WWE Discussion for December is Gratuitous, Unpoetic and Artless Entertainment

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Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

WWE Champions - Click for pictures/details etc.

Raw: WWE Champion Drew McIntyre | Raw Women's Champion Asuka | United States Champion Bobby Lashley | Tag Champions The Hurt Business | Women�s Tag Champions Asuka & Charlotte Flair | 24/7 Champion Drew Gulak
Smackdown: Universal Champion Roman Reigns | Women�s Champion Sasha Banks | Intercontinental Champion BIG E | Tag Champions The Street Profits | Women�s Tag Champions Asuka & Charlotte Flair
NXT: NXT Champion Finn B�lor | Women�s Champion Io Shirai | NXT North American Champion Johnny Gargano | Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin | Tag Champions Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch
NXT UK: UK Champion WALTER | Women�s Champion Kay Lee Ray | Tag Team Champions Gallus
____________________________

Prior Discussion Threads for 2020:
_{January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November}

My Favorite WWE Related Posts for 2020:
_{January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December}
____________________________

December Results:
_{NXT 12/2 | Smackdown 12/4 | NXT Takeover WarGames 12/6 | Raw 12/7 | NXT 12/9 | Smackdown 12/11 | Raw 12/14 | NXT 12/16 | Smackdown 12/18 | TLC 12/20 | Raw 12/21 | NXT 12/23 | Smackdown 12/25 | Raw 12/28 | NXT 12/30}

WWE In November:

The third hour of Raw hit an all-time ratings low of 1.455 million. No excuses, no holidays, no major events... just a poo poo-rear end rating for a poo poo-rear end show.
Randy Orton lost the WWE Championship back to Drew McIntyre on Raw.
BIG E spent most of the month not doing anything or being relegated to backstage skits, including one week when The New Day returned to Smackdown and didn't interact with him once. BIG E did however end the month with the suggestion of an upcoming feud with Sami Zayn.
On NXT, Xia Li is being bothered by a mysterious cloaked figure she is very scared of. In unrelated news, the Ghostface Killer from Scream now hangs out with the Garganos.
Sasha Banks was able to successfully defend her Smackdown Women's Championship against Bayley, but is now stuck in a feud with Carmella.
After reclaiming his name of Chad Gable, Chad Gable proceeded to... do almost nothing all month other than make it the final 3 of a pre-show battle royal. After breaking up pointlessly with Otis and costing him the Money in the Bank briefcase, Tucker Knight got like 2 blink and you'll miss them appearances on Raw then disappeared.
Pat McAfee was revealed as the head of a new heel stable called The Kings of NXT with new tag champions Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch, plus Pete Dunne. They will be having a War Games match with The Undisputed Era.
Jeff Hardy feuded with Elias over Elias pretending he still thinks Jeff drunkenly ran him over in his car. They hit each other with guitars a lot.
Jey Uso has lost his drat mind trying to keep Universal Champion Roman Reigns happy, and beat the poo poo out of Daniel Bryan to make people scared of him.
Lana got put through a table a bunch of times in what is either spite over Rusev being in another company (WWE fired him, by the way, he didn't leave), or because Vince thinks it is funny, or both. Lana ended up Sole Survivor of the Women's Survivor Series match by default when everybody else got eliminated while she stood on the steel steps crying.
The Mysterio Family accepted 30+ year-old Buddy Murphy dating 19-year-old Aaliyah Mysterio. This resulted in them actively and without provocation interfering in a match on Buddy's behalf and justifiably infuriating his heel opponent Baron Corbin.
Alexa Bliss has started hanging out with The Fiend. The Fiend is going after Randy Orton.
Cameron Grimes and Dexter Lumis had an incredibly awful blindfold match that had no real ending. They're now going to have a strap match.
The Gobbledy Gooker temporarily became 24/7 Champion at Survivor Series.
The Undertaker did a "Final Farewell" at Survivor Series to mark 30 years since his WWE debut. It was a surreal end to the PPV where he walked out of an empty building with piped in "Thank You!" chants being played over the speakers.
For some strange and surely non-malicious reason, all the black wrestlers keep getting booked to hang out together or feud with each other.
AJ Styles won a Triple Threat match against Keith Lee and literal accused rapist Matt Riddle to earn a title shot at Drew McIntyre at the TLC PPV.
Kevin Owens beat the poo poo out of Jey Uso, sat at the head of a table and openly called out Universal Champion Roman Reigns to come fight him.
Jobber Leon Ruff became the new NXT North American Champion.
Bayley may be feuding with Bianca Belair possibly, which is cool.
Seth Rollins has disappeared for awhile to go on paternity leave with Becky Lynch who is pregnant.
Toni Storm turned heel after a tiny handful of matches following her return to NXT.
The Retribution stable got a couple of wins this month.
Io Shirai retained her NXT Women's Championship against Rhea Ripley, who never recovered from the lovely ending to her feud with Charlotte Flair at Wrestlemania.
Sheamus and Drew McIntyre remain good friends despite opposite heel/face alignments respectively, though Sheamus appears to be shifting to a face.
Former NXT wrestler Cezar Bononi was revealed to have been incredibly poorly paid and offered no help to get his Green Card during his time in WWE, to the point he was worried about getting kicked out of the country.
Zelina Vega was the ONLY main roster active wrestler to refuse to give up her Twitch account. WWE fired her, but not before she managed to tweet out while still under contract that she supported Unionization. SAG-AFTRA took an interest and suggested they might finally push to give professional wrestlers a place in their Union. WWE pushed a bullshit narrative that they fired her because she started up a porn website, because she has a (no nudity) OnlyFans account now.

