Loss

Godfather and Road Dogg talking about smoking pot in honor of Owen, and Billy Gunn saying "If you're not down with Owen Hart, I got two words for you ... suck it" I think were the worst moments of the tribute show. And I know this is old news, but wow, Stephanie McMahon compared her father's steroid trial to 9/11. That's easy to forget sometimes.

Another HHH story that gets ignored a lot now for obvious reasons: When Benoit jumped from WCW, HHH obviously couldn't put a label on him of bad worker, so he started telling people that Benoit was good, and capable of having a great match, but only if he was carried by someone better. That lasted maybe a few days. After the really good Benoit/HHH Smackdown match and the 10-man tag, he dropped that. I believe he also made it a point to tell everyone that Punk's wrestling style looked "simulated" when he first came in.

I could see Tommy Dreamer voting for someone based on their love of ECW and the boys in the back.

The HHH as a huge Flair fan stuff always cracked me up, because I always thought it was put on. He was from New Hampshire and spent his teen years obsessed with bodybuilding. What in that equation screams NWA fan? And really, aside from being a top heel and loving the blade for a while, what about his wrestling style or his interviews suggests that he modeled himself after Flair?

HHH/Jericho build to X-8 is really a big case of HHH shooting himself in the foot. His burial of Jericho served to also kill the momentum from his own comeback. HHH got an insane reaction when he returned that was pretty much gone within a couple of weeks. It seems like I've also heard that this was the beginning of Rock's falling out with WWE, as he put Jericho over for months, praised him as the best worker in the company to pretty much everyone, and then HHH gets him and undoes it all in not much time. I remember something about the Helms match in '03 -- that Rock wanted to put him over, but didn't want him doing a program or match with HHH after to make the win seem meaningless. HHH ended up squashing Helms the night after WM, and that's supposedly when Rock checked out of his feud with Goldberg. HHH/Jericho had a natural built-in storyline, was a fresh match, and had a little backstory beyond the torn quad because the two had feuded before. Jericho paired with Steph would have been a pretty crazy heat magnet, which must be why it didn't happen.

There's a lot of stuff that I'm not sure is confirmed, but sounds in character, like not wanting Flair to say "Whooo" when he was managing HHH for some reason.

It's possible I'm not remembering this correctly, but I remember there being some type of story in the WON about word getting back to RVD that HHH had been badmouthing him at production meetings. RVD was taping up his fists and was on his way to confront HHH when Vince showed up immediately and said he needed to speak with HHH right away. Seems like this was at a San Francisco house show or something, and Vince had Afa with him. Did I imagine this? 2003-ish.

Ah, Booker T. Talk about a guy that was a huge missed opportunity. He had success at a certain level, yes, but he's a guy who at one point had superstar potential. I think had he gotten the Jesus push in 1998 in WCW as a very serious, no-nonsense type babyface who occasionally teamed with Goldberg, he would have been a huge star. Booker has always been so good at comedy, so he has usually ended up with a more over-the-top gimmick, but he's a guy who really should have been a much bigger star than he ever was. WCW had the right idea by pushing him as a well-dressed athlete who was focused on winning matches, they just never programmed him with main eventers until the company was sinking. WWE of course made him a buffoon, which worked at times, and really sold his potential short at other times.

I love the story of WCW employees in 1994 posing with signs in front of arenas that said "Sold Out" because selling out a show was such a new concept to them.

I'm guessing Norton's salary was somehow tied into Bischoff's desire to get in good with New Japan. Maybe showing that he would be willing to take care of Inoki's stars?

I've decided that The Rock's concert where he sang "The Rock is cooler than Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, but he still has to deal with all these ... Long Island skanks" is among the best few seconds of pro wrestling ever. In fact, The Rock's Hollywood star heel run in early 2003 was pretty brilliant. The Titantron video was fabulous too.

There's a difference between being "the next Cena" and a perfectly acceptable top-level babyface. No reason to morph that point.

I hope Todd mentions that WWE needs more long-term planning and clean finishes, should stop giving away big matches on free TV, should focus more on championship belts, needs to create new stars, and needs to just use bullet points for promos instead of scripting them. Because we don't hear those points enough.

