Loss

I'm assuming they are shooting tons of Total Divas footage right now and that this will be a major part of the next season.

This likely isn't perfect, but I do think it's worth reading and discussing. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/money-in-the-bank/

Personally, I feel like whatever flaws exist in the match are overcome by what they were shooting for in the psychology. I loved how they built off of so many spots in the previous match where lessons were learned and counters were ready-made, and that's something that's a pretty drastic difference from the traditional house style. What's great about this match swallows its flaws whole for me.

You probably won't find anyone here with too much to say about it just because he seems to look down on wrestling and doesn't really talk about it much. Considering how his wrestling career went, I don't even blame him too much for that. But still, the end result is that he would rather talk about other things. I won't get into specifics here since this is PWO, but he said some things about traditional gender roles in society in an interview recently that pretty much ensured I will never listen to him.

He was fine with Nash until it was pointed out to him that Nash criticized him for his comments on ESPN's Outside The Lines in 1999.

Vince Russo loved Kevin Dunn.

The moral issues that bugged me the most about wrestling at that time were that Daniel Benoit made no choice to be in wrestling, yet there was so much talk from apologists about personal choice. I think had it been a horrible worker who did this, it might have been viewed differently as well, if only because it wouldn't have been an indictment of good wrestling and the sometimes horrible sacrifices it takes to produce it. Those great matches sometimes come at a heavy price. Chris Benoit was considered the model wrestler both inside and outside of wrestling. I wasn't a massive Benoit fan, though I did enjoy a lot of his matches. Still, he was living embodiment of hardcore wrestling fandom, so looking at the qualities we valued in our wrestling was a natural step. It's why I still have such an instinctively negative reaction when people complain about wrestlers being too small. Should they be taking steroids to bulk up so that credibility isn't sacrificed on a show where Vicki Guerrero argues with Miss Piggy?

Burying NXT talent to Vince in the WON is what started it. Plus, he and HHH are kind of at odds and HHH is seen as the good guy who just wants to give us a good wrestling show with new stars.

Thanks for putting these in one place. I hope you'll continue to update!

I think the issue is not so much a problem with Miz, but that it perpetuates the belief that it's not that hard to be a wrestler, and that they aren't really tough guys after all since even a scrawny reality star was able to get into it and be successful.

I really enjoyed doing this show. 1997 WWF is always fun to talk about.

That was before this happened. Honestly, when I heard that, I thought they might be thinking about releasing Cesaro.

The term "rest hold" bugs me because it suggests that all matwork is boring. I'd rather "rest holds" just be called what they are - bad, ill-timed, crowd-killing holds. I realize that's not as easy to type.

I'm hoping for WORLDWIDE. I'm holding my breath and expect to die!

I suppose.

Oh, their rationale for not adding more old stuff is that what is already there isn't really watched very much.

Paying up front should really have some incentive, even something small like a 10% discount. I would pay up front if I would save any money by doing it.

It took me over three years to stop hating wrestling after that happened. A lot of it was for sure overreaction in the moment, but we saw the ugly underbelly of wrestling in full view during that time period.

It's hard for me to be too critical of hyperbole when I called this year's Elimination Chamber match one of the top three in the history of WWE right after watching it, but that was kind of my clue to back off on doing that sort of thing. To be fair, when I watch wrestling in real time as opposed to watching old stuff, I tend to vastly overrate it in the moment. When his whole mantra is that doing so is the only right way to watch wrestling, I can see why he overrates lots of stuff.

'91, although '92 had the Rude/Chono final which was also pretty great. Off the top of my head, '93 had Tenryu/Hashimoto, Hase/Hashimoto, Chono/Hase all being really good. I'm actually going to be watching some stuff from the '99 G-1 over the next few days, although I'm not expecting it to be quite at that level.

The 1991 G-1 Climax was awesome too, as was 1995. The Championship Carnival in 1995 stands out. There's the annual super juniors tournament in New Japan which has happened since the 80s. There are also the Super Grade Tag Leagues and Real World Tag Leagues in NJPW and AJPW, respectively, that I think should be discussed. This year's G-1 may very well be the best, but I too don't like just stating it without even attempting to draw a comparison to previous tournaments.

That's a fantastic question. It would not surprise me in the least for it to happen again and for WWE to be blindsided by it again. Not that I'm advocating this, but if they really want Reigns to get over, maybe they should consider holding off Bryan's return until after Wrestlemania, even if he's ready before then.

I think that was a different firing than the February 2003 one, wasn't it?

They have made Summerslam a B-show because of the subscription cycle. Night of Champions is going to be the one they load up.

Watts campaigned for the job on the promise of getting Heyman fired. Kip Frey signed him to a contract paying him $250,000 per year. Watts hired a private investigator to follow Heyman on the road and they found him falsifying an expense report, which was the justification Watts needed to fire him. Heyman had his side of the story on that, but I don't remember specifics. Anyway, his dismissal led to a lawsuit and Heyman got a nice settlement. Heyman thought Bill Watts was anti-Semitic.