joeg

Correct. As a grown man I'd see through that. As a kid however I bought into it. He truly was always working the gimmick. Just as I really bought into Sandman being a drunk or Taz being a shooter or Raven being screwed up. With Aries I don't know if there was even a gimmick to work unless that's what his rants are twitter are supposed to be. You've never met or seen somebody who just carries themselves like they could hurt people? Just their posture and mannerisms give off a vibe? For example on the podcast circuit Jocko Willink, just his body language and posture alone tell you he's a dangerous man. That's the way Low Ki was. Even though he was 5'7" 150 pounds with nothing to back it up.

Its a bad sign when only 1 of your former first round picks is slated to be on your active roster next season. Almost as bad as having a title vacated the day after crowning your first champion as part of a story line.

Dude I met Low Ki at an ECWA meet and greet in 02 and was flat out intimidated by the way he carried himself. Oh by the way I was a 6'2" 255 pound 16 year old 3 sport athlete varsity athlete and part time juvenile delinquent. The bass in his voice, firm handshake, straight posture and slightly dickish demeanor all scared the shit out of me despite his small stature. He just carried it like that. So for somebody to say they didn't buy into to him I just don't understand.

Low Ki. Walking away. The 2001-2002 run Low Ki had on the East Coast indies was amazing. As I said in the Austin Aries thread, at 5'7" 145 pounds (so not much bigger than Rey Jr.) with no real background in competitive sports at a high level, people bought in to Low Ki being the baddest man in the card. They way he worked, talked, moved and carried himself all got him over as a legit badass. That's a worker. That's having a physical charisma and a presence. I can only think of a handful of guys with very limited legit background that everybody bought into as legit. Taz and Shibata would fit in that category. Aries could definitely draw heat. I don't know if it was the right type of heat however. It was more the sort of heat where I took a bathroom break, went to the concession stand, or changed the channel. When he was working as a babyface, he was just another small flippy vanilla indie guy. One who messed up less than most of the others but still. Does anybody here think Aries could have pulled off Low Ki's BattlArts-esque matches against Dragon? Or the wild crazy brawls with Necro and Sami Callihan? Or the potential match of the decade against Rey Jr? Or the Matrix strike exchange with Red? Or his runs in NOAH and NJPW? I doubt it. If Aries were capable of great matches on that level he would have had them. I think a fairer comparison threat would be Aries and Davey Richards. One or two good matches and the rest were over hyped by the ROH crowd.

Great post. Is it a done deal he's going to the Jets? There's a lot of teams trying to trade up to that spot and if they trade down a handful of spots Jones or Lance will still be there. And Mills from Stanford will be around in the late first/second. It will be interesting to see what they do and what New England does. And who gambles on Trey Lance.

You can't claim somebody wasn't a draw because they didn't draw well when they were on top in IMPACT. Christ Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Kevin Nash, Sting, Kurt Angle didn't draw well when they were on top in IMPACT. That's my point. Its like the people saying Sam Darnold is a bust because he lost a bunch of games and turned the ball over on the Jets. Everybody who's played quarterback for the Jets in the last 20 years including Hall of Famers like Bret Farve lost a lot of games and turned the ball over. Its an unsound argument. It was almost impossible to draw well in IMPACT for nearly 2 decades, just as its been impossible to win games playing for the Jets. You can't claim somebody can't draw based on their time in IMPACT just as you can't claim somebody is a bad quarterback based on their time on the Jets. Short term private contractors aren't responsible for the short comings of organizations with a decades long track record of failure. That is my point.

Exactly. They started to get their shit together during the Pentagon vs Callihan feud and it continued during the Tessa vs Callihan feud and Moose title chase. So even though they weren't really drawing well, they were still doing better with Tessa on top then they were 5 years prior. So @rovert's claim that she wasn't a draw in IMPACT is erroneous.

She has more talent than literally every woman in NXT and AEW combined.... and of course her run in IMPACT didn't draw, nothing IMPACT did for like 15 years drew. Since when does being an unprofessional pain in ass prevent talented people from getting work in the wrestling business?

The carniness of it.... was it money that she was owed or was she straight holding the belt for ransom? Or a mix of both?

I thought that was similar to the Mike Awesome ECW situation or Brock Lesnar NJPW situation, where she hadn't been paid or there was a dispute about what she was owed.

