Loss

It's especially relevant in wrestling because it's actually seen as a weakness that WWE draws from all age groups instead of being especially strong with one age group.

I'd also add that works both ways. Smackdown at its peak had more viewers than RAW, but it was part of a much bigger Network audience, so the rating was always going to be lower, even if it was the more popular show. I still knew a decent number of people who didn't have cable in 1999, which meant Smackdown was their first exposure to WWE and they became fans off of that.

I've argued in the past that we should look at number of viewers instead of overall rating when trying to gauge WWE's popularity, so I'm with you. But what number do advertisers and networks care about? Because that's really the only number that matters. Most ratings talk I've read that isn't centered on wrestling takes an even more narrow view -- everything that's not a number among the 18-49 demo is tossed out as irrelevant.

Ratings shouldn't be impacted by the number of available homes, because a rating is a percentage of available homes that watched the show, is it not? A show on a network with less available homes would have a higher rating than a show with more available homes if a higher percentage of the available homes were watching the network with less available homes, even if the show had less viewers overall. Writing that made my head hurt. I apologize in advance for anyone having to read it.

Here's a different topic -- as we get more into the Modern Era of WWE, when do some behind-the-scenes people other than Vince start getting nominated? I tweeted Dave asking if anyone had ever discussed Kevin Dunn or Jim Johnston with him. But along those lines, is anyone really tracking any contributions Michelle Wilson or George Barrios are making to the company? Hell, Stephanie McMahon has been an important executive for the company for 15 years. I'm not advocating her as a candidate, but I do think she should be put on the ballot so people can talk about her actual successes and failures heading Creative in the 2000s. If it really is true that WWE is driven by the brand, I think it's time to start looking more closely at the people responsible for shaping and maintaining the brand.

Is Cena doing the open challenge again?

I think I've read that Tamura was a very good shooter, but he wasn't great because he instinctively left himself open because he was so used to working cooperative spots. Is there truth in that? Is he the only guy to whom that would apply who has done both?

The kind of thing that makes me wonder which top guy he's taking a fall for.

Oh, I don't see him going up the card at all, but I do wish they'd re-tool it a little bit. He has a great insincere smile and he sounds like a motivational speaker, but I'd like to see them dial it up way, way more. Give the guy a headset mic and have him give a copy of his latest audiobook to fans as he walks to the ring. Hold seminars with other wrestlers where he condescends to them about how their lives and careers have fallen apart. That sort of thing. That gimmick requires more of a cult of personality than he has.

It is PPV versions for the most part, but if there was a problem with their source video, they would use the home video version. At times, they have mixed the two. And any commercial music is overdubbed.

I actually sort of like that he sucks if only because it adds to the gimmick.

I have still liked the Liger I've seen in 2015, even if he's no longer in the best in the world conversation. Do other people like him as much as me as he's gotten older?

Perhaps the nominating committee can list all of the AWA and All Japan matches featuring Bockwinkel that were watched and didn't make the set. 70s Bock would be great to have more of, of course (even 80s Flair would be great to have more of), but my point is that there's more out there on tape of 80s Bockwinkel. The AWA set wasn't meant to be a complete look at Bockwinkel, or even an in-depth one, really. So there's plenty more where that came from that should be easily accessible.

Great that people are open to watching more Flair matches, but I don't see how anyone learns more about Bockwinkel by watching more Flair matches. And that was my point -- not that people aren't giving Flair a fair shake and checking out more of his matches, but rather that comparisons of Bockwinkel to Flair fall short when the comparison points are Bockwinkel's highlights as opposed to a more holistic look at Flair.

That's an interesting take, because I don't know that Rey has anything that touches Liger's best matches with Sano, Otani and Samurai. I would actually see them in the opposite way, where the consistency argument goes to Rey (except for the brief unmasked period) where the high point argument goes to Liger. I think about Eddy-Rey in 1997, which seems like the hallmark match of the cruiserweight style, but when I think about Liger-Sano, it transcends that.

I think the story there was that Patterson told Dave he knew Flair/Hogan would draw well, but not as well as something like Hogan/Undertaker since Undertaker was more established on television.

