Dylan Waco

I find it amusing how Alex Riley's music always results in big pops until people see who it is. Finish to the women's match was pretty sick

Sandow is a very good worker

The best is the FBI which was consistently entertaining for it's entire run, peaking with Smothers/Rich/Guido. Varsity Club is fondly remembered. Very fun gimmick that I thought worked slightly better on paper, but still a very fun act that could have perhaps "graduated" up the card. I always liked Jimmy Hart's WWF stable as a solid combination of guys with the right managerial fit. Tons of bad ones, my top pick might be The Oddities

My memory is that Harry Smith did a vicious head drop suplex on Christian (I think?) the day after Misawa died.

Yeah Arn was a copy and C.W. was/is a very good worker. I agree that ideally copying him that much is not the best, but a guy with that look has virtually no real options.

Imagine you are C.W. Anderson and you look like that. What other gimmick are you going to get that won't result in you being a jobber, or a masked guy with a very short shelf life?

Backlund v. Valentine MSG draw from 79. Also Backlund had matches with Duncum and Hussein Arab from 77/78 that are good stuff. I really liked a Dino Bravo v. Super Destroyer II match I recently came across in my watching that is from AWA TV on 10/28/79. Also has the benefit of being a match that furthered the dissension angle with SDII losing his mask and blaming Lord Alfred Hayes for his problems and aligning with Heenan. I'll assume the Portland is well known from the Buddy comp, but don't forget Buddy's San Francisco run, particularly the excellent tv mach v. Mando. That Dundee v. Charles match from Memphis with Lance marking out on commentary is from 79.

I love this match because it is a rare example of Steamboat showing real fire and hatred which he rarely did

