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Roode is just a boring singles wrestler. He was a guy who seemed like he had a lot of potential in 2005, got a singles run and was boring, got put into a tag team people liked and then was boring in every singles run since.
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Sep 23, 2020 16:37
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Decades posted:I've started rewatching wrestling for the nostalgia kick during work from home lockdown and I've fallen deeeep into the rabbit hole and have many questions that don't deserve their own threads. Basically Terry was hurt pretty bad by the last bump he took onto one of the C4 boards. Foley hints in his book that Terry was booked to win and just wasn't able to go any longer, but he's probably working. IIRC the finish was supposed to be based about the ring exploding. But the explosion was so tiny no one would have bought it so they had to improvise and hosed each other up pretty good in the process.
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Sep 23, 2020 17:05
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MassRafTer posted:Roode is just a boring singles wrestler. He was a guy who seemed like he had a lot of potential in 2005, got a singles run and was boring, got put into a tag team people liked and then was boring in every singles run since. His entrance is great, and he looks like a guy who should be a star, but I couldn't tell you a single Roode match I love.
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Sep 23, 2020 17:14
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If I recall they tested it earlier in the day and the explosion was massive... like, supposedly to the point where Foley, Nakamaki and Leatherface (who were watching nearby) ducked for cover, whereas Terry actually wanted more explosives! Then the actual match happened and it's literally a big fart. You really can see Terry on his knees asking "Why!?" as you the crowd laughs. I can't imagine Terry being booked to win though, it seemed tailor made for Foley. Even if he initially was, I can actually see Terry going to bat for Foley. EDIT: I feel like Roode is especially disappointing because he was stuck in TNA for so long and it wasn't unreasonable to put the problems down to the company rather than him. Speaking of which, what's James Storm doing now? Last I saw he was back in Impact doing... something?
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Sep 23, 2020 17:16
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Red posted:I liked Eric S. a lot except for his 38-page essay on why it was wrong for John Cena to dress like a gangster at WrestleMania. I really enjoyed his stuff, but I don't remember this. But from my memory of Eric S, I'm guessing the reason is "Chicago".
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Sep 23, 2020 17:49
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MassRafTer posted:Roode is just a boring singles wrestler. He was a guy who seemed like he had a lot of potential in 2005, got a singles run and was boring, got put into a tag team people liked and then was boring in every singles run since. I thought his TNA World title run was pretty good although obviously that won't translate into WWE success.
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Sep 23, 2020 18:14
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The never ending Gargano/Ciampa feud is what did it for us. And some of the matches started incorporating bullshit that we were glad NXT had been avoiding until that point, like involving Candice LaRae and throwing wedding rings around.
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Sep 23, 2020 18:32
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TL posted:I really enjoyed his stuff, but I don't remember this. But from my memory of Eric S, I'm guessing the reason is "Chicago". You guess correctly.
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Sep 23, 2020 18:50
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Breitbart Is Rightbart posted:Okay so when do people think NXT become bad? I went to my first NXT show in 2015 where Balor def Sami and Baron Corbin. I didn't start following NXT properly untill Shinsuke debut and Almas/ Ciampa/Black/Gargano/ had their run at the top. Apparently people didn't like NXT from 2018 onwards? NXT has always been good for me until it moved to counter AEW. There was a point in about 2016/2017 where they stopped being a place where fun varied matches happened with regularity, and started being a place that catered heavily to a particular brand of joyless Workrate matches. It wasn't automatically bad at that point and they still had some very good shows, but it felt like all of a particular type.
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Sep 23, 2020 19:11
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Red posted:You know, I think that's more a product of the territory system. I let my dad know Bullet Bob died, and he had no idea who that was - but he, being from New Jersey, fondly remembers Bruno, Ivan Putski, Bob Backlund, and Gorilla Monsoon. He only knew about guys like Flair from when he visited the in-laws in North Carolina - and even then, that's likely because it was Flair. Then again, he was a big fan of Fritz Von Erich, but that might be from when he lived/worked in Japan. I think it's more that there's a relatively small tape library accessible (or maybe even existing) pre 1980 or so, and 90% of the footage, even WWE's own footage, wasn't publicly accessible until fairly recently, and pre-Network there was still a sense of "Wrestling Started with Wrestlemania" bias for what they put out for home video or On Demand. So regardless of what they accomplished as wrestlers, 99% of the exposure any wrestling fan would have to Bob Backlund (or Gerry Brisco, or Pat Patterson, or Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, and Freddie Blassie) is them as older men doing what they did as older men, with maybe a sepia tone photo of them as a young champion thrown into a video package now and again.
