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Triple H matches overall would've been looked back on a lot better if their average length was cut by 20%.

...yes. The real tbarrie is going to be some pissed when he finds out.

I just don't understand why people do this. Is your life so fucking pathetic that you have to pretend to be someone else online to get people to be nice to you?

I heard some podcast hosts refer to Wardlow as "Hot Rhyno" and I'm fucking dying.

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Depends on how you define success. Is he responsible for all subsequent booking stumbles that might diminish the shine he puts on someone? Someone not using that shine to springboard to perennial main event status is no knock on the times he's given rubs IMO. You only counting outright coronations as successes is taking quite a narrow view. He essentially put Shelton on the map as a singles competitor, and over the next couple years he rode that into a solid upper-midcard run. He's set Jeff Hardy up for success multiple times. He shined Ambrose up nice during their mini-feud in 2016. I'm missing the poor execution in any of those. Heck, IIRC he even gave Maven a rub in 2004 before they finally attempted to push him in earnest. It didn't work out for Maven in the long run, but I don't consider that a shortcoming of the job Hunter did. He gave Maven a great set-up for a potential run. On his part, I count that as a professional success. As a perennial main eventer, not every prospect he comes in contact with is going to pan out. But when he sets out to be giving as a performer, he generally does a good job. There are glaring, high-profile examples where he's outright jammed people up. I think those blind people to some of the opposite examples.

I'm happy with what AEW is, and not trying to be another WWE.

Smart move on the Saints part, Jameis already has a ton of experience throwing passes to Saints players.

Gonna have it online in another day or two after I finish moveset and logic, but here's somebody I bet all the DVDVR faithful will want to download:

The best ass kicker in wrestling vs. one of the best underdogs who can take an ass kicking. That bodyslam and better yet the slams onto the guardrail. I know I watched this back when I got the '92 Japan TV from Lynch in like 2004 or so but I don't remember it even though Stan is my A1 dude and Kikuchi is incredible. No promotion has ever been better at establishing levels to their roster like AJPW in its golden age. Kikuchi isn't getting a whole lot and isn't even going to really push Hansen at all, but that's okay. He is going to endure, suffer, endure and suffer some more, and then get off whatever he can with whatever he has left and then get annihilated. Hansen working the back to setup the youngboi killer is awesome. Kikuchi isn't even worth going after the lariat a second time. And yet, Kikuchi remained ever the fan favourite and was in one of the best matches of all time later that year despite all of that.

Fuckin A right. I'm just trying to watch fake fighting that doesn't make me feel like I am wasting my time watching it.

I would call his acting style in those scenes "sweaty."

Ehm... Bret Hart won that match against Austin (and it was a Cobra Clutch in that match, though obviously still the same spot).

So your post made me curious and I found some clips of that segment on YouTube and... Yikes! That was rough to watch. I can't imagine who - other than maybe HHH, HBK, and Vince - that was meant to amuse or entertain in any way. I felt deeply embarrassed for them. I couldn't even get any schadenfreude out of it. Good Lord that was awful.

All the talk about the random “HHH makes you think he may lose/puts a guy over” matches and no one mentions that (IIRC) Smackdown where he got Rikishi over as a serious threat?

Shoot, I can't even remember. I had a Hulkamania shirt when I was four and watched it then, but I don't remember ever not being aware of pro wrestling or of not liking it. I bet my grandma had something to do with it. She's from the South, so she was more an NWA fan while I watched mostly WWF. Still, she would watch any wrestling. I remember watching AWA on ESPN with her as a very young child (I also remember that my first wrestling figures were AWA figures - I had Shawn Michaels, Marty Janetty, Larry Z, and Nick Bockwinkel, so I ran endless Midnight Rockers vs. Zbyszko and Bock tag matches. I even had a ring, but I can't remember if it was an AWA ring or no). I will say that I can remember when I really took notice of NWA/WCW for the first time - when I saw that Sting/Flair Clash match. I remember being blown away by that match as a little kid.

I love wrestling for what it is, to me personally, an escape. Chikara and its ants and invisible grenades crack me tf up. Wcw with the hotly contested cruiserweight matches, the squash matches on syndicated weekend shows, that was my jam. Jake the Snake scaring wrestlers shitless with Damian, Warriors crazy over the top promos. That countdown before the next buzzer as your next Royal Rumble entrant walks out from behind the back. ECW and the crazy Awesome Bombs or the tazmissions, Whipwreck and Tajiri, the giant killer Spike Dudley, 3d's for everyone, TOTAL ELIMINATION, all that. AAA with its Hell Brothers and six man tags, Verano de Escandalo, NJPW with the G1 tournament and the crazy fighting spirit never say die battles. Tldr I don't watch every last thing, I barely follow weekly shows unless something is heavily pimped with highlights recapped on YouTube, y'know? But for me, as an 80s kid, wrestling is just a getaway from the mundane every day. I love the random matches of recent crowdless shows that remind me of being a kid and sitting back grinning ear to ear at the comedy or being blown away by the athleticism and spectacle. If I'm going anywhere with this, my question would be- What drew you in when you got into following wrestling weekly, that you had to watch and just couldn't miss the next week? I remember it was a Saturday morning for me, and Jake the Snake had just done his short arm clothesline to set up a journeyman guy for the DDT. I was blown away seeing him wipe out the guy, like "Damn, he just killed him on tv and all those fans are cheering for him." That was my 'I don't wanna miss out next week' moment. Just curious what yours might be, is all.