Agreed, which is why they should either truly moderate the board, or Dave should just stay away from it.

In the end, Dylan, I agree with your point. Finlay is a better wrestler than Shawn Michaels, but I'm not sure he's a better overall performer. My main point is that there are factors like card placement, opportunities given, crowd reaction and historical significance that some people are always going to deem important parts of the discussion, even if others don't care about that stuff as much. I wouldn't say you think they're insignificant, just as I wouldn't say you think they're the end-all, be-all. But for most people who disagree on the fundamentals, that's where the disagreement is -- not on who's better at doing certain wrestling-related things, but at what is more important in judging a wrestler. I think you're likely to hear wrestlers consider "working" everything from keeping the crowd, getting their angles over to the audience, and drawing money, with what happens bell-to-bell being a key part of that, but not the only part of that. I'm hardly one to defer to wrestlers opinions when debating this stuff, but I just think it's interesting, and I think a lot of debates may break new ground if the ground rules of what it means to be a "better wrestler" are established first. Most often, they're not.

Dave and Bryan are trying to heed their own advice and focus on building new stars.

I agree that Punk will probably overall be where Jericho is in the grand scheme of things -- a big player that fans like who is reliable and in a near-top spot, but rarely -- if ever -- the centerpiece for any length of time. There's nothing wrong with that as a career, and if you notice, Jericho really cemented himself as a top guy just because he had been near the top so long and repeatedly mentioned the few big wins he got in every promo for nearly 10 years. No reason Punk can't do the same.

I don't like this new confrontational side of Dave Meltzer. He used to always give off the impression of a super nice guy who was far more patient than he needed to be. The Bryan Alvarez influence isn't a good color on him.

Like most in wrestling, I doubt Bischoff has a problem with Meltzer. He just knows it creates a buzz to go after him, so he does it. I sadly was in between Observer subscriptions when Dave reviewed Bischoff's book, but I would LOVE to read that sometime. Eric just did a Torch Talk with Wade Keller less than a year ago, which is why I think all of this is manufactured. Can I also just add that the most annoying thing about Bischoff is that he fancies himself a television executive instead of a wrestling promoter?

I don't know if MVP was a pot guy, but he was complaining about having to pee in front of the wellness guy, which resulted in him being depushed.

Yeah, they're kind of screwed on babyfaces, but at one point guys like MVP and Kingston would have done fine before they were buried for whatever reason.

These who is better arguments get muddied because no one ever defines what it means to be "better". There is a faction that likes Michaels better that probably defines "better" as having had the better career, with the most memorable and good matches on a big stage. There is a faction that would rather look at the sum of the parts than the whole that likes Finlay better. They see better striking, selling, bumping, etc., when the other side has no interest at looking at wrestling through that lens. "Better at playing their role" is seen by some as a worthwhile argument. Others don't think it matters if someone is having great 5-minute TV matches as a monster heel if they're not having good, 20+ minute main events at least a few times a year. Then you have the crowd that thinks wrestling matches are only good based on two things -- athleticism displayed and crowd response -- and as long as both are good, there's no point in looking anymore in depth than that in terms of things making sense or offense not looking good. I'm tired of "Who's better" debates. I'm interested in having more "This does/doesn't matter in a wrestler or wrestling" debates. Of course there are going to be disagreements, but at heart, the biggest disagreement is about how to watch wrestling.

Miz and Punk are the next guys who should be getting those spots, but I'll be surprised if they do.

I don't even know that Creative has much control over what airs. I get the idea sometimes all they do is write lines for the wrestlers to say. I would love for more clarification to come out over how much control someone like a Brian Gewirtz has over match finishes, how much time segments and matches are given, and PPV build. It always seems like his primary job responsibility is just to take the parameters given to him by Vince and/or Stephanie and script from there. I would love for the Observer to tackle this in depth at some point.

Who are all these nameless TNA executives and wives anyway? This from a company that has had little people masturbate in trash cans on television.