Loss

He said it was "probably *****". Thanks SO MUCH for posting these, HTQ.

I would have argued that Christian was the best choice to go over at the PPV, but they've put him on a gigantic losing streak lately, and they don't look to be giving him a meaningful win anytime soon. There's no reason he couldn't have pinned Kane tonight and avoided contact with him until the event. At least try to create some type of story there. Kudos to WWE not caving into what might as well be special interest groups and keeping Edge strong with a win over Jericho. Jericho winning at this point does nothing, because fans have grown so accustomed to seeing him move sideways, whereas a loss here after last week's high-profile loss might have really curtailed Edge's momentum for a while. So the right choice was made. I would agree that for what it was, HHH/Rosey was well done. Rosey actually took some nice bumps, worked in a moonsault, as Rudo mentioned, and sold HHH's attack like it was about to kill him. HHH going over big men en route to WM is the EXACT way HHH should be booked going into the big show. If anything, he's still being handled well, but Batista is shaky.

Rock/Brock is one of the most successful non-WM PPVs they've done in the post-monopoly era, and I credit that to the low-key build. They took the focus out of the ring, unless they were just playing mind games or having a staredown, and instead showed training footage and great music videos of both of them. In actuality, the film crew and production staff deserve more credit for building up that match than the writers do. HHH/Batista should be largely the same build, as Batista can only beat Flair up so many times and HHH doesn't need to make him "sympathetic" going into the big event at all.

Regarding Velocity, they seem to have a newfound willingness to put 10-15 minute matches out there on a regular basis.

Just because these matches are always discussed, and so we have it on record, when you have time, can you pull what Meltzer originally said on these matches? I don't want to work you to death or take you for granted or anything, just whenever you can get to it. Thanks! War Games - Wrestle War 1992 Bret Hart v Davey Boy Smith - Summerslam 1992 Vader v Sting - SuperBrawl III Bret Hart v Owen Hart - Wrestlemania X Shawn Michaels v Razor Ramon - Wrestlemania X Bret Hart v Owen Hart - Summerslam 1994 Bret Hart v Bob Backlund - Survivor Series 1994 Bret Hart v Diesel - Survivor Series 1995 Bret Hart v Shawn Michaels - Wrestlemania XII Bret Hart v Steve Austin - Survivor Series 1996 Bret Hart v Steve Austin - Wrestlemania XIII Shawn Michaels v Undertaker - Badd Blood '97

I *LOVE* Sid's psychotic interviews that say nothing but contain lots of words. It's just needless rambling delivered by a gigantic tool, but I love those interviews nonetheless.

However, I just wanted to add that if anyone is looking for a message board that has match downloads, visit Death Valley Driver's message board and you can find all sorts of good stuff.

If it's not on Velocity, it's only going to go six minutes max. That's the sad reality, and the point I was trying to make. I'm not trying to deny that it would be a good match, but it would get more time on Velocity. As far as going over people en route to getting a title shot, call me old school, but I feel that's the way it should be done. Title shots should be earned by facing other contenders. You put Kazarian over those guys to show that he's *better* than they are before you put him in a match for the biggest title in the division. Fans have a tendency to reject new guys that aren't established, even lightly, before they're pushed. I don't want Kazarian becoming another Gail Kim.

Hmm, the matches are copyrighted and I think it violates the TOS. I'm going to lock this until I can get confirmation from MiB that it's cool. If so, I'll unlock it.

I think if it was confined to Velocity, where it would most likely get more time, that would be a good thing. I think they may want to build Kazarian up before putting him in a feud with London, maybe giving him some wins over Chavo and Akio and then going into the feud. Of course, it's the cruiserweight division, and they don't really give it a lot of thought so it might not matter. I do think London is someone they could do far more with than they are now. I wish he was being pushed as a smaller heavyweight instead of a cruiserweight, which is what the initial plan was for him.

Also, what's with the supposed heat Flair and Diamond Dallas Page had from when Flair booked in '94?

Also, from that same time period, was the Sting/Luger partnership supposed to go anywhere? Luger was basically playing a face and heel at the same time and it was very confusing, but it was all swept aside when the NWO came in.

Here's a question: Pre-NWO, in the last part of 1995 and the first half of 1996, WCW kept teasing an upper-card push for Eddy Guerrero, but they never fully acted on it. Was there ever one in the works, and were they legitimately surprised when they surveyed their audience to find that Eddy was the most likable wrestler they had on the roster?

The crowd sided with Hogan at X-8. Austin probably knew that would happen, and didn't want to be embarrassed.

