Loss

Are we switching from podcasts that supplement message board discussion to message board discussion that supplements podcasts?

I don't think it's so much a blanket answer. Something like Kawada-Taue in January 1991 was a short, bloody brawl and it was atypical for All Japan. Yet I still loved it. With Cesaro-Zayn, to me, it just exposed how much of a facade WWE developmental is. They could have had the same match in PWG in 2011. Have either of them really grown as workers since that time? It's not as egregious, obviously, and it's not even really the fault of the workers, but I put it in the same category as something like Undertaker-HHH where all of WWE's warts are so much in plain view that the match quality almost can't overcome it. I also thought it was representative of a lot of problems with the current wrestling style, where the emotion generated was entirely based on the impressive athletic feats. I don't think the crowd cared who won or lost, nor do I think they cared about them as actual characters. On its own, that's not enough to make a match terrible, and I do think the match was good. But it in no way belongs on a list of the best 100 matches on the Network. I can watch something like Rey-Psicosis or Misawa-Kobashi that borders on excessive, but if I ask myself if the match would still be great if they eliminated half of their "stuff", the answer would be yes in both cases. With Cesaro-Zayn, it was all stuff. That's not to say that it wasn't a smart match, but it was smart in a wrestling nerd way (playing off of previous matches) instead of feeling like something that would appeal to a wide, major-league audience. And that's supposed to be the entire reason NXT even exists. I try to judge matches on their own terms as much as possible. The exact same match happening in an indy I probably would have liked far more because it would have been a better contextual fit.

Looks like this match was actually on 3/22 according to WON results. I'm changing the date. We incorrectly had it as 3/15 on the original listing.

I mean it's cooled off even from a few months ago.

I noticed a few times lately that the Cena backlash has cooled off to a certain degree. Is that possibly because people realize that he's no longer being pushed as the top star of the company?

Funny how we have heard reports over the last year of HHH and Stephanie being at war with all three of them.

I still don't understand what happened with Adam Rose. They did a great job hyping his debut, then they decided he wasn't over at all after only one appearance where I don't even know what they expected as far as reaction. And since then, he's been on a downward spiral. He's not a great talent or anything, but he had a catchy gimmick that could have given him a decent run.

Supposedly, Cesaro, Sheamus and Roman Reigns all have personalities that would translate well to television that they aren't really allowed to show.

Has Stan Lane ever talked about Ric Flair's training?

It's probably naive of me, but I tend to see Chyna as a sympathetic figure. I think she's genuinely mentally ill, so I try to cut her some slack.

Agreed. Be the change you want to see in the world. Modern WWE has actually made me hate wrestling, so I need someone to step in and remind me of its awesomeness.

I wasn't even suggesting sending him to NXT so he could reap the benefits of good booking. I was thinking that if they really wanted to make it a strong touring act and compete with independents, using a guy who was a consistent indy draw for nearly a decade isn't the worst way to do that.

I think so. The Cleveland show sold out at 1,100 according to the WON. The usual (current) ECW Arena Set up holds about 1,000. So at least in that small sample, they are running about 1,000 seat venues. The next step up then would be 1,500 - 2,000 capacity buildings I'd think. I think if NXT was built around Bryan they would have a good shot of adding the 500 - 1,000 fans needed to make that step up. Just in terms of the "indie audience", I think having Bryan on top would give them a boost. On paper Bryan vs. Itami, Owens, Zayn, Neville, and Balor feel like bigger/fresher matches than any of those guys wrestling each other. Bryan vs. KENTA was a big match on the indies and those two haven't had a singles match in 6 1/2 years (they haven't had a singles match in the US in almost 8 years). Its hard to imagine that they couldn't do 1,800+ in Philly, New York, Chicago, ect. (historically strong ROH cities where ROH draws 1,000-ish currently) with that match on top, particularly if they avoided running it on TV before hand. Bryan only wrestled Pac once (in the UK in 2009) and as far as I am aware, he's never wrestled Devitt. I feel like those matches would probably entice the ROH/indie audience. Beyond that, Bryan headlined house shows are drawing in the 4,000 range recently with him and Kane working singles matches on top. Obviously he has help below on those shows underneath and they benefit from being promoted as "main roster" WWE shows. At the same time, you are only talking about needing a couple of hundred more casual fans to go to an NXT show for Bryan to make it worth it. I don't think its a stretch to say that could happen. As you said, not sure they should do it unless they have a specific end game in mind to "elevate" NXT from developmental brand to secondary brand. I am not sure that they do. I also have a feeling that the novelty of NXT will wear off at some point. It will be interesting to see what happens if they start going back to non-FL cities a second, third, or fourth time. If the interest level remains high, eventually they will have to elevate those guys up the ladder or at least start compensating them similar to the main roster wrestlers. I agree with this take. I think a great angle that would revitalize him would be for The Authority to take him off of TV with the idea that he doesn't belong on the big stage. Everyone knows NXT is HHH's baby, and he'll be right under HHH's thumb. In the meantime, Bryan conquers the odds in NXT and becomes their top veteran with the other top indy stars aiming to knock him off the throne until he eventually does a real torch passing and finds his way back on regular television. In his absence, a #BringBackBryan movement could get some steam on social media too. And in the meantime, the only way to see him every week is to subscribe to the WWE Network. Of course, his ceiling is much higher than this, but he's never going to get there, so this would actually be a productive way to use him.

