Things I've learned from the IWC

[Vastardikai]

1. A guy losing a match during his first week in WWE is BURIED! Doesn't matter if he lost in a screwy fashion, or got a post match promo. He is buried.

2. In AEW, a guy who is number one contender ends up seeing his loser friends challenge the World Champion on his behalf. The World Champion declares that the number one contender is a loser and doesn't have what it takes to beat him. His loser friends get jumped the World Champion and his friends. It sets up a 5 on 5 between the number one contender and his loser friends against the World Champion and his friends. If number one contender wins, he gets a title match, despite being the fucking NUMBER ONE CONTENDER.

The match comes. Number one contender and his loser friends come out, serious. The World Champion and his friends come out, dressed like basketball players, not taking this match seriously. They fuck around more or less the whole time against their opponents. At the end of the day, World Champion and one of his friends are the survivors, proving the World Champion's claims that the number one contender is a loser and doesn't have what it takes to beat him correct. Number one contender is allegedly not going to get a title shot at the big Pay Per View. This is "long term booking."

3. Omega and the Bucks are best backstage politicians of all time. Even Hogan, the ghost of Dusty Rhodes, Jerry Lawler, and Triple H bow down in awe of their power. They did everything I mentioned in #2 (the one of his friends is one of the Bucks, for reasons), and no one even blinks an eye. Because they learned to have a scapegoat. All of the "Backstage Politics" heat seems to land on Cody (for decent reason), while you have the other 3 EVPs holding the major titles and making everyone they are booked against to look like losers, getting off scott free because Dave Meltzer is going through a midlife crisis and wants to be one of the boys, and these 3 validate and enable him. And they have managed to gaslight the Bullet Cult into thinking it's "just good heel work." Fucking hell...

... Sorry, I left the computer on. Did I miss anything? Hey, a tennis racket! cool!

[M-A-G]

One of my takeaways is that one of the best ways to revolutionize the business for the future is to use old concepts from 30 or so years ago, like War Games or Television Titles. Also, doing a gimmick match PPV just because it's a certain time of the year is dumb but SURVIVOR SERIES ELIMINATION MATCHES ARE SACRED AND MUST BE UPHELD!!!

[M-A-G]

By the way, I'm just messing around. I honestly don't think anything even matters anymore, at least from the point where I dropped off. :o

[Fignuts]

The Hangman stuff is mind boggling. He's the hottest face in the company right now. Even if bryan and punk come in, they don't need the belt immediately, so I don't see why the plan had to change.

[Evil Vito]

It was telling to me that they didn't seem to reference the stipulation about Hangman/Dark Order not getting their title matches. JR even ended the segment with something like "bah god, you know Hangman is gonna get his title match against Omega someday!" As if they retconned it.

All the Punk and Bryan rumors started the week after they booked that 10-man tag, I have no idea how quickly talks came together or how long they were brewing before the news broke. But I really don't think they'd have written that segment the way they did if they new one or both of those guys was coming in for a big match at All Out.

It's a little clunky but I trust that Hangman is still going to get his big moment against Omega. I don't think the can is gonna be kicked that much further down the road. Maybe only a couple weeks to NYC.

[Evil Vito]

My best guess now, since they've already teased a Darby vs. Punk match, is that match is going last at All Out. The idea of Punk returning is an intriguing enough thing they're gonna make that the marquee point of the show/not want to put anything on after it.

Meanwhile I think Omega gets his title defense against Christian out of the way since that was always something they kept on the side burner. Hangman's gonna be given something to do at the PPV to earn himself one last title match. Maybe having to run a gauntlet or put his career on the line or something, I don't know.

But from there I could see Hangman vs. Omega at NYC. Most Dynamite World Title matches start with like 30 min left in the show and go until like 9:58, forcing them to wrap up the show fairly quickly. Maybe the difference here is Hangman wins the match way faster than everybody would've expected. Like 10 minutes in, Omega gets caught offguard, an early Buckshot lariat everyone assumes he'll kick out of, only he doesn't.

Crowd gets their big title change pop and there's enough time for a big celebration to let the moment marinate. And then, at the very end of the show, you can bring out Bryan if he's actually coming in since it's one of the few things that would cause the crowd to "mark out" again after the big title change pop.

Dunno. Just spitballing. Some exciting times ahead for AEW either way. Can't wait to see where it goes.

[Damian Rey 2.0]

Christian has zero momentum, namely due to being given nothing to do since coming in. It’s hangman’s story and I’m bummed that he’s not going to get a title shot at All Out, where it looked like he was gonna win the big one.

And while I get it’s Chicago, and you want Punk there, he doesn’t have to go on last. He can go on in the middle of the card to heat the crowd up but not so late that they’re burned out get the main event.