Went to a show in Charleston tonight. Oddly the other crew was in Chattanooga and my brother and dad went to that show. Anyhow the Charleston show was good stuff. Attendance was WAY down from the Dec show which had Cena and Punk on the show to be fair. My guess is around 3500. No really great match like the last three or four WWE house shows I've been to, but nothing that was less than entertaining and a lot of good. They are using a new set for these house shows that has a small double tron, a mini-stage and this giant lighted X that displays various colors throughout the night. Looks really cool and sort of made the show seem like a bigger deal than it was. Opener was The Usos/Khali v. Hunico/Cammacho/Jinder Mahal. Uso's entrance came across great live. Uso's were crazy over and so was Khali who had people freaking out for him all match even though he really didn't do anything until the finish. Hunico was the star here as he ran over and ripped up a guys sign, mocked the Uso's chanting, reeled off a slew of athletic spots and generally kept things interesting even when he was on the apron. Cool spot to set up the heel control segment with Jimmy taking a nasty bump to the floor. Amusing spot with Mahal trying to headbutt the Uso's multiple times as they tagged in and out displaying their typically Samoan craniums. Mahal isn't very good but they worked around that well and built to the Khali hot tag nicely which the crowd was amped for. Finishing run was pretty fun. Good opener. They did a weird backstage promo with Kane here. It was clearly shot elsewhere, but I thought this was smart as again it made the show feel like a bigger deal. Ryback squashed Heath Slater. Watching Slater try and reason with Ryback was amusing. My brother was texting me from the Chattanooga show and said that Tensai squashed JTG and Tyson Kidd there. He said people shat all over it and were heading for the bathroom. By comparison Ryback was pretty over for a relatively new act, with limited exposure. There was a Ryback chant and those that didn't know him seemed to be won over by the quick thrashing. Slater took a sick bump for the clothesline. Nattie Neidhart v. Layla for the Diva's Title was actually a very good match, in some respects the best match on the show. Nattie has really been the star of two out of the last three house shows I've been to as she always tries really hard and is great in the house show setting interacting with fans. She was wonderful screaming at the crowd, throwing shit at Tony Chimmel, fucking with Charles Robinson, et. They opened up with some really nifty matwork, almost World of Sport style, before Nattie took over. Really cool spot with Layla elbowing Nattie's leg to escape an ab stretch, with Nattie countering in one fluid motion into a really nasty looking body slam. Nattie took a sick bump to the floor on another Layla hope spot, but then creamed her with a tornado clothesline. Layla also got an awesome near fall off of this awesome spot where she hit a flash armdrag into a floatover roll up all in one super quick motion. Finish was great with Neidhart going for a delayed vertical, but Layla shifted her weight down and immediately drilled her with a sick neckbreaker. Post-match Nattie knocked Chimmel on his ass which was pretty awesome. I never say this about Diva's matches, but if this had gotten three or four more minutes (it got about eight total) it would have been a legitimately great match. Drew MacIntrye desperately tried to carry Bo Rotunda to a good match and while it was decent that's all it was going to get with Bo in there. This guy is seriously fucking terrible to the point that I can't believe he has a contract EVEN WITH his family connections. He literally botched TWO rope running spots in the match, at one point getting caught up in the ropes and nearly tumbling to the floor. Drew Mac held shit together pretty well, hit some nice offensive spots and positioned himself really well for an admittedly cool finish, but Rotunda was just amazingly terrible. I'm talking Abyss level bad. Another backstage promo this time with Daniel Bryan putting over his main event match v. Sheamus and Del Rio. Orton beat Kane in a No DQ match. I have liked their other matches WAY more than I would have guessed, but this match had a lot of silly stuff, including Kane locking on a mid-ring bodyscissors (in a street fight?), some of the worst cane shots I've ever seen, and the shittiest use of an exposed turnbuckle you could imagine. On the other hand the crowd was CRAZY into this match, with Orton getting the biggest pop on the show and really buying into the near falls of this match. In a live setting that really makes a match like this impossible to hate, especially when you are sitting next to your wife and child who are both enjoying it. To be fair the finishing run was pretty good and it was far from bad, but I actually thought this could have been better. After intermission they ran Yoshi Tatsu v. Christian which was a real surprise and a pretty good match. I still think Christian is a FAR better worker as a face as there were points in this match where he appeared to be searching for his next move on offense, but over all he looked fine here. This got kind of dance routinish at times, but Yoshi actually has a cool connection to the crowd as they clearly knew who he was and were into his act. Funny bit with Christian teasing tossing his shirt into the crowd and throwing it to Chimmel, with Yoshi going to the floor taking it and tossing it into the crowd. Finish of this ruled as Tatsu rattled off a run, but missed his top rope spinkick for a huge bump and ate the Killswitch. Semi-main was Cody Rhodes defending the I-C title v. The Big Show in an extremely entertaining match. Some guy had brought a sign with a rubber chicken and Cody's pic taped over it's head and they worked spots around that all match. At one point Show decked Cody in the head with it and Cody bailed to the floor and bashed it with a chair. Show then retrieved it and performed CPR on it. A few seconds later Show made Chimmel hold the mic up to Cody's chest while he did the "Shhh chop" spot. Cody came back with some big kicks and hit a disaster kick which Show took a really massive bump floor. Show came back by choke/shoving Cody to the floor but took another big bump off of a post shot. This was starting to get really good, when Cody bailed to the floor and got DQ'ed after a chairshot. It was a logical finish for a house show, but still disappointing as it was well on it's way to being a really great match. Best I've seen Cody live even if the pre-match Buffalo Springfield inspired promo was bizarre. Main event was Sheamus defending the World title against Alberto Del Rio and Daniel Bryan in a Triple threat. Ricardo was awesome in the pre-match fucking with Chimmel (the theme of the night?) and just generally milling around like a shithead. Match itself had really good psychology as Sheamus arm was still taped up and both heels attacked it and stayed on it. Make sense because both guys have an armbar finish which added an extra dimension to the match. Rather than having a handicapped match feel, one heel would knock the other out of the ring, keep him at bay and then go back to attacking Sheamus arm. Sheamus is a guy with varied and good offense and even in a match largely built around his selling we got to see a bunch of it. At one point Del Rio locked on the armbar and Bryan had to rush in to break things up. The heels tried to work together toward the end, but it didn't come off and Sheamus pinned Bryan after his kick. This went a little under fifteen minutes and is another one that was good, but would have been better with a little more time.