Not watching. The booking has been that bad.

I am not advocating this at all, but if they moved Daniel Bryan to NXT and built around him, could they upgrade to slightly bigger buildings?

Love & Hip Hop Star Testifies Under Oath That Reality Shows Aren't Real

The going theory is that everyone is being paid based on how the shows did the year before.

The Wrestlemania crowd heat will be what it is, and dome heat is always a weird thing. But the next night on RAW should be fantastic.

All other things the same, if Ted Turner would have never gotten into wrestling, the WWF would have had a monopoly by the end of 1988 when JCP was pretty much bankrupt. Jarrett was actually better positioned to go for a national run than anyone else because he was running two separate territories, had a pay-per-view and an ESPN time slot. And his chances weren't particularly strong either, and he's not the type that would have paid some of the NWA free agents that could have helped him enough to make it worth their while. The AWA was on fumes. I guess 1989 would have been analogous to 2001, with matches like Hogan-Flair, Savage-Flair, Demolition-Road Warriors, MX-Rockers, Sting-Warrior and Hogan-Luger not really hitting as big as one would expect on the surface.

So why aren't the other wrestling promotions still around then? I realize Vince played a dirty game in some cases that made whatever problems they had worse, but I still think all of them would have eventually crumbled because they didn't have enough foresight to navigate a changing landscape. Which territory would be alive now? Which person who ran a territory is young enough -- relatively speaking -- to be running a national wrestling company today? Or beyond that, which promoter seemed to be grooming someone to fill that spot when they retired? I guess the independents would be around, but the appeal would be quite limited on a national scale.

Most of the time, NXT exists as a place for already talented workers to put in time so they can be needlessly repackaged and WWE can push them while mentally considering them their own creations. It's a way to make them feel good about themselves and above pro wrestling. Vince's daddy issues are quite the expense for the company. The so-called WWE style is exaggerated. It's basically: - Do everything toward the hard camera, but don't look directly at it - Work a double KO spot into each match - Come up with a ridiculous gesture to pop the crowd before hitting your finisher, but don't play to them otherwise - Pattern your matches so they are basically the same - if you aren't willing to make moves signature spots, don't do them - Walk backwards when leaving the ringside area Nothing that couldn't be emphasized in a simple orientation, other than nailing down their exact overblown entrance.

Wrestling would be like roller derby if Vince hadn't been successful. It would be something people talked about and remembered fondly if they grew up with it, but it would be largely forgotten and considered a relic of the past. Hell, that's a perception battle WWE has on an ongoing basis anyway, and they are alive and well.

Yes, it would be nice if Daniel Bryan was pushed as the top star. But he's not even pushed as *a* top star. That's the part that bugs me -- not that he's behind their chosen one in the pecking order. But that he's also behind people like Seth Rollins and Randy Orton. While I don't agree with the logic completely, I can at least see why they don't want to get behind Bryan at the level they got behind someone like John Cena. But he should be higher on the card than Randy Orton of all people.

I've said this before, but I suspect that the underlying goal is for HHH to create a shadow promotion of wrestlers, announcers, referees, a crew and a production team that is loyal to him first and foremost. One day, we'll look up and Vince will still have his title but will be almost a non-factor in day-to-day operations, because nearly everyone in the company is an HHH guy as opposed to a Vince guy. It's actually a wise play on HHH's part, because if he sits around and waits for Vince to retire, he will never get there.

I also don't know that if someone else had won the war, they could have sustained a healthy business as long as Vince has. I love Bill Watts, but he was out of touch with the public in 1992 (at least at first) and there's no way he'd still be working as much as Vince does in 2015. And he's the best alternative candidate to win the war. Jerry Jarrett I do think understood the audience at large pretty well, but he wasn't willing to spend money to make money. Everyone else was so overwhelmingly stuck in their ways (which says a lot because Vince pretty strongly resembles that remark himself) that they could not have sustained in the long term.