Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic Part 505: Li'l K Breaking Down The Forbidden Door

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or you just sell that Moxley is injured (as in: not on TV for a while) from the massive beatdown he took, say Kingston was a hero for trying to help him, have Omega brag about how he took Moxley out in his own match type and don't draw attention to the fact that you fucked up the big thing you were hyping as if it's cool that you didn't deliver. If you insist on acknowledging it, Omega can say it's a sign of how great he is that he didn't even need a big explosion to defeat his rival, insult Kingston for thinking he was saving the day when the damage was already done, etc. Take it seriously because it was a god damn deathmatch because if that's not an occasion to be totally serious, what is?

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Did you even watch Dynamite, Panthera?

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HashtagSEP posted...

You gotta damage control a botch like that, you don't just pretend it didn't happen.

Pretending it didn't happen was probably the best route, but if you're going to acknowledge it then this is about the best you can do.

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Well, you can't pretend the botch didn't happen unless you pretend the entire end of the match didn't happen, is the problem.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Did you even watch Dynamite, Panthera?

Edit: I ask because you're acting like the whole thing was goofy comedy. I say "No only this part where they're making fun of Kingston". And then you proceed to continue talking like the entire thing was comedy.

So I'm just confused why you're arguing like this when it seems like you really didn't watch for the entire context of how they dealt with it, and you're willfully ignoring me explaining exactly how they dealt with it.

This isn't something where you can afford to break the tone, if it's goofy comedy at all, it's all goofy comedy. We're talking about a deathmatch for the world title in a feud between your two top stars who have an 18 month old grudge where the top heel is bringing in his buddies from outside the company to invade and help him out. If this isn't being taken 100% seriously then what ever will be? Nothing will ever be as deserving as being treated seriously at this. It's the absolute last thing that should ever have any comedy involved.

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The guy set up a bomb and everybody took it pretty seriously until the bomb was a complete joke and obviously a botch. So now you have two options: pretend the botch didn't happen or pretend that it was planned to be a shitty bomb.

They went the 2nd option which now creates a problem that if it was a shitty bomb why is Eddie acting like it's a real bomb? He was faking and now the heel is going to make fun of him for it.

It's like giving someone a spicy pepper and then they start going crazy and asking for water/milk then being like "LOL GOTCHU that was a FAKE pepper you dumb idiot".

Does it hurt the credibility of two guys beating each other up with barbed wire exploding bats? No

Does it hurt the credibility that Kenny Omega was going to literally kill two men with a bomb? Maybe?

Does it make sense that Kenny would do something to make his tough-guy enemies look like cowards/idiots? Yes

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That's just a super odd take on this, dude.

EDIT: Panthera's, not skull's

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I mean Ill admit that Kenny Omega since winning the title hasnt exactly been my favorite heel champion of all time (he makes me pine for 2019 Chris Jericho who was somehow a more serious character).

But this weeks segments was one of the few times I have thought Kenny was effective

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I admit I haven't caught it in awhile, but my impression was Kenny was always a much less serious heel to begin with, so it's completely in character for him.

Going "it was a deathmatch, deathmatches are 100% serious and sacred and now no element of the feud can be less serious ever" seems like it just completely ignores the character involved.

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Panthera posted...

This isn't something where you can afford to break the tone, if it's goofy comedy at all, it's all goofy comedy. We're talking about a deathmatch for the world title in a feud between your two top stars who have an 18 month old grudge where the top heel is bringing in his buddies from outside the company to invade and help him out. If this isn't being taken 100% seriously then what ever will be? Nothing will ever be as deserving as being treated seriously at this. It's the absolute last thing that should ever have any comedy involved.

You could've just said you didn't watch Dynamite man.

skullbone posted...

They went the 2nd option which now creates a problem that if it was a shitty bomb why is Eddie acting like it's a real bomb? He was faking and now the heel is going to make fun of him for it.

