Dylan Waco

I did small podcast reviews for all the WWN live shows other than Kaiju that are available on the PWO-PTBN feed. Some quick takeaways There was no real break out star this year going off of those shows. Maybe that will change when I get into the stuff at the Wrestlecon venue later, but there is no one who went from relative unknown to rising star, let alone established talent to superstar. To me that's a real indictment of this years indie shows even though I think the average match quality was up form last year (and probably roughly comparable to Dallas two years ago). Instead the story this year was the big name players who you expect to be great - WALTER, Riddle, Ospreay, ZSJ, to an extent Thatcher - all showing up and showing that they are among the best in the world. The other story on the talent front was really people like Sawa, Severn, Suzuki, PCO and Quack as old timers showing up to show they can hang with the kids and deliver at a strong if not out right elite level. I didn't see a single bad show. Literally everything would pass on the pass/fail system, and I don't think I'd go lower than a C+ if I was handing out letter grades to shows (and maybe not even that low). Several shows were in the very good to great range including both Shimmer and Style Battle which I likely to be slept on which is a shame as Shimmer had one of the stronger second half/marquee match runs of anyone this weekend and Style Battle was bizarrely the most well booked show of the entire weekend at an indie level which is fucking absurd and kind of infuriating considering it's a throwaway brand WWN ostensibly doesn't care about. Because it was an immersive experience and completely unique in a way nothing else was Janela's Spring Break was my show of the weekend from that venue and I doubt very seriously any of the other events I plan to catch up on this week can top it. The perfect combination of fresh matches, crazy environment, aesthetic wackiness, diversity of styles, and novelty. Extra points for the opening scramble that is one of the most underrated matches of the weekend and one of the few matches all weekend to really feature a lot of fresh talent killing it. Funny that a guy as good as Gringo Loco can't get a look from Evolve, but he's going nuts in the opener of the biggest show all weekend. Additional extra points for PCO v WALTER which was the most visceral enjoyment I've had watching an indie match in a long time both because of my weird 6 degrees of separation story relating to how the match was made, the fact that PCO has been my favorite random guy to watch on YouTube for the last 6 months, and the fact that it was absolutely tremendous. The real winner of the weekend was Game Changer Wrestling. Some of us have been saying for a year now that they are the promotion to watch and I think they proved it this weekend with two completely unique shows, in less than ideal timeslots, that outdrew the host promotion and reportedly even topped the two Progress shows which had decidedly better time slots (and is a WWE propped up brand). By putting on fresh, themed shows, featuring different talent and fully utilizing excellent branding and digital marketing strategies they have helped to create stars out of both Janela and Nick Gage and it's really crazy how fast it's happened. Anyone who saw some of the other houses in that venue should be able to appreciate how insane it was to be able to draw somewhere between 2500-3000 paid running on a Thursday afternoon and Friday night/Saturday morning at midnight. I'll do another podcast and perhaps a post when I watch the WC venue shows covering my matches and wrestlers of the weekend.

I'm surprised people are shocked by Savage at 1 because I think it was fairly obvious he was the likely winner if you closely followed Facebook conversations and the podcasts that have come out. To be totally blunt you'd be hard pressed to construct a criteria that was more favorable to Savage as the lack of emphasis/rejection of drawing power/stardom really gave people an out to rate Savage - a guy who was never really the true promotion number one - over guys like Cena, Hogan, Bruno and Austin. I disagree with Savage finishing first for that reason (i.e if he was never really the top guy in the company, I can't buy him as the top guy in promotion history), but I recognized it as the likely outcome so early on that I would have been stunned to see him defeated. Austin coming so close was a surprise

Dude, its about the whole TV package . I know you mean well, but you cant imagine how fucking stupid I find it when the reaction to old TV I love is Whats da best matches ? Is there a reason you replied here? If the sole function was to let me know you find my question "fucking stupid" I'll happily delete your post as an explicit troll, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Can anyone give me a list of standout matches from All Star viewing so far?

Jericho is going to be the one wildly overrated guy, but I should have seen that coming

All the bad/cringey stuff with Foley really took place after he was done in the ring even as a part timer.

He finished 11th, so I don't really feel like he was "too low," but I can't escape the Foley/Savage comparison I made in the FB group months back. Savage is going to win and I'll talk about that when it happens, but I honestly think all the arguments for Savage can and do apply to Foley as do all the arguments against him.

