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[Bigdoggsteel]

10 hours ago, Miller11 said:

I’m a big Cornette fan. I absolutely believe his joke was just outdated rather than with any racist intent.

He is very scathing of those who he feels make a mockery of wrestling. Anyone who indulges in invisible hand grenades, dickflips and death matches has felt the sharp end of his tongue. He is critical of what he calls “cosplay video game wrestlers”, including, but not limited to The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega - he dislikes overly choreographed bouts with too much visible cooperation, too many false finishes and a lack of logic. He critiques these matches sometimes harshly, but consistently and thoughtfully.

This has put him on a collision course with the very vocal (or at least twitter active) fans of these styles. He is of course massively outspoken and won’t back down from an argument. The narrative they like to peddle is that he is “toxic” and has no place in wrestling. Lagana addressed a twitter outrage a couple of weeks ago when he was accused of “mocking suicide victims” when someone unearthed a quote from a while back he has uses frequently before and since, namely that someone should be “took out into the parking lot and hung”, which is obviously just hyperbole. He was annoyed at the fact Lagana took it so seriously when he felt it was just a case of bandwagon jumping by his detractors. Apparently he told Lagana during a phone call after the Power commentary incident that “it wasn’t fun any more” and he basically didn’t want the hassle. I think there was also an element of annoyance that Lagana was scapegoating him having failed to pick up on it in post production.

He certainly doesn’t need the money, and has for a long time said he will only take bookings that he will enjoy doing. He consulted with Tony Khan before AEW got going and told him “I’m the only person you can trust is telling you the truth because I’m not looking for a job”. It’s a shame for the fans who enjoyed his commentary, and anyone with a wrestling show really ought to try and pick his brains. NWAs first show with him gone was horrendous.

His biggest crime was not understanding that he has pissed people off so much they would obviously claim to be outraged and offended.

 

Just now, DE. said:

I thought his "joke" was in poor taste to be honest, and he certainly has said some racist things in the past (there's a video floating around on YouTube which is absolutely indefensible) which doesn't help his cause. With that said I don't think Cornette is inherently racist and IMV the onus is on the NWA Power editing team to remove anything like that from the show before it's uploaded. These shows were literally done weeks in advance, so there is absolutely no excuse for not catching something like that and editing it out. As soon as I heard it I cringed and knew it wouldn't end well. If NWA have nobody with the common sense to hear something like that and realise you can't say something like that in 2019 then they need to hire somebody smarter to go through their shows before they air. 

Unfortunately for Cornette the wrestling business has passed him by. He's still stuck in the "good old days" and can't adapt to what wrestling is nowadays. He's got a great mind for the old school part of the business but he doesn't seem to grasp that it's an extremely small niche within the industry nowadays. As Brian Zane said in his video about Cornette blocking him on Twitter, wrestling never stands still and you can't go backwards. Promotions need to keep up with the times and whilst a specialist, retro show like NWA Power will always have a set of fans, it will never be as big as the likes of WWE or AEW. It's not 1985 any more, and it's important for shows to pull in the younger demograhic as well as the older demographic. You'll only do limited business if you're focused on pulling in fans from the 80s.

For the record, the "cosplay" argument Cornette makes is baffling to me when all wrestling is cosplay, and it always has been! These people are literally pretending to be fighters. The NWA show is cosplaying the 1980s for goodness sake. It's a silly and nonsensical argument. 

Cornettes arguments about cosplay wrestlers and comedy stuff doesn't add up really. Personally I'm not a fan of too much flippy stuff, but that's just a preference. Cornette himself was a comedy manager I would say, I mean look back at him with the racket. Plus, whilst its more grounded, NWA has it's moments on par with anywhere else. Look at Damien Sandows flesh colored trunks and pink knee pads. Thunder Rosa is clearly meant to have something supernatural going on. My god, look at Colt Cabanas finishing pin for heavens sake, it's ludicrous. You need a mix. 

[DE.]

Just now, Bigdoggsteel said:

Ya I knew about Cornette, but I didn't watch the new episode. A lot on Twitter slating it too. Aldis denies they changed the show and if he is lying, that is bad form. They should have just played the remaining Cornette episodes if he didn't say anything else controversial.

To be honest i didn't cop the comment as racist when I listened, but in hindsight in this day and age, it probably was bad. Even if he said french fries instead of friend chicken... What do you think? 

The fried chicken comment made it worse (although I don't think he was saying it to be racist, it's just a common food, particularly in his neck of the woods) but a joke about famine isn't exactly good form either. I personally wasn't offended by it, but if I was editing the show I still would have cut it out knowing full well it would likely offend people and is just out of place nowadays. 