____________________________

Thread title:

Eat My Fuc posted:

Vince McMahon doesn't know anything about pro wrestling. The only reason he was ever successful at all is because for a time in the late 90s and early 00s, culture was so rotten and hateful and "edgy" as western society's worst people fought back against political correctness, it was an over correction that lead to all sorts of ghastly, brain dead, and frankly evil cultural ideas becoming super popular and raising an entire generation of children on misogyny, racism, violence, and stupidity. Vince is the embodiment of that one moment in time where it happened to coalesce when someone like him who was rich was able to exploit the drooling masses desire for hedonistic fuckery, punching down humor, and gratuitous, unpoetic and artless entertainment.

He has never and will never recover from culture waking up from this horrific period. He is an artless simpleton who had a rich father, that's it. He has only ever gotten ahead or been successful on the back of the world allowing evil men like him to do so, the WWE could have God themself come down and mandate that Vince McMahon will produce a good wrestling show and he would still be unable to do so, every cell in his body is manifesting itself solely to create something bad that hates the audience.

I pray to god the 30 or so people I really enjoy and care about there get better opportunities as soon as possible.

____________________________

jesus WEP posted:

WWE Punk rear end Vid Status: Still up
https://www.wwe.com/videos/cm-punk-at-royal-rumble-2014

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Dec 31, 2020

# ? Dec 1, 2020 16:40

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 24, 2024 09:25

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

Reserved for my favorite WWE-related posts for December, 2020:

The Last Call posted:

Then - Luke Harper
Now - Brodie Lee
Forever - Jon Huber

Lid posted:

WWE names the GREATEST WRESTLING MATCH EVER the third best match of 2020

quote:

ItohRespectArmy posted:
dexter lumis would get over on the main roster by drawing extremely detailed dick & balls and making vince laugh.

Quantum of Phallus posted:
At least someone on the main roster would be drawing

Intruder posted:

I wonder if Trump called WWE corporate HQ to see if Bray was really dead

Eat My Fuc posted:

Michael Cole during Bray’s return at the Rumble as an insect: “Could this be Kafkaesque?!”

quote:

Davros1 posted:
Oh god no ...

https://twitter.com/WWEBrayWyatt/status/1340859828835594245?s=20

What dumbass gimmick is he going to come up with now?

Reality Protester posted:
turns out you can polish a turd

quote:

Codependent Poster posted:
lol that dummy is dead

Intruder posted:
No that wasn't the real Bray

quote:

ItohRespectArmy posted:
https://twitter.com/WRESTLEZONEcom/status/1340324518938624000

Waffleopolis posted:
https://twitter.com/JANELABABY/status/1340411910928424960

The Croc posted:

Lets face it the fans are horrible bookers and putting us in charge was a mistake.

quote:

Vertical Lime posted:
https://twitter.com/bryanalvarez/status/1338953711217885184

Cerebral Bore posted:
Whomst among us could have predicted that putting out a garbage product while openly hating your fanbase isn't a smart thing to do?

explosivo posted:

https://twitter.com/WWEBigE/status/1338632380999999493
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Lamuella posted:

Poe's RAW: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody WWE results in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.

Alaois posted:

"Jaxson Ryker appears" sounds more like a threat than an advertisement

quote:

Dacap posted:
Lee has already been demoted to Main Event

Lamuella posted:

quote:

Tato posted:
Keith Lee is fat and doesn�t know how to strike.

jesus WEP posted:
none of them know how to strike, it's why they still have to drive themselves to the next town

Spiderdrake posted:

Seth isn't even the worst part.

