Matt D

Of course, Jae really did this to keep the tournament relevant.

Behold the king. The king of kings.

We could bring mookieghana in to run the odds, but I think the chances that it could turn out like this are terribly slim.

I feel like this should be breaking the board from hits more than something silly like Wrestlemania or the Sleaze Thread does.

Shit. Did i miss the Wonderfalls discussion?

Fine. This instead: Only for Dutch's story: Part 1: Part 2:

I am hijacking this:

Breaking radio silence: If anyone is still on the fence, Cesaro posted this on twitter last night.

Does Punk still get royalties? If not, donate them to 3rd world countries as a tax write off. There's a terrible "Best in the World" joke here. I'm not making it.

I'd actually kind of really be entertained by Craig's thing. Also, I finally figured out why Triple H had such hatred towards Punk AND Bryan. They both stole his knee based offense.

Weirdly, I was sadder for Robin's call to Patrice than anything about the mother dying.

Losing TSteck on dailymotion was the big hit. It's probably going to be five years before they put up 1/10th of what he had.

We're saying that you're the Mike Ademle of March Madness Commissioners

Because it conditions the fans and then plays off of their expectations, almost Flairishly? I tend to admit that the fact Bryan takes a lot more of the match recently isn't necessarily a bad decision. It's not something i'd hold against him much except for when he was up against someone like Goldust or Cesaro.

Thanks Phil. It looked more impressive and weird blurred. Of all the Swinger matches on youtube, this is the one that's just highlights.

I think they've inserted some new people in though, like Batista. It's obvious most of the footage is a year or two old.

What is kind of crazy is to think about how long Cole has been there.

To be fair, only Von Kramer does the thing with the tea and he's a British Shakespeare professor. You are setting a bad precedent to be used against people who run with a first name last initial. I'm just saying. This is fair, and I gave it to you on some level before. This is subjective. It's just sort of hard to have a conversation about what you're saying on a level more in depth or interesting than the Chris Farley Show. Then again, this isn't a conversation.

I wish I could get a better look at this guy's mask I think that's all I have right now.

I wish this heel turn felt more like Bret's 97 "you all turned your backs on me" instead of Christian's 2011 "one more match."

Sure, in round one. We're in the finals now. It's one thing to spite vote against Punk. At least, that has a purpose. There's no reason to spite vote against Bryan OR Cesaro. Someone should give me something more than "GEE BRYAN'S REALLY OVER AND HAD A GREAT YEAR! THIS IS LIKE WRESTLEMANIA 20 ALL OVER AGAIN! THEY'RE DOING WHAT WE WANT FINALLY! YES! YES! YES!" That's what I'm seeing here. I like Bryan. I've yet to see anyone give me something other than a PWI 500 explanation, a "main event feel" (which I think Cesaro has done well with anyway) or maybe a "he's more over" explanation for why he had a better year than Cesaro. And it's okay if you guys go with that, (even "He won the WWE championship twice!," Yeti), because this is subjective, but those aren't metrics which matter a whole lot to me, which is why this is frustrating. People are saying "Cesaro did this, that and that better" using specifics. No one really objects to it. And no one raises a counter point.

Damn it Yeti, there's a whole lot of nothing in that post. I mean it's okay. You like Daniel Bryan because you think a lot of what he did was awesome this year. I get that. It's there. This is subjective. But there's not a single analytic point in your entire post. This is almost exactly what I'm talking about. In round one, you can get away by saying DANIEL BRYAN WAS AWESOME IN EVERYTHING THAT HE DID. HE WAS INVOLVED IN THIS. IT WAS AWESOME. HE WAS INVOLVED IN THAT. IT WAS AWESOME. This is the finals and he's up against probably the easiest person in the world to break down and show someone what he does well, which people have done. At least Jrag threw out a couple of things, though I still think Goldust actually connected with the audience far better than Bryan in the time period, especially those dead audiences, but this is moot. I actually think Cesaro connects really well too. He's great at doing little things, working the crowd in all the ways that the WWE usually hates, whether it's knowing when to toss in the We the People or when to just slow things down and look out to them while grinding in something or basking in his fallen opponent. He's not Mark Henry level at using negative space (bingo?) but he's also very good at it, maybe better than Bryan who sort of lucked in to gold. The fact that most of you seem to think that bothering to try to break down and actually compare these two on any level other than WWE MAIN EVENTS ARE BIGGER THAN NXT MAIN EVENTS! isn't worth doing kind of defeats the purpose of this entire exercise.

It's things like the way they built up and paid off the chinlock (of all things) between matches that really makes them special. Yes, Zayn is impressive. Yes, he brings a lot to the table, but the Orton vs Bryan matches are still good. They're just not special. The Zayn matches just highlight what Cesaro's been doing all year, whether he was in there with Miz or Regal. Clever transitions. Big spots. Great feats of strength. Interesting finishes. Smart selling. Linking all of these together to tell a story. You can break down the things he does well so easily, things that are novel. It's not just that he has the spots. It's not just that he has the feats of strength (be it the neutralizer on Khali or the super spinning run around the ring before hitting the uppercut on Zayn or the crazy suplex from the bottom rope, outside in). It's not just that he sells well and smartly and controls a match as a heel to have his opponent do the same. It's that he links all of these disparate pieces together to make really, really good professional wrestling.. Has anyone made even one meaningful argument for Bryan in this whole thing? He's getting over on a blank stamp basically. It's just a given. Someone break things down. What does Bryan do well other than being Daniel Bryan? What does he do better than Cesaro?

We've talked so much about the Zayn series, like Johnny just reposted, but the Regal match is just astonishing too. There's no better performance in the WWE all year than Cesaro in this match. The way he fights off Regal with one arm is amazing, both in how varied it is and in how believable and nuanced it somehow manages to be, and the "popping the arm back in" is the best spot of the entire year. There's no better middle ground between innovation and excitement and grounded storytelling. Bryan is coasting in comparison.

I know some people say that Brock makes them watch more closely because anything can happen. I kind of get that vibe with Cesaro. You almost certainly know you're going to see something special. Which in and of itself wouldn't put him over Bryan, but he's also on Bryan's level or higher on so many other things. I think a really key thing to do is look at the way they built and changed the matches in the Zayn/Cesaro series and then look at Bryan's series with Orton and while the latter two had good matches, does anyone really want to see another one? On the other hand, who here still wants to see more Zayn/Cesaro? Pretty much everyone.