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Sep 23, 2020 19:12
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Edge & Christian posted:I think you're right for a lot of guys, but Backlund's Big Star era was in WWF, it was his home territory for the prime of his career and he was world champion for basically five straight years. Would people in Texas, Florida, or Carolinas have been aware of Backlund in the late 70s/early 80s? I guess I'm not really aware of what promotions had national exposure before cable TV.
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Sep 23, 2020 19:29
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jesus WEP posted:NXT started getting less fun for me around the time that Balor/Joe headlined their third Takeover in a row, and continued to get less fun as NXT kept booking their main events at a glacial pace god was this time period a slog, that Joe/Finn story is definitely what killed my interest in NXT. they were feuding with each other for seven god drat months on a show that aired weekly, and there was at least a month of teasing before that with them teaming together. the story was not cool or good or fun and it felt like my eyes were stuck in molasses watching their second and third matches
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Sep 23, 2020 20:00
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Roode's good singles run in TNA was because people knew it was going towards it ending by James Storm, who was better than Roode just like how Chris Harris was the guy who got the push out of America's Most Wanted and was largely boring outside of the part where he faced James Storm. Then it was ended by Austin Aries so they could push Jeff Hardy.
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Sep 23, 2020 20:07
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Pope Corky the IX posted:The never ending Gargano/Ciampa feud is what did it for us. And some of the matches started incorporating bullshit that we were glad NXT had been avoiding until that point, like involving Candice LaRae and throwing wedding rings around. The little run of every title change spanning three Takeover main events was just a prelude to the endless hand looking
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Sep 23, 2020 20:45
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I started watching wrestling regularly with AEW and decided to check out NXT from 2014/2015 since that was where a few AEW wrestlers made their name. I'm sorry guys, it was always bad WWE product and only good in comparison to the wretched main roster poo poo. The famous NXT crowd is annoying and antagonistic (which is fair because NXT refused to tinker with what wasn't working and instead just jobbed out unpopular wrestlers) when it's hot and completely dead when it isn't with basically no in between. I honestly hope that AEW and Covid manages to kill WWE/NXT crowd culture, (no more "This is awesome" or "1 fall" chants would be a dream). The gimmicks suck when they aren't completely carried by the wrestler's natural charisma. The matches are mostly so so and when they've got a good work rate they're still shot in the WWE style (better than Raw/Smackdown but still awful). The commentary is the pits, inconsistent, bickering, loud, always has a heel commentator and barely any play-by-play. In fact, this leads me to my question. What's the theory behind heel commentary? I know that Jesse Ventura was great at heeling and made it a lot of fun, but in the modern WWE it seems like the heel commentator just bickers with the rest of the booth, denies reality, and diminishes the product. Why would you have a commentator who feels like their sole purpose in a match is to deny that a heel was cheating, y'know one of those things we're supposed to be mad at the heel for doing?
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Sep 23, 2020 22:33
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MassRafTer posted:Larry Csonka recapped basically everything major companies put out until his death this year. Literally. I think he posted a review of one of the random mid-tour NJPW shows or Impact about 2 days before he passed. 
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Sep 23, 2020 22:40
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fez_machine posted:What's the theory behind heel commentary? Good heel commentators justify the actions of heels, and explain why the heels use the tactics they do in the ring. They're not supposed to deny that heels were cheating, they're supposed to explain why cheating is the most effective way to win. Bickering between commentators can be fun and enjoyable, for a modern example see Taz & Excalibur on dark, but as with most things, WWE doesn't understand why it works and does a terrible job with it.
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Sep 23, 2020 22:41
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Modern WWE theory is that Vince hates the audience/the show itself and is always in the heel announcer's earpiece
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Sep 23, 2020 22:44
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"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!" - Jesse "The Body" Ventura, pick a random episode of Superstars in like 1988.
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Sep 23, 2020 22:45
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It's so weird to me that anyone would think you'd need a heel announcers to say revolutionary things like "cheating is easier than winning cleanly". Everyone knows cheating a easier, that's why they're heels.
