Loss

Neither of which were injured by anything he did according to everything from Meltzer.

Not that I'm calling Mark Henry a great worker yet, but I have to ask ... ... what is he not doing that you want to see from him that it would make sense for him to do?

With many of us having received the DVDVR sets and most of us seeing new footage we haven't seen before in the past few months, how would you guys feel about redoing the WWF tournament and at least changing the time parameters enough to where guys like Backlund, Muraco, Adonis, Patera and Patterson would get a fair shake? Maybe 1979-2006? Thoughts?

I'm going to do my best to get the Rey/Batista v MNM match to you tomorrow. Do we have a grand total of the number of matches that will be on this set? I'd like for everyone who gets the set to do a Top (x) Matches of 2005 list, PM it to me, then I'll average the lists and post one match a day, and then everyone can talk about that match that day, counting down to number one.

Garvin was a very good worker, just not a good choice for World champ. The crowds loved him in 1985-1986 when he was chasing Flair. And the Garvin Stomp does inflict a certain level of damage, and it didn't require a guy to sit in a certain position for a guy to hit it, like Rey's current 619 (even if he's become much better at setting that up). A guy was usually pretty beat up already by the time Garvin did the move, so the stomp took place after the guy was already laying there for some time. As for Garvin's size, well, even a little kid stomping on your face, each hand, both legs and both of your feet is going to hurt. I feel compelled to mention Ricky Steamboat's chop/punch things where he hit people with the palm of his hand, as I always thought that looked like it wouldn't hurt a fly.

Luckily, the belts no longer mean anything anyway, since too many guys with Midcard4Life tattoos on their foreheads have worn it, and there are two world titles, so everyone gets a turn.

What exactly is wrong with it?

I despise the TONGAN DEATH GRIP from Meng.

Oh man, I love the Garvin stomp. It's realistic, good comedy, looks like it would hurt and pops the crowd. I like the heart punch too, just because it gets such a small move over as something really dangerous.

I wouldn't have a problem with Henry getting the belt if: (1) it wasn't for a Wrestlemania main event and (2) the plan was for Rey to avenge his clean loss by conquering what he could not conquer before, and winning the title

I'm not defending Flair so much, but I will point out that last time he was in a babyface position getting lots of TV time, back in 2002, he was the biggest ratings draw they had. His short-term face turn in 2003 sparked a brief ratings spike as well. So, for whatever reason, there is somewhat of a pattern.

Lots of WWE news here. Thanks to HTQ for the initial recap.

The People's Elbow is a wrestling move, just a really exaggerated one. An elbowdrop is no more a ridiculous move than a legdrop, even if what proceeds it is a little silly. What makes Rock better than Hogan is that he had other, more credible finishers he used most of the time.

If Jericho signs with TNA, expect HHH to unload with major shoot comments on RAW.

The Hogan no-sell will always bother me, but it bothers me more in some matches than in others. But one bad sequence is not enough to ruin an entire match. Hogan will never have a ***** classic because of his flaws, but he can still have a great match with that there. Hogan/Savage from WM5 is my favorite match from him, and it's a great match, but it would have been even better with Hogan selling all the way to the bitter end.

I don't expect wrestling to be "realistic" as much as I expect it to be internally consistent in its logic. Mythologically correct seems like a good term.

Gordon Solie told me.

READ MY POSTS. Thank you. I meant tag teams working with main event singles wrestlers, which should have been obvious, since a TLC match never headlined a Wrestlemania. All of those tag teams had chances to work with guys like Austin, Rock, HHH and Taker and they couldn't pull it off. MNM has been working with Eddy, Rey, Batista and Benoit and have pulled it off quite well. I don't even know what you're arguing.

That move is done poorly the majority of the time, actually. The logic behind the Irish whip is that you're supposed to be throwing your opponent into the ropes so hard that the momentum sends him running, and he turns around to avoid falling out of the ring. Notice how a Chris Benoit puts that extra umph into it where most guys just start running.

That match was good, and was also 30 minutes too long and overbooked into oblivion with way too many gimmicks and the heel going over for no real reason. The cage match portion also seemed to just be two guys laying around.

I was making a comparison, not putting them on a level-playing field. How you got that I was arguing that they were every bit as good and memorable at this point from what I said is puzzling. They lay out their tag matches in the exact same way, more so than any team has in WWE in probably 10 years or more. And the things you mentioned are a big deal, simply because MNM are already outworking every tag team WWE has had in the past few years (Hardyz, Dudleyz, E & C), and some of those teams had a chance to do top-level matches like MNM has and they looked out of place. MNM hasn't at all. Yes, they're dampered by not having a great group of teams to work with, but that's hardly their fault, and they've done far more with far less than many teams have done with the same opportunities. Joey Mercury got decent matches out of HEIDENREICH, for Chrissakes. This team is for real.

Problem is that Jeff Jarrett doesn't want Joe feuding with top guys.

It's funny that Spike wants TNA to sign such a big name that even Lesnar doesn't fit their criteria.

He was also over 40 in an era where WWF was pushing hard that newer was better, had no entrance music, and his entrance video was just Arnold Skaaland throwing in the towel back in '83 over and over and over and over. He was completely consumed by it. The post-match celebration is glorious, and I really thought the way that title change played out was so brilliant.

Wrestling sure is full of colorful personalities. Also, regarding buyrates, that's a great number, but it's also misleading, as 2005 was the first year international PPV buys are factored in. WM XXI, for example, only did 650,000 domestic buys. 2006 numbers versus 2005 numbers will make interesting comparisons since they'll be comparing the same data.