Wrestling Discussion Thread III

It's an exciting time to be a wrestling fan, what with the WWE making big moves on FOX, AEW kicking off their weekly TV in the right way and the likes of NJPW, the NWA, MLW, Impact and others giving fans a wide range of choice.

So, let's talk about the wrasslin' for a third time on GNamer.

Some hold over thoughts from the last thread.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

NWA Powerrr was great. The feel, the presentation, the squash matches, the segments and the promos were put together really well, and it made for a very easy, uncomplicated watch.

I've heard some really good things about Powerrr - sounds like it'll be worth checking out. To be honest, I can see myself totally ignoring what WWE is up to and just rolling with AEW, NWA and NJPW for my wrestling fill.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I can see me making the time to follow this each week. Plus, big Trevor Murdoch is coming into it as well, and he'd definitely be on my Boy Stable. 

masofdas wrote:

NJPW is just the big shows for me now.

I'm pretty much the same, but if there's a big match announced on their Road To shows, I'll check it out. I watched the Rock and Roll Express team up with Tanahashi out of pure curiosity to see if the two 60+ year old lads could still go and came away pretty damn entertained. On a more exciting note there, we've got King of Pro Wrestling this Monday! Cannot wait for Liger vs Suzuki after the amazing Kishin Liger segment. Liger took his mask off revealing his demonic Kishin Liger persona and tried to skewer Suzuki with a spike. Mental.



But here's the real big question:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I can see me making the time to follow this each week. Plus, big Trevor Murdoch is coming into it as well, and he'd definitely be on my Boy Stable. 

Cappa mentioned his Boy Stable and I want to know all of yours now. For those not in the know, a Boy Stable is your group of Boys as coined by the lads at OSW Review. What's a Boy, you ask? Well, the OSW Review Dictionary has this to say:

OSW Review Dictionary wrote:

A BOY is a (generally not very talented) wrestler that didn’t achieve success, where there’s a bit of cringe factor admitting he was one of your favourites. You like/support him more than the average & what he deserved. Like my boy Test, or Heidenreich. He can’t have won a major world title as well (which actually cuts out Garvin, even though the rest of his career was very boy-worthy). The term ‘boy’ is also used in Japanese Dojos (for young trainees) and in general vernacular too (e.g. Will Ferrell’s boy Blue in the film Old School).

CRITERIA FOR BEING A BOY:
1. Unsuccessful – No WWE/WWF, WCW/NWA or NJPW world titles. This rules out Christian, Steve!
2. Unpopular – He must not be respected in general or have hope for the future. Think The Ascension.
3. Untalented – There’s a certain cringe factor. You have to be a little ashamed to admit you’re a fan. Heidenreich is the Golden boy, a paragon of Boyness.

Here's my Boy Stable:

Matt Hardy (pre-Broken Matt), Chase Owens from NJPW, Heath Slater, Tyler Breeze, Maven and The Big Guy, Ryback.

All my Boy Stable are from mid 2000s WWE. They've got to be. That's when I watched it most, even though it was mostly utterly, utterly terrible. I wasted so, so many Friday nights watching complete shite like 'The Ambassador of Quebec' Sylvan against unmasked Mexicool Psicosis when I should have been out drinking and shagging with the rest of my pals. 

~

Eugene is my Bottom Boy, no doubt. Can't be arsed with anything else Nick Dinsmore has done, but Eugene was my absolute Boy. I'm only partially ashamed to admit that I wore my Eugene t-shirt to the Cathouse a couple of times. 

Eugene T-Shirt, only photo I could find online!:

For the rest of my Boy Stable: I'd have Trevor Murdoch, 'The Con Man' Rob Conway, Pirate Paul Burchill, The Road Warrior (Animal, when he was a singles bad guy), and of course, Tatanka, from when he came back to SmackDown in 2006 for absolutely no good reason.

Love OSW Review - I probably watch that more than current wrestling.

My boys: 2 Cold Scorpio, D'Lo, Nathan Jones, Essa Rios, Wade Barrett (if he counts)

Ooh Christ, I pretty much exclusively like boys! I'll have to think about it

Here's mine:

Steve Blackman
Essa Rios
Adam Bomb
Mordecai
Hardcore Holly


At one point I honestly thought Mordecai was the next Undertaker & then he was gone.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Eugene is my Bottom Boy, no doubt.

For the rest of my Boy Stable: I'd have Trevor Murdoch, 'The Con Man' Rob Conway, Pirate Paul Burchill, The Road Warrior (Animal, when he was a singles bad guy), and of course, Tatanka, from when he came back to SmackDown in 2006 for absolutely no good reason.

What a stable. This is a Hall of Fame worthy Boy Stable. You must have lost your mind when Tatanka randomly wandered into one of the Andre the Giant Battle Royals a few years back.

gjones wrote:

Love OSW Review - I probably watch that more than current wrestling.

My boys: 2 Cold Scorpio, D'Lo, Nathan Jones, Essa Rios, Wade Barrett (if he counts)

Wade Barrett absolutely counts. Bad News Barrett was excellent, but let's face it, he was going nowhere with that gimmick.

