ring! I mean fans want to cheer her anyway (unless she’s facing Thunder Rosa), so why not? Were I a betting man, I'd say: the whole angle with Mariah is likely leading to full babyface Toni Storm.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:35:14 GMT -5
Ospreay vs. Taylor is gonna slap on Saturday, but @#$%'s sake, Khan, gimme a Shane Taylor singles victory on cable!
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:33:48 GMT -5
Dweeb should love Toni; she was there for the original run of Gone With the Wind! Will you stop?!
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:33:07 GMT -5
Harley seriously only has like 24 matches under her belt, yet she's looked damn good in her last couple matches.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:25:20 GMT -5
If there's any critique to be had about the last few weeks with the world title, it's that one can argue they're kind of speedrunning some of the stuff they could've been doing with Swerve so far in his reign - his first defense, against Claudio, was done with no build, and now this falling apart of the Mogul Embassy is happening quick, the match with Christian is done in a week and a half, etc.
All of that being said: AEW is in a position in the post-Punk chaos era where they really need to drive home to fans "we know you want to support guys who've risen through the ranks here, we know you cheered Swerve up through that process, and we're gonna make clear he's the top guy right now." Getting that all done now makes sense against that backdrop, but I get if some people would've liked to see this paced out a little slower. Definitely part of the game when you start adding a lot more PPVs to the schedule.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:20:45 GMT -5
"SWERVE, I HEARD YOU HAD A PICTURE...OF YOUR FATHER..."
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:16:57 GMT -5
I keep saying it, but Cage really works as the #1 ranked guy as you work through the Major Circuit in Punch-Out!!...or as a stage 3 or 4 boss in a Streets of Rage game.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 20:02:17 GMT -5
I'm glad they're likely keeping Swerve and Nana together, but I get doing what they're doing right now, having Swerve out there on his own for a few weeks to keep driving home his face turn.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 19:50:29 GMT -5
...did I hear Toni call herself "the whore that you all adore"?
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 18:04:11 GMT -5
The Knicks are the one team in this market where a lot of the area feels united in supporting them, and that's mostly due to the Nets rarely doing anything to maintain good vibes or positive expectations from local fans over the years, combined with never really cultivating a unique identity to distinguish them from the Knicks. Like, the Knicks were horribly inept for 20 years, yes, but they also weren't yanking fans' chains about where they'd play; I was a Knicks fan as a kid in the 90s, but gave the Nets a shot in the mid-00s, then just as quickly moved away from watching them due to their leaving Jersey for Brooklyn, a move I know doesn't sound like much to people from outside of the NYC/NJ area, but really does make a huge travel difference around here. Meantime, the Devils and Islanders committed to New Jersey and Long Island, respectively, and use that to shape who they are and, in good part, who they are not, given how close by the "Broadway" team is to serve as comparison...plus the Isles' 80s dynasty and the Devils 90s-00s run solidified them to a lot of local fans, while the Nets only really have one strong run in their post-ABA history, and that only lasted around 5 years and peaked in 2003. It's definitely made it weird for me with the Knicks and Rangers as far in as they are; I don't feel right coming back to the Knicks after walking away for so many years (and, frankly, the NBA is the big four league I tend to have the least interest in), plus it's fun to get on Rangers fans for for how much they talk up "DA RAIN-JIZ PLAY IN DAH GAAAAAH-DIN!", so it makes it harder to embrace them again, anyway. Guess I'll just keep waiting to see if Shaq ever succeeds in bringing a new NBA team to Newark. My dad got me on the Knicks pretty early, but I think I could've been tempted to support the Nets during the Isiah Thomas dark ages if the team didn't wear on its sleeve how much it wanted to leave NJ for Brooklyn. I couldn't in good conscience ever support that team because they had an attitude that came off like they were too good for our state. And I took that personally. So f*** the Nets.
That and I think the Nets had a real chance to cultivate some sort of distinct regional identity with staying in NJ instead of picking up the Knicks' sloppy seconds in Brooklyn. It's one thing where you're a new team serving a disenfranchised fanbase. Like when the Mets came to Queens they had a lot of Giants and Dodgers fans who felt abandoned by baseball but were never going to root for the Yankees. The Mets brought that brand of National League baseball back to the NYC metro, so it was really easy to cultivate that fanbase. With the Nets, none of those factors was really true for them. There was no starved fanbase for basketball in Brooklyn because the Knicks already had a stranglehold there.
