Rankings in wrestling are always restricting. They just brought them back and they’re already a mess.

Oh yes. It's complete garbage. But if they are insisting on doing it, do it right. Or as right as it can be.

Oh yeah. They lose points for the concept and the execution.

Tony Khan tweeted out “AEW: Where the Best Wrestle”

A lot of the work in AEW is really dodgy. Promotion is supposed to be true to the extent that it works for you and doesn’t cross into false advertising and setting unrealistic expectations.

I deliberately sought out the Ospreay/Shibata match to see if the lack of New Japan magic was a continuing theme. Can someone explain to me what they find appealing about this style of wrestling.

To me it isn’t “hard” and doesn’t make the guys look “tough.” No one wants to be punched in the face. It gives away that it’s fake as shit when they welcome love taps with their forearms. There’s also way too much obvious cooperation. It’s like two guys playing wrestler.

I had to turn it off after they do-si-do’d into some kicks they weren’t selling.

How many times does this rubbish have to run off viewers before AEW realizes that most wrestling fans want a little more credibility in their action?

I know New Japan isn’t exactly doing gangbusters, but they can’t be happy with how shitty Japanese talent looks in AEW. Okada is en route to being a certified flop in the US. I’m sure part of the reason Nakamura was in NXT was to get used to the US and help his family settle in, but now I’m wondering if part of that was to re-wire some horrible habits.

It’s going to be hilarious if Shinsuke Nakamura ends up having this Hall of Fame career in WWE, while internet fans bitch about how lazy and misused he’s been, meanwhile Okada goes to the internet darling promotion that fetishizes puroresu and he turns out to be a giant goose egg.

At least the dude is getting paid.

I wouldn’t be surprised if WWE ends up poaching the New Japan deal from AEW. Conspiracy theory: the AEW “Continental Crown” may have already been broken up in part because of that.

Where The Big Boys Play™

check the adjective: play!

Big naturals

CM Punk. What a guy. :heart:

I was glued to my TV for 1 hour and 50 minutes. Bravo.

What a masterful performance. He was calm and composed, but he without saying much he completely demolished AEW, The Elite, Tony Khan, Dave Meltxer and even the dweebs who still hold any of them to any credibility.

Dave Meltzer finally responded. He didn’t right away. That would require knowledge. He claimed to have knowledge that Punk had no non-compete. Idiot. He also lost his footing on the glass incident. Bryan Alvarez tried to no-sell it. Anazing.

Punk showed how idiotic and disorganized they are. They prove it every week. Colt and Jack Perry are still MIA. The “friends” aren’t friendly to their own “friends.” TK is incompetent and still shrivels. Dave reports Punk’s account as ostensibly true, but quibbled with points that makes him and his buddies look like idiots.

And this was all subtle build-up to remind you Punk will be talking at WrestleMania 40.

AEW is cooked.

I read some of what Punk said, maybe I ended up reading the whole thing across multiple posts - not sure. But I didn't really give a fuck about any of it.

I'm still going to watch AEW and enjoy it. Him spouting off - whether all of what he said is true or not - doesn't change my enjoyment of the show. I felt the same way when Ronda said her shit about WWE. I'm still going to watch and enjoy WWE, too.

(Plus if one person talking shit about backstage drama turns you off from an entire promotion's in-ring product, that says more about you than them, honestly.)

I started enjoying wrestling as a whole so much more when I stopped reading about backstage shit. I don't care about anything Meltzer says. I barely know who he is. I don't care who doesn't get along with whom. I don't care who talks shit about what behind the scenes.

Put on a good show and I'll keep watching.

This might explain why their ratings are so low.

I read what punk said.

"If i put a stop to it you wont like it." Punk

"I went to him and was super polite. I was calm." Also Punk.

Only one of these is true. Also there's been a suspicious lack of drama from the AEW lockerroom since punk left. I guess they just got better at covering it up. That must be it.

The product might be ass, i wouldnt know, but the idea that everyone else was the issue is a line punk has been selling for 25 years at this point.

