Board 8 > All Purpose Wrestling Topic 512: Finishing the Story

(+) Yeah! (+)

Agreed. Heel AJ is a good starting point for Cody's new story. Save Knight for later down the road, or move him to Raw in the draft to collide with Priest, Drew, etc

Interesting direction the Bloodline took yesterday. Both Usos out, Solo and Tonga are now in, and Reigns is probably off the grid for awhile.

One last note, after updating my spreadsheets, with his win on night 1 of WM40, Roman Reigns passes HHH for 2nd most ppv main event wins in WWE history. Your top 3, as of now...

1) Cena - 37
2) Reigns - 35
3) HHH - 34

The Tonga guy did have a good vibe to him, hopefully he will get a good opportunity

Remember after WM30 when they thought Kane was the best opponent possible for D-Bry's first defense? Smh.

That whole decade was just weird man. So glad vkm is gone

ExTha Im sad that I was away from the board when mark henry pinned RKO

iiaattgg posted...

ExTha Im sad that I was away from the board when mark henry pinned RKO

remember at I think WM24 it was when Orton beat Cena/Trips at the same time and you and I were just spazzing out going HE DID IT HE DID IT HE DID IT

can't believe that's 16 years ago bro

ExThaNemesis posted...

Remember after WM30 when they thought Kane was the best opponent possible for D-Bry's first defense? Smh.

Don't forget after WM20, when WWE did arguably the best title rematch ever at Backlash 04, and THEN decided Benoit's first ppv without wrestling HHH was against Kane.

I look back at the product that existed from 2013 to 2020 with several grains of salt, though the majority of the 2010s was a miss for WWE

ExThaNemesis posted...

remember at I think WM24 it was when Orton beat Cena/Trips at the same time and you and I were just spazzing out going HE DID IT HE DID IT HE DID IT

can't believe that's 16 years ago bro

that genuinely blows my mind. Like I know Im old, but for some reason that just really hit lol. It honestly feels like it was maybe 6-7 years ago

it was pretty wild to see Orton go over peak cena and near peak hhh. Now obviously we see those three as peers but back then it was just a matter of which one was going to bury him that night.

which if I recall correctly they ended up doing at the next ppv anyway lol

iiaattgg posted...

which if I recall correctly they ended up doing at the next ppv anyway lol

Pretty much. WWE post-Wrestlemania 24 was the HHH show again and Orton went 0-3 against him.

Though in the long run, it worked out for Orton. Dude's tied with Trips for world titles and will probably get at least 1 (MAYBE two to tie Flair and Cena) more before retiring.

ivysnow posted...

is it really a wound though. i don't think it means anything long term, or even short term really. aside from earth's most insane people hollering about it on twitter.

I think it hurts the image of the company is the problem.

As a lapsed wrestling fan I'd be a lot more likely to just check out WWE at the moment. Lot of bad word of mouth surrounding AEW at the moment which does matter-- not so much for fan retention but getting new and returning fans absolutely.

It almost seems embarrassing to be an AEW fan right now when it used to be something to be proud about.

AEW started finally winning "Worst" awards on Wrestling Observer Newsletter, so I guess Tony Khan wanted to shoot for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic! >_>

Yeah Im with Lopen here. Ive followed wrestling over the recent years, but havent been watching until probably summer slam of the last year on a whim, which successfully lured me back in. I had heard good things about AEW, and from what I understand its the majority opinion that it is not at the level that it was a few years ago. Ive watched a few ppvs, and 10-15 of the dynamite, and it just struggles to capture me. There are things to like, things to really like, but also some pretty garbage things as well as the shunned lover energy that I mentioned a few posts back, which is just a not a quality that the company should be having when trying to grow. They are allowed to make mistakes and bad choices from time to time, but it just seems like they arent learning from them and almost doubling down on them.

its very late 2000s tna-ish. A lot of good stuff to nibble at, but the overall dish itself is struggling to be fully palatable

having said that I hope they can figure it out

Me too

I was so hyped for AEW the first year. It seemed awesome. Great matches and a bunch of new fresh characters and story style.

Didn't really get to watch anymore had some life changes and there hasn't been time/drive to watch.