It's like giving someone a spicy pepper and then they start going crazy and asking for water/milk then being like "LOL GOTCHU that was a FAKE pepper you dumb idiot".

Eddie isn't acting like it's a real bomb. He THOUGHT it was a real bomb. And that's why he had a panic attack when the timer was down.

They are making fun of a man who thought he was going to die or get seriously hurt protecting his friend and had a panic attack over it, when it was really just a fake bomb. And if you can't see why that makes them hateable heels that need to get their asses beat, I don't know what to tell you.

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Yeah I mean I oversimplified what I was trying to say I know Eddie is saying he had a panic attack but it's still a heel laughing at a guy for a genuine reaction.

I guess a better analogy instead of a spicy pepper would be giving someone poison and then laughing at them and telling them it's fake after they freak out.

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StealThisSheen posted...

I admit I haven't caught it in awhile, but my impression was Kenny was always a much less serious heel to begin with, so it's completely in character for him.

Going "it was a deathmatch, deathmatches are 100% serious and sacred and now no element of the feud can be less serious ever" seems like it just completely ignores the character involved.

I mean, my initial reaction to this whole thing was that Kenny Omega challenging Moxley to an exploding deathmatch was kind of dumb because he doesn't seem suited for it, but they went ahead and did it. It's a stipulation that demands being serious in my eyes, because it's the most serious thing you can do. You're building a match out of using barbed wire and explosions on your opponent on top of whatever other stuff you pull out, even with a dud finale it's a stipulation built on doing potentially lethal things to your enemy. You can't get more serious than this! Why is it crazy to want it to be treated as such? If that doesn't fit the character then don't do the fucking match! I don't get why people act like it's insane to say that if a company makes decisions that put them in a position to not fully deliver a satisfying product, it's not their fault for having willingly put themselves in that position to begin with.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

You could've just said you didn't watch Dynamite man.

You could've just said you're irrationally offended by people not thinking a show you like is great but here we are.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

They are making fun of a man who thought he was going to die or get seriously hurt protecting his friend and had a panic attack over it, when it was really just a fake bomb. And if you can't see why that makes them hateable heels that need to get their asses beat, I don't know what to tell you.

Why should I buy into any beating they end up getting when this show has clearly established it's okay with making jokes out of not delivering on things it builds up?

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Panthera posted...

I mean, my initial reaction to this whole thing was that Kenny Omega challenging Moxley to an exploding deathmatch was kind of dumb because he doesn't seem suited for it, but they went ahead and did it. It's a stipulation that demands being serious in my eyes, because it's the most serious thing you can do.

They treated it seriously and then the bomb was a BOTCH. So they had to CHANGE THE PLANS and turn it into a joke from Kenny. You can't have people fake injuries with sparklers going off outside the ring. They had to justify the bomb being a piece of shit so Kenny turned it into a joke.

This is probably a waste of time to keep talking about this though because anything less than AEW opening with Eddie/Moxley's funeral is clearly not serious enough for you.

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skullbone posted...

Yeah I mean I oversimplified what I was trying to say I know Eddie is saying he had a panic attack but it's still a heel laughing at a guy for a genuine reaction.

...It's a heel. Laughing at a guy. Because he had a panic attack. Because he thought he might die. When he knew he wouldn't the whole time. Bad people make fun of good people for having genuine emotion. I don't know what to tell you man.

Panthera posted...

You could've just said you're irrationally offended by people not thinking a show you like is great but here we are.

Bro, I don't care if you like the show or the segment. The only thing I'm "offended by" is that you have it in your head it was presented one way even though if you watched the show (or read the words I typed out for you) that it wasn't presented that way at all, and that you're trying to argue with people who actually watched it about what went on, even though you're willfully ignorant of what actually happened.

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When you keep going "I can't take anything they do seriously ever again because of this," it sounds like you're trying to find ways to hate on it because it just seems so ridiculous of a reaction, so you do you I guess

And trust me, I'm far from an AEW defender

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I mean I dont think Panthera is completely off base. Kenny Omega gets a bit too cute and subtly buries his feud partners.