There’s a whiff of elitism to this. People aren’t switching off the product just because of this (we don’t know that yet), but it explains a lot of people’s already existing frustrations. But even if they did, who are you to criticize them for being turned off by something just because they accept more information than you are willing to accept?

You’re not making an informed decision because you don’t know who Dave Meltzer is.

You know I love you, man. And I know you love debate. I’m just going to say it though: you have blinders up with CM Punk. I don’t know if he wronged you or buddies in any way, but if he was an asshole, he’s just met bigger assholes.

The specific point Punk was making in those situations you paraphrased was that he — as talent — was asked to take up for the inept boss who wouldn’t. In one specific case, he *jokes* about how he thought he was being responsible by not bloodying the guy up who challenged *him* to the fight. He just choked him a little bit. Safe. And he sucks at fighting. Alvarez and co have grabbed that as “he wants to hurt people” instead of him making light of a shitty situation that wasn’t handled by management.

I’m not a Punk mark. I think he’s talented but has never always been of the right mind for business. But if you listen to him, he’s obviously matured and was dealing with a clown show. And now HE is the one about the whole business.

You don’t have to like him, but he’s not wrong about anything. And, funnily enough, not even the dirt sheets that hate him are calling him a liar. They’re just left with turning a phrase and standing up for AEW.

And it’s objectively incorrect to say that AEW does not have political problems anymore. Jack Perry is whinging to the dirties about not being used, The Bucks whinged, FTR got buried, talent want out, releases have been made, TK is getting into X wars, people are off TV, guys are in Bulgaria and AEW doesn’t know they were hurt, people are MIA, Sammy Guevara got suspended, Matt Hardy is whining, the dirt sheets are complaining, attendance is down, ratings has become a story, Jericho is an idiot. The problems did not go away.

Yeah there's still quite a bit of AEW drama. It gets more light shed on it with Punk because he's a bigger star than the rest of them. But there's something new with those twits every week.

MJF tweeted something tying himself into the Rock/Cody stuff. By and large, people are dismissing it because…MJF is AEW apparently. But I wouldn’t be shocked if the dude’s deal actually expired and he signed with WWE.

I don’t get why a dude whose “I might leave” story (weird) went and passed without much on-air notice benefits his home company by breaking relative radio silence with something lending hype and attention to the WrestleMania main event.

I wanted to see what AEW would open with this week to play “guess the drop off” and see what TK thinks is his best foot forward. He got Edge to come out in a horrible segment and cut a rah-rah AEW speech and talk about how much he loves all professional wrestling, The Elite and Tony Khan. :lol:

I wanted to see what AEW would open with this week to play “guess the drop off” and see what TK thinks is his best foot forward. He got Edge to come out in a horrible segment and cut a rah-rah AEW speech and talk about how much he loves all professional wrestling, The Elite and Tony Khan. :lol:

AEW best wrestling promotion ever.

Wow. I haven't been able to log into TPWW for like a month or so... what'd I miss? :shifty:


In all seriousness, I am aware of all the goings-on that, contrary to popular truth, started right before the Ariel Halwani interview dropped. Tony Khan tried to poke fun at Eric Bischoff publicly on teh Twitter machine about how he was a "shitty businessman". Then proceeded to roll consecutive natural 1's on just about any type of check that emerged about the state of his buisiness, his talent, the ill fated airing of security footage that only served to vindicate the guy they were trying to demonize and currently works across the street, etc., etc.

But, it's good to see that I could post this before everything goes off the rails again and leaves me unable to comment on any of it here in real time.

... I even forgot I changed my profile pic!

Down to 683,000 viewers this week

RIP AEW

AEW is the best.

Dynamite was so terrible but, um, I loved the ending. Tony Khan's selling was hilarious but really, I thought the angle was great.

Of course TPWW goes down right before AEW becomes hilariously bad. Showing the footage that proved Punk’s story? Amazing. Forced rah-rah promos with no context? Delicious. Tony Khan getting involved in angles and selling like that? Gravy. Now you’ve got Dave Meltzer lying extra hard about Punk being responsible for Colt Cabana’s “firing” (he never got fired). But, um, Dave:

Why has Colt Cabana only been used roughly once since CM Punk has been gone if it was CM Punk’s fault?

