Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic 490: 16 Weeks with Eric Bischoff

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Fiend carrying a severed head in Saudi Arabia sure is gonna be something
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So I'm going to NXT tonight. I never bothered when they were doing tapings cause they were always super expensive but I got GA for $10.
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NBIceman posted...

I never thought about this but it's so true. And so odd considering he had one of the higher impact offenses around during his ROH days.

It was super glaring when he didn't have the Stomp available to use. It's like "okay what in his moveset can I buy plausibly putting a dude down" and yeah it's hard.

Too much floaty stuff that looks pretty but harmless
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Dark match is Austin Theory vs Lio Rush.
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Theory just sold a spring board stunner a way that would make even The Rock blush.
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I really like this female ref in AEW, but the way she oversells every move is kinda distracting. Like, dude hit a dropkick, you've seen a dropkick before. No need to jump back so far.

That said, it's made up for by how she just gets in the wrestler's face whenever one argues a count. It's like "It was fucking two, dammit."
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Has Bryce shown up as a ref?
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At least once a week, yes.
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That's cool. Hope he has been doing well.
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Pete Dunne is an angry little gnome and I love him.

That kinda felt like old school NXT. Whole bunch of showcase matches and one legit one.
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I think this is the week of AEW that has convinced me that American TV wrestling is just not for me. AEW is not interested in being what I thought it was.

I'm thrilled beyond belief that people are enjoying it as much as they are, though. I guess that's actually the best outcome for me, since now I get the popular competition to WWE that I hoped for without feeling obligated to add more wrestling to my schedule to watch.
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Just out of curiosity, what were you hoping it'd be?
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A product more similar to New Japan iirc
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Fair enough

I'm thrilled it's basically "Good WWE," because if I want other stuff, there's good stuff out there already. But if I wanted good WWE, there wasn't any of that to be found until AEW
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StealThisSheen posted...

Just out of curiosity, what were you hoping it'd be?

Something that doesn't feel married to the standard American TV wrestling tropes. There's way too much outside bullshit for me. I don't need pre-match beatdowns or interference. Why is it that Jericho can beat Kenny Omega and Adam Page clean but he needs Jake Hager's help to beat 50-year-old Dustin Rhodes and a guy with his hands taped behind his back? Why do we have to have a ref distraction and low blow as the finish to a throwaway 8-man tag on AEW Dark? It's such lazy booking.

Then you've got the other American wrestling tropes, like the big Cody vignette that played tonight to hype up his challenge against Jericho at a PPV that's still three weeks out when Darby Allin is challenging for the title later in the show. Or like the horrendous camera that cuts every few seconds, particularly when a move lands so they hide as much of the impact as possible, or that constantly shows random crowd members who are rarely if ever even reacting.

Tony Khan was selling this product as no-frills, no-bullshit, and it just hasn't lived up to that. I spent the entire Jericho vs Allin match not caring about anything because I already knew, based on only two weeks of television, that it wasn't going to end without Hager interference. And the whole time I'm just wondering why I'm doing that instead of catching up on one of the half-dozen promotions I'm woefully behind on that don't have all this extra eye-rolling stuff attached to it.
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And to clarify, I don't want them to ape NJPW either. NJPW even has a little too much BS spread throughout the card for me these days.

I wanted them to be something truly unique. I've been begging for a company to commit to W/L records forever. And that's led to awesome stuff already, like the PAC/Mox stuff tonight. But that kind of thing feels so secondary when there's all this other stuff on the show that just immediately makes me throw up my hands and check out.
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Did he ever actually sell it as no-frills?

No-Bullshit yes
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NBIceman posted...

Then you've got the other American wrestling tropes, like the big Cody vignette that played tonight to hype up his challenge against Jericho at a PPV that's still three weeks out when Darby Allin is challenging for the title later in the show.

Now this part did annoy me since it made the main event feel so completely inconsequential since you knew who was gonna win and even AEW was already looking past it before it even happened.
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I mean, did he ever explicitly use the exact term "no-frills"? Maybe not, I don't know. But the way he spoke about it overall made it seem like that was the underlying intent.

I'm not saying they were straight up lying to us with what they claimed it would be (although I do think they were at least a liiiittle bit) - I'm partly to blame for extrapolating maybe a small part of this. But when they were so insistent on the idea of being an "alternative," I was definitely hoping for something that felt a little less familiar.
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Speaking of New Japan, Bushiroad has purchased Stardom.
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people keep comparing AEW to "good WWE" but it really feels to me like WCW

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Tom Bombadil posted...

people keep comparing AEW to "good WWE" but it really feels to me like WCW

That's better
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darn skippy

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Also Matt Riddle is insanely over.
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Too bad I got there so late, y'all probably would have seen me!
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Also, apparently the Jericho/Allin match was a Street Fight with rope breaks?