That said

Panthera posted...

Why should I buy into any beating they end up getting when this show has clearly established it's okay with making jokes out of not delivering on things it builds up?

Dude clearly this wasnt the plan. They planned to deliver on the stip. Once that was blown all that was left was to salvage it. Do I wish Kenny was a bit less of a doofus about it? Yes. Have I sat here and said they need to hotshot the title off of Kenny because of how damaged his current character is due to this? Yes.

But I think this was decently effective. It made me wanna see Eddie vs Omega.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

...It's a heel. Laughing at a guy. Because he had a panic attack. Because he thought he might die. When he knew he wouldn't the whole time. Bad people make fun of good people for having genuine emotion. I don't know what to tell you man.

Yeah I've been agreeing with you the whole time so Idk why you're looking at me haha. I'm saying it's a GOOD heel move to laugh at a guy for having a genuine panic attack.

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I think the issue is he has all but admitted he hasn't actually seen it, so any legitimacy his complaints may have kinda gets buried by it just seeming like an overreaction to something he hasn't even watched.

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That said, I'm with Eddv that Kenny's character has been very hit or miss for me since he turned heel, but this was definitely him at his most effective. And I kind of hate that the Good Brothers are paired up with him too, and that the finish of the Death Match was shitty entirely because of their involvement. I also would've preferred they give us any match but an Explosive Death Match.

But I don't think Omega has been that catastrophic that the title needs to be ripped from him immediately. Most people seem to be liking his character well enough.

skullbone posted...

Yeah I've been agreeing with you the whole time so Idk why you're looking at me haha. I'm saying it's a GOOD heel move to laugh at a guy for having a genuine panic attack.

Sorry! I probably just misread your post.

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I mean Kenny is a huge dork and the more they lean into his dorkiness the easier it is for me to boo him.

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skullbone posted...

They treated it seriously and then the bomb was a BOTCH. So they had to CHANGE THE PLANS and turn it into a joke from Kenny. You can't have people fake injuries with sparklers going off outside the ring. They had to justify the bomb being a piece of shit so Kenny turned it into a joke.

This is probably a waste of time to keep talking about this though because anything less than AEW opening with Eddie/Moxley's funeral is clearly not serious enough for you.

Why does "botch" mean "turn it into a joke"? That's absurd. If anything the botch makes it more important to be serious to help get back on track. I already laid out how you can mostly gloss over the shit explosion (which is fine, we know it's a botch, we don't need to have them try to pretend it was part of the story) by just having Moxley out from the beating he took. Then the deathmatch is still serious, you can still do the stuff with Kingston by saying he was freaking out, Omega can still taunt him over it by saying he tried to play the hero but was too late or some similarly non-comedic assholery, etc. I know the ending of the PPV sucked and put them in a bad spot so I'm not expecting them to have a perfect answer, they just need to get the right emotional feel.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Bro, I don't care if you like the show or the segment. The only thing I'm "offended by" is that you have it in your head it was presented one way even though if you watched the show (or read the words I typed out for you) that it wasn't presented that way at all, and that you're trying to argue with people who actually watched it about what went on, even though you're willfully ignorant of what actually happened.

I don't watch a ton of AEW (or wrestling period anymore really) but I've been following this story decently well. The problem is you just refuse to get that I don't think like you even when I spell it out. I don't care if the goofy comedy was only a small part of the whole. It existing at all is already a deal breaker. It completely kills my ability to get invested. This is a storyline that I need to see treated 100% seriously for it to add up because anything else just makes the whole thing feel absurd to me. There's a reason serious and dramatic stories usually don't have comedy built into their emotional high points, it might be able to work sometimes and it's nice that it did for you here, but for some of us it kills the mood.

StealThisSheen posted...

