These guys don't make an argument for why Orange Cassidy has a good gimmick. I'm not getting outraged over pro wrestling anymore but thinking doing something like what Cassidy does doesn't hurt pro wrestling is ignorant. He makes wrestling look phony and that's why nobody watches anymore.

It doesn't matter that he can do moves. There isn't a reason for me to care about him. Why should I care if he doesn't. Guys will say pro wrestling isn't good when it tries to emulate reality. But the problem is pro wrestling is a simulated sport. You could be goofy sometimes and in real sports you get goofy people. Making a joke of it isn't good.

Saying he's hurting the business is just false. People who stopped watching wrestling didn't stop because people "make wrestling look phony". It's 2020, everyone knows it's fake. Orange gets huge pops whenever he appears and every single non-wrestling fan I know who's seen him loves him, despite not even being into wrestling. Nobody is gonna stop watching because of his gimmick. And there may not be a reason for you personally to care about him, but you're not the entire wrestling audience. Plenty of people love him and love his gimmick. Trying to keep everything the same as it's been for years without letting wrestling grow and employ a bigger variety of gimmicks and styles does more to hurt wrestling than a gimmick like OC's does.

"I don't like this" doesn't equate to someone hurting pro wrestling. If the majority don't like it? Yeah. But that's not the majority opinion on Orange Cassidy. Not liking his gimmick is a personal opinion and saying that he's hurting the business when your opinion doesn't control a vast majority of the audience means you're saying your opinion is more relevant than theirs. How is it that he's hurting the business? AEW's numbers are great. He gets big reactions. What is the downside of his gimmick being allowed to exist on a televised wrestling show outside of some people disliking it? Because if that's the criteria for hurting the industry, almost everything happening in pro wrestling is hurting the industry.

This isn't about my dislike of Orange Cassidy. I don't like Randy Orton but I'd be a fool to say pushing him as a main event guy is going to hurt business.

Orange Cassidy alone isn't hurting AEW because comedy and bad wrestling is just the flavor of the product as a whole.

AEW's number are great for a show that's get barely any money from TNT and is backed by a billionaire's son. They're not even getting as many views as Impact Wrestling was getting at their peak.

Moose saying OC looks phony when Super Showdown just happened

TJ Ω wrote:

Moose saying OC looks phony when Super Showdown just happened

That's not where I set the bar

I have to go to Cornette for the truth on this

I've watched AEW a bit and I've been under the impression that PAC was a main event guy. It must not be true at all seeing how he needed joke wrestler Orange Cassidy to be distracted to beat him. WTF? All AEW cares about is the pops. The booking team doesn't care about the logic and the psychology of the cards they are booking.

I can't take any wrestling opinions of yours seriously when you say something like you have to go to Cornette for the truth on this. I just can't. There's no one more out of touch with pro wrestling in 2020 than Cornette, outside of Vince McMahon. But you're never gonna disagree with what he says for whatever reason, so there's nothing for me to argue here.

You say he's out of touch but I imagine the examples why he is would be weak.

He's understood how to run and book a promotion and there's few people who has done it as long as him.

Based on what I've seen. OC's character is that he's a good wrestler, he's just lazy. And he uses that to his advantage so his opponents don't take him seriously.

If Pac had taken him seriously the whole match it would have been over in 3 minutes. But he didn't, so it wasn't.

Cornette wished death on a wrestler because he didn't like the character the guy was placing. Best case scenario he's been playing a character 24/7 for ten years and everyone's being worked. Worst case he's a cunt and his opinion doesn't matter anymore.

That's exactly what his gimmick is. In the match with Pac, it started off with him being lazy and Pac not taking him seriously, so he surprised him. But then, once Pac realized he can actually go but is just lazy, Pac kicked his ass for a good amount of time, leading to him actually trying and nearly coming away with a win because, again, he's actually meant to be a great wrestler when he tries. You can dislike the gimmick all you want, but I fail to see how that makes the business look any faker than it already does and I especially fail to see how that is ruining the business.

As for Cornette, it's clear he's out of touch. AEW is having a very strong opening year. Not beating Impact's best ratings ever during its first year doesn't mean it isn't, especially with wrestling at the level it currently is. Many people love the product and many agree that there's room for all type of styles and gimmicks in wrestling, which is what AEW provides. It gives fans every type of wrestling. Cornette wants to keep styles and gimmicks that are getting increasingly popular out of wrestling (even going as far as to wish people death, as TJ said) because it's not what /he/ considers wrestling. Fuck all the people who enjoys this stuff, make it all stop. That's his take on it. Because he doesn't like it, he doesn't want anyone to be able to experience it, especially on TV, no matter how popular it is. He's stuck in the 80s. The whole "keep kayfabe alive, no matter what" mentality, when nobody believes it's real anymore and plenty of people are fine with enjoying it as art; a performance; rather than a fake sport.

Yeah I think it depends on how you view wrestling. I dont consider wrestling a 'simulated sport', I think that only works when people didnt know it was fake. Everyone knows it is now, the internet is a thing.

Wrestling isn't a simulated sport. It's a live action comic book. That's how I've seen it since I found out it was fake like a year into watching it as a kid. It's like watching mortal kombat or some comic book movie or whatever else just acted out on stage live.

Saying OC is ruining wrestling is like saying Squirrel Girl ruined Marvel. Some things are comedy gimmicks, they're silly, sometimes they work sometimes they don't. Sometimes they work for a month or a year and then don't work anymore, so you switch it up, etc.

On my phone rn so I'll give a short answer before giving a long one. Saying pro wrestling isn't a simulated sport and that instead is a live action comic book defeats the whole idea of pro wrestling, what people expect to see when they watch it and deflates the mythology behind it.

And if Orange Cassidy is lazy most of the time there's zero reason I should care about him. And you don't become great at anything by being lazy. It says a lot about AEW that they put a joke match on a $50 pay per view.

And it says a lot about the fans that the match was very well received. That's the thing you don't seem to care about. People like it. People enjoy watching it. I don't care about the mythology of wrestling or what people "expect" to see, as long as they enjoy what they are seeing. And a lot of people are enjoying Orange Cassidy, just like a lot of people enjoy other silly shit. Pro wrestling isn't getting ruined by things that people enjoy, even if others don't enjoy it, just because the people who don't enjoy it act like their opinion is all that matters on the subject, which is something Cornette does and part of why I no longer take him seriously.

If people like it that's fine. I've never worked or made money from Pro Wrestling as a business so I don't have the same stake in it as he does.

I've shit on TNA on this board for years and I've never said that they should go out of business. Even if they were a success I'm still allowed to have an opinion on it.

Unlike everyone else here I'll be fair and say the AEW audience likes the goof. If Tony Khan wants to continue his vanity project that's up to his dad. But doing stuff like this is going to hurt the promotion more than help it. We can pretend this promotion is this huge success story but ratings aren't up to where TNA was at their peak. If I'm wrong I'll be the first person to admit it.

The biggest problem with all of this is I couldn't give a fuck about PAC anymore. I heard he had a great 30 minute Iron Man Match with Kenny Omega but he couldn't beat Orange Cassidy clean in under 10 minutes. Why should I care about him? It's funny he wouldn't do a job to Adam Page because he was the Dragon Gate champion but allowed himself to be a part of this. This guy shouldn't be in any title picture.