Go2Sleep

I thought she came across as bitter and whiny. I mean, she does have some good reasons to be bitter, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to make her the main character if that's the case. Trinity/Naomi came across as the real winner to me. The Bellas seemed nice and cool when they were at home, but they really looked like they were living the gimmick on the road. I'm sure there are plenty of people who think that's a good thing, though. Bryan and Brie were really cute together, but that whole Cena thing looks like it could end real bad for Nikki. Agreed that Ariane/Cameron seemed crazy, and that dude she's with seemed like a real loser. I kinda wanted Brodus to beat him up. Jojo didn't get much time this week, but Eva did stand out. Had she not been on Raw with her flaming red hair last week, I would've guessed she'd be fired for not going blonde. It did give some pretty good insight as to why character development for new talent is often shite, though. "We think you need to be blonde." *Does something completely different* "That's... actually a lot better... But don't do that shit again!" Alright show. It's pretty much your standard over-produced "reality" tv affair, but with characters I'm already somewhat interested in and cameos from characters I'm very interested in. I'm sure I'll stick it out to the bitter end.

The biggest thing about "boom eras" or "glory days" in wrestling is having multiple generational talents in their prime on the roster at the same time (aka luck). The initial 80s boom in the WWF had Hogan, Savage, and Piper. 90s AJ had Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi. The attitude era had Austin, Rock, Foley, and Taker. 96 WCW was really the only company to kind of escape this rule by virtue of Hogan and Sting being past their primes at the time. Looking at WWE from 2003 on, when have they had more than one prime, generational talent on the roster? As big of a hit as Cena has been, there has been no one on his level since like 2006. Bad luck definitely played a part in that with Lesnar leaving and Eddie Guerrero dying. Eddie was capturing a new audience and Brock really should've been the defining star of the era (and almost certainly would've been had he not left). The problem isn't that Cena isn't good, it's that he isn't enough by himself. He has no foils, no one that can fill his spot so he can change his character, and there's no one else in a prominent position for fans to care about. Think about it, unless your favorite wrestler is Cena, your favorite guy is an upper midcarder at best and that's unlikely to change. Hence, stale writing and declining interest for the last decade. Barring injury, Cena's still got a lot left in the tank, so there's time for someone else to step in and help him out. I still maintain that they missed the boat big time with Punk circa MITB 2011. Bryan has a lot going for him right now, but it remains to be seen if he can displace Cena, even for a little bit. If he proves to be a legit draw, WWE is in great shape going forward because they have a lot of potential break-out talent under contract, but they need more than one credible guy to work with. It's also tough to gauge Bryan's outside appeal at this point, but if you could get casual/ex/new fans to sit down and watch his matches, he would probably get their attention.

If you're reading this thread and the title of this video doesn't interest you, I don't know what to say... A good effort from Finlay in WCW:

Goldberg tossing Brad Armstrong around like a ragdoll: The quintessential Vader squash:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-sVl95KI2c I've also been trying to find some more stuff from Japan. How about Vader in UWFi? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTY3uwRV6OEYoung Kawada paying some dues against Stan Hansen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maJFrSUreZQ Young Ogawa vs. Abdullah the Butcher goes like you'd expect. JIP at the important part. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0szZNHo4WRc

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 still brings the pain throughout the match including one of the better F5's of his career. How could we forget this one? A young, athletic HHH schools some jobber, prances around, and then the finish...

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 midcarder. Still waiting for Del Rio's next real challenger, though. Was anyone else annoyed at Heyman talking to "Brock Lesnar" off-camera? It would've been fine if the camera panned to him at some point just to look mean or do literally anything, or if he attacked Punk in the ring, but as it was, it was just so obvious he wasn't there and made Heyman look kind of stupid. Oh, and Daniel Bryan was pretty good again too. "Oh, let me just work in this little MOTYC as the second leg of my 40-minute gauntlet match..." My only complaint was they should've gone to the finish of the Ryback match faster if that's how it was gonna end. They were getting diminishing returns on Bryan "surviving the odds" and Ryback looked terrible following Cesaro. And no one could be too surprised Ryback was gassed after 10 minutes and botched that catch. Looked sick, sure, but do we really need to be jeopardizing Bryan's health like that?

