Go2Sleep

A couple more for tonight... Hey, remember when Ken Anderson looked like he was gonna be a star? Maybe Funaki gets a hair too much offense here to be considered a pure squash, but the way he sells the Green Bay Plunge makes up for it. And how about a rare "little guy squashes a big guy" match? Of course, this is what it was building to, so there went that trend.

I love this thread so much... Here's a classic. The match that put the Acolytes on the map as a team... The chair shots Bradshaw was dishing out were sick. Speaking of Bradshaw, here he is in the JBL days warming up for the I Quit match with Cena by making his own rules against Scotty 2 Hotty. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xejsz1_sd-19-05-05-jbl-vs-scotty-2-hotty_sport?search_algo=2#.Ue-kdlPkBD0 Here's another Brock match, this time against someone who went on to a little more success than most of the victims in this thread. Not as violent as the Spanky and Gowan matches, but Brock

Oh, and I don't know if this counts because, technically, the squasher loses by DQ, but just watch it... Don't be fooled by the length, this includes the setup with Kendrick mouthing off to Vince, a video package, and some ridiculous post-match violence. You kinda forget how nasty pre-PG WWE could be. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwzDeLbRe-A And just for fun, here's the following week where Lesnar destroys Zach Gowan in front of Zach's mom. Similar situation with some backstage stuff, video packages, and the aftermath. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nJu2YmawAY

An early Goldberg match. First time using the spear, carelessly tosses Riggs onto the guardrail, and really sticks the jackhammer for the win.

Riley as Maddox's yes-man is almost too perfect. It might actually be somewhat redundant since Maddox is a trained wrestler who can bump, but I guess if they wanna keep him out of action for whatever reason, Riley is the best guy on the roster to throw in as the sidekick. Brad Maddox might be my favorite GM ever, though. When it comes to subtlety as a heel, that man gets it. The in-ring action was pretty good tonight too. Sheamus and Del Rio had a very nice match built around that grossly discolored leg. It was also great to see a non-WWE champ win a non-title match against an upper midcarde

Eh, psychics tell people what they want to hear. There's always a market for that. Apparently I just miss all the crazies, though. I've been to WWE shows, TNA shows, and shit-level indy shows, and I've never met anyone who thought it was all real, outside of maybe a couple really young kids. I mean, I've seen some huge party-line marks who like every face and hate every heel without exception, but that's no different than liking every protagonist in any other movie/tv series and never liking a movie/tv series villian. Not even they thought it was real life. Maybe we just live in alternate real

I don't doubt that some "it's still real to me damn it" people do exist, but it has to be a very small fraction of the total wrestling fanbase. I've been to lots of shows in several different areas and never found anyone like you described. Most of the casuals or non-net savvy fans I meet at WWE live events watch wrestling the same way we do. They like some heels and some faces, and they just want to see fun matches and storylines.

My dad made sure to squash kayfabe for me after a couple weeks of watching wrestling. I think he just didn't want me trying to do moves with my friends or on my then 4yo brother. It didn't hinder my enjoyment (or me trying to do moves), though. As for if you can still believe it with knowing results are predetermined, the answer is a resounding, 2012-Daniel-Bryan-esque NO. You'd have to some serial-killer level cognitive dissonance going on to think the results were predetermined but everything leading up to the rigged match and/or the moves being applied during the rigged match were real

No way. Orton may have motivational issues from time to time, but he's a damn good wrestler when he wants to be. He definitely carried his weight in the Christian and Bryan matches, as well as the underrated Cena series in 09. He's also really good working with lower-ranked guys. He's had good tv matches with Cody, Ted Jr, Kofi, Ziggler, Swagger, and Otunga, who are all varying degrees of less-talented than Orton.

Yeah, no way on HHH. He's been responsible for some bad matches, but he's also been responsible for some really good ones.

Kurt Angle was the first guy who came to mind for me. He's a tremendous athlete and always gives it 100%, but he does tend to get out of control if he's leading the match. His best matches were all against better wrestlers (Austin, Benoit, Rey, Taker). I guess it depends how highly you rate his work against early Cena and his more recent TNA work. He was clearly carrying the surprisingly good Mr. Anderson feud, so he does that going for him. Vince McMahon is another one who might fit the bill. He definitely understands how to work a match with his character, even though he's very limited ath

Terry hit his legs on the guardrail every time he did the Asai moonsault during his 1998 run. I couldn't believe he kept doing the spot to the side of the ring instead of towards the entrance way. The Henry match was definitely on Raw, though. It was a KOTR tournament match. If you want a surprisingly decent Mark Henry attitude match, check out him vs. Owen from, I wanna say, February 98.

