Timbo Slice

So I decided to start this up because of the talk in the WON HOF thread. We have the thread that compares him to Cena, but I think it would be good to make a thread that centers around him considering he seems to be the hot button guy for the WON HOF this year. Personally, I don't see him high on any all-time list, and while he's a big reason why New Japan has turned around, him being the biggest draw in Japan at this point in time isn't really something that makes a case for all-time status. That's the one thing he has going for him right now. But it's only been about three years at most, and compared to the other guys in the HOF, three years does not really make a case for him to be amongst the best draws of all time. In the ring, I can understand why people think he's good because he's aesthetically pleasing. He's active in the ring, he gets the crowd involved, but he's the biggest example of a guy who brings style over substance that's considered a top worker. The first half of almost all the matches that are amongst his highly praised matches mean nothing in the end, a lot like many of the New Japan juniors matches of the 1990s that haven't held up as well. The only time I can remember that not being the case is the October 2012 match vs. Suzuki, and that was carried by Suzuki. When the stretch run comes, he dabbles too much in spot fu and whatever selling you think you saw earlier in the match basically goes out the window. Yes, there are exceptions (and I'm sure people will point them out in the thread), but there are many more examples of your turn/my turn type stuff than otherwise. Look no further than the ending to his last match with Okada for possibly the most glaring example (in another match that has been lauded by many) but is another example of that choreographed dance wrestling that is more aesthetically pleasing than something that actually adds to a match or provides a payoff. When Tanahashi is in there with the right guy, the matches can be really good, but I've always seen him as the second guy in the match from a work perspective. The guy he's facing is doing a lot more to make the match palatable. That doesn't mean Tanahashi adds nothing to a match. It means that he doesn't add as much as people think he does. Is he the biggest star of his era? Absolutely. But does that necessarily mean he's on the level of his predecessors that he is most commonly compared to? From both a drawing perspective and a work perspective, not at all.

I don't think it's so much generalities as it is that the people who are anti-Tanahashi have already hashed out the opinions either earlier in this thread, the Tanahashi vs. Cena thread, etc.

I kept trying to craft my own two cents on the network negotiations but they just fall in to what JDW's been saying. One thing to keep in mind: WWE going into business for themselves with their own network needs to happen much sooner than later considering that there's a good chance that the cable landscape is going to change over the next 5-10 years. With what Apple and Google are doing, something akin to an a la carte type service where people are paying for individual networks or groups of networks as opposed to paying through a cable provider (cutting out the middle man), a joint venture with Comcast won't exactly help them considering NBC is slowly falling apart and the NBC Universal-based networks aren't exactly setting the world on fire. This has already happened with a service like HBO Go. While you do need a cable subscription to watch it on non-cable box devices, a time will come where people will be able to directly subscribe to HBO like they do a Netflix or Hulu Plus. WWE could actually capitalize on that ahead of time by offering their service as an app of their own accord, but because they don't see that revenue stream as something as massive as your normal cable agreements that was mentioned above, they won't go that route unless it's the only thing they can do. My main issue is that the WWE is pushing a brand over its superstars, a lot like the ESPN model, where guys like Patrick and Olbermann got too big for the company to deal with because they didn't want to cater to superstars (Except for Berman. He's the Triple H of ESPN at this point.). Parts are interchangeable, and because there's no competition, they don't have to worry about it because revenue is still revenue. Problem is that they've slowly seen revenue shrink over the last few years, but not fast enough where there's panic. Much like Fox Sports One, it's obvious that the only competition in town for WWE isn't really worth worrying about, so while they won't be able to get the optimal amount of money for their new TV rights, it's still going to be more than enough to get them by for a while.

I'm on my phone at this point so I'm going to just sit back and enjoy some popcorn while I watch this develop. Carry on.

