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Rakes. My old arch-enemy.

I'm all about letting the 65 year old guy retire on his own terms because he's earned it. If Sting wants the Bucks, let him have the Bucks. If he wants someone else and this is a misdirection, so be it. Dude's earned it.

Especially looking forward to this one:

Meltzer:

We should probably close this out lest we go around in circles forever. That should be doable because we have very few bad faith posters here relative to the rest of the internet. It's DVDVR. Let's try to square the circle. Sting very likely picked the Bucks as his final opponents. He hasn't had the chance to work them much. He knows they can create the physical action and make him look good. They likely share certain religious beliefs? They're the EVPs of the company and a constant since he's been there. The match will probably be fine to good, maybe even great in some people's minds. If you extrapolate the sort of match Sting and Darby have and put it on a big scale and have the Bucks in there, it's potentially getting five stars from Dave if nothing goes wrong. Again, the bucks can create motion. They haven't interacted much with Darby over the last few years. They're going to bump and feed and sell like crazy. They'll also be annoying heels that Sting can vanquish and probably get some heat given the locale. People can be excited about the match. Past the hint of it at Forbidden Door, it's a fresh pairing. People can also be disappointed about the match. The Bucks aren't for everyone. There are bad faith reasons for that and good faith ones. If you hang around here, you should at least make some attempt to figure out why people may disagree with you, weighed, of course, against their overall posting habits. Starting point should be to assume good faith but certainly people can lose that privilege over time. Some of the people who are disappointed about the match think it'll be fine, but it wasn't at all what they wanted. This isn't a random match. It's a once in a lifetime thing. It's a last chance. There's no future program down the road. It was a last chance and means, for instance, we're never getting Sting vs Bryan Danielson. There's also the possibility that people are more frustrated by the almost two month build, which will be weekly, and will probably feature the Bucks being as annoying as possible, as opposed to something with more gravitas, be it... let's say Vader vs Flair (even if that wasn't a real retirement). Likewise, while it might make sense on paper, the Bucks have been off TV for a bit, so it was out of sight and out of mind and it took people by surprise. They were expecting any number of other possibilities. So yeah, it's complex and people can have different opinions. My suggestion is that no one (myself included) overly gripes about the sheer existence of this on a daily basis. We've more or less gotten that out of our system in the last 24 hours. If annoying stuff happens next week on Dynamite, that's probably fair game.

Vampire with a concussion, the Smiths’ unsuccessful follow-up to Girlfriend in a coma.

We need a Copeland/Hook team so we can get a “you think you know me” / “you don’t even know me” mashup.

I don't care about his last opponent(s) but I wish we could see him wrestle Danielson just so it goes down in history as having happened. One of those "would you ever have believed this?!" situations.

They had a SNME match when Terry was in. I am pretty sure they were feuding at the time. It's the same SNME in Tampa that Dean Malenko shows up as a ref for a match or two on that show.

IMO Bruiser Brody would have come into the WWF and got the run that Bad News Brown actually got.

Hook's theme is awesome and fits his vibe perfectly.

The best part of the Bucks being Sting’s last match is JR is gonna have to grit his teeth through a back rake. Can’t wait.

Guessing that John Popper wants too much money to use “Hook” by Blues Traveler for Hook

Prediction: The Sting/Darby vs. Bucks match is going to be a fun, goofy all-over-the arena brawl with a few completely insane spots. The Bucks are actually good in a match where you can have chaos. They are a bunch of athletic dudes who are bump freaks and know how to get heat either as faces or especially as heels. They’re just awful in a type of match that requires structure and psychology and — most importantly — keeping the facade alive that you are watching an athletic competition with rules. Because the most important part of a tag team match is that the referee is a “strong” character so it makes the heel’s cheating and wrong-doing feel important and builds up anticipation for the faces to overcome those odds. The Bucks just do not do that at all in a regular tag match and it sucks.