Yeah, my grandparents' families on both sides were Giants and Dodgers fans, so they naturally gravitated to the Mets (only exception: Dad's Sicilian family was ok with cheering Joe DiMaggio, for the most part). Plus back then there really was a genuine divide that existed between the culture of Brooklyn and basically the entire rest of the city, and it's just not much like that anymore. Even with the Giants and Jets the Jets at least came out of a "rebel league" against the stodgy old NFL, so there was some aspect of a cultural split in there (god knows there's basically no real difference between them anymore...or hell, any real difference between most NFL teams, what a homogenized league). The Nets started out in both Jersey and Long Island, really could've gone for crafting an identity with either, but they just really, well...didn't. But let us be thankful for the brutality of hockey, where putting three teams all within a few miles of one another results in routine violence and tristate area intertribal warfare. Ok, bets for tonight: does every series go at least 6, or does Dallas close it out at home? I'm feeling this one ends here.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 15:47:58 GMT -5
I can't say for sure how I'd take a 3 hour block on the regular. Like, I loved watching Nitro back in '98, but I'd have the option to flick to Raw if I got bored by anything, and that run of 3 hours shows didn't last terribly long; I've been cool with AEW having Rampage on right after Dynamite or Collision, especially since Rampage does feel a bit more like its own show given how it really revolves around getting to the next match above all else, but I couldn't say for sure if I'd keep feeling that way if it became a regular thing I had to get used to.
Then again, I also tend to just watch that third hour on DVR, so eh, what do I know.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 15:44:32 GMT -5
It's so weird for me to be rooting hard for one MSG team (Knicks) while rooting hard against the other one (Rangers). Anyone else like that? Like they're a Devils/Isles and Knicks fan? Or the even less likely Rangers and Nets fan? The Knicks are the one team in this market where a lot of the area feels united in supporting them, and that's mostly due to the Nets rarely doing anything to maintain good vibes or positive expectations from local fans over the years, combined with never really cultivating a unique identity to distinguish them from the Knicks. Like, the Knicks were horribly inept for 20 years, yes, but they also weren't yanking fans' chains about where they'd play; I was a Knicks fan as a kid in the 90s, but gave the Nets a shot in the mid-00s, then just as quickly moved away from watching them due to their leaving Jersey for Brooklyn, a move I know doesn't sound like much to people from outside of the NYC/NJ area, but really does make a huge travel difference around here. Meantime, the Devils and Islanders committed to New Jersey and Long Island, respectively, and use that to shape who they are and, in good part, who they are not, given how close by the "Broadway" team is to serve as comparison...plus the Isles' 80s dynasty and the Devils 90s-00s run solidified them to a lot of local fans, while the Nets only really have one strong run in their post-ABA history, and that only lasted around 5 years and peaked in 2003. It's definitely made it weird for me with the Knicks and Rangers as far in as they are; I don't feel right coming back to the Knicks after walking away for so many years (and, frankly, the NBA is the big four league I tend to have the least interest in), plus it's fun to get on Rangers fans for for how much they talk up "DA RAIN-JIZ PLAY IN DAH GAAAAAH-DIN!", so it makes it harder to embrace another team that plays in the same place. Guess I'll just keep waiting to see if Shaq ever succeeds in bringing a new NBA team to Newark.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 14:37:45 GMT -5
It really does feel like the entire business world now revolves around "whales"; hook a small number of people who'll pay literally any price to buy or experience your product, even if in doing so you close off a massive amount of people from ever giving your product more than a passing glance. You destroy your potential to be mainstream, but you've got the whales hooked and they'll keep pumping money in, so who cares? And when those whales either can't pay anymore or simply age out, and you've done little to nothing to draw in a new generation of customers, you'll have moved onto another company by then or gotten your golden parachute from the old place, so you, the MBA put in charge of making sure there's a profit turned every two quarters, will be fine.
It's what's giving us the "beauty" of needing multiple streaming services to watch your favorite teams, the insane ticket prices for events like this, and hell, it's basically what addiction-based business are built on...seriously, look up the stats in the US on how much the top 10% of users of online gambling or alcohol spend/consume compared with literally the entire rest of the market, they're propping the whole thing up.
I'm someone who loves going to live events, totally gets the appeal of being in a crowd of excited people or around the "pre-game" scene, have regular ticket plans for watching baseball and hockey and attend a handful of wrestling shows a year (e.g. intend on being at Forbidden Door and Full Gear this year, since they're both in the area), but I see prices like this for basically anything and my brain can't conceive of it. Like, I've told myself that if I ever get a chance to see the Mets in a potential World Series clinching game, yes, that's something I'm willing to spend big on, but even then you're not getting me to drop +$2,000 for a single ticket on that.
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Post by HMARK Center on May 15, 2024 5:51:13 GMT -5
What I'm going to miss about Splash Mountain was how they used the storyline to basically build up to the final drop like you were descending (and then, well, ascending, I guess) into madness the further you went, which got your adrenaline going before the end, followed by the Zip a Dee Doo Dah scene as the big cathartic release. Not sure how they're going to approach it with the new theming, but we'll see soon enough.
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