He was feuding with Baron Corbin in his denny's waiter garb, who brought in Lacey Evans as ref for... Some reason. Becky didn't get involved til Lacey punched Seth in the balls then they kept the feud going with Corbin/Evans vs Becky/Seth before hotshotting the Belt on and off Brock since they had to use up his cash in. The cash in he won by simply walking into a mitb match, doing zero work and just taking it as the 9th man.

Then Brock just squashed Kofi in eight seconds anyway to completely belittle everyone involved. MITB, the titles, Brock, the champs including Becky, everything looked like poo poo. It's like a swirling vortex of crap with a pivotal moment of balls being punched. Always with the balls punching. It's a perfect encapsulation of how lovely WWE is.

I can't even remember the last time AEW did a balls punch. I feel like they have somewhere in the pandemic but it wasn't a pivotal moment in a title match!

Senerio posted:

It's me, I'm the guy who still likes NXT, and I watch it now and then, and I wanted to underline that before I posted this image.

Ziggy Tzardust posted:

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1335122214635466752?s=19

Jesus, Dave

quote:

Rarity posted:
Counterpoint to all these posts: AEW has a wrestling dinosaur

Edward Mass posted:
WWE is RUN by a wrestling dinosaur.

quote:

Ganso Bomb posted:
https://twitter.com/FightOwensFight/status/1334739752218660864

Sigma posted:
https://twitter.com/FightOwensFight/status/1334891505056706562

JUNGLE BOY posted:

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jan 1, 2021

# ? Dec 1, 2020 16:41

reignofevil: Nov 7, 2008

Shamelessly requoting this over from november thread.

reignofevil posted:

Camerawork:wise AEW is miles ahead because they aren't insecure in their product. They know that regardless of how many smarks are in their audience that the feats of athleticism on display are damned impressive and that if everybody is wrestling on their A game the moves won't need any help to impress. This is in contrast to WWE's camera work which I doubt I even really need to explain in great detail here in the WWE thread.

But something I wanna talk at length about regarding the contrast in presentation actually has more to do with the in ring agenting and the commentary of AEW. Again this is all my gut here from consuming a ton of the product so take it for the grain of salt it's worth but it's pretty clear to me that the most important thing about the AEW product is that it is 100% entirely informed by Cody Rhodes personal wrestling philosophies and more often than not AEW is completely dominated by the rules of storytelling that Cody had picked up or invented whole cloth from his unique position in the wrestling world. Moments where JR is going into detail regarding what precisely makes for a sloppy pin versus a tight pin. Little touches like when commentary tosses in that arguably the smaller wrestlers have the advantage in the test of strength spot due to a lower center of gravity. The radical decision that wrestlers in the AEW kayfabe should be explicitly billed based on how many years they had been an independent wrestler and that the spots they get assigned within the match should from time to time reflect the kind of strategic differences and experience gulfs that you'd expect to see between different wrestlers at different stages of their career. None of these things exist in WWE because they are all ways in which the booking is intentionally limiting itself and it's a way of carefully curating the product which doesn't allow for temperamental decision-making or on the spot changeups of the card. Because WWE had been the de-facto of american wrestling for so long it also meant these ideas were basically dead in north america until AEW revived them.

So in my opinion the single greatest factor that influences why the product AEW presents is different (and considerably better) than what WWE is presenting is that at some point Cody Rhodes came to some strongly held beliefs on how the logic of pro wrestling is supposed to actually work and Tony Khan basically gave him carte blanche to expand on his ideas and to try them out in front of a national audience for the first time since I'm guessing the 1980's. With this latitude I imagine Cody has gotten basically all of the people actually on the ground agenting matches on the same page regarding his solidified ideas for match structure and selling.

This all percolates down to matches on dynamite and dark where between the wrestlers attempting to sell the story and the strategy that's been given to them by the agents the gaps where a spot's purpose might be initially unclear or not easily deduced by those watching will then be filled in by commentary when cody pipes up in their ear exactly what the gently caress he had in mind*. For me the system is working even though sometimes I'll see spots on dark where I think Cody might be overthinking things a bit and as my final opinion for the night if Pro Wrestling ever becomes popular with general audiences or it experiences even a half decent revival it's gonna be because Cody decided professional wrestling needed to have an underlying logic if the audience was ever going to give a poo poo about it again and grow and I think he was 100% right. By giving wrestlers an underlying ruleset for them to fake-fight with he also massively widened the possibilities for audiences to relate to the characters on the show because we can make our own assessments and projections for what might happen in future episodes of AEW Dynamite based on how we know the universe works and how we know the character tries to overcome hardship. This philosophy is the skeleton and the individual wrestlers having input on storyline direction and freedom to react on the live product or to just make suggestions to the agents based on their own understanding of this philosophy is the meat.

