cm funk

Awesome Kong and Gail Kim had at least one really good match

From what I've read about the IWA they had a flawed plan of attack. Their "home base" was the western NY, Buffalo, Cleveland area (Pedro Martinez was one of the main promoters involved and a lot of the talent were names in that region), their strongest TV was in New York City, but they ran most of their shows in the Carolinas and Georgia, filling out cards with local names who would have been viewed as inferior to the NWA talent. I think if they'd focused on booking shows in the areas they had a foothold in while letting the TV get out there for a while before trying to directly attack strong NWA and WWF areas they would have had a better go at it. They lost so much money early on that Einhorn pulled out and they lost some of their big name talent.

Brock had the best squash matches ever I never thought the guy was a great worker as much as he was just a freakish athlete who worked a high impact power style that I loved. He had good-very good matches with good workers, lots of fun squashes or glorified squashes, and I don't remember many stinkers. He wrestled for like 3 years. Vader was wrestling for 5-6 years before he really started getting good. You didn't expect Brock to be some polished superworker, but you knew when you watched him that he had limitless potential. It's a shame he didn't stick with wrestling, or we'd likely be talking about him as the best working big man ever. Also, I just realized that he probably can't do his standing jump to the apron ring entrance anymore and it made me a little sad

He certainly didn't bomb. SD's ratings actually went up when the brands split and they were doing better than RAW for a while. Ratings held fairly steady throughout Brock's run. On PPV Rock-Brock did well and held as the highest non-Rumble/Mania buyrate until Hogan-HBK at SummerSlam 3 years later. He was only around for 3 SD! only PPVs and they all did solid numbers. The first SD only PPV did just below the first RAW PPV, and better than the second RAW PPV which featured the first Goldberg-HHH singles match. The next two (Brock-Taker and Brock-Eddie) did better than Armageddon 03 (Goldberg v. HHH v. Kane) which did I believe their worst # in years. I have no doubt Lesnar was a better draw than HHH during this time period, but that isn't really saying much. WM19 did a disappointing #, but Hogan-McMahon and Rock-Austin were the heavily promoted matches, Angle-Lesnar was 3rd from the top. I don't know the house show #'s but I believe they were depressed for both brands in '03. It wasn't until 04 when JBL was champ that SD houses really tanked.

Waaaay off topic but does anyone else find it strange that Malick directed 4 movies in 30 years, and now he's pumping them out at a record pace. Tree of Life, two more in the can, filming one and another in pre-production!

He had a great series with Akio (Jimmy Yang). They're all up on the video sites First match: I liked Punk-Henry, but at no point when I was watching it was I thinking 'MOTYC'

That's nothing. Chris Jericho knows about 30 different kinds of armbar

Has Dave been traveling to MMA shows/getting press passes since he stopped writing for Yahoo? I assume Yahoo was footing the bill on that and getting him access

Brock came along right at the time the company was really bottoming out post boom period, and right at the time they started the brand split. I think there's way too many factors totally independent from him to make a fair assessment of what his drawing power could have been. I also think they hurt his drawing potential by turning him babyface as quickly as they did (just 3 months after he won the belt from Rock they took it off him and turned him face so he could chase it going into WM). The money was in building up a face to chase the monster heel. Then, they turned him heel again just a few months after Mania realizing they'd made a mistake. It was really just a constant bungling of his character after the first 6 months. Heyman (head writer of SD at the time) has gone on record saying he fought the babyface turn but was overruled. I don't think it's a stretch to think HHH had a hand in this as well, IE. he was the dominant heel champ on RAW, so SD shouldn't have a dominant heel champ upstaging him. 02-03 was HHH at his absolute worst.

That looks like units sold and revenue. She cut off the part that would show the % she got from those sales

Amazing crowd. Poor Sheamus getting booed out of the building, but it's their own damn fault for such terrible booking. I've already seen it hypothesized by some people that Bryan could get punished for being so over and the YES! YES! YES! stuff getting out of control. They do have a history of squashing things that get over unexpectedly. It's going to be the next WHAT? Loved the crowd chanting SI SI SI at Del Rio. Lesnar's return was an amazing moment. The angle with Henry, Punk and Jericho was really strong. Only dead spot of the night was Lord Tensai's debut, but I didn't expect a guy who's been out of the company for 8 years or so and wasn't very over back then to get much of a reaction. They're going to have to put in work to get him over.

