Loss

I am cracking up that people think that was some attempt to get Roman Reigns cheered. He just turned heel.

That's a true story. Austin even mentioned it in one of his ECW promos.

Drew would be a great choice. When people start turning on Ronda, that's a great choice. The thing is, Heyman's track record of helping acts other than Lesnar is pretty bad. Cesaro, Curtis Axel. Not sure if that's down to him or the writing.

My review here: https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/blogs/entry/670-match-review-daniel-bryan-vs-the-miz-08-19-18/

It's a board rule that we don't do that here. I know you wouldn't have known that, but it is. We don't want to risk this place getting shut down for that sort of thing.

Daniel Bryan vs The Miz WWE Summerslam PPV August 19, 2018 Brooklyn, New York 8.6 The match between The Miz and Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania recalled a match that happened nearly 35 years earlier under similar circumstances. 1984, whether surprisingly or not, was a real slump of a year for Jim Crockett Promotions. After the overwhelming success of Starrcade '83, perhaps they had nowhere to go but down. It didn't help that they lost so many top stars to the WWF, including Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine, fresh off of the biggest grudge match on their biggest show in history. It also didn't help that Ric Flair was in such high demand as NWA World Champion that he was no longer a regular, week-to-week fixture on JCP television. Perhaps the biggest factor of all in JCP's lull was when Ricky Steamboat announced his retirement from pro wrestling during spring. The Steamboat-Jay Youngblood duo might have been the hottest in the history of territory, a major accomplishment since the Mid-Atlantic area spotlighted tag team matches over singles matches. The very success of the team, culminating in a Greensboro match in March of 1983 where Steamboat and Youngblood would have to break up if they couldn't become tag champions, was so successful that it became the inspiration for Starrcade, itself the inspiration for Wrestlemania. In the wake of wrestler defections and the rise of the WWF and Hulk Hogan, the landscape became even more challenging for JCP when in early summer, Steamboat announced his retirement from wrestling, presumably to spend more time running the Carolinas-area gyms that he owned. In Steamboat's absence, Tully Blanchard debuted in JCP. Tully was quickly teamed with Wahoo McDaniel to give him credibility and the two raised as much hell as they could in the hopes of reversing JCP's fortunes. Their efforts were futile until optimism was restored at the end of the year. Dusty Rhodes, a megastar in his own right, was the booker and was building to a "$1 million challenge" match with Flair, which would have "Smokin'" Joe Frazier as a referee. The second-annual Starrcade was coming up. Steamboat also returned to the ring and was immediately programmed against Tully Blanchard. In a move met with controversy at the time considering their relative stardom, Dusty used Steamboat to put over Tully Blanchard; for the finish, Tully punched Steamboat in the face with a hidden foreign object to get the win. Many theories have been espoused over the years as to why Rhodes made this call, with the most popular take among the anti-Dusty crowd being that Rhodes saw Steamboat as a threat to his spot as the top babyface and wanted to take him down a peg. Steamboat caught the next bus out of town, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, and became a star in the WWF. Blanchard stayed behind and was one of Dusty's most effective heels for the next few years, proving the decision right in hindsight. When Daniel Bryan's wrestling career came to a temporary halt because of a high-risk style that was finally catching up to him, he studied the wrestling of this era in the hopes of establishing a new and more sustainable style for himself, all for a return that he wasn't even sure would happen. Bryan has cited Jerry Lawler and Nick Bockwinkel, great workers well into their 50s, as influences for creating a new in-ring style, a gradual change still in progress. The Miz, much like Tully Blanchard, was also casually dismissed as a credible rival when the two were first paired off. In the same way time proved Dusty right in setting up Tully Blanchard for a run as one of his top heels, time has also proved that Miz is a viable star, one who has been a foil for Daniel Bryan since Bryan's 2010 company debut. The credibility gap was in fact one of the reasons they were paired in the first place. Billed as "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson, Bryan had just wrapped up a decade-long run as arguably the best independent wrestler (some would just say "best wrestler") alive just before stepping into a WWE ring. He made his name by working a stiff, mat-based style, which was inspired by training with William Regal. His size was never really a deterrent to being a dominant, aggressive champion, just as much because of the hard-nosed way he presented himself as because