Who are Bockwinkel's signature rivals and who would be the most comparable Flair rival in each case? This is a case just like any of the other comparisons where I think the method for getting to the opinion is far more interesting and revealing than the opinion itself.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying a lot of Bockwinkel was probably watched that didn't make the AWA or All Japan sets at all, and I am asking if people who are so eager to make this comparison have bothered to seek that stuff out and watch it as well. If so, have at it. At least at that point comparisons are being made on the closest point possible to similar ground.

Just curious why you think this is particularly true for this pair? Anyone who's watched all the '80s sets has at least a solid grasp of Bockwinkel. We're never going to get a full glimpse of his (or Flair's) work from the '70s so that's a dead end. We've seen Flair's ups and downs. We've basically seen a "best of" of cream of the crop matches of Bockwinkel. Deducing that either is better than the other based on that alone is unfair. I agree that something like the AWA set is enough to have a solid grasp of Bockwinkel, but if you limit it to that, the easy takeaway is that he never had any bad matches. Most people have seen a lot more Flair than has made 80s sets, so they've seen his low points (and other high points). With Bockwinkel, I think most of us have seen the equivalent of a Greatest Hits at best, where with Flair, we've gotten the box set of rarities and B-sides.

I understand all of that. I don't expect Vince to set aside his biases, but I would be pleasantly surprised if he did, and I still think it's justified to criticize him for not doing it when the situation warrants it, even if he was acting perfectly in character. This had the potential to be a game changer. Instead it was just a good world title feud that lasted a couple of months on house shows. Yes, anyone could have seen it coming given how the WWF does business. But this is like the Invasion, the NWO, Goldberg coming in and countless other things as something Vince can't make the most of because he didn't create all of the principles himself from scratch. The good that comes out of it is that he can make many things work that have no business working because they are his concepts and he believes in them. The bad is that when he inherits a great opportunity where the interest is already there, he's pretty terrible at capitalizing on it. As far as the Larry King quote, Vince was working. I don't think it was so much about offering an opinion on how good Flair was. But it would be foolish to say in a public forum that the competition has a better world champ, whether he felt that way or not.

I guess my issue was that this should have been presented as the single biggest feud in the history of the company, which means a sharper departure from normal tropes. The way they did it was fine, but they left most of the potential at the door by just presenting him as yet another WWF superstar instead of someone who defies the term. Anything less than something earth-shattering that permanently changed the face of the company was going to be disappointing for me, because I think Hogan-Flair done right had the potential to be the biggest feud of all time, not just a "strong program". If you read the wrestling magazines and the endless speculation over who would win a match between these two in the decade preceding this, it really was the biggest dream match that had ever fallen into the WWF's lap at this point in time. And I think Flair needed to be presented as far more of an outsider to make it work at that level.

Yeah, other than Dylan, I'm not sure if anyone has seen enough of both guys at all points of their careers to make a fair comparison.

Yeah, I've been really, really (really) underwhelmed with the Finlay I've seen before his WCW debut in 1996, except for his matches with Young David in the early 80s. I'm not prepared to defend the argument, but I wouldn't be surprised if one could be made that he really didn't become a great worker until he went stateside. Another thing -- it's not like people were always on the edge of their seats during Regal matches, but there are many cases of him winning over a tough crowd. Finlay was about as over in WCW as Van Hammer, sadly. Even if he was churning out solid work, it wasn't really connecting in a way that made it easy for fans to get into most of his matches. He seems like a guy who oddly enough peaked as an all-around performer in his late 40s while working in WWE. I love some of the matches with Benoit and Regal, and I really love the Booker T match at the '98 Great American Bash. But at a certain point, a guy has to get a decent reaction from his work for me to consider him great, and Finlay played to crickets too often.

In most cases, that is true, but laughing at something/someone who is supposed to be taken seriously isn't necessarily a good thing. It can be salvaged and changed into something else though.

My first instinct was that "you look stupid" is not a chant that really does someone who could become champion at any time any favors in terms of being taken seriously. Then again, Roddy Piper "wore a skirt" when feuding with Hogan and was the top heel of the era. "Paul-a!" chants were in full swing when Hogan and Orndorff drew huge crowds in 1986. So maybe it's not the death knell I thought it was. WWE is a company that makes things work that have no business working when looking at them on paper just as much as they are a company that misses can't-miss opportunities all the time. Accepting that is something that is helping me find solace as a wrestling fan.