strobogo

Man I don't think I've ever seen a more pathetic display of insecurity in a top guy than Hogan in 1996. There's a few week period where he literally just copies everything Savage is saying and doing including doing the OOOOOOHHH YEAAAAH every week IN THE PROMOS THAT SAVAGE IS STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM. If Flair is doing something wild or storming the booth, Hogan has to do it, too. There's seriously a period where if Macho says anything cool in a promo, Hogan immediately jumps in and repeats it for himself like a fucking toddler begging for attention. After he LOSES to Arn, he declares himself the new Enforcer of WCW. Heading into SuperBrawl, he has a week where he has all four members of the Horsemen on their knees begging off from him. Just him. At SuperBrawl, after decisively beating the Giant, the entire Dungeon of Doom hits the ring and he beats up the ENTIRE group. By himself. Every single member runs into the cage and gets bounced by him, one by one. The next night, he has Arn giving up in the figure four and pins Ric Flair, who isn't even in the match, at the same time. Anytime any of the guys around him do or say something cool, he immediately and blatantly tries to co-opt it. You also have more subtle shit like Arn hitting a DDT on Savage costs Savage a match, but Hogan either completely shrugged the move off entirely or no sold it just because when it happened to him. Or the week after Arn gets a very tainted win over him, he comically completely and entirely runs through Arn in the rematch the next week. I remember all this stuff being bad but rewatching it and it's so glaringly obvious that he's freaking out at a lot of WCW crowds turning on him, and Savage/Sting/Lex/Flair getting better reactions (probably especially Savage and Flair, but he seems pretty shook that Lex Luger of all people ate him up on the mic in the first or second Nitro). There's a period where literally all the other guys involved in the main event angle are getting better reactions than him and suddenly Ric Flair doesn't cut any promos for a month despite being champion and Sting/Lex completely vanish from that whole scene and wanting to be WCW champion and instead just go do the full time tag team thing and Lex goes after...the TV championship. Such a vulgar and pathetic display of ego and insecurity and it really drags down Nitro, the Clash, and PPVs that were a lot of fun previously and immediately hit a wall when Hogan's ego was hurt.

I don't think they're great together at all and in fact I 100% believe she drags him down and he's been better in every incarnation without her than he was with her.

Further, what's the benefit of shitting all over WWE and/or Vince? Athletes in actual sports usually thank the franchise they were a part of after they get cut or traded as well. It's just part of being professional.

Why wouldn't they thank WWE, though? For many if not most of them, getting to WWE is their dream and peak of their careers, they got a lot of exposure, world travel, WM sized crowds they'd never get anywhere else. There are a lot of experiences, both good and bad, that these people are only going to get working with WWE. I'd like to imagine most of these talents are less precious about shitty booking than fans are.

First of, Strowman might legit need to be put on suicide watch. Secondly, lmao at Vince having this guy murder his son at WM and then cutting him 2 months later. Hopefully Lana is not hired by AEW. She can only drag Rusev down at this stage.

I thought the Shida/Baker match was actually the biggest offender. They had 10 minutes of just awkward nothingness and then went into I think literally 10 false finishes directly in a row.

It's one thing for all the heels to continue to pound on Hogan as he's hulking up and then throw punches to feed into the sequence. It's another for every guy on the roster to stand there for the hands in pockets spot or tapping kicks instead of just punching him in the fucking mouth.

I think his whole shtick runs its course after the first time you see him have a match where he "tries". At least it did for me. We know he can wrestle like that all the time, so why doesn't he? And why are the announcers still surprised 2 years in when he actually does impressive wrestling stuff? It was all fine and dandy and entertaining when he was just doing this stuff on the outside of a match or as a third in a trio, but once he had the match with PAC, the facade of his character and gimmick were shattered but they keep up the pretenses of this cool guy who doesn't care about anything but very clearly does.

Kong was very clearly physically shot and had no business being in the ring with AEW to begin with. This was evident in her last TNA run which was 2015/2016 and she could barely move even then.

That's can't be right, I remember it popping up in early Paul London matches in ROH

No. It's a reference to Michael Jordan's entrance at games in the 90s.

Putting NJ stuff up on WWE Network would be pretty awesome for me as a fan who has Peacock built into my cable, but I can't see WWE being happy with NJ shows blowing theirs out of the water quality wise on their own network every few weeks.

