anarchistxx

Joe/Punk III is another good example. Had so many spots built around the previous two matches - in fact the entire way the match was built, structured and explained was via reference to the two sixty minute draws.

Wow, people must really love Stan Hansen around here. 1 Misawa 2 Flair 3 Hansen 4 Kobashi 5 Kawada 6 Lawler 7 Mysterio 8 Daniel Bryan 9 Terry Funk 10 Jumbo Di'Biase = #43

Doug Williams would have made my list as well. Obviously he is a towering name in the BritWres scene who I grew up watching, but he can also back it up with a really strong body of work for at least a decade. So he fits both the criteria of a superstar attraction (relatively speaking - in a local sense) who needs to be on the ballot and someone who can definitely hold his own in the ring and has had some memorable matches. Missed almost his entire TNA run though so maybe that counted against him. Jody Fleisch is also someone who might have come under consideration, especially since Jonny Storm randomly ended up on the ballot. Hung like a horse as well - one of my more bizarre wrestling memories is talking to Steve Corino in a locker room while Fleisch paced around naked, dick swinging up and down like a drawbridge.

BJ Whitmer. Fuck him and fuck his lank greasy ponytail. Don't think I've ever watched anyone with less charisma. Awful in the ring, no idea how to structure a match. Had the occasionally passable garbage match usually involving his immensely punchable face torn open by barbed wire, but other than that you could see him blatantly trying to have these workrate classics as the crowd and viewers gave zero fucks, because he never gave anyone a single reason to care about him. Couldn't cut a promo to save his life, or have a decent match that didn't involve a ton of props and someone a million times more talented at the other side of the ring. That Jimmy Jacobs feud was wasted on him.

Jack Evans is my favorite type of ostensibly terrible wrestler. Cocky, punchable face, fun on the mic, doesn't take himself too seriously, takes insane bumps, crazy moveset, flips and dives that take your breath away even in this desensitized era, puts a smile on your face. Improved a lot as a worker as time went on also, figured he was a Special K type skinny stunt man at first but he has a lot of natural flair and bumped and sold wonderfully. Could usually find neat little spots and ways of making it believable such a lightweight guy could compete with bigger athletes. Even made me enjoy Roderick Strong matches. They were the perfect foil for each other as tag partners.

I remember seeing a Chris Sabin vs (I think) Juventud Guerrera match from TNA that had about ten minutes of wall to wall counters and the commentators were going crazy about how much they had scouted each other.

The KENTA/Nakajima series was excellent for 'learned psychology' IIRC.

Because just about every single pimped NXT worker who has made the main roster in the past three years has lacked charisma, looked unnatural, had a poor look and/or not been an engaging worker. They've failed to get over as well. And that is a reasonable sample size. I know nothing about what happens on NXT itself, true...but I do know that when they make the main roster, the majority seem gimmicky as hell and bomb like Bo Dallas, Tyler Breeze, Adam Rose et al, or they are just boring as fuck with a terrible look and working matches like it is 2005 ROH, like Kevin Owens or the workers in the tag the other night. I've seen enough WWE in the past few years to make a comment about the failure of these guys. Or maybe you are just really into NXT and a mark for these guys, and can't view it objectively? Or simply invested in him vecause you watch him every week? Only seen him once personally, so far too early to judge, but first impressions weren't good. NXT seems like the equivalent of a Premier League football academy to me. Produces solid, technically excellent talent with nice haircuts who lack any sense of personality, charisma, uniqueness or grit and thus don't make it at the top level. WWE needs street footballers - Luis Suarez and Joey Barton rather than Kieran Gibbs and Tom Cleverley.

