Timbo Slice

I guess Solomon Crowe said, "Forget NXT. I'm going straight to the top!"

This is really making me take pause in actually buying tickets. Another 3-way sounds like a really bad thing to do at this point. The only thing that would make me go is the ability to see Brock/Bryan live but having Reigns anywhere near it would make me watch it from the couch instead.

I'm still in the camp where Flair is my obvious #1, but I've now thrown Jumbo back into the Top 5 mix. Flair, Funk, Lawler, Hansen and Jumbo will be my 1-5 in some way. As I said last night, Slaughter is going to be in that 50-75 range for me after the Final Conflict build and match. Just amazing stuff from him. One of the best guys at getting over a feud and making the blowoff that much more special, even if he doesn't have this constant barrage of stuff top tier guys have. He's got plenty of stuff that's better than most top tier guy's best. My most difficult task is going to be placing the modern guys. I know Bryan will be my highest, but Zayn's had a great decade and while his style of matches on the indies aren't everyone's cup of tea, I think he shined bright in the big matches and made them worthwhile. Of course, since debuting on NXT, he's been fantastic as well. Off the top of my head, Bryan is in the 25-50 range while Zayn would be in the 75-100 range. I think I'm gonna have something like a half dozen joshi wrestlers, but I'm not sure who's gonna be the top between Aja, Hokuto and Yokota. As I said in the Kobashi thread, I'm gonna have Taue above Kobashi, but I'll probably have Kawada in my Top 10, Misawa right below him, and then Taue in the Top 25 with Kobashi right below him. Only Musketeer I have going in right now is Hash, even though I have a soft spot for Mutoh. Lucha guys and more 80's territory-based guys are my big blind spots right now that I hope to fill. Maybe have a chance to get into the European stuff that has been showing up lately on Arthur Psycho's YouTube channel.

Easily one of the best builds for a blow off match ever leading up to this one. While it took a while to get going, once it did, it became one of the great tag matches of its time. Slaughter bumped like a freak and even decided to come off the top of the cage, which is always legitimately insane at a time where those cages looked so rickety anyone could fall off of it. Kernodle tapped an absolute gusher and was great doing the dirty work in the match. Some fantastic spots in the match, including a favorite of mine in a cage match where Slaughter knocked Kernodle out of the way on a Steamboat cross body and Ricky ate nothing but cage. The callbacks to everything leading up to the match were awesome. The blood playing off the bloodbath that laid out Youngblood a few months earlier, the Cobra Clutch avoidance, figuring out how to avoid the Slaughter Cannon, which is now one of my favorite double team moves ever and then an all-time great finish. In talking about this with Will and Kris, I don't see how this could be anything below the Top 10 when the 80's NWA set ever gets made, and right now, I could totally talk myself into making it into my Top 5.

He's definitely gonna be on my ballot and much higher than I would have thought earlier. For as much credit Curt Hennig gets for his bumping, Slaughter destroys him by bumping in ways that are way more believable in context. As Dylan said, he's very much the type of guy with the highest of peaks, but that doesn't deter him from being quality even if he doesn't have as much in between as we want him to. Awesome at building feuds, awesome at putting guys over, tremendous brawler...I don't know where I'll have him, but somewhere in the 50-75 range seems very possible.

The Road to Greensboro leading to Final Conflict. Awesome build with some really cool tags (Young versions of Rick Rude, Jake Roberts, Terry Taylor and...oh, Mike Rotundo) and some great heel promos from Slaughter and Kernodle. I'm in the middle of the cage match now, but this has both the lead and the match itself and it's just sensational.

It really was off the top of my head that I chose the topic, but considering the amount of work-centric stuff that a lot of the podcasts do (which is by no means a bad thing), I wanted to do something a little different and it couldn't have turned out any better. Really is a cool topic.

Got through episode 6 earlier today. The street fight was a lot of fun and the one thing I'll give them is that due to stuff away from the ring being shot by people who actually know what compelling television looks like, they make everything outside the ring really put a lot more emphasis on wanting to see what they do inside it. Loved the street fight, Ricochet really has his shit on lock. Really enjoying Drago as well. Cuerno's tope is incredible. There's a couple guys coming in that I'm excited to see, too, but so far, they're only behind NXT as far as great hour-long TV programs go.

Nah, Rollins wouldn't cash it in for a straight match like that. He's built this character that's built his reputation on being opportunistic. He'll pick his spot. I still think that if they know Roman's gonna get booed and they still go with him vs. Brock for the main that they could tease a face turn with Rollins at WM and have him cash in after the fact. He could be the #1 face in the company with something like that, and that's with Bryan getting cheered for like he is.

Well, if you hear one of the #DemBoys promos from a couple years back, it's because after the tryout, Johnny said they weren't "cosmetically pleasing":

Big thanks to Will on the show for the inspiration for my new avatar.

I definitely want in at some point, but this has some true staying power, I feel.

Thought this show was better than the first show overall, but I'm not sure there was a match I liked from this show better than the O'Reilly/Komatsu match from night one. I can't believe they're sticking Okada with Fale right now, seems like a real waste.

I love that there's already shit talking.

I can't wait to hear future episodes. Some of the combinations of guests are going to be incredible, I can only guess.

