Official WWE/ECW/WCW/TNA talk, or whatever v2

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Inferno

https://twitter.com/user/status/1774988895597261205

Still a bunch of fat to trim on that roster...im not sure I can name many of those people just by looking at the photo.

[trackercowe]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Still a bunch of fat to trim on that roster...im not sure I can name many of those people just by looking at the photo.

Stu Grayson is the only one I recognise. I'm shocked many of them are still employed. I remember Cornette went through the AEW roster on one of his podcasts, and basically 75% of the roster are nameless schlubs sitting at home cashing checks. It's a pretty sweet gig when you think about it. It's like having a no-show job on the Sopranos.

[Inferno]

Parker Boudreaux is the only one I recognize from his time on NXT. The woman used to be an announcer on NXT too.

[LIP MAN]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

The end of Raw was as good as wrestling gets.

Cody sure has been whipped a lot. This was the turn for MJF to go from bad to evil.

https://youtu.be/s5RXng3ZYaQ?si=g1XuAsX0zKWA5__g

[Paulie Walnuts]

I saw his reels on insta and posts on Twitter. He has been dropping a lot of F bombs, have not seen that before in WWE(F) even in the attitude era. It was edgy racy, it was strong language, and all those bra and panties matches make sense now, but I don't recall swearing like what he is doing right now.

I don't think I have ever seen someone play the bad guy, suck up to the crowd get them to cheer him, and turn on them at the same time like The Rock.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

Stu Grayson is the only one I recognise. I'm shocked many of them are still employed. I remember Cornette went through the AEW roster on one of his podcasts, and basically 75% of the roster are nameless schlubs sitting at home cashing checks. It's a pretty sweet gig when you think about it. It's like having a no-show job on the Sopranos.

I think this is also the second or third time Grayson has been released from the company. Other than that though, you're right. I have no idea who the other wrestlers are.

The releases and TK's tweet about Bischoff last week could be a sign that AEW might be close to a new media deal, but it's less than TK is hoping for.

I don't really agree with Cornette, though. The issue with judging the roster page is that it lists both AEW guys and ROH guys interchangeably. They could probably move on from most of the Nightmare Factory dudes though.

It's a real shame that Ogogo never amounted to anything. He had all the charisma to succeed until Cody neutered him in that stupid feud they had.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

I saw his reels on insta and posts on Twitter. He has been dropping a lot of F bombs, have not seen that before in WWE(F) even in the attitude era. It was edgy racy, it was strong language, and all those bra and panties matches make sense now, but I don't recall swearing like what he is doing right now.

I don't think I have ever seen someone play the bad guy, suck up to the crowd get them to cheer him, and turn on them at the same time like The Rock.

I think the reason it's working well too is it actually feels a bit believable.

The whole idea that The Rock felt like he was the returning hero to confront Reigns...and then was booed out of the building and the "We Want Cody" chants started makes the "Scorned Lover" reaction make sense. Combine that with the angle of it was "Disrespectful to me and my family" and it starts to make sense.

I actually think the only part that feels shoehorned is in Seth, who has history with Reigns but not really the bloodline over the last 2 years ... I actually think if they just kept Seth / Punk / Drew story a bit separate it might have been better.

I feel like Sami Zayn should have been the one that helped out Cody and could have better filled the role that Seth is playing in this. Seth was the one trying to convince Cody to challenge him, he was kind of on the Rock's side in this. It should have been Sami that said "We need to finish this, it's our job to finally end Roman's title reign" or something like that.

I do feel like there was a natural angle there where they could have had a bit of the "Bloodline Victims" vs "Bloodline" angle over the past two years play out.

Cody, Zayn, Jey vs Roman, Rock, Jimmy on Night One

Cody vs Roman & Jey vs Jimmy on Night Two

Zayn playing no role in this even though he probably had the most intense feud with Roman throughout this whole storyline feels weird to me

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I don't really agree with Cornette, though. The issue with judging the roster page is that it lists both AEW guys and ROH guys interchangeably.

