The Iron Yuppie

lol I'd forgotten before today that Ultimate Shithead tried to sue Something Awful for making fun of his homophobic, racist website http://www.somethingawful.com/legal-threats/legal-threat-ultimate/1/

So, this isn't the *best* Halloween Havoc match of all-time: That distinction belongs entirely to Eddie vs. Rey from HH '97. [stephen a voice] HOWEVA [/stephen a voice] Goldberg vs. DDP is my *favorite* match ever from Halloween Havoc. Up until the Brock match at this past year's Mania, this was easily the best Goldberg match -- which is a low bar, since your other option is maybe the Scott Steiner match (also Halloween Havoc, I believe). But this was a genuinely kick-ass match. Everything about this, from build to execution, was so well done (aside from, yanno, WCW actually airing the fucking thing properly on PPV). I was absolutely geeked for this at the time, as I loved both guys but was slightly more of a DDP fan. I thought the build-up of his ability to hit the Diamond Cutter possibly making the difference was brilliant, and I didn't mind Goldberg kicking out. My one complaint: Six months later, Page finally won the championship and had that odd heel run that only lasted a month. If they were going to get the belt off Goldberg, turn Page heel and give him the title, I wish they'd run this rematch at Starrcade; have DDP win there, but only after cheating his ass off because he "knew what needed to be done;" then build to the conclusion of a trilogy with Goldberg winning it back after a chase.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's crazy how much money WCW left on the table not running a proper Jericho-Goldberg match on PPV (by proper, I mean Goldberg destroying him, which is exactly what the fans would've been paying to see). I also felt like they were building to Jericho-DDP in late '98 when Page but that never panned out, either. God, that company sucked.

The Enzo Amore Show: Mondays on CBS, right after The Big Bang Theory, and before Young Sheldon!

Is that Ciclope? NO! IT'S DEAN MALENKO! My God was that pop INSANE. Dean Malenko was so over in 1998.

I don't know that I ever watched all of No Mercy 2001; I'd just started college so between that, and my general disinterest in the product once the InVasion started playing out as another McMahon angle, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention at the time. I have seen Jericho-Rock, however, and that's a ***** match for me.

I also just realized I'm a dolt for not including the Title vs. Career Match against The Miz last year, which was TREMENDOUS. Still, I'd say the list for a guy who's been around nearly a decade (in his current gimmick) and was touted as a super worker is incredibly short.

Piggybacking off @JohnnyJ, I think of Ziggler's great matches: 1 was the 2014 Survivor Series, which was a multi-man, and his Ladder match with Luke Harper the following month. Luke Harper could carry me to a good match, if he had to. That's quite honestly all I can think of. He was the worst part of the Rusev-Lana-Summer angle, and that's saying something because that angle was abominable. His bumping is supposed to be an homage to Mr. Perfect, I guess, but it looks like more Shawn Michaels taking the piss out of Hulk Hogan. It's tiresome. Now, there are plenty of bad wrestlers who I don't actively hate like I do Ziggler, but most of them aren't so whiny or boastful on social media. Maybe he kayfabes on social media and I'm just a dumb mark getting worked, which kudos to him: He does a better job drawing heat there than on the show. But I kind of doubt that's the case.

I don't remember what else was on the card, so I can't definitively call No Mercy 2002 the BEST B-show of all-time (Backlash 2000 or IYH: Canadian Stampede might be No. 1 & 2 for me), but it might have the best B-show 1-2 of all-time between Brock-Taker in the HIAC and Rey/Edge vs. Angle/Benoit.

@Craig H I was a Day 1 subscriber and didn't receive the gift, either. I cancelled this year from just after Mania for a few months, and the first survey I ever received came less than week after restarting my subscription. On another note, I see Dolph's Twitter and he is the most aggressively unfunny MF'er on the planet. I see this shit he tweets and I just can't imagine how terrible his stand-up must be.

Roman's SHOOTZ~ have been "What's wrong Sid, can't find your scissors?" levels of cringey. Shame this was the go home show, I think we were a week away from Roman going George Costanza on Cena.

I like (love, really) the Suzuki run-in if it means we get Tanahashi-Suzuki. Have they ever wrestled one-on-one? That's a dream match, to me. Curious who Roppongi 3K is going to be.

The rest of the card is so good, it makes me forgive putting trash Enzo in the Cruiserweight title match. God, I hate Enzo.

1. I've seen Shibata vs. Riddle in its entirety and can confirm it's awesome. 2. Cage vs. Omega stateside for the United States title would be aaaaamazing. I might be biased as a Southern Californian who'd throw my wallet at NJPW if it happened, but, I tend to believe that with the success of the Long Beach show, New Japan could run regular satellite shows in the Los Angeles area. A card headlined with Kenny vs. Cage for the United States Championship, with the Bucks somewhere underneath and a sprinkling of NJPW "names" working indie talent would do strong numbers.

Can "X-Pac heat" please be renamed "Ziggler heat?"

King's been bad for years, but I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate Sam Roberts; comes off like an obnoxious smart-mark working harder to put himself over than anything else. Matt Stryker without the credentials.

She really is. She reminds me of Ashley Graham.

I'm through Episode 1 and my goodness is the commentary awful. Lita stammers and doesn't seem to know what to say, as if -- SHOCKING -- she has no color commentary experience. She dropped a "Samoan heritage" reference on a headbutt in one match. Yikes. JR...man. I didn't hear his NJPW G1 Special commentary as I attended the show, but I listened to him on a podcast issue a mea culpa, which was actually just burying NJPW staff for not using bleachers or giving him enough detail in production meetings, and implying Tama Tonga was classless for calling him out. On the MYC, he's going through the motions -- if you played a drinking game taking a shot for every use of "fundamentals" or "fundamentally sound," you'd get alcohol poisoning -- and shoehorning in unfunny jokes. I grew up hearing Keith Jackson call college football. By the mid-2000s, it was apparent he reached his twilight. The USC-Texas national championship game was a final, big stage for Keith to ride off into the sunset. Roman-Taker should have been that for JR. I feel events like G1 Special and the Mae Young Classic should be for either people intimately familiar with the product or as a platform for up-and-coming talent. Keith wasn't working MAC games on Tuesday nights after that Rose Bowl.

For sure. I see wrestling as an art, and the quality of art is largely subjective. At the same time, there are critics for all forms of art. I think of Meltzer like Roger Ebert as the preeminent critics of their respective mediums. I knew I was going to agree with Ebert's assessment certain types of film, but the dude HATED horror movies (which I love). He was always going to view the genre with an inherent bias.

Meltzer seems to get more discussion and interest from short-changing WWE matches that 1/4 star than if he just gave them 5 stars -- ESPECIALLY since going 6 stars for New Japan. I don't condone it, but that seems to clearly be why he does it. Also: If any WWE match was unfairly short-changed this year, Cena-A.J. and Bate-Dunne were both better than the 4-way so there's that.

You're absolutely right -- and to the bolded point, that might be the difference in why crowds react positively to Braun and not Roman. In Braun's case, those instances looked impressive and showcased his strength. The ambulance angle was Roman having a fit because he lost a match, and using a car -- not his raw strength, like Braun -- to get revenge. It's minor details like that, which make a huge difference. Plus, Roman's booking in the years leading up to this particular feud -- not changing out of Shield gear, the RNN-esque vignettes, going over ultra-babyface Daniel Bryan on the way to WM 31, SUFFERIN' SUCCOTASH, the awful match with HHH -- have rendered him a de facto heel to audiences. When Braun pulverizes the de facto top heel, that makes him the de facto top face. EDIT: I should add crowds not taking to Roman how they've wanted, I think it may go deeper than the anecdotes I cited. This may have been on Killing on the Town; I don't remember exactly where I heard this, but I thought it made a lot of sense: WWE has spent two decades telling its fans that WWE itself is the heel; that the people who run the company and make decisions are inherently against the fans' best interest. Now, that's kayfabe, but at a certain point seeps into what the audience perceives as reality. Fans read online that Roman is "WWE's pick" to be the top guy, and it manifests in how he's pushed. He's worthy of being a main event guy: athletic, has GREAT matches, was getting over organically as The Shield's enforcer. However, because WWE has conditioned fans so long to hate the WWE Office, they'll reject whomever is offered up as The Guy.

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I'll admit I don't watch Raw regularly outside of matches I read getting a lot of praise. However, when I watch, it sure seems like Braun is organically and crazy-over. I don't understand how the ambulance angle wasn't the Bret-Austin moment.

I don't mean to derail the topic BUT... I watched the SummerSlam main last night. My thoughts are probably clouded by having viewed it after a healthy chunk of people on my Twitter timeline were declaring it a MOTY, but it didn't meet expectations. It felt a lot like the Undertaker-HHH Wrestlemania 27 match, with a hardcore high spot, rest for a minute, hardcore high spot, rest formula. The Brock getting stretchered out of a multi-man only to return late and win spot was done very recently, and better, in the Cena-Rollins Triple Threat from the Rumble two years ago. It wasn't a bad match; it was good. But it wasn't MOTY caliber. EDITED TO GET BACK ON TRACK: AH-MEN, BUBBA! WWE booking of faces is trash and has been trash for a very long time. What has Roman done since The Shield split to engender the desired reactions? The vignettes during his initial push injury felt like RNN, only those segments were designed to turn Randy heel. He still wears Shield gear, which makes him look like a knob still wearing his high school letter jacket at college. He got popped on Wellness. HE ATTEMPTED VEHICULAR HOMICIDE ON HIS RIVAL LAST MONTH. None of this is face stuff.

*looks at your avatar* *lights a candle to Saint Anthony*