Timbo Slice

I actually really liked this in spite of Misawa doing his weird NOAH "Is he actually selling or does he not care" shtick. Taue's sense of urgency was there and the stretch run was fun. It was tough to do this type of match with Taue getting the call a month later against Kobashi, and Misawa couldn't exactly put him over clean, but Taue was really good here and this was as fun a performance as you'll see from him in NOAH.

He sure picked a good week to go on vacation. Hansen hadn't even had his best match yet, which is saying something at that point.

For such a good motivator and not much more, he sure figured it out with some of his best going down. What a win.

Yeah, them going that route at the end really made you feel something real for those guys. Something you rarely see with other reality shows, actually. And him singing "My Way" was the icing on the cake. Really good stuff.

Shoutouts to Waka Flocka KrisZ. In all fairness, WWE has a lot of mid card talent at this point and they're looking for people to position at the top. Paige has floundered because she didn't know how to connect with the fans. Rose has failed due to Dunn, sure, but he's been doing the same shtick to a bigger audience that doesn't know how to treat him. Plus, he almost always speaks in catchphrases that aren't getting over. His work isn't worthwhile in the ring at this point, either. I've talked about how I've been souring on NXT for the last few months and it mainly has to do with the fact that there are a lot of characters getting pushed because they feel they need those as opposed to guys who can work while working on their presentation stuff. You're not gonna find much out of NXT if they don't know how to work longer matches considering guys like The Shield, Cesaro and Bryan are setting the pace right now. To give you the best idea possible of how Trips sees things going forward, the match he had with Bryan was much more the type of match Bryan would work as opposed to what HHH would work. He knows what can happen going forward.

This is one of those subjective measures that I always go back and forth on when thinking about how I value wrestlers. Even remember talking to Dylan about this exact thing about a year ago when talking about subjects he'd like to bring me on to talk about on Wrestling Culture, where we were going to try and figure out some type of metric to try and value who was the best wrestler a company had. We had an idea about in-ring work, but drawing was always difficult because the matches at the top of the card weren't necessarily the drawing matches, especially in companies like ECW. The examples Loss brought up of Trump and Punk basically tell you the story: Punk's promo was an acknowledgement of the scope today's wrestling fan can pull from, where Punk threw in every "insider" reference he could think of in a promo. It popped people for being new, and the longtime wrestling fans who were in the know dug it big time. The draw, however, came by capitalizing on it in Chicago. Because of that atmosphere, there should have been a pretty good term of drawing for Punk, but it never came to be the way WWE wanted it to, which is why he got shuffled back down a bit. It wasn't really a big draw. Trump pulled in people from outside the wrestling scope, obviously, which in turn made him the big draw even though his match wasn't that high up the card. The theory that people pay for what they're most excited about holds true somewhat. If you go back through the cards in the past, there are a lot of things down in the card that drew more than what was on top as a special attraction. The biggest thing that I've noticed is that as time moved on, it wasn't really about one draw at the top of the card. It really has become the product. Bryan is over with live crowds because as far as what WWE puts out on a week to week basis, he's considered the best guy they have at this point. But he doesn't really draw people in as much as he just excites the crowd that is already there (which is a lot like what The Shield has done, the Wyatts, etc.). He does have crossover appeal, and that's really apparent, but the only appeal that matters is the stuff that brings in more money to the company. Bryan has gotten them some mainstream attention, but that hasn't translated to dollar signs. The numbers don't match because at the end of the day, the machine has been built and it's going to run as it is. The Network is their newest revenue stream and it's going to be the foundation for their programming, but the actual process of drawing money has changed so much that I don't think drawing power is a worthwhile metric anymore due to the overexposure wrestling has at this point. The wrestlers have become less and less important in terms of drawing.

OMEGA - 4/26/14 - The Hardys vs. The Briscoes

Fantastic match and the product of two guys who would have worked this match much differently and much less effectively when they were in their "primes" on the indy scene. Styles has figured out how to make his high spots work and Hero is one of the best at transitions in the world, which made so many of Styles' spots work that much better. Styles, to his credit, had some awesome spots of his own (Phil mentioned the Pele kick in his SC review) and the finish was both out of nowhere and worked within the context of the match. I'm a big fan of matches with layers to them, where you could look at things closer on multiple viewings and see new things every time, and this is one of those matches. Surprised the hell out of me and makes me want to see what Styles is doing with New Japan.