..but RoH doesn't have its own TV, so they regularly appear on AEW?


That's like saying you can't evaluate the WWE roster because it lists Smackdown and Raw interchangeably. It's all the same ####.


Cornette is 100% correct about the AEW roster. It's been a constant issue since that massive WWE release after Nick Khan assumed his current postion, where AEW scooped up so many of the releases. Then I think the RoH purchase came after that. This doesn't even skim the surface of what needs to be done to the AEW roster.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

..but RoH doesn't have its own TV, so they regularly appear on AEW?


That's like saying you can't evaluate the WWE roster because it lists Smackdown and Raw interchangeably. It's all the same ####.


Cornette is 100% correct about the AEW roster. It's been a constant issue since that massive WWE release after Nick Khan assumed his current postion, where AEW scooped up so many of the releases. Then I think the RoH purchase came after that. This doesn't even skim the surface of what needs to be done to the AEW roster.

CM Punk was right, the trouble with AEW is it feels like the roster is more concerned with getting themselves over than drawing in fans.

No doubt they have talented guys, but why the hell would I tune in? If I wanted to watch quality wrestling there is an infinite amount of historic matches free online. You got to give me a reason to tune in, why does next week matter will I miss something hilarious or entertaining.

I don't watch anime for the fight, I watch it to learn what happens to the characters I care about. in AEW the stakes feel small. It didn't at first, the stakes felt huge, like every match was life or death for the company and the livelihood of the wrestlers. It just feels like the outcome doesnt matter overthere.


Think about the best angles in the last 10 - 15 years

The undertakers streak
CM Punk VS Cena
Zayne vs K.O
Daniel Bryan getting the shaft at WM
the Shield Breaks Up
Brock Lesnar is un-beatable
AJ styles' race to the top of the card
The New Day are underdogs that can't be stopped.


AEW has 1. can the company get off the ground.

[trackercowe]

The reactions to Jey Uso are crazy, same as his merchandise sales. He's organically gone over with the crowd, and could be a main eventer for years to come. Good for him, I think he's bound to take over Roman's position on the roster.

He will (and should) be the Champ within the next year.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

CM Punk was right, the trouble with AEW is it feels like the roster is more concerned with getting themselves over than drawing in fans.

Just to steer this back to the point I was making: A big reason you see guys focusing so hard on trying to get over is that their time on TV is brief and may be a week or two before they're shown again. It's bloated roster issue that I am talking about. Trimming that reduces the need to try and do too much with what they get.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Just to steer this back to the point I was making: A big reason you see guys focusing so hard on trying to get over is that their time on TV is brief and may be a week or two before they're shown again. It's bloated roster issue that I am talking about. Trimming that reduces the need to try and do too much with what they get.

And allows for more coherent story telling.

You didn't watch the Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Friends, etc or any of the other successful TV shows every week wondering "I wonder if Tony Soprano is going to be on the show this week".

AEW (and WWE) have actually both struggled with that.

It's a fine balance because you don't want to oversaturate viewers either, but I'd argue it's hard to oversaturate somebody when you're building them up as a star.

Then once they are a star they can appear less frequently (like Roman Reigns or Brock), and become more of the special attractions.

Smaller roster, consistent week to week stories, and consistent TV time is how you build starts.

Both in the Attitude era in the 90s, and this recent WWE boom came after they really trimmed down the roster, and focused on trying to build up stars with consistent time week after week.

WCW's success also came from that...the show was centered week after week around the original NWO, Sting, Goldberg, and the talented mid card with guys like Eddie, and Jericho.

Once the roster got bloated with the rest of the guys the WWE had cast off that's when the product struggled.

It's not identical but there are a lot of similarities to how AEW has struggled with roster size and managing the talent now, to the 90s when Bischoff had an open chequebook and signed all the WWE wrestlers then.

