General Wrestling Discussion

I'm really pissed that Bucks match was one of my few exposures to the Lucha Bros because I just find the Bucks spots awful. It's that style of wrestling that requires you to just stand there and take all of your opponent's stuff, no story, no selling. There's a double sharpshooter spot that would make The Rock cringe at its execution. My main familiarity with the Bucks was that they do a lot of superkicks, have a move named after Meltzer, and have long matches I need to FF on Wrestle Kingdoms.

I don't get the whole deal with them other than that they look obnoxious, flip a lot, and are really good at selling t-shirts. Their spots aren't even state of the art for that style in an era where you can see Ricochet on Monday Night Raw. Can they also turn the fucking ring mic down during their matches? The tumbling and rolling sounds get very tiresome.

I haven't kept up with much non WWE wrestling over the last five or six years and I had heard so much about The Lucha Bros. I'll need to find some other stuff of theirs to watch.



It's really time for Ring of Honor to call it a day. It's obvious Sinclair doesn't want to invest in them and AEW is going to snatch up all of their partnerships if they haven't already. I can't imagine they're profitable at this point and they're not even really producing talent that the WWE would be interested in. With MLW and lots of other up and coming small leagues I don't see the point in ROH continuing in this sad state. Somewhere Xavier is smirking at the idea of Matt Taven World Champion.



I'm not big on AEW so far but I actually was surprised by Hangman Page. He seems to have an "It" factor a lot of their roster is lacking and I want to see more of him. I agree this spot is too soon and building a world title challenger in a pre show match is bass ackwards at best. Maybe the idea was more people would see him if it was a free match? I think they got taken for a loop by Pac pulling a "That doesn't work for me brother" over the ever prestigious Dragon's Gate belt as if this was still 2008.

AEW are selling on their brand and loyalty more than anything else right now. It's not the actual matchups that are drawing, it's the hype/FOMO marketing. I agree completely about Marvez, dump him and get the mask off Excalibur. That mask looks so indyish on a major broadcast. Ross/Excalibur work well together and fans vastly prefer a two man booth.
Yeah I'm not really into the bucks either.
As for Lucha Bros I've probably linked some good stuff they've done in earlier posts. I'll try digging around after I get home from work and off my data plan
 
Jinder Mahal was once a main eventer because muh India tour. Just saying.


This is exactly the type of complete bollocks the 24/7 title should be about. I love the kayfabe image of Jinder turning up at a golf course in full wrestling gear and a referee in tow as well.
 
Okay, so more things went down at ROH State of the Art than I initially thought.
Here's what I saw.
After some very mediocre Women of Honor match, The Allure (Mandy Leon, Velvet Sky and Angelina Love) ran down to attack the two women in the ring after their match. They literally left a mark on one of the women, and two members of The Allure left the ring. Seemed like a standard heel beatdown segment. The announcers were talking about what happened as the camera was on them, and yet, for some reason Velvet Sky was still in the ring, trash talking some fan, challenging said fan to get in the ring from the looks of it. The camera even got on her for a second before she finally left the ring. I didn't think much of it.

This turned into some online drama. Apparently, the fan got taken backstage after shit talking the women in response to being spit on, and was given a talk from Bully Ray (who is with Velvet Sky, not sure if they're married) before being allowed to go back to his seat for the rest of the show. That's the short version. The long version comes from the fan on twitter:

1559549611558.png

You can check his timeline for his full story.
The responses I'm seeing upon searching his name are mixed, to say the least.
What's interesting is Bully Ray's response.
1559603586187.jpg
Keep in mind that he used to brag about starting riots with ECW fans, and the way he would shit talk them.

This isn't over yet, either, the fan is claiming that the "security" guy that took him to the back was Delirious, ROH's booker...but without the mask or any of the gimmick, he was just "Hunter"
Mandy Leon responded to the claim

It's just...what the fuck
 
I guess congrats to ROH for making it to "lolROH" instead of the usual "meh, ROH"?

