We all watch a fairly wide range of wrestling, so across all your favourite/usual promotions:
Who is that one wrestler above all others that you just can’t get into?
Do you hate their wrestling style? Is their character boring? Do they just not do anything for you? Hate the performer (keep it civil)? Was there some angle that soured you on them? Let us know! (and obviously do feel free to mention multiple people if needed lol).
gunther. there i said it. he’s so boring and bland.
cody. he’s just so cringe and embarrassing.
Kaya Toribami of TJPW: She’s just so… meh. Make Serpentico extremely boring and switch his gender, and you have Kaya. Masked wrestlers have to work harder to show emotion than unmasked wrestlers do. But Kaya doesn’t even try to do that. She needs a character rework something fierce. Especially in a promotion that already has Hyper Misao.
Prefacing that I like Kaya, I think her problem is that she’s using the mask as a way to hide, instead of a character tool.
Every time she’s on camera she seems extremely shy, and while I do like where her moveset is going (2 years of experience is not a lot for a high flyer and on top of that TJPW emphasizes strong fundamentals as a prerequisite for being allowed to do high spots) it’s clear that already setting up the highflying masked wrestler gimmick when she can’t actually use the accompanying moveset was putting the cart before the horse.
She should have had a normal start as a rookie and only switched to this gimmick when she had the skillset to match, IMO.
Bray Wyatt
I think this is valid. The only version of Wyatt I liked, hell I loved, was Swamp Preacher Wyatt, when he would sit in the rocking chair and give a revival speech about the devil’s coming for you, run… some of the early supernatural stuff wasn’t horrible, but Swamp Cult Wyatt was great to me. After that, it wasn’t appealing.
I think I agree on this one. The swamp cult was hot shit and I loved it, still remember the night after he won the title and came out with it with the fireflys, loved it.
Nothing about the fiend ever appealed to me, almost from the moment i saw him walking out in pink and black striped clown pants. Everything else could be perfect (and I get it, blah blah funhouse), but that 1 goofy ass fucking thing just made me go ‘huh?’ and never recovered lol.
I will ask you to please put away the pitchforks, but I don’t care for Kenny Omega. I can enjoy his matches but I don’t think he’s the bee’s knees let alone the greatest ever.
If we are doing somebody in another company… I’m going to call out L.A. Knight, just like Kenny I can enjoy what he does, but most of the time I don’t see how he’s so over… Yeah!
Again, I can enjoy these people’s work, but I don’t get why they are in the positions they are because I don’t see them as that great. Assuming we are talking just their characters and such. If we are talking don’t like them at all not even a little bit, the first name that came to mind… Darby Allin. He is the one I don’t like at all and his being tied to Sting’s retirement really sucks for me. And if you wrestlers are vanity searching your names, sorry, I just don’t buy the hype in you.
you’re ok to say kenny.
the pitchforks only come out if you say yuka sakazaki (jk!)
Have you seen Omega’s matches against Okada in NJPW? If not, I’d highly recommend them. I think they are probably the best work he’s done.
I love Omega, but to second hellothere, his post-NJPW work has definitely been lacking most of the time. I also do expect it to cause who the fuck wants to be NJPW-Omega every week, fucker would die lmao but I get it.
Well this is gonna be fun.
In AEW, it’s Sammy. Irl, while he seems to have his heart mostly in the right place, he’s just a bit of a tool and can’t resist cringey shit. Proposing in the ring, regardless of how that ended, is cringe. Announcing a pregnancy on national TV is cringe. Doing a gender reveal is cringe. Etc etc etc.
I don’t believe that this is all character work any more given how he continues to be positioned as a face. The only time recently I’ve been interested in what he’s doing was when he was friends with MJF. The guy is better as a heel, and all of the above works much better as a deluded heel who thinks people care, rather than an ernest face, in my opinion.
In WWE, I never got the appeal of Ronda Rousey. Her being an literal piece of shit is something I only found out about later, but her matches were bad - actual judo throws aside - she can’t talk, and her holding the belt was clearly for marketing purposes only. Shayna is infinitely better.
All I wanna do is see Sammy wrestle. Nothing else. No promos, title cards, interviews. Just wrestle and fuck off.
Rousey can just fuck off without the wrestling.
@GeekFTW For me it is CM Punk. I wasn’t watching wrestling at the time of his peak with WWE. But in AEW or current WWE I really don’t care for him. He seems to actually think he is the best in the world.
@tekdrudge @GeekFTW Seconded. His entrance music is the only thing I enjoy and he has nothing to do with creating it. I get that he has a cult following though. I am just not a believer.
I enjoy(ed) Punk at times. I’ll watch that Miseria Cantare entrance against MJF a thousand times and love it.
Don’t think I’ve ever cared about Punk as a performer like some do tho. He was never the be-all-end-all wrestler.
@GeekFTW I don’t understand the appeal of Shotzi. Idk, I don’t vibe with her performances.
I used to not get Moxley, like who is this second rate Steve Austin impersonator? I was so god damn wrong!
lol I was in the same boat when AEW started. Now I think he’s the ace of the company.
Same.
John Cena killed my interest in wrestling. It had less to do with him and more the way they booked him. I had no interest in watching him at the top of the card for years so I stopped watching entirely.
I have respect for him now but he was a big reason why I’m a lapsed fan instead of an, uh, unlapsed fan…lol.
That was Brock for me. Basically everything they were pushing in the early to mid 2000s was just bleh to me.
WWE: I think I watched the main roster from around 2015/2016 to 2019. There were a lot of people who seemed settled into their characters, but I had no experience watching them, so they seemed kinda boring to me. Randy Orton was a major “I just don’t get it” wrestler for me. I only knew his name, had never seen him, and he’s showing up, lazily doing a pose on the turnbuckle and looking bored as hell while the crowd cheers? The Bar were the same for me. Never saw how they came together as a team, so they were just there for me. And the love I’d heard for The Revival was also confusing cause I watched during their feud with the Usos.