As for Aldis saying that episode was going to air no matter what - not sure I believe him, but even if that is true it's strange to me. They made no effort to let anybody know that this week's show was going to be wildly different to previous shows. There was no prior advertisement of an "empty arena match" and they had been plugging the Thunder Rosa MMA segment as a seperate YouTube release... so I'm not really buying it. Some of those segments may have aired on a normal episode, but the whole show? Not convinced. You're telling me it's just a coincidence that after the Cornette controversy the very next show has absolutely no Jim Cornette on it? Hmmm...

Just now, Bigdoggsteel said:

Cornettes arguments about cosplay wrestlers and comedy stuff doesn't add up really. Personally I'm not a fan of too much flippy stuff, but that's just a preference. Cornette himself was a comedy manager I would say, I mean look back at him with the racket. Plus, whilst its more grounded, NWA has it's moments on par with anywhere else. Look at Damien Sandows flesh colored trunks and pink knee pads. Thunder Rosa is clearly meant to have something supernatural going on. My god, look at Colt Cabanas finishing pin for heavens sake, it's ludicrous. You need a mix. 

Exactly. It comes off as Cornette having some extreme cognitive dissonance when it comes to what he perceives as "real wrestling" and what he perceives as "fake wrestling". His arguments simply don't hold water for me, and if anybody challenges him with logical arguments he just blocks them. I actually agree with some of his criticisms, particularly on false finishes, but many of his arguments have huge holes in them. 

[Miller11]

You can’t take the blanket statement that Cornette hates comedy as gospel. He has performed, booked and praised comedic elements frequently. He dislikes Omega for his match against a blow up doll. He dislikes Janela for having matches against the invisible man. He dislikes Joey Ryan for the dick flip. He dislikes Orange Cassidy for his entire routine. Dislike is not a strong enough word actually. He is furious about such things and holds a long lasting grudge. His explanation is that such things make a mockery of the wrestling business. I find all the above stupid and completely unentertaining, it doesn’t boil my piss like it does Cornettes, but then I haven’t worked 50 years in the business. There’s a world of difference between these sort of spots and the comedy aspects of the eras of the past though. He was asked specifically about some more comical aspects of the WWE when he was there (exactly what escapes me) and says he wasn’t crazy about them either.

On the death match stuff, he has never liked hardcore wrestling, he calls people idiots who jump through light tubes or who injure themselves leaping off basket ball hoops (Marko Stunt), or use staple guns (Jimmy Havoc). It’s quite ironic that he brought New Jack to prominence in Smoky Mountain by telling him to “go out there and piss off white people” before he went to ECW. The Gangsters stuff was edgy as hell.

His opinions on modern matches are much less vitriolic. His criticism is more constructive. People pick up on sound bites but he’s raved about PAC, Jericho, Cody, Hangman Page, Britt Baker,  Nayla Rose, Awesome Kong, Dustin... he’s always been a fan of SCU, but hasn’t always thought their AEW matches were great. Sammy Guevara has clearly grown on him over the weeks. He describes Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus as stars, and says he’d love to work with Marq Quen and he would get him over as his champion. He said MJF was a better heel than even him, and there is something there with Darby Allen. There’s plenty of good stuff he says about all the above, but when he sees competitive matches between Mismatched opponents, matches going too long, people kicking out of ridiculously good moves only to be pinned by a lesser move later, rules and logic being defied, he calls it out because it’s not to his taste. The claims that he blindly hates are lazy.

[Bigdoggsteel]

I would agree with him about a lot of stuff above, but at the end of the day it's just his preferences for what he does and doesn't like. 

I know wrestling can be ridiculous, but I will be honest with ye, I wouldn't want my girlfriend to walk in and catch me watching Sonny Kiss or Joey Ryan doing his dick flip. Although I would feel the same about death match stuff, hate it. I wouldn't describe Omega and Moxley as a death match because it was well controlled and they used fake glass. But ya, Sonny Kiss, no, just no. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by Bigdoggsteel

[DE.]

He literally keeps himself relevant through over the top found bytes tbf. It's basically his entire gimmick at this point. 

Will be interesting to see where he pops up next. It certainly won't be AEW as he's been consistently critical of Kenny Omega (and the Bucks to a lesser extent). 

[Miller11]

It would be amazing to see him in AEW just to see twitter explode!