Absolute bullshit. You could have said the same about John Cena. He was booed out of every building, getting "you can't wrestle' chants on every show, hated by the majority of the smart community. Most people like him now, or acknowledge him as the biggest star on the roster. What about Mark Henry? He was seen as an embarrassment of a wrestler for years, and it didn't take long for him to turn it around and become lauded for his ring work, mic work etc. The real test is whether RR is moving the ratings one way or another, or the merchandise, or whether his live appearances draw, not the constant campaign by a live audience that is willfully obtrusive whenever they feel they aren't getting their own way. Reigns was massively over with the audience at one stage, there was a genuine buzz about him. They can regain that. It is overblown nonsense to say he is finished forever. Fuck me, what is this 2003? How many top guys at WWE 'earned' their spot over the last three decades? The Undertaker never earned his spot. Ultimate Warrior never earned his spot. Batista never earned his spot. Brock Lesnar never earned his spot. Randy Orton never earned his spot. You know why they got their spot? because they had the right look, the right aura, charisma, they drew a reaction from the crowd, creative liked them, Vince liked them, they fitted the mold, whatever reason. This isn't about paying your dues and working your way up. Take someone like John Cena. He was an internal WWE product (just like Roman Reigns). He got over as a cool heel (just like Roman Reigns). He was turned and quickly pushed to the moon (just like Roman Reigns). The arena fans turned on him (just like Roman Reigns). Did John Cena in 2005 earn his spot anymore than Roman Reigns in 2016? Fuck no. Did he subsequently prove he deserved his spot? Fuck yes. And you're basing that on what fucking podcast. Roman Reigns was treated like a star by the audience less than eighteen months ago. He gets a huge reaction from the crowd. His segments draw heat. He is good in the ring, has a good look, a decent talker. Sure, he has been a victim of some truly awful booking, but there is no way he is finished. He'll be at the top of the WWE for the next five years at least.

He was still working heel at the time, and hadn't been shoved down the throats of the audience as a big singles star. He was merely the breakout guy in The Shield, a stable who were booked well and the fans loved watching. There wasn't an indication at that point he was going to be 'the guy' going forward. Strange example. Again, very much at the start of his push, he had not been pushed as a top singles guy at this point. His cheers at the end of the Rumble were unexpected to the WWE hierarchy. Remember that match was supposed to end with the super returning face Batista taking him out to great cheers, but the Daniel Bryan stuff derailed it. If anything, that match backs up completely the idea that the audience want to revolt against the person being pushed as the top star, because Batista was clearly that man at the time, going to Wrestlemania to win back the strap, and the fans shit all over him because they felt he was a corporate sponsored guy being shoved down their throats at the expense of the workrate guys. Exactly what is happening to Roman Reigns now. The tag match. Didn't bother watching the singles match. NXT guys all seem to be able to work solidly (if a little too in the 2005 indie style), they just can't get me into their matches as they lack any sort of aura and don't seem very natural for the most part. I don't think Reigns is that equatable to Luger - he is more of a much lesser version of Cena. He is getting huge reactions, just not the ones he is being booked to get. On the whole, his segments on the show have more heat than most other things. Any news how he affects ratings? That is probably a decent indicator about whether they need to stick with him. He comes across like a star still, which is rare on that roster. He hasn't become Sheamus yet. Probably a heel run with a really despicable mouthpiece is most suited to him for a while, although the idea of him feuding with Ambrose for months doesn't appeal to me at all.

I can't speak for all of the NXT workers obviously, as I don't watch the show. Just that all the ones who have been promoted with people raving about them have mostly been failures and come over as unbelievable and forced. Whether that is the booking or just a lack of genuine charisma and talent is clearly up for debate, given the incompetency of the creative team. Agree with most of your points on Roman Reigns, although his whole personality is/was/should be that he is a laid back, cool guy who happens to be a tough badass. He doesn't necessarily need to show a great deal of fire or try to be funny or give himself more distinguishing features to get over. He has certainly been hamstrung by woeful booking, but there is also an argument that if the crowd thinks WWE wants someone to be the main guy they will rebel against it, especially if there are workrate favorites on the roster who the live audience feels deserve a better shot. You have seen it with John Cena for years.

