Loss

Cool list. Enthusiasm for wrestling is contagious. I want to eventually see all of these!

It's a back and forth debate with lots of quote boxes that I think would be very difficult for anyone to copy and paste because it goes on for a while, but the gist of it is that they are arguing over wrestling norms -- specifically in lucha libre -- and what's acceptable and what isn't. Non-members will just have to take his word.

To be fair, all the talk of what led to Punk walking out has been speculation. We don't know for sure what his complaints were.

I wonder if they have the balls to start his music and go off the air without him appearing, with Michael Cole screaming at everyone to go to the network. Punk shows up as soon as the show goes off the air.

This also sets up furious Brock because he never got an offer like this, setting up a title match challenge for him against Bryan or Punk later this year.

Batista vs Randy Orton for the title - CM Punk vs Kane - Daniel Bryan vs HHH If Punk or Bryan win, they are added to the WM match. If they lose, they must leave WWE forever. Match becomes a 4-way. There's real intrigue over who's going to go over.

Of course, they could add Punk to the match, then still have the possibility of Bryan being added if he beats HHH.

For Punk's return, you sorta wish Vince was still young enough to do a match.

Yeah, I think we're potentially on the verge of something special too. The thing is, they are setting up a business model where the likelihood of them having a profitability boom is pretty strong, even if there's no popularity boom to go with it.

The key thing to also remember is that they weren't teaching Luger to work like The Road Warriors or Nikita. Luger was told to emulate Flair in his working style and promos. That's why Luger sold a lot more than those guys. If Ryback would have been a Luger in JCP, he wouldn't have been booked as a monster muscleman. So yeah, I see him going the way of Warlord or Vladimir Pietrov too.

I wanted to use this thread to discuss common match criticisms, both those that you agree with and think are valid and those that you don't quite understand or disagree with. You can take on the role of the criticizer or defender. I'll be criticizer for one and defender for one to get us started. Criticism: The crowd was dead. Criticizer: I've always felt like if a match fails to get the crowd involved, it's failed to reach its most basic and important goal. Does that mean a match can't be good if the crowd is dead? Not necessarily. But it does mean, in my opinion, that a match with a dead crowd can't be a classic. There are matches I enjoy that have a dead crowd and there are matches I don't enjoy that have a hot crowd. I wouldn't go as far to say the louder the crowd the better the match. So it's not the sole deciding factor in determining whether a match is good. But I think it's an important factor, and I don't get it when people don't consider it important at all. Even if I personally enjoy a match, if it doesn't seem to be worked for its intended audience, that's something that I probably will criticize, simply because I think when reviewing a match, we should aim to look at what works and what doesn't not just for us personally, but for the intended audience at the time. I think a good match review takes both of those factors into consideration. Criticism: The body part work didn't go anywhere. Defender: Does body part work always have to go somewhere? Is it always a bad thing if it doesn't? Body part work is about strategy. Sometimes strategies fail. If Wrestler A kicks Wrestler B works over Wrestler B's leg early on, is the match flawed if they eventually go in a different direction? Is there an acceptable point where Wrestler B can stop hobbling around, or is it supposed to happen for the entirety of the match and affect every single thing from that point forward? That seems like kind of a zealot point of view to me, but I'd like to hear the counter-argument. I do think it should be sold, but I also think it's acceptable to move on at a certain point, depending on factors unique to that match like how it is laid out, how much time they are given, whether the direction they were previously taking was engaging or not, etc.

To be fair, there is probably no one on this board more critical than you. I don't mean that as a huge dig, but there's not even a lot of wrestling that you think is very good.

Continuing with No Way Out 2005 ... Should have stopped after that tag match, which probably a 3* match. Saw a multi-man cruiserweight match with no heat. It's always awkward when I see flippy floppy guys do impressive highspots and get zero reaction. Cena vs Angle was a must-see in the sense that it's one of the most selfish performances I've ever seen from a wrestler. Angle completely guzzles Cena, takes 95% of the offense and kicks out of his finisher. And he acts so much like a heel that I had no idea he was one until they went to the finish. Cena was green at this point and you watch and see how much he improved over time. But Angle did nothing here, and this is not the type of match that does anything for a top babyface still coming along in the ring who needs opponents willing to sell for him. Angle completely upstaged him in this one. JBL vs Big Show in a barbed wire cage match felt like a match that could go either way. I wanted to be open to it because neither guy is one that got their due at times. But this wasn't good at all. No heat whatsoever aside from the stunt job they did for Show's chokeslam through the ring. They both bled and they worked hard, but there was nothing to see here. Next stop Wrestlemania XXI.

The Royal Rumble 2014 is now available too!

By the way, Big Show looks sort of suave and cool dressed up, but that disappears when he's in his wrestling gear for whatever reason.

Well, the Survivor Series buyrate came in and they killed whatever they had planned.

Looks like all of the 2013 episodes of Smackdown are up now. RAW is there back to September and looks like it's still growing. People on Twitter are saying there's WCW Worldwide episodes from 1993 there now, but I don't see them.

Big Show was on the Smackdown post-game show last night. Not really a spot for people they keep in the mix. He has nothing going on right now. The HHH buying his house stuff was supposed to lead to a match between the two. They dropped it because it wasn't getting over at all.

I have a baby that won't stay quiet long enough to do another show right now unfortunately.

I would love to see what names WWE gives these guys when they rebrand them.

Agreed. Cesaro cutting off Zayn's corner dive through the middle rope with the forearm is a great spot whether you know the history or not. And that's not an example of what I was talking about with a spot not being memorable for sure. The perfect example would be whatever move that was where Zayn managed to flip something in mid-air where he landed in the dynamic bomb position. That's a highlight reel spot and a potential finisher, but it was just a transitional move and then on to the next one.

I really like that in principle. If that's going to become a regular thing in WWE style, perhaps we will one day look back at this feud as what started the movement in that direction. The 2/3 falls match is what made me want to tune in as well, for the record. And a better way of phrasing my point than saying I don't think the spots were memorable is to say I don't think the spots were individually memorable in many cases, which is unfortunate because so many of them were so unique and well-executed.

If he's tall, muscular, has great hair and can cut promos, possibly.

Watching it again, I still think it was a good match, but I also think it was too moves heavy. I remember the impressive spots in Cena/Cesaro really well because they were spaced apart -- dead lift suplex, Cesaro getting out of the first AA attempt and catching Cena with the big boot and Cena's AA setup for the finish -- but I think they could have slowed down here to allow some of the cool stuff they did time to marinate and be remembered. I also really, really didn't like all the fanciness of the rana counter tease stuff because they were too obviously cooperating. I did like how they had counters ready for some of the previous matches, but I don't think that's stuff anyone is going to pick up on except hardcore viewers, and WWE is supposed to appeal to a wide audience. Overall, I thought the match was very good, but more in an indy way than a WWE way.

Understood. I meant more from a kayfabe perspective. I think it's good that they send main roster guys there, but a casual fan was watching NXT with me and asked why Cesaro was even there and I had no answer.