Huh?
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AEW must've met with WWE and agreed that all of these no DQ matches have too few rules.
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Vince McMahon: I must keep Rollins as champion in this Hell in a Cell. ...I know, I'll have him get disqualified for using too naughty a weapon! That's good shit!

https://media.tenor.com/images/f0e556b0ebe78687440253aa341c71a0/tenor.gif
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Apparently, they explained it to viewers at home, which is fine...

Except they didn't explain it to the live audience, which is not so fine.
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Also, it appears they ran out of time and the ending got rushed, so that the Inner Circle's entire celebration ended up on Twitter.
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I really don't care about distraction nut shots as much as Iceman-- the stereo nut shot into Jack Evans's wacky pin was a great finish I thought

But why does Chris Jericho need interference to beat Darby Allin of all people especially when he's already immobilized his hands. That really upset me. Like I really hate outside interference. There is some art to cheating but just calling in help is so dumb anyone can do it.

And yeah the hype package for a show 3 weeks ahead that in theory wasn't set in stone didn't help either.
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Also didn't we have a debate about Alicia Fox the other day?

She's officially been moved to the Alumni section.
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jericho is an arrogant asshole who vastly underestimated an unorthodox opponent he barely had any time to scout

Tom Bombadil posted...

people keep comparing AEW to "good WWE" but it really feels to me like WCW

The main eventers have good matches so it's nothing like WCW
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ivy-snowy posted...

jericho is an arrogant asshole who vastly underestimated an unorthodox opponent he barely had any time to scout

Which is a good enough story to make me accept that said opponent lasted 20 minutes and gave him difficulty even after his hands were tied behind his back

Hager interference is just a bit too far beyond the pale for me.

I also think interference finishes in general just lead to a lot of plot holes so they should not be done except in the most rare circumstances but even putting that aside it just makes the champion and by extension title look bad
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The Hager interference felt stupid but I think they just wanted to remind us all that he's involved. I thought it was otherwise a very fun match that put Allin wayyyy over.
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If you wanted to remind everyone Hager was a thing, have him come down to the ring alongside Jericho and let Jericho send him to the back. That would help put over the "cocky prick underestimating his opponent" side of the story.
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Oh I agree with you. It was a really bad look having him come out like that.
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The point is to get Hager vs Allin at Full Gear
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Jakyl25 posted...

The point is to get Hager vs Allin at Full Gear

Who do you put over there?

I'm thinking Hager via interference.
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Having slept on it, I'm ultimately disappointed since yesterday's episode basically felt like a mediocre episode of Raw. Hopefully this is not a trend.
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Also Battle Cry is such a perfect theme now that I've listened to the lyrical version. It's like a Mega Man stage theme which is EXACTLY what Kenny needed, and all the callbacks to his old themes make me smile like an idiot.
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ExThaNemesis posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

The point is to get Hager vs Allin at Full Gear

Who do you put over there?

I'm thinking Hager via interference.

Allin

Hager is here to put people over
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And as Ive said on the Discord, Cody clearly wants a WarGames for the next PPV

Inner Circle vs. Cody/Dustin/Darby/MJF/?
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maybe that's where MJF finally does turn on him
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Jakyl25 posted...

Hager is here to put people over

You can't have him debut on his back after all this hype for the guy. Otherwise he gets a stigma of a guy that isn't really made to be taken seriously and is actually just there to put people over. That's not to say he can't ultimately be for that but that can't be the perception, especially considering his WWE history.

It's the same reason no one ever gets anything out of beating returning legends in the WWE. Hager needs to feel like an actual roster member, not some jobber that only is there because he has some base amount of name value.

Like I'm not saying he needs to win every match, but putting Darby, who frankly is as high on the totem pole as he currently needs to be, over him, just seems like a poor move.
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Well yes I would have Hager beat people on TV first
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As a build up to lose to Darby Allin? I don't know. Midcarder with credibility seems like a good place to have him and is where he currently is. Darby to help build Hager who then loses to someone who actually needs a win seems more useful long term.
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I just dont know why you would give Darby this push if you dont think he can be a main event level guy
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Nakamura defends against Reigns on SD
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