anarchistxx

How much of his 'presence' is down to the production team, though? His segments are lit and sountracked to give them automatic presence, helped by videos and cuts. Compare that to someone like Big E Langston who was given absolutely no production sheen to help him appear charismatic and important. My problem with his promos is twofold: a. they ramble and don't say anything that isn't a generalist cliche, they don't do a good job of getting over his motivations b. they seem overly scripted We obviously differ on the second point - I don't see how anyone could watch those boring segments and think he was speaking off the cuff, a lot of it seems unnatural to me. His delivery is hit and miss, sometimes it is good sometimes it just makes you cringe. Overall he lacks any particular message and comes over as unthreatening and not nearly as scary or creepy as they want him to be. The commentators are constantly told to sell the 'people following a charismatic leader' rhetoric, but without giving any reason whatsoever why anyone would follow him. Who does he represent? What are his opinions and motivations? Why does he want to 'expose the dark side of John Cena'? You also say he has shown no nervousness, but a lot of his scenes are filmed backstage. Sure, he has confidence and presence that is slightly unique for a new guy, but no more than Seth Rollins or even Dolph Ziggler. Could he carry out an off the cuff promo? I'd like to see him do something that comes over as natural. I don't feel like he has fully earned his exposure at the top of the card, and the amount of time that gets devoted to his promos. Arguably the amount of time works against him, as he just covers old ground. The product doesn't move fast enough, so you get week after week of him saying the same things about Cena.

Plus in the 80s people came and went quite a lot. Do you just want list of permanent, signed talent or lists of anyone who was known to work in the territory even if it was only for a handful of matches traveling through?

He totally missed the point as well. Bryan as an 'everyman' character is devalued far more with cringe worthy supernatural angles than it is with him showing up in a regular car. Take an athletic, exciting, pure sports champion and put him with the most stale, slow, unrealistic character on the roster in tedious, overbooked gimmick matches. That is what devalues his character, not his choice of vehicle which actually fits perfectly, especially since DB in real life seems uncertain of his newfound stardom. The limo is what you bring out for the heel turn when he gets above his station.

If there is anyone Steve Austin could work with at this stage it is CM Punk. Almost all Punk's offence is strikes and dives, so Austin woudn't have to take any current falls.

Raw was really boring, I fast forwarded most of it. If there are two people I don't want to see anywhere near Daniel Bryan it is Alberto Del Rio and Kane. They can't really think this faux scary made for television horror movie stchick still works. When has a Kane feud based around creepy supernatural things ever drew a dime since the turn of the century? Every face champion seems to get lumbered with him, just lazy, lazy booking. Especially galling that they present it despite having Kane work as a regular corporate guy in a suit for months, now he is suddenly capable of making masks glow in the dark and turning lights off wirelessly like one of those automatic energy saving home electricity systems. It would have been excusable if they had booked the feud around their history as tag partners, but there hasn't been any mention. Clearly supernatural is preferable to storyline reality even in the 'reality era'. Then you have another long, rambling Bray Wyatt promo that says absolutely nothing. His interviews come off as so phoney and scripted to me, and he needs a lot of improvement in ring as well - he is constantly put in a position to have great matches and doesn't often deliver unless he has super talented opponents. Main event was solid but probably the worst of their matches, not really a fan of Roman Reigns taking the fall either. The funny thing about this is that Michael Cole is clearly one of the least cool people to ever appear on television, yet we are expected to take such enthusiastic proclamations seriously. The announces are getting unbearable, although it is almost certainly the fault of whoever is screaming in their ears, no way is JBL screaming all these buzzwords and soundbites all night of his own accord, especially in that over excited voice that everyone knows is total bullshit. Lawler's jokes are beyond awful as well, and given he repeats the same ones on show after show you have to think the writers are giving him the material. It's weird, in some respects the are going beyond the PG rating in recent weeks, with 'bitch' and 'bastard' on television, Roman Reigns coughing up blood and a more violent, chaotic show at Extreme Rules. Then with the announcing it is the most lame, safe, scripted stuff designed to shill products and offer no opinions other than that the company wants to push, like they are scared of the commentators saying anything that could be construed as offensive.

