Matt D

Where's Ben. We need to have him write up an Armstrong/Rhodes alliance, Stud Stable thing.

Remember. Heyman's the guy who dumped Brock for Big Show when Brock was champion and then dumped Big Show for Angle when Big Show was champion.

A. Problems with Execution. B. Problems with Theory. I know it's a lot of fun to be ironic and point out how people have been complaining and are still complaining but it's completely missing the point. Problemz! I'm not really being ironic. I think I'm just tired of borderline psychotic over analysis getting in the way of loving our great sport. Nothing can possibly hold up under these levels of scrutiny. If it was playing out exactly the way everyone thinks that it should everyone would be dismissively wanking it as a Stone Cold/Vince rehash. On the positive, we get Dusty Rhodes tomorrow. Dusty Rhodes. I think most of us would be okay with a Stone Cold/Vince rehash with Daniel Bryan as Stone Cold.

A. Problems with Execution. B. Problems with Theory. I know it's a lot of fun to be ironic and point out how people have been complaining and are still complaining but it's completely missing the point.

It's almost weird to see WWE do a bad PPV in this day and age. If the angle is anything other than using Dusty personally to enact the Dusty finish, I will be disappointed. That has to be the "Business" to get Cody his job back.

I found my disc rankings that I had e-mailed to myself during the times of great instability. Obviously my opinions are the best for this stuff so if anyone just wants to cheat off my list, I would be okay with that.

After I pay my quarterly taxes on Monday, I'll start to work out the rest of my AWA ballot. The middle will be murky but i had the beginning of the end mostly worked out, and that's what matters most. Some things will move (Hennig vs Hansen) but not much. The one match i need to actively rewatch is the six man with the women.

I think the thing to compare Roar to is Applause, and Applause is so much more the song.

it holds up

I don't think this was posted here, but Parv and Chad did a pretty comprehensive podcast with a number of guests that sums up a lot of the discussion generated by the project. http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-boys-play-48-awa-special/ It's a good thing to listen to while you're thinking about finalizing your ballot.

Hm. I think Rovert wants us to talk about breakfast joints again.

Lawler replaced Hennig, basically, after he became active again for Survivor Series 1992. The part that's weird to me is that he spent a huge chunk of 93 announcing Superstars with Macho.

He said he had "a lot of energy."

Memphis is such a unique animal in wrestling. They touch on it a little bit with the payoffs and less so with the promos but I think 75% of Austin's audience could hear that and think that wrestling 30-40 years ago basically looked like it does now, or maybe like it did in the attitude era. People don't have a great sense of territories and I think spending five minutes explaining the Memphis loop and the Saturday TV and the ratings they got and how they had to build to the MSC show every Monday night with much the same cast of characters (thus all the gimmicks) and Lawler's longevity on top would have been useful in putting things into context.