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Sep 23, 2020 22:47
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DeathChicken posted:Modern WWE theory is that Vince hates the audience/the show itself and is always in the heel announcer's earpiece This isnt a theory its well known Vince feeds lines to commentators to be his mouth piece
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Sep 23, 2020 22:49
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Gaz-L posted:"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!" - Jesse "The Body" Ventura, pick a random episode of Superstars in like 1988. I think he also said something like it's okay to cheat if you tried once and failed which is a pretty fun heel take on things.
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Sep 23, 2020 22:50
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fez_machine posted:The commentary is the pits, inconsistent, bickering, loud, always has a heel commentator and barely any play-by-play. I've always thought that the heel commentator is supposed to be so outlandishly and obviously wrong and biased that it makes the viewer more willing to side with the faces. When someone is feeding you an obvious line of bullshit, the natural tendency is to go the other way. Good heel commentators always did it in an entertaining and humorous way, so they were playing along with the story too and it was kind of a wink and a nod to the viewer about how cartoonishly heel they were being. But you are supposed to believe and side with the face commentator more by comparison, because he is the one holding up your point of view against the heel. Modern WWE has a major problem with this because often the face commentator is also clearly feeding a pile of obvious bullshit to the viewer at all times. If your face commentator has no credibility, the heel commentator doesn't work. Cap that with some of the heel commentators who don't seem to understand the role and instead bicker all the time like they are actually trying to win an argument as opposed to just being the exaggerated foil and it becomes really abrasive.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:01
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Past WWE Monsoon: Rick rude again trying to cheat, trying to take the easy way out. Heenan: and why wouldn’t he? He’s trying to win! Victory by cheating is still a victory! Modern WWE Saxton: Alexa bliss obviously holding the ropes and pulling the hair in this match Graves: how dare you insult the goddess!! Get your eyes checked! You’re an idiot, saxton! A complete and total idiot and I’m not going to dignify anything you say with a response!!
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Sep 23, 2020 23:09
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Also, when GOOD heel commentators finally, begrudgingly say something good about the babyface or give them props for winning, adds a little extra.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:31
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Much like every other wrestling trope that WWE has ruined, heel commentators can still work when done well (see Jericho in AEW)
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Sep 23, 2020 23:40
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Red posted:Would people in Texas, Florida, or Carolinas have been aware of Backlund in the late 70s/early 80s? I guess I'm not really aware of what promotions had national exposure before cable TV. I do know that (W)WWF Champion Bob Backlund was kinda-sorta a touring champion in the same way the NWA champion of the time was, if at a much lower frequency. But he went to other promotions (usually in a Champion vs. Champion match with a non-finish) and wrestled Harley Race in Florida and Saint Louis, Inoki and Stan Hansen, in New Japan, Ken Patera in Greensboro, Ric Flair and Nick Bockwinkel in Toronto(?), The Sheik in Detroit, Ray Rougeau and Billy Robinson in Quebec, and so on. I don't think WWF would have been on TV outside of its home market before 1983 or so, I know Georgia Championship Wrestling was on TBS as early as 1971 but TBS didn't go national/cable until the late 70s. But even then, in 1980 there were 16 million cable subscriptions versus over 50M by 1990 and almost 70M by 2000. But long story short, Bob Backlund was a world champion and as such I assume fans in the South were at least aware of him existing and he probably came in a couple of times a year during his peak to work on a supercard. I'm sure he's not as well remembered as the people who were regular headliners. Bob Armstrong by contrast wasn't really a main eventer, and wrestled near-exclusively in Memphis/Georgia/Florida in his prime. I think some of it (and this is an imperfect analogy because sports teams play each other) but I grew up a Yankees fan, and remember all too much information about good-but-not-great (or even not very good) players like Dave Righetti and Roberto Kelly and Mike Pagliarulo. I almost definitely couldn't name the equivalent players for the Orioles or the Padres or the Braves. But everyone who watched baseball in that era could name Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn or Greg Maddux because they were superstars winning awards and putting up Hall of Fame numbers. I think Bob Armstrong (discounting the legacy of his family) falls into the former category, while a Backlund or Flair is more in the latter, though maybe Backlund is closer to some slightly less famous player who quietly put up HOF numbers, and Ric Flair is more of a Kobe Bryant/Wayne Gretzky/Tiger Woods where even if you don't follow the sport you know who he is because he's just that talented and famous.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:41
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Tato posted:Also, when GOOD heel commentators finally, begrudgingly say something good about the babyface or give them props for winning, adds a little extra. As mentioned, this is one of Jericho’s strong suits. He’ll talk poo poo about Scorpio Sky as a person and how much he hates him while acknowledging his in-ring talent. It’s that rule of promos where if you tell the audience your opponent is old, weak, or a poo poo wrestler then you’ve painted yourself into a corner. You win and it’s no accomplishment, you lose and you’re worse off for losing to a lovely wrestler. There’s lots of ways to talk poo poo about your opponent while maintaining their status as a threat.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:46
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Tato posted:Also, when GOOD heel commentators finally, begrudgingly say something good about the babyface or give them props for winning, adds a little extra. A great example of this happened last night on Dark; Taz saw Will Hobbs' bad rear end spinebuster, panicked, and told Ricky Starks he has to avoid that poo poo at all costs.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:54
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rare Magic card l00k posted:Roode's good singles run in TNA was because people knew it was going towards it ending by James Storm, who was better than Roode just like how Chris Harris was the guy who got the push out of America's Most Wanted and was largely boring outside of the part where he faced James Storm. Yeah, I like Roode but I think his success and best runs in tag and singles work have been because of chemistry and history with Storm and others. I think he's a good role player and a guy you can push the right way, but he's not a guy who you can ust throw in the ring with anyone and make magic. And yeah, Storm was kind of an underrated MVP for TNA for a long time. He worked well with others and didn't seem to mind putting them over.
