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John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown featuring Daniel Bryan’s haircut.
The post-Thanksgiving episode of SmackDown saw Roman Reigns take on Robert Roode with a big post-match attack by Reigns, New Day defends the SmackDown tag titles with an open challenge, a show-long story involving Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan leading to a closing segment involving Bryan parting ways with his hair. Plus, the return of Elias, Alexa Bliss & Sheamus.
This show was unbearable. It’s literally RAW from few months ago, but on Friday (Saturday morning for me).
I felt stupid by even skipping through it.
I don’t care for neither Roman or this doofus Corbin. Spice this with Roode and Ziggler and I’m just out fishing. And I HATE fishing. Than Roman beat the three of them at once at the end. WTF?
Ali vs Gulak… I’d like to care, but WWE made a tremendous job of making me not care for either of those guys even since their 205 days and it was a 205 match. So I didn’t care at all.
That Sasha and Bailey promo… WHO WROTE THIS SHIT? My ears were bleeding, like Cole and Graves were not enough. Than Lacey came out… IT BECAME EVEN WORSE! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???
Ugh.
Than we had a Bray Wyatt segment which was old few months back. And A Bray Wyatt RAP??!
Abominable.
I would like to care about Mandy and Sonya and Nikki - I like all three of them. But my brain was checked out long before that.
Maverick tries to hit on Dana Brooke… WTF? Is his wife still holding the fortress, not letting him in? Than Alias came. Great. Like my brain was not leaking through my ears already.
New Day and their pancakes… oooh, God, no, I can’t… a lot of stupid stuff happened and Cesaro got pinned. Great.
Bryan tried. Material was horrible. Than everything else happened like the last time and the time before with THE FIEND dragging him INTO HELL?!? AGAIN!
And than The Fiend supposedly plucked his beard out of his face?!?
For a bunch of 30-40 year olds on this message board getting excited about mail during our teen years included Sports Illustrated, GamePro, Nintendo Power, Eastbay, Source, Guitar World, Rolling Stone, for a young John Pollock it was The Wrestling Observer Newsletter. That’s why you are who you are John and we’re thankful for your work.
I thought you guys were a little hard on the crowd tonight. Making fun of the football team is cheap heat, but he “store bought turkey” thing was, I believe, picking on the fact that Birmingham is (presumably) a working class, blue collar kind of town as opposed to say Chicago. People take pride in that sort of thing in small towns so personally I can’t blame them for playing along.
Honestly I felt the crowd was very refreshing. They paid their $50 or whatever and I think the fans and their kids have a right to turn their brains off and enjoy the show for what it is. Certainly I enjoy that atmosphere more than fans just bitching and moaning and screaming “CM PUNK” and “WHAT” every five minutes.
And in all fairness, as much as I enjoy the Jericho stuff on Wednesdays, it’s not like the AEW stuff is super high-brow satirical genius comedy either, and we give them a pass.
Just my thoughts. Obviously everyone has their opinions and you don’t have to enjoy what you see if it isn’t your cup of tea, but I think it’s unfair to disparage the audience for trying to have a good time.
I had no issue with the crowd - our point was that they were extremely positive for acts you would not necessarily assume. They reacted in a very ‘atypical’ way to most audiences. I would not expect a ‘Lacey Evans’ chant to break out in too many markets of the country much less the first time she’s ever been positioned as a full-fledged babyface.
The line about store bought turkey was hardly mocking the audience, my reaction was finding the line ridiculous as I would assume most people buy turkeys at a store, myself included.
I guess our reaction was less clear based on your interpretations.
On a final note, the constant “yeah, but in AEW…” is very exhausting.
What I noticed about the crowd was in the Bailey/Sasha segment where 4 people tried to start a chant and volume suddenly went up so they sound like 40 people and in the next second they stopped shouting and I laughed till I cried.
I think the constant “AEW does this…” is because there is a perception of wrestling media bias towards AEW.
Again I think you guys are excellent and even critiqued part of the show this week.
However I think a lot of this stems from the blurring of lines with the media and how they interact with AEW, specifically StarCast and Jericho Cruise.
Although I’m sure all three are separate entities, there is clear overlap. Conrad introduced the AEW at the initial event and they always run with AEW stars and in the same cities. Jericho cruise is clearly a stronger link to AEW.