AEW: CM Punk. I’d seen the pipe bomb promo, but that was it before he showed up. The excitement he seemed to have, and the excitement of the crowd, was awesome! But he wasn’t quite what I had expected and his promo style wasn’t for me.
The Young Bucks. They’re actually exactly what I expected from hearing about them. I’ve enjoyed some of their segments (much better as ridiculous heels) and their matches with the Lucha Bros, but boy, a little goes a long way.
TNA: Steve Maclin. I enjoyed his chase for the belt, but I just don’t feel anything for him.
Eddie Edwards. I don’t hate him, but he’s just there. My enjoyment of the ROH stable in Impact tanked when he was named the leader.
I never could get into Brock. He was just Goldberg 2.0 to me, and the Goldberg act got old on me real fast.
Granted at the time I was burned out on the WWE and would soon quit watching not long after Brock got pushed.
TNA: Steve Maclin. I enjoyed his chase for the belt, but I just don’t feel anything for him.
Eddie Edwards. I don’t hate him, but he’s just there. My enjoyment of the ROH stable in Impact tanked when he was named the leader.
Ditto and ditto.
I’ll load up on a few now that I’ve had a mediocre sleep:
Punk: Overvalued. When he was in his prime he was hot shit. Now post-prime, he’s smoldering shit but we’re supposed to think he’s the BeSt In ThE WoRlD lol.
Anthony Ogogo I just cannot give a fuck about. I care more about my bowl of popcorn than I do about Anthony Ogogo and I just don’t get it.
FTR is my current AEW piss break. I liked em as the Revival. I liked em when they showed up in AEW and started off. Then Dax decided to do the whole ‘piss people off with my podcast comments and then 24-72h later play it off like I didn’t say stupid crap’ bullshit and Cash is just dumber than a tit under an cruise ship.
Deaner/Maclin/Edwards in TNA. Zero interest, none of em do anything for me.
Nanae Takahashi. The second I see any wrestler in Stardom booked in a singles match with Nanane ‘That don’t work for me, sister’ Takahashi I know the next 11 mins are best spent making a sandwich and packing a bowl.
And if I can be allowed an honourable mention for a promotion as a whole: Sukeban, just fuck off lol.
Edwards in TNA
his “evolution” to hardcore style in 2018 was actually so well done, check out that if you haven’t seen it.
Last time I enjoyed him lol
The one time I think I enjoyed Deaner was when I was starting to watch Impact during lockdown and he and Jake Something were paired up in WrestleHouse. But that was probably more about WrestleHouse being exactly what I needed at that time.
I’d already forgotten about Sukeban. Haha
I’d already forgotten about Sukeban. Haha
For the best lmao. I love how Bull Nakano interviewed Rossy after BR canned him and she asked him how he liked Sukeban and his response was basically 'eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ’
What’s wrong with Sukeban? It seems like an interesting idea, no?
Just my own opinion of course:
- Poor production. Last show I watched (I’ve seen 2, I forget if they’ve done more than 2) was shit. Soon as a 3-count hit fucking bright strobing lights went off around the ring into the cameras.
- The commentary is hot garbage (but because of the product imo).
- The ‘characters’. I have no problem with Legally Distinct Wrestler™. Edge came to AEW. He can’t be Edge. We have Legally Distinct Edge™ Adam Copeland. Sukeban went the extreme route and made up personas (which imo are shit but thats fully subjective) which are unrelated as a whole to the people portraying them, but in the same breath acknowledges their real life accomplishments as the characters own, breaking the line between the two. Is Lady Antoinette this weird old-French-style (idk lol) woman who we have never seen before come to Sukeban with her Dangerous Liaisons team? She can’t be, she has Risa Sera’s exact title wins listed! She can’t be this new person, Lady Antoinette never won shite. Pick a lane, they’re either portraying new characters for the promotion to keep them separate from their existing ring personas, or they aren’t.
- The title belt. It looks like a wonderful piece of art that would be presented as a trophy, or a big special occasion gift like on a retirement or something. It looks like a piss poor title belt for a wrestling promotion.
- The outfits are basically half cheap fetish gear, half random good-will clothing. Dangerous Liaisons and the Harijuku Girls are basically wearing vinyl, leather/pleather. I’ve said it a dozen times but in the event first
Saori Anousorry sorry 'Countess Saori’s tits almost fell out at least 3-4x during her match, all of which is because they are supposedly a (for lack of a better term) ‘front’ for a fashion designer (who co-incidently works in vinyl, leather and pleather lmao) to show off clothing and outfits they make.
Edit: And to be clear - No complaints about the wrestling. All of these women are world class wrestlers and they know how to do their job well. It’s just…I like cosplay in my wrestling but this is straight up cosplay.
Yeah I can see the problems lol. I only saw the first show (yes there were only 2 as far as I know) and I didn’t know that they did this “different characters but performer’s accolades” thing, that sounds stupid as fuck, pick one.
Shame cause the idea of a promotion set in its own pocket universe where the performers could be reinvented as their own separate versions, with Bull Nakano as commissioner no less, sounded pretty fucking rad.
Lack of commitment to the vision it seems.
Yeah like the overall aesthetic and how they’re doing things just…isn’t for me even as a joshi puroresu fan but if they at least stuck to it fully and didn’t list Stardom, TJPW, Ice Ribbon etc title wins for everyone on their site and talking about it during commentary then I’d at least give it a passing grade.
I’m also not a fan of that outfit Bull Nakano was wearing but she’s Bull fucking Nakano she can wear what she wants lol.
