Dylan Waco

Just watched Naito v. Ishii. I liked it better than Chad, but not as much as Joe. Ishii is my favorite guy in Japan at this point, if you set aside random guys who rarely make tape and/or are semi-retired (Fujiwara, Tajiri, Otsuka) so if there is a guy in Japan I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to, it's problem going to be him. Having said that I had no problem with his selling in this at all. In fact I thought Ishii's selling - and more amazingly Naito's - ranged from pretty good to great for most of the match. I kind of have to laugh at the one count comment, because while I am generally not a fan of the spot, this was nowhere near as egregious as Backlund's one count gimmick that Jerry gets ragged on for pointing out, as Ishii actually continued to sell after he broke out of the cover. I thought the pacing was very good. One of the things that tends to annoy me about NJPW is that they have lots of segments where the speed or flow of a match will increase dramatically, then slow back down, then increase even more. It's hard to articulate but a lot of the most heavily pimped matches don't have a natural sense of escalation to me at all. This match absolutely had a sense of escalation to it, and more importantly the guys allowed the big moments, moves and exchanges to sink in. The facial of Naito after the big headbutt down the stretch was really good, and will probably stand out for me when I think back on this match. Most of the spots in the match had very good impact and felt significant, though I didn't care for some of the counter exchanges. In fact I thought some of them were pretty cringeworthy, and in at least one case there was a spot executed where I couldn't even tell who was the recipient of the move which is one of my biggest pet peeves in wrestling. Having said that, a lot of that stuff felt lie foreshadowing for later in the match, and most importantly the stuff that looked like a dance routine wasn't a part of the actual finish. I did think the match probably had too much meat to it. That's an odd criticism, and one that is obviously entirely about my own bias', especially when you consider the fact that the crowd was rabid for everything down the stretch. Having said that, I really don't know that any of the back and fourth spots after the top rope superplex were really needed. It never quite went off the cliff into the point where I thought the match became about collecting near falls, and the execution and pacing of the spots that followed were pretty good (the aforementioned headbutt bit included), but I thought the superplex felt like a true transition moment, and I feel like the finish would have felt even more definitive if it had come after that. That's not really a major criticism though, just a preference as I like to see matches built around clear runs of momentum. I'm not really a star rating guy anymore and haven't been in years so I don't know about that. This match definitely had a big match feel, the crowd was amped for it, and I think it did wonders for the Never belt and Ishii. I still don't know how much faith the company really has in the guy because he wasn't on the Dome show, but he's clearly really over, and this match had the sort of energy and enthusiasm for it that the Okada v. Naito match from Korakuen Hall a few years ago had which is a good sign. This isn't my MOTY so far, but I don't think it's an odd pick either.

This was a good listen. I actually think you did a good job keeping it from being too inside baseball by talking in detail about motivations and more specifically the methodology behind each metric that was discussed. I also liked the brief discussions on what sort of data to use, how to apply it, et. One of the problems I've run into in my own research is that when I do try and run statistical analysis - which is very elementary by the standards of what you guys are doing - I find myself struggling with what to include and/or throw out, or if I don't include X is there a way to adjust it with Y. This came up to some degree with Patera and Blacwell related stuff, but also when I was comparing 1993 WCW to 1986 AWA. In that case I couldn't figure out how to adjust for the fact that WCW ran way more shows for example. Maybe a focus on only major market data would have yielded better results? I don't know the answer, but those sort of questions interest me, and I'm glad you are doing the show(s...I hope more are coming) to compliment your work.

Random question, but who were the guys considered the best promos in PR's heyday? More specifically, how was Colon regarded as a promo at the time? Building on that, was Colon thought of as a good "worker" by hardcore Puerto Rican fans during the 80's/early 90's or was he seen as a Hogan type by them?

I am really looking forward to listening to this. I really enjoy your work, though I could never do it myself for a variety of reasons. At one point I was toying with the idea of trying to figure out certain "sabr"ish formulas by working with smaller companies (ECW and SMW particularly) and it just seemed completely impossible. Of course it doesn't help that I suck at math and have no patience. In the end I think the sort of work you do is a good compliment to the sort of work that other research hounds who aren't focused on stats do. On their own I think both camps have clear limitations, but taken together there are a lot of things we can learn about wrestling history. So yeah. Looking forward to listening to this.