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 realities.

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. I'd assume anyone on a dedicated pro-wrestling message board like this one who claimed to still buy into kayfabe was either trying to make wrestling feel like it was when they were a kid or trying to avoid getting a reputation of being "too smarky." Only the youngest/newest fans can truly experience kayfabe, and even then it's not usually for very long. Really, pretty much everyone (including non-net savvy fans), watches wrestling like a movie or any other tv series. We don't need to see it as real, we just need to be entertained.

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 athletically. He has more good matches than you'd think, even though the opponent is always doing the heavy lifting. The one good match he had where he might have had a skill advantage was the match with Shane at Mania 17. As for the other guys listed, I agree DDP definitely doesn't belong. The Rock depends on how you rate his skill against peak HHH, since that iron man is the only Rock match I think belongs on the tier of his work with Foley and Austin. I guess you could compare his skill to Jericho too if you think those matches are among Rocky's best, but I don't. Edit: Actually, given that The Rock did most of the work in the Mania 19 match with Austin, I have to exclude him as well. He was tremendous in that.

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, I guess, but it doesn't seem like the best thing for Dolph. Wonder who's gonna go after ADR now. I liked the Wyatt Family segment again this week. Wonder what would happen if they got really over as faces. Truth looked kinda stupid in this segment, but I guess that's basically his job these days. Looking forward to the Zack Ryder beatdown next week. The Shield looked relevant again by attacking Mark Henry. They should've saved his retirement speech for this segment. Loved Henry not backing down. Hopefully they get to do something good at Summer Slam. Kind of funny to watch the worst guy in WWE title MITB beat the winner of the World title MITB. Not a big deal because Christian can pick up those wily veteran wins credibly and Sandow has a long way to go before cashing in is worth while. The Punk/Lesnar segment was very well done. The dueling promos were solid, but nothing mind-blowing, but then Lesnar came out and immediately made it better like only he can. Punk repeatedly getting up and charging at Lesnar, but clearly getting weaker each time made both guys look good and *it looked credible.* Jericho/RVD was fine middle-aged spotfest match. Brad Mad-Ox is making the most of his new role. His awkward interactions with everyone are perfect. The setup for Cena/Bryan was pretty lazy, but given the match, who really cares? Summer Slam is looking like a good show. Although I guess with Cena/Bryan and Punk/Lesnar, there's not much they could do to make it look bad. Even if the only other match was a 90-minute Miz/Ryback iron man, I'd still buy it.

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 Sandow for the win until near the end, so that was surprising. He probably needs to hold the case for a while, though, because even as second-class as the World title is these days, guys like Ziggler and Del Rio are still out of Sandow's league at this point. The Brad Maddox promo was awesome. He can definitely pull off the oblivious "heel who thinks he's a face" act. He could be everything they wanted Mike Adamle to be, and I'm guessing long-term he'll turn into a competent GM. The 3 filler matches were about what I expected. Miz/Axel wasn't terrible, but about as bland as you could possibly get. Kaitlyn and AJ had another solid outing. AJ is starting to come into her own in the ring. I really liked her bumping throughout the match. Jericho/Ryback was dull with both guys looking worse at the end. They need a match at Summer Slam just to see who can make it to 2 ppv wins this year. Ziggler/Del Rio was going nicely until the finish. ADR took some sick bumps. Not as good as Payback with the awesome story they had going in that match, but these two do have good chemistry and it was nice to see Dolph work face and get a strong face reaction at the same time. Do we really need another AJ breakup angle? Cena/Henry was a standard Cena effort. Good match, loved the bump on the ring steps, but not much else stood out. We've seen this a hundred times before. The important MITB wasn't as good as the first one. Had a lot slower pace and worse big spots. I hope to god they're not wasting Bryan on Axel going into Summer Slam. Disappointed to see the Wyatt Family not do anything. The Heyman turn was obvious, but the hardway blood off that last ladder shot made it cool anyways. Orton was another guy I had in the middle of the pack ranking the likelihood of winners. He's been pretty good this year, so I'm cool with getting him back into the WWE title picture. He always has good matches with Cena and Bryan will probably be lurking around too. Wonder what happens to RVD now.