Pretty mediocre show but an improvement on an episode of Raw or whatever. - New Day are way too goofy for me - they definitely fail the acid test "would you be embarrassed if someone walked in the room and they were on". Over as fuck though so they deserve their spot. Match was utterly unmemorable, just seemed your generic modern WWE tag match, - Jericho cut another very fun promo. Didn't see the logic in him fighting Jack Swagger though - he spends ten minutes insulting Canada to get a crowd to hate him, and who do they bring out to defend the honour of the nation? A Real American. Seriously bizarre, no wonder the crowd didn't know what to do. The match served a purpose but was again completely mediocre. - The current NXT wrestlers do nothing for me. None of them that I have seen seem to have much natural charisma or presence. This match was just your indie masturbatory pointlessness. I'm definitely a Vince rather than HHH guy - Roman Reigns has more natural aura tan all of these people put together, shown by the way he naturally drew the fans to him in his heel run and was treated like a star by the audience. It was only when they felt he was being shoved down their throat that the willfully contrarian self important pricks who attend WWE shows turned against him. Surely nobody can argue that Kevin Owens or someone deserves his spot. Most of the NXT graduates like Bo Dallas and Adam Rose and Fandango absolutely bombed on the main roster. - Charlotte/Natalya was the match of the night. Not saying much obviously, and it was a bit of a directionless mess for a while, but after the fiery strike exchange it really picked up and was genuinely exciting. There was a lot of hate and heat, especially with the submissions. Michael Cole made a memorable call for once "Sharpshooter!!! Toronto has come unglued!!!" That should have been the finish rather than the deflating, badly executed 'foot on rope' screwjob. Very fun match. The women's division is very strong right now, and should be way more prominent on the show - goes back to what I've said about cross pollination as well, they should be getting involved in the men's feuds and be right across the card rather than being treated in isolation with their own twenty minute segment each week. Make the show more fluid. That Wyatt/Lesnar thing was bizarre. Bray looks dreadful next to Lesnar anyway, who just oozes star power and natural charisma with the slightest expression or gesture, in the way Bray can only dream of with his endless cheesy Coen Brother monologue rip offs and gimmicks. He doesn't seem threatening or interesting or believable. And the way they booked him here was weird, just avoiding Lesnar and looking utterly cowardly. Unless he was injured there seems no point in it, unless they plan to blow the feud off somewhere down the line. Harper at least looked somewhat believable going toe to toe with Lesnar and actually seems like a bad ass. - Main event wasn't bad. HHH looks in excellent shape. Had a big match feel. Liked the story with Trips showing his cockiness, Dean going after the leg. It lacked structure after that, and the ending sucked - that announce table bump wasn't nearly enough to take Ambrose out to that extent. Maybe if he had crashed through it from the top rope. For someone who is meant to be able to take masses of punishment, who was totally in control of the match and had all the adrenaline and momentum, it was pretty bemusing to see an elbow drop through the announce table and pedigree finish him off so emphatically. On a sidenote Ambrose isn't anywhere near as over as people seem to suggest he is when putting him forward as the man who should be in the shoes of Roman Reigns. He isn't even at a quarter of Daniel Bryan a couple of years back, and isn't even as over as a Dolph Ziggler or AJ Styles.

Angle makes my list because he has been involved in a ton of enjoyable matches and he was an exciting worker to watch week on week. Brilliant on the mic as well. His matches probably wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if I decided to rewatch them and pick them apart.

That Jericho promo was incredible, best I've seen in WWE for a couple of years. Perfect delivery, perfectly paced, phrasing was spot on, came across as believable, very much added to the feud and helped hype the match. Everything a promo should be. The booking for Styles/Jericho has been excellent - this should be the norm for a midcard feud, not the exception. Lazy, predictable booking is what makes so much of WWE content so meaningless. With the size of the company, every single program on the show should receive some creativity and attention. It doesn't even have to be something big. They have run feuds around shampoo commercials and spilled coffee. Anything would be better than the current blandness. Hell, wrestling should be about the absurd. It is an absurd artform.

My list is full of Joshi workers. Product of becoming a smart fan via Smarkschoice I suppose. AJW Classics are some of the only wrestling discs I've kept when I fell out in love with it. Dug out some last week, Jaguar vs Galactica 1/5/85 is a top five match of all time for me. Can be watched online. Watched Dream Rush and Dreamslam I & II last week as well, both held up, as well as a fantastic Aja Kong comp. Was planning to give Thunderqueen another viewing but never got time.