Loved Jericho-Punk, liked Rock-Cena for the performances and atmosphere if not so much mechanically, 12 man tag was ok, everything else was meh. the Bryan squash was such a dumb way to open the show. Not that I think it buries Bryan, but it was such an anti-climatic way for Sheamus to win the world championship. It killed the crowd and it killed me watching at home. Then followed by two boring matches and the entire first hour sucked. Orton tried and it got better as it went on, but Kane just isn't very good (I know guys like working with him, but as a fan he's pretty terrible), and I can't believe they put him over. Orton doesn't seem to care about doing jobs, but save em for somebody up and coming. I do give them credit for working the twilight into the story of the match, that was pretty cool. Cody and Show bored me, I've gone from thinking Cody was really underrated a while back to thinking he's overrated now. Couldn't get into HIAC at all, and I loved last year's match. Wasn't feeling the Michaels as ref aspect and the whole thing felt less epic than it should have. HIAC as a gimmick is pretty much dead, this was the match that could have returned some luster to it, and it felt like any other match that just happened to have a cage around it. It's beyond a dead horse, but a match like this needs blood. HHH even did a fake bladejob spot where he went to the ground with his hands at his face, they cut the camera angle, then he stood up on his knees and did the heavy breathing. It was note for note what what HHH does when he blades.....except no blood. Thought Jericho needed the win more than Punk, but the match was so great that I can't complain. Lots of cool spots and reversals, lots of stiff striking, really loved this match. I was glad Rock won, I just hope they have interesting follow up ideas with Cena, and he needs to have a great promo in him for RAW tonight. And it almost goes without saying, but the production of the show was amazing. Beautiful set and great use of the sky with the overhead shots and fireworks during some of the entrances. Jericho's entrance was probably my favorite of the night.

He won a season of NXT where the winner got a tag title shot w/ his pro. His pro R-Truth turned heel shortly afterwards and they completely dropped Curtis' title shot. Then I guess someone felt bad and decided they had to do something with him so they did all those weird vignettes, then someone else decided they didn't have a spot for him. He's back on NXT now which has dropped the competition aspect and morphed into a bad version of WWECW, doing some sort of creep/rapist gimmick.

Yeah, the booking has really let Jericho down so far. First they switch the Rumble winner because everyone expected Jericho to win. Then they take him out of the Elimination Chamber in lame fashion to avoid having him pinned. Then he wins a battle royale on TV to get the WM title shot where the finish is Cody Rhodes eliminating Big Show from the outside. They've literally dropped the ball at every turn so far. He has to win the title on Sunday to salvage his comeback, so that probably means he loses and wins the next month when he'll have even less momentum. The WWE getting in the habit of changing finishes to swerve the audience is worse than when Russo does it because WWE ends up ruining well laid out plans, while nothing Russo does makes sense anyway. Another example is when Christian came back in 2009 he was supposed to be the mystery guy who had been attacking Jeff Hardy but they changed it to Matt Hardy last minute, retroactively applying a story that made no sense, and sticking Christian into Hardy's spot on ECW. Or when they changed course on giving Alberto Del Rio the title after building to it for a year, totally screwing with his momentum.

In 2007 TNA made a big deal about bringing in Andrew "Test" Martin to be the third member of a team with Sting and Abyss against the Christian Coalition (Christian, Styles, Tomko). He got the huge star treatment on TV (OH MY GOD YOU KNOW WHO THAT IS!), was in the co-main of that months PPV, then was promptly out of the company. I don't even think he made another appearance on TV after the PPV, and his team won!

Sabu seems like a lifer. He could totally get by on just brawling and blading like some of his influences did. He's a good enough and smart enough worker that he doesn't need to kill himself with table spots. But he'll probably be like Terry Funk doing moonsaults in his 60's while he's barely able to walk.