Both were started because of Japan Pro Wrestling, where Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba joined in 1960. Baba was initially a big star after the death of RIkidozan, while Inoki wanted to get out on his own. In 1971, Inoki planned to takeover JWA, but was fired instead, which led him to creating New Japan. Baba straight up left and created All Japan at around the same time. AJPW was always tradition in the style of the NWA, and was a member of it throughout its heydays, with NWA World Champions touring in the 70's and 80's. NJPW saw Inoki lean towards "real fights" based on Inoki's trainings with Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch. So the styles were different from the get go. NJPW would have working relationships with the WWF and the AWA in the 70's and into the early 1980's, although since there weren't many wrestlers who were central to one territory back then, there was a lot of overlap. When Stan Hansen jumped from New Japan to All Japan in 1981, that's when things tightened up a bit between the two promotions. Hansen had become a top star but felt he had a better chance with Baba, and that led to some weird things happening through the decade (Riki Chosyu coming over for a spell in 1986, Baba buying the Tiger Mask gimmick from Inoki) but by then, both styles had been set in stone in a way, with AJPW's NWA ties keeping it more traditional while Inoki bringing in shoot style workers like Akira Maeda led to a pretty fantastic feud in its own right. Both companies were drawing pretty good money, but neither company had a true edge over the other at this time. In 1989, New Japan ran their first show at the Tokyo Dome to a pretty good response, which led to the annual Dome shows every year beginning in 1992 on January 4. There were points when New Japan was running multiple Dome shows in a year and selling them out. At the same time in 1989, AJPW saw the decay of the NWA and was trying to break away in their own right, which led to the formation of the Triple Crown using two of the NWA's longstanding titles and the PWF title, which Baba created back in 1973. Both companies had losses of their weekly TV programs throughout the 1990's (which weren't in favorable time slots in the first place, but was still worthwhile exposure), but as far as the drawing money was concerned, both did well throughout the first half of the decade. The problem became later in the decade for AJPW when new stars weren't being created and they kept running the same guys on top (although the match quality was still outstanding). Meanwhile, New Japan had made the Dome its home and even if match quality wasn't as great as All Japan's in some ways, they found other ways to draw money (Which led to WWF/WCW comparisons between the two companies in some ways). It wasn't until 1998 that Baba decided to run a Dome show, mainly out of fear that the wouldn't be able to fill the house. Instead? It was basically a sellout (48,300, $4M), but was a bit too late for the company. After Baba's death soon after, Baba's widow became owner and did not agree with Misawa on the direction of the company, leading to the creation of Pro Wrestling NOAH in 2000. Soon after, All Japan was basically left for dead. They did a cross promotional feud at the end of 2000 that ran for about a year, and afterwards, Keiji Mutoh jumped to All Japan and assumed the role of president of the company, trying to lead it towards a more North American style. There were then power struggles with Inoki and his son Simon, with Antonio going to great lengths to get the MMA/shoot element into cards with horrible results. When he stepped away in 2006, that led to the resurgence mentioned above, and over the last decade behind Tanahashi, it's become by far the best company in Japan. All Japan is in a weird spot now with Akiyama as president and him trying to branch out the company as best he can, but NJPW just started a working agreement with NOAH. This is really the cliff notes version off the top of the head with a couple bits of research for clarity, but both companies had different ways of doing business while being successful for basically a quarter century before things got interesting. Some people will probably come in to clarify things or add to them, but this should give you a rough estimate.

Looks like it's gonna be Bryan/Ziggler at WM.

Double post. My bad.

Well, it looks like Bryan/Ziggler is gonna be official. Probably end up right in the middle of the card, if not the opener.

This is where my bullshit monitor goes off. You don't need to force ANYONE into being the top guy. If the machine is running correctly, you have a guy on top, and you have guys ready to come in and fill the gap if there's a better option. This isn't about pleasing the stockholders. Considering Bryan was a good draw (not a world-beating draw), sells merch (although not nearly as much as Cena, which nobody does) and is over with the core of their fanbase, there's no reason not to give him a run until there was NO DOUBT about Reigns being ready to be on top. That's Vince's stubbornness being turned into an easily pushed aside excuse.

I'm right there on basically everything, although the Gedo/Lyger spot from Night 1 might be my favorite spot of the two shows. I'm excited to see what Dorada can do, and I think him vs. Naito might be interesting.

That's part of it, but the other part of it is that the people who are cheering him the most are the wrestling diehards. As a corporate entity, as Jerome said earlier, WWE is looking for a face for their brand. They don't care that Bryan gets over like he does with live crowds because he's always going to do that. They care about everything else that goes with it and frankly believe he can't do it. You know, except for the tons of interviews he's done since becoming a top guy and him obviously being able to a good company representative. Or having the "Yes" chant get over in other sports. But hey, what do I know?

It's not about greediness. It's about a completely different perception of what they think a "top guy" should be. Wade Keller was totally right on Austin's podcast yesterday: Bryan's not the long term guy at all, but he's probably your best bet for the next 12-18 months. That would allow Reigns the time to get over more organically and shit like the Rumble wouldn't happen. But what I don't think anybody is talking about is the fact that maybe one of the reasons this is happening is because Cena might be more banged up than we all think. He might not have a major injury, and he's a freak of nature, but stuff might be piling up. Couple that with Brock's possible departure, Vince is probably thinking he needs Reigns to grow up quickly. If that's what's driving this, Vince's logic is even more messed up considering his best option IS Bryan. His stubbornness is killing the idea before it even starts.

You actually wonder if Brock and Bryan have talked about it and might go to Vince hoping that they can make it happen at least once. I'd love to see it happen at Fast Lane if Brock would work it. But hey, gotta let Kane have a casket match.

Like anyone in this company is thinking about payoffs for anyone outside of Reigns.