Now when members of the media are at these events it does speak to the question of bias. I think the issue with StarCast is less clear as the link isn’t as well established but when a journalist is attending the Jericho Cruise you have to wonder about Objective they are to product when Jericho is paying them
To be there.
None of the wrestling media are ever at WWE meet and greets or cruises and such. They are with AEW. Anyone with a background in critical appraisal can see the potential for bias.
Again I think you guys do a great job and are objective. But I can see why the perception exists that the wrestling media is in bed with AEW
Spoiler: it is maybe because real wrestling media covers them for what they are doing, and for the PERCEPTION they’d like to be viewed as from their own WWE bubble.
Well and the fact that it is objectively false that there is never wrestling “media” involved with WWE directly. I mean off the top of my head you have Sam Roberts, Ryan Satin, and Peter Rosenberg. Who are “media” but have actually been on WWE programs.
WWE doesn’t need starcast they host all that stuff on their own at events like mania and have far more resources for fan events then individual conventions ever will.
I think the “AEW does it.” Complaint is more from fans about other fans than it is about the media and it goes both ways where fans accept things from a company they like and deride another company for similar things.
Just to clarify: as Breng here pointed out, my comments about AEW were directed toward the wrestling fandom as a whole and their reaction to different things, not John or Wai or any wrestling media in particular. It is interesting how certain things are deemed acceptable by audiences for one product— or one city, as we saw yesterday— but not for the other.
That would be the difference though, wouldn’t it (at least from a journalistic standpoint)? You can say Meltzer or Keller or whoever is biased towards AEW, but The Fed actually has cats like Satin & Sam Roberts on the payroll. They’re also far less open to the wrestling media (as opposed to cozying up to ESPN/Fox Sports) than AEW which could give you the impression they’re being favored if you’re only paying attention to wrestling media.
Another thing is there’s a difference between reporting news & doing opinion/review shows. News is objective, whereas reviews are by definition subjective. And it makes sense that most AEW review shows are more positive than Raw/SD reviews, since the show being reviewed can subjectively be seen as better.
Finally, in terms of credibility; I’d say the POST team has been very diligent when it comes to covering AEW fairly in the news. No cronyism 'round these parts, brother.
In my line of work you can easily become influenced by certain companies by accepting money and free things.
I try my by best not to do that - not because it would influence my opinion (or at least I think it won’t) but because I am sensitive to the perception of bias.
It’s not a good look when Meltzer is on a paid Jericho cruise. Yes it may not influence his opinion. But then again we can’t be sure it won’t - and without your integrity a journalist who reviews shows for a living isn’t worth salt.
I’m not going to take anything Satin or Roberts say seriously anymore. I‘be really soured on Meltzer after the Jericho cruise announcement as well because I’ve lost trust.
The star cast I have less an issue with as th a link isn’t as clear that money is coming from AEW.
So I hope John and Wai continue to lead maintain these journalistic standards
So he must sit at home and not go (on a vacation as this case is) watch live the thing he devoted his life for, because someone will say “Oh, he goes there and there, therefore he’s biased and cannot be trusted!”
What when he goes to live WWE shows and says he had great time and how fun is it. Is this credible or biased too?
That’s a stupid way of thinking.
Than on the other hand, we have “legit journalists” that cover WWE the way WWE want to be covered, looking like buffoons when they do not ask the actual important and pressing questions, but stick to the stupid WWE storylines ALL THE TIME, kissing ass.
I think the issue is the perception of it being comped. I don’t understand wrestling journalism well enough to know if comping tickets to large events is common practice. I come from an industry where I am barred from accepting gifts from clients or customers. That said I’m sure that is not a regulated thing in the wrestling journalism world. I think it is fair for people to be critical if Meltzer’s ratings of AEW matches seem wildly out of line with everyone else. To me this isn’t the case so far. As for being harder on WWE, I think more established companies are more deserving of criticism than up and coming companies.
I was not with the impression that he and Bryan got free tickets. Maybe I remember wrong. Maybe they were invited as an act on the thing. Not any different from when WWE are inviting “real journalists” on some of their shows and we end with the same cover of their product as I was pointing before. If anything, I’m sure Dave will cover everything from the cruise, than he’ll watch it again when he returns home and report his perspective on the record of the show. This is what he is doing all the time.