Got a chance to re-watch 6/3/94. Some interesting things I caught this time around: -Misawa's early backdrop, which was something he would do in the Kobashi match in 2003 in a very similar spot -Just how long the control sessions were -The small semblances of no-selling (which worked here way better than anything Kobashi ever did) -Just how much they laid things in, which reminded me of the first time I went back and watched Chi-Town Rumble after many years -How awesome Misawa's transitions were (which helped with the best seller of all time) I mostly remembered the aura of the match and Kawada's incredible stretch run where you thought he would win, but how Misawa won wasn't something I remembered right off the bat. I really wish Kawada went over here and they didn't go the Misawa--->Williams--->Kawada route, but man alive this match still resonates even 20 years later. Also, please track down both the Hero/Styles ROH match from March and OMEGA tag from April between the Hardys and Briscoes. The Hardys do the best RnR routine I've seen in a long time and the finish is right out of their playbook, too. The Hero/Styles match was really well done, worked more like a big fight than a showcase match with another great finish.

Actual headline: "Who Will Be The Shield's Marty Jannetty?" http://grantland.com/features/wwe-payback-monday-raw-who-will-be-the-shields-marty-jannetty/ I'm not normally one for blind rage, but when even the TITLES of your articles make me want to punch myself to forget the stupidity of them, you've done something for the ages. Kudos.

Yeah, this PPV has REALLY over-delivered here. So many great spots.

For a PPV that was panned coming in, they sure have done a good job so far.

I hope they keep this going between the two of them. Really awesome stuff.

That was fantastic.

I'm just wondering if the proof lies within the assumption that because wrestlers are better athletes now, wrestling is better. Because that's not the case. Because if that's the case, that renders about a half-century of wrestling a moot point. Which it shouldn't.

A fantastic match and while Tenryu is the star, Sasaki is REALLY good in this role. It's weird to see him do so well here and then a year later in 2001 he's so underwhelming, but he stepped his game to another level here. Watch this match and the Kawada match 10 months later and you would totally think Sasaki is a world-class worker. Just that those other 9 months in-between get in the way.

God, I want this to happen. If WWE had an Uncle Ruckus character, I'd buy all the merchandise.

It really comes to whether or not the educated fan wants entertainment or athleticism. I'm not saying it has to be all work rate-y and moves-y or whatever. I'm saying that there has to be an understanding with those types of fans. You can't insult their intelligence. You have to give them a product that makes them want to come back. The reason why the Bryan stuff worked for a few months is because it was the best wrestling trope there is: an underdog overcoming adversity. That didn't have to do with whether an educated person with money was a wrestling fan. That's something anyone can get behind regardless. But stuff like Bryan going up against Kane like he is doesn't work. Those types of personalities just aren't appealing nowadays to those types of fans. Unfortunately, like others have alluded to, for "outside the box"-type fans to want to watch, the people making wrestling happen would have to completely change the way they do business. With Vince still around, that's not going to happen, and even when he's done, I don't think you'll see Trips stray too far away from that, either.

I don't think they'll do anything like that. An interim champion is an interesting idea, but considering he'll be back before MITB, I think after Payback, he'll be able to be a part of the build-up no problem.

God, and I thought my subscriber estimation of 800k was high. They want at least 2 million for 2015???? They expect to double the Network subscribers in 18 months? I might ask John if he can drop that Konnan quote we love so much...damn.

I thought I remember hearing end of April/beginning of May, but that might have changed at some point.

Hogan/Sting at Starrcade. For me it's not really close. Expecting Michaels and Hogan to have anything resembling a good match at that point is a bit much.

I just watched him in the incredible Steamboat/Rhodes vs. Enforcers tag from Clash XVII and he was so great in that match. Really hamming it up, really solid work in the ring, especially with cutoffs, great selling...he was a joy to watch with Arn. I've never understood him being loathed, as I thought he was at least a good wrestler for a lot of what I saw him in.

Well, now if payoffs are becoming an issue, this is really going to make things difficult for a lot of Bryan's top-tier challengers. He's already faced Trips and Orton enough. The only other big ticket guy he has is Lesnar, really, and even then, Lesnar isn't someone that you can see coming back after his contract is up next year after WM. Even then, it's pretty obvious that Cesaro is going to go over him at some point, too. The Kane stuff is filler until they get past Payback, where they can run MITB and then really put something big on the cards for SS, where Bryan will most likely see Lesnar. Problem is that the Wyatt stuff isn't happening the way it should be, too, as I'm guessing they were hoping Bray/Bryan would be something to build towards at some point.

That was Flair/Funk at GAB '89. Great spot. I think Tommy did that on a regular basis.