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November Wrasslin |OT| CM Punk's Countdown to RESPECT
- Thread starter Kaladin
- Start date
TNA is so bad with building angles. Either they hot shot things way too early, or they drag something out so long that everyone loses interest. I appreciate them trying to do a slow build with A8, but nothing has happened in the angle. They now have access to the Impact Zone, but nothing is different than before they didn't. The same promos, the same attacks. Same everything, except now D-Von has matches. Have they even explained why they wanted control of the Impact Zone? This thing has been going on for months now, and they've never even stated why they're doing what they're doing. D-Von explained why he turned, but that's it.
There has been no escalation, even though they now have access to the Impact Zone. It is completely meaningless. Actually, I think they've been on the shows LESS since then. And it seems like they just wanted to be in the Impact Zone so they could sit around and play cards because their wives got sick of them doing it at home or something. I always have an issue when you have a big angle that should be the most important thing for the entire promotion, but only a handful of guys are actually involved with it. That's what made the nWo (for the first 6ish months) work so well. EVERYONE was involved. It affected cruisers on Saturday Night just as much as it did Sting and Luger. No one was off limits. Where as right now, the only guys really involved in this angle are Hogan, Sting, Bully, Joe Park, and now Angle. Anyone else is just an occasional save from a beat down or something. These guys are trying to take over the company (for unknown reasons), but no one cares except those 5-6 guys.
That was one of the few things the Invasion did right. Everyone was in the war. Dudes on Jakked and Metal were on their side and fighting the battles. It mattered. This angle isn't doing that at all. It was at the beginning. Everyone was involved from the champ on down. Now? None of the champions are involved at all, the X-Division has been completely segregated (as has Gut Check), no one seems worried about it, Taz and Tenay don't mention it unless something just happened and during the matches involving A8 they still make terrible jokes and goof off. Even S.E.X. did it better.
There has been no escalation, even though they now have access to the Impact Zone. It is completely meaningless. Actually, I think they've been on the shows LESS since then. And it seems like they just wanted to be in the Impact Zone so they could sit around and play cards because their wives got sick of them doing it at home or something. I always have an issue when you have a big angle that should be the most important thing for the entire promotion, but only a handful of guys are actually involved with it. That's what made the nWo (for the first 6ish months) work so well. EVERYONE was involved. It affected cruisers on Saturday Night just as much as it did Sting and Luger. No one was off limits. Where as right now, the only guys really involved in this angle are Hogan, Sting, Bully, Joe Park, and now Angle. Anyone else is just an occasional save from a beat down or something. These guys are trying to take over the company (for unknown reasons), but no one cares except those 5-6 guys.
That was one of the few things the Invasion did right. Everyone was in the war. Dudes on Jakked and Metal were on their side and fighting the battles. It mattered. This angle isn't doing that at all. It was at the beginning. Everyone was involved from the champ on down. Now? None of the champions are involved at all, the X-Division has been completely segregated (as has Gut Check), no one seems worried about it, Taz and Tenay don't mention it unless something just happened and during the matches involving A8 they still make terrible jokes and goof off. Even S.E.X. did it better.
TheGreatDivide
Banned
My favourite thing was a few weeks back when Hogan basically said D-Von had to fight Sting on Impact or he'd be fired. The angle makes no sense.
You should read this: http://3-count.blogspot.ca/2012/09/how-davey-richards-has-become-indie.html
Cliff's notes: Richards has put on some of the best wrestling matches of the past 4 years in any promotion but still gets hated on because he "doesn't sell," which is an exaggeration.
P.S. I saw the Richards/Tyler Black match in 2010, and that was one of the most incredible things I've ever witnessed in a wrestling ring. A brief video sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m5tAlaEbIE
kane_door_peaking.gif
Co-signed. This storyline doesn't make any sense. We still have NO IDEA what these guys are doing or WHY they're doing it. If it's just Bischoff wanting "revenge" of some kind on Hogan, then it's incredibly weak.
As a man who has seen many Davey matches, including being part of the first wave of people who saw Davey as the young kid that teamed with the badass known as Super Dragon, i can say that Davey has improved leaps and bounds. Everyone knows this. He's one of the best. Davey can bring it. That doesn't mean Davey is a self-righteous prick who believes that athelicism is the only thing that matters in wrestling and at times is the most formulaic wrestler in ROH. The MMA hate Davey gets isnt because of his strikes (ROH fucking loves strikes, Kobashi vs Joe says hi!), is because he works his matches like an MMA match and not a wrestling match. Thats what the hate comes from. Storytelling seemingly goes out of nowhere. There isnt even an attempt to sell no-selling as fighting spirit, it just goes out the window. There are certain people who can rein in Davey's style and those matches are incredible. When Davey stop being the mma badass and remembers he's a wrestler, he shines. There's a reason ROH rejected Davey and embraced Steen. Steen still comes off as a wrestler, unlike Davey.