Triple H vs Chris Jericho -Last Man Standing Match Fully Loaded 2000. I think the video package before the match is really well done. I don't remember too much of this stuff, to be honest, but one of the knocks against Hunter in general is that he didn't "make" too many people, and I realize at the time the entire internet was enamored with Jericho due to his 98 WCW run, so the idea that someone had to "make" him was probably considered absurd, but that's exactly what Hunter did here. This was set up with Jericho getting one over on him three times before he fell into the numbers game and a Horseman-Style Beatdown. From the looks of it, it was really, really good pro wrestling and allowed for the escalation that made a Last Man Standing match necessary. Hunter let himself be humiliated in order to get Jericho over as a fiery worldbeater, and it worked. I don't think FSW gives enough credit to Jericho in the opening stretch. He brought a real fire and all of the stuff on the outside looked good. The fans completely buy it. If I had any critiques on him they'd be that the mounted punches on the inside were pretty weak and I would have loved to see some selling of the injury after the flying back elbow off the top, especially since that came right before Hunter started on the ribs. That could have been a really great overzealous moment leading to the transition. As for Hunter here, I think he was good at fighting back just enough. I didn't like his clothesline bumps at all. They looked terrible but he more than made up for it on the bump to the outside and the super stylized bump from the shoulder thrust into the ring. I liked how FSW focused on the knee-usage instead of the bodypart work since that was an interesting way of getting at Hunter, but this is a match where it really pays off to talk about the rib-work. It was set up so well in the angle leading up to the match. The transition is pretty awesome as Hunter uses his usual reversal to the back body drop but does it to the ribs instead. They tease a little hope spot of Jericho immediately fighting back, but then Hunter drops him right on the rail and then the stairs and he doesn't really look back. His kicks on the inside are vicious. His shoulder thrusts are good. The image of Hunter rolling Jericho around the ring with the tape is pretty memorable. When it comes to bodypart work it's all about keeping it interesting and believable by the person on offense and the selling by the person taking it. Hunter does a pretty good job of varying what he's doing (stomps, knee drops, kicks, knee lifts, the thrusts, the abdominal stretch w/ clubbering, etc), breaking it up a little bit with gimmicks (the tape choking, and the Stephanie slap, the suplex on the floor, grabbing the rope on the abdominal stretch, the ref pushing). I think maybe there are too many gimmicks actually. Jericho does a solid job selling the pain. He's no Ricky Morton but he has both the story to lean on and the fans behind him. He has a decent amount of hope spots that are logical (generally based off of him getting enough space due to rolling into the ring or Hunter arguing with the ref) and okay but really not milked enough to really get the fans really into them. Hunter's cut offs are good though, especially the lionsault counter. I don't think he executed the Stretch well at all but it almost didn't matter too much since it still looked painful on the midsection. It was noticeably weird however. The bodyscissors during the sleeper is extremely smart and plays into both the story of the match and the LMS gimmick (Steph doing the Daniel Bryan YES hand motions at each count is great). Then we shift into WWE storytelling mode. The key stretch is when Jericho gets up post Sleeper/Body-scissors and shows defiance leading into the super-mean Pedigree and then Jericho getting up again. There are parts of this I like: just how mean the Pedigree is, the crotch chop, Hunter hanging out on the corner arrogantly, Steph being pissed off during the post-Pedigree where she was jubilant on the post-sleeper one. Obviously the getting up from the Sleeper is a tease for the real moment, Jericho getting up from the Pedigree, but I think it might have worked better if he was in it for longer. The one major issue so far is that we haven't had enough time with Jericho in pain. Hunter's two submissions were ones that covered up his face and Jericho's body language hasn't quite been up to task. Anyway, I don't think he quite nails the "getting up at 9" moment with the right body language either. He's just sort of meandering towards the ropes as Hunter rushes out of the ring pissed off to get the chair that he kills Jericho with. We needed some blood out of Jericho's mouth or something here. Were they leading to some sort of ref strike gimmick or something? I forget. It seems weird that arguing with the ref in a NO DQ match would lead to two Jericho comebacks, including the big one; maybe if it was a special ref but whatever. Jericho's low blow is really good for what it's worth. Very glad he went with that and not just a double leg takedown or back body drop. Jericho's chairshot on Hunter is huge, right in the middle of the ring with a giant noise. It had to be big enough to completely turn the match around and I think they frame it well Jericho sells excellently on his comeback and it lets Hunter almost get back in it a few times which is really good stuff. I think Jericho's offense is okay but sort of out of touch for the point of the match they're in. This isn't the part of the match where you want to see so much light, flying stuff, if that makes sense, even if it's done onto a chair. There's a bit of meandering once Hunter takes a powder too, until we get the slightly contrived ribs (execution issue. There wasn't the sense of Hunter aiming him) into the steps spot. I like the consistency of Hunter trying to Pedigree Jericho on hard objects and this time the backdrop works and Hunter takes a big bump off the stairs. The double video monitor shot is pretty silly but it works for a double tease. I kind of like how they entered the match into an environment where the Spanish announce table was already busted. Anyway, they head back into the ring and we get the Walls and the visual tap. I feel like Jericho needed more offense in his comeback to get to this point, to be honest. He had that one stretch but other than the chairshot I wasn't super happy with it. Hunter's shouting and body language is actually extremely effective here as was the rope stuff. We get the big Steph moment to break it, another mini rib transition which sets up the missed sledge hammer spot and I don't totally love how all this is laid out but I do like the high concept at least. It goes back to the over-gimmicked nature of the earlier part of the match. I think that comes into play here too. There are almost too many "moments." It starts diluting everything. Jericho gets to get up from the Pedigree, gets the tap, gets Step, gets a sledgehammer shot in (though one that's ultimately meaningless). etc. And what was up with that kind of lame suplex finish? I think after the two attempts to hit a Pedigree on something, he should have just finished it with one on the table. Alright, I think that Hunter did a lot of good work here and Jericho mostly held his own but both guys' had flaws (micro and macro) that hurt the match. I especially liked Hunter's bodypart focus. Very strong middle section. That said, I think the match was a little too clever for its own good when it could have been tighter and more primal with only a few changes. I'd call it bloated but with a lot of strong elements that didn't fully come together. I had come in thinking I'd be bored by Hunter's offense and that wasn't the case at all, though he did make some choices I didn't totally agree with. No, if anything the problem was big picture excess. It was still a pretty interesting match.

It was like that almost everywhere in the 80s. People love bullies and assholes. Wrestling is wish fulfillment.

I wish that they had spent some time putting memphis and the weekly loop and Lawler's role there in better context. I think most fans don't understand it at all. Uh, past that? Poor Dolph. Lawler basically went out and said "Dolph Ziggler gave me a heart attack since he's too shitty a wrestler to get over without really dropping elbows on people ten times."

To me, it's laziness. The writers see it as a crutch. So long as a guy has the briefcase they are on some level bulletproof, so they can use them to get other guys over.

It's 11:40 and my window for the night shut but I'll try to have mine done in the next 24 hours. I haven't seen that match since 00 and my opinion on Jericho at 19 was not all that different than yours at 14 and is rather different now. But yeah, it was a good review.

What the hell man? I'm all set to watch a match tonight and you haven't picked one or set anything up.

He's been pretty enjoyable on NXT but I felt so bad when he had to announce the Corey Graves vs Oliver Gray match.

To be fair, it's not hard to run with a mop. They don't weigh much.

His heart gets in the way of his head.

Santino namedropped him on Backstage Fallout this week.

You just wait til Bronson comes back from injury.