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Was the average Japanese fan really expecting Rikio to win? Anyway, my comparison was more that they were happy to cheer Rikio on as a challenger and bought him in that role, but they weren't ready to accept him as champion.

I think that also says a lot about voters using outdated templates for what a "Wrestler Of The Year" is.

Maybe, as we're doing WCW comparisons, the Kobashi vs. Rikio title switch was more like the Flair vs. Garvin title switch than the Hogan vs. Sting title switch?

I'm sure Ric has a fucking financial manager who does his best for his client. But he's so used to being able to rob Peter to pay Paul for Patricia's drinks, I doubt he'll ever change. He's lived the life of the Nature Boy for too long to change now.

I think you're right on this. Rikio's title run was inevitably going to be overshadowed by Kawada and Sasaki's debut with the promotion, along with Tenryu still having some juice left too. I guess Misawa felt that those stars being around would allow time for Rikio to grow into the role of "ace", but it backfired. Really Kobashi vs. Sasaki for the GHC title should have headlined the Dome, as even without the belt it was still a much more heated match than the actual main event of Misawa vs. Kawada, who couldn't quite follow them despite trying really hard. I also agree that Rikio was a long shot to get over as their new ace, but I think he'd have a better shot if they did a better job of building to his title run. Delaying the title switch for six months and building to that moment would have really helped him.

Speaking of Jericho's book, I was amused by Wade Keller's latest audio update where he crowed "I told you so" because Jericho has a chapter admitting that he didn't know how to work WWF (main event) style when he first entered the promotion and poked fun at Foley while mentioning that he wrote the foreword to the book.

I was at the show and it was a pretty big error, given how badly the match bombed. Just an embarrassing dearth of heat, after two very well received lesser title matches. Some fans were even treating the match as an unofficial intermission. It didn't help that they choked on the big stage, having a forgettable match with Tanahashi botching a couple of topes and injuring himself in the process.

I think wrestling columnists are often too busy writing their reports on the show, phoning their friends to gossip about the show, and even reading and posting on their message boards, while watching the show, that it's easy for them to miss nuances in storylines and one off announcements.

Rey only got a four week World title run this year to get him to cut short his planned vacation when The Undertaker went down with a broken orbital bone. Moreover, he beat Jack Swagger (in a four way) for the belt, the weakest booked World champion since Rey was first champion. So his short-lived run this year really proves nothing.

I think rovert has heat with Bryan for this post in another thread: Joined: 04 May 2010 12:12 GMT

The story in his Torch Talk of WWE cancelling his planned vacation for his wife's birthday at short notice should surprise no-one who read Ring Of Hell.

Yes he did, not to mention the earlier low rider desecration angle and how thick they laid on the Rey is doing this for Eddie angle during Rey's Royal Rumble and World title wins, only to beat him like a drum as soon as he won the title.

Dave in the March 30 1992 Observer:

Dave Meltzer said the story he heard was that Vince soured on Morrison because he never challenged Batista to a fight over his affair with Melina.

But they did debut on different shows as Hardy debuted on January 4th 2010 and Rob Van Dam debuted on March 8th 2010. I suppose the lesson here is don't let the facts get in the way of a good "shoot" promo.

You know, if I was a Smackdown writer wanting to succeed in the promotion, I'd make the bland Michelle McCool the franchise female on the brand and copy TNA's best women's gimmick in an attempt to get her over, while professing that she got such a big push because of her all round talent too! Given that he's now an ex WWE employee, I guess management saw through this carny gimmick.

Is a tribute show really the place to attempt to put yourself over with the hardcore fans and the boys in the back? Should they have beaten Benoit and Rey? Of course not, and the criticism would have been pretty bad. Should they have stayed off the show? Of course not, because then the criticism would be that they were being disrespectful. What were they supposed to do? Maybe let Benoit vs. Rey headline instead of Benoit vs. Hunter and have Hunter & Shawn wrestle someone else?

Is a tribute show really the place to attempt to put yourself over with the hardcore fans and the boys in the back?

Prostituting himself ? What ? The Mero household made shitload of money being on the road and working *together*, and probably having a blast doing so. I don't see how he embarrassed himself, it was just business. I hated Sable as much as the next guy, but the Marvelous Marc interactions were actually fun. Yeah, I thought Mero vs. Sable was a fun storyline at the time too. I was just explaining the mentality of a lot of guys in the business towards Mero letting his wife kick his ass on national TV.

I think the guys who quit/fired from WCW (particularly Austin and Foley) were jealous in 1996 that he managed to play both sides against each other and get himself a pretty sweet guaranteed contract, whereas they were forced to take the standard crappy contract the WWF was offering at the time despite both being pushed harder than Mero had been when they were in WCW. That jealousy only escalated when his even less talented wife became for a time the second/third hottest act in the promotion, thanks in large part to Mero prostituting himself by letting her embarrass him, even kick his ass, on a fairly regular basis.

Hunter and Shawn putting over Eddie's best buddies Chris and Rey in matches on his two tribute shows was a bit transparent too.

I'm sort of sceptical that this won't take time away from him working on his Figure Four newsletter and the f4wonline.com site, given that it now looks like he'll being doing these shows once a week instead of once every few weeks, and now has a new website to update on what seems like a daily basis.

http://www.bryanalvarez.com/ Hmm, looks like this is becoming a bigger undertaking than he originally suggested. Loss, it might be worth putting the original discussion of Bryan's After Dark show in this new thread.

By my tally I got 10 out of 16 for Edge, excluding the star ratings for 2010 which weren't included for some reason, which is the correct number of ****+ matches, but two main event matches short. Maybe Edge was in two sub *** main events over the years? Does your tally include multi-person matches? Yes, which I think is correct. Reading Dave's write up again I think multi-person matches were only excluded from the drawing statistics, not the workrate statistics, as the numbers don't match up otherwise:

By my tally I got 10 out of 16 for Edge, excluding the star ratings for 2010 which weren't included for some reason, which is the correct number of ****+ matches, but two main event matches short. Maybe Edge was in two sub *** main events over the years?