When you keep going "I can't take anything they do seriously ever again because of this," it sounds like you're trying to find ways to hate on it because it just seems so ridiculous of a reaction, so you do you I guess

And trust me, I'm far from an AEW defender

Or maybe, just maybe, I'm watching a segment and my first reaction is "wow I feel dumb for ever caring, fuck this company". Doing dumb shit that undermines serious moments hugely erodes future trust in the story telling. It doesn't kill it forever but it does set things up such that they need to deliver strongly on a couple of major angles to convince me they care to do so in a way I'll enjoy. The more I see a wrestling company (or video game story, or movie series, or whatever) do shit that cuts away what I found interesting, the less I find myself getting interested to begin with because I just feel like they'll ruin it anyway. Kind of like how WWE has turned a lot of people off with some of its stop/start pushes and hyping up guys like Ziggler briefly only for it to never pay off. And while WWE has had plenty of time to do more dumb shit, I don't think even Rollins/Fiend in the cell had the same level of visceral "fuck this shit" sentiment for me, though granted that's probably more due to me already having given up on WWE delivering consistently on stuff I'm enjoying than it is the relative quality of the two.

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Tbh I guess the product isn't for you then. The truth is a vast majority of people loved the segment and appreciated they made light of themselves. Kenny Omega has had a four star match with a broom, I don't know why you expected him to be serious all the time but I guess I can't begrudge you wanting something different.

To me they were being over the top asshole villains. Which worked for me.

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Panthera posted...

Why does "botch" mean "turn it into a joke"?

It doesn't have to mean that in every situation but the bomb was very clearly in "joke" status on the internet after the PPV. So they could either get themselves in on the joke or pretend it was super serious and it wasn't funny guys (even though it was funny how shitty the bomb was). Like yeah it's unfortunate the match got ruined by a dud bomb but this is really the only option they had.

Panthera posted...

Then the deathmatch is still serious, you can still do the stuff with Kingston by saying he was freaking out, Omega can still taunt him over it by saying he tried to play the hero but was too late or some similarly non-comedic assholery, etc.

Kingston was selling the bomb very hard after it went off. He was passed out in the ring so they couldn't gloss over that. The rest of the stuff you're saying is basically exactly what happened with Omega?

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Panthera posted...

I don't watch a ton of AEW (or wrestling period anymore really) but I've been following this story decently well. The problem is you just refuse to get that I don't think like you even when I spell it out. I don't care if the goofy comedy was only a small part of the whole. It existing at all is already a deal breaker. It completely kills my ability to get invested. This is a storyline that I need to see treated 100% seriously for it to add up because anything else just makes the whole thing feel absurd to me. There's a reason serious and dramatic stories usually don't have comedy built into their emotional high points, it might be able to work sometimes and it's nice that it did for you here, but for some of us it kills the mood.

Okay, then I'm sorry that heels being goofy briefly in order to make fun of the very serious idea of a man having a panic attack is a deal breaker for something you aren't even watching?

But you keep complaining that the storyline is goofy now, when it isn't, so I don't know why you think the crux of your argument has been that you personally don't like the thing. Because there's still plenty that's serious about this, and it never would have hit the emotional high point it did without the goofy comedy of Kingston and Callis making fun of Kingston like they did.

But like I said, I don't really care about if you like it or not. But presenting it like the storyline has been entirely goofy is just wrong.

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I dislike goofy comedy that's out of place in general

But I'm not sure how heels being jerky jerks is goofy comedy I guess? They're burying Eddie Kingston for panicking. It's not meant to make the audience laugh it's meant to make the audience dislike the heels.

Seemed like an excellent way to damage control all things considered.

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Yeah, I'm not even sure how it's suddenly "goofy comedy." It was asshole bully heels being asshole bully heels. If you were expecting this to turn Omega into a super serious no nonsense heel all of a sudden, I'm not sure why you expected that.

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'You just refuse to acknowledge' my man you for sure have the minority opinion here lol.