'Telling a story' is all about selling. It's why Muta is considered a legend. Not because he hits finishers constantly like a Misawa, but because he works a match. He sets a pace. Davey Richards matches boil down to 'LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF I CAN DO'.
Davey Richards is the real life equivalent of that kid who makes himself in WWE 13 and makes every single one of his moves a finisher quality move. He knows nothing about pacing. A lot of ROH guys know nothing about pacing, even Raven says it during his shooter interview for them. They don't know how to work a match. They just know how to do big move after big move after big move.
rip Dead Ambrose
This x1000, holy shit. I mentally check out in ROH matches that involve in Richards, Edwards, or the Young Bucks. They're all clearly talented athletically, but there's almost zero entertainment factor in watching guys no-sell finishers for 10 minutes.
Nearly every ending with those aforementioned guys feels random because I'm never convinced any one move in their repertoire can end the fight.
I wouldn't argue that either company is in great shape, nor did I in what I said. TNA had a really, really strong and fun summer, but now they've fallen back into their normal rut. WWE is just...bleh. It's just so uninteresting right now. Rarely truly bad, and rarely truly good. Just straddling the line with a few bright spots (mostly tag teams and NXT). They've been in such a weird holding pattern for the past year (though really last few years) of "something interesting happens to get people excited, coast for 4 months until the next thing". This year it was pretty much nothing until Bork, since Rock and Cena had pretty much done everything possible for the their feud besides the match in the year before, so there wasn't anything left to say or do for the WM buildup. Bork happened, then nothing until Punk turned heel. And since then, nothing, really. Just a whole lot of really safe, uninteresting and unengaging booking.
Unrelated, but Fozzy is one of the worst bands ever. Fuck.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Thank god raw is on tomorrow, feels like it's been a month. I'm in withdrawal
Mandatory FUCK THE YOUNG BUCKS
This message brought to you by people who hate the YBs and enjoyed Steen Wolf due to the fact that Super Dragon kills Matt Jackson
I agree that the indies sometimes get into the mode of being super move after super move, but spot fests can still be incredibly entertaining. I also think that indy shows can be very well-paced and tell a story.
I still think Davey is a very good performer. He's an athlete. He practices jiu jitsu and does MMA training when he's not in the wrestling ring. He believes that hard work should be rewarded, and anyone who criticizes that "he's too MMA" is a hypocrite if they like other ROH matches that involve stiff strikes. Fans LOVE stiff strikes. It's why they loved Danielson. It's why they loved Samoa Joe. Stiff work comes across as more real.
Watch the Davey Richards shoot interview to get a better perspective of why he works the way he works. Heck, this review does a pretty good job of telling it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw6XnKW8sms
Cena vs. Punk wasn't a finisher fest?
Barack Lesnar
Banned
No
The last big match in WWE I remember being a finisher fest was HHH vs. Umpabaker last WM. That was a shameless finisher fest.
slightconfuse
Banned
No one is critiquing Daveys mma fandom . it that his matches devolve into who can no sell big moves the most. the ring psychology is all over the place.
low ki vs prince devitt last night was an example of this. at some point the match needs to end
low ki vs prince devitt last night was an example of this. at some point the match needs to end
A) I'm not going to watch 19 minutes of Davey talking about himself when he does that for the remaining 1421 minutes of the day.
B) People did NOT like Danielson because he worked stiff. People liked Danielson because he was versatile. Bryan's 'stiff' moves back in the day were his MMA elbows, and that was done as a heel tactic. He barely focused on kicks. He did airplane spins, chain wrestling, submissions. And you bring up Samoa Joe, and that's hte point. Joe already DID this. Davey Richards is always living in the shadow of Samoa Joe. But Samoa Joe has also had classics with Punk and Danielson. The entire Punk vs Joe match had Joe's arm being worked by Punk, and he sold it the entire time. If that were Davey, he'd shake his arm once then proceed to do six brainbusters in a row. And if he were fighting Eddie, Eddie would get back up and hit him with a Burning Hammer, and Davey would get back up and kick him in the head and do his fake Shamrock thing.
I mean, if you watch the Joe and Punk shoot, the whole thing they emphasis in their match is NOT to kick out of finishers because it wears out the suspense quickly. The idea is to keep going for them but getting pushed away.
This New Japan match between Davey Richards and Prince Devitt is really enjoyable: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xphyae I think it tells a really good story from beginning to end, that it's believable, and that it beats anything the WWE and TNA have put out lately.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
So how was TNA?
Shit PPV with a good ladder match main event that is possibly worth watching.
I agree with Joe and Punk, but I still think Davey's not getting a fair shake. I'm sure some of the criticisms are justified, but I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
Jeff Hardy almost died. Check out the main event.
Still can't get hooked on TNA with how inconsistent they are. :-/
-Pyromaniac-
Member
alright guess I'll check that out. Just do like me and skip it then find out what's worth watching
Professor Beef
Banned
Guys, look at young Kevin Steen
Jesus, what happened?