When was the first this is awesome chant? The first time I remember it was 2002-2003 ROH, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was popping up on near death ECW shows or ECWA/JAPW stuff before ROH kicked off.

This nomination is offensive

Good to have a full house again. If they go back to this full time, not that I ever tuned into NXT since moving to Tuesdays and only a couple of times since moving to USA at all, Dynamite is going to crush NXT in the energy department. Page/Cage was fine. Lol at how mad Taz gets on commentary. Also lol that he named his son "Hook" and boy do I hope that's the kid's legit name and his brother's name is Shoot. Best both Bucks and Mox match I've seen in a long time, although I'm still baffled at how Nick and Matt can be doing the same gimmick and same mannerisms but one feels like a wrestling character and one feels like a bad TV show version of a wrestling character. I guess their schtick works better with a full house, but man Matt Jackson is just....can't stand what that guy is doing. Couldn't help but notice Mox seems to have fully embraced dad bod a little early. Also lmao at that scumbag Steve Keirn beard on Nick and how extra shitty his hair looked colored and combined with the beard. Battle royal was whatever. Most of the eliminations felt pretty rushed and unmemorable. Definitely not the least interested in seeing Matt Hardy in the ring in any fashion in 2021 so to see him go that deep was bleh. Lio Rush is a good pick up. I feel like Jungle Boy has been in this exact position 4 times now and nothing has come of any of them, and I definitely don't see him taking the belt off of Kenny in this run. Fuck everything related to this Cody bullshit. What fucking year is this? The usage of veteran charity to get some extra USA chants going for him was both pathetic and gross, then this asshole comes out dressed like it's the Revolutionary War. Thankfully the crowd wasn't really buying into any of this shit and hopefully they can just drop it and move on. I do like that QT wears a Charlie Harper bowling shirt every time he's on TV. So many problems with this match, from Cody taking a dozen punches from this dude who has been doing one punch kill shots, to out punching an olympic boxer, to doing a fucking vertebreaker to a dude who is only in his second match. That shitty promo that he and AEW doubled down on for a month and for that match where their countries had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Rusev looking like an absolute beast. I bet Cage would look like a real goof next to Rusev. This was the hoss battle I was hoping for. Miro looks absolutely unbeatable in AEW. Give me the 6 star classic with Omega. Felt like Baker/Shida started to fall apart somewhere mid way through, which I find to be the case in nearly every Shida match I've seen of her reign where the match just goes on forever, but the back half is just real aimless. Way too many false finishes right at the end there with what felt like 10-12 minutes of nothing going on. The right finish, but they sure took a long route to get there. Few career turn arounds as big and strong as start of AEW Britt Baker to today. Schiavone being out there to congratulate her was a real nice touch, of course made weird by JR suggesting he's smitten with her, which is not their relationship at all nor has it ever been even hinted at such a thing. Really pleased to see Sting looking as good as he did. In fact I'd say he looked better in this match than he did the last 2, maybe 3 years in TNA. And comparing Sting's performance at 62 to Hogan and Flair around that age is a pretty dramatic difference. Loved the redux of the Diamond Cutter/Death Drop spot. I don't know that I want to see Sting have more matches, but I'm very happy he's been able to go out on his own terms and look good doing it. Sting is truly one of my all time favorites and it genuinely makes me happy like a kid to see him get to rewrite his ending like that. Triple threat was fine, at this point I probably should have paused and finished the show tomorrow. I'm pretty over OC's whole deal. Did lol at Cyrus screaming SHIT SHIT running from the booth when Kenny got hit with the punch. Lmao that they name checked the AAA title but not EITHER of the TNA belts. Not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing that they can get fans chanting bullshit for a Kenny Omega finish. God Inner Circle has to be the least cool cool guy face stable and it's entirely because of Jericho and his shitty aesthetic that the rest of the group has to adopt like they're also 50 year old biker rocker fucks. How the fuck did Spears get into his chair den with special lighting in the middle of this fight lmao. Fucking dumb. Why the fuck was he singing and dancing during this? Wardlow is literally trying to stab Hager to death in a freezer and in the next segment Spears has set up a spot light for his chair and then dances when he picks up a chair like he's La Parka. I'm real tired of cinematic matches. It made sense for the start of all this COVID era with no fans and stuff, but man it's dumb as hell with a live crowd. I know the one last year was set up like this with everyone going into separate little mini movies, but I think it's dumb and makes no sense and gets way too cute for its own good. There should not have been ANY comedy in this match or the feud. It's not like the first one where it was a special deal and the more light hearted tone made sense. This is supposed to be a legit bloodfeud with attempted murders and shit. Yet at least 60% was comedy punch lines. I'm just thinking....a month ago these guys had a bloody, violent War Games where they tried to end each other's careers, MFJ threw Jericho off the top of a cage. And now this month they're having a match mostly built around comedy punch line spots to pop the crowd. I'm not trying to be some Cornette WRESTLING IN MY DAY GOD DAMN kind of dude. There's a time and a place for fun and playful wrestling and outright comedy. This certainly was neither the time nor the place for such spots. Also sucks to me that the Inner Circle won because Jericho has been an albatross in everything he's been involved with for AEW and I was hoping these guys could get the fuck away from him. Sammy's redemption arc doesn't mean anything to me because the whole thing was rushed and dumb to begin with.

