They haven’t made me believe either.
That’s the main issue with babyface champions. You will see a threat of the month type challenge from a heel, but if the babyface goes over, it has to be a strong win. From hogan, to Austin, to Cena, to Reigns, etc. Unless you have an authority type stable over the babyface champion, they have to be booked strong
Sonny Kiss and Janela are massive draws
I think they need to win clean, but they don’t always have to go over strong, against a proper monster they can fight from underneath, not stay down, and hit a finisher or submission out of no where, or off a mistake by the heel.
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I can only assume you are trolling?
I’ve always stood by that Sonny is something special. Somebody that represents a long ignored portion of the audience. He has the potential to reach / connect with a ton of fans who have never had representation on a wrestling show.
He is the kind of person who will bring in new fans to wrestling in the long run.
I refuse to believe you really believe that as you can’t be that stupid. This feels more like some attempt to prove how “woke” you are.
Go work out what proportion of the population watch wrestling and apply that proportion to the proportion of the population that are whatever he identifies as and then tell me what the reasonable best case scenario untapped audience they could attract in the US. I’ll guarantee that number is so insignificant and will be less than the number that don’t watch because of AEW trying to present woefully out of their depth performers like him in a vein attempt to prove how “woke” they are as a company.
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As somebody who has booked Sonny many times, I have seen how he can grow an audience, and help connect with underserved members in said audience. While this is obviously a much smaller audience, it does represent a sample of what could translate to a larger one.
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I never said he only would grow an LGBTQ audience. Females viewers connect strongly to him. Also, it’s entirely possible, straight males might enjoy his work as well.
Look man, throw “woke” around like an insult, or try suggest me standing by my statement makes me look stupid. I don’t care. You’re the one who looks dense here. Just accept that something you don’t like, might appeal to an audience… And after all your posts being critical of everything AEW does - maybe that audience isn’t you.
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You still don’t get it. My issue isn’t with Sonny Kiss’s gender identity/sexual orientation/whatever you want to call it. My issue is he is a shit wrestler (and by no means alone in AEW) and is clearly only getting the opportunity he is so Tony can show how woke he is. Everything he does looks awkward and phoney.
Anyone who has watched real pro-wrestlers can see the difference between the obvious cooperation in most modern matches just so the performers can do their spots that could not be done without obvious cooperation (the standing around seemingly forever together pretending to be dazed waiting for Luchasaurus to do a flip onto them for the umpteenth time) being a particularly good example.
And I have said some positive things about AEW. Just not that many because so much of what they present they choose to do so in a shit way.
I would love to see the data source to support this statement of fact.
It is also entirely possible they won’t. And I’m pretty certain in the US that is the case not sure why you bring this up by the way given my argument has jack shit to do with this).
And I do use woke as an insult as it represents the pathetic status society has reached where people go out if their way to show they support the issue of the day because they are worried that not shouting from the rooftops that they support whatever it is will single them out as being against said issue rather than them really giving a shit about it. It is fake and disingenuous.
I had zero knowledge of Kiss before AEW and was somewhat skeptical initially but he/she can go.
That and AEW is letting Kiss be whatever they want to be. Wrestling has a horrible history of characters like Kiss and for AEW to go this route and just treat the character like gasp a normal wrestler is cool.
WWE or even WCW you would have Kiss come out and hit on other guys or have the announcers scripted to talk about how bizarre Kiss is.
I remember Sting once talking about why he thought wrestling was so popular and saying there is a character for everyone. This is a perfect example of that and I’m sure Kiss is bringing in some fans who otherwise wouldn’t or didn’t watch.
Above all else, I honestly think Kiss has proven to have a unique skill set. I want different people on my wrestling show and Kiss brings that.
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Who are these “real” pro-wrestlers that you speak of, brother? You know this whole thing is play-play, right? So what in your estimation makes Sonny less “real” than the Zombie who does Topes, or the bosses’ son who is booked to go 50/50 with your top stars, or the alcoholic redneck w/anger-management issues, the male gigolo who most fans would place in their all-time Top 10?
I get that Sonny isn’t your cup of tea, and that’s fine…But to say he’s not a “real wrestler” is silly. Not everything in wrestling is going to be for you specifically…And that’s part of the beauty of the sport, there’s something for everyone. For instance, I think the UnderTaker is overrated, but I’m not going to rail against the guy b/c people like him.Let folks enjoy what they want to enjoy.
Getting back to Sonny, I’ve been a fan of the brother for a while and am EXTREMELY happy that he’s getting an opportunity to show his skills…And that people are responding to him. You might not be into him, but a lot of people are…And that’s ok.
Finally, to address your use of “woke” as a pejorative…I’ve NEVER understood how that or “SJW” are hurled around as insults whenever someone is trying to expand the tent. The progress might not mean anything to YOU, but it likely means the world to someone who’s been looking for affirmation & representation from their entertainment their whole life. So if it’s not for you specifically, cool…But you don’t need to be an ass about it or “yuck someone’s yum”. That would be like me constantly telling my neicesvthst “Wonder Woman” or “Captain Marvel” were overrated or “performatively woke” films. They were just ok movies for me…But they had a significant impact on them. There’s some fan (or a group of fans) that Sonny is doing that for, and the fact that the ratings for his segments haven’t tanked is a very good thing, IMO
All of us fans are nerds/geeks/outsiders to some extent, so we of all people should be cool with everyone joining this crazy sport & giving differentfans somethingto get invested in! 