The corridor between Atlanta and Chattanooga has some very heavy Hispanic pockets. Dalton for example is an overwhelmingly Hispanic area

I'd like to hear his thoughts on Metro Pro as a promotion, it's significance to his career, and how big of a hole its (temporary?) closure left in the midwest indie scene.

My goal from 2014 is to watch a NJPW show in real time, with no running commentary via boards or twitter open, just to see if it would change the viewing experience at all to me. I still haven't seen Naito v. Ishii, but both sides of this have me nervous

The C/P thing I can't explain, but I will note that for the longest time I couldn't do it at the DVDVR board at all. All the sudden I was able to, though only with that stupid color changing background - which sadly looks to be the only way I can C/P text here.

I like Dolph, and have really liked him a great deal in the past (off hand I think 09/10 was my favorite period for him), but he's lost something and it's not just his push. I'm in the process of doing my WKO100 ballot now and it's crazy but he may not even make the cut even in a year where there were a lot of people who missed time, and very few guys who had bell-to-bell great runs. He has a weird way of working hard without looking like he's trying hard and that irks me even though I admit it's an odd criticism.

In most weeks the raw ten man would win, but not this week. Virus is the best "big match" worker in cmll, and even with a questionable comeback from Titan in the second fall, that bout was still incredible. Best Lucha match of the year so far, though this weeks hechicero trio is second and in my eyes better than the raw trio as well.

The entire first portion of the match was Bryan viciously working over the leg to the point where people were commenting how it was odd but cool that they were working a heel in peril, body part psychology based match...until Orton quit selling. It didn't ruin the match or anything, but it was an odd choice and very noticeable

Honestly Jacobs v. Alexander is the most interesting match to me on paper

Every fan I know goes to news sites and not one of them would be considered a hardcore fan by our standards.

Who are the mysterious Angle v. Roode voters? I voted for team Virus v. team Rush. In fact I thought that was easily the best of these matches.

Big threads in the Microscope section won't go anywhere.

Understatement of the century here

What don't you like about it? I thought Sandow and Cena was borderline bad, so I'm glad it didn't win.

I don't know if this is an appropriate tiebreaker mechanism, but my number two vote would be the Casas v. Panther trio

The sad thing is that with The Rhodes, Shield and Real Americans all pretty obviously on life support as tag teams, PTP's could have slipped into a ppv/featured feud v. The Usos on the backside of Mania.

Yeah it was 11/16. That was a loaded show for them. It's not surprising that they aren't taping again until Mania weekend as they are clearly putting a lot of eggs in that basket

My completely uninformed speculation is that he was told what the Mania payoffs were expected to be based on the Network deal and said "fuck this."

Their first match was really good. W2BTD, do you know anything more about the Hoyt situation than you are letting on? I can't imagine he would let himself be double booked for that weekend of all weekends, but I agree that in theory you would think he would be at the NJPW show. I suppose it's possible TCW will shoot an angle to take him out of that match between now and then, but then what is the upside in even announcing it.

I think both Loss and Matt are right. There is a reason that we are impressed when a guy has a good match with a manager or a much less talented guy and it is all based around building heat and psychology because the usual stuff can't or won't work in that situation. On the other hand having more abilities and physical skills allows you more range as a wrestler.

Another thing to remember about Bryan and Generico specifically is that they had really run out of things to do on the indies when they were picked up. I know many people will disagree with this, but even people who are much more favorably disposed toward "super indies" than I am would often talk about the fact that Generio (and Bryan before that) had worked everyone they could work, gone everywhere they could go, and that it was basically either become a stale indie, but very skilled indie guy, go to the WWE, or call it quits. This sentiment was actually expressed to me by a friend of Generico's not long before his signing. Anyway, the point is that they had sort of hit the wall on what there was for them on the indies. I'm not sure how that relates directly to what they have done in the WWE, but in the case of Generico especially, I think it has probably helped him some. I've done this before off the board with some posters here, but it's always fun to compare indie guys picked up in the WWE to indie guys picked up by TNA. Aries had one tremendous, miracle of a year a couple of years back, but has largely been wasted since. Homicide came into TNA as a guy with a great rep as a worker, and left as a guy with a rep for being pretty lazy, boring and uninteresting. Then there is Joe who came in as arguably the best worker in the world, had a year or two there where he was still performing at a high level, and then was slowly killed dead. Styles is a tougher one to talk about for a variety of reasons.

Orton is clearly worse than Bryan. Orton is worse than Mark Henry as a draw