I think Vince would be happy to have his son-in-law headline every show for the rest of time. I don't think he's ever been as high on a wrestler as he is on HHH. With Austin, I can sort of understand the point of view of the writers on the subject. I used to chat with a guy who said that he was a WWE writer online and I'm convinced he was. He explained a lot of things to me from their perspective and he's probably the same guy that talks to Scott Keith, considering that his book cited the exact same story told the exact same way. Anyway, according to him, here's what happened. Austin was falling out of favor with the writers since coming back. There was a power struggle in 2001, because they'd lay out his matches one way, and he'd go out there and do something totally different. Austin v Angle at Summerslam '01 was supposed to have Angle dominating Austin the entire match, to a point where Austin was going to get DQd for attacking the ref. They were furious with him because he basically dominated Angle the entire match and then beat up the refs anyway. They thought it made Angle look weak. I personally think that match made him look very good, actually, since he kicked out of three stunners, but I can also see the other point of view. The long-term plan for Austin, as of that fall, was for him to stay heel until HHH returned and drop the belt to him at Wrestlemania X-8. However, Austin got his first merchandise check around this time, and it was considerably less than what he was used to getting, and he started convincing Vince that he needed to turn immediately. Vince, a huge Austin supporter at the time, agreed, and the long-term booking was thrown out the window. The writers were upset because they felt they had the build to Mania nicely intact and that Austin sabotaged it because he was being selfish. Austin then started assessing the talent pretty openly. His opinion? Angle was a great worker, but he didn't have the star quality needed to be a top guy. Jericho was a bad worker, but he had everything he needed to be a successful main eventer otherwise. The company was already pushing Jericho anyway, as a reward for taking the WCW guys under his wing during the inVasion, so this agreed with their vision. Vengeance was laid out for Jericho to overcome Austin and Rock in the same night, defeating both with their own finishers. Rock had no problem with this at all, since he felt Jericho would be the guy who he could truly pass the torch to and wanted to do everything he could to build him up at that level. Austin scoffed at the idea and so a different finish was presented to him, which was the finish used at Vengeance. The company felt that Austin's face turn, by February or so, was doing absolutely nothing to spike business and they were expecting things to turn around almost instantly since they had him back in the role the fans wanted to see him in. Whispering started and they came to the conclusion that Austin's best days were over and that he slowly needed to be phased out as a top guy, but that he still needed to be kept in the thick of things. It didn't help matters that Austin was rejecting so much material presented to him. Stevie Ray was supposed to be brought in for a one-shot role in late 2001 in a spot that eventually went to Big Boss Man, who Austin felt safer working with. It turned out that HHH got in Austin's ear and convinced him that Stevie Ray was a sloppy worker who would injure his neck. Austin also still didn't feel good about working with Booker and wanted to go into a program with 'Taker instead, which wasn't on the books at the time at all. Austin also refused to do the match with Hogan at Wrestlemania, then refused to put Hall over at Wrestlemania X-8, making the draft seem anti-climatic. He was supposed to sell a lot more for Jericho than he did at No Way Out, but insisted on taking over the match because he felt that there wasn't enough heat with Jericho in charge, and after the match, Vince actually called Jericho the worst champion they'd ever had and they couldn't get the belt off of him soon enough. Before that, with the poolside promo, the "I am not a joke" promo and his good series with Rock, Vince was finally warming up to him as a bonafide top guy. Austin was brought back after his first walkout and all the bad blood was supposedly resolved. There were problems though, as they were trying to elevate RVD and Bradshaw, and Austin hated doing tags, so they couldn't put him in tags. They felt that because his character was such a loner, they couldn't use him to give anyone the rub because Austin would complain that it didn't fit him and turn it down. Austin wanted to recreate Austin/McMahon with Austin/Flair, which the writers were strongly against, because they felt it was unfair to Flair to put him in that role and expect the same results. The writers started arguing that the whole boss v employer thing was played out, and wanted to take a different approach. After the 05/20/02 RAW & 05/23/02 Smackdown (the week where RVD came close to defeating 'Taker and Edge and Angle faced off in the ladder match), the writing staffs were officially split. The first RAW from the new team of writers was the one where Eddy and RVD main evented in the ladder match. Austin had made the comment that Guerrero was the best worker in the company, and suggested working a program with him, which thrilled the writers, because they thought they could really make Eddy with this angle. Austin insisted that Debra be involved in storylines, but turned down every idea they had for her. They wanted to have her turn on Austin at KOTR and cost Austin the match, giving Eddy the win, and Austin refused the finish. He also didn't want her taking bumps or leaving his side, so they felt their hands were tied with what they could do. They were looking for some way, any way, to get some type of emotion out of Austin's character, where someone would actually get to him mentally in a way they never had before. That's what they hoped for with Eddy. Anyway, that night on RAW, the finish happened with Austin coming down and Benoit turning and he and Guerrero leaving together, which Vince accepted as a solid new direction, but Austin immediately complained after the show that the beatdown made him look weak. They proceeded anyway, with Austin/Flair the next week as the main event, which made Austin feel good. He loved the match and felt it was the best he'd had in a long time, and wanted to continue something there, but the writers wanted Austin mainly feuding with Benoit and Guerrero at this point. The planned finish for the RAW that Austin walked out on had him facing Brock Lesnar in the main event with Eddy Guerrero as the heel ref costing him the match. After the match, Austin would chase Eddy out of the arena, where Benoit, Flair and Arn Anderson would attack him in the parking lot. He'd fight them off, just in time to get to Eddy, who would have sped off in his car before Austin could get his hands on him. Austin felt he was getting beatdown too much and balked, and also felt the Lesnar match needed to be held off for PPV after Lesnar was built up. Everything that happened from there with him walking out is well-documented.