He has stated numerous times he has no desire to work anything like a full time schedule, just one of many reasons NWA was a good fit for him. He might go back when the furore dies down, but I think he will be happy enough doing his podcasts and what not for the foreseeable.

[DE.]

There were a couple of incidents on this week's Dynamite which highlighted a consistent problem AEW has - thinking the fans know more than they actually do. 

Cody was attacked by three people, who were later revealed to be "The Blade", "The Butcher" and "The Bunny". Problem is nobody in the crowd and few people at home knew who they were. Even on commentary JR was confused, asking "who is that?", whilst Excaliber just kept repeating "THE BLADE" over and over, without giving any context or explanation as to who he or any of the others were. At one point JR even prompted Excaliber to elaborate by saying "we haven't seen these men in AEW before, have we?" and Excaliber STILL didn't take the hint. "The Bunny" is actually Allie who has been wrestling in AEW anyway, but this is a total gimmick change (from face to heel as well) which hasn't been explained in the slightest. Just confusing all around. 

Second incident was the build up to Jericho Vs. Scorpio Sky - or rather, the lack of. Scorpio is a 17 year veteran getting a huge opportunity off the back of last week... which wasn't shown in any meaningful way. No hype package, no sit down interview - hell, not even a ring or backstage interview. The commentators mentioned it a few times but once again AEW are just assuming fans know everything about Scorpio Sky's history when that just isn't the case. They need to produce the show as if it's aimed at people who know nothing about what these wrestlers have done before they arrived in AEW - otherwise you risk alienating people who don't know and feel like there's too much to catch up on in order to get the full experience.

The rest of the show was OK. I liked the main event despite the lack of build up, the opening Jericho celebration segment was great and MJF/Hangman and Omega/Pac were solid matches (although really the sort of matches that should be saved for PPV with some actual buildup). The Dark Order vignettes are really well produced too. Didn't care for the opening women's match at all, Lucha Bros being beaten by Best Friends seemed strange, and the Cody beatdown & Dustin Rhodes segments fell flat. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by DE.

[Vinjay]

5 hours ago, Miller11 said:

It would be amazing to see him in AEW just to see twitter explode!

He has stated numerous times he has no desire to work anything like a full time schedule, just one of many reasons NWA was a good fit for him. He might go back when the furore dies down, but I think he will be happy enough doing his podcasts and what not for the foreseeable.

What he said about Justin Roberts annoyed some people more than the other stuff. He also said people were reacting like he had been murdering babies which is kinda how he treats Vince Russo. 

I don't like wrestling that's watered down personally. While I don't care for certain styles as much as others at least it isn't watered down. I guess you could say kicking out of multiple finishers waters the product down but that's become an issue practically everywhere. If they are gonna start putting women in cages (they intend to bring in "better" talent according to Omega) it's gonna be even more of a problem. Can't see women bleeding all over the place even if it's fake bloof. Hardcore wrestling can be somewhat watered down when there's too much (liked the Omega/Moxley match but sometimes felt like violence for sake of violence and I didn't buy into Omega's sadism act) but don't do matches that were built on violence like HIAC and deliver watered down rubbish which is what WWE does. Women being pushed again is a problem there because treating them the same as men waters down the hardcore aspects.

[Bigdoggsteel]

What I would say is that if you took Jericho out of AEW you would basically have a suped up version of Impact. Jericho is giving it the star quality. Lucky they got him....

[DE.]

AEW are basically using Jericho as a star name/focal point to build new stars. They obviously have Moxley/Ambrose as well which is a big get for them. Cody has a little bit of star power as well, although not as much as the other two.

Omega and the Bucks are big names to people who follow wrestling seriously, but not so much to casual viewers. They have the potential to be big stars but as of yet they aren't being showcased in a way that makes them feel huge. That's part of my problem with the way they are booking Omega at the moment. Yes, it's great that he's willing to put people over and work with people lower down the card, but in order for the rub to be effective he needs to be built up first as a legitimate star. I don't think AEW has done that with him yet. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

5 minutes ago, DE. said:

AEW are basically using Jericho as a star name/focal point to build new stars. They obviously have Moxley/Ambrose as well which is a big get for them. Cody has a little bit of star power as well, although not as much as the other two.

Omega and the Bucks are big names to people who follow wrestling seriously, but not so much to casual viewers. They have the potential to be big stars but as of yet they aren't being showcased in a way that makes them feel huge. That's part of my problem with the way they are booking Omega at the moment. Yes, it's great that he's willing to put people over and work with people lower down the card, but in order for the rub to be effective he needs to be built up first as a legitimate star. I don't think AEW has done that with him yet. 

