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Not sure about the local promotion, but as far as I know the contact was made via Instagram DMs.

I watched TLC. Had not much drive to watch it altogether, but in the end it ended up being the first PPV in a LONG time I didn't watch alone, and for that reason alone it was pretty fun. I enjoyed the PPV overall. No real downtimes, and to be honest the Firefly Inferno match was pretty cool.

Jon Huber has passed away :(

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Jon Huber has passed away :(

Just woke up from my lie in to this. Sad news indeed.

It is. 41. Crazy. :(

41 is very young - even in the Wrestling world.

Is there any cause of death news yet?

Apparently Non Covid Lung Issues.

Rumoured to have been hospital for two months.

Him not appearing on Dynamite makes more sense, then.

I haven't watched RAW - did WWE do any form of memorial package, or was Vince being spiteful again?

I'd be surprised if they did to be honest, but I wouldn't put it past them to have someone drop a little reference to Luke Harper.

They did the start of the episode picture and in memorial screen. Beyond that a few wrestlers honored him in their own ways. Afterwards on Raw Talk Xavier Woods said more and got emotional.

 bbb wrote:
They did the start of the episode picture and in memorial screen. Beyond that a few wrestlers honored him in their own ways. Afterwards on Raw Talk Xavier Woods said more and got emotional.

That's classy of WWE.

Happy new year, everybody. Last night I seem to have signed up for New Japan World and fell asleep watching Okada-Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom 2016.

I really liked the sentiment of the AEW tribute show :-) (although the matches were pretty sloppy)

What are people thinking they do with the Dark Order? It feels like if they ever were to have a face turn as a faction, this would be the time.
They could make it all about brotherhood and mutual support, which would chime with the bits they have bee doing with Evil Uno supporting Cabanna, Adam Page needing a friend, John Silver's comedy stuff etc.

It would make sense to me given how AEW seem reluctant to book The Elite as a faction too much, and no-one cares about The Nightmare Family.
I think there is space for a new face group to get over and feud with AEW's heel groups.

Yeah, that might make sense. I mean the only thing actually evil about the Dark Order lately was Mr.Brodie Lee, right?

I would have loved for them to go proper topical with the Dark Order when they started doing the vignettes in which they were going for basically lonely, angry internet people, people who feel excluded from the modern world and all of that. Basically any populist movement. Use fake news angles and all of that. But...well, they had to get a big leader person and all of that and just be cartoony baddies. And then they became cartoony wacky comedy baddies. Then the interesting stuff with Colt Cabana happened, then the equally interesting little bits with Evil Uno happened (and the straight-up comedy stuff on BTE with Silver and his pal). They may as well be faces now. People LOVE Silver (and probably rightly so. The match with Orange Cassidy was a break-out moment for him), and apart from that they just didn't follow through with the Dark Order concept enough to make them a credible threat, even with Brodie Lee at the top.

I'd say keep them as they are for now, which is basically faces anyway. Heck, if WWE run the Fiend as a top face (which I believe they do in their internal logic), AEW can run the Dark Order as faces any day of the week.


You know what? Make Evil Uno and more and more Colt Cabana run the Dark order. Brodie Lee is gone, and week by week Colt Cabana turns the Dark Order into good guys, simply by purity of heart. It's a wholesome story. Everybody loves Colt Cabana, right?

I gotta be honest, I skipped the Orange v Silver match on the last PPV because life is too short (pun intended!) XD
You're right though, whatever they are doing now is getting people to cheer them so another limp attempt at getting them over as heels just doesn't seem fruitful.

The Dark Order really only had one great moment for me, when Brodie destroyed Cody and won the TNT title, then Dark Order brutalised the Nightmare Family.
That was cool and scary, it felt like they were going to get a proper push!
Dustin even cut a great promo and had a decent follow up match to cement the fact that Dark Order was a major threat.
I remember since both the tag team and women's belts had babyface champs who were not figured into storylines at the time, I was convinced that Dark Order would try to dominate AEW, get heat on the champs and push for Evil Uno/ Stu Grayson + Anna Jay to get title shots.

But then Cody won the belt straight back and nothing came of it, guess we'll never know how much Brodie's health issues figured into that.

I heard it on a podcast but it's a good point, Dustin is probably the only person who could take the role of Exalted One without people resenting him. He is such a legend that he's over for life at this point and has a history of playing weird characters.

 Kroem wrote:

I heard it on a podcast but it's a good point, Dustin is probably the only person who could take the role of Exalted One without people resenting him. He is such a legend that he's over for life at this point and has a history of playing weird characters.

Nah, it turns out the Mr. Brodie Lee persona is actually a future incarnation of Matt Hardy which travelled back in time in order to merge with the Matt Hardy of our time.

In order to do so it had to find an intermediary body until such a time as the merge could take place.

 Kroem wrote:
I gotta be honest, I skipped the Orange v Silver match on the last PPV because life is too short (pun intended!) XD
...