Scorpio should have come out to Poor Righteous Teachers. Scorp as a god would have been great.

Well you aren't really going to get an argument from me since I think Booker is overrated in just about every respect, but he was a guy who had a chance to break through with a win and instead the whole storyline and match felt like a prolonged hate crime

5 million was always overpaying as Brock was never a major wrestling draw and there is zero reason to presume MMA fans will follow him back to the WWE.

It pretty much killed Booker's chances of ever being a guy who would break into the top tier. I liked the King Booker stuff, but that was a few years later, and really felt like a secondary title run

HHH is always an angle/freshness killer. As soon as he came out a feeling of dread swept over me. The actual attack was pretty cool and well done, but there is nothing good that can come of HHH being involved on any level. Having said that, this is the problem with signing a huge monster heel of Brock's ilk when you've only got a couple of babyfaces that are even arguably on the level where you would want to consider watching Brock work them in a program

Cena was covered in blood with his arm dangling as if it was unusable by his side.

I don't really buy point six, but it's been tossed out enough and would not totally shock me.

Yeah, whatever. So, answer to those people directly, but no one here expressed that point of view (which is a stupid one indeed). Again, has this happened on this very board ? Hum... don't think so. So blaming people around here for an attitude that really hasn't been displayed here is pretty off the mark I would say. Without trying to sound condescending nor pretentious. I'm doing my best. I'm trying. (meanwhile, some talks about "fucking idiots" because they disagree. Quite defensive indeed.) I wasn't accusing a single person on this board of a thing. You can't find a single reference to that in my post, nor was it implied. My point was that while Phil's comment may have come across as prickish, there have been a metric shit ton of prickish comments coming from the other side all over the net. I would prefer we not go that route and didn't really think Phil's line was necessary which was the entire point of my last statement in my original post.

4) they are trying to mimic Brock's MMA run entirely and the story is going to be that he made a mistake by working a pro wrestling match after dominating Cena with MMA tactics. 5) they see more money in Brock chasing Cena, than Cena chasing Brock (this sounds stupid to some, but in a fucked up way I think it's not nutty at all) 6) Brock wanted to show he was willing to "do business"

Honestly I don't think for a second Cena won to swerve people. I think Cena won for a variety of reasons, some stupid, some smarter than a lot of us would like to admit. There are a lot of people who hate Cena and for some reason think he is always booked incredibly strong. I have no clue how anyone watching over the course of the last year could come to that conclusion, but they do. Someone made this point elsewhere, but I honestly believe if Punk had beaten Lesnar the outrage coming from some quarters would be FAR less than it is (for the record I'm not saying that about you El-P, and I think Alvarez and Meltz would have flipped their shit no matter what). In some respects I think the right thing to do would have been for Lesnar to come in and destroy Punk first, but then the criticism would be that it was the WWE bringing in an outsider with short term value to crush the guy that has finally broken into the top tier. To be honest I don't know if there is a right way to book with the baggage Lesnar has, particularly with the current crop of WWE faces being what they are (after Punk and Cena every one seems beneath him).

