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Is Mayu Iwatami's Major League Baseball gimmick and The Elite's NBA basketball gimmick basically the same thing? Who's came first? Have there been any other gimmicks like this? I don't mean "this wrestler dresses like a football player" but a wrestler who personifies an entire sport. Mayu's stable Stars have a baseball style uniform and The Elite will come to the ring in break-away pants dribbling basketballs. At first thought "My gimmick is I act like I'm a player of another sport" seems pretty lame. But Mayu Iwatami and The Elite have a ton of fun with it. They're both always coming up with more and more ways to reference another sport and combine it in pro wrestling. Mayu will do a big pitcher's windup before delivering a devastating chop, or make an umpire's "safe!!!!!!" gesture if she narrowly avoids hitting her partner. The Elite bring out a basketball net and literally dunk on their opponent, they brag about their high-end footwear. It's really kind of a genius thing to have a gimmick that lets you into an entire other world of sports fans. You can get into another major social media bubble and have videos go viral. You could also keep this gimmick up as a heel or a babyface. If The Elite turn to the goodguys they ccan change their references up, and start overcoming impossible odds and beating the buzzer at the last second. Mayu could come into the ring and argue with the ref who made a bad call for her teammate and lay her hands on him and get thrown out of the game, yooooou're out of here!! kickascii fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Sep 18, 2021 |
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Sep 18, 2021 04:27
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Excuse me, I think you're forgetting Cesaro's rugby union gimmick, where he wore the thigh padding that locks and loose forwards that take lineouts wear like Richie McCaw, the GOAT, is wearing here, in action at the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
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Sep 18, 2021 04:33
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Coach Taguchi
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Sep 18, 2021 04:41
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The Elite NBA thing was mostly for that Space Jam promotion one week. Otherwise on BTE they just play basketball because they like it. It's not really a basketball gimmick on the reg on TV.
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Sep 18, 2021 06:42
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kickascii posted:Is Mayu Iwatami's Major League Baseball gimmick and The Elite's NBA basketball gimmick basically the same thing? Who's came first? Have there been any other gimmicks like this? I don't mean "this wrestler dresses like a football player" but a wrestler who personifies an entire sport. Mayu's stable Stars have a baseball style uniform and The Elite will come to the ring in break-away pants dribbling basketballs. 
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Sep 18, 2021 06:58
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do you think any of them strong men who talk a lot of poo poo will ever do a wrestling. Eddie Hall is probably the most prominent one i am thinking of. he's gonna do a real fight i think. one day. How do you feel? i used to love watching all the late 80s through 90s strongman events on repeat on espn3 or 2 or somewhere. it was in the late 90s and early 2000s at the time. Cavauro fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Sep 18, 2021 |
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Sep 18, 2021 07:47
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Sep 18, 2021 08:47
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Cavauro posted:do you think any of them strong men who talk a lot of poo poo will ever do a wrestling. Eddie Hall is probably the most prominent one i am thinking of. he's gonna do a real fight i think. one day. How do you feel? Ken Patera was on a 1970s World's Strongest Man episode. e: Patera's episode RC and Moon Pie fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Sep 18, 2021 |
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Sep 18, 2021 20:12
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juiced up.
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Sep 18, 2021 20:14
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In the lore of The Undertaker, did he actually kill his parents and disfigure Kane by setting a fire for no reason? He was the babyface in that feud so we should believe him over Paul Bearer but I could swear Bearer was supposed to belling the truth.
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Sep 18, 2021 22:50
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NikkolasKing posted:In the lore of The Undertaker, did he actually kill his parents and disfigure Kane by setting a fire for no reason? iirc teenage Undertaker was smoking cigarettes behind the funeral home & accidentally set off some embalming chemicals.
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Sep 19, 2021 01:28
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NikkolasKing posted:In the lore of The Undertaker, did he actually kill his parents and disfigure Kane by setting a fire for no reason? He confessed to setting the fire later after his heel turn. His justification was that Kane was weak and "only the strong shall survive." Though I can't recall if this was later retconned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNCRvCc4XY0
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Sep 19, 2021 03:12
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Did anyone ever read the official WWE book about Kane and The Undertaker's back story?
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Sep 19, 2021 03:19
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I did, it was completely insane. Like "Paul Bearer sets up an underground fight club for the purposes of training Kane and his opponent is Gene Snitsky" insane
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Sep 19, 2021 03:59
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Edge & Christian posted:Christopher Daniels had gone to a try-out camp for WWF not long before this and had worked as a jobber for them in 1998 through early 1999 (including on some Shotgun Saturday Nights which Russo and Pritchard both did commentary on semi-regularly), so it's not like Russo was out scouting talent.