I have no admiration for him as a wrestler. My point was simply that he is an established, main event star in the eys of the fans, who works as a dominant monster, so you devalue him by doing jobs every month. Every time he takes a fall it devalues his status as a big match attraction down the line. They have a lot of fresh matches with him that could conceivably draw, he should be kept strong if they intend to go that way or he just gets lost in the shuffle and they lose their considerable investment on him. That is the last thing they need. They had no confidence in Eddie as champion, and it really didn't help in the eyes of the fans that he was facing a lower level talent like Bradshaw. Eddie was also hampered by the brand split, and was the secondary champion on the B-show with a limited number of challengers. He was viewed as a failure on top. Daniel Bryan is the undisputed champion, he needs top level talent to beat, not repackaged mid carders. You can get away with placeholder feuds for a while but if you are selling him as the guy he needs to be facing big name stars. A Bray Wyatt/Daniel Bryan rematch is a possible direction to go in, but neither could afford to lose really. Silly gimmick matches like Buried Alive won't help him either. He got over because he worked exciting, fast paced, realistic, athletic wrestling matches. Whereas these gimmick matches are almost always overbooked, fake looking, slow, overworked train wrecks. How stupid is Daniel Bryan going to look shovelling a load of dirt onto Kane, nobody can take that kind of thing seriously anymore.

There is no way whatsoever the Daniel Bryan thing was planned. My impression/theory of it was that it was the original plan circa Summerslam, to have him screwed and work his way up the a big Wrestlemania payoff. However, they get cold feet due to average ratings and low merchandise sales, Batista comes back into the picture and they change it up to have him winning the belt in an Evolution vs Evolution main event that they think will captivate the fans. Obviously the reaction bombs so they are forced to change it again. It is clear to me that they aren't too sure how long Batista will be around. If he was going to be in for the long haul for the next couple of years, no way they have him job clean three PPVs in a row which seems to be the plan. Not sure having him eat the fall last night was especially conduicive to persuading him to work DB again either. Orton could have lost the match and it would have hurt him a lot less, but maybe they didn't trust Big Dave with the Rollins stage bump. There are no other credible heels except Randy Orton and Kane and both those matches have been done to death in recent months. They would have to elevate someone like Barrett or Cesaro for a premature shot, which in term would devalue Daniel Bryan. He needs to be working with people currently considered main event stars. Problem is even someone like Sheamus who they could turn has worked him a million times. Batista is one of the only fresh matches he has left looking at the current roster.

Well Cena/Wyatt and Bryan/Kane were overlong, overbooked and utterly atrocious. Whoever laid those matches out has a lot to answer for. The worst thing is that both feuds look like they might continue. The first half of the show was a lot of fun. Triple threat was about as good as it could be, the RVD/Cesaro sections at the end were so much better than the mess of a match they had on Raw. Barrett/Big E was alright, but as I predicted Big E is bombing completely. Titus O'Neill is a much better fit in his role, has a better look, moves better and has more natural charisma, Big E is a fantastic athlete but there is something about him where you can't take him seriously as a top guy, something missing, that indefinable factor that makes someone like Roman Reigns stand out. Shield/Evolution was really good, even if it could have been better. Some of the camera work was poor, especially leading up to the big Rollins dive. Ambrose was the MVP for me. Quite enjoyed the womens match as well, probably because I have a soft spot for Paige. Skipped the WeeLC and the Rusev squash.

It wasn't so much them jumping the shark, although they did overeach; the biggest problem was the talent drain. They lost Samoa Joe, Low-Ki, Bryan Danielson, CM Punk and dozens of others to WWE or when TNA started signing guys and insisting on exclusivity. They also suffered from fan burnout - a lot of the people who were hardcore fans when they started out were either growing up and growing out of wrestling or having other responsibilities and things going on in there life. Following ROH was expensive and time consuming, especially as they started putting more shows on. People also just got jaded with the style, as always happens. There weren't enough new guys coming through and the variety had declined in the product, the booking had got a bit tired. So they had a worse roster, a worse product yet were simultaneously trying to expand. With reasonable finance ROH in 2004/2005 could have maybe reached ECW levels. At one point some people were arguing they could surpass TNA as the #2 promotion if they got television and expsosure.

WWE is working the dirtsheets brilliantly at the minute.

AJ Styles is a strange gajin for NJ to push that hard, though, especially given the roll they have been on. Never drew a dime, in a relatively minor promotion stateside and not even big or imposing.

Astonishing if true.

This is half the problem. He just says a lot of cute, clearly overly scripted stuff, with no overriding message. What does he hope to achieve? Why does he want to 'bring out the dark side in John Cena'? What does he believe in or stand for? I'm not sure if anyone in the company even knows. It's like a low level horror movie where they just think a few cool visuals and quirky elements will make up for the fact that neither the script or the characters have anything to say.

