Wrestling Thread

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 6:29 am

Getting a li'l annoyed by the "Kane is Mayor!" circlejerk given that he's a self-described Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist. If he accomplishes anything worthwhile in his time as a bureaucrat it'll only be because he is forced to work under constraints that less dickish ideologies have forced upon him.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 8:54 am

BUT HE'S THE GUY WHO DID THE THING ON THE TV BOX

I VOTED FOR TV BOX GUY CAUSE HE DID THE THING AND THE THING WAS COOL

LULZ MEMES XDXDXD I'M SLOWLY DESTROYING BOTH OUR CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Also, I want to note that I was about to suggest that outside of a bizarre circle of vocal and weebish fans that are probably politically aligned as their underlying demographics suggest the WWE fanbase is basically the NASCAR fanbase, and it turns out that is super wrong and WWE fans lean left but don't fuckin' vote. They are also super goddamn poor and advertisers hate the demo. So... the disenfranchised working poor. Hey, look, we found the actual silent majority. They were over there, loudly booing Roman Reigns all along.

Anyway, it's a heavily Republican district. Anything Kane could do to ruin the district has already been done. If he hasn't raped any women or children then he's one of the better candidates Republicans have put forward lately.

... Man, it's comically easy to win the moral high ground in the Republican party.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 10:36 am

DSMatticus wrote:BUT HE'S THE GUY WHO DID THE THING ON THE TV BOX

Don't be silly, that'd never...

Ventura. Schwarzenegger. Trump.

Okay never mind.

If he hasn't raped any women or children then he's one of the better candidates Republicans have put forward lately.

This isn't a good time to bring up the Katie Vick storyline, is it?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 3:21 pm

DSMatticus wrote: So... the disenfranchised working poor.

Yeah, people don't realize just how specifically Mexican the fanbase is; the stereotypical WWE fan is actually old or brown at this point. It's problematic for the company because Vince's disdain for managers and small people is going to continually put a ceiling on most of the luchadors they acquire. FFS, they hired Mascara Dorada and promptly forgot he exists. The less wealthy demo is also an awkward fit for what WWE's business model has become in recent years because their ratings have continued to go down and they've made up for it by squeezing the whales for all they're worth.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 8:13 pm

Koumei wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:BUT HE'S THE GUY WHO DID THE THING ON THE TV BOX
Don't be silly, that'd never...

Ventura. Schwarzenegger. Trump.

Okay never mind.

If he hasn't raped any women or children then he's one of the better candidates Republicans have put forward lately.
This isn't a good time to bring up the Katie Vick storyline, is it?

Reagan, too.

Also, it wasn't shoot rape, so he's still pretty low in moral turpitude comparatively.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:53 am

Yeah, it was a work, and it was also only necrophilia, which is still something you don't want to include in a show without careful consideration but nowhere near as bad if it were a shoot. And it was also Triple H dressed as Kane. I just wanted to mention it to remind everyone how terrible Vince McMahon's brain disease is.

Did he win the candidacy on a platform of "If I do not win the title, I will set myself on fire" or by chokeslamming his opposition? Or did he basically try to be a regular crazy right-wing politician with a passive "famous person" boost without directing attention to it?

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 4:58 pm

Koumei wrote: Did he win the candidacy on a platform of "If I do not win the title, I will set myself on fire" or by chokeslamming his opposition? Or did he basically try to be a regular crazy right-wing politician with a passive "famous person" boost without directing attention to it?

He won it as a perfectly normal business-man running his own insurance business with little to no reference to his professional past. His acceptance speech did reference the wrestling with 'no-holds-barred' campaign and such.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:19 pm

The great thing about having been on television for decades is that other media people will brag about it and create exposure for you, so he got to have his cake and eat it too. He got Taker to show up to a fundraiser and modeled his promotional merch around a red flame motif and shirts that aped the old-school raw is war logo. And yet, when he talked he kept the emphasis on being pro-business and anti-taxes so railing that he was just a wrestler came across as kind of a cheap shot despite the fact that he came out for his victory speech with his old "Slow Chemical" entrance music playing in the background.

