Loss

If all it took was becoming a better wrestler to get the crowd solidly behind him, that would have happened years ago. After wars with Michaels, Umaga, Punk, Rock, Jericho and Edge that have all produced good matches (and probably others too), the label on him as not being very good should have been long gone by now. Most casual fans don't care about that stuff. They boo him because: (a) He's not Steve Austin or The Rock ( They think he's inauthentic

I've always wanted to see/hear more about Ricky Morton's TNA run that was supposedly really good. Didn't he have a match against Kid Kash? I will chop my hand off if that wasn't worth watching.

Didn't want to put this in a TNA thread that's intended to be positive, but ... Wow, this sad sack of a wrestling promotion is only three years away from being in business longer than WCW. That's depressing. Life isn't fair.

Some would argue John Cena fits this bill. Yes, he gets booed by a sizable portion of the audience, but turning would just change the dynamic -- the people who cheer him now would boo him, and those who boo him would cheer him. He's still polarizing. He is exactly who those who like him need him to be, and exactly who those who don't like him need him to be. Cena will never get a universal crowd reaction, which is part of his appeal. Watching John Cena matches is not a spectator sport. The audience is usually a character. With most of the other big names in WWE, if they're able to get the crowd that invested in a main event, they're basically starting from scratch. Cena has a built-in advantage in terms of people caring about him (whether it's love or hate) that somehow, despite WWE never really using him properly, hasn't gone away. That said, if he did turn heel, I would expect it to be great and I think it will likely happen at some point. I think they overlearned the Austin lesson, which is why it hasn't happened sooner. But I can see the logic for having him finish his career without ever turning.

No, it's definitely about Wrestlemania. Summerslam was Vince deciding to postpone Luger winning the title since gates were strong at the time (which in hindsight was probably because Bret/Lawler was a hot issue) and he thought he could save a title change for when business started to dive again.

Anyone else find it amusing that they did that video package where almost everyone who the company is pushing in a key position gushed about how great HHH/Undertaker at Wrestlemania was? Funny how the top guys are presented as fanboys for the real stars.

I'm sure it was bad. It was also pretty important. I'm just trying to get a narrative of the order of big events, rationale behind each move and who was used, and what is the most historically significant.

Mark Henry is a superheavyweight. What type of pacing do you want from him? Would Henry working a faster pace make sense? When exactly did Kevin Nash outrun Mark Henry in the ring?

As someone who missed the entire period when this group was awesome, what are the best matches? I know 2002 is talked about as the best year. I'm not sure how long before or after that they were putting on good shows pretty consistently.

Inoki. Period Inoki had power in New Japan since its inception. What is it about this time period that made it happen here?

I understand that. I mean, what specific decision did Antonio Inoki make that started all of this? What was the very first fight like this, and what was the rationale at the time? Did the wrestlers who were asked to do this object? I'm assuming internal turmoil in New Japan over it, because I can't imagine Choshu supporting the idea.

So how did this all start? Who were the key players in pushing Japanese wrestling in this direction? Was it calculated or something more organic?

I've never seen any of this stuff. I just didn't know anyone other than Takada or Hashimoto was involved in a shoot. I'm nearly completely clueless about this time period.

So Takayama/Frye was a shoot? Wow, this is all very confusing.

Is there a history lesson online someone could point me to that would help me make sense of everything with New Japan and PRIDE during this time? I'm referring to Sakuraba's ascension as the biggest pro wrestling star in the country (despite doing shoots), worked fights on early PRIDE shows, New Japan guys who were sacrificed, the impact on the style (Is this how Takayama became a star in 2002?) and so on. It's a topic I've never really paid much attention to, and it suddenly intrigues me. Or if someone ambitious wanted to provide a (really detailed) summary here, that would be great. Identifying the key moments from that time period that are key in telling the story would also be helpful, along with guys like Takada and Hashimoto who were pretty much killed off by these changes. Full disclosure: I'm asking this because I'm curious, but also because it's an important story worth capturing on a yearbook, and I want to make sure the important points are hit. Thanks!

Also, is Oya in BattlARTS as awesome as I'd expect it to be?

Thanks! Just to keep this going, how about Toryumon? Any other specific matches with Ultimo Dragon trainees stand out? I know they were in MPro some, which I'll go through eventually, but for Toryumon proper, anything for '98 besides this? 08/29/98 - Magnum Tokyo, Saito & Dragon Kid vs Sumo Fuji, Judo Suwa & Shiima Nobunaga

Thanks! How about this for FMW? 01/06/98 - Masato Tanaka vs Mr. Gannosuke 03/13/98 - Hayabusa vs Masato Tanaka 03/17/98 - Hayabusa vs The Gladiator 04/21/98 - Jinsei Shinzaki vs Mr. Gannosuke 04/30/98 - Jinsei Shinzaki vs W*ING Kanemura 04/30/98 - Hayabusa vs Mr. Gannosuke 04/30/98 - Atsushi Onita vs Kodo Fuyuki 05/19/98 - Hayabusa vs Masato Tanaka 05/27/98 - Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka vs W*ING Kanemura & Kodo Fuyuki 06/19/98 - Masato Tanaka vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda 10/06/98 - W*ING Kanemura vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda 11/20/98 - Hayabusa vs Kodo Fuyuki 11/20/98 - Mr. Gannosuke vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda 12/13/98 - Hisakatsu Oya vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda 12/13/98 - Hayabusa vs Hisakatsu Oya

1998 is really the beginning of way more promotions on the landscape, especially in Japan. I guess others were around before, but this is when you really start hearing about recommended things from all of them. So the best way for me to tackle this is fed-by-fed. I'll start with Big Japan. I listed everything that looks intriguing on paper. Is there anything anyone has seen that I can easily kick off of this list? Anything that I don't have listed that definitely needs to go on? I've bolded the only match that I can call a lock at this point. 01/02/98 - Gedo & Jado vs Yoshihiro Taijiri & Ryuji Yamakawa 02/03/98 - Yoshihiro Taijiri vs Gran Naniwa 02/03/98 - Yoshihiro Taijiri vs Minoru Tanaka 02/03/98 - Yoshihiro Taijiri vs Gedo 02/28/98 - Minoru Fujita vs Ikuto Hidaka 03/04/98 - Yoshihiro Taijiri & Ryuji Yamakawa vs Shadow Winger & Shadow WX 05/01/98 - Katsumi Usuda vs Minoru Fujita 09/23/98 - Katsumi Usuda vs Tomoaki Honma 11/06/98 - Minoru Fujita & Ikuto Hidaka vs Katsumi Usuda & Tomoaki Honma

Watched The Hooligans vs American Bulldogs from Metro Pro: ! One of the most fun heavyweight tags I've seen in a while. These guys are really laying in their shots, and Jon West in particular is a guy who should get attention from a bigger promotion somewhere. They probably get a little too clever at the end. Mad Dog McDowell is green, but has some fun athletic fat guy spots. Both of the Hooligans are really good.

I read Cody's post and I guess there's nothing there that tells me "incredibly talented performer", as much as "incredibly pushed performer". What were Brock's best matches en route to Summerslam? And Dylan, that's the Sid comparison. Steamroller.

Vince's thought at that point was that whatever he paid Tyson, the extra eyeballs were worth it. "I'd rather lose money on 500,000 buys than make money on 300,000 buys" was I think his quote -- something like that.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.