Well, no, but that is no excuse for working a throwaway undercard match like the main event of Wrestlemania. A self conscious epic in the second match is just bad for the rest of the show, and means that whenever Whitmer does take part in a top of the card match with a well built feud and storyline, it means nothing because he works every other match exactly the same. He isn't even good at the bomb throwing, multiple near falls type matches. Struggle to think of anything he is good at. The epitome of bland landfill indy wrestler. The best of five? There was some very good matches in ther IIRC, definitely worth checking out. Agree 100% on the Jimmy Rave push. Someone on here recently described him as boring, and my point was that he was meant to be boring, that was his character, and he played it to perfection. One of the only 'proper' heels ROH ever managed to make, the crowd properly hated him, as oppose to say the American Dragon heel title run where it was all 'wink wink' type stuff where they loved to pretend to hate him and he loved to pretend he hated and didn't care about them. Still wish Danielson would bring some of that stuff back actually, the 'I have till five' schtick would translate great to WWE audiences, they love something to chant along to, look how well 'We the people' got over. Yep, the ROH fans took a lot of stick but they really helped make the shows. They were a million times better than a lot of the crowds today as well, with the prevalence of real smarkiness and 'this is awesome' chants on near enough every show. This is why ROH was so great actually, the variety down the card. Crazy flyers, comedy guys, stables, dominant monsters, generic indy wrestlers, vicious bastards, technical masters. They always made sure to have some variety on the show, and I started to zone out when there was less pacing a more stacked cards full of long matches.

I didn't find it creepy either. Bray Wyatt isn;'t scary in the slightest, he is so gimmicky and corny that it is impossible to take the act seriously. They could have taken it in a really dark, sinister direction, but so far it has just seemed cute and faintly embarassing. The logical reason is building Randy Orton and Batista back up for their inevitable world title rematches. If they lose this decisively they are afterthoughts.

A lot of that is part of the charm, though. Depends if you just want a set of great matches or also a time capsule type approximation of the indy world at the time. Personally I'm just as happy to sit through some shambolic, amateurish Special K match than I am to watch endless long workrate matches. Each one accentuates the other.

Are the original DVDs worth anything? I still have a handful but assumed it was too niche for anyone to pay more than a few dollars/pounds for each event.

Disagree with this completely. A 'best of' is really pretty worthless, gives you no context to the matches and you don't see the buildup. You could get a two disc 'Best Of All Japan' with 06/09/95 on it, but is it going to be anywhere near as impactful and special if you haven't seen anything from the previous five years? Unless the sets also include angles, promos, previous matches/confrontations in a feud and other stuff outside simply a collection of great matches, they aren't any good for someone wanting to get into the product. Also, if you just get a set of classic matches, you miss out on what made ROH so great; people like Jack Evans doing crazy shit on the udnercard, comedy tag matches, random British style matches with McGuiness and Williams, Cabana goofing around, fun little sprints etc. Plus great matches mean a lot less when they are on a disc with six other great matches. They shine a lot more when you have watched a complete card that is up and down. You wouldn't tell someone looking into Led Zeppelin to buy a greatest hits set - you would make them buy the albums seperately, so 'Gallows Pole' and 'Bring It On Home' are there to balance out 'Immigrant Song' and 'Whole Lotta Love'. I'm sure you will be able to pick up the individual events from somewhere fairly cheap unless you desperately want the official discs. Not sure about this. The 'Summer Of Punk' is probably not great in retrospect, but Punk was never the type of guy to be putting on five star classics every week like he was put in the position to do. It was one of those things that was exciting to be a part of while it was happening, with him having signed to WWE and the big swerve and one of the first proper, traditionally booked long running storylines the company managed to pull off. It was more about the character work than the matches, and actually I think CM Punk is one of the more natural characters in recent years - he occasionally looks like he is playing a wrestler in the ring, but as an overall personality he seems believable, his backstage promo work was great even in his ROH days. The matches themselves weren't classics, although most were solid. From 2005 you have the cage match against Jimmy Rave, the first Aries match and the Strong matches that lifted him up a level, plus the crowd reactions were fun, I imagine the 'Heat' and 'Velocity' chants have a certain irony considering he went on to headline stadium shows for WWE. Also, I'm no fan of Davey Richards, but do you honestly think Delirious or Jimmy Jacobs would have been better choices as the ace of the company?

