Matt D

Has anyone made that animated gif with all the Street Fighter graphics for the punch the ground set up for the superman punch yet?

Do people think Dolph is better as a face or a heel. You'd think his bumping and athletic offense would be better for a face, but I'm not sure that's a case.

I forgot about that Harper match. It's really good. Hero is a guy who can have great matches with the right opponent, and did this last year. I kind of liked his unshaven evil hipster character. I like Daniels a lot at times (almost always up against guys who frustrate me though <see: the TNA roster>) but like JR up there said, if the consistency is about the same then it's the high points that stand out. What do people think daniels' best match in the period was?

Trying to remember. Have we had a clean sweep like Goldust just managed?

Within the period. Anyway, I'm voting with Jae on this. I said I would. I trust his judgment in things Ziggler. If he feels that, in his heart of hearts, Ziggler is better than Ibushi here, I am with him.

The Sheepherders were draws in Portland and Southwest at least too, right? Where else did they have that feud with the Fantastics and did it draw everywhere? Florida?

I'm curious to see what Dolph and Christian do together.

Of the two of us, my impulse control is way better. Also, it's a known fact that you can't get in trouble for posting Devil Went Down to Georgia. It's like hiding in a church from vampires. Hallowed Ground.

Christian is one of the best babyfaces in WWE history and probably my favorite babyface ace in the company's history second maybe to Bret from 92-95. They really squandered him though. I don't think he's ever really recovered from the misguided '11 heel turn and he's been out with injuries more often than not since then. It's really destroyed any chance he has of building momentum. There's no one in the company better at switching his moves around to different effect in different matches and building one match to the next. I really do think he should ride out the rest of his time in a tag team. If they want to use him as a heel then I want a four month Sandow/Christian vs Brotherhood feud or something. Sheamus is perfectly fine too. Sheamus vs Ryback is probably a top 5 "fun" match for the year so far. But this was the wrong match for the wrong night and WWE should have known better. edit: What Will said, yes.

Nothing makes a rudo mauling quite like using a guys cape to choke him. I'm going to have problems with the rudos. At least the technicos make sense to me. It's so weird to me for wrestlers to willingly limit their vision. For some reason I picture Dantes having an awesome Count of Monte Cristo gimmick earlier in his life. I know he didn't but it still makes me happy. The triple kick is great and the double clothesline later is one of the better once I've ever seen. I feel like we've been seeing that knee drop off the top more recently too, so maybe it's something that was coming into vogue. I liked Rayo's heart in trying to fight all three guys but it was ultimately futile. That's the sort of gesture that can really get a crowd riled though and set them up for the eventual comeback. Who did that cool rolling somersault elbow drop into the ring? That was great. Rudos give one of the best maulings on the set and then just chuck Atlantis into space after the fall. The tecnico comeback comes out of nowhere but it's spirited and over and intense. It leads to a reset which is a bit of a shame after the great mauling, but it really does let things breathe and give the fans a chance to revel with the good guys. If it's Morgan who is paired with Atlantis, he goes way above and beyond in keeping up and looking great. I feel like the shtick is almost more subtle here, smaller flourishes, but it's also lightning quick and more personality, closer more intimate little comedy spots that all comes at a machine gun pace so that you can't even process what just happened before they're into the next. It's impressive stuff and in and of itself it'd probably bug me a bit just because after taking a breath, now nothing breathes, but a> it's light enough that doing it this way gives the sum of it weight and b> it follows such a great mauling. I would sort of rather the technicos continue to brawl back like at the start of the caida but I get that this is their way of one-upping the rudos and also to embarrass them, which might mean more to them than actually punching them in the face. It's interesting how the miscommunication spots become broader in the third fall. It's amazing that they can pull all of this off boom boom boom but still make it feel natural and organic and not overly cooperative or staged. It's really an escalation from the second fall and in that regard it works, but I might have liked this stuff in the first and into the second fall, then the rudo mauling, then some sort of tecnico comeback. I was fine with it in fall two, but it sort of escalates into something less serious as they rush towards the end. I do like the sense that the rudos are able to tough their way through the comedy onslaught and come back with the numbers game. The triple kick is better than the one earlier on and Rayo, again, does a good job putting up a fight vs multiple guys before the triple clubber gets him. Did they win with that double armhold on Rayo with the third guy standing on his head? I'm going to go with that. If that's the finish I'm a little more okay with the layout. If they were building to the rudos getting their act back together then the finesse escalation sort of works better. I was expecting them to take back over and there to be more of a tecnico comeback. This was really quite good though and stands out even on a set like this. It'll probably finish high on the disc for me.

Yeah, I came out of that wanting to see more old, old man Fujiwara. I would definitely vote that ref's hair over Magnus though. Mochizuki was pretty emotive in his selling and was smooth enough but I'm still going with Bray.

I was trying to express my appreciation for Christian.

That crowd was super hot for Punk to save the day at the end. The Usos title change was absolutely planned for Chicago. They probably pushed it back from Elimination Chamber knowing what was coming. That was not a normal Raw.

I think last night WWE showed that while they're aware of the crowd, they're sure as hell not afraid of it.