I'm really pissed that Bucks match was one of my few exposures to the Lucha Bros because I just find the Bucks spots awful. It's that style of wrestling that requires you to just stand there and take all of your opponent's stuff, no story, no selling. There's a double sharpshooter spot that would make The Rock cringe at its execution. My main familiarity with the Bucks was that they do a lot of superkicks, have a move named after Meltzer, and have long matches I need to FF on Wrestle Kingdoms.

I don't get the whole deal with them other than that they look obnoxious, flip a lot, and are really good at selling t-shirts. Their spots aren't even state of the art for that style in an era where you can see Ricochet on Monday Night Raw. Can they also turn the fucking ring mic down during their matches? The tumbling and rolling sounds get very tiresome.

I haven't kept up with much non WWE wrestling over the last five or six years and I had heard so much about The Lucha Bros. I'll need to find some other stuff of theirs to watch.



It's really time for Ring of Honor to call it a day. It's obvious Sinclair doesn't want to invest in them and AEW is going to snatch up all of their partnerships if they haven't already. I can't imagine they're profitable at this point and they're not even really producing talent that the WWE would be interested in. With MLW and lots of other up and coming small leagues I don't see the point in ROH continuing in this sad state. Somewhere Xavier is smirking at the idea of Matt Taven World Champion.



I'm not big on AEW so far but I actually was surprised by Hangman Page. He seems to have an "It" factor a lot of their roster is lacking and I want to see more of him. I agree this spot is too soon and building a world title challenger in a pre show match is bass ackwards at best. Maybe the idea was more people would see him if it was a free match? I think they got taken for a loop by Pac pulling a "That doesn't work for me brother" over the ever prestigious Dragon's Gate belt as if this was still 2008.

AEW are selling on their brand and loyalty more than anything else right now. It's not the actual matchups that are drawing, it's the hype/FOMO marketing. I agree completely about Marvez, dump him and get the mask off Excalibur. That mask looks so indyish on a major broadcast. Ross/Excalibur work well together and fans vastly prefer a two man booth.
So here's a few matches with Penta and Fenix at least that I've brought up links to here. iirc his stuff with Sami Callihan has been pretty well-received, too.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tga6RTayf6ACMLL is live now for Friday Nights, feed via super lucha nerd Cubsfan.
Card features Rey Fenix in the main event and a possible Penta El 0M (Pentagon jr) run-in in the singles match probably 10:30ish (very ish) Eastern. He's widely expected to be imminent to CMLL, and Penta's been getting into shit with Caristico (original Sin Cara/Mistico) and Dragon Lee lately on the indies, and he's apparently not busy elsewhere tonight.

Edit: it was a nice match but no Penta.
There were a couple of good matches out of Arena Mexico last night,

Esfinge, Titán and Tritón vs Kawato San, Okumura and Pólvora
some good guys wrassle some bad guys in a pretty good match
and
Carístico (original Sin Cara/Mistico), Dragón Lee (well-regarded indy flippy guy who only occasionally almost kills people), Mistico (replacement guy in Caristico's old gimmick met with mixed reaction) vs Cavernario, Negro Casas (two of The Black Plague, stinky yucky bad guys) and Penta El Zero M (aka Pentagon jr, world-famous Mortal Kombat ninja).
Penta has been starting shit with Caristico on the indies for a while and has now taken the fight to Caristico's home of Arena Mexico. At the same time Penta's been feuding with Dragon Lee on-and-off too.
Nobody likes Caristico, so even though he and Dragon Lee share an enemy in Penta they're unlikely to work together to any extent. Penta hasn't gotten along with teammates much either. The other week after teaming up with Los Ingobernables they beat the shit out of him backstage during the postgame interviews anyway just because he's an outsider.

