Loss

I'll watch that tonight!

I have been a little out of it for the most part for the better part of a month and haven't really been in the mood to watch any wrestling at all. I need to see something really, really great to get me back in the spirit of things. Recommendations are always great.

God, sumo will be next.

Alvarez has been reporting that WWE wants him on RAW as their answer to Rey.

Matt Hardy v Joey Mercury on Smackdown was really good. I enjoy these battles between the lost members of the high-profile tag teams, as they are both really the workhorses of their respective teams and have both looked really good lately. Mercury had some really nice arm work here, and Matt Hardy was extremely over. The upper midcard with these guys, Jeff Hardy, Booker T, Edge, etc, means more than it has since the boom period, as there are more guys who aren't main eventers who are over than there have been in years. Good match, and how the hell have they lucked into this hot streak lately?

Supposedly, they were very impressed by the American-style psychology he used in his tryout match for the agents. He worked against Dean Malenko.

Dusty made a lot of mistakes, but he was also a creative guy who understood wrestling. Plenty of both good and bad with him.

Tag teams have historically been strongly featured in every booking run from Dusty. Dusty has had a lot of good and bad booking runs at various points, but I'd honestly rather have Dusty booking than Paul Heyman booking. I don't know that ECW will become great under him, but I'm sure it will be much more watchable.

Adam Pearce v Nelson Creed - NWA Pro in Las Vegas, unsure of date I watched this on YouTube and was pleasantly surprised. I don't know if I'd go as far as calling this a great match, but it's a great schtick performance from Pearce and it's a really fun throwback to a simpler time. I understand that wrestling has changed, but I wish you saw more of this sort of thing ("He pulled my hair", stalling for heat, hiding foreign objects in trunks, etc) in ROH, TNA and even WWE than we see. Pearce was a breath of fresh air here, as he was going all out with the classic US heel style and Creed was good enough to keep up and play off of it. Even Creed's dorky pre-match promo had a certain Ron Garvin-esque vibe going for it that just added to the whole nostalgia feel of this. If this is the style that NWA Pro is going for, this is an indy I can probably get into and really follow and enjoy. It's a shame I couldn't find any DVDs for sale on their website. The finish bugged the hell out of me. It certainly fit the nostalgia vibe, but one of the good things about modern wrestling is that there are typically more decisive finishes (even if they sometimes lose their impact in how their built up and followed up on), and the end of this was just a reminder of why Crockett died. Also, as a title match, this feels more like a midcard title match than a main event -- very dumbed down Larry Zbyszko and Barry Windham fighting over the Western States Heritage title-ish, and not just because the title at stake is the NWA Heritage Title. It's because it's all about schtick and the wrestling is more there to enhance the gaga, rather than the other way around. Considering that I haven't seen really any of either guy prior to this, that may or may not be the best route, I'm not sure. What's ultimately most notable about this match isn't what it does wrong, but more what it does right. The good in this match is the type of good you rarely, if ever, see among even top-level workers today. Kurt Angle would even probably learn something from watching this match. In a perfect world, this old style would still be the template most wrestlers followed, although you do wish there was *something* here other than borrowed formula to make the match more unique. The match can be watched through the link below. I think it's very much worth watching and talking about.

Maybe a tad outdated, but maybe not. The modern Vince would probably put Viscera in charge of WWE Africa.

Afa can run the Pacific.

Tito Santana!

My thoughts, both good and bad: 1. The Paul Heyman Pacific line made me laugh. Hopefully, that's not what they're thinking. 2. Is there enough talent to support this? Would they be setting up OVW and Deep South-like farm systems everywhere in the world? 3. Is WWE capable enough of thinking outside the box to allow each area to work its own style and have the style of booking that will be most effective in that area? On the surface, it actually seems like a cool idea, and one that I think if executed properly could be awesome. If Vince does this successfully, it will crush any idea of legitimate competition ever stepping up to him again -- ever. It's a big risk, but it could pay off, and it seems like more of a good risk than most of the other ventures (XFL, WWE Films, etc) taken in the past few years.

