Wrestling Thread 6: It's Poppy • Page 821

And the fact that no company has properly marketed Santana is a fucking travesty.

 

In better news, Dustin is still the fucking best.

 

They get paid during the 90 days, that's how they're "enforced"

 

mainly that but I guess if AEW wanted someone to debut over the summer they could just pay that amount plus the contract to whomever.

 

Yep, fairly standard severance stuff really; I suspect there's also some non-disparagement stuff early on, which is why you dont see a lot of the shoot interview stuff until the 90 days is over as well.

I dont think we'll ever see sole-branded house shows again. Its now Fri Smackdown, Sat/Sun house shows, Mon RAW. And probably no house shows on PPV weekends. Its actually a sustainable model and they can use it to work out TV/PPV matches

 

Eh, I think his style of character doesnt work in the modern format when other people can go for 10+ minutes and entertain a crowd. Like, name a marquee Braun match...only watchable one I can think of is the Ambulance Match with Roman...and then realize they are probably paying him in the tier just below a Roman, but more than say a Big E or Corbin or any number of dudes who can work and talk infinitely better. Throw in the number of times he's botched promos or moves and it just doesnt seem worth the effort to always have a story for him when it inherently has to hurt your mid-card guys.

Braun in AEW would fail worse than WWE too. He needs to go to like MLW and be Cueto's new Big Rick.

 

Don’t feel bad for braun, I’m sure he’ll lace up his bootstraps because that’s all it takes to be successful

 

Been swamped all day at work and just saw the releases. Genuinely shocked at Braun and hoping Tommy End goes to AEW ASAP.

 

Alesiter made a shitty comment about wrestling journalism, here's SRS responding with a good take

 

I agree with most of your post but please delete this

 

Braun DOES work, particularly during the pandemic when you can hide him behind cinematic matches. Having a superhero/cartoon character in wrestling works in the right settings. It was awesome watching him flip a truck and play a giant stand up bass on stage. You can definitely make guys like him work with the creativity. Make it seem like he isn't there to win titles or something. I think The Fiend works when he isn't chasing a title and just getting under dudes skin. The problem is a creatively bankrupt Vince.

 

Ruby Riott to me is the worst name on that list of WWE Fuckups. A unique look, a solid promo, great in the ring, and set apart from all the boring ass blondes because of all that. And all she ever got was ragdolled by Ronda.

Lana probably walked away with as many championship opportunities as Ruby in the last 2-3 years...just inexcusable.

 

I mean, its true. Look at NXT where Corbin was over as fuck. People were bitching for the longest time that Jay White was boring and just like Corbin and then he was given an interesting creative angle and blam, he's the biggest thing in the world. I dont think Corbin has that ceiling, but its WAY higher that Braun. If I'm a company trying to produce a reliable product week in and out, give me two Corbins for the price of one Braun every day.

I agree in the abstract, but actual Braun is a botch machine. Every 3 months he jangles a promo or misses a spot. Imagine paying like $500k/yr for a guy who allows this to happen. Misses his spot, then does too stiff a kick causing Harper to fuck his shoulder and Ali to nearly die.

 

I'd love to hear one day what WWE saw in Braun Strowman that they didnt see in Luke Harper (or hell, even Rowan). In terms of believable size, etc...Harper is right there in the "stand face to face with Lesnar and look big" category, but he could talk and work in a way Braun can't seem to even get close to.

Braun is body-builder, Mark Henry, style big...so maybe thats enough...but there was never really more than a few month window where Brauns character ever consistently worked.

 

Agreed about Corbin

Braun was white hot in like 2017/2018 and they failed to capitalize it

he would be a disaster in AEW

 

Heidi and Tommy are perfect for AEW - even Murphy

I think Lana is done with the business

 

Corbin's spotlight entrance is still like top 5 for me. He and Black had some dynamite entrances.

 

(Bye bye house shows)

 

Lets all stop pretending like people won't mark the fuck out the minute Braun shows up literally anywhere.

 

my guesses:

strowman: new japan. they haven't had a bob sapp/brock lesnar/giant bernard type body in a while. keep his appearances at a minimum and no filler tag matches and he could get over.

black: aew. as long as he stays as far away from whatever aleister black's character was in wwe, then he'll be ok.

murphy: mlw. add him in your current/potential main event scene with fatu, hammerstone, mil muertes, richard holliday, and davey richards. he'll fit in well with that crew.

lana: retire? the easy call is aew with her husband, but with the character/push miro is finally getting, do you really want to see him paired with his wife?

riott: impact. would make a great addition to their womens division. why not aew? because...

garrett: aew. not so much as an on air talent, but as a coach to their women's division. between garrett and serena deeb, there's alot of (untapped) experience that the current young roster can benefit from.

 

Braun is going to have to take a drastic paycut to go anywhere. Dude was making more than a million a year. I just don’t see him doing that.

 

They’d mark out at first, but I don’t see that lasting at all. He’s not the type of guy the AEW audience wants going over long term and he can only wrestle a certain type of match. Also like I said the dude probably wants too much money to be worth the investment.