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It seems like if you had watched it you wouldn't have interpreted douchey heels as goofy comedy. This seems likes something that was lost in translation due to having read and not watched

When I think of goofy comedy I think of something meant to make the audience laugh

But maybe your problem is just with douchey heels in general and you're not explaining well. I seem to remember you saying you didn't like stuff like heels being clever to outsmart the babyface as something that makes them "credible" (because they cheated they can never be credible) either.

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Yeah, I'm done with this. You guys can keep at it with him if you want.

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We like it because it was a way to make up for the botch that was consistent with the characters. It sounds more like you basically think the deathmatch should have turned everybody into somber WW2 vets struggling with PTSD. Which, hey, if that's what you wanted, cool. You're just not gonna find much agreement, there.

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lol this last few pages

they salvaged this as best they could have

there's some real self awarewolf stuff going on here about refusing to acknowledge things though

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Last post was unreasonably snarky, sorry. Done with this discussion since it won't go anywhere new.

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Deleted posts relevant to the topic I can't read cut deeper than any snark ever could

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Deleting my posts is my way of reminding myself I decided to stop whatever I was doing

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So I guess AEW Dark Elevation is going to literally be more AEW Dark with majority signed talent vs. jobbers and a non-jobber match thrown in. Except with Big Show doing commentary.

I really don't get this choice, unless they're shortening AEW Dark. I miss old AEW Dark pre-pandemic where they actually had a ton of non-jobber matches. Like good for AEW giving these other guys a payday and exposure, but man. It gets tough to watch AEW Dark when you know every outcome of every match before it happens.

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Also, Andrade asked for his release.

Just another in a long line of awesome NXT talent they completely misused upon callup.

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Is he still with Charlotte? That might cause them problems

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Unless something has changed in the last like 2 weeks, theyre definitely still together

Theyre the horniest for each other wrestling couple Ive ever seen
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From the new Observer

While this hasnt been promoted, when it comes to time, Mansoor has one of the longest unbeaten streaks of anyone in modern wrestling. His last loss was August 23, 2019 on a house show in Sanford, FL to Dominik Dijakovic (T-Bar). Due to the pandemic, hes only had 45 matches since that date

THE STREAK
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This somehow ended on my timeline. Lmao "Guys, just reward WWE with more merch money! They'll surely give you what you want!" I been here since Zack Ryder don't tell me they're going to push someone if there's a bump in merch sales.

https://twitter.com/steviecapone/status/1370457745628012548?s=19

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I mean technically Ryder did get a push and was used more than before he started selling. It's just that he mostly got used to try and rub his popularity off on others who WWE wanted you to support.

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Appearing on TV to lose 90% of your matches and get put into a body cast while your crush emasculates you is not a push.

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I mean he did receive a literal push by Kane.

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Ryder won the US title and squashed Jack Swagger in 30 seconds

He was pushed. For a month. Then they spent four months punishing the fans who got behind him for ever liking him.
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What's even crazier is they had Swagger squash Ryder for the belt and he did absolutely nothing with it for a month except defend against Justin Gabriel.

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Curious question. Who would you consider the greatest 1 time world champion ever by WWE standards? The list looks like so...

Buddy Rogers
Ivan Koloff
Pedro Morales
Stan Stasiak
Billy Graham
Iron Sheik
Andre the Giant
Ultimate Warrior
Sgt Slaughter
Diesel
Vince McMahon
Eddie Guerrero
Chris Benoit
JBL
Rob Van Dam
King Booker
The Great Khali
Jack Swagger
Dean Ambrose
Finn Balor
Kevin Owens
Jinder Mahal
Kofi Kingston
Braun Strowman
Bobby Lashley

World titles won in other promotions not included here. And the ECW title is not a world belt.

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Graham pretty clearly IMO

Unless you mean purely kayfabe, then its Morales
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Shocked they actually granted Andrade his release. Figure it's to make Charlotte happy. But God damn, what another absolutely wasted golden talent. Hopefully he can be used somewhere else well.

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Andre

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Never cared for Andrade much. I suspect it was his booking though more than the actual guy-- looking forward to seeing him somewhere else.

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