A heel big brother figure needs to be overthrown eventually for the plot to work. When it's Vince McMahon it works because everyone knows he runs the show. When it's Johnny Ace and everyone but the board of directors recognizes that he's a piece of shit , and he's on camera being a piece of shit with no remorse it really stretches credibility. Stories like that need a beginning, a middle and an end. Ace gets job, Ace is a scumbag, Ace loses job. WWE just puts a character like Ace in place as a lazy plot device, and there is no subtlety to it. I find it impossible to believe a global, diversified and publically traded company would allow these things, and the complete lack of logic disengages me from the stories they are trying to craft. Like, couldn't they have pulled off some sort of power play angle to explain why Ace is in the position he's in? Their writing is beyond lazy. And don't even get me started on the "mystery GM" angle which dominated RAW for a year and will never be paid off. I try not to bitch about WWE booking too much and enjoy it for what it is, but this is one of the quirks that comes close to ruining my enjoyment

Sheamus got the fluke champion treatment like every new "up and coming" heel champion of recent vintage Since Cena's been a top guy the only people I'd feel fair about saying he elevated are Edge and Punk. He's dragged down and killed Jericho's momentum a few times. The programs with Orton and Batista were great and they were both portrayed as being at his level more or less, but they were established main eventers already, and he barely lost clean to either of them. Punk is the only guy who's gone over him in a remotely clean fashion, and it's not a coincidence that Punk is now established as a top guy after that. I have no issues with protecting your top guy like that, but in the 6-7 years he's been a main eventer it's a little strange that he hasn't been used to elevate a few more guys. That's WWE booking though, once they have someone who's over like Cena they ride them into the ground

I've been a recreational smoker for years and most girls don't have an issue with it. Shit, I've seen girls who never smoke take a puff or two because it "looks like fun". There is a stigma that all smokers are killing packs a day, reek of smoke and can't move without coughing, and that isn't reality. I know way more people who have a couple of smokes a day than I do habitual chain smokers. Chew? 9 out 10 girls will find it to be a disgusting habit. Especially the way Ric was doing it on that shoot interview, drooling tobacco juice and spit all over the place. You think a girl wants that going down on her? In the circles Ric runs in most of them probably do, but in general smoking would be considered far less offensive

And he was better in 05/06 than he was in 00..... I haven't seen anything too recent other than the TNA match he had with RVD where they had to go out and do a PPV caliber ECW spotfest main event, when he is clearly more comfortable working a grounded style now. That sucked, but he wasn't put in a spot to succeed. Anybody seen any of recent indy stuff? I'm curious how he looks now. He seems to take a few years off here and there with all the injuries, then comes back strong for a bit.

Sabu is the Sex Pistols of wrestling criticism I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame, others think he's a disgrace to all that's holy

The WWE Board of Directors are sadists who seek only to create chaos for their own amusement. I picture their meetings going like something out of Salò

It kind of goes without saying and I know everyone here will agree with me, but the "Board of Directors" and authority figure booking in general is re-goddamn-diculous. wwe.com published "a letter from the WWE Board of Directors" stating that the only way to resolve the issues between Long and Ace was to stage a winner take all 12 man tag. I don't expect WWE storylines to make real world sense, but it's hard to ignore when shit is this stupid. It's cool that the angle is over with the crowds and they're trying to make it feel important, but I'm finding it impossible to give a shit about it. I'm beyond sick of the heel authority figure, so even though I find Ace very entertaining as a character, I don't want him all over both shows skewing everything in favor of the heels. I don't mind Teddy Long since he's generally just a harmless "here to make everything right" kind of authority figure, but I don't really need to see him on both shows either. I think one of the reasons so many people don't mind him is how underexposed he is. He's does some sideshow angles with different girlfriends (or comedy stuff like teaching Hornswoggle to speak) and beefs with the occasional top heel, but in general they limit how much he's used. Just on the basis of the makeup of the two teams Ace's team should win going away. Long's assembled essentially a jobber comedy team so far in my eyes, and they really need Rey Mysterio, or hell even Booker T, to make the team look credible to me. I'm glad to hear the rumour that Del Rio won't be in the match, because the heel side is already loaded, and if they're going to lose might as well not job 5 guys you should be pushing as top heels to a bunch of comedy acts and Kofi Kingston.

Still doesn't explain how he got out of there without ever putting Punk over

The frustrating thing is that on paper, pairing Stephanie with Jericho should have worked. They should have gotten molten heat. They almost went out of their way to make sure it didn't work. In Jericho's book he's talking about 2000 when he was an antagonist to Stephanie and HHH. He credits it with getting him over and putting his WWE career on track after a rough start. IIRC he wasn't a big fan of the 2002 booking, but liked working with Stephanie again.