Dylan Waco

4/13

Completely agree with this. I actually thought they did a great job making Sheamus and Cesaro come across as incredibly relevant too, which is a big credit to them

Ambrose has passed Bray as the hottest active, non-Bryan performer. Reigns is right there with them. I don't like Rollins as a heel, and I don't think I ever will, but I will enjoy those matches

I liked the main event, the opener and Big E v. Rusev a lot. Naomi v. Paige was a solid effort, but if we are judging it by the standards of all matches and not grading on a considerable curve it was no better than decent. The finishes of the two ladder matches just make you shake your head (though I understand the logic of the main event finish at least) and I had a lot of problems with everything else on the show.

To be clear (I think I was but maybe not) the first match I refer to above is the first ladder match, not the Usos v. Wyatts tag which I really enjoyed

I actually think the first match is being comically overrated by everyone. If that exact same match had happened in TNA it would have been completely shit on by everyone. I'm not saying it's impossible to like it, and there were some great individual moments, but as a whole I thought it was much closer to bad than good. I've liked this main event much better

Boy am I going to be the heel on the reaction show tonight...

What I want to happen. Mark Henry replaces Barrett in MITB and has a good showing. Dean Ambrose wins MITB. Orton wins the main, Ambrose immediately cashes in on him. What will happen. Bo Dallas replaces Barrett in MITB and isn't very good in that setting. Seth Rollins wins MITB. Cena wins the main.

As a star Santo. By a massive margin. As a worker Rey. Then probably Santos kid.

Everyone cares about the business side to the extent that if a company isn't in business you can't watch it and enjoy it. Does this show help or hurt TNA's ability to exist longer? I don't know, but I fail to see how it helps. More importantly I think this is a great example of something that is surface level, cosmetically "different," but I think has a very high likelihood of being WORSE from an atmosphere, excitement AND quality perspective than the average TNA ppv.

I agree that Andre (generally speaking) was a smarter wrestler than Vader. Vader was someone who was extremely talented and athletically gifted. For that reason he was able to work people as different as Takada and Ray Traylor and have compelling matches. But he was definitely too giving for his own good at times, and OJ's criticism of his WCW work is something that I think is more true than we like to admit (i.e. Vader is very formulaic, and in a way that is not necessarily fitting for a monster heel). By contrast I think Andre was remarkably good at changing his game in small and subtle ways to fit the context around him. For example Andre v. Khan and Hanson in Clash of the Titans matches is a lot different than Andre and midgets v. Buddy Rose and midgets or Andre working comedic schtick with Hoshino. Having said all of that, I haven't voted, and when/if I do I think I'd probably still vote Vader. Does that have to do with footage? Maybe It's possible that there is a treasure trove of great Andre matches out there that haven't been watched or don't exist on tape. But the real key is that I think there are way too many gaps in Andre's career where he wasn't doing much that I consider really impressive in the ring. Part of that is probably because of booking, but then again if Rip Rogers had been booked to have chances maybe I'd rate him higher than Curt Hennig. He wasn't, so I don't.

Even if Japanese sponsors pay for everything (and I guarantee they won't pay for everything) running Korakuen Hall is pretty obviously not going to be profitable and comes across as a desperate pitch to smart fans. Not having their marquee show live on PPV strikes me as especially insane

Yep. I thought Bryan was great as WWE Mark Briscoe- but that's absolutely what he was doing and Mark deserves mention

Ryback is one of the only good mic workers in the promotion

WWA/LA is usually considered a World Title by historians. If you go far enough back the various claimants and weird stuff from town-to-town starts to hurt your head.

My memory of AWA set is that Brunzell was a tremendous hot tag, but I could be imagining that. Worth noting that Daniel Bryan's hot tag schtick was basically just Mark Briscoe's hot tag schtick with a WWE filter.

As a star, drawing card and historical figure the answer is Andre. If you picked his best five matches and put them next to the best five matches of Vader you could make a case for him being better, but I'd still go with Vader over him as a worker based on what we have. Maybe if I watched more early 80's WWWF I'd feel differently (I like almost all the Andre I've seen from that period). I'd actually put Blackwell right there with those guys as a worker, and would listen to an argument that he's better, though I'm not sure I'd buy it. What hurts Blackwell more than anything was how he was pushed in MACW and the WWWF, but what can you do? Taking this a different direction, in terms of kayfabe achievement, while I think most would take either Vader or Andre, you could make a reasonable case for Yokozuna. Two WWF title reigns (that weren't just drop in the bucket transitional reigns), was the first guy to "end" Hulkamania, relatively important tag title run w/Owen. If nothing else it's an underrated run, and Yoko is underrated in general as a worker/star/et.

Ueda's suicide double elimination spot from 3/86 NJPW elimination tag isn't really really cheating, but it was against the spirit of the match, and is one of the best spots in the history of wrestling.

Orton CAN be really good at times. He is not consistently. Not even close

I own four fully functioning VCR's, and two others that are semi-functional. I also still have a whole lot of tapes. I've definitely lost, misplaced or trashed some over the years, but I still have a large amount of it. A lot of it is stuff I have on disc or is easily available on youtube, and I could easily junk (and probably should). A decent amount of it is mixes/customs that have a few matches that I don't know if they are up online anywhere (stuff like random APW stuff for example) that I would like to keep. I haven't watched any of this stuff in years mind you. Then there is a little bit of stuff that might be online, but I haven't really checked to see so I keep it just to be safe. That would be stuff like the full run of Michaels TWA. I actually did watch some of this in the last two years, though not much of it. The big problem I have is that a ton of this stuff is labeled wrong or not labeled at all

Matthews is injured and out for at least 3 months

Week three. http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2014/06/20/tna-impact-june-19-review/

I was actually hearing details about this angle making t.v. before all the craziness that happened on Dreamer's shows a couple of weeks back. If they run with the idea I heard it has potentially to be out of this world hilarious. Naturally I will be reviewing this gem for VoicesOfWrestling.com tonight

I don't think Orton is "almost" in any category. I understand that many workers say he's great, but as a fan, I don't think he's even close to great. He's been around for a long time and has been in plenty of good matches (and even some great matches), but there are hundreds of wrestlers I would comfortably rate ahead of Orton. As an influence? There is nothing I can see there at all. As a draw? Forget it. Rich from Voices of Wrestling did a stats based piece on Orton recently that suggests he isn't really a draw at all. Even if you think statistical analysis devoid of historical context has limited value, I don't see how historical context would do Orton very many favors. More than that Orton has absolutely bombed in epic ways in recent years. The Orton/Christian feud in particular was a complete disaster, to the point where SD had to be saved by Mark Henry of all people. I love Henry and that was an epic run, but no Hall of Famer, borderline or otherwise, should need Henry coming in to save the day. The one thing Orton has going or him is that he'll likely have a twenty year long career at or near the top of cards when it's all said and done and a lot of people really go for longevity. To me I want longevity with results, and Orton does not have anything approaching an HoF pedigree when it comes to results.

I would never vote for Orton for an HoF, or at least not based on his record as it currently exists.