Take heart in the fact that everyone who comes in now is going to come in through NXT and a lot of their worst in-ring tendencies will be beaten out of them while they learn how to portray a character the WWE way. Take heart in the fact that WWE's finally found a way to process and homogenize the "indy scene" to create something far better than the sum of its parts. It's not about selling out anymore, it's about buying in to the system and letting it make you into something better than you've ever been. The future is bright and none of the no-sell loving, fighting spirit snuffing action junkies see it coming.

He did quite well as a chickenshit sort of sleazy heel manager/wrestler.

Look, you're being absurdly pedantic in your attempt to get your kicks by shooting down why people, who by and large aren't even on this message board, have an emotional reaction towards something. If you're smart enough to come up with all of these reasons for why people are wrong or stupid or hypocritical to have the reactions, then you should at least be able to understand why they do and how it's ultimately emotional and therefore, not particularly useful to argue against, especially in a place that they aren't actually inhabiting. There are only so many pixels in the world and by putting these letters together on a screen you are using up enough of them for no good reason. Please stop for the sake of the great-great grandchildren that I'm not entirely sure that you're going to manage to have if you keep up this ridiculous smarmier-than-thou attitude. Actually that was an observation rather than any sort of serious (or otherwise) point. The longevity of top guys these days is why the show can seem stale. But: tell me how shitting on Christian and Sheamus is a good thing dude. You were fairly lenient towards this hijack gimmick before the show started. Was the show last night boring? Frankly, I don't care about the crowd one way or another. The interesting thing is WWE's response. This is basically what I said elsewhere: "<people are complaining>... about viewers being excited about watching the hostile crowd, but it's one of the few things in the world that can force WWE to be creative and come out firing on all cylinders in a single-company world. That's the joy of it, not just the derailing but to see what the hell WWE, which is generally formulaic as anything, does in response." That crowd prompted WWE to do something that they wouldn't have done otherwise. It didn't force them to change any of their longterm plans. It didn't derail anything. It did make the show hugely interesting for one night on the Road to Wrestlemania. Did they shit on the Sheamus/Christian match unfairly? Yes. Do I think they jerks for that? Sure. Was WWE stupid to toss that out there to die? Absolutely. Christian's a pro. He can handle it. Sheamus is one of the top merchandised guy in the company. He can handle it. I feel a lot worse for him for losing out on the match vs Bryan, which he should have never been in in the first place. Am I glad last night happened? Absolutely. It was a god damn blast and it would have never happened without the crowd. Were they in the right? Who the hell cares. They were human. They care, and since they care, WWE was able to play with their emotions and channel them into something. It's endlessly better that they care, even about the guy not there, than that they sit on their hands like some of those other crowds.

It's the internet. You cant win the internet. Not without finding a way to monetize hits or something and this sure isn't it. You can't win the DVDVR message board unless you're RIPPA and can post once notes are closed or something.

Look, you're being absurdly pedantic in your attempt to get your kicks by shooting down why people, who by and large aren't even on this message board, have an emotional reaction towards something. If you're smart enough to come up with all of these reasons for why people are wrong or stupid or hypocritical to have the reactions, then you should at least be able to understand why they do and how it's ultimately emotional and therefore, not particularly useful to argue against, especially in a place that they aren't actually inhabiting. There are only so many pixels in the world and by putting these letters together on a screen you are using up enough of them for no good reason. Please stop for the sake of the great-great grandchildren that I'm not entirely sure that you're going to manage to have if you keep up this ridiculous smarmier-than-thou attitude.

Once Seth Rollins goes babyface he should get Riley's music. I think the pre-show and post-show roundtables don't make things feel more real necessarily but they do make things feel more important which is always a good thing. We'll see if that sticks in two months' time.

This is a great post. One of the things that is going to come up this year is Akiyama and his place in the Japanese wrestling scene. The argument with Akiyama - who you also see compared to Sting by lots of people - is that he was a very good/great worker, who has been around near the top for forever, but was ultimately a major disappointment as a drawing card. What is interesting about that is that the "disappointing" top guy Akiyama had a lot of positives on his record when I was looking things up last year - far more positives than Tanahashi as a draw, despite how Tanahashi has been portrayed for the last two years. But the perception was that Akiyama was a failure, whereas Tanahashi has been given credit for saving NJPW from....himself? When I brought this up last year it was shunted aside, but it's not an irrelevant point, even if you think Tanahashi should be in based on work alone (Tanahashi is exhibit A in why I think NO ONE should get in on work alone). To the person who asked if it matters that Muta v. Sting was a draw, the answer is that it depends on what you are talking about. If someone argues that the match up was a draw they should defend it. If someone argues that it doesn't matter, then that's fine too, but what you see in this thread and every time the Sting issue comes up is a complete lack of facts and figures on the pro-Sting side. To the credit of the people in this thread arguing for Sting, most of them acknowledge that the numbers look bad for Sting, but believe that his peak out weighs the negatives. But I would still note that this sort of candidacy by perception way of looking at the Hall of Fame is the exact reason why so many borderline/middling candidates got in in the first place. I think we should use # of magazine covers as a key point of criteria.

Alright, I've seen enough of Ishii now to say that he definitely makes it over the low hurdle that is Magnus.

That's because you don't like Hammer Horror movies as much as I do.