That's what I thought too, but I ended up watching it anyway, because the PPV had been great up to this point. Turns out the match was really, really good and the PPV was my favourite from beginning to end!

I love the idea of a faction without a leader personality, but that's probably just me being a romantic. Dustin sounds like a good call. I don't care for the Nightmare Family (as you observed above I'm probably not the only one) anyway. Dustin is great and does good things, but I don't give a single hoot about QT Marshal or the others. Brandi Rhodes technically is great and I really like her, but I don't have to see her in her own storylines much to be honest. And least of all I need to see her wrestling. Only problem I see with Dustin is that they just offered him a post in the Dark Order. But that's not a big problem.

Evil Uno and Stu Greyson should do more in-ring, that I agree with. Same with Anna Jay. Have'em go up against Butcher/Blade/Bunny or Miro/Penelope/Kip Sabian. Those three I'm a bit unhappy with anyway. I'm not sure what Miro is about, and they really should drop the video games schtick. I don't care about video games streaming, I don't care about Twitch. Everybody does it. It's not a character trait or an interesting thing to do. Just have them be an insufferable couple of attractive people with a big bully of a friend. That'll be enough for me.


@A Town Called Malus: At this point I wouldn't mind that actually. Matt Hardy does as Matt Hardy does.

Can we please have audiences back? I think we really need a regulative force in there to tell WWE when things are getting silly. Getting a 'hilarious' gif out of RAW each week can't be the raison d'être for this show.

Not keen on the fireball, Siggy, or is it the "exploding" turnbuckle that's caught your eye?

It's all just a bit too wacky for me, to be honest. I laugh when that sort of stuff happens and enjoy it, but 2 seconds later these things always feel like vapid social media/youtube clip fodder which don't really further storylines. I really enjoyed the end of TLC. For a PPV that's perfectly fine. I just wished they toned down the magic on a weekly basis. And the Fiend storyline is pretty convoluted at this point. I'm entirely on board with the character, and the Firefly Fun House is great stuff. The addition of Bliss is perfectly cool too, because pretty much anything is improved by having her involved. But they really shouldn't have the Fiend dominate every single RAW (which isn't dominated by people from the past).

I don't know. Maybe it's just another case of me being old and boring. It's just not my thing. I'm sure there's people who like it, and that's cool. There's space for everything in wrestling.

So was the exploding turnbuckle a work? If not Keith sold it well.

The worst thing about the Fiend is whenever he gets in the ring. All the buildup and mystique only to end up in a wrestling match. And then how exactly can anyone believably beat a supernatural force in a wrestling match? Somehow the Undertaker could pull it off, but the Fiend...

I was listening to the SCPB podcast earlier and they made an interesting point about, despite there being loads of great workers, there being no megastars created in wrestling since John Cena. (Andre, Hogan, Stone Cold, Rock etc. that sort of level)

What do people think, is that fair? I think Roman Reigns is probably the biggest name of this generation and I guess I wouldn't put him at that level although I haven't really watched his stuff.

It also raised the point; does a wrestling boom create megastars or does the rise of a megastar suck in loads of normal people and create a wrestling boom?

I do like Roman Reigns, both in and out of the ring (oooer).

But I feel that genuine Megastars just happen. A gimmick catches the limelight, and tickles the zeitgeist. Try to manufacturer or force it, and peeps seem to push back,

For WWE? They really need to lean more into their Women’s division, as for the umpteen squillionth time, that’s where I’m getting my value. Sure, the ladies are all pretty easy on the eye. But their actual matches tend to be way more interesting. As they can’t splunge the way Beef can, we get a more athletic and visually impressive bouts.

Vince McMahon needs to ease off his preferences a wee bit for sure. I mean, he let/caused Neville leave. He was absolutely amazing in the ring.

@bbb: I think that would be okay too and that the Fiend could somehow take on the Undertaker's role, but they just used him so much over the past year. Way too much, in my opinion. And they did too much wacky stuff with him (as silly as thart may sound). "wrestling Teleportation" here and there is okay, and honestly I wasn't too much against the red light during the first one or two matches (or rather: the red light surely wasn't the biggest problem with the hell in a cell match with Rollins ).

@Kroem: ooh, asking the tough questions. I think it's a matter of 'the stars aligning', and it just happens. The right person, portrayed in the right way, at the right time in the right place. If it was possible to manufacture that, WWE's many failed attempts at creating a new big babyface megastar would have worked. It's probably getting much harder too with the very fast enviroment of fads and, "news" and information around. But I think there'll be another superstar at some point. Not to the extent of Hogan, but Stone Cold, Rock, Cena - that's all possible I think. I think one integral thing WWE can do in this is letting their wrestlers have input in the portrayal of their characters.