My view on that would be that he was number 1 in the PWI list last year, if you don't about him, are you really even a wrestling fan? 

I wonder how far ahead AEW are planning? I feel they need a few huge PPVs next year to really show that they are here to stay. Omega winning the title is surely on the cards for next year

Also, any word on a midcard title? Think a TV title would be good 

[DE.]

Yes they are planning to have a mid-card title at some point in the future, not sure they've settled on when but it's definitely needed. I thought they would have had one set up for the opening show to be honest. A title is an easy way to begin strong character development and establish goals. It's why WWE has had so many (too many at times). I think WCW had it about right back in the day when they had the Cruiserweight, TV, US, Tag Team and Heavyweight titles. AEW could probably do with one less than that but otherwise that is what I'd be aiming for. 

My guess is that AEW have some locked in ideas for the future but are remaining flexible. Card subject to change and all of that. I reckon they have a solid idea of where they are heading for the next year at least, but they are very reactive to crowd response (the total opposite to WWE) and obviously have to account for potential injuries, new signings, etc. 

In regards to casual fans, I imagine most of them don't even know what the PWI rankings are! They just turn on their TV to watch some wrasslin' and when they're done turn it off and largely forget about it. Not the kind of fan that's going to invest big in a promotion, but at the same time the type of fan who is going to massively boost your TV numbers (although not necessarily PPV). The only place people have really been able to watch Omega in the past few years is New Japan and every so often in ROH. Unless people are seeking him or those companies out directly he won't have been on their radar. Essentially the 600k fans AEW lost between their debut and now are those casual fans who didn't understand what they were watching and tuned out. 

As a side note I'm still not sold on the win-loss system they have going on. I'm not sure it's necessary or helpful to have wrestlers' win/loss records displayed before every match. I wouldn't mind if they had it on their website, but I'm not sure it needs to be broadcast so intrusively every time a match happens. 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2019 by DE.

[Vinjay]

20 hours ago, DE. said:

As a side note I'm still not sold on the win-loss system they have going on. I'm not sure it's necessary or helpful to have wrestlers' win/loss records displayed before every match. I wouldn't mind if they had it on their website, but I'm not sure it needs to be broadcast so intrusively every time a match happens. 

I agree somewhat. In the age of information overload statistics ought to be seen as uncool.

[DE.]

Just now, Vinjay17 said:

I agree somewhat. In the age of information overload statistics ought to be seen as uncool.

There is that, but I think it also puts pressure on people not to lose too often as it'll show up every time they come out. There are some wrestlers who aren't jobbers whose records read as having mostly losses. Even guys like Omega and Hangman Page don't have very good records and they are supposed to be two of the best in the company. AEW have an edict to not have DQ finishes either, which means when they put on high calibre matches (as they often do) top wrestlers are beaten and it's added to their record which makes them look less impressive in future.

I just don't think wrestling fans care that much about statistics. It might have made sense in an era where people still believed wrestling was real (basically the 80s and early 90s) but in the modern day pretty much everybody knows it's entertainment - especially AEW's audience. It's more about storylines and having great matches than it is about stats and rankings. Every time a company has tried to do this kind of thing (TNA a few years back and even WWE briefly a while ago) it's fallen flat on its face and been abandoned fairly quickly. 

Who knows, maybe AEW will make it work, but for me it just seems like extra effort for little gain and a lot of restrictions imposed as a result. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

Ya, I agree. I think the Win loss stuff puts pressure on them not to have some look like absolute mugs, but the flip side is that is that someone probably has to be. I think that's why Best friends have won their last 2 matches, the second against Lucha bros. BFs win/loss before that was so bad. How you balance this I don't know. I think you can make wins and losses meaningful without stats. WWE is stupid because they book it so poorly that it just doesn't matter. 

What makes the whole thing even more stupid is they include tag team matches, which dilutes the stats for both singles guys and tag teams. 

It needs to be dropped or really ironed out. I mean what will it look like for someone like Omega is 5 years? 

Edited December 2, 2019 by Bigdoggsteel

[DE.]

From what I read apparently the stats are going to be reset annually. So the slate is effectively wiped clean yearly. Again I don't really see the point, and just strengthens my belief that it should be dropped or at the very least pushed into the background. 

[DE.]