No way, Whitmer was about as subtle as a brick. He was the guy throwing bombs and having a million near falls on the second match on the card. Had no idea how to pace, how to emote, how to work a lower card match that didn't detract and exhaust the crowd for the rest of the show. No charisma either. He was passable whe teaming with Maff and was involved in some decent matches, but he was a real step below the rest of the roster when he got promoted to the main event when they started losing the top stars. Forgot about Jimmy Jacobs though, he was involved in so much cool stuff, especially the Lacey storyline which was one of the best they did. Jacobs as a little lovelorn emo prick was such a fun character, would have probably translated well to the WWE. I actually had his pathetic love song on my Ipod back then. Laceyyyyyy Put me in your top eight when you Myspace me And never replace me There are no other candidates Together we're the match of the year

Agree with all of that. The prime of ROH coincided with the absolute peak of my interest in wrestling, so will always look back on it fondly., even if I tended to savage a lot of the stuff in the 06 shows in my reviews. 2003-2005 were more consistent in my opinion, there is a lot of crap on the 2006 shows although the highs may be higher. Started to zone out when Delirious, BJ Whitmer and Adam Pearce started getting pushed to the top. It was expensive to follow though, this was in the days before mass broadband piracy so even if the official DVDs priced you out the unofficial routes were still pretty expensive, not like these days where people are selling discs at 0.50 a pop. Is there still an interest in peak era ROH and mid noughties NOAH from upcoming smarks, the same way the generation who came up circa 2001-2004 were interested in 90s NJPW and ECW? Does the term 'smark' even exist anymore? Seems like there is so much wrestling available now at the click of a button that it would be hard for people to get attached to things as much.

Wonder if he will be using the G2S. Wonder how many fans will accuse him of stealing it from Punk.

Weird that the hardcore stuff ended up being his best matches in the WWE, considering his disdain for 'garbage wrestling'. A few bloody cage matches, the TLC vs Edge and the ridiculously violent Foley matches were all very fun. I always liked the Undertaker WM18 match as well, thought the build up was great.

You could probably make a very entertaining five disc comp of his WWE stuff, including promos and angles. He could still go occasionally during 2002-2006, especially in tags. Of course, that would be a fraction of the hundreds of hours he spent on television, so there is still a lot of crap, but I'm not one of those who thinks he should necessarily have retired in the 90s. And his promos were still entertaining as fuck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HbCGhhL7o

Depends what you are looking for. The early shows are intriguing and show exactly what type of style was in vogue at the time, and they garnered much critical praise. However, the WWE product at the time was fairly shoddy, and the lack of alternatives could have meant we overrated the indy stuff. Add that to the decline of that style amongst hardcores and who knows how well it would hold up. Generally the company hit its stride in 2004 when it came to interesting characters and stables, consistent cards, stacked regular talent up and down the roster, storylines that worked, crowds that were really hot but hadn't yet jumped on the smarky 'this is awesome' bandwagon. Then in 2006/2007 it started to decline so I can't really speak for anything during that period. If you are looking for standalone cards you might be best checking out: Reborn: Stage 2 Survival Of The Fittest 2004 Death Before Dishonor 2: Part 2 Midnight Express Reunion Joe vs Punk II* All Star Extravaganza II* Manhattan Mayhem* The Final Showdown Punk: The Final Chapter Final Battle 2005 Dragon Gate Challenge* Better Than Our Best* The 100th Show Unified* Anarchy In The UK Glory By Honor 5: Night 2 Fight Of The Century United We Stand Manhattan Mayhem II I've starred the truly essential shit if you only want a few. Even then you are missing a ton of amazing matches, Danielson/London, Punk/Raven, Danielson's entire title reign circa 05-06, loads of fun undercard stuff from the likes of Jack Evans, Alex Shelley, Low-Ki, the CZW invasion with lots of cool Necro Butcher stuff, all Samoa Joe's matches from 2003 to 2006, Second City Saints vs Maff/Whitmer, the Briscoe Brothers 'man up' era stuff, Briscoe/Joe where he nearly bleeds to death, Homicide/Corino feud, Punk/Rave in the cage, the Aries/Dragon 75 minute match, Generation Next vs Rottweilers, and various others. I'd probably suggest getting the whole run from 2003-2006 and just fast forwarding the crap (i.e. anything involving Christopher Daniels) if you can pick it all up cheap.

That Flair promo was fantastic. He was just the right side of crazy, fired up old man, the crowd loved him and he relished it, all came over pretty well. If he stayed sober he could still do a job as a manager or non-wrestling personality, one of the most enjoyable talkers in the business even/especially when he is inebriated. Plus he still looks cool when he has the WWE makeup and wardrobe team behind him, a regal don of the business, unlike the pathetic old waster he cut in his TNA days.