*In fact often the only time I'll listen to an entire match and not hear anything that sounds exactly like something Cody would say is when he's out in the ring wrestling. Just because I'm fairly sure I can hear his distinct writer's voice being echoed on commentary isn't actually a bad thing though. Stories and especially ones that are a collaboration with this many people need to have someone with a solid idea of what should make sense and what doesn't make sense. I'm still not crazy about his matches but as the guy trying to create a consistent set of wrestling laws-of-physics he is an indispensable part of the AEW recipe.

Cavauro posted:

what happened to the avatar?

Mr Yamaguchi-san choppy choppy'd my pee pee and it was for the best. Wrestling is a family sport.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 16:48

Cavauro: Jan 9, 2008

well. I don't understand what you were talking about in your post but i enjoyed reading it. i'm glad it's in the brand new thread

# ? Dec 1, 2020 16:49

karmicknight: Aug 21, 2011

reignofevil posted:

Camerawork:wise AEW is miles ahead because they aren't insecure in their product. They know that regardless of how many smarks are in their audience that the feats of athleticism on display are damned impressive and that if everybody is wrestling on their A game the moves won't need any help to impress. This is in contrast to WWE's camera work which I doubt I even really need to explain in great detail here in the WWE thread.

But something I wanna talk at length about regarding the contrast in presentation actually has more to do with the in ring agenting and the commentary of AEW. Again this is all my gut here from consuming a ton of the product so take it for the grain of salt it's worth but it's pretty clear to me that the most important thing about the AEW product is that it is 100% entirely informed by Cody Rhodes personal wrestling philosophies and more often than not AEW is completely dominated by the rules of storytelling that Cody had picked up or invented whole cloth from his unique position in the wrestling world. Moments where JR is going into detail regarding what precisely makes for a sloppy pin versus a tight pin. Little touches like when commentary tosses in that arguably the smaller wrestlers have the advantage in the test of strength spot due to a lower center of gravity. The radical decision that wrestlers in the AEW kayfabe should be explicitly billed based on how many years they had been an independent wrestler and that the spots they get assigned within the match should from time to time reflect the kind of strategic differences and experience gulfs that you'd expect to see between different wrestlers at different stages of their career. None of these things exist in WWE because they are all ways in which the booking is intentionally limiting itself and it's a way of carefully curating the product which doesn't allow for temperamental decision-making or on the spot changeups of the card. Because WWE had been the de-facto of american wrestling for so long it also meant these ideas were basically dead in north america until AEW revived them.

So in my opinion the single greatest factor that influences why the product AEW presents is different (and considerably better) than what WWE is presenting is that at some point Cody Rhodes came to some strongly held beliefs on how the logic of pro wrestling is supposed to actually work and Tony Khan basically gave him carte blanche to expand on his ideas and to try them out in front of a national audience for the first time since I'm guessing the 1980's. With this latitude I imagine Cody has gotten basically all of the people actually on the ground agenting matches on the same page regarding his solidified ideas for match structure and selling.

This all percolates down to matches on dynamite and dark where between the wrestlers attempting to sell the story and the strategy that's been given to them by the agents the gaps where a spot's purpose might be initially unclear or not easily deduced by those watching will then be filled in by commentary when cody pipes up in their ear exactly what the gently caress he had in mind*. For me the system is working even though sometimes I'll see spots on dark where I think Cody might be overthinking things a bit and as my final opinion for the night if Pro Wrestling ever becomes popular with general audiences or it experiences even a half decent revival it's gonna be because Cody decided professional wrestling needed to have an underlying logic if the audience was ever going to give a poo poo about it again and grow and I think he was 100% right. By giving wrestlers an underlying ruleset for them to fake-fight with he also massively widened the possibilities for audiences to relate to the characters on the show because we can make our own assessments and projections for what might happen in future episodes of AEW Dynamite based on how we know the universe works and how we know the character tries to overcome hardship. This philosophy is the skeleton and the individual wrestlers having input on storyline direction and freedom to react on the live product or to just make suggestions to the agents based on their own understanding of this philosophy is the meat.

*In fact often the only time I'll listen to an entire match and not hear anything that sounds exactly like something Cody would say is when he's out in the ring wrestling. Just because I'm fairly sure I can hear his distinct writer's voice being echoed on commentary isn't actually a bad thing though. Stories and especially ones that are a collaboration with this many people need to have someone with a solid idea of what should make sense and what doesn't make sense. I'm still not crazy about his matches but as the guy trying to create a consistent set of wrestling laws-of-physics he is an indispensable part of the AEW recipe.

