Jiji

I don't care for their act on NXT but I enjoyed that promo because it came off like something from the WWF in the late 1980s. Over the top cheese.

I went with the hippie/intersubjective/Star Trek The Motion Picture ending. It was great.

While I'm sure Stephen Guerrieri has a part to play and puts his work in, he hasn't been around for the duration of NXT (lots of sites mention he replaced Ryan Ward as NXT's head writer) and there is certainly a level of continuity in the quality of storytelling and booking long term.

They should do closing credits like WCW, as this would be a lot easier.

I know someone who probably knows, but if he were still here he'd only tell you over the course of 20 posts that he already told you how it works. And that he knew about it 2 weeks before anybody else. That sign was masterful.

Jesus, I remember all of the propaganda/WWII imagery in the opening (and the "I'm sick and damn tired/sick and damn tired!" bit, lol) but they have King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" clip with Vince superimposed beside King. Vince would totally see himself as another MLK, wouldn't he? That middle finger is something my friends and I would play up for years and years. Shit, to this day when I finger one of them it's in the VKM/David Cross style. It's interesting to note how badly the match quality fell off the face of the planet as the Attitude Era hits full stride. It didn't matter too much because characters were over and they gave us reasons to care about what was going on.

I'll ask again. Does anybody know how the creative/booking works in NXT? Is it a committee? Does Trips just do big picture stuff a la Vince with the main show?

So, does NXT have a writing team like the WWE main shows? Does Trips book the big picture stuff? Seth referred to Dusty as the "booker" of NXT during the Jericho podcast. I recall reading or hearing about another guy I've never heard of before being the mastermind behind NXT's brilliance. I'm wondering who is to blame for all of this wonderful, magnificent wrestling we're being blessed with. NXT is greatness. If this is what we have to look forward to when Vince, ahem, goes away then there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel. I felt the morality conundrum for Sami with the title belt at the end of the match went on for a bit too long but, whatever, that match ruled so hard. Such an emotional roller coaster and it played out the way it ought to have. Steen turning was the right move too. He doesn't need to be built up. The vignettes, his debut squash, the back story with Zayn, and his ability will see him through more than fine. Think of the incredible talent pool the WWE has to play with and the only fucking guy over is John Cena. SMDH. Sami Zayn is easily the best of the bunch in 2014. I haven't seen enough Nakamura outside of the G1 and a few odd big show matches, but I'd put Sami ahead on his ability to tell stories and get the absolute best out of his opponents (and what a wide range of opponents). Edit: Oooh, I forgot to mention that Corey Graves seemed hella nervy and had a few awkward moments but I think there's a lot of potential there. Riley would be okay if he wasn't intent on being the pompous, self-promoting heel who hasn't done a thing to justify it. They called the main event perfectly, pointing out Neville's attempt to take the crowd out of it and spoil the emotional charge Sami was getting from them.

I get your point and agree with you that's very likely what they're thinking but that doesn't particularly seem to be playing out well in terms of business for them.

That was a terrible, terrible call. He put his hand out to ward off Safari and got him in the eye. Insane. Sure, in the big picture I don't see it making much of a difference but c'mon.

The Archie conversation was fantastic as was the opening conversation about Japanese indies and Yoshihiko.

Well, they have Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett doing commentary for their AXS TV show, so they're 1 for 1 in that department. I would think Mauro would be down for live shows. They could drive a dump truck full of money to Norman, OK and let Jim Ross do shows from a studio though I doubt he'd be down for that.

Incredible support and dedication in this day and age. Good on them! I will certainly preorder the game.

It will just have the Japanese commentary. You'll have to order the PPV to hear Jim Ross. Court Bauer said on his podcast that they're working on an English version of World that should be out in the matter of months. I hope they get popular enough to hire a dedicated English commentary team at one point. Though I've always enjoyed Japanese commentary, if they want this thing to take off outside of Japan, an English speaking commentary team is a must.

Taichi is trash, Tiger Mask might be worse, most of their gaijin don't have very good psychology so they consistently pander to the audience and put on poor matches, the wrestlers who debuted in the early '90s (Nagata, Nakanishi, Kojima, Tenzan, etc.) are all broken down physically (it was actually so sad it was funny watching Manabu trot around the ring for lariats and slowly fall down when selling), and I don't understand the appeal of Captain New Japan.So, when they load up the final three matches like they did on this show, the undercard (or in this case, the first 6 matches of a 9 match show) is going to be unbearable. Minoru Suzuki, Nagata to a lesser extent and maybe Kojima are about the only guys in those opening 6 matches that I would want to see wrestle. They have good depth in the top end but they really need to improve the lower 2/3rds of their roster and quick if they want to expand their business into American and elsewhere. It's weird that they pick two ROH guys that aren't really suited to the New Japan style in Bennett and Taven, but I guess all they cared about was Maria (creepy camera men!). The buffering stopped when I started watching part 2, it may have been an issue on my end. Also, the music was dubbed for some of the wrestlers' themes. Liger's, Tenzan's, Tiger Mask's and a a few others had loud, obnoxious, generic music blaring over their actual themes that you could hear in the background. Probably still better than silence.

The sentence before says so, this is the first time a team has fired a coach after beating us though.

Man, it seems like if you're on the hot seat the last team you want to play is the Canucks. His team beat them and Murray/Melnyk still fired him! How many teams in the past three or four years have fired their coach following a loss to Vancouver? I think he'll land another gig pretty soon. He did quite well turning that team around and of course they faltered when Murray stripped it down to bare bones. He's a hockey coach, Jim, not a damn miracle worker!

Yeah, the Malenko match mentioned in the general discussion thread was on Nitro 58/October 21, 1996 (network link). Such a great match. Damn, 2 of the 3 guys in the ring are now dead. That sucks. Great theme song, better sleaze.

Watching the World Tag League final right now and World is buffering like a ma'fugger. First time I've had issues. New Japan's undercard is brutal and I remember why I usually just watch the upper midcard and main event matches.

I'ma disagree with you. Ted Fowler is the most generic dude ever and bores me to no end. Steve killing time by himself is way more entertaining to me. Jericho is corny and sometimes he can veer so far that way it's cringe-worthy but he's usually manageable when interviewing. The more I read Jericho's books and listen to his podcast, the more I realize he's a pretty insincere, self-centred dude (him responding to criticism is brutal - "oh, I didn't bury this guy... no. I just said he doesn't know how to work. And that's all I'm going to say on that.") who lacks self-awareness. That's fine because it's worked for him and he's gotten to this position largely because of his ego, but it means I have next to zero interest in listening to him other than when he has interesting guests. Speaking of which, AMBROSE - TWO PARTS next week!

Might be my favourite squash match of all times. That spot was so fucking dangerous and awesome. Can you imagine being an enhancement guy, going to the arena and finding out you're wrestling Stan THE MAN Hansen and Sid fucking Vicious?

I could see 48-47 Lawler (even one of the guys doing PBP for Sherdog had that score) but 49-46? Hewwlnaw. Hendricks had some beautiful combinations ending with leg kicks in the middle rounds that should've done enough for him to retain.

Yeah, I don't get that one scorecard. How? Lawler fought a strange fight.

It was that photo shoot, wannit?

I enjoyed the game for the first half of two-thirds or so. Gets a bit tedious by the end. Will certainly try out PvZ.