cm funk

a controversial subject I nominate HHH-Jericho last man standing from 00 I also nominate HHH-Foley from Royal Rumble 00 his triple threat matches with Benoit and HBK were pretty good, but stick him and HBK in a singles match and was bound to suck he did some good stuff with Jeff Hardy I'm kind of a fan of the guy as a worker, when he actually works and isn't all "I am HHH ARRRR" with his shit

it's not even a good frog splash. say what you will about RVD but his frog splash looks killer. Eddie's frog splash was violent. Tanahashi.....not so much.

Agreed. Edge has talked on podcasts post-retirement about how the spear really messed up his neck, to the point where he was losing feeling in his right arm.....but it was a spot and it popped the crowd so he kept doing it. And he went to the "safe" weak looking spear that everyone complained about because to do it full throttle like he used to do just wasn't possible I also think the WWE policy is really fucked up in ways. Like, they have no problem with all these dudes doing insane dives and shit, but nobody is allowed to blade? Blading and brawling is way safer for long term health. Scar tissue on your forehead doesn't compare to permanent spinal damage

I liked their matches at SummerSlam and Extreme Rules. The Wrestlemania one was a bit dodgy. That's coming from a single viewing of each though. I didn't see the SS or ER matches. I was speaking more from the builds from all the matches, which were the worst THIS BUSINESSings in recent WWE. No one in that feud except Lesnar came off looking good to me, not even Heyman. the cage match at ER is, IMO of course, fantastic. Well worth watching. I don't care much for HHH matches but I really liked that one I do have odd taste though. I think Taker-HHH at WMX7 is a masterpiece so.....

he does it a lot. He also does the dives to the "dasher boards" where he takes the full impact on his neck/back/spine I'd like to see him take that stuff out of his moveset. It helped him get over, but he's over now, he doesn't need it. He could get ground based catch grappling over if he wanted to

I haven't been reading the newz and I'm skipping ahead on this thread..... Is D-Bry really having neck surgery? If so, I'm not surprised. I've been semi-ranting about how dumb he is with the insane dives out of the ring and the Benoit/Dynamite headbutts.....I like his work but he really doesn't need to do that shit. Yes, it pops the crowd. Yes, it gets you over. But yes, you are risking permanent damage to yourself doing those things. And it's not like this is a huge shock...Dynamite ended up crippled in a wheelchair.....Benoit was so fucked up he murdered his family and himself.....Harley Race would tell any kid not to do the flying headbutt spot....it basically crippled him.......so......Bryan is a dumbass for doing it. I honestly cringe and get angry when I see the reckless shit he does sometimes. He doesn't need it, and I don't like seeing it

Is that true? The number of clued up 'smart fans' following Puroresu in 1994 might have been higher as a proportion, but I would wager in terms of actual number way more people outside Japan are watching modern NJPW these days. There are way more smart fans, way more internet fans, way more people aware of wrestling in Japan. Dragon Gate can draw really good numbers in the UK - would Michinoku Pro have been getting similar crowds in 1996 if they came over? Dave's point has some merit even if it is flawed. You see a similar thing in music - there are fewer superstar bands with a mystique and an aura in 2014 than in 1974, partly because of the easy availability of music. It is easy to acquire an album, easy to interact with the artist through social media - so seeing someone like Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones feels way more special than seeing someone like Mumford & Sons or Coldplay who have a far bigger reach in the current market. So even if Tanahashi is bigger than Liger right now, Liger still retains a mystique and generates an excitement because he is from a bygone era when things were less obtainable. I agree with this. I also think the popularity of NJPW is kind of overblown. Meltzer loves the shit and pimps the hell out of it....and there are hardcore pockets of fans who love it.....but that is a tiny minority of fans. Personally, I like what I've seen of current NJPW, but the Tanahashi dick sucking is way over the top, I don't think he's all that great to be honest, certainly not at the level that Meltzer and his blind followers put him at.....and personally I think the NJPW "big match" style is the same as the WWE big match style more or less....so I laugh my ass off when people complain about WWE style and praise NJPW style in the same breath. Personally, I think the NJPW stuff is way way worse with all the finisher kickouts and headdrops and all that nonsense. I don't really care for it. I dig "fighting spirit" but they take it to ridiculous levels and I'm just like, "really? can the match end now please?" And it's extra shitty when Okada and Tanahashi have such weak finishers, after doing a bunch of stuff in the match that looks way cooler and more brutal and finish-ish