Now it's like I'm kinda interested to watch Wrestlemania but AEW sounds like more effort than it's worth. Probably not being a fan of Jungle Boy (Luchasaurus was the star of that group) and The Young Bucks doesn't help. (And the funny thing is I've always been in the "Punk is an asshole camp" but it feels like he was probably a justified asshole the more that comes out about this)

ZeroSignal posted...

Pretty much. WWE post-Wrestlemania 24 was the HHH show again and Orton went 0-3 against him.

Though in the long run, it worked out for Orton. Dude's tied with Trips for world titles and will probably get at least 1 (MAYBE two to tie Flair and Cena) more before retiring.

which was just wild cause like, they were wanting him (HHH) to be some badass hero face at the time, which absolutely no one was clamoring for. Edge and taker, and then y2j/michaels were thankfully giving us something to eat during that time

The main appeal of AEW is still very much "has really good wrestling". Every show will have at least one or two very good matches (except Rampage which is way more hit or miss as the C show). And they do lots of long big matches on free tv.

So if that is what you want I think AEW is very much worth it.

Which is why I hope they can put all the pieces together on a consistent and long term basis, because they certainly have the chess pieces available to be something special

Lopen posted...

I was so hyped for AEW the first year. It seemed awesome. Great matches and a bunch of new fresh characters and story style.

Didn't really get to watch anymore had some life changes and there hasn't been time/drive to watch.

yep! it still sounds better than WWE to me, from the outside fringe of both and discounting all the scandals on WWE's end, but all I ever hear is how crappy and disappointing and scuzzy both feds are

I pretty much only mess with indy stuff these days, and even then I'm getting burned out by a new wrestler flipping racist transphobe sexpest qanon every couple days

ZeroSignal posted...

AEW started finally winning "Worst" awards on Wrestling Observer Newsletter, so I guess Tony Khan wanted to shoot for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic! >_>

I dunno, if Paul ends up being involved in this sex trafficking lawsuit it could be very different

i like aew a lot! it's absolutely not perfect, and there are many criticisms i would lodge against it. i think they don't give their women enough segments, i think that they fumble the pacing of storylines more than they should, i think that they probably have too many belts, and i think they can sometimes be really stop-start with pushes (ricky starks has probably suffered from this more than anyone). i'm not going to go to bat for everything they do at all. but i do think for such a young wrestling company, working in an environment where they're the only challenger promotion left in the US, it's doing very well for itself and i'm willing to suffer through fumbles and growing pains as long as it continues delivering what i like about it (high quality in-ring pro wrestling).

They do have some good talent in the womens division. I like statlander a lot. Hopefully Sasha will get to shine once she actually gets in the ring

mercedes not debuting in the ring until the may ppv drives me nuts. i have to believe she's not medically cleared yet because her in-ring ability is one of her biggest strengths and it's insane to me to wait that long for her to get in there.

I've definitely seen stuff about her not being medically cleared yet.

It's also the only explanation that really makes sense to me.

ivysnow posted...

mercedes not debuting in the ring until the may ppv drives me nuts. i have to believe she's not medically cleared yet because her in-ring ability is one of her biggest strengths and it's insane to me to wait that long for her to get in there.

I think its hope that with time she will get better at promos. But at the same time, because its a writer most of the time her segments come off kinda robotic and scripted compared to others

also to use her as a special attraction because I dont know how effective using her every week beating the low card women would be. Cant run Skye Blue vs Mone all the time

https://twitter.com/WWEBigE/status/1779226198196846759?t=-QHWzO9WH8YZpo6vNPcVxw&s=19

If his in-ring career is indeed over, he had a good run. Slightly bunmed because New Day vs Judgment Day would be a banger and Priest vs E for the WHC would've been a fun watch, but at the end of the day, if Big E says life is good, then that's all that matters.

Sounds like Rhea is going to be out for a while and might be vacating the title tonight on RAW.

As a result of the vacating, Rhea and Bayley are tied for longest runs with said championship

Put the title on Liv, she'll become one of Raw's biggest heels by default

Sad to hear about Rhea. Shes become one of the best things in all of wrestling. Hope she recovers well

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/196afabe.jpg

Not bad. Expecting the SD tag titles to be renamed "WWE Tag Team Champions" this Friday

Anyone else enjoying the new era?

