Loss

If you look at PPV build prior to the MNW era, they usually shot one big angle in the weeks or months preceding the show and then just did promos to hype the match after that. I think WWE is hurt by the mindset that they have to advance every feud on every show through some type of confrontation, physical or non-physical.

WM X isn't really the best top-to-bottom show, but the booking throughout is largely pretty good, the bad stuff didn't go on for too long (even Luger/Yoko, which was pretty bad, at least made sense going longer in the context of the show since it was a title match) and the two top matches still hold up reasonably well today. I tend to think Bret Hart and Yokozuna worked really well together. This was probably their worst match together, but it still had its moments. WM XIV doesn't really do much for me, probably because at the time I still hadn't really forgiven the company for ditching Bret Hart. That said, Shawn Michaels deserves all the credit in the world for throwing his back out halfway through the main event and still finishing the match, in the same way it's pretty obvious why his critics have a problem with him -- with him laying there chewing gum after Tyson was supposed to have KO'd him. Few are better at sandbagging an angle than HBK.

That's really odd. That isn't happening for me in any threads I view. I'll see what I can find out.

Weird. Mine isn't doing that, but I also am using the default. I think that's an issue with the skin. I'm going to switch to the default and that should correct it.

What do you mean?

There still may be more to it than the gimmick matches, considering that guys like Kevin Nash who haven't exactly wrestled a very physical style have gone through the same surgery.

WEAK! The War Games match they chose appears to be a house show one never before seen, which is cool, but still a bit of an odd choice. This can still be okay-ish if they have all the key angles, but this doesn't look too promising.

Is there as much emphasis on flat back bumps in Japan as there is the US? Mexican wrestlers are not trained to take flat back bumps and as a result tend to have longer careers. I think that's a big issue. Ric Flair has been wrestling for 30+ years, and I think at least part of that can be attributed to him not bumping flat on his back.

I definitely agree that there will come a time when they will have to scale back on PPVs, but that won't happen until they dip below 100,000 buys per show on a regular basis, and they're a long, long way from that ever happening. I'm sure they'd be doing handstands if they could get 5.7 million buys out of 12 pay-per-views, but that's pretty unlikely. Even in 1999-2000, they probably could not have done that.

I'm sure at least some people in WWE realize they have too many pay-per-views, but once a promotion has gone in that direction, it's basically impossible to go backwards. Those other 8 or more PPVs throughout the year aren't doing mind-blowing numbers, but if you add all the numbers they do together annually, expecting WWE to sacrifice that many PPV buys isn't realistic, especially when they're a publicly traded company and have to constantly find ways to fenagle numbers to show growth versus the previous year. The best thing WWE could do is come up with more gimmick/concept pay-per-views like the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series so there are more novelty shows that people feel like are special and that they have to see.

There's a lot of bad wrestling gaga that's over in Japan too. It's just that you don't find Americans talking about that on a regular basis because we tend to try to seek out what's good. It's just a matter of pro wrestling meaning different things in different cultures because of how the audience has been trained and how promotions have conditioned their fans. WWE having the perception it does is mostly intentional, and is also the result of a massive 20-year+ campaign designed to reinvent the wheel.

Ok, it should work now. Sorry about that.

Hmm, I'll take a look and get it fixed.

I think you'll really like Satanico. He's like the 2005 version of Eddy Guerrero with more athletic ability. MS-1 is also another one I think you'll enjoy. Recommended matches: 9/23/83 - MS1 v Sangre Chicana - Classic. As good as any match I've ever seen ??/??/84 - El Satanico v Atlantis ??/??/84 - El Hijo del Santo & Atlantis v Fuerza Guerrera & Lobio Rubio -- Not really a great match, but a really awesome spotfest. If you like the Michinoku Pro style, you'll really dig this match, as it's many of the same sequences you see there on a regular basis 7/30/84 - El Satanico v Shiro Koshinaka -- Not the most lucha-style match you'll see, but a good introduction to Satanico for sure. More of an American-style match with underdog selling and that sort of thing. I loved this quite a bit, and I'm not really a fan of Koshinaka all that much. 9/14/84 - El Satanico v Gran Cochisse -- Another terrific MOTYC-caliber match from Satanico in '84. Worth seeing. Cochisse is also quite awesome 9/21/84 - MS1 v Sangre Chicana - Watch the other match first, and it's much better, but this is also quite great. Lots of selling of injuries here. Tough match. 10/??/84 - El Satanico v Super Astro -- Two of my favorites. Super Astro is really good at executing every move to perfection, not just in how crisp his big dives look, but also in the way he gets over the energy he expends for every move. Good intro. All of the above matches are on Alfredo's 80s set I mentioned before. As for 1989 EMLL, these were my favorite matches: 10/20 - Jerry Estrada v Javier Cruz -- Hair match, and worth watching a million times. Jerry Estrada is sloppy as hell and still puts on a performance for the ages. Hate-filled bloodbath. 11/16 - Brazo de Oro v Pirata Morgan -- GREAT mat wrestling. Long match that's pretty typical of how title matches are worked. Plenty of other great matches I'll get to later, but those two are in the top five matches of the year (not just in Mexico) for me -- and that's a year with Jumbo/Tenryu and the Flair/Steamboat feud.

The earliest footage you're likely to find - at least of matches in full - is going to be 1983 or 1984. I actually think getting Alfredo's Greatest Lucha Stars of the 80s set (http://www.slambamjam.com) is a good primer. Honestly, most of my viewing is confined to the 80s and I haven't seen a ton of 90s stuff, but there's lots of good stuff to be seen in the 80s. Alfredo's set has the majority of the good stuff from that time period. After you wade through that, I think the next step would be to start going through 1989-1990 EMLL. A great time period with long, great matches nearly every week on television, most of which is pretty easily available. I'll provide some more specific recommendations based on what type of wrestling you usually like and go for, if you can provide that.

I agree that breaking up the Hardyz and MNM is a bad idea. There's no reason they can't stay a tag team *and* push Jeff and Nitro as singles at the same time, but WWE has such an insular view of how they present wrestling that they would probably not even consider such a crazy idea.

The one advantage using Michael Hayes has is that at least he actually worked there, was on top and was important to their success. It's not as eyeroll inducing as, say, Jim Ross waxing poetic about the demise of the AWA. Plus, Hayes is a good interview subject, and should really be heavily involved in something like this anyway. I wonder if they'll track down Buddy Roberts.

I'm also still intrigued by which Juventud fans of XPW got? The great worker or the trainwreck?

Lords of Pain.

This one. He mentions it in another thread.

Silly wording aside, a shame that we don't get to see the ladder match re-match. Oh ... and DESTRUCITY!

WCW definitely didn't use the talent they had, but until Russo came in, most of the time, the booking wasn't hindering them from having good matches. To me, it's all about the overall effect. WCW had some awful periods where there were still some redeeming qualities. WWF has had bad business periods with good wrestling and good wrestling periods with bad business. I wouldn't call either the worst, because when I think of TNA, I think of a company with bad booking, bad promoting and bad wrestling, in the sense that none of the matches have any psychology.

Also, I think the JJ Dillon show will be really great, but I suggest that the focus is more on wrestling philosophy and what makes a company work or not work versus asking him where he worked and his opinions on the people he worked with.

I actually think you can take a look at the whole picture and there's no need to separate the business model from the quality of the television. Because a company can be doing bad business and still have some redeeming qualities. TNA is doing bad business and still is really short on those redeeming qualities. Having a talented roster is meaningless when they do nothing with them.