They've also made a noticeable effort to make developmental talent distinguishable in look and gimmick. Dusty Rhodes talked about this during his podcasts with Austin, how he works with the talent down there on finding their voice and developing their own character that they feel comfortable in the skin of. There's also the trend now where the gimmicks from developmental are carried over to the main roster. Once they find the right gimmick for someone they hone it down in NXT, and bring them up to the main roster with it. It's a far cry from the OVW/FCW days where guys would have a certain gimmick they played in developmental, and then the WWE writers would come up with a gimmick idea and developmental talent would be plugged into it with no real rhyme or reason (and it practically always flopped). There was also the big problem where a guy would be working heel in developmental and then be called up as a face, and vice versa. For years developmental and WWE were never in alignment on this sort of stuff. Cornette has ranted endlessly about the lack of communication and the writers in Stamford who didn't even watch their tapes. Like someone else said, Ross' criticisms seem behind the times. Yes, there was a time where developmental and the main roster were both very cookie cutter.....it hasn't been like that in a while.

Yeah, to any of the guys who resent him (or resented Rock)......leave. Go make yourself into a bigger, more marketable name outside of WWE and they'll come crawling back to you when they need star power. But not everyone is a freak of nature like Brock who can get an NFL tryout off the street and be a star in UFC, or the Rock who can make himself into a global movie star, or even Jericho who took Fozzy from being a niche vanity project to being a legitimate band that plays to massive festival crowds and is well reviewed in the hard rock/metal community, and got his name out there with reality tv and hosting gigs and all sorts of other things. Simply put, not everyone is created equal, that's life. One thing those three all have in common besides talent is extreme dedication and hard work, and the balls to walk away on their own terms. Guys should be envious of them and think, "how can I get myself in that position" Any fan who resents Brock, or Rock, or Batista, or anyone like that is a moron. It's the same marks who shit on Brock and Rock for years because they didn't "love the business" as if they as fans had been personally betrayed. It was dumb then and it's dumb now. When Piper left in the 80's to do movies did he get the same backlash? Or is this just a product of modern wrestling (smark) fandom?

Not sure what JTG does - all I know is he has a young child and the anniversary of his 7th year under contract comes next week. The "Still Employed" Twitter account is off by a good eight months. His WWE debut was in late September 2006. Anyway, people speculated that he was a member of Rose's party posse from Raw because there was a black guy (who didn't really look anything like him) in it. That wasn't JTG I'm actually curious what the makeup of Rose's "party posse" is. I assume local casting calls for models mixed in with indy guys and backstage/crew members. Be interesting to see which ones stand out as every week regulars. The rabbit, obviously, could be anyone!

Yeah, the angle here is that Brie is completely terrified of Kane and Bryan is protecting his wife. That's why he didn't leave her alone for a second, and that's why she came to the ring with him. Bryan clearly isn't afraid of Kane, he was trying to get his wife to safety. Bix is right, it wasn't good, but people are complaining about the wrong things.

People thinking that Vince would throw Sheamus in the doghouse and de-push him over losing a scrap with Hunico seem to be missing the fact that Vince has ceded control in these matters to Hunter. Yes, the buck stops with Vince still, but this is Hunter's territory now. And Batista definitely was de-pushed for a while after the thing with Booker. They also supposedly lost a lot of faith in Goldberg after he couldn't do anything against Jericho. On Kane, the problem is he's been around forever. How many wrestlers/characters have been on tv constantly for almost 17 years in the same company and not gotten stale? I think it's impressive that they've changed the character up enough over the years and been able to freshen him up and recycle the gimmick. I think as a worker he's serviceable with some positive attributes.....athletic, moves really well for his size, good timing, etc. And like someone said, the character doesn't lend itself to high end matches necessarily. If they did individual Shield-Evolution matches I'd probably do HHH-Ambrose, Batista-Rollins and Orton-Reigns.