It's interesting to me that you attribute this to Cody specifically, while he is a big public facing aspect of the company, is there any reason you are seeing Cody's fingerprints on things, because it could just as easily be Tony Khan (or even Christopher Daniels) based on who we have seen producing the shows from their supplementary materials.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 17:07

Shinjobi: Jul 10, 2008; Gravy Boat 2k

Cody's input could be as little as "don't do it like that" and he'd still be contributing more than Trips

Just not as much as

Slapjack

# ? Dec 1, 2020 18:34

flatluigi: Apr 23, 2008; here come the planes

it could also just be part of the behind-the-scenes scripting and writing philosophy since by all accounts it's something everyone back there wants to do, and I wouldn't be surprised if Excalibur makes a point to do it even without having anyone up in his ears

it's not WWE, things happening on commentary don't have to be because a showrunner is backstage putting words in their mouths moment to moment

# ? Dec 1, 2020 18:36

Astro7x: Aug 4, 2004; Thinks It's All Real

reignofevil posted:

The radical decision that wrestlers in the AEW kayfabe should be explicitly billed based on how many years they had been an independent wrestler and that the spots they get assigned within the match should from time to time reflect the kind of strategic differences and experience gulfs that you'd expect to see between different wrestlers at different stages of their career. None of these things exist in WWE because they are all ways in which the booking is intentionally limiting itself and it's a way of carefully curating the product which doesn't allow for temperamental decision-making or on the spot changeups of the card.

This is something I've noticed in AEW for awhile when they have new teams or enhancement matches. Like Top Flight vs Young Bucks. Commentary puts that kind of stuff over like crazy, with Top Flight making a mistake or the Bucks doing something that veterans do. All this stuff, if it even does happen in a WWE match, is drowned out by commentary talking about something else entirely. I think it makes enhancement matches in AEW more than just "bigger start goes out there and gets his poo poo in" and turns it more into "this is why the top start just squashed the new guy, and why the top guy should move up the rankings".

It's interesting how I've noticed those small details and will want to watch the enhancement matches because of this in AEW. But if it's a WWE match were I know one person has like a 99% chance of winning I'll just skip over the match these days, because there is nothing unique about the match to make it worth watching. If anything, the WWE match is just a place holder for someone to run in and continue a feud, or to get the person out in the ring so they can grab a mic after the match. The match itself is meaningless, and that's a HUGE problem when you have 7-8 hours of TV to fill each week

# ? Dec 1, 2020 19:03

boxcarhobo: Jun 23, 2005

idk why i even bookmark this thread every month anymore

# ? Dec 1, 2020 19:06

Rarity: Oct 21, 2010; ~*4 LIFE*~

boxcarhobo posted:

idk why i even book

Neither does Vince

# ? Dec 1, 2020 19:19

Quantum of Phallus: Dec 27, 2010

Rarity posted:

Neither does Vince

# ? Dec 1, 2020 19:23

reignofevil: Nov 7, 2008

Tony or Christopher Daniels absolutely could be behind the writing decisions that I'm attributing to Cody and without being backstage listening in on the headsets all I'm gonna have is speculation but in an effort track down the moment I started to see Cody's hand in all of this I've went digging and I'll ask anyone interested to go back and watch Sammy Guevara VS Kenny Omega for the AAA championship on dynamite 03/25/20. Cody is on commentary and while I can't prove that he is the spontaneous font from which all pretend pro wrestling strategy flows I'm gonna pull some quotes from the match and try and contextualize why I think they support my perspective.

quote:

*Sammy puts Kenny down into a front face lock*
"There's a front facelock here" <- Tony Schiavone

"Yeah he needs to put more weight- he needs to bring those toes back. He's not gonna keep kenny down like that and he's not carrying a lot of weight being the lighter guy." - Cody

As a personal note that last bit about sammy being lighter is said in a kinda offhand way that just feels to me like it had occurred to Cody pretty much as the words were leaving his mouth. Tony in my impression is much more comfortable speaking towards the technical names of the moves being performed and what the overall place each wrestler has in the story is while Cody is intensely focused on the moment to moment strategy of the match and I'm actually really glad that this was tony shiavone and cody and not anybody else because it means later when I wanna talk about each individual commentators style I mostly just need to talk about JR, Excalibur and Taz and I think we can pretty much all agree that those three each have a unique commentary style that can not be replicated by anyone on this earth and when any one of them suddenly starts waxing poetic about how a wrestler is shifting their weight strategically on the mat or was less than aggressive when setting up an arm hold that for none of those three does it sound like a natural thought that would fit in their style of storytelling*.

