Loss

I haven't seen it yet, but I'd say it has to beat: HHH last man standing (Fully Loaded 2000) Benoit ladder match (Royal Rumble 2001) HHH quad tear tag (RAW 5/01) TLC III (Smackdown 5/01) Shawn Michaels ladder match (No Mercy 10/08) The Rey series in '09

To be clear, I blame no one except myself for any bad feelings anyone had with GWE, even if everything didn't involve me directly. I posted my critiques of the whole project early on, which sort of undercut what people were going for from within in a way that I still regret. It's no one else's fault. I don't want to be in the way of people doing a GME project and having fun with it, but I've learned my lesson there. The bigger issue is that I don't want to create burnout after the fact that results in activity slowing way down or people leaving and not coming back. I'm sure the project will be great. For the most part, GWE was great. It just left PWO a little worse off than it found it. I take responsibility for that, which is why I don't want to let it happen again.

I asked that it not be, since GWE's lasting impact on this board was a bit negative and the discussion became too personal at times. I don't think that's the destiny of all countdown projects, and I'm sure this one will go well. It's just that for a variety of reasons, I don't think this is the right message board to do it.

To be fair, I do think there's a difference between the hierarchy-related win-loss decisions that are more common in Japanese booking and upper midcarders getting jobbed out to John Cena. I'd love multi-year chases in American booking, but I don't think the writers have the focus and I don't think the fans have the attention span or patience. But in general, American booking could do much better at getting over long-term programs and Japanese booking could do much better at striking while the iron is hot. (I realize that's not what you're even talking about. This just seemed like a good place to drop that thought.)

According to Dave, Gedo's vision for Okada is to make him the modern Antonio Inoki. In other words, not only is he the current top star, but they want to build him up as a legend and promote him strong to the point that fans think of him as the greatest wrestler of all time. That means he almost never loses on the biggest shows, since those tend to be the ones people remember the most.

I don't think I'd argue this as a match worth being overwhelmed by. It's a triumph of layout more than a triumph of quality. It was cool as a novelty that they worked a 1980s-style match. I'd go *** at most, and I'm not even sure I'd go that high, mainly because Alexa's performance lacked aggression. But I liked what they were going for here, and I appreciated the attempt to do something different.

Zayn has really committed himself as a heel and while he and Styles had a good match, it was far below the quality two guys at that level should have. I think the issue is that working heel negates his natural babyface charisma and he mutes his offense in a way that doesn't suit him. He is capable of playing a heel, sure, and he's really good at the obnoxious heel role. And hey, he has something to do now at least, and he's in the top mix. I'm hopeful that with more time he can make it click, but I still think he's destined to be a babyface long-term. The problem is that historically, there are more cases of undersized obnoxious heels getting chances on top than plucky babyfaces.

Missed JJ/Cesaro, but got a chance to see Joe-Roman and Asuka-Bliss. I loved both. Asuka-Bliss was great for being worked in such an antithetical way. How often in WWE do you see such slow building matches that start with a lockup and the babyface mocking the heel, followed by a heel bailing outside and arguing with the ref before trying something different and all of that? Really old school layout. I dug it a lot. Joe-Roman was probably the first stellar match of the year. Tremendous. If Styles-Zayn delivers, that's a strong week of TV.

I kinda love the nihilism of this.

It seems like the nature of cash-ins usually necessitates a heel win, if only because it's kind of a sneaky thing to do instead of winning the title in a straight up announced match. There are exceptions, of course.

Here's hoping they realize that Reigns eliminating Rusev from the Royal Rumble match helps no one. I realize they aren't great at adjusting their Wrestlemania plans when someone catches fire around this time of year, but I think it's time to start shoving Rusev to the moon, even if that means Summerslam is where it culminates.

Return to PWO2K viewing, but allow myself more frequent viewing excursions from other time periods, including the present. Discover what balanced watching means for me. Get my collection more organized so I have a better feel for what I actually have.

I believe what he said was along the lines of there were no plans set but that could easily change. So not exactly the same sentiment and it's easier to interpret what Dave means when you hear him speak(as challenging it can be at times when he stammers or shuffles his notes) an when you read it. Dave ALWAYS says plans can change on anything he reports I'm not sure how this became a major knock on Dave when history has shown plans do change all the time. It's funny to me because Dave can basically never be wrong. He reports something that eventually happens = he's right. He reports something that doesn't end up happening = planes changed By always saying "I heard this but I don't know/anything can happen/plans change" he leaves room for any bad info he can get to be chalked up to last minute changes, it's genius and hilarious I think the relationship with Dave and his readers works better when we generally accept that he's aiming to tell us the truth as he understands it. I don't know that sitting back waiting for him to be wrong, like a game of gotcha, really goes anywhere worthwhile for a guy who has been doing a newsletter on pro wrestling every single week, without missing an issue since the 1980s. Wrap your heads around how insane that is and realize that the idiosyncrasies he has at this point could really be so much worse.

I think it would be really cool to get Mid South Coliseum in 1980 for Billy Robinson's run of arena matches while Lawler was out of action. The Memphis roster was actually stacked during that time with good vets and up and coming guys, so I can't imagine most shows not being good. Also, Phil, that War Games from The Omni is actually just a Bash '89 rematch. But I wonder if they took it any farther just because they didn't have to avoid the blade since they were saving it for Flair-Funk on top.

I'm really not looking forward to the next round of fights on Twitter with people who only watch WWE.

It is, yes. His dad worked for him at one time I think, helping manage subscriptions and shipments.

Muto is awesome, and I've never understood the critiques of him at all, other than his tendencies to sometimes dog it on small shows. But the same is true of Randy Savage, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and plenty of other high-level guys.

Each time I see the overrated/underrated question raised, I remember 2002 I think it was when PWI did their annual polling issue, and both the #2 most overrated and #2 most underrated wrestler was Chris Jericho. There's an interesting question. Which wrestlers are both? In other words, which wrestlers do you find that a significant number of people both praise too highly and criticize too harshly?

This board helps me keep enjoying wrestling. I would have given up a long time ago if I didn't have this outlet. It's funny that we started PWO to get away from opinions being so attached to personalities, but I've formed stronger bonds with people in the years since. I should be the one thanking all of you.

I'm on Twitter as @prowresonly. Even in this thread, though, I've seen people share their own examples of behaviors that they would never exhibit here or I'm assuming in personal interactions. Why? I don't get it.

With the caveat that I might have missed some context, it looked to me like pride took over for a moment and everyone wanted to be the first one to hit a dropkick.