Timbo Slice

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.

That doesn't have to do with being a publicly traded company, though. You book correctly, get people interested in the product, they're going to be buying the product whether it's a guy Daniel Bryan's size or a guy Great Khali's size or a guy John Cena's size on top. Using that logic, if there are that many people interested in Daniel Bryan, wouldn't it be beneficial to have him as someone who's constantly protected?

Bryan is one of the top merch guys in the company and is the most over guy in the company right now. From a "live crowd" perspective, I don't get this shit about him not being someone they can push. He organically got over on his own accord, really. It's classic WWE booking. If it's not a product of how they book the top of the card, they could give a fuck less. Orton hasn't been over in fucking years, yet he's the guy on top because Triple H can't keep his ass off TV. That's not booking to your strengths.

That's obvious but a fact the IWC don't care to admit to. WWE has always done its worst business with smaller guys on top. It's a relic of 80's culture. Some guy on WC flipped out when I claimed this, even after justification. I've talked to way too many casuals who see Punk and Bryan as inferiors due to size, especially Punk. It's not WWE's fault imo that as a business it gives the public what it wants. What's considered a bigger guy then? Cena's about 245 and 6'2" and that's about "average" in WWE-speak.

Worse than the last four months? Really?

That's not necessarily Bryan's fault. That's also the guy across from him.

Let's be perfectly clear about something: It doesn't fucking matter if Bryan gets a pinfall over Triple H. Period. There's no rub there. Trips thinks there's a rub, but there's no rub. Bryan organically got over and they used it as a way to keep their egos in check with this storyline. If the end result is Trips thinking, "What will really get him over is me dropping a fall to me!" that's the dumbest thing I can think of. I'm gonna be the first one to say it. You know what Bryan needs to do now? He needs to be the one that ends The Streak.

Shawn acting like a petulant child to HHH saying, "Let me do my job!" is pretty hilarious.

Oh FUCK that ending.

Oohhhh! I know! A HHH entrance in the same match!

Him being in this angle in the first place?

I'd be down for that. Or a Triple Threat between Backlund, Torito and Zeb where the winner gets a title shot against the Rhodes Brothers.