Loss

I loved that match!

That often happens with tenured guys in WWE. Matches with two captains sometimes don't live up to expectations. Both Bret and Shawn had better matches with Undertaker than each other, as one example of that.

Also, no discussion of Kane as a worker is complete without mentioning the Raw a few years back where Vince got weird and ordered him and Big Show to chain wrestle in their match.

The biggest positive Kane has is that he's 47 years old and is still in really good shape and able to hang at a level where the in-ring style is more demanding. I'm not sure 1996 Ric Flair -- when he was the same age -- could keep up now without super hard training and heavy motivation. 1991 Terry Funk could have. 1999 Randy Savage definitely couldn't have. To me, Kane's shining moment this year was in his match with Bryan on Main Event. He did a low-angle dropkick, which is a difficult move and was something people raved about when Eddy Guerrero introduced it in 1995. Now it's a standard spot that no one notices. Kane doesn't have good matches very often because of overbooking and because his gimmick works against it. The same applied to the Undertaker in the early 90s, only Undertaker doesn't get nearly the same amount of criticism. And I would argue that Kane now is way better than Undertaker was then -- or at least better than Undertaker showed himself to be then. I'm not a huge Kane fan, but I do think he has positives that get overlooked because he's almost constantly booked in hokey angles and match situations and has been for nearly two decades.

Hogan vs Sting was definitely my thought too. Goldberg vs Lesnar might deserve a mention too. They probably could have pulled off a good match.

Good show guys. Do you have any more information on the Jim Ross apology? What exactly did he say at the Clash that was so bad? On what television show was it that he apologized? Just curious. That sounds like something that would be interesting to watch. Sadly, I don't know more about Miki Handa.

It was actually an episode of Worldwide. They re-showed the highlights a lot on other shows.

Thanks for the support and believe me, I share the concerns you have about expanding too much. It's something I want to do carefully and with thought. I think there's a right way and a wrong way to attract more people to the site.

He wrote something in 1997 about World Class after Fritz Von Erich died that was pretty amazing.

Bray's heat belongs to Cena, not Bray. As soon as he feuds with another babyface that people actually like, he won't get cheered anymore. He doesn't have a following. It's more that Cena has an exodus.

I'm working on some things that I wanted to share with you all. A select few of you already know some of this, but I saw no need to keep it a secret from everyone any longer. I've mentioned before that I will be putting out a top 500 matches of the 90s. I've decided that instead of just doing a series of message board posts, I would like to make an e-book out of this concept. I will select the 500 best matches of the 90s from my point of view and review all of them in chronological order. As far as ranking the matches, I will save that for a message board post, as I think the contentious debate over the difference between number 388 and 389 will play well here, where I think it would distract from the content of an e-book. In addition to just reviewing matches in the e-book, I also plan to include some sidebar stories on fun/important news items, angles and promos throughout the decade. My hope is to create a viewing companion to watching wrestling all over the world in the 1990s that would also work as a bathroom reader. I'm targeting having this done and available by February. I've also decided that around this time, I would like to launch a front site for Pro Wrestling Only. I have already contacted some key people who I would like to have write content for the site and I will be contacting some more in the coming days, weeks and months. I think I have a good vision for what I want the website to be. I'll share more details as I'm able to nail more of it down, but I think you'll all be very happy with the final product. There are plenty of websites that cover wrestling news, and there are plenty of pop culture and sports websites that cover wrestling as one of many topics. I am aiming for something very different from what other sites are doing. More info on that front soon. Because my vision is ambitious and I want to do it right, I'm doing a lot of preparation and planning before launching, so we're still a long way from the site being a reality. That said, I am very open to ideas. If any of you would like to get on board and have ideas about how you might be able to contribute to something like this, please send me a private message and we will talk it out. Despite all of this, I want the message board that we have all fostered and made what it is to largely remain what it is. Any changes to the board I want to be minimal, if there are in fact any changes to it at all. However, I do want to expand our community and get more people posting here, so you'll probably notice me doing some outreach, both by posting more at other message boards around the Internet and in increasing our social media presence. We currently have over 500 followers on Twitter (please follow us if you aren't already!), but there are other forms of social media where I plan on giving us some presence in the near future. Just know that while I do want to expand, it's not worth expansion to the detriment of the quality of this board. We will continue moderating the board just as we do now to ensure that anyone who posts here isn't making this place a less fun outlet to talk about pro wrestling with other fans. Thanks to all of you for helping make this place awesome, and here's to the future!

Yes, all things equal, if Brie wasn't involved in that feud, it would still be bad, but not nearly as bad.

Dave arguing that Bryan not showing up to Raw in a limo devalues the role of the world champion is cringeworthy. His argument is that he's a world champion of a major corporation and as a result, Bryan can't be the everyman anymore, that he has to be a larger-than-life character because people don't buy tickets to see their neighbors. I sort of see where he's coming from, but there's a lack of understanding of Bryan's character here.

Talk about it here.

For whatever it's worth, according to Dave, the problem Batista has isn't so much with putting over Bryan. The problem is money and also feeling like they didn't keep their word to him about their planned creative for him when he came in. He went from winning the title at Mania to them wanting him to do three PPV jobs in a row.

And not only does it, but complains about it to Dave Meltzer. I guarantee he also thinks titles should mean something and that TNA should focus more on being an alternative.

I don't expect any, but it would be awesome if that set has any unreleased Bash tour matches, or even some that aired on TV but weren't on the commercial releases.

Suicide dive is the established name of a wrestling move, not something that someone here decided would be a clever way to describe a bad match. Abortion is a term that was used in wrestling to describe bad matches in the old days, but even Dave Meltzer stopped using it in the WON in 1988 when a reader pointed out that it's offensive. If you're interested in a real conversation about use of terms like this, please take it to feedback (and out of this thread) and we'll talk about it there. I asked politely - I didn't make an order - and he agreed not to do it. For the record, I've said the same things about unfortunate choice of words when someone will describe Hogan and Bischoff's relationship as Bischoff being "on Hogan's dick", for example. EDIT: Took out a sentence here that didn't really need to be part of the post and was a little hostile on my part.

The Clash menu has been added, yes. It's under the vault.

Well, if they lost Punk at least partially over it and are about to lose Batista at least partially over it, they are feeling the effects of it already. No way does someone like Brock stick around if the money isn't good either. It's not something that will affect everyone, but the top guys who already have millions in the bank will be less likely to tolerate it.

Seems like the appropriate thread to mention that one reason Batista is ready to go is that he hasn't made great money since returning. Add in that Punk had money issues and that Dave said on WOR that there's general unease among everyone right now over money and I think this is about to become a major issue unless they finally address how they plan to handle payoffs now.

What do they have in mind for Orton? They have now used Batista to eat losses two months in a row and for whatever reason aren't even thinking of having Orton put Bryan over. Bryan needs a "wrestling" opponent instead of Kane. And I say that as someone who thought the presentation of the match last night did a wonderful job in presenting him as a tough top babyface.

If it's on the official YouTube channel of the promotion that owns the footage, then yes, that is acceptable.

Yes. I asked politely and you never know what someone's life experiences may be. It's valid but I'd rather the word not be used to talk about something as trivial as wrestling matches.

El-P, do you mind not using the word "abortion" to describe bad matches?