Yeah, I just came here to discuss this odd rant. Alvarez pointed out that Bryan is a do it yourself everyman who would never ride in a limo with a chauffeur and Meltzer then slightly switched gears to complain about his "crappy rental car". Jeez, I didn't recognize the exact make/model of the car, but it's not like it was a Ford Focus or something. So weird. Meltzer was just passionately arguing this flat out stupid and wrong point. Of all the things wrong with that segment, the rental car and the fact that Bryan and Brie drive themselves to and from shows wasn't one of them. Ugh.

I loved Lana's Snowden line, "but don't worry America, your secrets are safe with Mother Russia....*evil smile*" I was in and out of the room on this show and it wasn't too good from what I did see. Brie is such a bad actress and that whole thing was just so cheesy. Sometimes these angles work......this didn't. Cesaro-RVD was good. Good program for Cesaro right now and good use of RVD. In interviews before he came back when asked who on the roster he'd want to work with he always said Cesaro. I missed almost all of Bryan-Del Rio. Worth checking out when it's uploaded on the Network? The Shield and Wyatts had another standout match. Not my favorite or the best of their series, but it was good. Almost impossible for those 6 to have a bad match. I thought they missed an opportunity to tease something between The Wyatts and Evolution. Just a small tease would have been nice. A triple threat between the 3 groups would be nuts. I get taking the US title off of Ambrose because he's had it forever and doesn't need it, and the battle royale was a good way to do it while keeping him really strong......but Sheamus winning it does absolutely nothing for me. I wouldn't mind seeing a Barrett-Sheamus unification match because they really don't need both belts around and it would be addition by subtraction. It also lacked impact for me when they just changed the IC title 24 hours ago. Adam Rose is fantastic. I don't know how much shelf life the gimmick will have, but I'm going to enjoy it for now. The entrance is great with the crowd surfing, and the crowd already caught on with chanting his theme. That and dancing in the crowd will get over huge. Love the interaction with Zeb. A Rose-Swagger program with Zeb getting into it with the groupies and the rabbit at ringside would be lots of fun. They protected Big E in the loss, but he's in a bad spot now. Lost twice in a row mostly clean and he's not over at all. I'd like to see them go back to the shortlived Big E/Mark Henry tag team. That had a lot of potential and it gives them both some direction. They're kind of thin on tag teams at the moment too. I've been enjoying Rybaxl, but I wish they hadn't depushed The Rhodes Bros so much. They're probably due for a breakup soon so that's another tag team down.

One more thing on Swagger/Cesaro/RVD......I don't get the sense that anyone was clamoring for another Cesaro-Swagger singles match. They'd already wrestled a few times on tv since the breakup. I worry a little that Swagger might get lost in the shuffle, but not too much since they want to keep pushing Zeb and finding things for him to do. Swagger is always better in tag team matches to me, so I'd like to see Zeb recruit a new Real American

