The Wrestling Thread

[MetalBeast]

Just found this while looking at at father ted clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbFlcDJxT0

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Just found this while looking at at father ted clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbFlcDJxT0

That is literally Sheamus' greatest moment. The bit about the Sam Maguire cup and all had every wrestling fan here cheering even more than the Bishop Brennan bit.

[Andy Hall]

well Wrestlemania would be fantastic, if it wasn't PG this year, these matches are made for an Attitude era style

Match of the night should be Taker vs Punk

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Considering we've seen blading and piledrivers in the past few weeks though do you reckon Wrestlemania could be the tipping point for the move from PG back to TV-14 that they are apparently planning soon?

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

What i've discovered since starting to watch Lucha Libre for the first time properly this week;

1) La Parka is now called L.A. Park and has gotten fat. Like really fat.
2) Psicosis is now called Nicho El Milionaro and cannot wrestle for shit any more. I haven't seen Juventud in any matches yet but he's probably gone the same way.
3) Chairs seem to be mostly legal.
4) In tag matches if somebody is thrown over the top rope their partner can come in even though no tag was made.
5) Cutting a promo whilst wearing a suit and a lucha mask looks ridiculous.
6) I can remember much less Spanish than I thought.
7) Most of the heel gimmicks are terrible.
Most of the entrance music is awesome (Dio, Rammstein etc.)
9) Midget wrestling isn't considered a joke in Mexico.
10) The most impressive wrestler i've seen yet is the midget champion.

[MetalBeast]

9) Midget wrestling isn't considered a joke in Mexico.
10) The most impressive wrestler i've seen yet is the midget champion.

Midget wrestling ftw! I fuckin love midgets, me!

[CrappyMike]

well Wrestlemania would be fantastic, if it wasn't PG this year, these matches are made for an Attitude era style

Match of the night should be Taker vs Punk

the only differences match wise between the attitude era and now are purely for safety, like no blading etc. PG really did nothing to the matches, just the storylines, as far as i know. could be wrong though.

[MikeA]

well Wrestlemania would be fantastic, if it wasn't PG this year, these matches are made for an Attitude era style

Match of the night should be Taker vs Punk

If matches are only good because there not PG, then they really aren't good wrestling matches.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

What do we really mean by the PG era anyway? The no blood etc is obvious but I think it's more than that.

-No blading, piledrivers, dangerous high spots, hardcore matches etc. Allows them to market wrestling to kids without fear of a moral panic and also reduces likelihood of expensive rehab for injuries, to offset the fact the roster are working more house shows per year now than ever before.
-No profanity or sexualized storylines. This has actually been a good thing as it was one of the reasons why Bruno Sammartino refused to be in the Hall Of Fame for years, but even though there's no nudity any more the divas are still mostly there for looks and not wrestling talent.
-Promoted more for the 6-13 age bracket (even though they're a smaller portion of the audience their parents are more likely to spend money on merchandise and PPVs than the larger 14-30 bracket.) This means heels are weaker as the babyfaces need to be pushed e.g. recent examples being the US and IC champions losing every week on TV and only successfully defending at PPVs.
-Slower workrate and less variation in moves being enforced, as well as anyone with a strong style or lucha libre background (Daniel Bryan, The Mexicools etc) being forced to rein in their styles. Squash and gimmick matches and limiting everyone to 5 moves of doom favoured instead. Arguably WWE has always favoured this style over quality wrestling but this is the most prevalent it's been since the 80's. For proof notice that all WWE's 5-star matches except for Punk vs Cena at MITB happened between 1994 and 1997. This is related to the PG certificate but also to the financial concerns of dumbing down wrestling for the younger audience and to avoid expensive injuries.
-Linked to the last point there's less focus on the actual wrestling in the product. Like 10 years ago would there really have been a WHC champ vs US champ match on RAW that hadn't been previously advertised?
-This is not necessarily part of the PG agenda but it seems like there's more use of "enhancement talent" these days compared to in the Attitude era. Fair enough there's always been jobbers but back when it was only Russo and Ferrara writing the show (before Russo lost the plot) at least it seemed like there was a strategy for getting every person on the roster over somehow. There's been more talent wasted in the WWE in the last 10 years than in the previous 20.

That's my assessment anyway. Of course it would be nice to see some relaxation on blood and so on but it's not the biggest issue. If they'd let their best guys actually wrestle to the best of their ability every week instead of repeating the same weak ass matches the product would be twice as good as it is now.