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I thought SJW was a compliment the first time I heard it.
There are a few people on this forum that throw those terms out as insults and it’s just mutant thinking.
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Gimmick/charisma/personality > in ring ability in most cases.
We can probably come up with a pretty long list of guys who were absolute shit in the ring but were big draws.
I mean, Hogan/Andre at WMIII was one of the biggest matches of all time and both of them were God awful at that time.
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Nate,
I don’t know how many times I need to say this. This is nothing to do with Sonny specifically and the insinuation that I have a prejudice is starting to insult me. It equally applies to poor pro-wrestlers like Orange Cassidy who can’t even execute the most basic move in wrestling (his punches are an absolute embarrassment), Luchasaurus (he botches so many moves and has to stop to set himself for virtually every move), etc, etc, etc.
“Real pro-wrestlers” are able to execute not only basic moves and make them look real but can put together a match where it isn’t clear to the viewer that they are setting themselves for each move. Sonny is particularly bad at that as you can see him taking a second to set himself from one move to the next i.e. there is no smooth transition from one move to the next and therefore his matches look so staged.
The list of “real” pro-wrestlers is endless. I’m no fan of WWE as they are just as guilty as AEW of booking spot-fest gymnastic matches that make no sense and make it impossible to suspend my disbelief (a prerequisite for a pro-wrestling match) but the one thing I cannot criticise is the professionalism of their performers. They are well trained and have the fundamentals nailed.
So what I am talking about is competency. You may think The Undertaker was overrated but you can’t argue he is an exceptionally polished pro-wrestler whose matches (stupid gimmick ones aside) hide the fact that it is a worked fight.
Just watch MMA. Wrestling will never go back to the way you remembered it in the 80s
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Fighting for true social justice is a good thing, there is no questioning that. The issue is some people take it too far and use it as an excuse to do shitty things.
For example, I remember when Lamar Jackson won the Heisman Trophy a few year back, the day after a story broke about him using I believe a homophobic term on Twitter when he was 14. Alot of people felt that this was a way for some people to use “social justice” as an excuse to bring down a POC right when they hit a high point in their life. The belief was that some people saw Jackson win the award and then searched for something to bring him down. Racist motivation being masked by a “social justice” excuse.
Also, some people will use this as a way to justify abhorrent behavior. Take the Hana Kimura situation for example, IMO there is no question that she was cyber bullied, however in 2020 if people personally deem someone as “deserving” of it, they are able to convince themselves that its not “bullying” but rather “keeping them accountable by social justice”. I think that most people here can agree that what happened to Kimura was not social justice especially given that the situation was a work, but even if it wasnt and the laundry thing was real, those bullies were still out of line IMO.
Please dont take this post as me saying that social justice is bad, its not. When someone suffers a true injustice, there needs to be accountability. The problem is bad people out there will use this as an excuse to do shitty things. Reminds me of the protest a few months back, lots of people who supported BLM were standing up for what they believed in which I personally had a lot of admiration for. Then you had some (alot which were far right idiots) going out there and using the BLM cause to create chaos to make BLM advocates look bad.
Long story short, its the people who are full of shit on social media who use social justice to justify their shitty actions that unfortunately have tainted the term which in its true form should not not have any negative connotation.
I hope this makes sense and that I articulated myself properly. If anyone is offended by this, I likely didnt put out what I was trying to put out.
Why don’t you just watch NJPW? Sounds like you enjoy stiff wrestling that look (as much as it can) like a shoot. WWE and AEW are sports entertainment like it or not.
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In response to your comments, I’m in the middle ground here. I agree, Jim Ross needs to be sat down and told that his comments are unacceptable and that we’ve moved on. At the same time, I don’t think he needs to be fired and shamed into retirement.
I do however want to point out that I think there is a reason that many of these women wear extra extra small booty shorts to Wrestle in. Check out some of their Instagram‘s. They are selling sex as are the men. Sex appeal. Nothing wrong with that. I do think there is a way you can complement a woman’s luxe without coming off like a pervert as Jim Ross did.
Middle ground.
I tried but just can’t get into it. I’ve pretty much given up on watching modern wrestling. I stick to rewatching what Memphis wrestling and JCP/WCW I can find on You Tube. I had been watching AEW but clearly it’s intent on being a low rent WWE wannabe.
I got back into wrestling after stumbling across The Law podcasts and enjoying John and Wai’s reviews even though I wasn’t really watching it. I only really listen to their banter and news discussions these days as I have little interest in even reviews of the matches. I guess you can chalk me up as another fan that has been alienated by the modern presentation.
I know I’m in the minority on this forum but I find it sad watching wrestlings slow, painful death by a thousand cuts.