SirSmUgly

Go for it. I'm sure there are at least a few people that will read your recaps and appreciate that part of them.

I just started watching this because I don't have El Rey (or cable). I am seeing the eps online, though, starting with that first show. It's an interestingly-shot show. Those backstage skits are shot like soap opera scenes, and I'm not quite sure if I like that or not. Dario Cueto looks like the type of guy that sells roofies to frat boys. Striker as PBP is better than Striker on color, certainly. Vampiro sounds pilled up over on color. The commentary is inoffensive at the very least. They really sweeten the sounds of slaps and chops in post-production...,man. Each slap sounds like a firecracker going off to me. Maybe it's my audio. I feel like I could listen to Konnan talk forever. Him talking about the history of lucha and how good Prince Puma was is my favorite thing I've seen so far on the show. I don't know much (any) of Blue Demon Jr's work, but I really did not enjoy him vs. Chavo. It was pretty sloppy and the pacing was weird. I think I kinda like Sexy Star, but I'm not thrilled about her fighting dudes if that's where this is going to go. Puma/Mundo was okay. I think I just don't yet get or appreciate the house style, but so much of it seemed more like a performance - get to the next elaborate spot - instead of a fight. Oddly, it reminded me of Ambrose/Rollins Cell in that way, where it felt more like a series of spots meant to pop the crowd rather than a full match. Post-match was whatever with the devious owner, but I am fully in favor of Ezekiel Jackson on my television.

I'm way out on a limb by myself, but my favorite work from Jim Ross is actually his short-lived three-man booth with Bobby Heenan and Randy Savage. Heenan and Savage did the heel-face bickering dynamic nicely, leaving Ross to do a good call. I also prefer Ross/Ventura greatly to any of Ross's WWF work other than with Heenan and Savage.

I agree in most cases. I know people will ardently disagree, but I really enjoy some gimmicks or promos or angles or what-have-you with racial, gendered, or social portrayals that aren't one hundred percent positive. Other times, those gimmicks can be hard to watch. I take them one at a time.

People into gender politics will argue that this constitutes slut-shaming and sexist rhetoric, so those people sure would think so. I don't have a problem with it because it's wrestling and pro wrestling at its best reflects what people who watch it might really be thinking, but I also get why others would see Jericho as a heel as well as Stephanie for insulting her over her body and her sex life.

Well, now we're getting into a discussion of what audiences see as improper behavior. The problem is that when wrestling was in the '50s, '60s, up through the '80s, there was a pretty widely accepted cultural set of standards for how to act that defined the fanbases of each company. WWWF/WWF was about working class/patriotic heroes with a lot of cross-class clashes and angles based on nationalism, NWA was (paraphrased from how someone here put it) a perpetual re-telling of the Civil War with the faces taking the perspective of the South mixed with an emphasis on the Southern concepts of honor and chivalry, etc. Now, WWE has this very modern, very fragmented audience that feels culturally free to take a number of positions on what components make up ethical behavior with a dash of twenty-something nihilists and misanthropes that cheer for anybody who sneers at everything and everyone (which I think fully explains why CM Punk became such a big deal there for awhile). That's why you get so many different ideas here about who is the heel and who isn't in any given thread.

WWE faces often act like bullies and jerks, which is probably why posters tend to see the villains as maybe not faces, but as more understandable or relatable in some ways. AJ accusing people of getting where they are because they were models smacks of a really annoying type of prejudice that ignores that in kayfabe, Nikki Bella has been kicking ass and deserves respect for her wrestling abilities. On top of that, Nikki and Brie made up and are friends again. I can see why someone would find the Bellas more sympathetic than AJ.

I was like, "Who the fuck said that?" Then I went back and looked and was like, "Oh Ebbie, you crazy, cranky lady." At least Ebbie told her to make her own sandwich instead of telling her to make one for Punk. That's a form of advocating for empowerment in a way, uh, I guess? I checked out part of this RAW after the fact to see Bryan, which was cool. The talky talk for twenty minutes to start the show was not. I was watching a Nitro yesterday that started in media res; the Giant was trying to chop through Giant Haystacks's chest in the aisle. They need to vary their openings like Nitro did. Sometimes a match, sometimes an event in the back or the aisleway, and occasionally a promo. Then the laptop GM...not a good creative decision, to say the least.

