They were better off scraping their socks.
*Lionel Hutz voice* There's trash-talk, and there's *Lionel Hutz voice* trash-talk.
A balance must be struck within the confines of the professional wrestling promo, the very, very obvious etymology of which is something even the so-called greats have struggled to grasp over recent years John Cena.
The wrestler should at once call their rival worse than sh*t and much better than sh*t, all at the same time. If wrestling is an ironic dance - it's a fight in which the two combatants protect one another - the promo is an ironic duet that functions to get the insulted over.
Cody is the greatest promo in the game; on the Road To Fyter Fest, he built his opponent Jake Hager, but with a smart, necessary acknowledgement that the old tactic hadn't worked, creating the expectation that Hager had bring it to another level. He didn't patronise the audience; he warmed them to a cold match. He spoke of Hager's pedigree to put him over, but demanded he show more than he had to that point, with a dig designed to create the sensation that a fight was about to go down.
"Cool. This ain't f*cking amateur wrestling. We're getting paid now, buddy."
Hager came back with his best AEW performance to date. There should always be a comeback of some sort. It's wrestling.
Unless the animosity is too much, the tensions are too high, or Triple H has had too much power for two decades...
Former Power Slam Magazine scribe and author of Development Hell: The NXT Story - available NOW on shop.whatculture.com!
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