cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Big Red Machine wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:12
And I'm saying I think there is a huge difference between a match that is "a lot of fun" and something I'd consider a perfect match.
Sure, but like i said in the other topic, a match that is not fun or entertaining is not a perfect match either. 10/10s don't all have to be comparable to each other, so when we're talking 'perfect match', to me, this was the perfect representation of arena brawl.
I feel like if you're going to use that logic, then you should be giving 10/10 to great squashes, too, or a chicken-sh*t heel getting DQed to keep the title, or a perfect heel trap like Ole Anderson turning on Dusty in the cage in 1982.
cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Big Red Machine wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:12
I disagree with this characterization, and here's why:
1. Page often wrestles by himself and doesn't get his ass kicked, and he got his ass kicked here by one guy, not a group. Why his his "roaming off by himself" here any different than any singles match he is in. Also, the others all wound up in one-on-one fights. some of them needed help (Nick Jackson), others didn't (Matt Hardy, Matt Jackson). Why is the lesson different for Page?
We've been sold that Hager is a one-man wrecking ball, so i think we can take it as a slight handicap to go one-on-one against him, so far, it's taken an undefeated World Champion to beat him. I think the lesson is different here because he's the only one that (1) wasn't with the team to begin with, and (2) fell for his vice over his commitment to fight for the team's goal.
That doesn't make it feel like Page got beaten up because he walked off alone but rather because he just got caught with the wrong guy. Also, Hager really wasn't treated like that during other portions of this match. I also don't buy the whole "Hager is a wrecking ball" thing, as they had him cheat to win far too much for my liking.
cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Big Red Machine wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:12
This would have worked fine if this was an elimination match, or if falls had to happen in the ring, but it wasn't. Once the babyfaces took a heel out, they should have pinned him to win the match!
Beating up the team was more important than getting a W. It's a fight, not a title match.
So why walk away and stop beating them up?
cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Big Red Machine wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:12
What you're describing is the type of comedy I enjoy in my wrestling. I'm fine with Sammy Guevara being run over by a golf cart.
This was not that.
The difference here is that when one of the Avegners is in the middle of being drowned, he doesn't start making wisecracks or mugging for the camera. He struggles to get free.
When they've got the villain beaten, they don't start dancing in the middle of a war-zone. Then a police officer doesn't come by and try to arrest them for a non-existent infraction, and they don't attack the police officer.
When they've got Thanos knocked out they don't paint "Thanos sucks" on his face and then walk away, leaving him with the Infinity Gauntlet. They take the weapon away, handcuff the villain, and send him jail.
If Dr. Doom only wounds Reed Richards with a blast that he thinks should have killed him, he doesn't complain to the Grandmaster that the universe is wrong and demand a replay. He just keeps trying to kill him!
- Painting on the face of the unconscious Jericho and walking away instead of pinning him for the win.
- Jericho throwing a challenge flag and demanding instant replay in a sport that doesn't have one, and then the referee going over to a replay booth.
- A referee trying to penalize someone for "unsportsmanlike conduct" in a sport that doesn't have that penalty.
- LAX trying to drown Matt Hardy, and Matt responding my mugging for an underwater camera.
- Jake Hager seeing Adam Page with his back turned, and deciding to sit down next to him at the bar to chat instead of attacking him.
These are the kind of things that bother me, and I'm tired of fans (and particularly AEW and WWE, and before them PWG fans) hearing about complains like this and pretending that they're the same thing as Colt Cabana tickling someone to make them instinctively release a hold and then saying "oh, you just don't like comedy wrestling." There is a HUGE difference between comedy that makes sense in the context of a professional wrestling match, and something that is just a total farce like this stuff is.
The Matt Hardy made sense tho, he was always in control, he couldn't get drowned, he was playing possum and showed us via camera, he winked at us to tell us that he was ok. And we're also talking by a deranged mind that is possessed by Damascus, drowning may not be a threat to him.
This is a fair point, but then it makes LAX look like idiots for trying to drown him repeatedly.
Also, it'd be nice if they actually established that fact. If this had happened in the Lake of Reincarnation, I would have been fine with it, but for all we knew it happened in a swimming pool. And if the case is that this can happen when you're submerged in any body of water, it's important that they keep to that. But they haven't been. In AEW, they haven't even made the connection between water and changing personas, as the first two times Matt changed (in that brawl a few weeks ago), he wasn't submerged in water. If you're going to have magic, you can't just use it whenever you want to and then ignore it in a similar situation when you don't want to use it like. If you use it as a comedy version of a deus ex machina, that's just as bad as the way WWE treats the rules of it's universe.
cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Likewise Jericho, he's a delusional egocentric person, he doesn't accept that he failed to pin his opponent and is more transfixed to prove that he was right, than to accept failure and move on.
That's not what my problem with this is! Jericho argues with referees all the time.
My problem is that Jericho just happened to have carried a challenge flag with him to this brutal fight, and that
even though there are no instant replays in pro wrestling, the referee in this case acted as if this was totally legitimate and went to a replay booth to double-check the call!
cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Hager totally made sense, he's a legit top rated fighter, he doesn't need to be jumping anyone, he probably felt secure enough to not jump Page in this case. Just because he's a heel doesn't mean he needs to be a generic chickenshit heel
1) You say that "just because he's a heel doesn't mean he needs to be a chickensh*t" and yet AEW has mostly presented him as someone who needs to cheat to win.
2) You're ignoring the fact that he
has jumped people from behind in AEW many times before.
3) It's not even a chickensh*t thing to do to attack some from behind once the bell has already rung. Page knows he's supposed to be in a fight right now.
cero2k wrote: ↑May 25th, '20, 16:42
Every character in every promotion has different personalities and different goals and different ways to reach those goals. Talking about dissecting stories, this is something that I like to see more than respecting a 'universe', I want to see personalities and those wrestlers respect those personalities.
That's great and all, but you're not looking at the whole picture of the characters that has been painted for us. You're grasping at straws. As I said above, while you might be right about Swagger, his actions so far in AEW have rarely been in concert with what you're describing. A Jack Swagger who is that confident in his abilities wouldn't have needed to resort to kicking Dustin Rhodes in the nuts.
When I talk about the universe, the history of the characters is included in that, too.
You say that you like these different personalities and that's fine. My problem is that you seem completely willing to accept those personalities acting in whatever manner the spot at the moment demands, even if it makes no sense with how the character has acted in the past. I bring this back to the Bullet Club Civil War, where you were willing to accept the Bucks forgiving Yujiro and whoever his partner was at the time the moment the match was over for attacking them from behind when Matt had an injured back for the idiotic reason of not 2 Sweeting with them before a match, but weren't willing to forgive Omega, who they are much closer with, for shoving Matt down when it's clear in hindsight he thought Matt was someone else, even two months after the incident.
Part of being a good character is being consistent in your actions, with a logic guiding them that is visible in hindsight. You just grasp at straws to explain these character's actions in this one moment, even if it doesn't make sense with what has come before, and don't admit that you're wrong then they're future actions don't match up.