SirSmUgly

WOOOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF SASHA BANKS, PEOPLE TODAY, NXT WOMEN'S CHAMPION TOMORROW, 2014/15 DVDVR MARCH MADNESS CHAMPION ...ahem Anyway, liked the opener, enjoyed the tag match even though it was a mess, wanted more violence from Dempsey/Corbin, enjoyed the ridiculous spot-festy finishing run in Neville/Bálor, and really loved the last two matches. Half the crowd was about to break out in tears while Owens was destroying Zayn. It was pretty amazing. Sad that this probably indicates that Zayn, Neville, and Charlotte are off to RAW to get booked into the ground, but good for them anyway.

Was that the Andre/Dusty/JYD vs. Samoans/Ladd six-man tag? Because it was awesome.

They lost to Blake and Murphy three shows ago.

Hell of an example of "Arson, Murder, Jaywalking" there, Matt Dangerously. Also, you owe me a new keyboard.

I love Alpha Protocol. You take that back!

Chyna was fine in her role as IC Champ, but sticking her with a guy the crowd wanted to see treated better was a bad idea. One of those two should have been given the Cruiserweight title and allowed to defend that away from the other one to placate everyone and to allow Chyna to get over without the crowd feeling like they had to pick between her and Jericho.

I need to watch some non-NXT Becky Lynch matches as she has been rather hit-or-miss (and mostly on the miss side) in NXT so far. She's still figuring things out, I think,

Sexuality is on a spectrum and curiosity is genderless. If someone told me that of Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, one took nude pictures of a tattooed woman that were released onto the internet because the taker of said pictures didn't fully understand how modern technology works, and the other was dating cute-as-a-button Renee Young, I would really have messed up which was which. Totally unrelated note: Starrcade '92 is a top-eight all-time U.S. PPV and would have broken the top five if we got Rude/Simmons instead of Dr. Death/Simmons.

I love SR2. It's janky and poorly-coded in some places, but they hit the right balance between "GTA Simulator" and "ridiculous frat-boy humor level and self-aware fun" in that game. SR3 is much prettier and smoother. It's also in a less-interesting city. Still, great game.

I guess this is my real question: Are we at the point where all that are left are the hardcores that will just boo everything, or is there room for even greater apathy levels and loss of viewership for TV and the Network? I do think that Vince McMahon cares about how his shows look to some degree and that the audience is rejecting his ideas to some degree as well, so it's not just about having a captive audience for him.

True. Maybe I should say "not presented as knowing English." My focus is on guys that couldn't connect through cutting a traditional promo in English themselves.

This is a historical question of sorts. Which Japanese or Mexican wrestler (originally from one of those places) that didn't speak English had the best career stateside? I wonder this in two ways: first, who had the best artistic output, and second, who drew the best? I had a hard time thinking through this because the criteria leaves out the most obvious choices (Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio). I think the Great Muta might be the answer to one of these two questions, but I wanted to get an idea of what everyone else though,

Yeah, I meant post-'88 when it actually became branded as WCW. I think War Games '92 and '94 are both in contention as well as Eddy/Rey at Havoc '97 and Steamboat/Rude Iron Man at Beach Blast '93. Those would probably be my top five matches from the company.

Zayn and Finn look like can't miss stars, TBH. Don't even like Finn, but the dude just looks like he's going to be over. If WWE booked women not like shit, Bayley, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks would all get way over, too.

I just made a post about that terrible Goldust promo stuff from '96-'97 in another thread...that Lawler promo is fucking awful. Even as a teenager with a much less refined sense of how to act, it seemed pretty bad to put on the air. I had another random question for everyone to ponder: What is the best WCW match ever? My vote is for Vader/Sting King of Cable at Starrcade '92.

Vader's first RAW, early '96, he has such a great segment. I was thirteen when it happened, and it's still cool today. He has that fun squash with Savio Vega, and then the aftermath where he kills refs, gets suspended, and then crushes Gorilla Monsoon is GREAT television. The crowd is fantastic during this whole segment, too. It's a shame that Vader never really got an extended chance to shine at the top level, though there wasn't necessarily much room for him in retrospect Vader had a very underrated WWF career, actually. His work in the Final Four match and his match against Goldust at RR '98 are two of my favorites ever. Speaking of the latter, I'm not looking forward to some of the really cringe-worthy stuff with Goldust that I didn't bat an eyelash at as a kid. They put up a '96 RAW with Warrior right after he passed, and it was a terrible look for him since he cut a super-gay-bashy promo on 'Dust. Stuff like that will be really awful to watch in retrospect. EDIT: Also, McMahon making fun of Ted Turner being diagnosed with Bipolar II in these fucking whiny and awful Billionaire Ted skits ("Jane, where's my lithium") is totally shitty. Vince can go fuck himself.