[Andy Hall]

Sadly this week Vince has decided he wants WWE to be more Mother and child friendly this week, the sooner HHH takes over the better I think, he is a lot more old school in style and wants to get back to good stories and feuds

[MetalBeast]

What do we really mean by the PG era anyway? The no blood etc is obvious but I think it's more than that.

-No blading, piledrivers, dangerous high spots, hardcore matches etc. Allows them to market wrestling to kids without fear of a moral panic and also reduces likelihood of expensive rehab for injuries, to offset the fact the roster are working more house shows per year now than ever before.
-No profanity or sexualized storylines. This has actually been a good thing as it was one of the reasons why Bruno Sammartino refused to be in the Hall Of Fame for years, but even though there's no nudity any more the divas are still mostly there for looks and not wrestling talent.
-Promoted more for the 6-13 age bracket (even though they're a smaller portion of the audience their parents are more likely to spend money on merchandise and PPVs than the larger 14-30 bracket.) This means heels are weaker as the babyfaces need to be pushed e.g. recent examples being the US and IC champions losing every week on TV and only successfully defending at PPVs.
-Slower workrate and less variation in moves being enforced, as well as anyone with a strong style or lucha libre background (Daniel Bryan, The Mexicools etc) being forced to rein in their styles. Squash and gimmick matches and limiting everyone to 5 moves of doom favoured instead. Arguably WWE has always favoured this style over quality wrestling but this is the most prevalent it's been since the 80's. For proof notice that all WWE's 5-star matches except for Punk vs Cena at MITB happened between 1994 and 1997. This is related to the PG certificate but also to the financial concerns of dumbing down wrestling for the younger audience and to avoid expensive injuries.
-Linked to the last point there's less focus on the actual wrestling in the product. Like 10 years ago would there really have been a WHC champ vs US champ match on RAW that hadn't been previously advertised?
-This is not necessarily part of the PG agenda but it seems like there's more use of "enhancement talent" these days compared to in the Attitude era. Fair enough there's always been jobbers but back when it was only Russo and Ferrara writing the show (before Russo lost the plot) at least it seemed like there was a strategy for getting every person on the roster over somehow. There's been more talent wasted in the WWE in the last 10 years than in the previous 20.

That's my assessment anyway. Of course it would be nice to see some relaxation on blood and so on but it's not the biggest issue. If they'd let their best guys actually wrestle to the best of their ability every week instead of repeating the same weak ass matches the product would be twice as good as it is now.

I reckon they missed a trick by botching the relaunch of ECW. They could have used it as a more "adult" product for the older fans who remember the original ECW and the Attitude Era.

[MikeA]

Sadly this week Vince has decided he wants WWE to be more Mother and child friendly this week, the sooner HHH takes over the better I think, he is a lot more old school in style and wants to get back to good stories and feuds

While I'm not disagreeing as such, again, being aimed at mothers and children wont effect the quality of the feuds or stories. If it being 'adult' is the only thing appealing about it, then it's probably not good anyway.

[CrappyMike]

Pretty much that

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Being more family friendly has already clearly affected the quality of the feuds though. With a few exceptions now the wrestlers are being given no scope for being anything other than a one-dimensional bullying heel who always gets his comeuppance from the babyfaces, who are allowed to bully whoever they want provided it's someone unpopular (Vickie Guerrero, Paul Heyman, John Laurinitis, Ricardo Rodriguez before Del Rio's face turn etc.) The feuds in the Attitude Era weren't better just because they were allowed to use adult themes but because Austin, HHH etc where more complex characters than what they allow for now.

Actually, linked to this is something I read a few days ago that HHH is changing with the developmental system. They're not scripting promos as heavily anymore and getting the talent to just ad-lib from bullet points the old school way. This is something Austin was very critical of when he quit and to be honest he's always been right; over-scripting and having too many writers and giving the wrestlers very little to no control over their own characters is a big part of why it's hard to have meaningful feuds any more. It'll also hopefully enforce a more sink or swim policy with the developmentals when they get bumped up to the main TV shows and prevent fuck-ups like Brad Maddox happening (although it was HHH who was his biggest supporter backstage for some reason.)

[CrappyMike]

WWE will be better off when HHH has vinces job. vince is a genius for sure but he's started to lose it over the last few years...