Another great installment of NXT. Both Hours ended well. Sometimes there's NO other way to kill a feud stone dead than a steel cage match (Rey/Eddie 2005 for example, even though Mysterio decisively won the war but, it was more Edde finally getting a win and putting it all to bed)

With Melo in Trick's Rear view Mirror, Now onto Next Week's match for the title!

Hardcore_Adult posted...

Sometimes there's NO other way to kill a feud stone dead than a steel cage match

This feels like the norm. Just from recent memory...

- Jericho vs Regal, 2001
- Eddie vs JBL, 2004
- Cena vs Edge, 2006 (at least until their feud reignited in 2009)
- Lesnar vs HHH, 2013

All these closed with a cage match

^Remembering Dillinger/Young as a send-off for the former.

The commentators sold it as Dillinger "escaping" Sanity. This was one was about 7yrs ago when NXT was near-unmissable.

So is this just typical IWC waffle or has Cody's first week+ as champion really been so boring that people are tired of it already lol

I'm gonna go with IWC waffle. I think once Styles or Knight becomes #1 contender (preferably Styles, save Knight for later), we might get the wheels turning a little.

Short range calendar? Cody vs Styles, Priest vs Jey, Zayn vs Gable, Awesome Truth vs DIY, Liv probably heeling it up to the Women's world title, chaos within Bloodline, etc

Long range calendar? We're probably eating good come SummerSlam. Cody vs Rock, Roman vs Seth, Drew vs Punk, Rhea vs Liv, etc

Daniel Bryan was right.

Fickle.

Angry people being angry about wrestling and not having a consensus opinion and liking shiny new toys or claiming that cool thing last week isn't cool now?

Color me shocked.

paulg235 posted...

Daniel Bryan was right.

Fickle.

This.

We're in a transitional period which involves rebuilding.

I just don't want to see Cody get turned on in yet another company by fans that spent two years clamoring for him.

i feel like the natural next step for cody would be to defend against the rock but it seems like he's fucked off until the next big show so. what the fuck does he do

like he was always going to have an easier time chasing the title compared to when he finally won it and has to have a title reign, but i legitimately don't know where he goes from here

ExThaNemesis posted...

I just don't want to see Cody get turned on in yet another company by fans that spent two years clamoring for him.

These fans are type of fans who probably liked their fave band until they got signed.

just saw a stat and laughed at it, but apparently since 2020 the Shield has had all of 4 days without somebody holding a world title.

just as Seth and Roman lost theirs, Mox won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship a few days ago.
weirdly AEW has more people who've had that belt than NJPW does - Ibushi, Ospreay, Okada, White, Moxley - and they can make rivalries if they really wanted to.

but didn't see anything in here point out that hey, he's the first grand slam champ of WWE, AEW, and NJPW.

If we're using January 1st 2020 as a starting point, there's been 63 days total where no Shield member was world champion. Moxley didn't win the AEW World title until February 29th.

That doesn't undermine that stat though. Literally only 4 days of Shield-less World champs since 2/29/2020 is crazy

really enjoyed the Claudio and ospreay match last night

Wanglicious posted...

AEW has more people who've had that belt than NJPW does - Ibushi, Ospreay, Okada, White, Moxley

Don't forget Omega.

ah, wording correction. by "that title" i meant the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, that's what Moxley won and whatall those people have had. Omega hasn't had that one yet, he had its predecessor, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. they merged the IWGP Intercontinental Championship with it to make it more uh... worldly.

okay naming schemes aren't their strong forte. it's clearly meant to continue the same legacy as big NJPW belt but in its infancy i find it remarkable to see all those people win it, then go to AEW. or be in AEW.

I wanna watch Alexander/Ibushi again. That was kickass.

Wanglicious posted...

he had its predecessor, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. they merged the IWGP Intercontinental Championship with it to make it more uh... worldly.

I did not know that. Thanks for the info

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/071c5d5d.jpg

They're already one of the best looking belts in the company.