Actually makes me laugh a bit when Tony and Eric are going after one another because it's the Spider-Man pointing at each other meme a little bit. Both had some great ideas but both guys needed somebody to reign in their roster growth, and both needed to exert more control over their roster as the boss.

[Blaster86]

WWE trimmed their fat and AEW just took it all. It was silly.

[Ozy_Flame]

AEW just really needs a completely other dedicated brand for their up-and-coming talent. You get alot of indie-loving fans watching AEW because they do bring in indie guys, so it would stand to reason you could have a mix of indie and young wrestlers working on character and brand. I thought ROH would be the way, but they need to start fresh.

Also, I'm not a "cut the fat" guy, because I think some guys can transition to other roles that AEW could benefit from, such as producers, agents, coaches, marketing, even on-screen managers or characters to push the product forward (e.g. Jake Roberts).

I do think some guys just need to stop wrestling (Hardys, Jericho) and some probably need to see their contracts out (Matthews, Miro), but other than that it's a less for Tony Khan and his operations.

Just to be clear, they didn't jump on the most recent round of WWE releases. It's been quite a while since they went WWE dumpster diving.

[Muta]

I'd like to see Buddy Matthews come back to WWE and immediately feud with Dominik, injecting himself between him and Rhea and sowing chaos in Judgement Day. There could be some epic storytelling there. With Trips in charge now, it could be done really well IMO.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I don't watch anime for the fight, I watch it to learn what happens to the characters I care about. in AEW the stakes feel small. It didn't at first, the stakes felt huge, like every match was life or death for the company and the livelihood of the wrestlers. It just feels like the outcome doesnt matter overthere.


Think about the best angles in the last 10 - 15 years

The undertakers streak
CM Punk VS Cena
Zayne vs K.O
Daniel Bryan getting the shaft at WM
the Shield Breaks Up
Brock Lesnar is un-beatable
AJ styles' race to the top of the card
The New Day are underdogs that can't be stopped.


AEW has 1. can the company get off the ground.

Kind of silly to expect a company that's been around for under 5 years to have as many good angles over a 10-15 year timeframe. You should really only be comparing the past 5 years.

I'd put most of MJF's feuds prior to his face turn up with anything WWE has booked outside of the Bloodline in the last 5 years.

I also thought AEW figured out how to put on pandemic shows much better than WWE did.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I also thought AEW figured out how to put on pandemic shows much better than WWE did.

100% this. The thunderdome (or whatever it was called) was an over-produced LSD trip.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Kind of silly to expect a company that's been around for under 5 years to have as many good angles over a 10-15 year timeframe. You should really only be comparing the past 5 years.

I'd put most of MJF's feuds prior to his face turn up with anything WWE has booked outside of the Bloodline in the last 5 years.

I also thought AEW figured out how to put on pandemic shows much better than WWE did.

Considering a lot the angles he listed were built over years (or in other companies) its a bit of a stunted argument when you consider AEW's age.


I get what he was trying to say, but feel like it was an unfair comparison (and had nothing to do with my post that he quoted for it)

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Muta

I'd like to see Buddy Matthews come back to WWE and immediately feud with Dominik, injecting himself between him and Rhea and sowing chaos in Judgement Day. There could be some epic storytelling there. With Trips in charge now, it could be done really well IMO.

I'll be honest, I just want House of Black in WWE.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Kind of silly to expect a company that's been around for under 5 years to have as many good angles over a 10-15 year timeframe. You should really only be comparing the past 5 years.

I'd put most of MJF's feuds prior to his face turn up with anything WWE has booked outside of the Bloodline in the last 5 years.

I also thought AEW figured out how to put on pandemic shows much better than WWE did.

That's a fair point. May just the last 5 years should be compared. and you're right, MJF is an all world Heel. No less, why should I tune in? what is happening in AEW that I NEED to see next week.

45 year old Samoa Joe? 50 year old Edge?

The biggest story in AEW is their poor ratings and their money mark booker.
The biggest story before that was CM Punk and all the drama that followed him around. They needed to find a way to make that heat into a story worth watching.