Yup, Roman Reigns probably got all of the things. He looks great, he seems to be a cool dude overall. Problem is that WWE saw that and for a while tried very hard to put him over as a blue-eyed babyface. And WWE just aren't very good at that, funnily enough.

I very much agree about Vince McMahon having to ease off on his preferences. Relegating Neville to 205 Live was criminal (just last night we got a wonderful Pac vs Eddie Kingston match on AEW dynamite), but to me it's even more apparent in the women's roster. I just can't take any more fake-looking blonde people. That kills characters.

WWE also tend to be botch prone with their heels.

I know I’m a minority opinion here, but I am so utterly bored of Bray Wyatt. He is without doubt a most excellent heel, but he’s just gone on too long, with only minor variation. Maybe if I was watching it with kids (let’s face it, their enthusiasm can be highly infectious) I’d be more favourable.

The tag team also needs a fresh approach. I love The New Day, but they need solid competition. Not just main roster solos forming a temporary team. A permanent tag team roster, with a variety of teams. Heck, make more of the teams trios with Beef, Speed and Middle talent in each. Because otherwise you just end up with predictable matches, such as the truly lamentable Enzo Amore getting buttered round the ring, until the Beef evens the score.

Most of this could be sorted by fresh blood in the writer’s room. I don’t know how often that department is shaken up, but as well as poaching talent from other companies, poach their writers as well!

Try new things, and give them a fair shot (not just a couple of weeks). Let the audience get used to them, and from greater familiarity, greater appreciation might well grow.

One only need look at how ace NXT is. It’s fresher. It’s not afraid to experiment and play around. It’s almost as if there’s a reason it’s beloved!

I might be definitely biased, but I see the next megastar coming from another company not WWE.

WWE has such tight control over what wrestlers do and loves to play it safe, until Vince retires I don't see that changing.
Even though I moan about things on AEW (Englishman's prerogative! We moan about everything...), I like the creative freedom they have and it does translate into an exciting feel for the programming just like back in the live TV days.

I did find it amusing that Orange Cassidy picked up the fan award for Most Popular Wrestler in the PWI awards this year.

Still not got into AEW.

I did give it a bash a few pages ago, but without a live crowd it just didn’t grab me.

But, as there was no crowd, all judgement firmly reserved, as it’s hardly their fault.

 Dysartes wrote:
I did find it amusing that Orange Cassidy picked up the fan award for Most Popular Wrestler in the PWI awards this year.

Much as I don't like his gimmick, the lowlight being that appalling spot where he was to lazy to pick up a ladder in that atrocious casino ladder match, it is something new and different I suppose!

@Kroem: Yeah, I was thinking that maybe the next big star would come from elsewhere, but I'm having a hard time believing that. Simply because WWE is so incredibly keen on mainstream media attention that their top guy/lady is more likely to seep over into other facets of mainstream entertainment. Maybe Japanese wrestlers are more likely to become 'celebs' in Japan too. Isn't their sports minister an ex-wrestler?



@Dysartes: Really? That is amusing. I Mean he's great and the gimmick truly is something new.

I was taken right away when Mr.Cassidy showed up in that Rumble match in All In(?). Looked up some matches of his on youtube. Amazing. I watched his matches with Kylie Rae and the one against Gentleman Jarvis (the most hipster-y indie stuff I'd ever seen, but fascinating) several times. Great stuff. I had no idea though how they would make this character work in a 'serious' wrestling promotion. Somehow they did, but I think at the cost of what makes Orange Cassidy interesting, weirdly enough. Putting him with the Best Friends was a great idea. I'm kinda on board with the character now and I like seeing him wrestle, but I certainly cooled off on him during the Jericho feud.

That casino ladder match was just generally not that great I thought. Some things outright annoyed me (most of them Darby Allin related But that's just me).


Overall I currently enjoy wrestling a whole lot. Love Dynamite, and in between I watch New Japan matches. Just watched one of my tip top favourites: Ospreay vs. Kushida vs. Takahashi vs. Scurll in a 4-way match from Wrestle Kingdom ...err...10? 11? I don't know. Either way - loved it as much as I did the first time. I really dig all four of these, and they had an insane match. Apart from that we have to look forward to the Royal Rumble again, right? And Royal Rumble is always fun. Love a Rumble. Counting down, the excitement, the sigh of disappointment when Ziggler shows up (not to knock the guy. He's really good and a real trooper for the company, but you know what I mean), the roar of disappointment when Randy Orton wins the Rumble, the groan when Lana shows up, counting down the seconds the camera is on Tamina, the hopefulness when we see Asuka eliminate everybody just to be kicked and thrown out by Lacey Evans or some person like her, the bittersweet sadness when we see Billy Kaye and Peyton Royce meeting again in the ring, doing some moves and the pose, just to get Billie eliminated.. Rumbles are good.

Given the ongoing global situation, I'm honestly surprised that any battle royale matches - including the Rumble - are going ahead.