Loss

Heat is important. I hope my point didn't get misconstrued as me saying it isn't. It's just that for Alvarez to think there's a difference between the audience cheering Hogan because he's Hogan and the audience getting involved in Michaels v Angle when there's not really one at all is silly. I agree that if the crowd gets wrapped up in a match, from the promoting and booking standpoint, that really is all that "matters", but when you're someone who assigns snowflakes, you're saying you want to discuss match quality, and while heat is still important, there are other factors at play at that point as well. There's also heat earned and heat given. A wrestling match that sees the fans pop because something specific happened to get that reaction is good heat in terms of quality wrestilng. A wrestling match that sees the fans pop because the Undertaker has a really awesome entrance has nothing to do with the match itself, even if it does contribute to the atmosphere. Michaels and Angle are good at working a crowd, but a lot of the reaction is based on the push both guys receive. They're really not much different than the vast majority of WWE guys in that the fans sit on their hands in the time between the entrance music and the time the finishers start getting teased. This discussion can encompass a lot. Sure, the gas station attendant in Bumfuck, IL that IMM mentioned may not remember things that were kicked out of in the match, but if he doesn't, that's a reflection of the wrestlers working for cheap heat, because someone kicking out of someone else's finisher should be rare and an enormous deal when it happens. I'm not attempting to sound like a "puro elitist", but if in All Japan, Kawada's knee gets attacked in a match, he is still selling the injury in the next match. It matters. If a new move works in putting a guy away, the next time they face each other, they're going to tease that move. How does that relate to Angle/Michaels? Simple. If Angle doing the top-rope Angle slam after working over Shawn's back for nearly a half hour at Wrestlemania XXI didn't get the job done, why would it get the job done later and why would he ever try it again? If the wrestlers make these things matter instead of just running through the same spots over and over every time they face each other, then those types of things will get over. Anyway, this is probably the type of issue I enjoy discussing most anymore as it relates to wrestling, so I'll stop here for now.

Rey Misterio Jr & Batista v MNM - WWE Smackdown 12/16/05 Rey Misterio Jr & Batista v MNM - WWE Smackdown 12/23/05 Just two really outstanding matches. MNM are the modern-day Arn and Tully, doing the tag formula better than anyone has done it in years. The nuances that have been forgotten over time have been brought back in a major way -- wrestling on their half of the ring, singling out a body part and destroying it, repeatedly cutting off hot tags, spending the first five minutes of the match doing great comedy and bailing outside. MNM have managed to get me excited about tag wrestling again, because it proves that it's not forgotten, and there's still hope. Both have Rey as FIP, and I can't really think of anyone you could ask for in wrestling today who would be better at that role. Batista takes no offense for MNM whatsoever, but he's also the world champion and I like that approach because each team member has a role instead of them being two equals. I much prefer this to the standard Shawn Michaels RAW tags we've seen for the past year or two with two FIP segments that are the exact same with restholds on the babyfaces and no attempts to cutoff the hot tag at all, with the babyfaces getting it on the first try. MNM have brought back ref distractions, doubleteam offense, they look like a tag team, and they have probably the best second in wrestling today in Melina. Melina is a fresh face and I like that they gave her Henry to manage as well. If I were booking SD, I'd give her an entire stable, as she's a terrific actress, over as a heel and can be put in some interesting situations. After WM, moving Trish to SD to feud with Melina would be pretty cool as well. Anyway, back to this match. The first match sees Rey do all sorts of ducking and rolling and reversals attempting to get the hot tag and getting cut off every time. It's really awesome to watch, and took great timing from everyone involved. The second match featured a little more complex stuff, with Rey doing the same things, only for MNM to expand on that by trying a quick mid-move double vertical suplex, only for Rey to counter with a double DDT. I hate to use this term because it gets misused sometimes, but learned psychology spots where you can tell the guys are familiarizing themselves with each other and learning new counters every time out really do rock. Anyway, I'd go ***3/4 for the first match and **** for the second match, which sees them destroy Rey's knee and sees Rey pull out his GAB '04-style selling that he used against Chavo, where he holds his leg while limping off rope running sequences and hobbles out of desperation just to perform all of his most basic offense. Rock on!

I've been clearing my TiVo and watching all the SD's from the past two months today. This is a seriously good wrestling show. Sure, I'm FF-ing a lot of stuff, but the Rey/Batista v MNM matches are as good as anything I've personally seen this year and everyone seems to be working hard and doing their best. There are still some stupid things like Boogeyman, but I can't think of a single feud right now on SD that doesn't involve at least one person who can carry things. And MNM are the hot tag team to enter main events we've all been looking for. They're the modern day Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. I plan on writing more about them later.

No reason to wonder, when I said in the Admin folder that I'm currently working 60-hour weeks.