That is so condescending it's ridiculous. God forbid someone would share the same opinion with the Meltz from time to time. Like people who think Cena winning is stupid are simply following Meltz's lead and not able to think by themselves. Remind me of that one when I drop the dreaded "trend" word next time around. As far as discussing the finish, I think it's been said already, at least I'm pretty clear about it : as a match in a vacuum, everything worked great, loved the hell out of the match, have no issue with Cena winning. As far as booking long term, it's an abortion to have Cena beat Lesnar in his first match. There's not much else to say that hasn't been said already. And don't act like anyone pretended like nothing was worth discussing. Discussing and arguing is what we're doing since we all saw that match. I don't even get where you're coming from with that ridiculous "people who think it's a good idea are not true wrestling fan" stuff to be honest. Considering the fact that you are easily the most condescending and pretentious person I've ever encountered on a wrestling message board I take this as a great compliment. The "people who think it's a good idea are not true wrestling fans" point is something I have seen expressed multiple times elsewhere. I don't give a fuck if people share Dave's opinion. Hell I agree with Dave on many things. But when people start rolling out "I agree with the top journalist ever!" talking point or literally taking the words out of his mouth verbatim without attribution - both of which are things I have seen on multiple boards since last night - it is clear that they are shaping their argument as if it received wisdom from a messianic figure that only heretics and heathens could oppose. The point though is actually that this whole thing speaks to the massive divide in wrestling geek culture as both sides immediately go into defensive posturing mode the second something like this comes up. I'm certainly as guilty of it as anyone.

It wasn't even the worst business decision the WWE has made in the last few months. I honestly cannot believe the rage people have over this finish. I can see thinking it was the wrong thing and in a sense I agree that it was. I can see thinking the mixture of MMA spots in with pro wrestling is a slippery slope that could be FAR worse for business than the finish. But saying this finish was "the worst finish of all time" or on the level of Sting/Hogan or "the worst business decision that WWE has ever made" is something I literally cannot wrap my head around. Of course I also think the notion that Brock being a huge MMA draw will make him a huge wrestling draw is ass backwards too so what do I know?

There certainly is a debate to be had about it and I can see both sides. But the disciples of the Meltzerian gospel would have you believe such a debate is not only "wrong" to have but only those who viscerally hate the wrestling business could possibly think it was a good idea for Cena to win. Now I'm a guy who loved Jar Jar in Episode One both because he sounded like Dusty Rhodes and because I fucking hate Star Wars and I found it hilarious how outraged diehards were by his existence. The point is that I get wanting to ruin something you loathe and laughing at it from a far. But those who think Cena over Lesnar was a good idea (or even just not a bad idea) are not anti-fan's trolling/laughing at wrestling fans. They are real fans who just disagree. And yet almost as soon as people started defending the finish even in the most tepid ways imaginable the torches started firing up. So rather than discuss the stupidity or lack thereof of those who feel one way or the other about the finish, I'd find it more interesting if people would actually talk about the finish and the thinking that went into, negatives/positives of it, et.

I can't count the number of people who have laughed at me when I told them the blood in wrestling was real. About two years back I was explaining the way blading worked to a room full of hipsters all of whom assumed I was just some dumbshit rube. Now I am a dumbshit rube, but I found this particularly annoying coming from the scum I was surrounded by so I did some google searching and provided enough evidence to prove them all wrong. The end result of this was a drunk guy slicing his head open with a peace of quartz from the driveway. Good times

