Loss

They don't make 'em like Michael Hayes anymore. Society's gain is wresting's loss.

The psychotic smile is the stuff dreams are made of for heel fans, though.

To be fair, the critique of modern wrestling is about storyline development, faces and heels, the way crowds react and the sense of monopoly more than it is the quality of the in-ring action.

Also, credit where it's due: HHH didn't take his usual victory lap on a weekend where he's slotted as the top heel passing the torch to the new face of the company.

My rundown: I thought the opener was terrific and was really developing into a great match until they overshot a few times. I noticed -- at least here -- that Scott Dawson really carries the team, and that the moments that didn't quite connect where the ones when Dash Wilder had to do something. I love the idea behind The Revival and think they could eventually become a great team. They're already very good. Chad Gable is fantastic. I hope his long-term fate is better than that of someone like Neville. Corbin-Aries didn't strike me as a particularly good match, but it had a purpose and made it work well. I liked how they got over Aries' strikes as the ultimate equalizer, and Corbin using a nerve hold in front of an NXT crowd is some high-quality trolling. I realized watching this that Baron Corbin will get an infinite number of chances to get over on the main roster. Zayn-Nakamura was outstanding. I'd put it at ****1/2. I haven't watched much wrestling from 2016, but I think I enjoyed it more than the high-end matches on the Tokyo Dome show, and more than anything else I've watched this year. When I look at what they did in the match, while they certainly busted out a lot of cool stuff, it was a more minimalist effort than some may expect. I'm hoping that crowd reactions to Sami Zayn last night, tomorrow night and Monday night will be strong enough to bleed over to Raw on a weekly basis, where he hasn't seemed very over. Bayley-Asuka I don't want to comment on. I was too stuck in afterglow mode to really focus like I wanted to, so I will watch it again later today and comment then. Bayley's entrance in a big arena definitely works. Samoa Joe gave the performance of the night in the main event. I thought the match was a shade below great because Finn seemed kind of unremarkable. Joe was phenomenal. I think he realized that what they were dealt was probably way more compelling than whatever they had planned out. He seemed to realize he could milk shoving the refs away for drama pretty quickly. Whether Finn realized the uniqueness of the moment or not I don't know. I didn't see any evidence that he did.

I tend to agree with those who have said it's a good thing for everyone's sake he's going through NXT. If he were to start on the main roster without first learning all of the idiosyncracies of the WWE style, he'd get a label as not being as good as everyone thinks, which he doesn't deserve. He may still get that label, but he's at least getting the opportunity to learn WWE's religion. I actually thought he did a little less than he does in a usual New Japan match (and I mean that as a positive), so he's probably going to be a quick study. What's tough to imagine is him doing the weekly two commercial break matches, or even doing the 3-5 minute specials or going 50-50 with guys like Kevin Owens, and still reaching his potential as a star. He's helped in that he can speak English (although I have no idea how fluent he is), and he's also helped that they want to use him to break into a new market. Then again, they also wanted to use Adam Rose to draw in the UK.

Unable to complete a promo without uttering the phrase "Big Man Upstairs" ...

If there was something I wish we could have done differently, it probably would have been back in 2006 to start more siloed projects immediately to prepare for the next poll -- Best WWE worker, Best WCW worker, etc. Or even something divided by eras, or any subcategory really. Then the decade project is the culmination of the smaller projects that have all been building to that moment. I do think something like that with matches would be a better approach if we're going to do it, or at least to go that route after doing an initial baseline poll that is wide open.

Speaking of which, WWE has made such a big deal about Dusty - tribute shows on the Network, a statue, etc. - but very little in comparison about Roddy, who was by far a bigger star for WWE. I realize Dusty contributed a lot behind-the-scenes in his final years, but it's still strange that Roddy is barely mentioned or canonized the way Dusty has been. Forever, it seemed like wrestling colloquially started in 1984. Now, their history seems to almost be that wrestling started with the Monday Night Wars. They play up that era far, far more than Rock N Wrestling for reasons I don't get.

Watching NXT, the HOF and Mania. I originally planned to go to Dallas and can't, which bums me out because I do love Texas and would like to meet some people. I'm for sure going to Orlando next year -- no ifs, ands or buts. We kind of have a home understanding that I'm turning the whole house into a man cave of sorts for a weekend. NXT show looks great on paper and I'm really excited about it, the HOF I'm looking forward to almost exclusively for Jacqueline and Snoop Dogg speeches and I can only hope Wrestlemania is deliciously bad. Some of the Undertaker-Shane excitement does confuse me because it seems like people who should know better seem to think Shane is going to run Creative if he wins and shake everything up, but I'd actually call that a compliment to WWE. They've done a good job building interest in that match, all things considered.