quote:

*Sammy uses leverage to break an arm hold by Kenny*
"Nice he uses his own leverage there. Using the body weight." - Cody

later on we get some details about the various kinds of ring injuries you might beware but of all my circumstantial evidence I generally consider this below to be the least conclusive.

quote:

*sammy throws Kenny into the ringpost outside the ring*
"He used that post. And the AEW ring has got a square post. You've got to be very careful- you get an AC fracture very- and he knows what to go for. He's working now, he moved from that shoulder down to that hand where the boxer's fracture was." -Cody

From here on though we get back into stuff that I feel pretty good about.

quote:

*sammy catapults kenny into the ropes throat first*
"Right on the throat. And he [sammy] got both knees under there. Kenny's been in experience though with these championship- these title matches. He's had deep deep deep matches. And a well documented history with kenny- I don't think sammy- this pace he is setting, I don't think it behooves him even though right now it looks like it does, I don't think it does."- Cody

I'm not actually gonna go back and seek out matches where cody ISN'T doing commentary and see if anybody uses the word behoove but in the off chance it comes up let's just all agree nobody in this world says behoove and that includes myself who has occasionally from time to time said the word behoove. But cody has more for us as the commentary continues

quote:

"Now he's working on the hand, I thought this would come a little bit earlier but now he's focused on that broken hand of kenny's"- Tony

"And how broken? Kenny punching- left hand, closed fist at that. There ya go, using another part of his body that elbow. And kenny- kenny's been in enough battles that that elbow is nice and calcified that's a sharp point right there. Very good use." - Cody

^^^ This above quote happened during a picture in picture segment I think so make sure you get the fite tv version of the match because Cody brings it up again after the commercial break but he doesn't say all the same stuff.

So right here I think it's really apparent just how different Cody's style of describing an injury spot is than Tony's. Cody's attention to detail goes down to which hand is being used actively for which punch like you'd expect from a wrestler with a practiced appreciation for good selling. I italicized the nice and calcified comment because if you go back and listen to the comment you can actually hear the professional pride re: the calcified elbow (and how it should be treated in storyline) ring out in his voice. Yet more circumstantial evidence for my pile but I'll put forward that I think it's unlikely it would occur to Tony Kahn to point out the idea that an aggravated injury to the elbow from long ago might heal in a calcified manner which would mean a more brute force impact and I'm going to say that this is generally why when I suddenly hear the other members of the commentary team in different matches than this one start getting into the nitty gritty of positioning and weight shifting, less obvious commentary regarding selling and finally just things like starting to throw left handed punches or the idea that a long career makes for a thicker bone coming at your face as reflective of the way Cody thinks about wrestling.

quote:

*Sammy has Kenny in a chin lock*
"Look at that - reaching around" - Tony

"Reaching around- he's working on the hand but he's also- what he needs to do here and he's doing it a bit now is he's making him [kenny] carry his body weight." - Cody

"Right" - Tony

"This isn't always a maneuver that you're gonna get the submission out of." -Cody

"Sure" - Tony

You're not gonna get the tap out here. But if you make him carry his bodyweight-" -Cody

"Right" - Tony

"carry your body weight-" -Cody

"Right"- Tony

" it's a whole new ballgame when we get back to the feet." - Cody

"Slip that other hand in [and] ya could almost have a cobra clutch there couldn't ya?" - Tony

"Ya could. I don't know if Sammy knows the cobra clutch though. I don't know if that's an inner circle.... That's not the kinda stuff they're teaching eachother." - Cody

Part of why I transcribed all the times Tony gave a one word affirmative response to Cody is to demonstrate that part of the dynamic for delivery here is that Cody is going into these details in a rapidfire fashion and that Tony genuinely is not sure of when Cody is going to be finished making his point and so he's making sure to put a word of agreement in at the end of each clause of the sentence just in case it's his turn to call something.

There are a few more times where I got the "cody is improvising" vibe during this match, mostly when Cody was talking about the quality of the air each wrestler was able to get a giant lungful of and how in wrestling terms the "momentum" is not fully divorced from just being a measure of who last got a chance to get some fresh wind on the ropes but for the most part in the second half Tony starts calling it and it becomes more about naming moves as they happen again and focusing on what a win might do for Chris Jericho or even how losing the AAA title might impact the Elite's dynamic which Cody acknowledges but over the course of this match he spent about twenty minutes talking up how Sammy was making tons of decisions that were both strategic and not so strategic and each time he sounds passionate and he takes time to explain the strategy as he sees it as if the audience were laymen. I'm 100% projecting in my assessment here but this is all subjective anyway, when he's saying the stuff I've transcribed above he sounds like he's teaching a wrestling class to inexperienced young students. When he's speculating on what the inner circle taking home the AAA title would mean for the elite he sounds bored.