Sting and Bayley vs. Flair and Charlotte. Sting turns on Bayley out of mercy in order to teach her a lesson that he wishes it hadn't taken him thirty years to learn.

I still think Dolph/Brock at a B-PPV would be great because 1) the crowd would eat it up and 2) Brock murdering Dolph with suplexes would be amazing. I think a ten-minute match where Dolph gets slaughtered but maybe gets a kickout or two on Lesnar's secondary stuff and gets a two-count off a flash pin attempt would be a great way to work in a fresh matchup and at least utilize the fact that crowds seem to be really into the guy.

Man, this thread makes me desperately want a complete set of SMW television. I love the borderline tasteless angles, plus New Jack and Mustafa are like ultra-faces for this liberal black guy from the West Coast.

I feel like I have to click the "Like this" button anytime someone mentions WWE doing a WarGames. Elimination Chamber is right around the corner, so I'll get my hopes up again just because. I really feel like Brock Lesnar needs to be in WarGames, though, just so Heyman can be his ringside manager and do stuff like yelling "WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR WAAAAARRRRRRRRR" to pump Lesnar up before he gets into the cage.

Is there anyone else who's first- or second-biggest angle in their career hinged on them not wrestling, but being on TV numerous weeks? Sting's impact on business for that time is so hard to quantify precisely because it's hard to know how much of it was him and how much of it was just the nWo. Watching that stuff then and now, my only focus was "When is Sting showing up and wrecking up the place?" As someone mentioned, Uncensored '97 is amazing and I think is genuinely one of the best segments in U.S. wrestling history just because of how unglued the place came when Sting finally started beating everyone down. In my mind, it is really hard to say that the nWo angle would have been nearly as good with anyone else in his position. Even Flair, who was also viewed as WCW through and through, just couldn't have possibly filled the role of lurking in the background and intending to put things right in any capacity near Sting, IMO. At the same time, the nWo would have still been pretty hot. Basically, without Sting getting significant credit for 1996/1997, I don't see how you can put him in the HOF based on the criteria because, as many great matches as he had, he doesn't have volume on his side to make up for 1991-1993 WCW being a dysfunctional company that put him in a terrible position to draw, thus killing the argument that he could carry the gate.

in one of his nightly concerts with Satan, just after Bray got done sacrificing the goat, Satan was like, "Oh yeah, did I tell you Dean Ambrose's dad is in prison? For cooking and selling meth to nine-year-olds, as a matter of fact. Who would have guessed that?" He says that last sentence really sarcastically, too. Voila, Bray's on TV with knowledge of Dean's daddy.

I'm also fine with what Skelemania says. I feel old as hell knowing that Sting is in his mid-50s, but considering that he is in his mid-50s, it might just be better to have him as a corner man that hits another Scorpion Death Drop on HHH during a ref bump or something. I think a tag match is probably the very best way to go if Sting has to wrestle. That or a five-minute glorified squash match.

I hope Sting and HHH never wrestle one-on-one and we get Sting/'Taker or Sting/Rock. Of course, Sting is 55 and probably needs to wrestle someone that could help him out in the ring. Actually, it's too bad that part of the crowd would crap on a Sting/Cena tag team because that's what I'd like to see. Assuming Reigns is slotted into WM to face Lesnar and Daniel Bryan makes it back to be at WM, I also would not mind Sting/Bryan vs. HHH/someone else (Batista?).

EDIT: I guess I was wrong - he did win the NWA championship in TNA, AKA "that place I hate because now instead of getting Sting at 45 in WWE, we're getting him at 55." Nope, Summer Rae sucks. That match had no chance anyway with how fans are conditioned to expect two-minute women's matches and the fact that Cameron and Summer Rae got fairly significant ring time.

The problem is that Reigns is supposed to be a badass shitkicker type, but every time I see him out of character, he comes off as a laid-back, cool type of dude. I feel like he should be trying to channel someone like face Diesel. He'll get stern with you and beat you up, but he's also pretty laid back and funny otherwise. Diesel's probably not the best example of what I have in mind, but I've been watching lots of 1995 WWF recently, so he's the first guy who popped into my head.

