I don't get not doing more unique matches on Dynamite. They all feel lackluster to me. Why not do more out of the box matches that we all know they're never doing on PPV, like Punk vs Brody King, or Mox/Danielson vs Hobbs/Starks. There are so many people on the roster that never interact and likely never will.

7 hours ago, Loss said:

I don't get not doing more unique matches on Dynamite. They all feel lackluster to me. Why not do more out of the box matches that we all know they're never doing on PPV, like Punk vs Brody King, or Mox/Danielson vs Hobbs/Starks. There are so many people on the roster that never interact and likely never will.

That's a stretch, specially for guys like Punk and Danielson who so far have worked a number of different wrestlers on TV that they haven't interacted with since and were just there to have a new interesting matchup on TV.

On 6/1/2022 at 4:01 PM, Loss said:

I don't get not doing more unique matches on Dynamite. They all feel lackluster to me. Why not do more out of the box matches that we all know they're never doing on PPV, like Punk vs Brody King, or Mox/Danielson vs Hobbs/Starks. There are so many people on the roster that never interact and likely never will.

This was one of the things that I used to love about old ECW, even when they got the terrible ECW on TNN show. You would get all kinds of matches involving Little Guido, Tajiri, Jerry Lynn, Rhyno, etc. That Mikey Whipwreck & Tajiri tag team that came out of it was great, too.

I would watch singles matches with Christian. We could use seeing Eddie Kingston pick up some victories on television. Dustin Rhodes is always fun to watch. But the TV time feels so short because so much time keeps getting given to people like Adam Cole & Britt Baker.

I just don't think that any person needs to be on the show every week. Outside of maybe the TV title (TBS I guess) if you start making it have to be defended on TV. In which case, get that shit off of Scorpio Sky.

In today's "lolwut?" news, Samoa Joe got the role as Sweet Tooth in a Twisted Metal series airing on Peacock. 

4 hours ago, Coffey said:

This was one of the things that I used to love about old ECW, even when they got the terrible ECW on TNN show. You would get all kinds of matches involving Little Guido, Tajiri, Jerry Lynn, Rhyno, etc. That Mikey Whipwreck & Tajiri tag team that came out of it was great, too.

I would watch singles matches with Christian. We could use seeing Eddie Kingston pick up some victories on television. Dustin Rhodes is always fun to watch. But the TV time feels so short because so much time keeps getting given to people like Adam Cole & Britt Baker.

I just don't think that any person needs to be on the show every week. Outside of maybe the TV title (TBS I guess) if you start making it have to be defended on TV. In which case, get that shit off of Scorpio Sky.

Weirdly it feels like they did a much better job of cycling different talent every week at the start when they had way less talent and names. 

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

In today's "lolwut?" news, Samoa Joe got the role as Sweet Tooth in a Twisted Metal series airing on Peacock. 

But voiced by Will Arnett. Weird. 

So it seems like the timeline is MJF went into business for himself no-showing the meet and greet, generated a little buzz for the PPV, and wooed Tony onto his side either at the arena or at their meeting on Wednesday? They’re going whole hog on the worked shoot aspect, but as many on here and elsewhere have pointed it, it seems like it only works if Tony, sitting behind his Tony Montana pile of Adderall, didn’t know in advance, because he couldn’t help himself.

So here are the official "rules" for the interim belt

So it's gonna be Tanahashi vs X at Forbidden Door. Mox has been building to a match against him for years now so it would make sense to culminate it in this kind of match. But TK has a lot of scenarios to play with. The least likely is MJF as that requires a fuck ton of explanation and writing to make sense, so my first gut feeling of who should get the interim belt was, as other pointed out, wrong.

Who do y'all think faces Mox in next week's main event? Miro? Wardlow? Cole? Danielson? Jericho? Eddie?

I want Excalibur to explain me those rules at the pace he usually announces the following Rampage's card.

Who faces Mox ? Someone who can lose without getting hurt by it. Cole wouldn't be a bad choice. 

Cole certainly works, though they might want to save a Moxley/Cole match for when they can promote it.  I'm more interested in when Punk is coming back.  Definitely gone for Forbidden Door.  What about All Out?  The PPV beyond that?  If he's not missing All Out they could even go the route of Tanahashi winning which lets them run Punk vs. Tana sooner rather than later.  If he's out for a while you probably need to go Mox and let him steer the ship until Punk is ready to come back.