Plus, like with many low esteem fandoms a large swath of marks will be embarrassingly grateful to anyone who doesn't disown the tribe upon gaining broader acceptance. Wrestling fans are a bit like cryptofascists in the sense they'll fap themselves raw over someone discreetly blowing a dog whistle. Getting accepted as "One of us!" is tricky in the first place if you're already a celebrity but once you're a made man it doesn't take much to get fanboys to carry your water for you.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Aug 10, 2018 12:18 pm

Well done Tanahashi, in winning the A-Block after a fantastic battle of who can sell the least. Props to Okada there for having his leg mangled then doing a bunch of high dropkicks to help shake the damage out.

Now all Tanahashi has to do is survive through his tag match tomorrow before crawling into the finals against Naito, Omega or Ibushi. His tag match which I believe is against his first opponent in singles bouts.

grinningsuzuki.jpg

Well get fucked, Tanahashi.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Fri Aug 10, 2018 8:33 pm

Koumei wrote:Well done Tanahashi, in winning the A-Block after a fantastic battle of who can sell the least. Props to Okada there for having his leg mangled then doing a bunch of high dropkicks to help shake the damage out.

Now all Tanahashi has to do is survive through his tag match tomorrow before crawling into the finals against Naito, Omega or Ibushi. His tag match which I believe is against his first opponent in singles bouts.

grinningsuzuki.jpg

Well get fucked, Tanahashi.

Did Tana fuck your dog or something?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Aug 11, 2018 2:13 am

No, but despite his history as the Ace of New Japan and the last remaining of the (second generation) Three Musketeers and being a very handsome man with a delightful twitter... he's still the John Cena of New Japan, which annoys me. I respect all his achievements but it's time for him to go into Bread Club. And dive attacks at standing foes who have to stand there looking stupid to catch you annoy the shit out of me (his High Fly Flow to a prone opponent is great, by comparison).

But the most annoying thing about him (which also goes for Okada, Omega and Ibushi) is the fact that a submission hold seemingly ceases to have any effect the moment it's let go. Or indeed, you can stomp all over a limb and then once they stand up it stops hurting. In order to prevent this becoming the norm, new wrestlers need experience in being put in legit submission holds (not at full strength but enough to hurt and cause ongoing discomfort for a little while) and be expected to still move around afterwards. So in other words Suzuki is providing a vital service to the business by torturing Young Lions.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Aug 11, 2018 4:03 am

Yeah, rasslin' submissions are often pretty silly. Credit to Kyle O'Reilly for at least doing the thing where guys can easily signal surviving the cross arm breaker by linking their hands together. I mean, it wouldn't be an actual escape unless you figure something else out, but whatever, I'll take anything at this point.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Aug 11, 2018 7:00 am

Yeah. The submissions that have always caught peoples attentions were ones that if you got put in you were losing. So the game became not how long you could handle Benoit's crossface but to ABSOLUTELY NOT LET HIM PUT YOU IN IT. And that's more fun. Watching wrestlers grapple for dominant position is exciting if the premise is that if someone loses it here the match it all over. When it gets toned down to "Reigns is in a leglock, how long will it be before he gets to the ropes and will that injury have any impact on the match" sucks hard.

All submission moves should be killer, real world ufc style things where if someone gets you in an armbar you're dead so you spend the whole time in the ground making absolutely sure you don't get put in an armbar

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sun Aug 12, 2018 4:37 am

Koumei wrote:No, but despite his history as the Ace of New Japan and the last remaining of the (second generation) Three Musketeers and being a very handsome man with a delightful twitter... he's still the John Cena of New Japan, which annoys me. I respect all his achievements but it's time for him to go into Bread Club. And dive attacks at standing foes who have to stand there looking stupid to catch you annoy the shit out of me (his High Fly Flow to a prone opponent is great, by comparison).

