Tag: attitude era

Bam! Non-Factor! AEW All In 2026 Review

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

For years, and possibly to this day, the muscle memory answer to the question of the greatest wrestling PPV of all time would be Wrestlemania 17. The epic denouement of the Attitude Era! Austin’s heel turn! TLC II! Shane’s Coast to Coast! “You think your special… you do… I can see it in your eeeeeeeeeyes…”.Peak fake fighting perfection!

I’m the cool looking one

…in retrospect, of course. Mania 17 in 2001 might not just be the greatest wrestling show of all time, but the greatest example of “Fuck it, it’ll be good on the night, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” in wrestling history. Because 25 years later we can conveniently forget that the build to that historic 2001 show was pretty much dogshit.

That historic TLC II match was just the WWF throwing their hands up and thinking they may as well do the exact same match they did at Summerslam 2000, because the sweaty marks seemed to enjoy that. The Shane v Vince McMahon match is one of the greatest examples of Sports Entertainment soap opera to have ever been sweated out, but it all stems from a questionable handing of the WCW purchase in storyline that would eventually lead to the biggest example of money left on a table that you would later take a big curly dump on and set fire to in wrestling history. HHH v Undertaker was an incredible match, but only happened because the company had nothing for either star to do; the great Chris Jericho and William Regal opener was built by having Jericho piss in Regal’s tea (no, honestly); and the incredible match between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit – two of the greatest workers of that or any era – was announced the week before the show. And that historic Austin v Rock II was a complete shitshow. Remembered now as the storyline peak of their legendary rivalry and historical second match in their Mania trilogy (though not as good as their Mania 19 match #FightMe), WWF at the time instead chose to focus the feud on Stone Cold’s wife Debra becoming the Rock’s manager, because this was an era when WWF couldn’t conceive of any major wrestling angle not involving Jerry Springer level domestic nonsense. And, to ensure the challenger looked as strong as possible going into the match, they decided to have him lose to HHH on the PPV a month before! People now like to remember the story behind the match being how Austin was so desperate to get his hands on Rock’s title that he was willing to win by any means possible, but that whole idea was only introduced in a sit down interview with Austin, Rock and JR, on the Smackdown nine days before the show. It was also during this interview that Austin said the immortal words “Let’s just go ahead and take Debra out of the equation. BAM! She’s a non-factor…”

It’ll be alright on the night…

i am going somewhere with this

Wrestling Superstructures and Subcultures: the AEW All In 2023 Live Review

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

For the vast majority of human history, everyone was mainly just into the same shit, and had the exact same cultural references. You think in 5000 BC, when you and your fellow Sumerians were starting your little agricultural society based around the cultivation of dates, people would have much time for your niche appreciation of tomato crops? They’d be like “nah kevin we all about the dates right now fr”. It was essentially a monoculture though, so everyone would at least be aware of the tomato subculture, even if they weren’t fans themselves. Everyone went bananas for dates*, and everyone knew that some weirdos like fucking Kevin inexplicably preferred tomatoes. For thousands of years, we have had the superstructure and the subculture, with a clear distinction and easy to judge distinction between the mass support of dates and the dangerous, fringe interests such as tomatoes.

‘Das Gespenst’ is German for ‘The Titty Master’

(*but, crucially, not bananas)

Which brings us, naturally, to professional wrestling.

There are statistics to argue that professional wrestling is as big – or even bigger – now than it ever has been. Or at least as big as it’s been in the modern era, biggest since 943 thousand people somehow crammed into the Atlanta Omni in the 50s to watch George Hackenschmidt put Toots Mondt in a headlock for 97 minutes. Live gates are huge, merchandise sales are huge, the world’s Problematic Fave WWE are making billions upon billions of dollars in increasingly morally dubious ways. Sure, TV audiences are a fraction of what they were during the first (Hogan) and second (Austin) WWF/E boom periods, but do you know why that is? Because no fucker actually watches TV anymore! I asked a Zoomer what their favourite TV show was, and they didn’t actually know what I was talking about, had never heard of a ‘TV’ before, and actually refused to speak to me any further because they’d assumed I’d made a transphobic slur. Wrestling on TV may only get fourteen people and one ferret watching every week, but it’s one of the only things that gets any sort of repeat viewings, so stations like Fox will still throw a billion dollars at them in the hope of securing at least a handful of people to show Dominos Pizza adverts to (also eggs. Ferrets love eggs. You should always do market research). Attendances, money made, CM Punk clout farming (the three most crucial elements to measure cultural integration), wrestling might be bigger now than any point in my or anyone reading’s lifetime.

But wrestling doesn’t feel big does it?

are you going to mention the event at any point?

Money in the Ranked part 1 (22-11)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

All 22 WWE Money in the Bank ladder matches ranked. Listen, I thought the title would work better than it does, just go with it, OK?

0001

The Money in the Bank (from hereon in referred to as ‘MITB’, because I’ve got a lot of writing to do and I am a very, very lazy man) ladder match is the best idea that WWE have had since Steve Austin’s turn to the dark side at the end of Wrestlemania 17 in 2001 signalled the end of the Attitude Era and drew the curtain on the last period which wrestling seemed in any way relevant or widely notable. It’s arguably the only good idea they’ve had in that 18 year period. Save perhaps having The Miz replace Ted DiBiase jnr. as the lead actor in ‘The Marine’ franchise from ‘The Marine 3: Homefront’ onward. Yeah, WWE make movies now. And yeah, they’re all terrible.

000001
There have seriously been 6 of these fuckers

The premise- 5-10 wrestlers battle to use ladders to reach a contract swinging over the top of the ring which allows them a shot at any title they choose at any time they want over the next 12 months- is simple but ingenious, and allows for great storytelling potential and the chance to quickly promote a wrestler into the main event picture. Of course, this potential is more often than not completely squandered, because WWE are generally incompetent and we’re not allowed to have nice things.

Ranking the matches is difficult, because save a handful of amazing bouts and a smaller, Jeremy Beadle sized handful of slightly poorer ones, they’re almost always a similar level of ‘alright, pretty good, I suppose’. However, I am perhaps the greatest blogger of my generation- the ‘Heart Blog Kid’ Blog Michaels, or ‘Stone Blog’ Steve Blogstin, if you will- so I knew I had the ability to do it. I had initially planned to write this list in the build up to the 2018 Money in the Bank pay per view, back when there had been exactly 20 matches, and it would have made so much more sense. Alas, now there are 22 and, to be completely honest, I can’t even promise to finish it in time for 2019’s event exactly two weeks from today. But it’s a cash cow that the WWE are unlikely to put down for a long time yet, so there’s always the chance of a top 24 in 2020. Or perhaps a top 26 in 2021. I mean, I’ve started it now and I’ve already realised it’s going to have to be two parts…

Let’s see how long this takes!!

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44 JPEGMAFIA: Veteran

~ Lex Leeson ~ 7 Comments

Hmmm, this album presents a bit of a problem for me in respect to me writing any sort of a coherent piece on it. I mean, sure, I haven’t really written a coherent piece yet in 386* blog posts, but this one is, like, far less likely to be coherent than most, yeah?

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(…)

(*actual number, fact fans! Maybe the thousandth post is the one where I live stream my suicide? Considering it’s taken me three years to reach 384, it should take me, what, about six more to reach 1000? I’ll be in my forties by that point, and as a result almost definitely praying for death. Only if I get enough readers though. Make sure you all hit subscribe)

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