Becky Lynch is totally unnatural, definitely. Her knee work was good, though. Bayley's knee work where she got mad and just started whaling away was even better. I say this all the time, but Bayley = money. Good seller (though she sort of dropped the knee while making her comeback, but hey, that's what WWE babyfaces do), great facial expressions, very sympathetic, and good wrestler, plus a character that should connect with a demo that they can make money off of). I loved Itami/Balor, but that's because they beat the shit out of each other. Itami's spinning backfist was sick, as was his bump backward into the corner off the Bàlor dropkick. I don't even really like Bàlor that much, but the dude looks like a star and had a fantastic match. I wanted to see like five more minutes of Neville/Corbin. Neville was putting in work to make Corbin look like a killer, and it worked on me. Neville is one of those guys who should have a job for years just because he's such a good hand in the ring. Carmella is a good heel. She's so naturally unlikable. I was trying to figure out if I disliked her because I thought she sucked or if she was just a really annoying character, and it's the latter. Good for her.

I will assume that someone just made that Kallisto thing up until I see it. And I'm praying that I won't actually see it because WWE will do something embarrassing and probably totally indefensible with that gimmick.

Taker/Mark Henry is a really underrated casket match. It was awesome. That match is in the top six or so of 'Taker WM matches, IMO.

Odd that they're trolling the audience based on a real-life issue with a booking decision. Reigns coming out and being confused by that in kayfabe clashes really weirdly with HHH talking about a OOC thing. Maybe this will be an angle where everyone in the company acknowledges that they're actors on a show booked to win except for Reigns, who is so deluded that he treats everything like it's real, believing that he's really beating guys up with the Superman Punch and spear, and pledging to beat Brock Lesnar at WM even though everyone around him is trying to explain that Lesnar is a shoot fighter and will fuck him up. Then at WM, Lesnar, tired of Reigns thinking that he's really winning matches on his own, wins with a Kimura in 15 seconds and somewhere in Long Island, Vince Russo busts a nut watching it all go down.

Man, was I hyped for Blake/Murphy winning the tag belts! Match was okay, but I did really enjoy the ending sequence quite a bit. Tyson Kidd's shirt is the rare non-crappy looking wrestling shirt. I would buy and wear it. Weird note about Neville; his little ritual when he's waiting in the corner to start the match where he stretches in both directions, pops his mouthpiece in, and does a lunge, comes off as really intense to me and really works for establishing his character in a way that nothing else has, at least in my view. Typical good match from these two. Bayley seeing Sami Zayn get successful after becoming less nice and changing her behavior too, but not quite going about it the same way, was great. Tag match was fine. Charlotte throws a shitty chop, though. Corbin/Dempsey was what it was. End of Days looks great on Dempsey. I wish they hadn't had him come up after the match and cut in on Corbin's interview to tell him that things weren't over between them as it telegraphed the end of Neville/Corbin too much. Before that interview, I was thinking they might just have Corbin win number-one contendership. Regal lampshading typical contract signing tropes was funny. I am rooting for Zayn, but I have to admit that even though Owens is a bad guy, I respect his "do whatever I have to in order to get that money for my family" logic. He comes off as a working-class guy, so it's more admirable than prickish.

Dean Ambrose doesn't seem right. Like, legitimately. Like, Piranesi's "Dean Ambrose, Feral Animal" stories seem to have at least a partial basis in truth. He's kinda like Randy Savage or Brian Pillman in that way, where something seems off about the dude in reality and you're not sure if he's actually playing a part.

I'll put it this way: I think it is far more likely that big-time pro wrestling dies in America than WWE ever gets a legitimate competitor for the #1 spot in the U.S. I actually think there is a pretty good argument to be made that big-time pro wrestling is dying right now, and WWE will eventually end up as a regional company at most, though I don't know if I believe that argument.

Sure, I agree with that. I don't think this company is going out of business anytime soon. From all I can understand, they're stable financially. They won't be entering a boom period anytime soon, but they probably don't really need to, either. They can stay the course and remain profitable.

I mean, if his goal at this point is "doing pretty well in the present," then sure. I don't know how driving old fans away is supposed to help create future fans or how ignoring money that he could be making is a smart business move, but stability in mediocrity can be a win, too.