Cross posted from DVDVR You know what I am sure tons of people will bitch about that finish, Dolph jobbing and a slew of other shit, but fuck it, that was a tremendous ppv. Miz v. Santino was perfectly acceptable pre-show stuff, but man alive has Miz fallen by the wayside. Santino is a successful character but a part of me wishes they would let him break out of the comedy ghetto a bit because when they give him an inch he usually takes a mile. Regardless it was a decent enough match. Kane v. Orton was WAYYY better than it should have been. It went long and Orton throws the strangest looking punches of anyone on the roster, but Kane really worked hard and there were little things in the match I really liked. Randy actually selling the impact of the dropkick on the floor and DDT on the floor was nice and Kane through some awesome uppercuts. The hopscotch set up for the RKO was never more obvious but I actually thought it was a pretty good match. Dolph v. Brodus is something I imagine a lot of people will hate on and I get why, but look at it this way - they are actually pushing someone the right way. Shame Dolph has to be the guy to get jobbed, but he bumped like a nut for Brodus and I enjoyed it while it lasted. Big Show v. Cody was short too, but thoroughly enjoyable as a match. I am up and down on Cody but he took some fucking insane bumps here and his springboard spot off the table was actually really cool. Finish was pretty brilliant too and Show's facial expression and post-match destruction made it even better. I have not given a fuck about this feud, but this was a very good segment. Ryback squash was entertaining, but I am opposed to the notion of squashes on ppv. Why not do some bit on SD last week to set him up v. Slater or someone with a "name?" Layla's return was probably a disappointment for some but I marked out for it. Match was short but decent and that finishing neckbreaker was fucking brutal. The big three matches all delivered. Sheamus v. Bryan was a legitimately great match, that I almost feel sorry for them because the main event will overshadow it in the eyes of many. Still the 2/3 falls format was something these guys knew how to work and they worked it really well. It helps a lot that both of these guys have a huge variety of credible looking offensive spots, to the point where in a multiple fall match almost any one of them is something you can buy as a fall. That adds to the false finishes and these guys both sell well enough where it's not your standard trading falls/spot running overkill. Loved Sheamus Texas Cloverleaf, selling of the arm and the spot with him attempting to rake Bryan's face only for Bryan to smash his arm down on his shoulder anyhow was pretty Finlayesque. I also thought the tope cut off via elbow looked particularly nasty here. Neat change up with the first fall going super long and the stuff with Bryan taking the fall and winning via pass out in the second was as well played as it possibly could have been. Final fall was also really great stuff from the jump and Bryan's exclamation point bump on the finish made it. Both guys were just tremendous here really. Punk v. Jericho was either the best bad match I can remember seeing or the worst good one. It was sloppy as fuck, some of the stuff just looked bizarre and there were points where it looked like it was about to go right over the rails. Having said that they managed to hold it all together and while the storyline they are working is utter shit the way they incorporated it into this match actually worked pretty well. Punk took some really wild bumps in this in the sense that they were formless and dangerous. I actually thought the fire extinguisher spot was shockingly well done considering the fact it is 2012 and that was a fire extinguisher shot. Some of the cane shots looked really brutal. Punk snapping on Jericho for going after his "sister" was a great moment and Jericho fucking creaming Punk with the monitor was unexpected. Punk's battle against the top rope actually added to the wild nature of the match and the big elbow and the finishing run was really solid too. I could absolutely see some people hating this, but I liked it a lot and I have viscerally hated this feud. Brock v. Cena was surreal as fuck and I'm not totally sure it was the right thing for business but I actually thought it was a brilliant match. I had VERY low expectations and feared the worst so maybe that has something to do with it, but the Snowman v. Lawler style opening with Brock legit busting Cena was fucking insane and immediately sucked me in. I could see some hating the switch to pro style but I thought the way it was done was really smart as they sort of slowly edged toward that direction. Brock playing with Cena, like a cat with a dead bird was great shit. This was Cena at his best, selling his ass off for a beast, working king of the mountain spots, taking some big time bumps and fucking bleeding like a stuck pig. Brock was also really great as the cocky jock. I think my favorite moment from him was his face when he came to after the desperation spinebuster on the stairs, glancing around like Biff Tannen after getting knocked the fuck out by George McFly, coming too and realizing he was still the baddest motherfucker in the room. Spot with Brock wiping out on the floor looked scary as fuck, but was covered for in the most awesome way possible and Cena coming back with the chain shot, Brock blading and the finish were all great and shocking spots. This was like a fucked up hybrid of Mayweather/Show and Cena/Umaga and I loved every god damned second of it. Post-match Cena promo was...interesting and I could see it meaning a variety of different things

Jericho has reached Foley levels of "this act does not work anymore, go away before all my good memories are ruined" bad