But the most annoying thing about him (which also goes for Okada, Omega and Ibushi) is the fact that a submission hold seemingly ceases to have any effect the moment it's let go. Or indeed, you can stomp all over a limb and then once they stand up it stops hurting. In order to prevent this becoming the norm, new wrestlers need experience in being put in legit submission holds (not at full strength but enough to hurt and cause ongoing discomfort for a little while) and be expected to still move around afterwards. So in other words Suzuki is providing a vital service to the business by torturing Young Lions.

They teach people in the NJPW Dojo how to shoot, including putting them in submissions to pain point. It's how they learn to sell while in the holds. Actually knowing how to sell is not the problem here.

The issue is: subs don't finish in modern pro wrestling unless you are sold as a submission guy with a submission finisher. Even MiSu doesn't put guys to sleep very often and his gimmick is Realest Shooter And Also Sadist. Even with MMA influence, submissions are almost never insta-taps, since every pro wrestler is expected to gut through potential injury instead of tap to save themselves. Only place this isn't true is Mexico.

Most submission attempts are rest/heat spots, and watching two dudes grapplefuck for versimilitude's sake instead wouldn't generate anything but go away heat. For example: ZSJ jazzes up his grapplefucking as much as humanly possible, is sold as a guy who can make you tap from any position, and does the catch thing where if one hold doesn't work you immediately transition into something else. People still hate that shit, even after he slowed down to make things more heated.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Aug 12, 2018 5:44 am

If people really react that way (and reactions to MiSu and ZSJ early matches don't suggest that), then they are wrong and should go watch WWE for all of their "big men clumsily collide against each other". Or to CMLL or Lucha Underground for the fancy choreography triple somersault flimflams from the tops of skyscrapers.

Putting that aside though, my problem isn't that they don't sell while in a hold. They stop selling as soon as it's released. If someone heel hooks you and tears your ACL, you don't walk it off, and you certainly don't do a nice high dropkick. People just ignore damage from the holds, and working a limb (whether for heat or heroically "chopping down the tree") basically becomes pointless. One of the highlights of the B-Block finals for me was when Sanada winced after landing on his feet from the moonsault, and Ishii immediately went ham on that leg because he spotted the weakness.

(For the record, I enjoyed the B-Block finals a lot more. We had the return of Honma (if you don't include the match earlier this year where he was technically wrestling but wearing a mask), ZSJ ruining Naito's hopes and dreams (and the early interplay of their attitudes), the great Sanada vs Ishii match, the OG's being ejected from the building, a solid match for Goto vs Juice, and while the main event wasn't my style of wrestling, I'll credit them for being very good at what they do.)

But World of Sport is coming back, so that might give me the Catch-Style stuff that I'm after. Assuming there's a nice easy way to watch it of course.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sun Aug 12, 2018 5:03 pm

Koumei wrote:Or to CMLL

Yo I just said Lucha promotions (CMLL in particular) do the thing you want. If they're put in a submission, unless it's a big match and the final fall, a luchador will immediately tap or verbally submit.

With the notable exception of Scurll's finger break spot, if a submission is sold as actually breaking limbs or tearing something, the worker sells it as such. If it is presented as a wear down stretch, it isn't. After being put in stretches, for the flow of the match, wrestlers dig deep to do their moves, then do 90s All Japan extended down period spots. It's just how things go in prograps now. Shrugging off limbwork at the very end with babyface fire is how things have gone since the 80s. You're doing the grognard REALIZARM thing with sweaty dudes hugging each other instead of D&D Fighters.

And people on the Internet bitch about ZSJ all the time. The crowds are also super hot for the thing that annoys you. And besides, there are shoot catch wrestling events now. Watch those.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:13 pm

Yeah, CMLL tends to confuse the shit out of WWE fans because despite all the flippy shit nobody kicks out of piledrivers and finisher submissions actually finish people.