AEW took a massive drop this week, down to 663k viewers, whilst NXT scored 810k. NXT appears to be holding its audience, but a 300k drop for AEW is pretty brutal. I personally didn't think this week's Dynamite was very good, but that's still a scary loss of viewers. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

16 hours ago, DE. said:

AEW took a massive drop this week, down to 663k viewers, whilst NXT scored 810k. NXT appears to be holding its audience, but a 300k drop for AEW is pretty brutal. I personally didn't think this week's Dynamite was very good, but that's still a scary loss of viewers. 

Well in fairness NXT have gotten some big hitters on board in Balór and Owens. Keith Lee is a superstar too, as is Adam Cole. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Jericho is doing a lot of heavy lifting with AEW. Take him out and there isn't much I would be interested in. Early days though I suppose.  

[DE.]

Yeah I guess, it was also Thanksgiving eve so always the chance for some strange ratings in the US. This week will give a better idea of the state of play. NXT have gone in hard with established WWE stars, which AEW obviously can't do. My concern (as I've already said) is that the stars I feel they should be building to increase their audience (Omega, Cody, the Young Bucks, Pentgon Jr & Rey Fenix) are being treated like they are already "mainstream" stars and therefore able to take losses to give others the rub. I don't think that is the case and for a national audience they first need to prove these guys are stars before booking them in consistently vulnerable positions.

Also I don't feel like Moxley has had much direction lately. He (and most of the rest of the roster) need some proper storylines to sink their teeth into. AEW often has a lot of good matches on Dynamite, but outside of the Inner Circle there isn't a whole lot of other storylines going on.  

 

[Bigdoggsteel]

I think they need to put the title on Moxley next. Not sure how I would book that, but he's the name they need with the strap. 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Bigdoggsteel

[DE.]

I reckon Jericho will have the title for a while yet, unless ratings really start to tank in which case they may decide to shake it up. 

Mox should definitely be in the title picture soon though as other than Jericho he's the biggest name they have by some distance. There's still no mid-card singles title at the moment so it's not like he can hold or challenge for any other strap. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

3 minutes ago, DE. said:

I reckon Jericho will have the title for a while yet, unless ratings really start to tank in which case they may decide to shake it up. 

Mox should definitely be in the title picture soon though as other than Jericho he's the biggest name they have by some distance. There's still no mid-card singles title at the moment so it's not like he can hold or challenge for any other strap. 

No, they won't take it off Jericho anytime soon, but as you said, Moxley is just floating around. I think his random "death match light" encounters will go stale though, so they need to do something with him. I wouldn't be putting a mid card title on him anyway. I think that would be good for someone like Pac or Page, or at a push Allin or Guevara, but a cruiserweight title would be better for the latter. 

[DE.]

Another clip-heavy episode of NWA Powerrr this week. It had more matches/live segments than the last episode (which means more than zero) but there was still a clear effort to limit Cornette's contributions as much as possible. He wasn't shown on camera at all except at the very end, although his commentary was on the live segments. They also showed some "unaired" footage which assumedly was from last week's binned episode. Suggests that the excuse from Aldis last week about episode 8 being 'normal' was BS. They obviously had a bit more time to edit this week's so they were able to throw in a small amount of live segments, but only where Cornette is nowhere to be seen on camera. They also thanked Cornette at the end of the episode, which is hilarious considering his recent comments.

The only positive is that there will be a totally new batch of episodes now, so it should be back to normal. Just a question of how much momentum they've lost in the last two weeks.

Edited December 4, 2019 by DE.

[Miller11]

Just now, DE. said:

Another clip-heavy episode of NWA Powerrr this week. It had more matches/live segments than the last episode (which means more than zero) but there was still a clear effort to limit Cornette's contributions as much as possible. He wasn't shown on camera at all except at the very end, although his commentary was on the live segments. They also showed some "unaired" footage which assumedly was from last week's binned episode. Suggests that the excuse from Aldis last week about episode 8 being 'normal' was BS. They obviously had a bit more time to edit this week's so they were able to throw in a small amount of live segments, but only where Cornette is nowhere to be seen on camera. They also thanked Cornette at the end of the episode, which is hilarious considering his recent comments.

The only positive is that there will be a totally new batch of episodes now, so it should be back to normal. Just a question of how much momentum they've lost in the last two weeks.

It was very strange. All this and then they do a thank you piece to camera for him. 

[DE.]

I'm already getting consistency headaches watching AEW Dark. Apparently it was supposed to be Excalibur and Shanna on commentary this week but Shanna is out because Nyla Rose attacked her at some kind of fan event. The response from AEW was apparently to punish Rose by putting her on commentary instead. OK?

Brandon Cutler's gimmick is "I play Dungeons and Dragons" which is amusingly pointless.