Comedic timing is one thing. It also helps that his position allows him to say stuff nobody else could get away with. Easy to be le edgy badass and wink at the audience when you’re in the family. Also, taking out the cultural implications or whatever, I find the DX stuff deeply unfunny.

Another quality is Trips' comedic timing. You could say D-X were problematic, they were. It was a product of a fucked up time period. Bad optics. But he hasn't lost that comedic value. The alibi of any 90's cultural figure is ''oh this was just the manifestation of societal norms then and we delivered the content for the market''. Fine. Trips on commentary just a MONTH ago was a net for attitudinal fans (like myself) to stay tuned in. He is hilarious. I haven't been following the empty arena era really. But Jericho and Triple H has made me turn on the cable box.

No it wasn't. The longer it went, the more people cared about it. Exactly the opposite of a Trips match.

I Would put a qualifier on his putting over Cena, too. Their whole Wrestlemania build, HHH fed into the “Cena can’t wrestle” narrative and probably codified if for an entire generation of fans. Obviously, Cena learned to play into it over time and it didn’t stop him from being the top guy, but try as he might (even during his Indy Cena run with the US title) he could never shake it.

I really think a lot of people just wanted AEW to be like an American NJPW.

Spot on. I also greatly attribute Triple Haight'che's run atop the post Austin/Rock WWE, destroying all challengers (most often far more entertaining than he), as the end of my interest in the product for about 15-20 years. The legacy of long winded bad promos is mostly what I think of when I think of Paul Levesque.

We did a big thread on HHH's 2000 in 2013. It was the most earnest thing FSW ever did here. Here's my review from the Jericho/HHH LMS match from that thread:

Ehhhhhhh... I don’t know about that. I’ve seen a few matches of his that I did enjoy, but I didn’t enjoy the brawling. Dusty, and Lawler he ain’t. But he did have quite a run of good matches with very charismatic top performers prior to the injury. Post that is when things get a lot inconsistent, and not in a good way.

I really liked the Bate/Dunne match and didn't like the Taker/HHH match at all. Triple H has bored me silly for most of his career. As a kid I wasn't interested in the blue blood. DX I thought was cool because I loved Rick Rude, thought Chyna was interesting, and Shawn was an entertaining dickhead. Triple H, or TRI, was always just there. He was the Richard Hammond of DX. Shawn was Clarkson, because he was an arsehole but nonetheless over with the crowd. I guess Chyna was James May somehow. Whatever, I hate Top Gear. Then suddenly he's main event guy, juiced to the gills. I thought I'd been in a coma or something, I don't think I missed any WWF back then, but somehow his rise to main event guy escaped me. The Pedigree is a good move, but I think I took more of a shine to it because a kid I knew called Deadly Dave used it as his finisher on Wrestlemania 2000. For at least the last 10 years and maybe more he's presented as this all-time legend, and I just don't buy it. I can't think of Triple H matches I'd go back and watch willingly.

Because George Lucas isn't anything close to being a good director and Hayden Christiansen was miscast from the start and also not very good.

Which is why i wonder if George would have said screw it and rewritten III in Clone Wars. He worked on the show a decent bit. He just had Filoni there to help keep him guided and focused. Seems clear the Anakin of the series is what Lucas likely wanted. Why he failed so spectacularly in getting him right in the movies i have no idea.

"If you wanted to talk about the elderly, you should have called last week when our pet care show was airing, but we were taping the elderly show."

You guys just keep that stuff in Canuckistan where it belongs. I have had poutine once, never, ever again.

Cheese curds are amazing. You're an inhuman monster, one of the many angled ones.

I'll send you some Cheese Curds if you like. We have all kinds of variations.

I'm ready for every contingency. Now, if you need me, I'll be passed out on the floor.

Delete you account. Seriously. This was the single dumbest thing I have ever seen posted on these boards (and think of the ground that covers). The guy you are talking about. and were mocking the idea he is a "wrestling historian" has written more great books on wrestling history than just about anyone.

Big bumping Gorilla!

I have like 5 bandanas and a durag on there, I'm comin' for ya.

Working from home ROCKS. Speaking of homes... a friend from my wife’s old job just settled on a house. Because my wife pointed him to the realtor who sold it to him (also a friend from her old job), he is giving us some money as a way of saying thanks for the referral.

Vince burying the main event segment was both sad and hilarious. Tremendous use of network television time lol. Maybe tomorrow he will say he was being "sarcastic", like his buddy Donnie.

Loved this: