For Great Justice

The Show/Taker match linked in the Santo thread reminded me of No Mercy 2008, which has my favorite match between those two and the bad ass KO "is he out? Then raise my hand" ending. Then I kept watching and man, both HHH/Hardy and Shawn/Jericho are fantastic. Sleeper bad ass PPV there, with the rare WWE three heels (HHH in this particular match anyway) winning the three main events relatively clean (when does Vince ever do that?). And the Shawn/Jericho one was the feud ender. 2008 WWE is pretty hit or miss, but all of this ruled.

The one where the bad guy squandered up the money to send Valentine to Bond’s trailer and put him in an arm bar for two and a half hours.

Bourne was around so many great things just all over the place. Kind of amazing really. Like Bourne was front and center for the Duggan gorilla suit angle episode of Mid South with the amazing tag with DiBiase against JYD and Olympia.

Latest rabbit hole is Fit Finley WCWSN matches This is my shit

Great post. I feel like there’s always this sort of anti-recency bias in GOAT discussions. Like to me Macho, Eddy and Funk are the three best wrestlers of all time because they could do absolutely anything (any style of match, anywhere on the card, against any opponent) at an elite level and make money doing it. And...Bryan is pretty much that same kind of guy. Talking, comedy, grappling, flying, selling, whatever. As face or heel. Against anyone. So for that reason I should probably expand my list. The only thing I can’t pinpoint and I feel like this is just a brain cramp, is a good old fashioned hate filled Bryan brawl. Possibly with buckets of blood. Possibly in blue jeans. I’m sure this exists and I’m just forgetting. Recommendations?

The various ongoing discussions around Bret, Danielson, Punk and their (for better or worse) theory/mindset on pro wrestling got me wondering, who is your best wrestler that has a totally different idea of what makes good wrestling than you do? Like Shawn Michaels especially after his return, did a lot to advance the epic formula that we’ve all beat up on enough over the past 15+ years, but the dude could clearly go. And Kurt Angle with his ridiculous-ass talent, kind of suffered from coming up in that era with that definition of “good wrestling”. Like compare this to Punk who has IMO a bad idea of good in-ring wrestling and is bad at executing it. Or Bryan who excels at both.

Kenny and Sammy was fantastic. Jericho cut a promo on a drone. Otherwise between the lack of a crowd, the squashes and Tony and a Rhodes on commentary this was more or less an episode of the muthaship. Needed some clubberin. I did really enjoy Cody’s pure sports, technical analysis-based approach to color commentary. That was great.

The Summerslam Cena squash was one of the damndest things I ever watched. Amazing match in many ways. I really thought, for a split second around WMXXX, that they were on the verge of something special. Not a boom per se, but the best business since the last one. With Bryan as red hot as a guy had been in a decade, Lesnar strong, Shield strong....and then it all went to hell in a matter of weeks with the Kane/Bryan feud, subsequent injury and botched Reigns ascent.

EDIT: didn't want to derail the thread Just rewatched this as well to chip in. Wow, I had totally forgotten about Hawk/Droz. Droz I get not knowing any better but to agree; I'm surprised Hawk went along with it.

I am down for a random quarantine viewing thread. Last night’s rabbit hole was, for whatever reason, Mania promo videos. Can we all agree “Monster” > “My Way”? Because it’s not even close. I also got deep into Larry Z matches stemming from a watch of War Games 92 (and holy shit the talent level in that match).

Definitely the right move. If they are looking for stock footage to fill some time over the next few weeks, just wondering out loud if this is an opportunity for NJPW to reach out and let them show relevant stuff like Jericho/Omega, showcase Archer, etc.

Big Daddy V WWECW squashes are legit some of the best ever.

This show absolutely smoked what WWE is doing given the same circumstances. So many great ideas executed well that provided a much better vibe. This shit was great.

Austin/Bret was okay, but was really more about their story together than it was Bret’s bigger story, except for Montreal. It was really good for what it was, but there’s so much more to discuss. One of my favorite tropes from these shows is Austin’s fascination with blowing guys up. It’s great.

She’s so obviously tuned out and going through the motions that I can’t tell if they are doing a subtle Clubber Lang build with Becky or not.

I was thinking about that. Other than my idea from the SD thread to transform the PC into Irish McNeil’s Boys Club and run Southpaw for a month, what kind of stuff DOES work in an empty arena? Plunder brawls Stiff amateur-looking stuff like Bryan/Gulak

Given it’s one of the few properties they have right now capable of running someting live, wonder if Fox has considered moving Smackdown to Sunday afternoons and running a combination of performance center stuff and marches from prior big shows. Nothing else on, maybe a way to get another lapsed fan eyeball or two. Plus who doesn’t want Joe Buck on the call!

I’m fascinated by how they would handle a likely WrestleMania delay, narratively. My suggestion is to freeze continuity and run: Raw: KOTR NXT: MYC / CWC and of course SD: Southpaw Championship Wrestling

On one hand, absolutely every logical and rational indicator I can imagine points to the show being canceled. On the other, left to his own devices, Vince insisting the show go on is exactly the sort of thing he'd view as on-brand, rebellious and something that would get mainstream attention. I can easily see him currently in a staring contest with Tampa/Florida officials, who wouldn't want to force the closure for insurance reasons (I suspect, as language along these lines would be common in most contracts).

I suspect they’ll leave the Performance Center geared out for shows and will be running Raw, NXT and SD there for the foreseeable future until we are on the other side of this.

I’d like to see an analysis of which move had the highest success rate: - Flair off the top rope - 10 count punches in the corner against Taker - Throwing a haymaker at John Cena after he’s hit you with two shoulder blocks

Otis has Jim Duggan role upside and that’s a job opening house shows for life.

Agree with a lot of that. Shayna cut a promo a few weeks back on Raw that was better and more believable than any promo Sasha has ever done. Shayna isn’t Brock, though. She’s more like Samoa Joe after he’s been heated up for a feud with the champ.

Also Montez Ford continues to jump off the screen to me. He has that RVD-like spring to his aerial stuff and his character work is a ton of fun.

End the show after the tag chamber match and it’s remembered as a bad ass show. Bryan/Gulak was my shit. They threw it WAY back - it reminded me of those black and white gifs that have been posted lately. And THAT suplex. More please.