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Sep 19, 2021 04:49
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GEORGE W BUSHI posted:Did anyone ever read the official WWE book about Kane and The Undertaker's back story? Yes. So many chemicals...
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Sep 19, 2021 05:10
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Inject that JiD right into my veins.
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Sep 19, 2021 12:39
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They’ve also been referring to that book every so often for Kane’s “perspective” on what’s going on during their look at 1997.
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Sep 19, 2021 20:02
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davidbix posted:To add to this, it needs to be noted that, in 1999, Daniels' rep was not just "best worker on the indies." It was also "by far the best promo on the indies." If Daniels was such a hot act on the indies, why did he never seem to get a shot in a major promotion?
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Sep 19, 2021 20:25
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rujasu posted:If Daniels was such a hot act on the indies, why did he never seem to get a shot in a major promotion?
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Sep 19, 2021 20:27
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jesus WEP posted:too young to get a shot when WCW was doing business, too old to get a shot when WWE was hiring and pushing smaller folks WCW signed him actually, he just happened to do so as they were dying
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Sep 19, 2021 20:29
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that’s why i specifically said doing business as opposed to the circling the drain
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Sep 19, 2021 20:30
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rujasu posted:If Daniels was such a hot act on the indies, why did he never seem to get a shot in a major promotion? kind of a funny question. he’s had significant runs in basically every major promotion except the dogshit one that had a monopoly on being major league until two years ago
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Sep 19, 2021 20:44
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Daniels had the dual disadvantages of being "small" for the Monday Night Wars/early 2000s era, and also being significantly older than all of the other HOF level people who eventually got a shot in WWE more recently. Christopher Daniels main evented the first ROH show in 2002 against Low Ki and Bryan Danielson and was a standout on early 2000s ROH and TNA shows, part of the only Meltzer-rated ***** match in TNA/Impact history against Samoa Joe and AJ Styles. All five of these people (and CM Punk) were all "too small" for WWE but got contracts eventually anyway, but: CM Punk (b. 1978, signed with WWE in 2005 at the age of 26) Bryan Danielson (b. 1981, signed with WWE in 2009 at the age of 28) Low Ki (b. 1979, signed with WWE in 2009 at the age of 29) Samoa Joe (b 1979, signed with WWE in 2015 at the age of 36) AJ Styles (b. 1977, signed with WWE in 2016 at the age of 38) Joe and AJ (like Daniels) spent forever in TNA because it was the best paying/highest profile place to wrestle that wasn't WWE if you didn't want to travel internationally, and even AJ had to go to NJPW and get over wildly for WWE to give a poo poo about him in 2015-2016. Christopher Daniels was born in 1970, which means he was already 35 when WWE started taking a chance on "little indie guys" like CM Punk, almost 40 when they signed Bryan and Low Ki, and in his late 40s by the time WWE started trying to scoop up every name on the indies for Uncle Paul's NXT. By that point Daniels had already settled into a successful tag team run with Kazarian, who was also older than most of the NXT signees of that era and had already quit WWE a decade earlier. A small but significant upside to AEW's rise is that maybe eventually we'll get to the point (be it with the members of the Elite, or the next generation of Darbys/MJFs/Jungle Boys/Britt Bakers/Kris Statlanders/etc. etc. etc.) where nobody goes "yeah but why didn't they ever wrestle for WWE if they're that popular and good?"
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Sep 19, 2021 22:52
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algebra testes posted:Everyone seems to be speaking like everyone knows where Rush and Dragon Lee are going once their contracts are up. We don't actually know, but Andrade has been basically pushing to bring his whole family into AEW and that includes Rush and Dragon Lee.
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Sep 19, 2021 22:54
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Pylons posted:We don't actually know, but Andrade has been basically pushing to bring his whole family into AEW and that includes Rush and Dragon Lee. Actually his Los Ingobernables friends aren't related to him. Andrade is from the El Moro family while Rush, Lee & Dralistico are from the Muñoz family
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Sep 19, 2021 23:09
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forkboy84 posted:Actually his Los Ingobernables friends aren't related to him. Andrade is from the El Moro family while Rush, Lee & Dralistico are from the Muñoz family Yeah, they're not blood related, but practically as close as family. Point is, according to Meltzer at least, he wants them there.
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Sep 19, 2021 23:11
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edogawa rando posted:Excuse me, I think you're forgetting Cesaro's rugby union gimmick, where he wore the thigh padding that locks and loose forwards that take lineouts wear like Richie McCaw, the GOAT, is wearing here, in action at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. I remember the rugby thing just being some super weird late addition to his character, whereby commentary would just casually mention that he was a former pro player. I Zebre or Benetton actually had a player called Castagnoli playing in the Pro 12 at the time, to make it even weirder. He used to wear thigh supports when he was first starting in NXT, but I don't think he'd tape them up, or wear lifting pads. It would have been a super cool 'foreign object' gimmick, if he un-taped them, and attacked his helpless opponent with those squishy foam pads that we tape to our thighs for lineouts 
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Sep 20, 2021 00:29
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Pylons posted:Yeah, they're not blood related, but practically as close as family. Point is, according to Meltzer at least, he wants them there. With Ivelisse gone and Brian Cage very boring in the role we need Rush as the locker room chaos agent.