If WWE booked to be successful, they would have let Benoit talk and do a serious sports-style promo every week, and they would have had everyone else doing those promos too so no one upstaged Benoit as champ. It's sad when actually hiding a wrestler's weaknesses and promoting his strengths is considered a novel idea, considering that's the only way to get anything done in wrestling really. You have HHH arguing that anyone they push should be excellent "in every area", but the crowd has been ready to accept people in higher positions that have been less talented and really, there's not anyone on the roster who's a GREAT worker and a GREAT talker and is over except Eddy Guerrero.

Come on, Coffey, you can do better than that.

That's true. Austin agreed to put him over, but not cleanly. I seem to recall the original plan being Jericho pinning Rock with the Rock Bottom and Austin with the Stunner.

This is going to seem insane, but I'd actually place War Games at Wrestle War '92 ahead of Flair/Steamboat at Wrestle War '89. War Games manages to tell a story quite well -- there are at least 10 feuds in place that need to be settled and they're all brought together for one epic match. The action is brutal and believable all the way through, and the crimson masks on Austin and Dustin were especially gory. They tried new things that got a huge pop, and they even provided some great continuity with the Sting/Nikita mini-story. Wrestle War '89 fell flat to me because it didn't have the energy or flow of the previous Flair/Steamboat matches, and it was largely stationary, where Clash VI, which was almost twice as long, had more nonstop action. When I think of Clash VI, I think of Steamboat dropping 16 elbow drops on Flair's leg in a hellacious spot, and when I think of Wrestle War, I think of Steamboat working an armbar for what seemed like forever and both wrestlers acting a little too stoic for my liking. I do see what you're saying, I really do, and on the surface it makes sense, but when we have seen good-great matches with the strap/chain/bullrope like Sting/Vader or Austin/Savio, I think it's fair to hold others to the same standard.

Austin was a fan of Gunn, actually, but didn't think the time was right. He saw Gunn more as someone who would be good in a few years than someone who was ready for a main event push when they gave it to him. Austin argued that putting Gunn in that position before he was ready would have hurt him. And sure enough, when they tried feuding him with Rock, it did. As for Jarrett, that was a power play that everyone in the company saw through with Vince Russo trying to get his friend in main events. Jarrett wasn't over at all at the time, despite some people trying to argue otherwise, and Austin felt that Jarrett would have brought him down with him. Everyone, from Vince McMahon to Jim Ross, wholeheartedly agreed and Jarrett and Russo were the only people who held it against him. Austin did some things from 2001-2003 that I didn't think were right at all, in terms of making his opponents look good, but he was 100% in the right to not want to do a program with Jarrett.

