Hagan

Of all the things that have been copied from ECW over the years, it sucks that the musical montage of quick clip promos hasn't been. Those things could get about 9 different angles and characters at once and blend seamlessly from light to really dark and violent.

Not sure if it's been mentioned but K-Dawg said that Punker and AJ (Lee, not Styles) are dating. This is, literally, the least surprising wrestling news in history.

I literally watched because I figured this was kind of it for the company. Tag match was really, really fun. AJ's 450 table bump was fucking insane. Just utterly insane. Like a lot of Bully matches I've seen, the match told a good story, but, man...it just fell apart at the end. There's just so much screwiness in his finishes and so much interferece and just talking to his opponent or to other people, or just fucking rearranging furniture or the ring. It just kills it for me. Again, great story, but at some point the main events just get overwhelmed by the angle around it, when sometimes you just need to let the match be and further the story later.

I think the answer is Bret. From 90-97 he was one of the most consistent wrestlers ever. Even his WCW stuff is good if you watch it in a vacuum. I always liked that Bret is one of the few main even guys whose matches didn't always end on his or his opponent's finisher. The title switch to Diesel is one of my favorite finishes ever, and, of course, Wembley with Davey and the identical finishes with his first match with Austin and Mania with Piper are so good.

I had a class lesson on why my students were starting sentences with "so." It's basically a more confident "um" or "like." There's a study done that its use derives from Microsfot and tech-speak.

Just finished the HHH doc. Hagiographic, to say the least. Well worth the watch, though.

I guess for whatever reason they didn't want to put the title back on Orton and then have him lose it again next month. Still, terrible finish to a really fun match. The Rhodes stuff was incredible, though.

The key that struck me about the finale was that for the very first time a plan of Walt's totally worked. No loose ends, no unforeseen difficulties, no potential blowback to come. One last plan that came together completely.

FWIW, bullfighting isn't barbaric. Noble sport with a rich tradition.

The MLW podcast with Corny is fucking fantastic. I think Cornette is, basically, an out-of-touch lunatic but he can definitely tell a story. Some good stuff about working with Russo, his respect for Heyman, and the general ass-hattery of WWE and TNA. Listening to Austin's podcast with Joey Styles. Uh, is audio just fucked or does Joey talk in a completely different voice in real life?

FWIW - Dave and Bryan are very critical about how the oversaturation of UFC (and MMA) in general has hurt the sport.

That Santino segment was basically the greatest thing ever.

I want a time machine invented so The Shield can do six-mans in JCP in the 1980s for all eternity.

Dunno if this has been brought up but Bryan's been ranting about Battleground coming so soon after NOC and so soon before HITC and arguing that the WWE doesn't need to do 13 PPVs a year and should only do 12. Well, they are. Does no one correct this? Does no one on the show bother to check? The weird schedule is because they take like 6 weeks between EC and WM. I mean, the overall point of lumping PPVs in close together remains, but it's kind of an infuriating error.

That main event was fucking boss. Loving that with how the regular top faces are old, injured, or otherwise occupied that the Usos are getting a chance to rip it up.

Yeah, slaves weren't paid. Virgil was a paid employee who took a lot of shit because he probably needed the money. If you remove the racial component (which I understand is very hard to do in these cases) it's not that different from JBL/Shawn, Big Show/McMahons etc. In fact, it was when Ted *began* to treat Virgil as a servant that he rose up. The Kamala gimmick is racist, but so is like every savage gimmick ever. Shit, Umaga was a racist gimmick too. The Usos and Big 'Kish have been like the only Samoans to be portrayed somewhat well in WWE.

Ryback and Heyman are like a roided up version of Herc and Levy from The Wire. I approve. Great, great Raw. Strong heels, great violent angles, and, finally, babyfaces stepping up. As was noted a few pages back, this is more shades of JCP-style angles than the Attitude Era.

One of my comp students turned in her favorite travel experiences exposition essay today. She talked about her love of wrestling. She talked about going to Wrestlemania 29 to meet her hero, Stephanie McMahon. Welcome to the Queendom, you guys.