There's some other okay to not-so-great matches in the show and a nice tribute to the recently deceased Rayo De Jalisco.
CMLL Friday Night Arena Mexico looking like a pretty cool Main Event tonight
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Caristico (formerly Mistico/Sin Cara/Myzteziz) vs Penta 0M (aka Penta el 0M / Pentagon Jr) one on one.
edit-
Pretty good show, great main, very above-average women's match, too. Even Kemonito (the blue monkey midget) was a lot more active than usual.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Swo_HjcF2rk
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BUqN43P1xxoPenta el 0M, massive international lucha guy (massive because omg that pentagut amirite :eli:) is apparently feuding with Angel o Demonio, best known for almost shoot killing a guy by chucking a brick at his head during a match.

meanwhile here's a deathmatch from Zona 23, from what I understand they're no longer going to run shows from this particular junkyard anymore
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hrrFQG_ajB0
 
Okay, so more things went down at ROH State of the Art than I initially thought.
Here's what I saw.
After some very mediocre Women of Honor match, The Allure (Mandy Leon, Velvet Sky and Angelina Love) ran down to attack the two women in the ring after their match. They literally left a mark on one of the women, and two members of The Allure left the ring. Seemed like a standard heel beatdown segment. The announcers were talking about what happened as the camera was on them, and yet, for some reason Velvet Sky was still in the ring, trash talking some fan, challenging said fan to get in the ring from the looks of it. The camera even got on her for a second before she finally left the ring. I didn't think much of it.

This turned into some online drama. Apparently, the fan got taken backstage after shit talking the women in response to being spit on, and was given a talk from Bully Ray (who is with Velvet Sky, not sure if they're married) before being allowed to go back to his seat for the rest of the show. That's the short version. The long version comes from the fan on twitter:

Ver archivo adjunto 784352

You can check his timeline for his full story.
The responses I'm seeing upon searching his name are mixed, to say the least.
What's interesting is Bully Ray's response.
Ver archivo adjunto 784360
Keep in mind that he used to brag about starting riots with ECW fans, and the way he would shit talk them.

This isn't over yet, either, the fan is claiming that the "security" guy that took him to the back was Delirious, ROH's booker...but without the mask or any of the gimmick, he was just "Hunter"
Mandy Leon responded to the claim

It's just...what the fuck
Christ, my opinion of these guys just went through the floor.
I can't believe it's ROH being this retarded and that IMPACT Wrestling is more respectable these days.
 
Speaking of Lucha
Here's Dario Cueto appearing in what looks like an old TV show parodying wrestling promos.

Translation:
Dario: Now we go live through THE INTERNET to the wrestlers who are preparing for tonight's great event. Hello, guys, you hear me?

El Diablo Fuego: I'M GONNA EAT YOU, ASSHOLE! I'M GONNA EAT EVERY LITTLE PIECE OF YOUR SMALL SKINNY BODY! I'LL EAT YOUR EYES! YOUR BRAINS! YOUR GUTS! AND YOUR HEART!

Texas Dingo wrecks him in english.

El Diablo Fuego: I'LL KILL YOU, ASSHOLE! I'M EL DIABLO! THE GREAT CHAMPION!

Dario: You heard it here!
 
What happened to Big Show? He was posting all these (photo-edited) pictures of himself losing all this weight with bodybuilder arms and such... Comes back, looks horrible in the ring with Sheamus and Cesaro, then completely has disappeared.

Is his career over?

P.S. - Ron Reis should have gotten the push over Wight in the WCW, but Wight was giving blow jobs to Hogan so he got the push as the "Giant".
 
Meltzer's star ratings for Double or Nothing are out.

I mostly agree with it (including the ***** for Cody/Dustin, which had the best use of blood I've seen in a match since 'Mania 13), but I'd've given the pre-show battle royal **, and the Best Friends tag match **1/2.

Apparently the social justice AEW fans are going after Cornette over his Double Or Nothing review cause he called someone named "Sonny Kiss" a transvestite and he wasn't that impressed with the PPV. Wrestlers dog piling on include Joey Ryan and some AEW dude named LuchaSaurus, I think the Young Bucks also took some potshots at him too. It seems AEW is trying to aim themselves to be more "politically progressive" than WWE since WWE is the "big bad evil capitalist Republican corporation" so to counter balance this Cody and company are embracing progressive politics from the likes of Alexandra Cortez.