If we're booking a Sting match with the idea that "Can you believe that happened?", Adam Copeland & Sting & Darby vs Christian Cage & Nick Wayne & Killswitch is right there. So 30 years from now, crusty old veteran Nick Wayne can tell people how he wrestled Sting once.

When it comes to the Jackson’s, yes.

Gunther goes back in time, gets put into a feud with Hogan. Feud starts with Hulk on Piper's Pit or Brother Love or whatever. Gunther attacks him, hits him with a couple of his chops. Backstage, Hogan goes to Vince holding his raw, red chest and cancels the feud. Gunther attack never makes air like the infamous Jake DDTs Hogan to cheers segment.

As for the 'Why can't Sting just work a singles match question', A LOT of the structure of the tag matches they work are heavily based around segments where Darby does Darby shit and Sting gets to lay around & sell / catch his breath. I know he does lots of brawling and bumping and selling as is, but they don't have to show a full 5 minutes of that if they can switch to Darby doing a dive or being sandbag tossed 300 feet. There would be long segments of extended two people laying around so Sting doesn't get too gassed. Which is boring to show on camera. And your cardio drops hard as you age. He's literally not capable of even the brawling kind of match he does as a team without lonnggg segments of double down selling. He picked The Bucks and I get why. Car crash craziness with them and Darby. Can keep a highhhh pace. Can stooge and sell and an all action high spot filled exciting match. Very similar to Sting & Darby vs Swerve & Christian from All In (which I thought was match if the night).

I totally missed Truth photobombing that until you said this The "Brody in WWF" what-if is still interesting to me. He obviously would have butted heads with Vince and left, but when and how and over what is the question. The answers are probably "soon", "no-show" and "money", but it'd be interesting where Vince would put him. Monster-of-the-Week probably wouldn't even be what he'd want to do or agree to.

My dude, the Bucks were out there for the last minute of the show. I really love the look of Daily's Place and I'm just a sucker for shows taking place in arenas that look different from the norm. I LOL'd at Taz asking if the concrete stage had been there before, then the realization dawned on him that it was the stage they always had and it was just a different layout.

The answer to every time travel question is LA Park.

Also, unrelated to Sting, I never thought I'd be excited for a Righteous match, but them and Archer vs. Mogul Embassy has my interest. Logical setup in the 8-man for what should be a fun heel/heel slugfest.

If the Bucks are willing to try it, I'm sure Darby can be talked into taking it.

Maya Angelico in the I Know Why The Christian Caged Bird Sings cinematic finale. I'd have paid $60 for that.

any tag team ever execute a combination back rake/chest rake on an opponent or are some moves too dangerous for wrestling?

Nord said that he and Brody would have come in during 1989 as a team. I think the Bolsheviks got their spot instead. It would have been hilarious and just like Vince to bring them in to feud with the Bushwhackers for six months.

Any 65 year old man who decides he's gonna fall off a balcony in Scorpion deathdrop position holding another man with only two tables to break his fall, where he could easily smack the back of his head directly onto the floor even if the tables worked as they should, is insane. In fact anyone who does that is cuckoo, meaning most if not all wrestlers EDIT: I got ahold of the Blue Chips tapes, there are actually three of them (Blue Chips 7000 seems to be the third one). That's... a lot to get through. But I'll do it. EDIT II: Just thought of this: did Stinger still come down from the rafters after the Owen fall? I mean, if so...

Sting is such a great smoke and mirrors wrestler. Dude is 65. He does wild garbage match-y stuff for a reason. A match where Sting takes a crazy table bump and sells for a while or wins with his scorpion drop from the rafters — maybe the crazy bump is not as crazy as a non-wrestler thinks and they’ve done a good job protecting a lot of the damage. That is part of the illusion and magic of wrestling. I mean, maybe Sting is just insane. But I could see there are possible ways where the bumps he takes in these matches (or bump?) are a hell of a lot easier on a body than a whole bunch of regular back bumps in a ring. Higher degree of difficulty with the table bumps but maybe they’re not as dangerous?

