tbarrie

...so there are actually people who know the names of individual members of KISS, huh?

Do you suppose they get internet access? Might get boring if not.

Hey, don't laugh at Bam Bam Bigelow! (Especially not via graphical emoticon!) Bam Bam Bigelow was awesome. Also, don't forget Edge main evented WrestleMania twice - he and Undertaker closed out WM24 and he, Roman Reigns, and Daniel Bryan were the final match of Night 2 of WM37. The list of people with multiple 'Mania mains is much more select. The fact that Edge's two mains were thirteen years apart kind of speaks to his stardom level too, in my opinion, as it shows he was at a high level for a long time. Certainly he was never the company ace, never at Austin/Cena/Hogan level. But to me "main eventer" covers more people than "company ace". Certainly Edge was never the latter. He was more HBK level. (Though I guess HBK technically was company ace for a year or two. He just sucked at it.)

I think it says good things about the AEW roster that every "worst possible" Classic line-up that's been proposed has included at least one or two guys I think are pretty cool.

I'd say he's borderline. I'd also be surprised if he had anywhere near as many PPV/PLE main events as Edge, but I can't find a match database online that lets you search by position on the card, so I'm not prepared to back that up. Okay, but to circle back to the original point (or at least what I think the original point was) - the only time AEW ever treated him as a tippy top guy was when he beat Luchasaurus. He's never been near the world title.

In order for the angle with Mox and the BCC to be as big of a deal as they seemingly want it to be, I think Mox did need to win. I know I said before that I wasn't expecting a Mox victory, but thinking about it further, Danielson winning wouldn't have worked at all.

No offense, but I think you're using the term "main-eventer" - which I would argue is a somewhat objective term - to justify your opinion of Copeland. I think the guy has main-evented more than twenty pay-per-views for WWE, including two Wrestlemanias. What sort of numbers do you need to be a real main-eventer? And just to make this a Technico reply doubleheader... Quoted in full because I like the joke, but has Mox even said he's trying to take over the company? As far as I'm aware he hasn't said much of anything about what his end goal is. (Which will itself become a problem if the writers don't spill the beans soon.)

I don't know the one. In fact, I have no idea who Vinnie Vincent is. Is he on the WON Hall of Fame ballot?

I like how this followed AxB's post. I read your comment before I read the quote box, so I initially thought you were saying you related to Superman in terms of people not suspecting your secret identity.

Wait, are you implying that Dave's ratings and the cagematch community's ratings somehow aren't completely subjective?

I don't know, removing those two things seems like it would improve any wrestling program. Most observers do seem to think WWE has gotten better, though. If you think it hasn't and it's all smoke and mirrors, that's a perfectly valid opinion - but obviously ratings are going to be driven by what most people think, not what you personally think. The general perception that WWE has gotten better could still be responsible for their good numbers compared to AEW, even if you're right and that perception isn't grounded in reality.

I don't expect Mox to take the title Saturday, but I wouldn't have a problem with it if he does. I'd be less happy to see him win the title if it comes with a Wheeler Yuta heel turn, though. If he does retire Danielson, in my opinion the right move is to have Wheeler eventually beat Mox to avenge Danielson.

But I thought I read years ago that because Kang debuted as Rama-Tut in Fantastic Four, a judge had ruled that his rights were tied to the FF. Meaning there was never a time when Kang was usable but Doom wasn't. To me, the logic behind using Kang instead of Doom was simply a matter of pacing themselves. I mean, once they've used Thanos and Doom, whom the fuck do they go to next? Ultron works on that level, but they did a mediocre job with him in the second Avengers movie. I suppose they could use Galactus's lesser minions like the original Punisher, then build to the Silver Surfer, then eventually have the heroes have to deal with Galactus himself. Kang and Ultron are clearly the two biggest Avengers villains, so using Kang as a decent enough big bad before you go all-out and bring in Victor Von God-damn Doom made sense to me.

Well - I'm glad we didn't get Mariah interference leading to a five-way at the PPV.

Here's something weird: whenever I start up WWE 2K23, a few seconds in a screen pops up trying to sell me on the various versions of Gamepass. When I decline, it pops up a second time. But that's it - when I decline the second time I'm done (until the next time I start the game). At one point I thought it was tied to my powering on my XBox, or to starting any game, but no. It seems to be specifically tied to WWE 2K23.

Is this a reference to somebody specific?

As soon as they announced Britt vs Willow for the title shot, I've been dreading a three-way while suspecting it's probably what will happen. I liked it when they showed Mariah watching Britt's match against Deeb, because I thought it was the start of a slow burn towards Britt challenging for the title, after she'd picked up another meaningful win or two and people start to forget she came up short against Mercedes. Willow was clearly poised to be Mariah's next challenger, which was great, then we'd get Mariah vs Britt a little later. Instead it looks like we're getting a three-way, which... why? Willow and Britt are both perfectly credible PPV challengers, so why use them both at once?

Watching her reattach Shafir's head nineteen times might get tiresome, though.

Eh, I liked them better when they were a Mulkey Brothers cosplay (with the added detail that they thought they were the Road Warriors). FTR kind of need to be heels, in my opinion. As heels they had a clear gimmick: they were a couple of conniving bastards who knew every sneaky little trick to take advantage of the tag rules, and regularly came up with new ones. They were clearly inspired by old teams like the Midnights or Tully and Arn and made no effort to hide it, but there was more to the act than just copying old team's moves. As faces, I'm not sure what they're supposed to be, other than the somewhat vague description of being "a great tag team". Did you also pass on the Kris Statlander squash match, or just have nothing to say about it? I mean, fair enough, it was less than a minute long.

To be honest, that seems to me to be perfectly in character for the Bucks. A brief bit next week establishing that Okada wants to go after the BCC but the Bucks veto it would be both welcome and unsurprising.

Which is the one Meltzer gave a ridiculous number of stars to? Or was that all of them?

Was Sheamus still using Lobsterhead in 2009? Because that's a worthwhile reward if so.

This is kind of nitpicky, but it's where I want the division to be in, like, a year's time. I'm totally down with Willow taking the title off of Mariah, but not until Mariah has had a good long reign. Of course, Willow is over enough that losing to Mariah in the near future won't derail her to the point that she couldn't challenge again and win in late 2025.

Not even Darby Allin vs question mark?

Which in my opinion was a gutsy move, because in 2024 I'd kind of expect the fans to get pissed at the promotion itself over something like this. But the "asshole" chants directed at Takeshita suggests that it put the heat on Takeshita, where they wanted it. Yes.