'The new CFO of WWE, Michael Selick, revealed in Financial Week that the company is exploring the possibility of establishing separate WWE promotions running full-time in separate international markets. If everything went ahead it would go so far as to include separate TV tapings and storylines for each region, turning WWE from an overseas novelty into a local promotion. Things are still in the preliminary stages but Vince McMahon has discussed it in detail with Stephanie, John Laurinaitis and others in the inner circle. The territories mentioned include a 'Pacific' region covering Japan, South Korea, China and Australia, a 'Hispanic' territory for Puerto Rico, Mexico and South America, and a European territory, with perhaps a Russian one at a later date. Meanwhile, in the USA, there would be two touring brands, most likely Raw and ECW, with Smackdown becoming the Hispanic brand as it is already well established in the market. Big pay increases would be given to senior agents and creative team members to move themselves and their families overseas, with potential performance bonuses depending on how well business goes. It would start off with a TV executive producer with experience of the region working closely with one agent and one writer who would be running the territory. There would also be a crew of wrestlers, who would also be expected to move their families overseas. Paul Heyman's name has actually been mentioned in connection to the Pacific region. Shane McMahon, along with Selick, is working on a business plan for the venture, which remains in its formative stages. Potential drawbacks include the cost of producing WWE calibre shows, around $500,000 per week, and how TV stations in areas like Mexico would respond to the price. There is also the danger of international markets already beginning to get overexposed. Recent Japanese tours have not performed particularly well, there were concerns over the number of Australian tours, while advances for the next batch of Mexican dates have been well below expectations. Also, though WWE can get away with charging high prices for their shows at the moment as it is a novelty, doing so repeatedly would not help when taking on promotions like CMLL or AAA. If it did come to pass then a lot of new wrestlers would of course be hired, as there would be a minimum of five brands. They are looking at promoting each market using both established WWE stars and top babyfaces based on ethnic backgrounds. Carlito, Mistico and Mysterio would be assigned to the Hispanic brand as top stars, they would look for a top Asian and Australian babyface, and guys like Regal, Finlay, Harry Smith and Paul Burchill could be assigned major roles in Europe. They would also likely raid the local markets in Japan and Mexico, whilst bringing back more of the '80s and '90s stars to make up the numbers. The only sure thing about the creative team members is that neither Stephanie McMahon nor Brian Gerwitz would work internationally. Gerwitz would likely become the chief writer of the USA brands, while Stephanie would hire more TV writers with Hollywood experience. Word is that the interntaionaly territories would be handled by Shane, with Vince concentrating on domestic business, though many have suggested that Vince's personality means he would want to be involved everywhere anyway. Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

WWE apparently had its most watched Smackdown on Friday since 06/23/05, which was main evented by that 30-minute Eddy/Rey match. Really impressive number, considering that Smackdown was in a better time slot at that time. It's also a credit to the ratings power of Rey Misterio, as they've been hyping his return for a couple of weeks now. WWE's hit to miss ratio is pretty impressive at the moment.

I think the key difference there was that they were good at making every match feel different. Rock/Mankind headlined four consecutive pay-per-views, but didn't really run out of steam because each match had different things at stake and different booking.

Thanks for the help, guys! Yeah, I knew about Cawthon's site and just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything huge. One thing that I'm hoping exists on tape is the angle where Greg Valentine broke Jay Strongbow's leg. I've watched a few of the matches they had after Strongbow came back seeking revenge, and most of them are actually pretty fun, but I haven't had a chance to try to find the original angle that started it all yet.

I'm in the early stages of creating some DVD histories for most of the major promotions, and I'm wondering if someone can tell me what some of the major era-defining angles were for this company in this time period so I can attempt to track them down. Obviously, the matches featuring title changes from Bruno to Koloff, Bruno to Graham and the early days of the Backlund era are what is talked about the most, but what are some of the other big angles and big matches during this decade that no WW/W/F/E history would be complete without? This is part of a massive goal I have to do an in-depth DVD history of the company from the earliest available footage to the present, covering all the key moments, good matches and big angles. It's going to take a few years to complete, but I'm hopefully I can be at least halfway through the 80s by the end of the year, but we'll see. I'm also planning on doing this for other promotions, but I want to start with this one.

Let's say, just as a hypothetical, that No Way Out does 250,000 buys. Will eliminating it generate at least 250,000 extra buys for WM? If not, it's a hard sell.

Wow! Mistico coming to WWE is a bad move on his behalf anyway, so if he gets detained at the border, CMLL is doing him a huge favor in the long run.

Okay, sorry this has taken so long, but I have an answer. The problem isn't the skin design but, rather, the presentation style chosen through Invision. If you look at the top right of any given topic, you'll see a drop-down box called "Options" that has three different options for Display Modes: "Standard" - This is the display mode that we're all used to on Invision, with each post showing up separately with no differentiation for the originating (or first) post of the thread. "Linear+" - Same as Standard, except that the originating post is separated from the rest of the thread at the top. "Outline" - Here is the display mode that you currently have. The originating post, as well as the last reply in the thread, are separated at the top, with an outline of all the posts in the thread at the bottom of the page. So, anyway, you should be able to fix the issue by switching those display modes back to "Standard" or whatever.

I remember some people getting upset about WCW's booking when Johnny B. Badd beat Arn Anderson in that Boxer Versus Wrestler match back at the first Uncensored, because they thought it made wrestling look bad. Even PWI did an article about it at the time.

Yes. The Landover and Philly matches both took place the same day. The Landover match is the only one on the set.

I haven't seen the Philly match myself, but the Landover match from 3/18 is by far my favorite match between them. Fun to see Flair and Steamboat working their match in more exaggerated fashion, as they're playing to the arena instead of the TV cameras. To me, that match is most comparable to the Chi-Town match in terms of how it's laid out. I like the other two matches, but the Chi-Town is also my favorite match of the PPV/Clash trilogy. The Clash is a great match, but you definitely have to put yourself in a mood to watch it. Wrestle War seems to lose something every time I see it.