wrestlers on the independent scene were usually smaller than their nationally televised counterparts in WWE. Meanwhile, The Miz debuted in wrestling in a way that even the advantages he had served equally as disadvantages. Because he first received television exposure on MTV's The Real World, he was viewed, fairly or not, as someone playing a pro wrestler more than he was simply being one. It didn't help matters that he was seen as the living embodiment of WWE's sports entertainment philosophy, from the character bias toward being "charismatic" and making a grand, choreographed entrance all the way to using a variation on his real name that mirrored Dwayne Johnson's variation on Rocky Maivia -- Mike Mizanin was simply The Miz. Frustration mounted. Miz actually became very good in the ring but because he was viewed as a wannabe -- he was even calling himself "The Miz" when play wrestling in his bed during his reality TV star days -- he had a label he couldn't quite shake. Perhaps Daniel Bryan could relate, albeit from the opposite end of the spectrum. If fans saw Miz as a poser, Vince saw Bryan as a smallish great worker who had no other positive attributes and smothered him with "help" in the hopes of making him a bonafide WWE superstar. Some would argue that help was backhanded in the days when Bryan used a non-rock version of "Flight of the Valkyries" as his entrance music while wearing reading glasses and carrying a book to the ring, or when WWE "divas" debated whether he was a virgin. Over time, Bryan, along with CM Punk, would achieve superstardom in well-documented fashion, changing at least some ideas in WWE, historically a land of colorful giants, of who could and could not get over. He did that in part by working a more action-packed style, not only because it was his preferred style, but also because it was a surefire guarantee for crowd reaction. In a company where smaller wrestlers have to prove all over again in every single match that they are viable, that crowd reaction held his career in the balance. This match suggested that Daniel Bryan is a victim of his own success. While hardly the sole benefactor, he did play a key role in shifting fans to those who pop for action away from those who pop for characters, even while receiving huge character reactions himself. Bryan's 2013-2014 success is something WWE still struggles to reconcile and perhaps that's because it's bogged down by so many contradictions -- there was a dose of comedy in Team Hell No that was key in his rise to stardom, but he was mostly beloved for his ability in the ring, making him a true main event mechanic, so to speak. The days of WWE fans caring most when their favorites had the advantage in the body of the match seem to be, at least for now, in the past. What we have instead is an athletic pseudo-meritocracy, one where reactions are primarily driven by highspots and nearfalls. This match was part of a longer-term project to undo what Bryan had already helped undo, as Bryan encouraged fans to cheer when he balled up his fist to punch Miz in the face or to rally to his side while he fought to reverse a figure-four leglock. It was an interesting role reversal for someone who, when facing HHH at Wrestlemania four years earlier, saw the early quick rollup attempt off of HHH's trash talk as a bit passe and encouraged HHH to modernize his game by throwing in a tiger suplex or two. The Brooklyn crowd came along on this night, but not always with as much gusto as Bryan and Miz probably hoped for, which can partially be attributed to shifting norms, just as it can be attributed to WWE's current feud storytelling that no one really believes or to being in the middle of a card twice as long as most seemed to want it to be. In the post-match segment, Bryan begrudgingly admitted Miz was right, but the match itself doubled as a similar confession. The popular argument is that Miz was the moral victor with part of the crowd here because he's gotten the best of Bryan at every turn of this feud so far. However, it's also true that in the end, Miz's supposedly "soft" style has already won the war of ideas. The sports entertainer tried to mentor the wrestler; the wrestler refused to listen and instead carved his own path; and the fans decided they liked the wrestler's ideas better, only for the wrestler to realize he'd reached a physical dead end and needed to sports entertain if he wanted to continue at all. Bryan's desire to punch Miz in the face and settle a grudge was the "story", but like any effective WWE feud in 2018, the meta story occupies equal space in the zeitgeist.

Michinoku Pro Tokyo Vol. 4 Ikishoten on Niconico.jp Aired August 20, 2018 (Taped July 7, 2018) Tokyo, Japan No review yet. Kesen Numajiro vs Ayumu Gunji Muno Taiyo (Brahman Kei, Brahman Shu & Great Sasuke) vs Jinsei Shinzaki, Yapper Man I & Yapper Man II Kengo & Rui Hiugaji vs Koji Kawamura & Yasutaka Osera Ken45 & Manjimaru vs Kenbai & Rasse MPW Tohoku Tag Team Titles, UWA World Tag Team Titles: GAINA & Taro Nohashi (c) vs Avid Rival (Misaki Ohata & Ryo Mizunami) Bold matches are PWO recommended.

