SirSmUgly

Rousey needs to come over to pro wrestling for two or three years. I'd pay to see Rousey/Bayley, Rousey/Banks, Rousey/Charlotte, Rousey/Paige, Rousey/AJ, and Rousey/Nikki Bella. Shoot, I bet Rousey/Alicia Fox would be fun too.

I actually give Punk a whole lot of credit for being willing to get his face punched in for any amount of money. I also think it's cool that he's going for one of his dreams because as far as we know, you only live once. HOWEVER, can't I also eagerly await the inevitable knockout/submission of a guy with only a bit of BJJ background while I simultaneously give him credit for giving this thing a shot?

I thought to myself, "How can WWE be carnier than Dana White was in signing Brooks to fight in UFC?" Then WWE did a combo "future endeavors"/"find out about the WWE Network" post, proving that Vince McMahon is still King of the Carnies.

I might just watch that Shawn Michaels/Jimmy Del Ray match from RAW in 1995 today in memoriam.

Watching Rumble '91 and Savage's initial attack on Warrior is amazing. He picked up that light and dumped it on Warrior, which got a legit "holy shit" from me. Dude was totally out of control during that run-in in a good way. Slaughter/Warrior is one of those matches where it gets elevated to really fun because of the booking and layout even if the wrestling itself isn't anything great (though Slaughter's over-the-corner bump to the outside is awesome, of course).

I'm posting this GIF now so when Punk eats concussion number fourteen or whatever in the octagon, I won't have to remember to do it:

Yeah, they basically wrestled the type of enjoyable, short TV match that I expected. That was really fun. Thanks, man!

This post is fantastic, no sarcasm intended.

Shoot, you could put a black mask with red trim on Bull and then stick another big dude with long hair and rough features with him and call them Tex Slazenger Jr. and Shanghai Pierce's bastard son, Laredo Pierce. That would immediately be my favorite tag team in the company.

Yeah, I saw the FoF/Finlay and Taylor match on Nitro too. Thanks for the info. I'll trawl Daily Motion when I have a bit of time.

I have a question/request for the thread: Last night before bed, I popped in WCW/nWo Revenge and ended up playing a Finlay/Meng match that was pretty fun. Then, I wondered if they wrestled each other on TV one-on-one during the Nitro era. I couldn't find a match like this with some searching, but does anyone know if these two had a match on one of the C-Shows at any point?

I was on my fourth or fifth re-read of Hit & Run by Kim Masters and Nancy Griffin, so I decided to see if a bookstore had Hit Men by Fredric Dannen, a book about the development of the record companies and the history of payola in the business. One did, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a fast-paced read, much like Hit & Run, and because I've incidentally read quite a bit about companies now affiliated with Sony over the past few months, I feel like I have a surprising amount of useless knowledge regarding that company.

I want DKC: TF and Smash Bros. pretty badly, but not for more than a couple hundred bucks. For me, a WiiU would be a DKC/Smash/Starfox machine. Since Sears is shuttering stores, I'm going to trawl for a clearance WiiU there over the next few weeks.

Sami Zayn is learning how life works in front of our eyes. He's becoming cynical. After he slapped Neville, the crowd really should have chanted ONE OF US! ONE OF US Owens pretty much comes off as a badass in those vignettes. More people need to go with "angry dude that likes to fight people" as a gimmick. Sasha Banks is a terrible person.

Nope, still can't stand Punk as a wrestler and he's grating as a person. I'm just a big supporter of workers' rights.

That's not what this is about. This is about Vince pushing expenses on guys that they'll then need to keep their jobs for. He wants less Brock Lesnars and more...well, whatever Kofi Kingston is.

It's really too bad that Christian can't go anymore. Reigns/Christian would be perfect for him. I do not enjoy Sheamus either.

Brynsynner, you can find full eps on YouTube without much looking at all.

I still enjoy some of it, definitely. There are things that they do well. I don't think that not liking some of the philosophies that the company seems to take on wrestling eliminates me from being a fan, and of course as a fan of some guys, I'm going to be vocal about how much I want them to succeed. I don't think that's an unreasonable way to act. Sure, I can definitely agree that Vince is where he is for a reason from a creative standpoint, but artists often age and run creatively amiss all the time. Look at some musicians or movie directors that just seem to lose it when they get out of touch. I think there's a possibility that this is happening to near-seventy-year-old Vince McMahon.

I'm going back through and watching the whole thing, and yeah, I think I just have a different philosophy than Vince on this stuff. He says that there needs to be a promo hook at the beginning to get you to care about the guys wrestling, or they're just wrestling for wrestling's sake. First of all, no you don't, and actually, long and tiresome talky openings can make me care less about a guy and get me fatigued on them to start the show. Second of all, people can get over just wrestling for wrestling's sake, but even so, the idea isn't that they're "wrestling for wrestling's sake," but that they want to win and move up in the ranks and get title shots. It's like that whole concept - guys wrestling because they want to impress the matchmakers in the back and become champ - isn't even in Vince's mind. I'll tell you what's really weird for me about this interview; it's the final realization that I'm not the wrestling fan that WWE focuses on. I'm not part of the target audience. For a guy that has watched WWF/E since I was four and grew up with it (and sometimes still feels kinda like that four-year-old little guy when getting into wrestling in the moment), that's something that I guess I kinda knew subconsciously. This interview has made me realize it pretty clearly, though. I also think Vince's Millennial talk is silly. Lots of start-ups and small businesses being created by Millennials, for example. They're no more or less daring or hard-working than any other generation.

Vince doesn't get that guys can be physically charismatic and genuinely get over on work. Guys did that in WCW or JCP quite often, but that's not exactly Vince's idea of pro wrestling. I care about what Cesaro is doing in the ring, but that just doesn't really matter to Vince. Silly over-acting like 2007-era HBK = genius physical in-ring emoting to Vince. Man, I appreciate Vince for being honest, but what he and I want to see in the ring are at cross-purposes, which explains why I spend most of my time on his network watching old stuff and not the current shows.

Oh man, I cannot wait to get home and see Vince dump on his roster on his own network. CANNOT WAIT.

Watts was in for a few weeks you know. Did he book the giant beatdowns like the one where Yoko, Mabel, Owen, and Bulldog beat the shit out of Diesel and HBK and Bulldog pinned Dieselor the one on RAW where like eight guys straight jacked Diesel and 'Taker? Those were awesome on a "Nexus rips up ringside and beats up Cena" level. I'm to the 11-20-95 episode right now, so I'm looking forward to seeing that again in the next couple of days.

I'm interested in NJPW World, but not until there's a Roku or PS4 app. I'm not into using the HDMI cable to watch on TV via my laptop; I usually like to use my laptop while watching TV, actually. I hope that happens soon because I would love to more closely follow NJPW.

The Vaudevillains are supposed to be heels, but they are WAY too charming for me. That short is definitely my favorite skit on WWE television all year. This might sound crazy, but I'm sensing a Bayley turn coming up.