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Sep 20, 2021 02:50
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Well, I started going down the "top rope DDT" rabbit hole on YouTube. Does anyone still do the "Steiner DDT" spot? It's super sick and I've never seen it before, seems like an awesome finisher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRrsHAyAEps Likewise, this spot from Liger/Owen is awesome (timestamped at 15:47). Also wondering if anyone else used it as a finisher. I'm not super familiar with Japanese wrestling or the indies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTaz_xQF7uA&t=947s
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Sep 20, 2021 23:45
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Dean Malenko beat Scotty 2 Hotty with a top rope DDT at Backlash 2000 and it was so effective no-one ever used it again.
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Sep 21, 2021 16:13
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reality_groove posted:Dean Malenko beat Scotty 2 Hotty with a top rope DDT at Backlash 2000 and it was so effective no-one ever used it again. That may be the coolest one of the bunch, too. https://www.wwe.com/videos/dean-malenko-drills-scotty-2-hotty-with-a-top-rope-ddt-backlash-2000
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Sep 21, 2021 16:29
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I'm not sure the Steiner DDT is possible if you give a poo poo about injuring your opponent.
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Sep 21, 2021 16:33
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not sure the Steiner DDT is possible if you give a poo poo about injuring your opponent. Not gonna lie I kinda thought I was going to see something awful when it said it was Syxx taking it, since I know Waltman is one of those people with a really bad neck. That looks like a pretty safe bump though.
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Sep 21, 2021 18:47
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Q7kid posted:That may be the coolest one of the bunch, too. https://www.wwe.com/videos/dean-malenko-drills-scotty-2-hotty-with-a-top-rope-ddt-backlash-2000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz9hOKVWMh4 Malenko's Super Gutbuster is his top rope move that looked just godawful to give and take.
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Sep 21, 2021 19:03
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MassRafTer posted:With Ivelisse gone and Brian Cage very boring in the role we need LA Park as the locker room chaos agent. ftfy
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Sep 21, 2021 19:18
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I've been following the G1 Climax after a number of years of not being closely engaged with NJPW, so I've been trying to catch up on recent history. I've seen a lot of folks deride Kazuchika Okada's performance during 2020, with specific scorn being directed to his Money Clip submission. With that in mind: 1) Why was Okada's 2020 considered so bad? Was it objectively atrocious, or just a huge drop-off from his usual level of work? 2) Why is the Money Clip so disliked? It seems a little generic and a little gently caress It, It's Submission Time--is that the extent of it?
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Sep 22, 2021 18:38
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Q7kid posted:
This is second-hand, but as far as I know it's two main things. One, New Japan in general had a really rough year. Covid restrictions hit them really hard, and they were starting to run low on booking ideas before everything fell apart. Two, the complete lack of crowd noise is affecting Okada's performance even more than you'd expect. As far as I know he's still good, but it's a lot rougher than you'd hope.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:46
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Some say that Okada works best when he has a crowd to play off of, and with no crowds, he falters. It isn't that the Money Clip isn't a submission, it's that NJPW tries to play it as THE submission. People just want Okada Rainmakering fools.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:46
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Q7kid posted:I've been following the G1 Climax after a number of years of not being closely engaged with NJPW, so I've been trying to catch up on recent history. I've seen a lot of folks deride Kazuchika Okada's performance during 2020, with specific scorn being directed to his Money Clip submission. Okada has performed at such a high level for pretty much his entire post-excursion career that when he had a rough 2020 it was such a departure from the norm. Add to that a feud with Yujiro Takahashi (who is far below his level of talent) and a bafflingly bad match with Taiji Ishimori (who is one of the best Junior Heavyweights in the world) and the stunning highs of the couple of months we got before Covid shut the company down for 4 months were a distant memory. I'm at the point where I start laughing whenever he goes for the Money Clip. It's fine in isolation, but when Okada goes for it 5 or 6 times in a match at the expense of seemingly everything else it grates. Imo the only time the Money Clip was legitimately good was during Okada's match with Hiromu. Hiromu wouldn't tap, so Okada Rainmakered him twice and locked in the MC so the ref would call the match rather than pin Hiromu, because Okada is a petulant child who wanted to win with his cool new move
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Sep 22, 2021 19:13
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