Bryan Danielson - Have yet to see him work actually, and will be getting a lot of his more acclaimed stuff from goodhelmet in the near future, tax return be damned. He has the reputation for being the backbone of ROH. Mitsuharu Misawa - I'd actually consider him the third best behind Kawada and Kobashi, but as far as understanding his role and growing into it over time, he was fantastic and I can't think of anyone who's probably had more ****+ matches, barring maybe Kawada or Kobashi. Didn't fly as much as he did in the 1980s after his ascension to the top, but the role didn't call for it either. El Hijo del Santo - Haven't seen a lot of him, but what I've seen I've loved. Need to see more. Christian - Excels in tag matches and seems to struggle in singles matches. When he's opposite a good, motivated worker, he's passable, but he relies too much on restholds and weak punches for my tastes. His timing is great and he's good at getting the most out of his opponent and making him look good, but he's not so good at controlling the offense or doing anything particularly exciting or memorable. I do think, however, he should get a HUGE push this year, and his stock may have risen if the company (wrongfully) decides to bury Edge. Nick Bockwinkel - He doesn't get a lot of credit for being all that good, which I don't get at all, considering that Bockwinkel in his mid-50s >>>>> Ric Flair in his mid-50s, and his matches with Hennig, Jumbo and Robinson, among others, were almost always good. I'm a fan. Shawn Michaels - It's hard to talk about Michaels in a blurb-type post and describe him accurately. I'll copy/paste something I wrote about him at TSM a while back instead. Kane - Better than he's often given credit for, but not really the type to build a company around or carry a lesser worker to something good. Has probably been saddled with more crap that he's managed to get over than anyone ever has. The most famous masked wrestler of his generation who should have gotten the belt in 2003 after dropping the mask. His career is probably winding down. Nobuhiko Takada - Has a reputation as one of the best in the world during his time, but I need to see more footage. Definitely one of the five or ten biggest stars in Japanese wrestling history. Terry Taylor - Of all the wrestlers from his generation, I feel like Taylor is the one who legitimately deserved far more than he got. He could work, he could talk and he could get heat, but he never really got that push over the top that he needed and deserved. The WWF's handling of him in 1988 and 1989 was atrocious, and his career never recovered. Probably should have stayed with Crockett when the UWF folded because he might have gotten a nice push. He would have fit in well with the NWA in 1989. Played a considerable role in WCW's success in the late 90s and has jumped back and forth between companies more than almost anyone. Honky Tonk Man - One of the biggest B-show draws of his day who I consider a class act when he's not enacting revenge on someone he despises. Not particularly talented as a wrestler, but a good performer who knew how to make people hate him. He's still a riot on the Internet when he goes off on a tangent about Kevin Nash or Jerry Lawler or whoever else has earned his wrath.

It's the "a 10-man tag with these guys would be the weirdest match ever!" edition! Here we go: "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson Mitsuharu Misawa El Hijo del Santo Christian Nick Bockwinkel Shawn Michaels Kane Nobuhiko Takada Terry Taylor Honky Tonk Man

He was originally supposed to drop the belt to Booker T at Wrestlemania XIX, but argued that he needed to be kept strong for Goldberg. I think HHH is to a point now where he's _so_ wrapped up in the creative end that he's probably not even asked to do anything that would make him look less than perfect, nor is such a situation ever proposed.

This makes me want to touch on something. I remember when Scott Keith reviewed the Ric Flair DVD and he gave the Starrcade '83 match with Harley Race *****, saying that the bad refereeing from Kiniski brought the match down, but that you can't punish the wrestlers for that. I strongly disagree with that. No one is being "punished", nor should they feel "punished" if a match isn't called *****. I don't have the authority to punish a pro wrestler in the first place, and in the second place, it's possible to give a match all the credit in the world for working as well as it does within pre-imposed limitations, but that still doesn't mean it's a good match or a great match. I guess it's just a case of something needing to be quantified, and it's another example of why 'flakes are only valuable when they're accompanied by some type of explanation. I can see the flip argument, though. When someone tells me, "you need to see this movie! It's great!", I don't immediately say, "What made it great? Watch the movie, take notes and give me your thoughts in detail." I just seek it out for myself and draw my own conclusions. Admittedly though, I don't have the same passion and interest for movies that I do wrestling, and in some circles, I guess people would be asked to explain what made the movie great. And when you post online, discussion doesn't really go anywhere if people don't explain where they're coming from. Goodhelmet and I were recently talking about how the wrestling message board scene has started resembling Dr. Seuss's Sneeches in many ways. There was a time a few years ago when everyone thought Flair was the greatest wrestler who ever lived and that Shawn Michaels had ***** matches on a regular basis and that HHH was the new anointed one, until the tOA crowd started challenging conventional thought and breaking a match down in bare bones fashion for what it really is -- the moves used, the way the crowd connection is established, what the wrestlers do specifically that makes them so good. It's more of a search for the "why" beyond the "what", you might say. That was good for the most part, and it's probably increased my overall understanding of wrestling in the long run. However, it's also left many parrots afraid to call anything good because their opinions would be made fun of. So, now there's a "stars on their bellies" mindset with people afraid to say, "wow, that was a great match!" because they don't want someone showing up and saying another match is better or calling them stupid. So objectively, each mindset has its advantages and disadvantages. I tend to lean toward explanation, not because I'm out to bully anyone or make fun of their opinions or anything, but just to promote discussion. When we can start talking about the way wrestling matches are worked, the advantages and disadvantages to certain styles, approaches and moves, and then start comparing them to other matches under the same criteria, the whole message boarding thing is more fruitful. There's a time for marking out for what's cool, and that's a large part of what pro wrestling is and what it's supposed to be. I'll never deny that. When you throw out a rating, though, you're basically becoming a reviewer by choice, and I think it's important to be able to differentiate from the "cool" and the "great".

HTQ, I didn't really understand either. I'm assuming this guy is a supplier?