Flair being so high is the first one where it feels ridiculous to me. I have disagreed with a lot of the results to one degree or another, but I can largely understand the perspectives that got people higher or lower than I think they merited being. But Flair in the top 25 just looks absurd. I had him at 49 on my own ballot so it's not like I think he's a marginal pick, but the top 25 feels like it should be reserved for people who either had insane longevity as high level workhorses, were major stars with a lasting impact on the promotions history to the point they are synonymous with the company, or otherwise defined a highly successful and engaging period in WWF/E history. Flair fits none of those criteria. Even if someone is high on his Evolution run, I can't see very many people being THAT high on it, and while I enjoyed quite a bit of old man Flair it's hard to see how that combined with the 92 run should put him in the upper tier of the list. Per the norm Flair gets the benefit of the doubt, and benefits from the historic symbol that he has become, despite the increasingly comical notion that he is a micro analyzed victim of elitist fans. Parv will be happy to know I had Ted one spot above Tito on my own ballot. I've grown to be more or a Tito fan with time, and less of a Ted fan, but the reality is that Ted at his peak had an impact on the promotion that far exceeded anything Tito ever did there. Had Santana had a great mid-card feud or two in the early 90s I might have been able to convince myself to rate him over Dibiase, because lord knows I think he's got him beat as a worker, and Ted's peak as a player wasn't terribly long. But it didn't happen, and on my ballot the Tito and Ted are part of a 5 wrestler cluster right before my list gets to what I would consider to be the upper tier. I call HHH at 21 a win. It'll probably surprise some people to learn that I did include him. I was torn about it for a while, but ultimately decided that he was too big a star for too long to leave completely off even if I do think he's the worst "top guy" the company ever had on top for more than a year. That said I couldn't rate him highly because in my view negatives matter in a project like this, especially when there are so many negatives that hurt the trajectory of so many talents and the quality of so many shows. So I stuck him at 91, knowing he would finish much higher. At 21 he's sort of the caboose of the biggest names and I think that is a fitting place for him. I can't be mad about Rey's placement. I had him a good bit higher, and I think I had very good reason for it, but he's someone where the online community swings so many different ways on him that I never expected him to make it to the top 10. Guys like Vince, Heenan, and even Reigns are people who's placement feels much "worse" to me than Rey who at least ended up in the upper stratum where he belongs. Punk ahead of him feels wrong to me, but I don't consider it a great outrage unless Punk manages to sneak into the 7 or 8 in which case I will just shake my head and remind myself that my list is the only one that matters. I have zero issue with Punk over Bryan and had him one spot over Bryan myself. That said I could go either way on it. If I ever do a podcast on my ballot I'll probably talk about that at length. I will say that Bruno being in the top 15 makes me happy. I was very concerned he would be really hurt based on how far removed we are from his era, people's unwillingness to vote for people they aren't familiar with, et. I really hope he's able to make it into the top 10, at that point I'd consider it a win, but even if he drops next I wouldn't really see it as a loss. All total there hasn't been much about the results that I have felt terribly strongly about in the negative, but I sort of expected that based on my own experience doing my ballot where I realized the people who really need to make a WWE list are very obvious and most of the ones that could fill out the rest of the ballot are the types people could see arguments for and/or wouldn't be likely to argue much about.

Orlando was a bad situation last year as it is a TERRIBLE traffic city, possibly the worst in the nation that time of year. NO is also a bad traffic city and i'm told venues aren't that close. We will never get another year like Dallas where you could literally walk from the WWN venue to the Wrestlecon venue (or NXT/HOF for that matter) in less than ten minutes, but it would be nice not to have spots spread across congested metro areas. In any event my advice to people would be to pick what troupe has the best stuff and attend only shows in one building for each day. It'll save you on stress, and with the quality stuff that's been announced everywhere it's hard to go wrong.

Send me an email at [email protected] and you can volunteer hours a week of your time like the four guys that have poured over this for the last month + and you can correct all the glaring errors you want. Also, some of the write-ups are tongue in cheek and have neat things like satire and hyperbole. I'm a big proponent of creative freedom when guys are sacrificing their free time because they're passionate about a project. Nothing is a *serious* matter here. I hope he takes you up on the offer

Its entiely possible that Ill have Gargano v Almas and the Womens Rumble as my top two matches of the year. I may comment in more detail on the Rumble later, but I really think it was among the most ambitious - and successful - matches in company history.