It's not just him, it's EVERY ref in EVERY puro company. Absolutely baffling. And it's been going on for quite some time.

What's a wrestlemania?

?

Kimberly in the period with Johnny B. Badd might be a top ten all time most annoying humans on a wrestling program I've ever seen.

I think you can be pretty certain that "We gotta keep the Bellas happy" does not factor into any potential WWE/NJ relationship

Yeah super important to keep two retired women who are not employees and have no power within the company happy by....letting Daniel Bryan work New Japan?

It being 2021 and athletic commissions enforcing gimmick match stipulations for real lmao

Yeah this is how I feel, too. Plus so many of the big names in AEW were already in NJ against all of those same guys, or currently working with NJ anyway. There are only a handful of AEW guys that I'm interested in seeing in NJ (and it's really mostly just Rusev). Whereas with WWE, there are a whole gamut of potential matches up that could be great for everyone involved. Of course, I wouldn't expect said relationship to last very long before being completely blown up.

That's how he acts in 1995/1996 at Savage and Sting just saying they want to be WCW Champion, not even asking or demanding a title shot from Hogan. Just that they want to be champion. And Hogan's reaction is like it's some ultimate betrayal. And then when either of them actually receive title shots, he does everything he can do to tell them how unfair it is that he's not the one getting the title shot (even though he DID get a title shot during this time and didn't win the belt back). Crowds are booing him, his friends are calling him out for his behavior, but the announcers still act like he's the most heroic dude in history and it is so incongruent with everything he's doing on screen.

It's really astounding how unlikable and terrible Hogan is in late 1995/early 1996. There's all this great stuff with Sting/Lex/Savage and then Hogan is just this supremely whiny asshole always bitching about his friends' success and title opportunities even though he also gets a title shot immediately after a suspension which happened because he flipped out and attacked Giant/Nick Patrick/Doug Dillinger with a chair because Flair/Giant got title shots while being on probation like him. I've never seen another time where the other top faces repeatedly verbally put the actual top super face in his place for being a shithead. There's two incidents that particularly stand out: Hogan basically calls Macho a schemester bullshitter who stole HIS title shot for HIS title that still has HIS name on it, despite being a fucking loser who just lost to Lex for the 4th time. Macho's reaction is more or less "hey we've been through this shit over and over, get fucked, I got the title shot and I'm going to win it" and walks off and Hogan is going "HEY GET BACK HERE, YOU'RE MY FRIEND" like an absolute insane person in context of the shit he just said to his friend. Then the week Macho DOES win back the title like he said, Hulk immediately comes out celebrating like he won, which Savage directly calls him out for and completely puts him in his place, Hulk basically threatens him again, then YOU'RE MY FRIEND, BROTHER. The way this all is going really feels like Hogan is about to turn heel during this period, because there's really no other excuse or explanation for his behavior other than he's about to turn on Savage (and Sting, to some degree) over the title. Although it is in the nature of the Hogan character going back to the start of WWF Hulkamania to be a garbage friend intensely jealous of any of his friend's success who then sabotages them and for some reason the friend is always the heel in the feud that Hogan wins and moves on. But at this point, not only is Hogan immensely unlikable as the character in the storyline with other faces, but most crowds around the country are booing him anyway. Was there talk about turning Hogan around this time that he got cold feet about? He's actually way more heel acting and a real fucko than he was during the Darkside Hogan period shortly before.