The_Jaster wrote:

Here's mine:

Steve Blackman
Essa Rios
Adam Bomb
Mordecai
Hardcore Holly


At one point I honestly thought Mordecai was the next Undertaker & then he was gone.

Mordecai became that vampire character on ECW, didn't he?

Kevin Thorn, yeah but I didn't watch any of that ECW.

The only exposure I've had to WWE ECW was through OSW's review arc which culminated with the dreadful December to Dismember show. Can you imagine having dropped £20 or however much it was for a PPV back then on that shite?

I think December to Dismember was one of the ones you got for free on Sky Sports, thankfully. I watched it live, and it was as bollocks as everybody says. It's maybe not the worst WWE PPV ever though - I remember a couple of those mid-1995 PPVs being especially grim, as well as that Great American Bash where loads of slow, unpopular, untalented newcomers beat loads of slow, unpopular, untalented veterans, and The Undertaker murdered Paul Bearer. Wooft!

~

The new OSW Reviews for Survivor Series 1993 went up recently, and I've just got round to watching it:

http://oswreview.com/media/oswreview84/

I cried with laughter at:

Tidy, I'll stick that on tomorrow - I usually catch the episodes when they go up on YouTube, but that can take ages as they've apparently got to tussle with WWE for a bit before uploading them.

Did anyone else catch the second episode of NWA Powerrr? I enjoyed it, so I reckon that'll be me in for a good spell barring any major dips in quality. The weakest part of the show for me has been the main event angle with Nick Aldis and his valet, but I'll stick with it to see where it goes.

Episode 2:

I'm also loving AEW Dynamite - they've loaded each show with some quality matches thus far and it's made each show a breezy watch which is a surprising thing to be saying about a 2 hour weekly wrestling show. PAC vs Jon Moxley is this week's main event and I'm looking forward to that as those two have been the standouts for me so far.

Yep, still watching NWA Powerrr & I just love the simplicity of it all not tp mention everyone that's had mic time have delivered very good promos as well.

I'm staying at friends to watch the NXT PPV in a couple of weeks, so figured I'd watch the last PPV (August's one in Toronto) as I missed it. However, since watching OSW I've definitely become more critical of wrestling - I noticed the no selling of big moves, lack of storytelling, commentary blunders and the dead crowds. Or if they're not dead, it's your "This is awesome" bollocks.

I went back to watching Raw from February 2002. I don't want to be THAT guy, but the pyro, the signs, the energy, the characters - it's another level. I didn't watch Raw/Smackdown between 2002 and 2008 so it will be interesting to catch up.

I have downloaded the ITV Hub so will be catching up on AEW Dynamite, hopefully I enjoy it more.

Which wrestling promotion/brand has the best crowds? I feel like that's a big part of why I enjoy certain matches - Rock v Hogan being a personal favourite.

I would say AEW as at the moment it feels like a hot indy crowd but on a bigger scale, then NXT but as its at full sail with its smaller crowd can lack that something.

gjones wrote:

Which wrestling promotion/brand has the best crowds? I feel like that's a big part of why I enjoy certain matches - Rock v Hogan being a personal favourite.

I'd say either AEW for a more traditional US crowd vibe or NJPW for something different.

AEW have been loud for the full 2 hour show on each episode of Dynamite so far, but they've chanted "this is awesome" for nearly every single one of the matches too which does my head in as well.

NJPW is a totally different crowd as they'll be quiet and respectful for the opening bits of the match, clapping and cheering after big spots and sequences. But when the match moves into overdrive and ramps up towards the finishing sequences, they become one of the loudest crowds in the world - constant excitement, cheering, chanting all in anticipation of that one big move that ends it. And they've never wound me up with their chants as it's usually just the name of the wrestler they chant.

Dunkey did a WWE 2K20 video!

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Dunkey did a WWE 2K20 video!

Dear Lord, this looks like both the best and worst wrestling game ever!

Where's WWE all stars 2 when you need it?

There's a channel called NewLegacyInc who make it their mission to utterly break each WWE game ever year - I think Dunkey actually used a couple of clips from them in his video. Their WWE 2K20 video is something else:

The OSW Review for Royal Rumble 1994 is up! http://oswreview.com/media/oswreview85/ 

~

This is a brilliant Twitter thread with "some of the best and greatest moments in wrestling from this decade". Really high quality videos, well worth your time:

Spoiler box so I don't break the forum:

That's Airdrieonians F.C. had their Christmas night out in Newcastle.



If we're doing another GNamer Meet Up, I want it to be dressed as wrestlers. I'll come as "The Ross" Sasha Banks.

Quality! I'll be Double Jay, of course. I'll get my suspenders and guitar set for the next one.

Watched NXT UK Takeover yesterday, was good fun. 

This weekend coming is STARDOM's big PPV, I got a feeling this year will be big for the promotion that I may give it a watch.

Ah, meant to post in here about WK 14. It was a good couple of shows, but I definitely felt the wrestling burnout towards the end of Night 2. I skipped a few matches on Night 1, but that's still a good 5-6 hours of wrestling to take in. Some crackers in there, mind you, with Hiromu/Ospreay being bloody brilliant, both Okada matches being amazing as you'd expect and Naito/Jay White was a good time as well.

Rumble sweepstakes?