Loss

True, but I'd actually say Vader's best career run was in WCW. The fact that he's been able to make the same style work in CMLL, UWFI, WCW, NJPW and AJPW is an incredible feat. Who else could work in all of those places without really changing all that much?

He also thought some 2:30 match between Trish and Melina was the best women's match of the year.

Well, saying he can't critique Monsoon's announcing just because he's dead is ridiculous, even if you don't agree with what he's saying.

Well, today in his update, he took a shot at Monsoon because he called the British Bulldogs "workout junkies", which he apparently saw as some shoot comment at them for being roid freaks.

Meltzer thought he put himself over at the expense of the matches, and that he buried wrestlers on commentary. The only thing that really annoyed me about Gorilla was the "literally hanging from the rafters" line.

Rey has obviously strengthened his candidacy considerably in the past two years, although I would have considered him a HOF-er before that just because he did play a very strong role in smaller guys who aren't great interviews getting work in the US. In the past two years, he's been the top draw in the promotion - arguably, either him or Cena - for the past several months, and definitely the attraction on Smackdown. He is one of the top merchandise sellers in the company, and his feud with Eddy Guerrero succeeded in adding not just 1.5 million new viewers on average, but an entire new demographic as well. Even then, while he hadn't had many chances on top, in 2003, he had the match with Matt Hardy where he won the CW title, which was one of the most watched wrestling matches of 2003 (I think it was only behind Kane unmasking against HHH). His reputation for being a professional and doing what is asked of him is also pretty sterling. He actually was supposed to lose his match in '97 at Havoc, but got the idea changed at the last minute. He was told he was losing his match in '99 and there was no getting around it if he wanted to keep his job. I'd say he's been either the best or second best in the world (Guerrero was better in 2004, but they were neck and neck in 2005) for much of the last two years, with a second prime completely different than the first. A 5'3", 140 lb guy not only main evented a Wrestlemania, but won the WWE title. He wasn't effective in the role because he is the worst-booked world champion in the entire history of pro wrestling, but he stayed over and is still capable of drawing despite jobbing for no reason so many times.

Awesome! I just e-mailed Dave Meltzer because I was curious about the details of something with Flair and Heyman back in the NWA in '89. Apparently, the two of them had a big blow-up over something and started throwing trash cans at each other!

That's all it was ever intended to be.

Tastes aside, you'd think they'd invest all the time and effort they've put into getting dead Eddy over for the past 10 months into getting someone who is alive and able to headline over.

I was a big fan of Michaels in his day and still enjoy a lot of his matches from the first decade or so of his career. My annoyance with him is that when he retired, most of us had moved on and found new favorites and then he proceeded to come back and beat them over and over. Shawn doing a nostalgia comeback isn't a terrible thing, but he's not being protected in some ways and is being overprotected in others. He's had far too many long matches on TV in the past few years, which has just overexposed him and lumped him in with the rest of the old guys, and then he's also pushed way too high on the card at the expense of people with greater futures ahead of them. Shawn doing the Hogan thing of 3-4 matches a year -- at most -- with his stuff being mostly self-contained would be much less grating.

Yeah, I'm pretty addicted too. I think this is the greatest thing to ever be posted on YouTube.

I've had this damn song in my head all day.

Another great, insane Bix link. Jeff Jarrett wrestles Dutch Mantel while a percussion orchestra plays.

Thanks to Bix for posting this on YouTube. I haven't seen this in years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtXwB0QP5jo This deserves its own thread.

I DEMAND they make this available for DirecTV subscribers at some point soon.

At least when WCW was on the decline, they were trying new (and often ridiculous) things on a weekly basis, so the shows never really got boring. WWE is still clinging to the formula they've used for nearly a decade, and they're in denial that a problem even exists.

Bryan Alvarez has said that poster is fake, FWIW.

They could put all their road agents in the ring.

$100.

The segments are nightmares in terms of quality, but they also make the networks happy and usually do pretty good quarter hours, sadly.

He doesn't just work on creative, he's the head of creative after Steph.

I would have loved for Steph to have a role on camera tonight and for the labor to start then. WWE is so hilarious!

Well, there's also PWG, IWA Mid South, etc.

It's rare that I'd ever suggest this, but Booker as a guy who gets himself DQ'd to retain his title repeatedly could work, with the stip in the eventual Booker/Batista match being that if he gets DQ'd or counted out, he loses the title.