This board will be 10 years old in January, 12 years if you count its predecessor. Dylan's "end of an era" talk make me sad, as he's been here for all of it and has been kind of a constant presence. Unfortunately, as was the case with the Smarkschoice poll in 2006, that type of finality is one of the side effects of such grandiose projects sometimes -- it does often mark the end of something. A list of the people who were around posting regularly in 2006 would read like a virtual graveyard. Many of them I'd love to see around and posting. Many of them I hope the door didn't hit on the way out. But it was an enjoyable time to be talking about wrestling, even though I think it's even better now -- interestingly, as I've lost interest in current wrestling, I think the discussion quality has continuously improved. I have no plans to close shop or go anywhere, and so many of the things I've learned about myself in this project are so diametrically opposed to the things Dylan has learned. Still, in those opposite takes, there is some commonality. I didn't mean for this post to sound like a eulogy, as I know Dylan is still going to be a wrestling fan and probably still be as prevalent as he ever was, just in a different way. But for history-inclined fans, it looks like we might be losing a really cool voice. In the past few years, we've gained some really cool voices too, and I'm sure in five years, I'll be trading barbs with people half my age who aren't even around right now about Ric Flair's signature spots. Some things never change. But I've grown to like you guys, and I do hope when the podcast bubble bursts (which it will), and when we are burned out on projects (which we will be) that there's still a sense of community here, and that many of you are still around. If this project represents an end to some aspects of our wrestling fandom, let it represent the beginning of other parts of the experience.

I'd also add that there are only a handful of contentious wrestlers. We spend a lot of time focusing on those few, so it's easy to forget that there has never been a huge divide in what people consider good and bad in wrestling, and I'm even involving Dave Meltzer in that. It's just that the outliers eat up most of the attention and discussion. For every Shawn Michaels, there's a dozen wrestlers that virtually everyone agrees are great.

Parv giving Dory Funk Jr. more chances is a microcosm of this project. If you feel that about his take on Dory, then do you feel that way about the project as a whole, where we don't vote for wrestlers who aren't nominated first? That in itself fosters and promotes canon. It's unavoidable. Anytime anyone expresses an opinion of any kind, they're contributing to a wrestling opinion complex. All we can really do is be aware of it. Spending more time on Dory Funk Jr. than on, say, Seiji Sakaguchi, is merely an attempt to understand the opinions and ideas espoused by other people.

I just hope if it's going to be a bad show that they go all the way with it and make it horrible. Make it a bad show like Uncensored '95 instead of a bad show like Battleground the last two years.

Sorry, one more point: I'm only deferential to canon in the sense that it helps me prioritize who and what to watch. But if I think something is lousy, hell if I'm giving it credit, even if it's pretty universally loved. Someone else can cart that horse.

I'm actually glad you made that post because it gives me a chance to talk about that take as deference to canon, which I've been meaning to do. I can see how that conclusion would be easy to draw, but that's not actually it. I am not ranking any wrestlers based on anything except my own observations. I can sometimes see greatness that leaves me apathetic all the same. Have you ever watched a match where there's nothing wrong with it, but it just doesn't punch you in the gut? When you look at what they did in the match, it was well-worked, but it failed to excite you on any level. I actually see a lot of wrestling like that -- stuff that feels dry but is technically very good and when you try to figure out why you didn't have that visceral reaction, you realize it was something completely incidental that doesn't mean that much. I have trouble with Masa Chono matches because his breathing pattern creeps me out, as one example, so even his great performances don't really pop me. I hate Shawn's entrance music and ring attire. Don't get me started on Toyota, who won't stop shrieking. I have that experience watching wrestling frequently enough that I tried to account for it in my ballot.

This probably doesn't mean anything, but they supposedly figured out what Austin and Michaels are doing on the show weeks ago, while plans for Rock haven't been concrete nearly as long. One thing I don't expect him to do on the show is endorse Reigns. Something tells me that lesson was learned in 2015.

I tend to lean more toward Parv's way of thinking about these things as objectively as the human experience can allow (realizing it can't ever happen, but still trying), and I feel like it's worth clarifying that this is not my philosophy on the right way to watch wrestling, nor do I think it's Parv's, even if I am the type that will give a match ***1/2 if I don't really get into it much, but still think it was well-worked by whatever criteria I'd normally call any match well-worked. But aiming to make my ballot about something more than just my personal tastes did feel like the right approach for trying to provide an answer to the question, "Who is the greatest wrestler?" I wasn't aiming to fully oppress my opinions as much as I was trying to balance them out by realizing some guy isn't just the greatest wrestler ever because I enjoy him the most. That seems self-important. It was an attempt at humility. Guided or misguided, who knows.

It probably explains WWE's decisions to an extent for sure, but if I'm a promoter, I'm not looking for convenient answers on why my most marketable stars aren't also the most over with live crowds. That the two things aren't in harmony suggests that something structural is broken somewhere. It's a topic we've beaten to death here, and I know everyone has their theories, but to me, it's still something WWE should seek to fix, whether they change who they push because of it or not.

Yeah, and there are think tanks devoted to researching disparities in healthcare based on financial status, geographic location and probably a few dozen other factors. No way we can even begin to address that one here.

I should add how awesome Brie Bella came across in the 24 special. It really puts in perspective how the somewhat shallow, materialistic, argumentative Brie Bella we get on Total Divas is not at all who she really is. It was cool seeing that side of her.

Dave Meltzer went to a concussion seminar and asked a question hypothetically about Daniel Bryan, explaining his situation without using his name. The person doing the seminar mentioned the new testing available to him, and Dave floated the info to Bryan, who got the tests and reality set in.

Is that online anywhere? It's not.

Fujiwara-Takada from the UWF on 10/25/90 more closely resembles the human game of chess than any match I can recall seeing. I'm not ready to agree with that point.

This was one of my favorite threads.