I don't think Tanahashi's best matches are shit. They aren't close to the level of all-time work, but they aren't shit. Stylistically, there are issues, but it's more about the fact that his work is being seen on a level of work that is so high above the current level of wrestling that it's really not close. That's not so much a knock on Tanahashi as it is on a lot of modern wrestling as a whole. Tanahashi just happens to be the biggest example of it on the biggest stage in Japanese wrestling, which has been looking for an upturn in business for over a decade. He's seen as the reason for that turnaround. That's true. But it's not because of the quality of his work in the ring.

Based on what? What rates him nipping at the heels of Misawa or Kobashi?

He ain't even Harold Minor. Look, like many other wrestlers of his ilk, Tanahashi's style gets over with a lot of modern fans because he's active in the ring. It's aesthetically pleasing to watch him wrestle because he's always looking to fill time with something stylish. Meltzer has loved this ever since he first saw Toyota work, which begat his love for Angle, which begat his love for Tanahashi and made him make the claim that his feud with Okada is up there with the greatest of all time. That's the style he's loved for 20 years. So when younger fans look to him for sagely advice, that's where you get this widespread idea that Tanahashi = Misawa or Kobashi or what have you. And those minds aren't going to be changed. It's not even about being on one side of the tracks or the other. It's about not even crossing them to see how the other side is living.

That's interesting to hear about the iPPV numbers. That being said, PPV numbers are still PPV numbers. Just a different stream to sell them. That does bring up a question to the folks here who live in Japan: Do people but PPVs on TV at all? Or have they adopted the internet as the main PPV outlet?

Bravo, sir. Absolutely incredible stuff to read.

Hardly. Bryan's been taken out for two months now on a regular basis. That didn't seem like the type of take out where Bryan would be back next week. They did that to Punk, but Bryan getting slammed into the fence like that makes me think they could pull him off TV for a bit.

Sabu had no-showed that night to work New Japan, so Rick Steiner was inserted instead. He throws out a Steiner Screwdriver in this match. It's insane.

Wasn't a DQ finish. There was a pin. I just think Jack is fucking nuts for letting Funk cut him up with a broken bottle. Also, FIREBALL, BABY!

So I've decided to go through and review the phenomenal Best of ECW set that Goodhelmet, Dylan and others put together. I have it all at a tumblr I set up below. I know a lot of people on here have either watched a lot of the matches, participated in building the set, or have purchased and started watching it, so I figured this would be a good spot to put it. I went longform for Disc 1, but am not sure if I'm going to get as detailed going forward. Feedback is welcome! The Best of ECW

Now we know why he shaved his head.

Vince just called SummerSlam a "swing and a miss" in a conference call, which is a good indicator of why Bryan got taken out Monday.

This is something I find very interesting because the perception of how we see something when it's presented is a lot different than what the presenters intended sometimes. I think this idea that Bryan is "smark-friendly" is a moot point considering that he has crossed the fan threshold into being widely appreciated, regardless of whether you saw him before he came to the WWE. We as diehards contemplate every little decision the company makes and criticize it when we feel they missed the boat on something because our attention to detail is (for the most part) highly attuned. The more I think about it, we who are criticizing how WWE is booking Bryan are not seeing the forest through the trees. For three months, Bryan was presented as someone who was respected by his peers, but not by the guys making the decisions because in the end, the decision-makers get to dictate direction. They can manipulate certain responses or portions of any show into how they want to perceive it. The stuff in all those promos about Bryan being a B+ player and all that, that wasn't put in the angle as storyline bait to show that Bryan could overcome the odds. It was the actual perception of the company at the time. That's the problem with this angle: It wasn't about someone finally ascending to the top spot that he has earned the old-fashioned way. It was about the guy running the show showing that he's above reproach. As was said previously, the angle hurts because there is no criticism towards Triple H for his own faults because outside of the tried and true "Sleeping your way to the top" theme that has been pounded into the ground, Trips knows that if someone actually dug deep with some criticism that his on-screen credibility would be shot to hell. The idea that Show is where he is and Bryan is in his spot is due to the fact that Trips thought Show would put the angle over better than Bryan would. It's perceived that Bryan couldn't get this type of angle over where he was, when it's pretty obvious that the fans were ready to see Bryan have his time in the sun. The idea that Bryan got elevated and looked great in defeat is how they perceive it just like how they perceived Sandow losing to Cena during his cash in. Except that Bryan's goal was to be the WWE champion and he didn't get there, and Sandow was trying to be the World Champion and didn't get there. There's only so much "elevation" that can be done without actually letting someone go over before "elevation" becomes another useless buzzword.