To me, WWE is the only wrestling worth watching. TNA is pretty bad most of the time(even though I like a lot of the roster.), ROH died when Cornette joined, Chikara is fun and goofy, but not worth paying to watch, same goes for the other indie promotion. I really don't even feel like WWE is that bad right now. Of course I could name a thousand things that could be better, but nothing to quit watching over or anything. Most of the recent Raws and PPVs have been pretty great.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
WWE does a lot of shitty things but there's enough good things and the production values are high enough that it's easy to keep watching.
TNA makes me cringe a lot. I don't enjoy that feeling. Other stuff I like to watch in small spurts on youtube.
TNA makes me cringe a lot. I don't enjoy that feeling. Other stuff I like to watch in small spurts on youtube.
A lot of it has to do with his body breaking down around the 08-09 mark. His style was destroying his body and his knee was fucking him up. He just didnt enjoy wrestling. After recovering from his knee injury where he gained some weight, he got booked for a PWG show, which rekindled his love of wrestling and he used his weight gain to change his style around and this we have current fat Steen. He's said before he wishes he was more like Sami Callihan who's a legit fitness guru and says that one day he'll get back into shape, but probably after he's done wrestling.
Perspicacity
Banned
I had no idea there was a TNA show tonight.
Without having seen it I know that nothing they did on that PPV was as good as the random meltdown in this thread.
Without having seen it I know that nothing they did on that PPV was as good as the random meltdown in this thread.
He says his biggest regret is never getting into shape.
Davey Richards criticizes Steen on his shoot interview for huffing and puffing during their matches and wanting to end things early because he couldn't keep up with Richards' ridiculous cardio.
D
Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Unfortunate timing. Looks like my home PC blew its motherboard so unless I can perform miracles, there may be no GWF tomorrow night. Ill let you all know. all like, 5 of you!
all like, 5 of you!This is basically the one thing that keeps the WWE at the top. They simply have more money than the other guys, which means they can afford better cameras, mics, and bells and whistles. If Ring of Honor had had their production values in the mid-2000s, or if Dragon Gate had their production values and distribution right now, they'd be ahead of TNA in the #2 spot, and perhaps even challenging WWE for pro wrestling supremacy.
WWE is ahead because most common folk think they are the only game in town. They don't know anything else, and if they see the production values of something like TNA, ROH, PWG, etc. they quickly go back to WWE just because it looks sleeker and more professional, even if the actual content is only half-decent.
I was looking forward to it, more so than Raw (duh, I know). We'll all understand, though, if more time is needed.Unfortunate timing. Looks like my home PC blew its motherboard so unless I can perform miracles, there may be no GWF tomorrow night. Ill let you all know.
I've never seen a show of theirs, so I can't judge. It cost money to see all their shows and I honestly don't want to pay for wrestling unless its a well built up event. I enjoy the silliness that comes with wrestling (Brodus Clay, Love Triangles, and such.) ,but a lot of indie promotions can be pretty serious.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Wow, this post. If WWE was truly "the only wrestling worth watching," I'd stop watching wrestling altogether. And none of the recent Raws or PPVs have been anywhere close to "great." "Forgettable, boring, sterile, bad," those are words more fit to describe the WWE most of the time.
God, i ran across this hype video for Human Tornado vs Chris Hero after hearing of the reappearance of HT and man, this feud was intense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uEItmSP2mg
Easily my favorite Hero feud
Also, Jitters post is bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uEItmSP2mg
Easily my favorite Hero feud
Also, Jitters post is bad
I don't think that's fair. You can just assume that people don't watch TNA/ROH/etc. because they don't know them. Some people just enjoy the WWE style of wrestling versus the more indie style of moving from spot to spot. And yes, the main reason people watch WWE over the other guys is the production values, but that's a major thing. Pro wrestling isn't built simply on the in ring action. It's a spectacle. People want pyro, lighting, characters, story lines, etc. Now, it's the in ring action that ties it all together, but we can't just assume that just because it's indie, it's better wrestling.
What do you watch?
Exactly. That is what makes wrestling so fun. Sometimes I feel WWE is over produced and I wish it had the grittiness of the 90's, so it has nothing to do with its production. Sure, indie matches may have stiffer hits that may be cool to you guys, but it can be way too serious at times.
A Pretty Panda
fuckin' called it, man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn10jGJE_mM Watch this brief 1:20 promo for one of Dragon Gates best series of matches a few years ago for a taste of what the promotion has to offer. They're mostly known for their tag wrestling, though.
If you can, track down "Open the Historic Gate," which was considered the PPV of the Year by many critics in 2009. It was DGUSA's inaugural North American show.
slightconfuse
Banned
they really need to make a deal with adult swim or they would be perfect for a alte night tv slot. they are one of the best when it comes to building feuds and matches. they also know how to do pg the right way.