Was annoyed at the lack of Jack Evans from the nominees - wasn't intending to vote so didn't bother nominating anyone. He would have likely placed on my list if eligible.

Submitted mine after reading the "everyone should submit a ballot" thread. Watched quite a bit of stuff in the last week or two to catch up, but mainly my list has a feeling of 2006ness...since then I have rarely watched wrestling with the same intensity or concentration, and very few people since then have staked a claim for a place. Obviously people like Daniel Bryan have massively enhanced their reputation in the interim.

He is somewhat of an indie darling though, and has cred with the type of crowd that are vociferous at shows. Roman Reigns is perceived as a corporate product to those same fans. It is much easier for a AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan or Cesaro to stay over with crowds despite terrible booking. It is a lot harder for a WWE creation.

FTR I can't stand Dolph Ziggler. Horrible name, horrible wrestler. Would never knowingly seek out one of his matches. But if someone is ridiculously over despite terrible booking, and has been for years, there is a strong argument that he deserves a title run.

Nice to see Matt Sydal back in action. Should have been a major WWE star - a white meat babyface who the whole crowd loved.

As for Shane taking a bump off the cell, it is pretty unlikely. He didn't do it in 2006 in the cell against DX, and that was the year they had Flair & Foley cutting each other to pieces with sharp objects, burning barbed wire boards at One Night Stand and other garbage stunts.

Shane McMahon vs Undertaker is utterly bizarre. The storyline as actually gone surprisingly well so far, and Shane is more over than they could have hoped, despite some shaky moments on the mic. How the fuck did they come up with the opponent though? It doesn't make sense as a storyline, and as a match it seems destined to failure. Two people who have wrestled a dozen matches this decade between them. Why not put Shane in there with someone like Rusev? A monster heel, who is always going to get cheap heat because of his 'evil foreigner' character. Someone who would make Shane a massive underdog but has been undermined enough that Shane defeating him wouldn't be unbelievable or even that damaging. The card as a whole looks very poor. No intriguing matches, very little star power. Wonder how violent Brock vs Ambrose is going to be. The swearing on Raw makes it seem like they are loosening up on the PG stuff, so perhaps they will make it a bloody barbed wire filled mess. Otherwise it is a bit of a stretch suggesting Ambrose can hang with Brock.

Watched the last few episodes of Raw after a while out of the product...and it is still jammed with filler, meaningless matches and tedium. Three hours is way too long. I'm in favor of a brand split in principle, but they would need to slash Raw and build up some more interesting characters. Brief thoughts: One thing that strikes me is that there is zero cross pollination between storylines. In the past it seemed feuds would come together, whether by six man tags or shared segments. The booking had some depth. Now, you have eight matches on a PPV and they are treated as eight separate television shows of their own, just individual segments week after week without any mix. Why can't Shane/Vince mix with HHH/Ambrose or Styles/Jericho or all the other stuff going on. If nothing else, it elevates lesser names to get some screen time working with the bigger stars - think 2 Cool wrestling alongside The Rock, Mankind and HHH in the main event of Raw, or the Hardy Boys and Spike Dudley getting screen time with heel Austin. They need to keep hold of Brie Bella - her and Nicki are the highlights of the Divas division and probably the only genuine stars with a lot of charisma in there. Between Charlotte and Paige they have the bones of a fantastic Divas division with a good mix of soapy bitchiness and solid in ring action. Dean Ambrose is fucking horrendous now. They are playing up the 'unhinged' 'quirky' sides of his personality and the writing is woeful, most of the lines he has to say make me cringe. His time on the mic should be kept to the minimum. He should be the hardcore nutjob brawling around the arena with the occasional short wild shouting on the mic, not trading scripted barbs with HHH from the ring and exaggerating all these mannerisms to appear a 'lunatic'. Looks like some awful D-Movie. There is no way he can ever be the top face of the company either, doesn't have the aura about him. At best he can take the Mankind role but he isn't good enough as a character or a talker. Kevin Owens sucks. terrible look, average in the ring, looks awkward, no character or distinctive features. Will never draw a dime. The same as most of these NXT guys - Tyler Breeze, Adam Rose, Bo Dallas. Most of them come off so unnatural. Playing at being a wrestler. Maybe it is the booking. I'll probably get stick for saying that, but then I thought Bray Wyatt was an abomination when everyone was singing his praises, and opinion has very much turned on that one. Dolph Ziggler deserves a title run. He is ridiculously (bafflingly) over, despite being booked horrendously for years. He has paid his dues. The fans buy him. He is marketable. He can make a moment feel big, like the Survivor Series underdog victory a couple of years ago. They could do far worse than giving him a run for a few months, if they are wavering on Roman Reigns. Then again, I think Titus O'Neil should be the top heel in the promotion, so maybe I;m just talking crap.