If Sting is wrestling at WM, it needs to be five minutes, and he needs to just kill someone with a finisher barrage at the end. Maybe The Rock would come back to do it; didn't he always want to wrestle Sting? I think if it was five minutes of epic staredown -------> punches and chops -----------> signature spot trading into the finish, people would enjoy it as spectacle.

Let's try the sandwich method. That was the epitome of a one-match show, but it was a heck of a match. Also, 55-year-old balding Sting is STILL awesome. Bray/Ambrose was not good. It was an awkward, ineffective brawl (though Bray's stiff clothesline on Ambrose was great). Bray still hasn't had a really good singles match with anyone not named Daniel Bryan in my view. Goldust was good in the four-team-tag-match, but the match had weird pacing and that tower suplex spot looked terrible. Mizdow being mad over was great, though, as was the continued teasing of him getting into the match. Starting this PPV with a fifteen-minute promo sucked. I paid for this. I don't pay for RAW for a reason, but I paid for this. The four-on-four women's match was overlong. I don't really remember much else of what happened on this show. It was almost completely forgettable pre-main event. I do appreciate WWE giving us actual continuity. Brie Bella getting revenge on AJ for her husband after almost three years was priceless. That was perfect. Also, Big Show reminding us that he can't afford to get fired by turning on Team Cena was also a nice nod to continuity. Dolph Ziggler can take one heck of a beating. I think he does certain things well: Bumping and selling that he's half-unconscious after landing from a wild bump. In this match, it worked perfectly and he garnered a lot of sympathy with me. There were a lot of nice surprises and swerves to the main event outside of the Sting thing. Cena's elimination and Henry's elimination were both great. I thought Ryback went down for the count too quickly, though.

I'd say that third thing is not going to happen, but I also don't think the person who is saying that it will is the type to just say stuff like that, so...I'm assuming it's all noise and WWE personnel is "leaking" a bunch of shit just to confuse everyone.

I forgot that the PPV was tonight until I was reminded. Now, though, I'm kinda excited to see the main event. I think this is one main event that needs some overbooking to make it meaningful.

I enjoy Roode in the ring, but I'm not on board with his reign being the best of TNA. I enjoyed Austin Aries's road to becoming champ or the women's division circa-2008 centered around Kong, Kim, and Wilde more than Roode's title run.

I think Flair/Anderson vs. The Gangstas in some backwoods little arena in Tennessee is the greatest tag team match that this earth never got to see.

Speaking of Goldust... WWE Network has really brought me back into wrestling in a big way. Not that I ever stopped watching, but there's so much awesome stuff that I want to revisit and other things that I haven't seen that I am really, really excited just to watch and think about wrestling and to re-visit what I think about certain wrestlers. One thing I realize after watching lots of early-'90s WCW and a ton of WWE stuff is that Goldust/Dustin Rhodes has a legit claim to being the best U.S. wrestler ever. Like, he's great in pretty much everything. He's an amazing tag worker with whoever you throw him in there with, he's a great bleeder and is wonderful in brawls, that Goldust character (while extremely problematic) was something that enhanced his matches in 1996 when he really didn't have a great lineup of people to work with necessarily. Those Savio Vega matches on RAW are legitimately awesome, and while I was disappointed by his match with Ahmed Johnson at KotR because I really like Ahmed and think Dustin is great, he generally exceeded expectations for me in 1996 because he seamlessly integrated his character into his matches. I think most wrestlers suck at pulling off stalling in an effective manner, but 1996 Goldust is fucking awesome at this. On top of that, he's pretty much been good since then even as he nears fifty, excepting that Black Reign garbage (but TNA is a wasteland for veterans from WWE/WCW so I can't hold that against him), He's one of those guys like Finlay that never seem to drop off no matter how old they get except that he's doing crazy sunset flips and other really athletic things on top of being an awesome tag worker that shows vulnerability as a face or viciousness as a heel. The guy that I think I've come the farthest on because of having lots of his work at my fingertips due to the Network is probably Dustin Rhodes. I get extremely excited whenever he pops up on my television...which is why that Rick Rude thirty-minute Iron Man match at Beach Blast '93 might be the single most disappointing match that I've ever seen in my life.