Build MJF/Kingston as soon as posible.  They're the ones as over as neecessary + they have some previous story with Punk, so when he comes back it'll be a hot storyline for him. That said, I HATE the interim stuff. Either you're the world champion or not, there should't be any grey area for that.  If Punk's gonna return sooner than later, I would have the title vacant until his return; it doesn't make sense to crown a fake champion to just make the job to Punk at one of their first title defenses.

I am almost wanting Tana to win the whole damn thing.

11 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

That said, I HATE the interim stuff. Either you're the world champion or not, there should't be any grey area for that.

Totally agree. I find it annoying too, especially when they make a belt for it. Like, Cody was gone for a few weeks, so they crowned an "interim" champ who was not the champ but still had a belt. So what does the "real" belt means if the interim champ has also the same belt ? And he can defend it, like KENTA who defended the briefcase of #1 contender for ever when there was no US IWGP champ, which was completely stupid to me (not to mention the aggravating briefcase visual which no one should have copied). Either you are the champ and you've got the belt, either the title is vacant, either you crown a new champion. Yeah, I really don't like this new habits of having interim champs. I do not care about "But UFC does it" argument either. This is especially true in a company where the TNT title is supposed to not be a secondary title (which it totally is, and pretty much always was, let's not kid ourselves, maybe the argument could be made with the very first reign when Cody was still super over, but after that point, and especially after Miro lost it, there it is).

5 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

I am almost wanting Tana to win the whole damn thing.

I would love that too. Just give him a full summer in the US to face every dream match opponent and let him drop the title to either Punk (if he returns in time) or MJF/Kingston. Fuck it.

 

 

21 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

I am almost wanting Tana to win the whole damn thing.

Here, fixed that for you.

I like interim champions because I like the idea of the champion only being able to lose the title in the ring. It's a logical extension of the idea of titles only changing hands by pinfall or submission.

22 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

It's a logical extension of the idea of titles only changing hands by pinfall or submission.

Which doesn't make sense. If you cheat and you're DQed, you should lose your title. If you run out of the ring and don't return, you should lose your title. Which is the case in Japan and I believe also in Mexico (although titles are less important there). The title changing hands only by pinfall or submission has been a cop out for shitty finishes in US pro-wrestling for ever and honestly, I would gladly do away with it. There's an innovation AEW could have gone with at the beginning, which would have made a statement.

The Japanese way of "If you can't defend the title, you're stripped of it" is the most basic way actually. No bullshit. Of course that has other effects on the booking.

Especially since the idea of interm champs came about so boxing and MMA promoters can keep booking title matches when they can't get the champion to agree to a title fight. 

As somebody who is a big MMA fan (I have been watching since pretty much day one, when it was “NHB” not MMA) and I have a large group of friends who are also fans of MMA, and not pro wrestling…including family who actually train in the sport…

Believe me, “Interim titles” are not even necessarily all that popular with hard-core MMA fans either. @sek69 hit the nail right on the head, it’s really just a promotional tactic to try and sell PPVs, and it dilutes the importance and significance of championship titles. From where I sit, most interim champions are not seen as legitimate and I don’t know anybody who thinks they are a good idea aside from promoters.

You end up getting a guy who misses one title defense because of an injury, and the promotion ends up slapping an interim championship fight in the mix for a short time. It’s really stupid, and like I said it delegitimizes the actual legit champions.

Any other legit MMA fans around here can feel free to argue with me, but that is the way I have always seen it. I was disheartened to see that trend starting to appear in pro wrestling as well.

It's especially egregious in UFC where nine times out of ten an interim title was created because Dana couldn't get a champion to fight the guy he wanted him to so he put a belt on someone else. 

I'm a huge boxing fan and interim belts are sadly the least of the problems when it comes to issues of world titles and how promoters take advantage of them.

Skip the interim bullshit and just have the injured fighter/wrestler get a title shot when they return to action. No one should be emulating Dana White.

Titles only changing hands by pinfall or submission has led to plenty of lame cop-out finishes, although I maintain that the ending to Angle/Austin at Summerslam 2001 actually enhanced the match. But having a title change hands by countout or DQ would be even worse, as evidenced by the fact that TNA is the only company I can think of that was stupid enough to actually do it. From a practical standpoint, needing a pin or submission for a title change vs. allowing DQ/countout title changes but never actually doing them is a distinction without a difference. For that matter, so is creating an interim champion vs. vacating the title and giving the former champion a title shot immediately upon returning.

So how real is the scuttlebutt surrounding Claudio going back to WWE?

Hey that doesn't sound good

I mean this sound like a work but would one not be able to fly due to a bad knee