@sek69 What makes Tessa unemployable? She's supposedly straight out of Mean Girls but she's so fucking good does that really matter?

No. Just no. Low Ki is one of those rare instances where despite being small in stature in having no real athletic background, everybody bought into him being a legit tough guy based solely on the way he worked and carried himself. I don't think anybody ever bought into anything Aries did.

Huh, I did not know that. I knew he had some weird personal beliefs, didn't know what exactly or even care. In my own defense I never said he was a mensa candidate.

@C.S. Low Ki and Aries aren't in the same boat. Low Ki can work. And by all accounts he's a stand up guy. He's certainly hurt his career by marching to the beating of his own drum but that doesn't make him a bad guy. Aires is a piece of shit. I've never known somebody who had a nice thing to say about him. Not personally. Not on the message boards. Not on social media. There's a big difference. And Aries never had a good match where he wasn't carried.

They had me interested in shelling out 40 bucks for an Impact PPV. With multiple inter-promotional matches and multiple titles on the line all they had to do was not do anything hokey or stupid in the build up and I was going to buy it. Then the last three weeks of over poorly acted nonsensical melodrama on AEW caused me to lose interest. Combine that with adding Mauro to play play and you would now have to pay me to watch this.

What I don't get is why we need x number of pay per views a year? That's led to what wrestling's been for the for the last 25 years which is PPVs that need a big match rather than a big match that needs to be on PPV. I look at that as Eric Bichoff's first mistake. And everyone else followed suit. And now UFC is doing it. So AEW increasing to 6 PPVs a year wouldn't right the ship.

Ooooh yeah. Ok. I'm thinking of their Korakuen match from April. Kobashi's big singles matches always seemed to have a brutal, believable finish.

The RKO checks all the boxes for a great finisher- its safe, anybody can take it regardless of size or ability, it looks cool and dangerous (in the context of fake pro wrestling), and there are a million clever ways to set it up or counter it. @KawadaSmile If I remember correctly Kobashi was in the air mid leg drop or mid moosault when Hansen clobbered him, right?

The Doc vs Kobashi match from August 93. That was the craziest most brutal finish I've ever seen. It would have been a good match anyways but that finish took it to another level. I feel like every Randy Orton TV match has a clever finish

I think Jalena could have value as a job guy or a heel manager. He's willing to take insane bumps and has a good mind for promotion. But that's it.

I think there's a much bigger dip in the domestic talent than the ganjin talent after the split. The foreign talent in the RWTL was still solid in the early 00s- Dr. Death, Jamal, Rosey, Dudleys, LA Park, Mike Awesome, Kea, Road Warriors, Akebono, Justin Credible, Abby, Joe Doering, Matt Bloom, etc. Its a big step down from Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody, Jimmy Snuka, the Funks, etc. No longer hall of fame caliber but still solid. But the drop off on the domestic talent side went from Omori and Takayama being dead last in 98 to Anjo and Nagai being middle of the pack 5 years later. That's not even solid or respectable.

Lets remove Daniels, Ivelise and Drake and add- Alex Reynolds Alan Angels The Acclaimed Brandon Cutler The Gunn Club Top Flight Kip Sabian Lee Johnson Matt Sydal Preston Vance Nyla Rose Abandon You don't need a dozen job guys and a dozen small flippy guys. A handful of each will do.

@cm funk hey, if I watched WWE regularly it would drive me to drink. Tomorrow night I may need a few. I've lost like 50 pounds as a direct result of bars being closed during the pandemic.

Maybe that's why I disliked it so. I've used the past 6 months with bars being closed as an opportunity to cut back and start living clean. I may have enjoyed this show more had I gone through a few.

Crazy I can't believe so many people here loved it that much. The show had 2 really good matches, 2 kinda fun matches. and 3 not so good matches. Only the main event had any sort of logical or meaningful build up, back story or heat. There was twice as much filler as wrestling. And none of the filler hyped up any of the matches or explained the back story to the matches. Probably because the backstory was so thin with most of the matches. My eyes are still hurting from all the hard cuts. I guess the past decade has lowered the bar to a point where a major WWE show with 2 really good matches and 2 fun matches qualifies as greatest ever despite not being a good overall show.