I'm kind of surprised that anyone could hate that show. I thought it was very entertaining and well paced, the right people went over, and I really just had a blast watching it. It was the best "B Show" special event in quite a while, and if this is the quality we can expect going forward I'll be even happier that I have the Network. Pre-show midget match was great fun with the right mix of comedy and high spots. I thought Hornswoggle was really good here for a guy who rarely wrestles and doesn't move around too great Main show 3 way dance opener was good stuff. I liked RVD being in the mix due to the Heyman connection and the show being in ECW country, and there was an issue with RVD beating Cesaro in the IC tourny. He wasn't just randomly added to the match, it was built up well on tv. It was weird how the announcers didn't seem clued in that it was ECW style with the elimination. Also, WWE rarely uses those rules and doesn't do 3 ways on too much of a regular basis anymore, so it felt like something unique. The Rusev squash was nothing, I really didn't pay attention to it. I thought the Putin thing was great cheap heat. Why would that be tasteless as El-P suggested? Why wouldn't an evil Russian heel manager salute Putin? Barrett-Big E was a good match. I felt bad for Big E, he had no heat at all. It's amazing how he was building some momentum before they put the IC belt on him, then proceeded to have him lose and lose and lose in non-title matches and give him nothing interesting to do and all of a sudden his heat vanishes. They never learn from this obvious horrible backwards booking trope of theirs. Hope the same thing doesn't happen to Barrett. Oh, and I really liked him using the Foley elbow followed by the BANG BANG! Probably just a nod to Foley because it was Extreme Rules and he's from Long Island, and not something that's going to be a staple of his moveset. I actually thought Shield-Evolution started off pretty slow and I was worried it wouldn't live up to expectations, then it really picked up as it broke down and got pretty crazy by the end. Thought Ambrose and Rollins were both fantastic here, but I feel like I say that after every Shield match. None of the Evolution guys turned in a standout performance, but they kept up their end of the match. I'm down for a gimmick rematch at Payback (holding out hope for a Wargames style match like a lot of people) Cena-Wyatt was hurt by coming directly after, could have used a cool down match. I didn't hate this match at all, really. I didn't think it was great or anything, but it wasn't nearly as bad as some people are making it sound. This is a match that REALLY needed color and the visual of a blood soaked Wyatt with his beard all red and the blood all over his white pants. I really liked the finish and 'Lil Johnny' and the way Bray just casually walked out of the ring after hitting Sister Abigail I thought Paige-Tamina was perfectly acceptable. I don't really get the hate for Tamina from some people. She's not great but by WWE diva standards she's just fine. Bryan Alvarez was ranting about how Paige should have had a better first challenger than Tamina and I'm like "who?". Tamina was AJ's bodyguard and bestie. Paige beat AJ for the title and AJ seemingly left the company (I know she didn't but that's how it looks on tv). Tamina wants revenge. It's not rocket science. I loved Bryan-Kane. I've come to the conclusion that no matter how they book Bryan people are going to complain. People swore he wouldn't get the main event spot, he did. People swore he wouldn't be booked like a Main Eventer......he got the WWE special "Attitude era style" main event match that is reserved for the very top guys. People are complaining about the fork lift spot.....I thought it was very inventive and worked perfectly in context (Bryan KO'd him in the back, couldn't pick him up and carry him dead weight style, so he improvised). That's the kind of spot that only your tippy top babyfaces like Stone Cold and Cena get. The visual of Bryan raising up the lift and dumping him in the ring like a sack of shit was great. The flying headbutt off of the lift was nuts and got a huge reaction....even though I cringe at Bryan doing something that stupid. That flaming table spot didn't look as good as it could have, but it actually worked because Kane they sprayed the shit out of him with the extinguishers, he was disoriented and trying to get away from that, and got hit with the flying knee. Whether that was the intention or not, it worked out. Don't love Kane getting right back up after the match, or the need for a rematch, but if they're doing it I guess it was ok.

It would be pretty great story telling if HHH forced Ambrose to vacate the US title on account of not defending it in 30 days (which has been mentioned on TV a lot), then put Rollins and Reigns into the battle royale for it, and one of them wins it. Great way to sew dissension amongst The Shield. Don't love them doing Bryan-Kane again, thought it should have been one and done with a strong blowoff, but it's not a big deal. Who are they going to rebuild or repackage in a month who'd be a viable challenger? Oh, and the idea that Bryan shouldn't be put in gimmick matches is pretty ludacris. The Extreme Rules match was super gimmicky and I thought it was the best Kane match in a long, long time. Not every Bryan match needs to be fast paced hyper kinetic pinball stuff, he's way more versatile than that. He's an excellent underdog brawler.

I might be in a minority but I LOVED Lee Marshall for some reason. He was always shit on by hardcores on the internet and I just didn't see it. I thought he was great I'm also in the minority who thinks Larry Z was a fantastic commentator in the 90's......so yeah, I'm an odd duck

I'm actually kinda shocked Dwayne didn't know Idol. Idol worked Memphis off and on for years.....Dwayne started in Memphis. I'm not from the south.....and I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of southern territory days......I can't imagine not knowing of Austin Idol. Rock is a wrestling fan/historian to this day.....amazing to me he wouldn't know Idol Rocky Johnson might have crossed paths with Austin Idol in Cali? Possibly?