Another funny thing is that Cornette is pretty solidly left wing politically and frequently rants about Republicans and Trump on his podcast so they're just eating an ally, this isn't his first rodeo though as Corny caused controversy years ago when he shit all over Islam on his podcast cause he's also a near militant Atheist, I think it caused his last co-host to have a breakdown though cause she thought Cornette was being "Islamophobic"
It's a shame. I listened to the podcast (he starts talking AEW at the 20:00 mark), and he and Brian Last make a lot of good points: the Battle Royal was needlessly low-brow; backstage segments don't have credibility with mainstream audiences anymore, and should be dropped; Kenny Omega is an insufferable cunt who repeatedly disrespected and damaged the business; the legless guy has an even lower ceiling than the one-legged guys a generation ago; the SCU match with the Chinese promotion's trainers would've been much better for the pre-show, seeing as how it was a real match, and would've made the promotion look more credible; the four-way women's match would've been better as a three-way with either Nyla Rose or Awesome Kong left out, and the one left out would've been better served by being put in a squash match against some sacrificial lamb or another; women shouldn't be referees of men's matches unless they look like they actually could pull apart brawling men, and there were enough women's matches on the show to give the woman ref plenty of work.

The promotion does have a lot less bullshittery than TNA ever did, or ROH and WWE do currently. The promotion doesn't have the ill-will buildup that Impact accumulated. Their roster will get better once they dump the indy fuckwits for the NXT talent who jump ship for the sake of not having their careers trashed. MJF is a fantastic heel and a great worker. I'm interested in their next events and their TV show.

But they need to focus on bringing back lapsed fans and enlightening people who would've been fans had they lived in another era, and the way to do that is by focusing on credibility and legitimacy. (Sure, even UFC too often ignores this. But does anyone legitinately think UFC made a good call by putting CM Punk into a shootfight? Aside from Triple H, who just happy to see Punk humiliated?)

What happened to Big Show? He was posting all these (photo-edited) pictures of himself losing all this weight with bodybuilder arms and such... Comes back, looks horrible in the ring with Sheamus and Cesaro, then completely has disappeared.

Is his career over?

P.S. - Ron Reis should have gotten the push over Wight in the WCW, but Wight was giving blow jobs to Hogan so he got the push as the "Giant".
Serious?

I'm legit pretty sure VKM's at least bisexual with a preference for men. But Hogan?
 
Meltzer's star ratings for Double or Nothing are out.

I mostly agree with it (including the ***** for Cody/Dustin, which had the best use of blood I've seen in a match since 'Mania 13), but I'd've given the pre-show battle royal **, and the Best Friends tag match **1/2.


It's a shame. I listened to the podcast (he starts talking AEW at the 20:00 mark), and he and Brian Last make a lot of good points: the Battle Royal was needlessly low-brow; backstage segments don't have credibility with mainstream audiences anymore, and should be dropped; Kenny Omega is an insufferable cunt who repeatedly disrespected and damaged the business; the legless guy has an even lower ceiling than the one-legged guys a generation ago; the SCU match with the Chinese promotion's trainers would've been much better for the pre-show, seeing as how it was a real match, and would've made the promotion look more credible; the four-way women's match would've been better as a three-way with either Nyla Rose or Awesome Kong left out, and the one left out would've been better served by being put in a squash match against some sacrificial lamb or another; women shouldn't be referees of men's matches unless they look like they actually could pull apart brawling men, and there were enough women's matches on the show to give the woman ref plenty of work.

The promotion does have a lot less bullshittery than TNA ever did, or ROH and WWE do currently. The promotion doesn't have the ill-will buildup that Impact accumulated. Their roster will get better once they dump the indy fuckwits for the NXT talent who jump ship for the sake of not having their careers trashed. MJF is a fantastic heel and a great worker. I'm interested in their next events and their TV show.

But they need to focus on bringing back lapsed fans and enlightening people who would've been fans had they lived in another era, and the way to do that is by focusing on credibility and legitimacy. (Sure, even UFC too often ignores this. But does anyone legitinately think UFC made a good call by putting CM Punk into a shootfight? Aside from Triple H, who just happy to see Punk humiliated?)


Serious?

I'm legit pretty sure VKM's at least bisexual with a preference for men. But Hogan?
I'm legit pissed at them making aew be the #woke wrestling fed, sjws don't watch wrestling, and they're gonna find out that showing the black gay dude slamming his ass into people's faces isn't gonna go over well with a lot people. I want AEW to succeed, but I hate the woke shit.
 
