2021 Pro Wrestling Thread

Plus their bodies take less damage, they get more time at home and/or can pad their bank accounts by appearing at secondary promotions.

 

As a counterpoint, I don't think Cole, Punk and Danielson will be portrayed or seen as "WWE guys," even if their WWE time is more than their ROH or Indies time at this point. TNA would do that over and over again - "I've come here from Up North to cause trouble!" - which always struck me as stupid.

That being said, I still think the best free agent AEW could sign, now that they have Punk, is Randy Orton.

 

Exactly.

Not a chance in hell Vince would allow Dean Ambrose to slum around a deathmatch with Nick Gage.

Jon Moxley? Tony Khan probably told him: "You go have fun with friends and be back by Wednesday, OK?

 

there’s already been rumors FTR’s less than thrilled. Grass isnt always greener.

Honestly though most of the AEW guys that aren’t getting much TV run now are the ones who shouldn’t have been on to begin with. With the talent influx, its been a better show the last 6 months. Its noticably different to me, aside from the odd Brock Anderson main event

 

MJF, the master of heat. Goes after the Pillman family in Cincy, calls Brian Jr.'s mom "Methanie" and says he'll do to Jr.'s career like what his mom should have done when she was pregnant and abort it.

 

I was just talking about from a sheer numbers and time invested standpoint.
Like MJF has spent two years building his reputation as one of the bright young stars of the next generation. His feud with Jericho is finally ending as they're about to reset after this latest PPV, and he's ready for a world title run. Now here come two big-name main eventers (Punk and Danielson) who vault in front of him by necessity, and he's shuttled down the card for another year. Suddenly it's two or three years down the road and he's still spinning his wheels there.
And that's a guy who is right on the cusp. Double or triple that frustration for the guys a couple of steps lower on the card, and the old glass ceiling starts to form all over again. It's not a problem for them yet, since business is hot, but it's something they'll need to manage very carefully in the near future.

 

That's the other half of it, too. There have been a few guys who made the jump to big fanfare and then they've gotten lost in the weeds (FTR, Big Show, Matt Hardy, even Christian). A glut of talent is a great problem to have, but eventually those guys are going to look around and realize they're doing the same thing they were on the other side of the fence.

 

Heel side entrance?

 

They were switching up the portals last night ... Punk came from that one as well at the start, but Hobbs and Hook came out of the left side. Perhaps the one stationed near the commentary table is the heel portal, so it'll depend on the arena set up for the night (ramp on right or left side of TV screen).

 

If they think the smarks have decided they “know” something about a wrestler depending on which portal they use to enter the arena, it makes sense to change them up — or even to do away with the internal labels entirely and just have wrestlers come out of whichever side comes up randomly.

 

It is kinda amusing to have babyface and heel portals considering that some territories back in the day used to have babyface and heel locker rooms. And sometimes, that's how fans would know who to cheer for.

Someone (I think it was Heenan, but I could be wrong) wrote in one of his books about how paranoid Verne Gagne was about kayfabe. One time, he was screaming "KAYFABE!, KAYFABE!" in an airport because some babyfaces and heels were lined up at the ticket counter. Heenan thought it was crazy, since it was 3 a.m. and the only person in the terminal was the ticket agent, who had no idea what was going on. Another time, they had different locker rooms, but shared a hallway, and the wrestlers were chatting with each other beforehand. Suddenly, some fans walked by a different corridor, and Verne had the wrestlers pretending to brawl in the hallway to guard kayfabe, and one of the wrestlers ended up getting hurt.

 

I love Adam Cole. I do. Seeing Tony tower over him in that little exchange about Dr Baker….. woof. I’d try to avoid stuff like that if I was booking