I'm still in shock that they used Meltzer for one article, it was on MMA, but then they signed Shoemaker to be their regular wrestling columnist.

Yeah, but that's not the same. The subset of old fans not liking this type of wrestling, there's a subset of that subset that even knows what New Japan is, let alone watch it. It's a good point that S.L.L., Loss, and Logic all made. Change means taking a risk, and right now, the WWE doesn't see any reason to take that risk. Not when they're the only game in town. But if Cena goes down, the time they'll have to put in making someone their new top guy will take a while. Then again, I guess that's what the new development center is for.

What's interesting to me is that a mid-card match like Rhodes Bros. vs. The Shield was more heated than anything on the show at Battleground, and that mainly had to do with it having a worthwhile payoff and a storyline that made every little bit matter. It was really simple. There was nothing crazy about it. There were great promos, the heels were dastardly, the faces overcame the odds (and got the fans behind them in the process)...and it wasn't that hard to do! How they can do that angle and then turn around and do what they were doing with Bryan boggles my mind.

Billy and Chuck wish they got this much airtime. Hell, this angle has been building for 15 years...

But the point is that they're in the angle in the first place. They aren't happy with the numbers that guys are drawing on their own, so HHH feels he and HBK need to be a part of the angle to bring up the numbers...but they aren't really draws themselves anymore. It's the idea of squeezing an apple until the very last drop of juice comes out, but the apple has gone rotten in the meantime. Punk is an apt comparison due to how he and Bryan have been presented and pushed, but the problem is that WWE fucked THAT up, too. You have a truly hot angle and then get Trips and fucking Kevin Nash involved and it all goes to shit. I doubt the majority of that crap was on Punk. I go back to Trips looking at the SummerSlam buyrates between '11 and '12 and thinking he was the guy that popped 60k buys. The more HHH and company hang around the main event scene, the less time they give guys a chance to get over.

Kawada and Kobashi had Baba booking for them and hindsight has shown plenty of times that Kawada should have taken the belt at numerous points. But that's another thread for another time. It's not panic so much as it's booking that is done terribly. There are ways to build to someone winning a belt that are a lot better than a Dusty finish, a no contest and the latest chapter in HHH and HBK figuring out when to tell Steph that the baby is actually Shawn's, not hers. Everyone agrees that Bryan shouldn't have gotten the belt right back. It's just how they're going about it.

The first guy I thought of was Big E but it's too early for him. I think it's Punk.

this is the best typo but not really ever Trips + HBK. I'm not going back to edit that, though. That really is too hilarious.

If popping the numbers means the most, WWE needs to go to a seasonal type presentation where they do callbacks every three months to have their biggest stars from the past show up to pop numbers. The numbers being what they are, it's WWE brass putting it on Bryan because it's his first run on top and him not moving the needle as much as they need instead of them looking across at the other guy and realizing he hasn't drawn a dime in years. If anything, the numbers have shown that Bryan can draw more than Orton can. Trips saw the Summerslam 2012 numbers with him and Brock on top and thought that because he was there that he was the draw. He obviously knew that Brock was a draw, but because of that logic, he's thinking that Trips + HHH = buys. It did 60k more than Cena/Punk on top, and even after Punk won, he had to throw Nash into the mix. You have to let the kids swim without the parents at some point. The more they hang on in the short term, the more it hurts long term. Even Cena's drawing power is going away in a lot of ways. Then again, if WWE's plan is to have the brand draw more than any one individual performer (which is something I think they're actually trying to do akin to the NFL) then it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.