Loved the show last night, even with minor critiques. I was so high on Almas v. Gargano live that I didn't even want to public state my initial reaction. Will hedge a bit until I rewatch it, but it's likely going to rate as one of my favorite matches of all time, I thought it was better than any match from anywhere on earth in 2017, and that's even with a finish that I thought ran counter to the two most logical story points.

Was the WWF in a dispute with the Apter mags at that point? Because that honestly could have had a HUGE effect in such a scenario

We are getting close to a line that we might should not cross in this section of the forum at least. That said, as someone who served on a jury of a rape trial a few years back it is startling how poor our legal system is at handling these cases. If anyone wants details on the specifics of my experience I'm happy to share them via PM.

i actually think the martial arts, shoot style, legitimacy aspect that you arguably still see more of in Japan and certainly did from the 80s-00s may have something to do with where the business was over there in terms of timeline. If you look at U.S. wrestling, an emphasis on legitimacy was huge here at least up until the early 50s. That's 60 or 70 years after wrestling became a substantial enterprise in the country. i'm not a believer in the cyclical view of history (I don't know of any modern historians who are), but I am of the believe that development tracks are often similar. So while the Japanese presentation of that may be different for a variety of reasons, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that such things would be so big a part of Japanese wrestling given where there business is timeline wise for lack of a better way of putting it

I'm actually interested in what ideas and thoughts in particular you are referring to. I really don't remember

I literally have no clue what I said on the show or what most of the above post is in reference to if I'm being totally honest. Also not sure what the line about me "coming back" and not liking what I see is about. I have been on the board nearly every day since the GWE ended. I don't post very much for a variety of reasons, some having to do with site structure, but that is hardly the only reason (and not even necessarily the biggest one). I've become increasingly disenchanted by big discussion generating stuff, and I help promote, book, do commentary for, or help behind the scenes for a half dozen promotions, so there are a lot factors in why I don't post here as much. I could post about certain things, issues, discussion points, et. if I wanted to, but I don't really feel compelled to and I don't think I owe it to you or anyone else to do it. Sometimes things just sort of run their course with people and that's okay. For me I'm a big picture guy when it comes to boards both in the sense that I want what is best for the most people, and also in the sense that if there isn't an overarching project going on that I have interest in and/or some big meaningful debates and/or broad threads to collect thoughts in I'm not likely to be around as much. The site has very consciously lacked the sort of project I am likely to be involved in since GWE, and I think the sort of broad/interesting threads aren't as common either in part due to the MDA, in part due to guys just discussing old topics to death and moving on, and in part due to other factors. I watch way more modern stuff than old stuff at this point, and that's another thing that has sort of kept me from posting as much here. In any case you may be right about some discussions that would have been nice to have, but I literally don't even remember what those discussions were. The time period GWE went on during was a major transformative period in my life both as it regards wrestling and on the much larger level. I only vaguely remember some of the things I had to say at the end of it, and I'd bet I'd be embarrassed by the tone of a lot of it looking back even if I still basically agree with the points I was making.

LIVID

Tone wise I get being upset. On the other hand the details on Armstrong and admission from Stutts would have never come from any other venue. Zero chance. Its a tough one

I can assure you there will not be a comeback tour for Brad Stutts at CWF, or anywhere else where hes worked in the past.

Speaking for myself, my issues with GWE were the tone and attitudes of certain people during the process, and less the results. There were aspects of the results that I didn't care for personally, or that I felt ran really counter to the discussion threads in some ways, but that's the byproduct of having an open process. There isn't much you can do about it. Had GME been hosted on PWO I probably would have taken part despite my visceral hatred for ranking matches out of a sense of obligation. With it housed elsewhere it's unlikely I'll participate. Honestly with matches I'm likely to just throw a list together in five minutes today and send it in, then spend any time mulling anything over and that kind of runs counter to the spirit of it anyhow. That said, I hope people enjoy the process and have fun with it.

I dont really get Steamboat as a top 20 guy

Agree with this entirely. Feels like El Toreo is the obvious answer

The panel needed a 6th person who was Samesque in approach. That would have been a fair balance. The best case made on the show was for Roman honestly

I thought the Cena stuff was interesting. Its defintely one of the stronger criticisms of him Ive heard. Some of the other points that spun off from that I didnt agree with, but the central criticism strikes me as valid and interesting. There is a way in which Cena can be fairly viewed as both the most unselfish and selfish top star theyve ever had. While I am persuaded some by the argument, Im not certain Im persuaded that its enough to substantially dock Cena though, in part because I think most of the other top tier guys have criticisms that are equally damning. That said, Ill think about it when putting my ballot together