World Wrestling Entertainment Summerslam Kickoff on YouTube and WWE Network August 19, 2018 Brooklyn, NY No review yet. Andrade Cien Almas & Zelina Vega vs Rusev & Lana WWE Cruiserweight Title: Cedric Alexander (c) vs Drew Gulak WWE RAW Tag Team Titles: B-Team (Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel) (c) vs Revival (Dash Wilder & Scott Dawson) Bold matches are PWO recommended.

My problem with Adam Cole is that I think "Adam Cole, Baby" is the kind of thing that's embarrassing when there are non-fans in the room because it's so dumb.

Clearly, Drew is moving into main events within the next year, but I think it's too soon now for him to enter the Reigns-Strowman mix. Doesn't mean they won't.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the IC title now. They've sort of built it up as a really big deal since Brock has had Big Red.

The goal posts will always move in a way that benefits WWE. It's been happening since WCW folded, probably longer. Choosing to focus on in-ring and not care about bad promos or booking in itself is a moving of goalposts.

Less satisfying in the moment with a better outlook over the next few months. The inverse of usual WWE.

At this point, whatever moves them from thinking about how to coronate Reigns to actually treating him like he's arrived is something I'll take. I'd love Brock to get no offense and get pummeled in two minutes before disappearing for good, but this worked too.

I get it and realize they aren't the same thing (comment on a body vs comment on makeup), but both are a symptom of the same sexism. Anyway, I'll debate this more later.

Don't comment on the physical appearance of women in wrestling, say people who won't stop complaining about Ronda Rousey's eyeliner.

I think you're right. Something like Shawn-Owen from In Your House VI, for example. Talked about fondly for years as a great match. Not an all-time classic, just a great match. That would be forgotten after Monday night now, I think.

I think it's about the composite takeaway. It's always bugged me that we treat the idea of charisma and personality or in-ring ability as a binary, like you can have one but not both. Any arguments that one doesn't matter -- in either direction -- seem short-sighted. Wrestlers can get over for different reasons. That said, it's actually refreshing that you've been part of a community that looks at wrestling through that lens because so few do now.

My predictions: Reigns (I know ...) Owens Miz Rousey Rollins New Day Almas Styles Charlotte Nakamura One thing I think not on people's radars that's an outside possibility as well is the briefcase influencing the Smackdown title match. They make the rules up as they go, and they have kind of a weird position where Joe's not hot enough anymore to be champion but it's time for a title change.

Not a huge complaint, but you'd think they'd run a big angle where Trish is "motivated" to come out of retirement by something Alexa Bliss says or does instead of just announcing it. There's time to even do sort of a slow burn.

I say all of that as someone who hated his promos with a passion because they didn't make sense and I think people tuned out when he was talking. They mostly sounded like lyrics to Creed songs and were overwritten.

Bray Wyatt would work better under a booker like Dusty Rhodes (who conceived the gimmick with Rob Naylor) who tended to treat the entire promotion as two schools of thought with overlapping rivalries and promos featuring guys talking about other people's programs instead of a bunch of feuds separated into neat silos, which is always what WWE/WWF has been. What good is a cult leader who isn't converting new people semi-regularly? Even thinking back to WCW, there's no reason to think he wouldn't have been a bigger star than, say, Raven, who consistently brainwashed and recruited new members to the Flock. I would like to see Bray Wyatt presented by someone like Kevin Sullivan, who could simply book him like he used to book himself. Lord knows the company isn't filled with directionless low-level talent, which is really all that's needed to execute that.

My point was that this is an opening match act. There was a time when they saw Bray Wyatt as a future Dusty-like babyface and were just waiting for the right time to make that run happen. This now feels like a gimmick that has run its course.

Remember when Bray Wyatt seemed like a guy that they were banking on to be a future star? Feuding with John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, and Undertaker ... to this.

I think what it comes down to is that if Hogan is talking in public, he's working. He doesn't "shoot". It's not in him.