Really bored.

Anyway one match is already making for a gigantic post and other than the fact that this specifically spawned from a discussion on what differences I saw between WWE and AEW I'm thinking this is officially getting too long winded and also none of it has anything to do with the brainchild of Vincent McMahon. Throughout today and the greater week as I'm going about my day watching AEW matches old and new I'll link to this post over in the AEW thread and then kinda collect anything that jumps out to me as (to use a made up example) "okay Taz did not decide to spontaneously speak up about how ear-level strikes cause an imbalance in the inner ear and that by pressing on the other side of your face when someone punches you it counteracts most of the force. He didn't even sound like he believed it while he was saying it."

*I feel like JR is gonna be a sticking point here but often when he's reading what I'm gonna dub "a cody line" I attribute his generally awed tone to my notion that he figured those kind of spots had been long forgotten by time and when I think of why JR doesn't seem like a stylistic fit for that kind of strategic thought it's mostly because he had the practice beaten out of him over twenty years of calling fights Slobberknockers.

reignofevil fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Dec 1, 2020

# ? Dec 1, 2020 19:33

ICR: Dec 31, 2008

quote:

BACKSTAGE NOTES FROM LAST NIGHT'S RAW TAPING

By Mike Johnson on 2020-12-01 12:54:00

The opening segment of Raw featuring Randy Orton, Bray Wyatt and Alexa Bliss was 100% Vince McMahon's vision.� We are told that several argued against the segment, feeling it was a weak opening segment�and needed to overhauled, but you can't overrule City Hall.�

The current creative for WWE right now falls directly in the hands of Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard.� In fact, there are some who have described Prichard to PWInsider.com as the most powerful person in WWE right now other than a McMahon family member.� Creatively, everything flows through Prichard at the moment�and his word has been described as "very much the Gospel" for Vince McMahon, which as you might imagine, being in that position translates into a lot of frustration and heat towards Prichard among�talents privately.

Triple H was at last night's Raw while Prichard was not, which was described to us by several�as breath of fresh air.

One edict that has been strictly enforced of late is the time cues for the broadcasts.� There were actually a number of talents�who were reprimanded for going over time in recent weeks at the Survivor Series PPV and subsequent TV shows.� There is also heat falling on some producers if their segments end up going over.

The new Drew McIntyre entrance with the sword was something Vince McMahon was completely on-hands with recently, spending what was described to PWInsider as "a lot of time" blocking out exactly how he wanted McIntyre to handle the sword and use it to set up his pyro.

Talents from Raw Underground who were drafted to Raw, Dabba-Kato and Artuo Ruas, have been at Raw tapings in recent weeks but not used.� We are told the feeling is they still need additional seasoning before they are introduced as full-fledged Raw performers.

We are told that the Jeff Hardy spot on Raw last night with the Swanton did not go as initially conceived, which is why he ended up in that scary moment where he hit his head on the stairs.� The spot, as it was envisioned, would have seen Hardy clear everything and land on the center of the table safely.� It was one of those things where a few inches made all the difference.

Shane Helms was back producing last night.

Sonjay Dutt�is now working full-time on the WWE NXT brand.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 20:16

STAC Goat: Mar 12, 2008; Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

Drew McIntyre has a sword now?

# ? Dec 1, 2020 20:21

Amp: Sep 10, 2010

WWE sounds like an absolute dog poo poo place to work

# ? Dec 1, 2020 20:22

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

whoa you're telling me jeff didn't actually plan to crack his head like an egg?!?!?!

# ? Dec 1, 2020 20:23

Ganso Bomb: Oct 24, 2005; turn it all around

STAC Goat posted:

Drew McIntyre has a sword now?

He got to take it off of Brock's chest when he beat him for the title

# ? Dec 1, 2020 20:25

flatluigi: Apr 23, 2008; here come the planes

STAC Goat posted:

Drew McIntyre has a sword now?

it's vince's apparently

# ? Dec 1, 2020 20:41

explosivo: May 23, 2004; Fueled by Satan

ICR posted:

We are told that the Jeff Hardy spot on Raw last night with the Swanton did not go as initially conceived, which is why he ended up in that scary moment where he hit his head on the stairs. The spot, as it was envisioned, would have seen Hardy clear everything and land on the center of the table safely.