This promotion is imploding and beginning to cannibalize itself at an extraordinary rate. You can’t say it isn’t deserved.

AEW got 703k viewers this week. :lol:

Dave is doing his best to defend them. I don’t know if it’s fake, but Dave is claiming that if they did something this good years ago when they were cool, it would be hot. Dave’s said a lot of ridiculous things lately, but that might take the cake (if true).

AEW sucks, fans. Pure and simple. Years of bad television will erode your viewership. There are things that the remaining people do not want to see and AEW is jamming it down their throats. And the negative press, the shitty looking crowds and the attention drawn to their shitty ratings turns more and more people off.

They got something like 630k viewers if you factor in their 3rd hour of television (like they do for Raw).

AEW is embarrassingly bad, but I am interested in this angle with Tony Khan.

That’s your prerogative, man. Do you genuinely enjoy it, as in you think it is good? Or is it like an ironic and detached enjoyment?

I think my favorite thing about it is how little sense it makes. TK fired Punk for facelocking someone. Something worse happens several times a show every week. Now he’s getting beaten up and can’t fire the culprits because they’re EVPs? Jack Perry isn’t an EVP. It’s all hilariously pieced together.

Ethan Page has left AEW. I’m sure he won’t be the last. I haven’t seen much, but I’ve heard he’s got talent. I wouldn’t be shocked to hear WWE picked him up (he also seems to have some friends worth impressing), but if not, TNA with Josh Alexander and Matt Hardy there makes sense.

Putting the world title on Christian is the only way to save the company.

You cant save it. Even if they fixed all their issues and product had some hot angles the image is bad. Its a meme that its bad. Same thing happened with TNA. It was cool to shit on it so when they had some stuff worth tuning in for it didnt matter. Its was lolTNA till it was just an indy all over again. The damage was and is permanent.

But TNA still exists doesn't it? This is largely attributed to putting the world title on Christian for a lengthy run. Everyone knows.

It definitely still exists and is definitely also dead :lol:

I’d like to think if AEW got genuinely good, I’d give it another chance. There are problems in its very DNA though. Tony Khan clearly lacks the ability to discern between good ideas and bad. The company’s very taste in what makes good wrestling is whack. They think this stuff with the New Elite is something other than bad comedy.

People used to get grumpy when people made fun of TNA too. “Why do you want a wrestling promotion to fail? Shouldn’t you be rooting for more wrestling?” No. The last thing wrestling needs is more bad wrestling.

It wastes the time of fans and of the wrestlers. Anyone with genuine talent is going to get booked somewhere else. There’s also a larger chance of them being booked better there.

Lol, Dave Meltzer went off on Triple H for insulting people’s intelligence by thinking he can slip past another reason for Drew Gulak being benched other than the Ronda stuff. It looks like WWE’s investigation turned up some misconduct on Drew’s part in regards to hurting other talent, trying to reaggrivate their old injuries, spiking people on their heads — that sort of thing. Consider your intelligence well and truly insulted, Dave.

Seriously, the dude’s had a lot of trouble with correlation and causation recently. The Punk/Cabana stuff, the all or nothing stakes he’s put on the AEW TV deal. It’s a bit operatic.

These wrestling dirt sheet writers are so entitled and S-A-W-F-T it's insane.

People say Meltzer is getting paid. I’ve always tried to defend him at least on that front, but there’s no way he’s not taking something from that company. I know his ego is wrapped up in it being perceived as the proof as to whether or not Japanese booking from 1995 can work in the US and he has friends there — but the apologetics are now INSANE. He has to be aware of the mental gymnastics he’s doing. I’d HOPE he’s getting paid for it. But I imagine he gets “donations” from certain wrestlers that greases the wheels to keep the bad news about them to a minimum. Dave was very careful with how he talked about the Jericho scandal and was so quick to start harping on about Vince again as soon as he could.

And some of the stuff he helped his boys try and pull in AEW — the bullying, the railroading, the covering up — it’s actually rather mean. It’s quite disgusting when you think about it. Most people end up alright on the other side of it, because very few people take Dave seriously anymore, but it’s still wrong.