I'm legit pissed at them making aew be the #woke wrestling fed, sjws don't watch wrestling, and they're gonna find out that showing the black gay dude slamming his ass into people's faces isn't gonna go over well with a lot people. I want AEW to succeed, but I hate the woke shit.
As long as they actually let heels get heat, they'll still be in a better position than WWE.

So far, they're at least doing that. Should wokeness change such things, then I'll be worried.
 
There were problems with the Honor Club stream of ROH State of the Art last night. The stream went dead multiple times after PJ Black vs Jeff Cobb started, it sped up, slowed down, audio died and came back. This kind of thing happened at the beginning of the tag team gauntlet match too. Just a mess, one that they can ill afford during this period without The Elite or SCU.
I ended up canceling my Honor Club subscription earlier this year. I have little to no interest in the current ROH product and there's so little from the "good old days" of the promotion that I didn't feel like it was worth it.
Somewhere Xavier is smirking at the idea of Matt Taven World Champion.
At least Xavier was part of a relatively over group. It's still astonishing to me that they felt going from a cold Jay Lethal run to Taven was a good idea (and that they thought about closing MSG with THAT over Okada winning back the title). What a mess.
After some very mediocre Women of Honor match, The Allure (Mandy Leon, Velvet Sky and Angelina Love) ran down to attack the two women in the ring after their match.
I've seen enough Women of Honor matches to know that it would be generous to call one of those matches mediocre. That division is a joke and they should probably do away with it. It won't be a great look for the company to kill a women's division in the current climate, but they don't have the talent to make it work, they don't seem to have an interest in getting the talent to make it work, and the creative for it has been uninspired at best.
 
Última edición:
aren't they also doing some antigun thing?

The proceeds will go to victims of gun violence...the FBI accounted for 10,982 crimes that involved firearms in 2017, and with a smaller show we can safely assume tickets will be $50-60 range for a arena that seats 5,500...carry the one...that gives each victim of murders involving firearms a whopping total of $30. And that's if none of the wrestlers take a payday for the show, and it's not including violent crimes involving a firearm, just murders.

Carney and virtue signaling go hand in hand.
 
So, Raw this week went so late that the Undertaker got cut off as he was ending his promo.
Today, Smackdown seemingly played it too safe. Goldberg ended his main event promo 4 minutes before the hour, so the commentary filled time by going over the Super Showdown card.

Also, a female fan called out an unnamed ROH talent for sexual harrassment.
She's a little more level headed than the other fan I mentioned earler, who seemed to be milking the drama.
Especially when that guy revealed that it was Delirious that took him to the back, like "check out this bombshell" - way to make yourself look like you're making it up as you go along. Why hide that at all? Seems like a pretty important detail to put up front imo.

On top of that, I'm posting this little discussion thread from r/squaredcircle because it's bringing up a more important point: Bully Ray's hypocrisy, and the possible real reason that he's not in WWE anymore. I believe Bully has once said that the reason the Bully Ray character never made it to WWE was the Be A Star program, which...seems like bullshit even without this screencap in mind.
wew.png
 
So, Raw this week went so late that the Undertaker got cut off as he was ending his promo.
Today, Smackdown seemingly played it too safe. Goldberg ended his main event promo 4 minutes before the hour, so the commentary filled time by going over the Super Showdown card.

Also, a female fan called out an unnamed ROH talent for sexual harrassment.
She's a little more level headed than the other fan I mentioned earler, who seemed to be jerking off the drama.
Especially when that guy revealed that it was Delirious that took him to the back, like "check out this bombshell" - way to make yourself look like you're making it up as you go along. Why hide that at all? Seems like a pretty important detail to put up front imo.

On top of that, I'm posting this little discussion thread from r/squaredcircle because it's bringing up a more important point: Bully Ray's hypocrisy, and the possible real reason that he's not in WWE anymore. I believe Bully has once said that the reason the Bully Ray character never made it to WWE was the Be A Star program, which...seems like bullshit even without this screencap in mind.
Ver archivo adjunto 786048
Didn't he also throw a fit at Daffney getting seriously injured by one of his students (Miss Betsy/Rosie Lottalove) in her TNA tryout match?
 
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