Matt D

Dustin does the spinebuster. Cody does the Alabama Slam. Obviously he needs this.

I do feel like there's more thought put into the characters down at NXT both on camera and off and hopefully that translates moving forward.

My feeling with the SHIELD is that they were brought in wanting justice for Punk as an indy guy against the traditional WWE heroes like Ryback. They then sold out to the Authority first chance they had. The narrative doesn't really make that work though.

It's weird to deal with people who have the sort of childhood nostalgia for 1999 that I have for 1991. I'm just saying. In six or seven years we're going to be dealing with people who grew up on the Spirit Squad or something.

The Network is this year's XFL.

Jake goes on and on about how much he likes Bray so I imagine he enjoyed getting to see him/talk to him.

Rhodes Bros vs 3MB (Drew/Mahal) on Main Event this week. Should be fun.

I think it looks like a pretty interesting show. We know a Usos vs Wyatts sprint can be enjoyable and that's probably what this will be. The eight-man sounds like a blast. I really hope we get some more Cesaro vs Rey in this. I actually can't wait to see the six man. I hope the FIP is on Road Dogg since that'll be novel at least. Last I remember he could sell pretty well. The Big E match is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen him in, I think.

They've really taken ownership of the 2/3 falls match. They talked it up a lot during Kruger/Zayn as being the NXT go to match.

I do. Or at least, all I want is wrestlers who are characters. I couldn't care less how they look in the ring as long they entertain me. If they just happen to be good wrestlers, that's a bonus. One of my favorite wrestlers as a kid was Dick The Bruiser - couldn't outwrestle a trash can, but his charisma overcame everything. That's what I want in wrestling - nothing but big, dumb meatheads with over-the-top personalities who aren't afraid to look silly. Brock Lesnar would be perfect if he wasn't being the intense, focused, serious guy. I want sombrero-wearing Brock with mariachi accompaniment each and every week. If WWE went out of business in two weeks heeding my advice, so be it. I blame UFC. There needs to be more guys who wouldn't be credible based solely on looks if they claimed to be an MMA fighter. There need to be fewer guys trying to emulate an actual athlete. And that is why Luke Harper is the best thing in WWE right now. Looks, moves, talks, walks and wresltes like a damned swamp monster. I really think Harper is a top 5 guy in the WWE right now, if we're not counting the part timers.

Yeah, all the soon to be over midcarders are on NXT. But they'll get tired as hell after being on TV 3 times a week for two years.

What if they turned the Usos heel and put Heyman with them?

This post is fucking terrible god damn it. So glad nobody these days is even remotely as over as Val, Godfather, 2 Cool and the other curtain jerkers from back in the day. It's funny. There's a lot of stuff I hated at the time, all the time. There's a lot of stuff from the 80s I hated at the time and i really like now. There's some stuff from the late 90s like that too. There's a lot of stuff I loved and can't stand now. There's a certain charm to the NAO routine now that they're old men and I'd probably have to revisit a lot of their matches because in 98 I think I hated them because they didn't have a flashy double team finisher or something. I appreciate 80s Hogan now more than I ever could when I was a kid or a teenager when I was so excited on the Unreal History of Pro Wrestling to hear Thesz or someone say that Hogan only knew three moves. That was so validating at 17 having grown up in the 80s and having been a completely unlikable snarky little kid on the playground putting my nose up at whatever was popular. It's also the stupidest thing in the world. So basically, while I can respect guys who have a catch phrase that gets over to some extent, I still can not enjoy them now relative to guys who do something I personally find more enjoyable, if I think they're not bringing a ton more than that to the table, no matter how much they were able to pop a crowd. On the other hand, if I revisit something and it has a lot more going for it than i appreciated at the time, like you can see in Hogan's selling and timing and how he controls a crowd, then I'm going to change my views accordingly. And frankly, Gonzalez (and I've switched over to him from FSW's goofy tyranny of the masses dogmatism which is just as bad as my 11 year old playground elitism and almost two thirds as mature), that Mr. Positive over there can actually be negative about something once and a while means that he's actually earnest and honest about his views and not just playing a gimmick to try to get attention on the internet, but I don't think you'd be able to understand that as a poorly programmed and ultimately soulless bot sent to plague us by someone who got bored making Smackdown vs Raw Create a Wrestlers or something. That's your gimmick right? The only thing human about you is your generally unclever pettiness.

There are a few 70s/early 80s Andre matches from Japan I haven't seen. A Baba one, the Inoki one. I like Andre/Baba vs Demolition more than most people would certainly. I did a youtube search before and it surprised me how much Andre I really just haven't seen. In fact I mean to watch Funks vs Andre/JYD later from 86 WWF/Toronto just because I've never seen Andre wrestle Terry Funk before and that sounds awesome.

Andre on that list is awesome. I mean Andre IS awesome. He's one of the smartest wrestlers I've ever seen, but that he's on that list is awesome. Past vs Hansen, what are your favorite Andre matches? I wonder what my favorite Andre matches are. Hmm. Ok, vs Bockwinkel from the 70s even though what we have only gives us a hint of how great the match really was, the Bodyslam match vs Crusher Blackwell, the MSG Colossal Connection vs Demolition match, the Strong Koyabashi 2/3 Falls match, a tag vs Orndorff vs Piper/Orton. I have to rewatch the lucha set match. I liked it more than most people. Crap I have to see that Seiji Sakaguchi match from 74.

He had just been in Swagger's anklelock. Maybe we're just not used to anyone actually selling that hold after the fact. Yeah - I think the whole CODY GOT INJURED thing came from Cody selling the Patriot Lock after the match and trying to take his boot off to check it, etc... BTW - that whole sequence was amazing. That got over the Patriot Lock as White Hot Death more than anything I have seen the WWE do in a few years. Cody's selling in general the last couple of weeks has been really good and yeah, the way he was trying to fight out was great. I thought that was the match ender til I saw Dustin come in off the side of the screen.

Speaking of selling after the fact, Scotty did a great job selling for a bit after Too Cool won. There was really no reason for him to do that except for it was the right thing to do. EDIT: All of these are worth watching but Renee's reactions to Slaughter are great and Sandow's got a good line in there too. WARNING: There's a Steph milk commercial before most of these. It is surreal.

Some live comments say that Piper seemed really pissed at Barrett after the fact. Rumor did say they were looking for a Mania program for Piper. Also that Cody might have hurt his ankle.

From what I've seen, which isn't a ton, I like Ayala vs Colon more than him vs most others.

All I could think at his space dandy pose was the City Hunter thing where he'd pose and in the background it'd go.. citttty hunnnter. re: Dubs vs Subs? What's the norm now? Do most anime fans under 25 watch dubs? I am 32 now apparently and have no idea what the kids do in these days of easy availability. I figure the people into new stuff have to watch subs almost just because they can get a new episode subbed a few days after it airs for the most part, which is just mindboggling madness from someone who was into this stuff in the mid-late 90s.

This is going to be tasteless and I apologize, but I have a problem and can't help myself. Well, at least we don't have to worry about Crush replacing him!

I kind of like Maddox in small doses.

What in US wrestling was funnier than the FBI in the 90s? Dusty on commentary and Jericho's act in 98 but that's about it.

It's funny because part of me thinks we'll still be discussing TNA five-ten years from now.. but it really does seem like a dire situation. I was looking at their roster the other day and I have no clue what direction they take some of these guys. Well, saying "Hey, man. Remember TNA?" is discussing it 5-10 years from now. The correct answer to that will be "No."