Davey Richards vs Davey Richard’s inside a Steel Davey Richards

No Young Bucks fan but it's Sting's right to call who he wants for his final match and Sting/Darby Allin/Shingo Takagi vs. Young Bucks/El Phantasmo at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2022 was a great match. I still think Sting/Darby Allin vs. #FTR from AEW Grand Slam Dynamite 2021 was Sting's best AEW match though.

Dog shit biased take man. Someone appearing for 3 minutes at the end of a show has zero bearing on the previous hour and 57 minutes rating trends. I know you know that. Is it really too much to ask to keep takes based in logic?

I am the same with Vincent. I was never clear why he was doing some variation of jazz hands on his way to the ring. Very much an “all-star high school cast doing Grease at a prominent regional theater” vibes and not desert dwelling weirdo with Messianic vibes.

I mean, if you want that to be a stip if they lose, sure. If they win, Sting can't retire.

Truth's a treasure.

Great opener from Hangman/Claudio with a super hot crowd. 8 man tag was fun and I'm glad we get something else out of it with Archer & the Righteous now challenging for the ROH trios titles on Collision. Deonna vs Red Velvet sounds great to me. Loved the Joe promo and always dig when the champ has multiple challengers coming at every turn. Starks/Sammy was surprisingly quick with a sudden finish, made me think Starks & Bill retain. Enjoyed the post-match brawl set to Judas adding to all the chaos. 8 woman tag was pretty good. Digging how Bryan Keith keeps showing up on all the shows all over the place lately. Good main event with a wild finish. Looking forward to a showdown with the Bucks.

To be fair, he has a terrible history of trusting the wrong people. (See Curt, a joke).

For me it’s the deconstructionism and winking irony, even when they chose to go through more conventional motions. There was probably a window where metatextual heels were novel and even additive but that was years ago and at the margins, not the center.

have they ever talked about what bounties Bryan Keith has hunted or is there an NDA for that

Hook vs Joe should be laid out like an NCAA tournament game where the underdog looks like they could win in the second half but gets overtaken by the favorite and loses

Triple post, but it does suck that Revolution should basically be the ultimate tribute show for Sting and WWE owns the bulk of classic Sting footage that could be used in video packages. There’s the TNA footage, but I want clips of Sting vs Flair, or Vader, or Sid, or Hogan, or Bret, or his entrance from WM, or the War Games matches, and so on. Maybe there’s a chance, albeit very slim, that WWE rents the footage out to AEW for a hefty sum. I mean, it couldn’t be more than the cost to use The Final Countdown. It’s HHH kind of in charge so maybe he sees the importance of letting it happen. I just have this image in my head of Sting’s final entrance where it starts out with a look alike without the jacket with pauldrons coming out to: That being his best music…To me anyway…Then we get the look alike with jacket and pauldrons coming out to The Man They Call Sting. Then another look alike in the sad makeup and trenchcoat comes out to: Do a red and black look alike coming out to Metallica’s Seek and Destroy even if he came out to that at Wembley. And then finally have him come out to his AEW entrance. And yeah, Jericho did something similar, but this entrance for Sting’s final match would be so fucking epic. I just know one thing, I’m going to be in tears. I’m not ready for it to be over. I was a WWF kid, but man, if my favorite as a kid wasn’t Ricky Steamboat then it was definitely Sting. He’s the reason I got into WCW/NWA. His matches with Muta are likely the reason I got into Japanese wrestling. The entire storyline of him going into silence and waiting forever to challenge Hogan is still one of the best ever even if they didn’t stick the landing (because what is wrestling without a great story and not sticking the landing). Dude is one of my all time favorites, didn’t need to do any of this stuff, and yet he did anyway. To kinda quote Moneyball, how can you not be romantic about pro wrestling?

