How much value do you place in impartiality in reporting/journalism? How do you feel about getting news from left/right leaning sources, and how much importance do you place in not showing bias in your own work? Obviously there will be some inherent bias as you’re largely stating your personal opinions on things, but how good do you think you are at being able to judge wrestlers/matches fairly even if you don’t particularly enjoy the participants involved? (for what its worth, I’d say you’re both very fair!)
Was watching some old Nitro and they advertised the Boston Brawl in 1998 as an IPPV. I’m not sure if I misheard but I swear Schiavone said this was a ‘listen-in event’…
Do you know how this was received at the time? When did Internet PPV’s start to really gain traction?
A lot of talent that was in Lucha Underground has made their way to AEW. From Pentagon and Fenix to Jake Strong, Angelico, Brian Cage and more. Do you think it’s possible in the future we see AEW have a Lucha Underground themed episode of Dynamite?
Serious Question: I feel like the story of AEW hasn’t been the ex-WWE talent or the Elite, but their building of indie talent. It’s funny to look back to the set of pre-Dynamite events and see how they’ve established people who were just names on a roster - Jurassic Express, Sammy Guevara, Britt Baker, Uno and Grayson, MJF, let alone names that were added later like Eddie Kingston, Ricky Starks, and Orange Cassidy. Given that these wrestlers were “on the market”, why do you think companies like WWE or Impact didn’t scout them when they had the opportunity?
Joke Question: John, if I come to Toronto can we do an improv show?
Straight up no-middle ground question: Is AEW and its ratings/demo numbers more the result of those my age (under 45) supporting a show that isn’t WWE, or is it the “minority” wrestling fans finally putting their money where their mouths are and actually supporting a wrestling promotion? I never paid attention to ratings but I feel like TNA used to hit over 1M before consistently, so I’m wondering if this may be a case where there’s a pocket of wrestling fans who just don’t like the WWE and will watch a non-WWE show if they can easily access it (for example, if AEW was on the blah blah channel like TNA in the past years, would it have the same following and backing?)
Never heard you guys talk about this theory before.
I’ve really been enjoying the G1’s un-official C-Block of young lion matches which got me thinking.
Moving forward, I’d love to see NJPW replace G1 undercard tag matches with the Young Lions Cup. Last year’s Young Lions Cup was a 10-man single block with no final so you could do 1 or 2 matches across the 18 block days.
Who was the first heel you can remember rooting for in a match against conventional direction? For me, it was Mr Perfect. Despite being a massive Hogan fan. Every ounce of Hennig and his packaging sold the idea that he was faultless. From the amateur style singlet to the gum and the towel and Heenan and the Perfect Plex and the perfect theme. How could you not?
How about you guys? Who was the first heel that you just couldn’t boo.
Can we come up with a word for a match that you really love, but that you feel uncomfortable watching either due to the guys involved, or the amount of dangerous stunts performed?
For example, “That Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle match was a 5 star ___________”
or
“That Parking Lot Brawl from Dynamite was a real ___________”
I find that more and more, on this forum and others, I feel the need to express “I loved that match, but I hope they never do that again”. Can you guys think of a term that makes sense for wrestling fans to sum up that feeling?
I have been reading a little about the worked shoot phase of early 2000s NJPW Inokism and promotions like Pancrase. I still haven’t seen a whole lot of matches in this style but with raw underground doing a similar thing in a sense, have you guys watched much of that era of worked/shoot and if so what do you make of it?
I’m currently listening to the 7th October RAD show and whilst talking about Raw’s rating for the week, John mentioned about a show in July doing the lowest numbers in the modern era. How far back would you class as the modern era and what is the differences between that and previous eras of Raw?
Going back a couple months, I had some buddies over to watch All Out with me and I decided to let my 6 year old son stay up and watch the first couple of matches with us. I made sure to tell him that this was pretend fighting and no one was really getting hurt. And maybe that is where I made my mistake. As he was watching Britt Baker and Big Swole destroy a dentist office and being thrown into a dumpster his only reaction was to laugh hysterically. I thought maybe the next match might interest him with The Young Bucks and Jurassic Express tag, but he lost interest quickly and wanted to go read a bedtime story with his mother.
Maybe letting him know that everything was pretend was a mistake. Have I ruined my sons wrestling enjoyment? Do I need to go the Damian route and show him Joe vs Necro Butcher so he can see that it can be real? I only joke about his reaction and his interest but I guess when I was growing up thinking it was all real made it more interesting and I took it more serious.
Hey guys, continued love and success for all you’ve built. On that front, what would you say are your proudest moments professionally? An interview? Relationships forged? Initially breaking into your field? The launch of PostWrestling? Thanks as always.
Would Bray Wyatt be better served as a babyface? His opponents are supposed to fear him, but we want our babyfaces to be fearless. Given WWE’s inability to tell a story with any character depth, should Bray Wyatt be a babyface and instill fear in cowardly heels?
If fans were allowed in arenas, what do you think the reaction would be to Retribution? Boos because they’re heels? Cheers because the fans aren’t happy with Raw and they’re attacking Raw? Or crickets because because their is little to no interest in the group due to the way they have been introduced and booked?
Does anyone know what the whereabouts of Shota Umino? I thought he was doing an excursion in the UK around the same time as Hiku Leo? Surprised he wasn’t included in the G1 young lion matches, but assumed it was cause he was in the area between Young Lion and Regular Wrestler
Hi John and Wai,
I’m not sure how much you guys watch kickboxing but was curious do you enjoy the sport?(I’m a casual myself) Besides MMA, why do you think the sport never took off in North America? Do you think we could possibly see Rico Verhoven transition into MMA permanently as he has fought previously, and how do you think he would perform?
Thanks,
Stay Safe!
My question relates to Randy Orton (who has always been one of my favourite wrestlers) and his WWE title reigns.
He was the youngest WWE champion in 2004, aged 24 and since then has won 14 WWE heavyweight titles and is 1 behind HHH, 2 behind John Cena / Rick Flair.
His last heavyweight title was in 2017 and I wonder if he will ever win another one? Given if he won 3 more he would be the “most successful ever”.
Therefore do you think his metoric rise and so many titles early in his career will prevent him winning any more…or could he win 1 / 2 / 3 more to become even more “successful”?
I hope you guys are well and staying safe with the COVID numbers on the rise where you are.
In Melbourne, Australia we have been in a stage 4 lockdown since the end of June only able to leave our homes for 3 reasons and restricted to 5kms, we were even under curfew until recently.
I have fortunately been one of the lucky ones still able to go out and work but it has still afforded me much more free time to catch up on things. One of those things is re-watching the Marvel movies and listening to your reviews, I just wanted to thank you for the additional entertainment you have both provided me through this difficult lockdown.
It’s interesting skipping a month ahead at a time seeing the evolution of POST wrestling.(Hopefully this hasn’t been mentioned before) John actually made a joke on the Thor 2 review that Wrestlemania 36 would be to an empty stadium. On another review he also made reference to being a fan of the walking dead for a period, which I obviously hadn’t listened to last month, when I asked that very question.
Question: I was surprised Jeff Hardy signed with WWE for another 3 years, I saw him going to AEW as a formality. Do you ever see the Hardy Boyz having another run together?
The more I think about it, they don’t really fit into AEWs very stacked tag division.