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Sep 24, 2020 00:00
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oldpainless posted:Past WWE The unfortunate thing is Graves wasn't always like this. He was much closer to the former in NXT, where I presume he didn't have Vince in his ear the entire show
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Sep 24, 2020 00:07
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Benne posted:Much like every other wrestling trope that WWE has ruined, heel commentators can still work when done well (see Jericho in AEW) Even Jericho has noticeably toned down how much he heels while commentating. The loud shouty full heel Jericho of the warehouse AEWs is almost gone. And as for Taz on Dark, he's more of a jerk than a heel. You could hear the distaste in his voice when he felt he had to start adding in storyline opinions during commentary when he first started managing Brian Cage. Now days, his heeling is largely confined to putting over his Team Taz guys. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Sep 24, 2020 |
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Sep 24, 2020 00:20
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MassRafTer posted:Roode is just a boring singles wrestler. He was a guy who seemed like he had a lot of potential in 2005, got a singles run and was boring, got put into a tag team people liked and then was boring in every singles run since. There's nothing wrong with what he does, but he's best used as a platform for other, more interesting wrestlers to do interesting and entertaining things.
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Sep 24, 2020 00:37
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Tato posted:Also, when GOOD heel commentators finally, begrudgingly say something good about the babyface or give them props for winning, adds a little extra. Don Callis was decent about this in NJPW, he'd always put over the top-top babyfaces like Naito and Okada (with Okada he'd normally poo poo on Gedo instead to heel by proxy), and even marked out for Tanahashi (which is real, him and Lance Storm had a podcast and he spent more than one episode putting over Tanahashi in a way that made it sound like he was crushing pretty hard)
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Sep 24, 2020 00:45
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I was thinking about Best Friends, (Trent and Chuck), and about how they are friends in real life. This led to other teams that are actually friends in real life, (New Day, Cesaro and Seamus, Bayley and Sasha etc.) Which led me to ask, what about the opposite? What big famous teams were actually enemies, or cold to one another in real life?
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Sep 24, 2020 05:51
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The Mega Powers, The British Bulldogs, The Rockers from the 90's~
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Sep 24, 2020 06:48
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Since his name was mentioned: At this point, is the consensus that Scott Keith is/was a fabulist, or just someone who was gullible and/or had a terrible memory? There's so much that he said where he pointed to the Observer (when a lot less people read the Observer or even sites reliably citing the Observer properly), like Bret winning the Final Four main event because "planned winner" Steve Austin got hurt or Luna Vachon accusing David McLane of sexual harassment in her 1990 Yearbook interview, that if I had to guess, I think I'd lean towards "fabulist." But I'm honestly not sure. There was a LOT, though.
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Sep 24, 2020 07:52
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absolutely fabulist
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Sep 24, 2020 12:56
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F A B U L I S T yes, diamonds on my neck, yes I'm fabulist
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Sep 24, 2020 13:08
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BrigadierSensible posted:I was thinking about Best Friends, (Trent and Chuck), and about how they are friends in real life. This led to other teams that are actually friends in real life, (New Day, Cesaro and Seamus, Bayley and Sasha etc.) The Eliminators
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Sep 24, 2020 13:13
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