Childs

Yeah, I had a conversation with a guy at work today who hasn't watched regularly in years but is intrigued by the network. That's obviously a tiny sample size. The reaction seems promising though.

Do folks here have experience with Roku? Is it a worthwhile device? Seems pretty affordable.

Kevin talked to me about taking over his blog when he left, but powers that be wanted me to focus on other stuff. I didn't make a big push for it, because honestly, I like keeping wrestling as a hobby. I've found that writing about other sports changes my relationship to them and not always in ways I like.

In Baltimore, we've had a dedicated wrestling blogger on our web site for years. The first guy, Kevin Eck, left to work for WWE. But we actually brought on replacements, because the blog gets a bunch of hits. That said, none of the bosses understand or care about wrestling. They just see it as a cheap, easy way to generate web traffic.

Race seemed to like winning the first fall in less-than-impressive fashion and then giving the second fall to the local babyface to build excitement going into the third. He followed that pattern with Billy Jack a few years later in Portland.

Daniel Bryan quite some time ago to a lot of success, my toes actually curl reading Internet fans still refer to him as Danielson. Then your toes are too sensitive.

I watched the Rumble match out of curiosity, because it had been a long time. And I was surprised how much I liked it. They did a really good job of establishing how evenly matched they were. Not every match has to have a protracted heat section, and in this case, they built excitement by working lots of quick, intense counter exchanges. I don't always like that style, but they won me over with how hard they went. I liked the teases of the sharpshooter and the diving headbutt. And even though they pushed the pace, I wouldn't say they ignored selling the accrued damage. I could see people finding the finishing stretch a bit much. But again, these guys were supposed to be the best athletes in the promotion, pushing each other to the limit. The Benoit headbutt was a great, holy shit spot, and his one roll-up nearfall looked great as well. The ankle lock shit seems worse in retrospect because Angle overused it to an absurd degree in later matches. I thought Benoit fought long enough to fit the storyline but not too long. I don't know; it's not my favorite type of wrestling. But I thought Benoit and Angle pretty much nailed what they were going for.

If you can't take seriously any vote that involves a few nutty ballots, then you can't take any vote on anything seriously.

A lot of newer TVs have built-in wireless and apps, so it's possible that you wouldn't need AppleTV, game console, etc.

If they go exclusively online, it's hard to see that as a paradigm-shifter for them in the short term. It's more of a half-step into a new world. Not saying that's a bad thing; it would just be less seismic than a lot of the network talk has suggested.

More important than any consensus on John Ford, this thread has produced a moment of harmony between jdw and jvk.

Did you end up interviewing him and/or reviewing the book?

I think you might be giving Shane too much credit. Do we really have any evidence that he's good at anything? Eomer could at least lead a decent cavalry charge.

That's a committed breakdown.

I viscerally disliked this match. So much aimless garbage. And the crowd didn't even seem to care. I guess the ending was cool.

I'm unclear what happened in this case. I don't see anything that would've inspired a moderator to step in (well, until the insanity at the end). John didn't seem to cross any lines of reasonable behavior. In general, I'm not a fan of cutting off discussions. I mean, you're a fucking adult. If you don't want to get into a line-by-line battle that goes on for pages, walk away. If, as a reader, you're bored by said battles, skim over them. I don't see the big deal unless someone gets really vicious, which doesn't happen that often.

It's more a case of Choshu getting his win back from the Dome and then letting Tenryu move on to Hash. I don't think they felt Tenryu had to be undefeated to keep his heat.

Well, Benoit and Flair tried to create some action in the match proper. But there were too many shitty guys in there, and the booking was such a shit follow-up to the Horsemen parody. I mean, why build a whole show around burying Ric Flair? It just shows the void in perspective that developed over the course of '97.

I don't know; I thought this made for a great piece of wrestling theater. The crowd loved Shawn bumping around for Bulldog in the early part of the match. And I didn't mind all the interference spots, stacking the deck against the local hero. I get the questions about the missing Hart Foundation. But I could also see Davey wanting to go it alone as the gallant native. The bit where Davey's leg went out on the powerslam at ringside came off well. And I loved Shawn tossing Davey's knee brace to Diana before applying the figure four. The heat at the end, with Shawn baiting the crowd, was just insane. This reminds me of the NWO Horsemen skit because it seems more dickish in retrospect, given the lack of revenge on Shawn. But the dude delivered an awesome heel performance and created a super-intense ending to a fantastic show.

I think this was Undertaker's first great match. I can't remember another from the yearbooks. Dropping the pure dead man gimmick liberated Callous as a worker, because as he showed here, he's quite an excellent seller. I realy liked the stretch after Bret went chest-first into the exposed turnbuckle, with Taker going for the heart punches. Bret's focused leg attack really made the match down the stretch. I understand why they didn't want to do a clean finish; I'd just say the DQ felt abrupt after they had put in so much work.

This was an excellent match, and though I wouldn't say it's exactly comparable to the Sting matches, it did remind me of those and the Muto match from the G-1. Owen, at his best, was a great offensive wrestler, and his stuff looked particularly good with such a big guy eating and bumping for it. Vader gave a vintage performance as the vulnerable monster. Owen's bodyslam felt like a great payoff, especially the way the announcers set it up. And then the catch powerslam finish looked badass.

I hadn't watched this match in a long time, and I was a total lucha novice on last viewing. The match stands out as something that's really easy to appreciate if you don't know the style. As Loss said, they worked very aggressively with a classic pro wrestling build that would be immediately recognizable to an American fan. But I don't think I'd recommend this to a newbie as a good example of lucha. With only one fall, they worked an unusual rhythm, and they never really built to the violent crescendo you see in the best wager matches. This sounds like I'm shitting on the match, which isn't the case. It's great. It just struck me as something very "other" this time around.

I'm curious; just among people on this board, how many would subscribe to a WWE Channel? This is obviously as intense a group of wrestling fans as you'll find, but there are also a lot of folks inclined to seek the footage through other avenues.

Did you lure the other guy into the corner, take a few shots and then pounce?