See, forget the fake retirment speech, that was the best Mark Henry moment this year. "NOBODY SPLASHES ME!"

Question for Dylan (or anyone else): What do you think are the best Mark Henry matches? I think his character work has been excellent for the last several years and he's been very consistent in the ring, but I've been struggling to think of matches that really stand out. For all the other guys that have been brought up, a few great matches came to mind instantly. Does Henry have anything that would be in anyone's top 10 or even a WWE top 10 in a given year? I remember he had some higher-end matches with Rey in about 2006, but that's about it.

I think Show is easily better than Henry. His matches with Mayweather, Taker, Lesnar, Del Rio, Sheamus, and Bryan are all better than Henry's best work.I'd say Umaga deserves consideration too, although his peak might have been too short due to his untimely death. Still, his matches with Cena and Jeff Hardy were better than Henry's best, and his killing of Santino was pretty underrated too.

Really, they had to shove Vickie back into the (secondary) spotlight? What happened to Booker T? Mark Henry as a face is something we can all get behind. They really should've saved that retirement promo for after the Cena feud and used it for the Shield beatdown. I'm glad Orton's not really hurt, but if anyone could handle a sustained layoff during a big push, it's him. He could be off tv for months and "I hear voices" would still get an Austin-esque pop whenever he re-emerged with the case.

I'd give Kobashi a bunch of AJ/NOAH guys, but not the rest of the big 4. Those go to Misawa, and even if you think 6/9/95 was the best match any of them were ever in, it's still a wash. I still the prefer the higher-end Misawa/Kawada and Misawa/Kobashi singles to that tag, but I wouldn't argue too much. A Misawa/Kobashi run-off would be interesting... Misawa: Kawada, Kobashi, Taue, Akiyama (?), Jumbo (?), Vader (?), Saito, InoueKobashi: Hansen, Dr. Death, Takayama, Sasaki (?), Nakajima (?), Furnas, Lafon

Has anyone said Misawa yet?I don't think anyone would argue Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue. Possibly Akiyama, Jumbo, and Vader. Then tack on some scrubs like Inoue, Saito, and probably a handful of others lucky enough to be on the opposite side of a random 6-man.

That was a good episode of Raw. Orton and Fandango had a solid match. Orton again shows he's one of the few that knows how to work a good and kayfabe-believable match against a lower-ranked guy. Ziggler/ADR was the least of their recent matches, but still not too bad. Kinda hope Del Rio makes the low superkick his main finisher. It looked especially good on Ziggler tonight. It's too bad AJ's had so many on-screen breakups in the last year, because the writing for this one was pretty good, but we've seen her "go crazy" so many times it didn't stand out at all. Ziggler/Langston has to happen

Hogan/Warrior 2 is one of the best bad matches of all time.

This wasn't a bad show, but probably not as good as Payback or ER. I'm really glad they aired the Shield/Usos match instead of the usual video packages on loop for the countdown. It was probably the best match of the night. The big near fall for the Usos was perfect, and the finishing sequence was well done. Rollins is really good at mixing up his signature moves to create fresh sequences. The lesser MITB was pretty fun. The pace was good and there were a few unique spots in there. The crowd seemed really into the Cody sequences, so maybe a face turn has some legs. Didn't really consider

I think if we're all honest, probably less than 10% of us remembered that angle until reading about it in this thread. I know I didn't. Hasn't there been a bunch of turnover among the writing staff since then too?

Praise Xenu the board is back! Still the only worthwhile place to discuss wrestling on the internet.

Am I the only one who thinks Cesaro has a fighting chance in the lesser MITB? He fits the mold of past winners like Ziggler and Bryan--A cult favorite low-midcarder coming off a big losing streak. I don't know if I'd say he's the favorite, but if wrestling betting existed, I'd pick him for the odds. Overall, it looks like a decent show. The title matches should be solid and the ladder matches both have multiple guys who could believably win. Only thing that bothers me is Shield/Usos getting stuck on the pre-show while Jericho/Ryback and Miz/Axel contaminate the main card with their shittines