Re: AJ and, well, every other time someone says or does something that could potentially hurt someone's feelings in real life. I think that we, as fans, are a lot more sensitive to this shit than the people on TV are. I listened to the segment and thought nothing except that AJ was really good. I didn't think they were bullying her. She fucked with them, and they made fun of her tattoos and her character history. Not a big deal. Fantastic RAW, btw.

Reading the Observer got me to thinking about Jack Tunney. What was the reason he was summarily removed from WWF? His Wiki page points out that nobody from WWE attended his funeral nor was it mentioned on the website that he passed? You have to assume some bad falling out had to occur. Related, was there ever any particular reason why VKM never acknowledged himself as the owner of the company until '96ish? I know it was something we all just knew, and even on something like at WM 3 it's more or less implied he's the promoter but has that ever been explained? Also related, when exactly did it get acknowledged he was the owner? Everyone tends to think that Montreal was the first time, but I'm sure going back to '96 and even Diesel's heel turn speech in '95 that it was more or less referenced on TV.

Weird about the Kofi win. Starting to think they're switching the title at NOC with Orton/Bryan.

You guys are looking for a shit ton of nuance in Bryan's character when we don't need it. Why is Bryan running into the fight every week? It's because he's brave, been shown that he can kick ass (think of all the weeks he was cleaning house on The Shield and co. singlehandedly), and is pissed off that his boss doesn't think he's good enough to be champion. Why doesn't have a weapon? When does he ever use a weapon? His whole fighting style is kicking your head in and tapping you. He's not the fucking Sandman. He wants to prove that he's the best WRESTLER in the world. If you want him to drive a Zamboni to the ring or start killing people with chairs, you're going to have a bit of a longer wait (and more relevantly, he DID clean house with a chair on SD). And what's wrong with being DDP/Luger? And the line about "Cena isn't giving up the face of the company spot?" Well, considering this is a storyline and not a legitimate sporting event I don't think anyone is really assuming that Orton and Bryan are literally in a fight to determine the future of the WWE. This isn't a quarterback competition. Most everyone we see in this angle will be main eventing, or upper-midcarding for the forseeable future. There's a lot of balls in play. Saying that this angle is all about getting over Daniel Bryan at the expense of everyone else is ridiculous. On another point, I dig the overarching storyline aspect of this. There's not a lot of that in WWE over the last few years. Like, you'd have heavy shit at the top on the card, and the midcarders and opening match guys would just be oblivious to it. I like that this is impacting a lot of different angles and guys.You also have to figure that Punk and Heyman are getting folded into the main storyline after the PPV too.

Only made it through page 5 of this thread, but there's no reason that Bryan, Show, Ziggler, Rhodes, The Shield, even Hunter and Orton all can't come off this angle hotter and stronger characters. I think people are getting so worked up over the promos that they think that this angle is LITERALLY determining the face of the WWE. You don't have to get one guy over at the expense of everyone else. In the absence of Cena, they're going to need multiple babyfaces to carry the shows over the next six months. And they've done such a shitty job with most of their heels that they need to refocus on gettng them heated up.

In Gonzalez's defense, a ton of women Tweet to Stephanie that Steph is either their hero, or their young daughter's hero. Now, I don't really have an opinion on the lady one way or another, because I don't know her, but I'm not sure any wrestling promoter is really a fit role model for a little one.

Okay, my WWE Top 5 (non-injured and a regular performer) 1) Bryan 2) Christian 3) Orton 4) Punk 5) Del Rio Rollins might be a better bumper than Dolph, but needs some longer single showcases. Dolph, Henry, and Show are having underwhelming 2013s. Christian, though, might be the best at building a match right now. Watching him is such a throwback. He has these long, classically built matches that has the crowd going nuts whether he's in the ring with another main event guy or a midcard guy. Is this the best he's been? Orton has been incredible all year, by the way. For as shitty a babytace his character was, he could work the style great. He's even better as a heel.