Anyway, I'm fine with chinlocks and shit being wear down submissions. I just prefer it when guys do something other than lay there forever to escape the stuff that can supposedly finish people. Luckily most rasslers are at least vaguely aware of the problem which I'm sure is why submission finishers are outnumbered by the other stuff. I'm fine if that makes me a grognard though; I'm groggy about lots of stuff. I don't even really like the "Let's just exchange forearms for like an hour" gimmick and as a NJPW fan that's apparently supposed to give me orgasms.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:37 pm

S o o

Daniel Brian is back?
And so is Samoa Joe.
And the Undertaker!
And Jeff Hardy!
And the Hammer . . eerr . . Harper Bludgeoning Brothers?

Might we actually see some improvement in the shows again?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Wed Sep 12, 2018 7:56 pm

Nope. Undertaker is too old. I wish they would just not do this anymore.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:29 am

I've got a bunch of non-Spanish speaking internet friends who shit on WWE all the time yet the moment Meltzer claimed Rush was the most effective heel in the business they got super duper butthurt and started aggressively riding for Ciampa. Marks!

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Mon Sep 17, 2018 5:39 pm

Whipstitch wrote:I've got a bunch of non-Spanish speaking internet friends who shit on WWE all the time yet the moment Meltzer claimed Rush was the most effective heel in the business they got super duper butthurt and started aggressively riding for Ciampa. Marks!

They're those "we don't watch WWE, we watch NXT " kind of people, aren't they? Either that or hate watching WWE marks, who are like regular WWE marks but worse since they're tsundere for the product and never shut up about it.

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:22 am

The ending of Hell in a Cell was bullshit. I am not actually sure if they showed it on the PPV, but I was there in the audience with my daughter chanting “This is bullshit!!”.

Game On,
fbmf

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:50 am

Managed to borrow a laptop to watch Destruction in Hiroshima and Beppu. Interesting to note that Chaos now hold zero titles. Goto vs a Final Fantasy heroTaichi was full of action, and while I figured Goto might hold the title a little longer to help stabilise it (and to make Taichi work a bit longer), I'm pretty happy with Taichi winning - he cheated, which is just about needed to keep the "Go home Taichi" ahead of "Let's go Taichi". And Goto makes any match look good - he could probably wrestle the worst wrestler of your choice and make it look good.

Ishii vs Omega was also a good, high-impact match. I never entertained the idea of Ishii winning, but I did expect (and get) a great match with him being basically relentless, requiring an all-out assault of craziness. And seeing him pull out that hurricanrana off the turnbuckle was great.

Suzuki vs Naito was great for what it was. Naito screams in pain so well when his knee is tortured. And for a while I thought Suzuki was going to win - after Naito choked him out after the earlier tag match, then the Hiroshima tag match when Naito spent most of the match asleep due to choking - "thanks for the idea! I forgot I could just choke you out!", and then the disrespect (head slapping, spitting on him - things that didn't work out so well for Omega when he did that to Ishii - and mocking the legacy of Gotch with that clutch before the powerbomb), it actually put some doubt there. Without all of that, I would have thought "Okay, Naito will win, that ends the feud, Naito takes that as mandate to... what, rematch Jericho again?"

My only real concern with that whole feud is that it's just there to keep Naito occupied. They're keeping him away from the main title (and he's a main event wrestler who has held the heavyweight title before and should hold it again, any business with another title will always feel like a downgrade and a placeholder, kind of like how the US title sort of felt like a "keep Kenny Omega occupied" thing before he had some stellar defences and then the brutal feud between Switchblade and "everyone he's ever met" solidified it). Has this whole thing just been to give him something to do and hold him away so others can tackle Omega? And in that case, is Minoru Suzuki just there to fill time for him, with no actual plans for him?

Anyway, what really helped was that it's a while since seeing some wrestling. Much as I generally like NJPW, I think I burned myself out keeping up to date with the G1, and it's good to take that break then have a few nights of action.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Sep 18, 2018 10:59 pm

Yeah, the burn out is real. Meltzer just kinda gave up this year and started saying "I dunno, I've seen too many good matches" whenever people asked him about star bullshit.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:38 pm

Chaos faction are in so much disorder and disarray right now, there should be a word for that state of affairs.