This board is weird, I swear. Look, I get the Bucks aren’t all of y’all’s cup of tea, but Sting can’t do a singles match. Hell, he even has to do cinematic matches as a tag match. So who else would be better to put Sting and Darby up against than the Bucks. As characters, the Bucks are dickheads, they want to send Sting out with a loss, but in reality, there’s fewer teams more appropriate than the Bucks that can ALSO protect Sting and bump around like pinballs for him. This is the logical and best conclusion given Sting’s capabilities. Now, if maybe Sting wasn’t going full Cactus Jack in most of his tag matches then he’d be able to physically do the singles match against Darby, but he looked seriously fucked up at the end of that match last night. I don’t want to see Sting all broken down looking sad as fuck in his final match like Flair did. Give him the tag match against the Bucks and let Nick and Matt bump around the ring for Sting like crazy. I am almost sure that if it were physically possible that Sting would want to do the honors for Darby, but I just don’t think he’s capable of doing it.

As soon as I saw the ending, I knew that the internet would have the most level headed reactions to the Bucks being Sting's last opponent. I'm going to go ahead and take a wild guess that Sting himself handpicked his last opponent, so while not being a big fan of the Bucks(despite liking their matches for the most part), I have no issue. I also think it's somewhat refreshing in a way that we're not going to get a Darby v Sting match. A partnership that doesn't lead to a "fight" is something you don't see often in wrestling. Shit, even FTR has only faced each other once (I was at that show in Philly, really happy I got to see that live). Armchair booking and handwringing what was likely Sting's choice just seems...weird to me. The guy earned the right to pick his final opponent, no matter what personal feelings people have towards the opponents in question.

Same here BUT it lead to me hearing a great, really high quality, unused instrumental version of his WCW theme that was entirely new to me so as a nerd for that kinda shit, I call it a win

I'd target THAT Nathan Jones who had that strangely good match with Scott Steiner on that WWA PPV, as well as trying to pinpoint the healthiest and buffest Big Poppa Pump and snatch him while I'm at it and have those two terrorize Hogan as a tandem for a half a year.

Jeez, Ponderosa, that takes me back. Hell I thought Shoney's was long gone until I found out about Steiner buying one. What did they rename to? Ennigan's? Bennie's?

Thoroughly loved this show. Hanger v Claudio and Sting/Darby v Hobbs/Takeshita were both masterfully crafted by a bunch of real pros. Darby fucking Allin!!! Dug the odd pairings in the WAR 8 Person Tags. 'Dark' days onwards I've hoped to see more and more Trios action (I'll gladly take Quads) in the ladies segments. Wonderful Brodie Lee Video package. The Samoa Joe interview segment set up some future week's of television nicely. I'll take a Hook v a Joe! This may have been my favorite Toni Storm promo yet. Thrilled to have a Purrazzo v Storm bout to look forward to. I'll take May v Purrazzo too. Starks v Sammy was an odd one, but I didn't not mildly enjoy it. I hope Jericho/Sammy at least pivot heel. And stop trying to make Sammy Guevara a babyface. He's a perfectly fine heel. If he needs to drop some exciting maneuvers, that's fine. His fundamentals and mat game are, perhaps, underrated. Bill/Starks have had two tag matches since winning the titles in late October. Two underwhelming defenses. Roddy v Bryan Keith was a nice little TV enhancement match. I hope Roddy's not done yelling names. Pretty solid Deonna/Red Velvet confrontation. Yeah, I'm very game for Sting/Darby v Coke Dealer Jacksons!

When so many people don’t agree with you that they’re terrific and excellent, at some point you might have to consider that it’s a matter of taste and not intelligence or logic

It was a Violent Gentlemen shirt being sold right after Brodie passed with proceeds going to Brodie’s family. I remember trying to buy one and they were all sold out online and I went back some months later and they were no longer being sold. It would be cool if they would sell them again.

It's in our contract that whenever the local school district closes for weather so does our office so I have a snow day today! Honestly this might whip even more ass at 43 than it did when I was a kid.