And just the fucking lying. He hasn’t even tried to hide it lately.

If aew was being booked like mid 90s AJPW Id actually watch it

Oh, Meltzer’s got absolutely no idea of the context that made that period of time work. He thinks that’s what Tony Khan’s doing though. It’s actually just PWG.

I watched clips from the post-Dynasty Dynamite because I wanted to see the car wreck, honestly. Will Ospreay stopping himself from doing the Tiger Driver in melodramatic fashion mid-match is the funniest thing. The Casino Gauntlet is something right out of Russo TNA. Smart move booking Ospreay to go against a mid-card champion after beating Danielson too.

You’ll notice AEW drops another tier of popularity after every PPV they do. Those shows acts as tent poles that fans use to give the promotion another chance to wow them. Then AEW charges money to put on some more white noise.

It’s become apparent, with DAZN and Vix just dropping AEW for underperformance, that Meltzer and/or Tony Khan might just be flat-out lying about AEW’s performance on PPV holding up.

Will Britt Baker's leaks just drop already?

I'm still enjoying AEW a lot more than I'm not. The ring work is very much my cup of tea most weeks so I'm getting my fix. Collision is more enjoyable than Dynamite to me quite frequently.

I don't like all of their decisions but largely tuning out twitter helps, people who don't like AEW act like every bad decision is the worst thing since Hitler and at the same time the really big AEW fans act like valid criticism is a personal affront. It's just too much at this point.

I just enjoy my graps. If I stop enjoying it I stop watching. The rest is just noise.

AEW is the best.

AEW being PWG feels pretty accurate

Nice

Observer and Fightful both reporting that Chuck Taylor's in-ring career is considered to be over and the line from Cassidy that he'd never wrestle again was legitimate. He picked up a bunch of injuries in the past year but the fractured ankle with necrosis of the bone was the final straw. He's been training as a coach and producer for months and, presumably, will move into that role full-time now.

The Parking Lot Brawl was said to be Chuck's request as he wanted to have a match with Trent to close things out and get a proper write-off. Given how long Trent's turn felt like it was percolating in the background, I wonder if they held it off a bit until Chuck was able to do the match. All told it was probably the best possible way to close out their team given the match type, venue, and it was pre-taped and in an environment they could give him extra protection if needed.

Also means when they let him finally say "shit" on Dynamite, they did so knowing full well it was going to be the last promo he did on live TV.

Old school TPWW memory: Destor hating Chuck Taylor before I even knew who Chuck Taylor was

Sad.

Bugged me that Chuck Taylor never got in shape. Also, it's a major miss if he never attempted to create his own custom "Chucks" for wrestling boots and market it.

Damn, I use to really like Chuck Taylor back in the Chikara days when I was into all that goofy indy/grenade stuff. Granted, a lot of the indy silliness I've grown out of, but always thought Taylor was a solid worker.

Not a fan. Don’t wish ill on anyone, but fuck off and die.

I won't lie, I clicked it.

Seems harsh

Collision is written by Danielson

Dynamite is produced by the Bucks.

Not hard to understand at all why which show is infinitely better than the other.

The Fraze has a difficult time "getting into" some of the indie-rific guys in AEW.

It’s crazy that Tony keeps jamming The Bucks down people’s throats like it’s suddenly going to work. You can’t present a seriously toned pro-wrestling show with them as top heels.

AEW can't even get 750,000 viewers anymore, because Tiny Klown is a horrible boss/booker/adult.

@xrod did you delete your own account at the other forums or were you forcefully deleted?

these are important questions Sexrod and we demand a timely answer!

He deleted it himself because he can't handle criticism of his incorrect opinions.

I bounced because I was being harassed by harassers about harassment! :rofl:

Truthfully, if that forum is going to be flame wars like this one, there is no point to being on that one.

#screechhatesfreespeech

Hey I can't help if xrod bails as soon as he's called out for being an idiot

#screechhatesidiots

That's true, I do hate idiots

Thats why it keeps stonewalling new users :lol:

lol the only people I reject are suspected bots. drave will sometimes see the requests before I do anyway

Everyone just needs to be #ChillLikeLockJaw

Man I've stuck up for xrod a lot in the past but that was straight up wekasauce on his part. I feel let down. Sucks.