If they really do change directions for All Out’s title match, it’s gotta be the grand slam show to get Hangman the belt. I can’t see them waiting much longer before the iron isn’t hot so to speak. There’s only so much time the audience is going to give before his momentum cools off.

[Damian Rey 2.0]

Maybe Hangman can challenge the Bucks to a handicap match, and if he wins he gets a title shot at grand slam. If he loses, he can’t challenge for the world title ever again. Or something like that. Then have him upset the Bucks at the PPV and the match with Omega is set.

[Tom Guycott]

1. A guy losing a match during his first week in WWE is BURIED! Doesn't matter if he lost in a screwy fashion, or got a post match promo. He is buried.



Being completely fair:

What about WWE makes you think otherwise? Just about everyone called up from the current version of NXT gets a fairly shitty introduction to the masses, no matter how much steam they may have built up in developmental. They get saddled with a shitty gimmick (Leo Kreuger > Adam Rose), presented as mediocre talent after a lenghthly world-beating Goldberg run (Asuka), made to look like an idiot (Bayley), or straight up jobbed out (I'm not listing examples here, that would take all night), and WWE likes to run with that. And there lies the first part of the problem with them not taking any effort to actually build stars, even if they're supposedly "homegrown". They go out of the way to make them look like shit, continue to write them to look like shit, and then, when they finally possibly decide to pull the trigger, wonder why people don't take them seriously and then proceeds to dump that on the talent instead of all the previous presentation.

Going back to Bayley for a sec: remember her initial heel turn? Well, it was supposed to be a heel turn, but the crowd went apeshit for it, because how it was presented. Sasha was taking advantage of her, and she had enough of it. Now, to WWE at the time, Sasha was a babyface, so Bayley turning on her should have made her a heel. Didn't work that way. But then, they disappeared from TV and re-emerged to become the first women's tag team champs in what looked like part of a bid to keep one or both of them happy enough to re-sign contracts... but not the point. The point was they didn't seem to understand why Bayley's supposed turn was cathartic and people were with it because that's not how it was scripted to go.

And that's the issue with WWE, and how your comment that was full of intended sarcasm is actually loaded with a bunch of truth. They will literally bury people from go, and do very little to turn that around or show signs of doing otherwise. That one loss is usually never just a one off; it's just usually the beginning of beating all compassion for this person from the fans.

[slik]

Vince seems to go out of his way to take whatever works from someone in NXT away from them once they get to the main roster. I've yet to grasp the WHY behind that concept but he does it time and time again.

[M-A-G]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong because I've been away from wrestling a good five years, but doesn't a lot of the problems boil down to non-wrestling people running a wrestling program? Even I heard about that story from a month or so ago about that one comedian who got fired from the WWE after a day because she essentially went public and admitted that her knowing nothing about the product was actually a plus. In what other industry does that make any kind of sense?

[slik]

Do you consider Vince McMahon "non-wrestling people"?

Nothing makes it on tv without Vince's approval in WWE. Hiring people with no background in wrestling isn't an accident, it's intentional. It all comes down to Vince and what he wants.

[Triple A]

Vince seems to go out of his way to take whatever works from someone in NXT away from them once they get to the main roster. I've yet to grasp the WHY behind that concept but he does it time and time again.

Feel like Vince is probably obsessed with "controlling" wrestlers and making sure they "know their role" and that no one ever gets bigger than the company, so he constantly "cuts everyone down to size"... so no stars are ever made and everyone is just a "worker bee"

[drave]

Can't wait for the WWE cult to cut you down, Big man!!!




"wHy wOUlDn'T tHEy wAnNa mAKE NewStArZ" thing.

[Mr. Nerfect]

WWE is a publicly traded company. They want steady growth so they don’t see drastic drops in stock price when the show loses viewers or they lose a star or whatever. Going public was the best thing to ever happen to Vince McMahon and the worst thing to happen to the WWF.

Things I’ve learnt:

-Something new and shiny is going to be defended even if it is clearly horrible. The amount of times I’ve been attacked because I’ve pointed out something is bad, only for that opinion to be en vogue later on is pretty funny. Something shiny will come along and everyone will be like “LolAEW” and act like that was the normal thing all along.

-Vince McMahon can do no right. He’s senile and out of touch. Horrible mind for business and just needs to go. Never mind he’s just delivered record profits for his stakeholders. Yes, the content is shit and the company is a dinosaur, but it’s performing better than it ever has in some aspects.

-Babyfaces and heels exist outside the context of the actual wrestling. If you don’t subscribe to the underdog face, for example, you’re a cocksucker and a piece of shit. The narrative runs deep with people. WWE were both trying to stamp AEW into the ground as well as failing to care about the “war” at the same time.

-If someone criticizes what you think, they’re an asshole who won’t let you like what you like. Never mind that is actually getting in the way of their enjoyment, and the initiative to suffocate criticism is an actual version of that problem.