Lmao "We're being told that they planned on Jeff doing the move safely without almost killing himself accidentally but he did not"

# ? Dec 1, 2020 21:37

Kennel: May 1, 2008; BAWWW-UNH!

STAC Goat posted:

Drew McIntyre has a sword now?

WrasslorMonkey posted:

# ? Dec 1, 2020 21:39

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

explosivo posted:

Lmao "We're being told that they planned on Jeff doing the move safely without almost killing himself accidentally but he did not"

I appreciate that it doesn't mention if the spot was or wasn't supposed to be in the corner with the steps. If it was planned seems like they could of planned it to happen in a spot that gave him more room.

Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Dec 1, 2020

# ? Dec 1, 2020 21:40

explosivo: May 23, 2004; Fueled by Satan

Gumball Gumption posted:

I appreciate that it doesn't mention if the spot was or wasn't supposed to be in the corner with the steps. If it was planned seems like they could of planned it to happen in a spot that have him more room.

Yeah it's literally just like "Sources tell us this should've gone differently". No poo poo?

# ? Dec 1, 2020 21:45

Blasmeister: Jan 15, 2012; 2Time TRP Sack Race Champion

Big. Sword.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 21:52

Quantum of Phallus: Dec 27, 2010

welllll

weellllll it's the big sword

# ? Dec 1, 2020 21:55

Kennel: May 1, 2008; BAWWW-UNH!

Quantum of Phallus posted:

welllll

weellllll it's the big sword

it's a big dick sword tonight

# ? Dec 1, 2020 22:01

rotinaj: Sep 5, 2008; Fun Shoe

I know the answer

I know

But why the gently caress is Bruce Prichard of all people the one who is primary creative on this television show, what has he done that was good in like twenty five years

# ? Dec 1, 2020 22:21

jesus WEP: Oct 17, 2004

quote:

Slapjack (w/Mustafa Ali) defeated Ricochet (3:31)

happy to be here

# ? Dec 1, 2020 22:28

Rarity: Oct 21, 2010; ~*4 LIFE*~

rotinaj posted:

what has he done that was good in like twenty five years

Say yes to Vince a lot

# ? Dec 1, 2020 22:30

rotinaj: Sep 5, 2008; Fun Shoe

Rarity posted:

Say yes to Vince a lot

That was good

# ? Dec 1, 2020 22:47

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

rotinaj posted:

That was good

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:16

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Rarity posted:

Say yes to Vince a lot

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:26

Rarity: Oct 21, 2010; ~*4 LIFE*~

Gumball Gumption posted:

Now that's a smiley

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:34

Cavauro: Jan 9, 2008

why did that frog fall down?

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:37

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Rarity posted:

Now that's a smiley

a cyborg mug bought it and mentioned it in the general thread and now I want to use it everywhere.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:40

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

Catching up on Wrestling Observer Radio:

Dave Meltzer posted:

The Fiend is supposed to be a face. So is Alexa Bliss, but also Nikki Cross is too.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:51

is pepsi ok: Oct 23, 2002

Rarity posted:

Say yes to Vince a lot

Also spending years trying to retcon every stupid thing WWE had ever done and telling people that it was in fact a genius idea and/or everything bad about it was the performer's fault.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:53

Digital Jedi: May 28, 2007; Fallen Rib

Jerusalem posted:

Catching up on Wrestling Observer Radio:

That and him and Bryan arguing on how many wins Hurt business had over New Day were great.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 23:59

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

jesus WEP posted:

happy to be here

You know I never thought about how totem poles keep standing until now. Thank you Ricky for making me realise there are parts of the totem pole so far doen they are underground to keep the structure stable. Ricochet, you are now edutaining.

# ? Dec 2, 2020 00:02

FUCKFACE MORON: Apr 23, 2010; by sebmojo

boxcarhobo posted:

idk why i even bookmark this thread every month anymore

I drop in on these threads occasionally because I find people making GBS threads all over WWE entertaining.

# ? Dec 2, 2020 00:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 24, 2024 09:25

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

Digital Jedi posted:

That and him and Bryan arguing on how many wins Hurt business had over New Day were great.

"It was a double countout!"
"No it wasn't! It should have been, but it wasn't!"
"That's what I'm saying!"
"But it wasn't!"

I bet the same thing happens in the writers' room as the writers try to make sense of last week. When they finally do, they write a new script taking all this into account. Then Vince shows up 1 minute before the show starts, flips over the table and declares he's rewriting everything.

# ? Dec 2, 2020 00:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > WWE Discussion for December is Gratuitous, Unpoetic and Artless Entertainment

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