Wild Pegasus v Black Tiger - NJPW 07/04/95 Awesome match! Thanks to WP for sending this my way! I like the match layout here far more than I normally like NJ juniors match layout, with the matwork being fairly brief before tempers flare and a brawl erupts. This is sort of what I think an NJ juniors match would have been like if it had been booked by Bill Watts, with brawling around the ring and a slugfest on the apron mixed in with the great highspots and typically great false finishes of the era. Not their best match together, but still a great one. ****

Exactly. My point wasn't even that he shouldn't like Angle or Michaels, or even that I liked Cena, but rather that if you're going to say Angle and Michaels are great because of their ability to involve a crowd in their matches, then you HAVE to put Cena and Hogan at just as high or higher a level because they're good at that too.

I regret ever signing up for the F4W board and newsletter and I sort of resent Dangerous A and others saying it's a good investment. There was a thread there recently with some gem comments. Since it's a members only board, I'll copy/paste some of the exchanges. There was a bit of debate over the Michaels/Angle match from RAW and another poster started a thread wanting to know why it was so great. This was Alvarez's response: My response: Alvarez's response: My response: Then, someone says that things like that happen in Ric Flair matches all the time and that no one cares and it hasn't damaged him at all because he's RIC FLAIR. My response: Another poster then chimed in and said I was "crazy" to think that Hogan's stuff from the past few years is more memorable than Michaels/Angle at Wrestlemania. He also said: My response: Alvarez then said this: My response, trying too hard not to ruffle feathers: We then debated the thing about Cena being a bad worker leading to a backlash, which I think had ZERO to do with the backlash, and I again mentioned that Bryan Alvarez mentioned in The Death Of WCW that WCW turned around business with Kevin Nash, who's worse than almost anyone in WWE. He denied he ever said that until I quoted him, and then said that was 10 years ago and has no relevance. My other response, again back to the Hogan argument: Then IMM, another poster there, responds with this: Then Alvarez said this to me: My response: Then other posters just start joining in and laughing at the fact that Alvarez is profiting from this argument because I paid to use the message board, and I'm not. Then, he goes on Figure 4 Daily (his radio show) and says that the Michaels/Angle argument is so ridiculous and people won't stop bringing it up and he won't allow it to be discussed on this board anymore. I'm about to cancel my subscription. The board is nauseating, the newsletter is funny at times but is news aped from Meltzer and the daily interview shows are fun until he starts telling me -- on his radio show -- that I'm no longer allowed to disagree with him.

I just got it confirmed from a longtime Observer subscriber that the WMXI thing was a shoot.

In the immortal words of Steve Austin, "If they wanna put more people on TV, why not just ... put more people on TV?" A much easier solution than the roster split would have been to just change the way they write TV and not have every single wrestler on every single show every single week. They're much less likely to get burned out that way.

People at that board say lots of things, as you most certainly know.

Yes. Ixnay them. Wait, does Pig Latin count?

Dave Meltzer once said Shawn Michaels would have completely self-destructed had he headlined in a boom period. Now I know what he meant.

The spot in HIAC was a work. I'm not sure about the cameramen at ringside at WM 11.

If that happens, at that point we'll ever see a total turnaround in WWE or we'll see the gross self-destruction of a once prosperous wrestling company in due time.

Well, Death of WCW is pretty much all common knowledge, it's just that it was all brought together as one cohesive book. So I don't think that would work in this case because it would be all common knowledge stuff.

I'd recap Death of WCW, but it would take quite a while. But I'm willing to do it.

I wonder if there are any internal documents in WWE telling the production team to smear him or anything like that.

Hogan did have a tendency to do that, many times because he was working double shots and many times just because he just wanted to leave.

Weren't the tag team champs usually on the non-Hogan crew? Paging Cawthon ...

It was reported a few months ago that even HHH doesn't like him, and now, I guess we know that Undertaker doesn't either. But Stephanie does, apparently, and that's what's important.

I believe Vince and Backlund are on good terms, but Vince probably just doesn't think the interest in a Backlund DVD is there. I'd think it would be at least as much as a Graham DVD, though, if not more so.

From Meltzer: I love how every time Vince tries to do something mean-spirited lately, it ends up biting him in the ass. Not that Warrior's famous public response doesn't most likely hurt his case.

I may not have been a huge fan of Hogan (and I wasn't), but I would have understood the value in keeping him in that position. Really, I was more of an NWA fan than anything then. I didn't really get into the WWF product as far as the Hogan/Warrior types, but I did like Piper, Savage, Rude and Mr. Perfect quite a bit. There were irritating things about WWF booking even then, but the simple approach and the logical way they went about things made more sense. I also feel like in that era, everyone on the card was considered valuable in some way or another. That was always a strength of the WWF, in fact, until 2001 when Vince McMahon told the writers that he no longer wanted to hear any ideas for non-main event storylines.

Seriously, I think the Intercontinental and tag titles seemed more life or death then than the world titles do now.

Jarrett's been getting chased for years now and there's been no money at all. Not a dime, I'd dare to say. There is money in finding a hot babyface who the audience slowly rallies behind when they know it's only a matter of time before that person wins the title, but for such elements to be in place, the audience has to trust the promotion to pull the trigger, and I'm not sure if TNA's audience trusts them that much or not.