I find the idea pretty preposterous. As far as I can ascertain from reading the thread, the theory is that HHH is sabotaging the Roman Reigns push because he is a Kevin Dunn project. The hypothesis fails on so many levels. Firstly, who does it benefit? Dunn isn't going to take the heat if it all goes wrong - if people are getting fired it will be further down the creative ladder. Especially since Vince himself is massively behind RR. The idea that it will give HHH more power and more space for his projects at the top with Vince & KD stepping aside after their ignominious failure is a hell of a jump. It benefits everyone in this company to have Roman Reigns as a successful brand leader, shifting merchandise, drawing big numbers. It isn't in the interests of HHH to have RR tank at the top. Secondly, watch an episode of Raw. The booking is hideous. They can't get anyone over. It is far, far more plausible that Reigns has been hamstrung by woeful booking than by a political hit. They are especially dreadful at booking faces - everything the scriptwriting team thinks is cool, likable or funny is so out of sync with the fanbase that the majority of faces get lukewarm reactions or are hated. The only legitimate top faces they gave produced since John Cena and Randy Orton broke through are CM Punk and Daniel Bryan who basically got themselves over despite the way they were booked or plans the creative team had for them. It is especially hard to get a white meat babyface over with this crowd. They aren't sabotaging him, they are just pushing against the tide. They believe they have the power to choose the top face, and reject anyone who it feels like is being shoved down their throat. Since the crowd became 'smart' or whatever, who have they got over as a top babyface who hasn't come from an indie background or is a massive risktaker? And of course the final point is, has this even been a failure? There was a train of thought not long ago that being face or heel was not important anymore. What was truly important was getting a big reaction, any reaction. Like John Cena, the top face who is booed out of the building. Roman Reigns provokes a reaction, there is noise, emotion, feeling. That is a success in the current climate. Nobody is going to convince me it is 100% X-Pac heat. HHHs let his whole faction be squashed by The Shield for months on end. If he really wanted to sabotage Reigns he could have vetoed all that. They made a huge mistake not giving RR the strap at WM last year. The way the match with Lesnar played out made it believable he could have taken advantage of the lucky post shot to slay the giant. Instead you get months of the tedious, predictable Rollins heel reign and the momentum is lost. Nevertheless they should stick with him. He is the face of the company in the way that Dean Ambrose can never be.

Because you're fond of insulting other posters, calling them marks, morons, and the such. 'Mark' wasn't an insult - it was merely used to suggest that Dylan might not be completely impartial when discussing WWE, as he often goes strongly to bat for WWE workers who to me are pretty mediocre [Damien Sandow IIRC], and watches almost everything the promotion puts out. Someone who consumes the entirety of the product and is a loyal viewer regardless of quality is probably going to be less impartial than someone who flits and is more critical of the product. He answered it with an eloquent and considerate post above. The product being PG and publicly traded to me isn't as relevant as the total lack of creativity. The problem being that they are presenting the product almost identically to when it was Non-PG, just without the blood, risque angles and violence. You can make a very interesting, watchable product within the constraints of being a publicly traded company, it just requires some kind of vision and a commitment to innovate and try new things. The production, presentation and direction has been stagnant for far too long. The downside of a loyal, committed fanbase is the product becoming safe and stale.