Loss

After reading the last batch of posts, shodate has been banned, mainly because he hasn't shown any commitment to improving his grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. I've talked to him about it too many times and nothing has changed.

I do like you. I also like Magnum Milano and gordi. We have a difference of opinion on this, but the history that you mentioned doesn't change as a result.

I think it gets more subscribers, but it's such short-term thinking. Dave talked in the Lance Russell bio about how they could have drawn a house off of a heel attacking Lance since the audience loved him so much, but they wanted to keep him credible. So, just saying ...

I acknowledge that there's nothing atypical about how WWE handled the whole thing as a company, but for them to just fire him and wash their hands of the whole thing always rubbed me the wrong way. How did a guy who holds these views rise to the level he did in this world, traveling so extensively in the company of others, and interacting with so many fans, without anyone noticing? And if the company knew it and didn't care because he was such a cash cow, aren't they just as bad as him? (These are rhetorical questions, but stay with me.) They marketed him to children for the better part of the decade, only for him to later be exposed as a bigot, a drug user, and someone who can't be trusted on any issue. They built a national empire around him. Sure, you can't blame WWE for what he said in confidence 20+ years after his peak, but WWE putting all of this on Hogan doesn't seem like the right thing to do either. Even if their response is, "Well, we do a much better job of vetting people now before we market them to specific audiences", that can be criticized or debated but it's at least acknowledging that this is just as much a WWE story as it is a Hogan story. Hogan is not the only person with a dark side to ever have success in pro wrestling, but as one of the biggest names in wrestling history -- maybe the biggest -- he should be held to a higher standard, specifically because he was marketed as a hero to children for so long.

Summerslam that year was really successful pushing the idea of two Undertakers. If Dave really thinks that didn't connect, he's pretty insulated.

We need another upgrade, which means we'll need to schedule a time to take the board temporarily offline. I'll try my best to do it overnight and during a time when there aren't many shows happening or no big news is breaking.

Jericho has really carved out a space in the wrestling landscape that's all his. Good for him.

I don't think he's a troll. I think he has views on wrestling that deviate from the norm and there's nothing wrong with that. I also think he needs to avoid talk of politics and clean up his posts, but most posts seem to get four to five piled-on responses that don't help anything. It might end the way you think it will end and it might not. There was a poster long ago that people kept urging me to ban who turned out to be a pretty valuable member of the board over time. His name was JerryvonKramer. Anyway, if he makes even one more political post, he's out of here. If he can't improve the spelling and grammar of his posts, he's out of here. I'm trying to be understanding of English not being his first language and give him time to acclimate himself, and because he has pointed people to matches that they like, I'm trying to assume the best in his intentions.

I believe that you genuinely believe things. I also think your aggressors sometimes make harmless posts a bigger deal than they really are. But I implore you to avoid political talk.

The chinlocks don't bother me because he's usually talking trash and other stuff while he's applying it, unlike Orton, who just uses it to kill time when he's a heel.

Yeah, shodate, you said you wouldn't post anything else political, but you still did. Don't. Final warning. Thanks in advance for cooperating, and there's no need for anyone else to address it in this thread.

Any company with that much volume is going to have a lot of skippable content. And the CMLL for the 2000s looks awfully promising to me.

Definitely curious what other prominent work he's had that I'm missing. It may be pure envy, but Tanahashi certainly has some terrific hair. I'd put that on my head any day even if I could never pull it off I think Daniel Bryan was pretty good and normal looking pre-beard. If you look at The Rock between 1999 and 2001, the differences in his face stand out quite a bit.

I think Kevin Owens falls into this category too. He's not as amazing as his biggest fans make him out to be, but I don't find myself as bored by his matches as many people do here.

I doubt he's #1, but would El Generico/Sami Zayn be in the top tier?

I think this needs its own thread since I see him cited all over the place more than I used to. Dave insists that he's a con man working a gimmick, which sounds like Gene Okerlund and the WCW Hotline to me. Are there people who think he's credible? Why? This is also a good time to vent about the toxic, anti-truth movement his podcast (and Vince Russo's, for that matter) have created on Twitter, with their followers trolling Dave constantly.

Really? CMLL has a presence in the U.S. and Japan through their deals with ROH and NJPW, and before that, they leased their brand name to a third party to run as CMLL Japan. Their style was also copied (and altered) by Hamada's UWF, Michinoku Pro, Dragon Gate, Toryumon, etc. Top stars like El Hijo del Santo and Blue Panther have toured Europe. Rey has been a big influence on hiring practices in the U.S., with smaller guys actually getting a real shot. The working style also has more high flying than ever, which I'd attribute to the lucha libre influence. What am I missing?

Audible and visible calling of matches is the biggest knock if we want to go after something.

CMLL runs away with this for me, if only because they've peaked as high as any company anyone can name, and they're still kicking after all this time. JCP/WCW from 1986-1994 has a special place in my heart because it's where I cut my teeth and in spite of being classically inept, sometimes the chaos would result in a hellacious show.

Yeah, Dave talks about how people in WWE in the 2000s would contact him and say Ric Flair was still the best worker in the company. Which is odd because I didn't realize Mark Madden worked there.

His chest was such a mess after the GRRE the doctors won't let him perform. (For real.) You do know that Bryan worked the dark match vs Nakamura after 205 Live, right? Feels like WWE has no idea what they want to do with Daniel Bryan. Admittedly, part of that is likely that they aren't sure how his health will hold up over the long haul. The thing that stands out is that while he's one of their top guys and I do think they're treating him that way, it doesn't seem like they have a direction to speak of for him, despite so many potential opponents.

This.