Flair made it through that segment....but man, it was not good. I don't think he was drunk.....that's just Flair now. I was worried he was going to get emotional. His days of being a regular character are over. There's people out there who clamor for him to be a manager or something.....even people who want him to be in another match.....and I'm just speechless at the idea. This guy really has no business being on live TV or bumping around at his age and condition. Would anyone be shocked if he dropped dead at any moment? I love Flair, but there's a reason we have the "Flair is a trainwreck" thread here I thought that was a pretty good RAW. I was probably too distracted/jarred by Flair that I didn't notice HHH being bad in that segment. He was fine. I thought the segment with Jackman was fun stuff. Anyone who complains that that was a "burial" of Sandow is clueless. They've booked him like shit since he won MITB....shit after the Cena match......this was the best moment he's had in quite some time

I side with Dooley on this. I find reducing something down to snowflakes a pointless exercise. It's reductive. In music, films...art.....it's a very shallow and narrow way of judging art. I'm a Leonard Maltin fan, but I enjoy his blurb reviews far more than his ratings. His rating system is way off...even just in the space of a paragraph he'll describe a movie he likes but then give it **......or he'll describe a movie he didn't like a lot but then give it *** Rolling Stone......they have the hugest joke of * ratings in history. And I love Rolling Stone as a magazine (at least I did when I was younger).....they've actually gone back and re-rated albums because there was an agenda at the time of the review which wasn't honest or fair to the artists involved......and they also take money to give good reviews to shitty, shitty stuff. To me, a good interpretation and good review doesn't need snowflakes attached to it. They're meaningless. So many great albums have been given shitty snowflake reviews over the years.....so many wrestling matches I don't care for at all given high marks by Meltzer and a lot of fans.....that's all good......but I'm not basing my opinion like that

23 is a top five Mania of all time in my opinion. It has the best Mania MITB match, the Battle of the Billionaires, Taker-Batista, and Cena-HBK. All of those matches are either extremely entertaining or really great. Agreed, 23 is the best of that bunch. 24 is worth seeing for Flair-HBK, Big Show-Mayweather and Undertaker-Edge. It's also an outdoor stadium show with a cool setup, which always adds to the shows for me

I agree that * ratings aren't the way to go (I'm not a huge fan of * ratings for anything really, wrestling, music, movies etc.....I'd NEVER hand out * ratings to a basketball or football game)...but there's merit to the general idea Dave watches shows start to finish, prelims and all. A list at the end of his reviews with his top 5 on the card or best to worst could be useful. I don't watch every UFC show because there's just too many for me now, I watch the big ones and seek out the best reviewed/most pimped matches. When I don't see a show I pay attention to Dave's audio and WON reviews and that gives me an idea of what fights Dave thinks are worth seeking out, and his recommendations are generally spot on. I also check out sites like mmafighting and bloodyelbow and various forums and even some occasional MMA podcasts, and even keep tabs on non-UFC stuff worth seeing. so I'm informed even while not being an every show diehard......but not everyone has the time or inclination to do things like that.

He's made a lot of public backhanded digs towards him. I'm not going to dig up quotes, but it's been discussed in threads on this board

I watched it live and haven't re-watched it. Knowing that Taker got concussed early and knowing the result I might have a different take on second viewing, but I thought it was very disappointing and probably Taker's worst WM match since the handicap match against Big Show and A-Train from WMXIX. Possibly since Kane at WMXX....but to be fair I haven't seen that in years (but remember liking it a lot at the time). That said, I liked it better than the HIAC from XXVIII....but I hated that match for reasons that had nothing to do with Taker's performance. Compared to the matches with HBK, XXVII with HHH, Batista, Orton, Punk, Edge, Mark Henry.....the bar was very high and it didn't deliver IMO