Not even TK or Punk or even Uncle Dave are that soft. Mad depressing.

S-A-W-F-T

That forum was supposed to have the "dont be a dick so I wont have to ban" rules, then that dude is throwing personal insults because of a difference of opinions. That is what happens on the OG board, so ill just post here. There is no need to post on both.

Except that if this place goes down I want you at the other place too....

xrod would be approved if he signed up again

Yeah I liked having xrod around too. Nice having differing opinions on things instead of it being an echo chamber and I especially enjoyed having another person who isn't afraid of a hot take or 2.

Also quitting one board because a singular person was being a dick to you (in fairness I think calling someone dumb on the internet is tame af and hardly qualifies as being a dick) and going back to the place where a whole bunch of people were always a dick to you seems, i dunno, kinda counterintuitive maybe. Better one dick than many. Unless you're a ho on the ho train or something, but I digress. Leaving was wekasauce and I stand by that. Didn't think you were the kind of guy to pack your bags and leave when someone challenges your opinion on something. Especially baffling when I've watched you endure far worse here on multiple occasions.

So he for real deleted his entire account because I called him dumb, as he was being dumb? That's it? (And now he's likely exaggerating it here because he knows I've got him on ignore.)

It's not like I flooded his inbox with insults about his family or some shit. The only real insult was "holy shit you're dumb as fuck" once. That's it. Everything else was explaining how off-base his opinion was on a certain topic. If he felt harassed by that, we have different definitions of the word.

If his skin is that thin, he's not built for the Internet lmao

Right, but that is the point Seph. If the disputes are not going to be civil, then I only need to be on one board that is not civil.

But like I said: he'd be welcomed back if he signed up for the temporary board again. I'd even put him on ignore so we wouldn't have to deal with each other.

Going to the place where more people are uncivil with you versus the one with less makes no sense. 1 person was mean to me so let me run to the place with dozens of people who are mean to me. Uhg. I'll stop now so you don't have to continually double down in the same way that made screech call you dumb in the first place.

Just know that Seph is a sad panda and it's all your fault.

I prefer a lack of feigned civility.

You guys are so weird with your attempts to control who talks to who and in what capacity. xrod doesn’t want to talk to you on that forum. He doesn’t need to justify it.

Also, screech calling for civility and then leading a dogpile is classic screech. Fuck that guy.

Here comes classic Noid with his take on something he has no knowledge of. So glad this place is working better again. I missed this.

Anyway, some of the funny AEW news from the week:

* It seems WBD has lost out on the NBA. Without that revenue or crown jewel in their live entertainment cap, that probably makes an AEW deal way less likely.

* Will Ospreay has said that either the anxiety of performing or the constant flying back-and-forth between the US and the UK is starting impact his health. The lack of grind has worn him into the ground.

xrod doesn’t want to post there. That’s all the knowledge anyone needs.

Ooh I bet Noid made a judgment about me based on absolute nonsense he made up in his head. That would be classic Noid!

I like how Will thinks flying first class on Tony's dime twice a week means he is working hard.

Something about you leading a dogpile you absolute monster.

Yes, because I'm definitely known for that. How dare I!

Well that sucks, because no one was being rude to Xrod.... no one even called him Cumdorx over there......


Here's the tea:


Xrod didn't like the way a female heel replied to someone saying overly gross sexual things to them at a live event. He said the heel should not reply, should not "break character", essentially.

Myself and Screech advocated that he wasn't harassing the "heel character" at all, but the actual real person in the ring, and her chewing the dude out was fine. There was no dogpiling nor nothing beyond "wow, you're dumb lol".

That's the big debate. Should Sky Blue have called the nasty perv out (who was saying this shit right next to his very young son), or just let it go?

So dumb.

I would post the entire convo for everyone, but Xrod edited ALL of his opinions prior to deleting his own account, so there's no convo to be read now. He was a much better poster there too, without needing to reference TK every other post.

¯\_ (ツ)_/¯