"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.
Course, now that he's booker you almost don't want him having the title (even though he's certainly a logical choice). Having a booker give himself the title is almost never a good look. I think it's part of the reason the member of the Elite in AEW aren't as dominant as you might expect them to be. I think they're intentionally keeping themselves out of the top spots to avoid that controversy. Which is almost weird, when you consider the team they call the best tag team on the planet and the wrestler they call the best wrestler on the planet win only like half the time.
I think with this Marty has a logical excuse on a few levels.
- Many wanted to make him ROH World Champion in 2018 but the company was worried he'd leave. So there has been a push to put the belt on him for 2+ years.
- He leads Villain Enterprises and is leading the top stable in the company. At some point he has to become World Champion or it won't make sense to keep the belt away from him. Usually the top star of a stable becomes champion. To show how important the stable is and lead the main program.
- Marty is co-booker. Delirious can still be considered the co-booker and be part of the decision.
For ROH's own benefit he has to become ROH World champion. It makes the most sense and I don't think given their situation with how things are after a disaster 2019 , they will care he's co-booker.
"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.
It's a dumb criticism imo. In the old days the top stars were also bookers. That's how wrestling largely works. Also Marty is the only star RoH has. Their audience isn't going to complain if he became champion. Same with AEW if Cody became world champion which is why Cody being concerned about that criticism is fucking stupid.
I don't think the modern day wrestling audience wants to see that though. Especially since Kayfabe is over.
Eventually Cody has to become champion. He is the face of the company, but after that big win then what.
How do you heel against the face champ who has all the power?
Why do I root for the guy with all the power, the championship, and the biggest faction in wrestling behind him?
I say this as a guy who has been a huge fan of Cody since Day One.
It's kind of like watching a Tarantino movie where he is the star. He has graphic love scenes with Salma Hayek, Margot Robbie, and Lupita Nyongo. Also he beats up the Rock and has Brad Pitt as his man servant
I agree the criticism is dumb if you are referring to a legit top star. But I don't agree some of the audience and wrestlers at some point won't start complaining about it regardless. People make dumb criticisms.
But yes, booker or not Marty at some point should be champion, theoretical criticism be damned.
That's a good point about the audience not wanting to root for the guy with all the power.
A strong arguement against Cody winning the belt as a face (though he can always go heel), but a good arguement for Marty winning the belt. If the fanbase turns against him more that's fine since he's the heel anyways.
It's almost too bad any progressive spin you can pull out of a female winning the world title is going to be neutered by the fact that the female they chose to give the title to is apparently a racist bully. The whole female empowerment thing is sort of thrown out the window.
The only other time I can think of when this happened to a major promotion in the states is when sexy star won the Lucha Underground world title... flash forward a year or whatever and she's breaking other womens arms in the ring.
In hindsight some promotions just don't seem to be pick the right women to get the proper milage out of these sort of things.
When it comes to wrestlers it depends on who's doing the complaining. The Young Bucks have complained about how New Japan didn't care about them. I've seen their New Japan stuff and it never got over with the crowd and they drew no money for the company. They expected the company to give them the Kenny Omega treatment when they ain't drawing business? If someone like Braun Strowman complained then I think he would be justified as he got pushed strong, got over and could have been a top star if WWE ever pulled the trigger on him.
I mean Impact brought in Michael Elgin after all that mess. Jessica Havok who's said racist things before, even Sami Callihan is, controversial.
WWE kept guys like JBL and Bob Holly on their roster for a LONG time despite being bullying a-holes behind the scenes. They also brought Hogan back as soon as they thought they could get away with it, have Ric Flair make appearances, lionized Jimmy Snuka and Warrior after their deaths, props up Moolah despite her being a monster, and Vince let Shawn get away with everything short of murder back in the day, etc.
Austin still being beloved despite beating the crap out of his then wife Debra.
Nic Gage is a convicted violent felon, and he's one of the biggest babyfaces on the Indies.
This is pro wrestling and always has been, Is it right, not really, do we have to like it, certainly not. But lets not pretend that this is anything new.
If Tessa said something that rubbed the *wrong* person the wrong way, it's reason enough for WWE to not give her a sniff. There's always been stories about her (I still remember Victoria publically bashed her early in her career) so it's interesting to see everything suddenly come out all of a sudden.
She has talent and made something of herself, and it's not like there's tons of other wrestlers who were jerks who later cleaned up their act.
It's funny how it all came out simply because she made some random tweek one day. And the timing of it, on th eve of her winning the world title, shows the universe does have a sense of humor.
That said, because it's Impact it's really no big deal. MAYBE if it were AEW or WWE, it could be an issue... but Impact being so below the radar actually helps shield it from negative backlashes to a large extent. So she and Impact will be just fine.