Childs

If we're going multiman you can push this back a few years for Liger. Any ones in particular? Earliest Liger match to make the DVDVR NJ set was April '85 vs. Kosugi.

That Tenryu-Okada match was pitiful. I love Tenryu as much as anyone but he could barely move. Okada essentially had to powerbomb himself.

I think it's perfect. His character is an underdog who just came back from a years long layoff. They had to give us the Mania and AJ matches to make us happy, but this is a realistic choice. And it helps both guys. Rusev gets a big win finally and it gives Bryan's character more depth. It makes sense, yes, but I wish they'd move on from Bryan as scrappy underdog. I know they won't because it's how he's imprinted on their brains at this point. But I miss Bryan as the confident master wrestler.

The last time Gallows got much love was as a Punk disciple. His New Japan run was generally panned, and he certainly hasn't done anything in this second WWE run to reverse that downward momentum.

When WWE had the Miz read off the inflated number of sellouts at the beginning of RAW, it almost felt like they were directly trolling Dave. I'm sure they weren't, but I was amused.

I don't know for sure, but you would have to think they mapped out the match pretty carefully with Vince and an agent, right? Meltzer always says Heyman has a major hand in laying out Brock's matches.

I enjoy the Braun-Lashley Megapowers.

This was unbelievably boring. Paint by numbers ZSJ against a guy who's yet to interest me once in his entire career. Slow pace, no urgency to anything, dead crowd. Yuck.

It's been driving me nuts as well. Thanks man.

Watched this twice. The first time, I was groggy and thought it was merely good. The meh crowd did not help. But on rewatch, it took a big leap. Terrific creativity and struggle in the counter sequences. Top-notch selling from Riddle. Cool, unexpected finish. Both guys were really on their best form.

Yeah, if that false information was "Bruno was a Nazi youth who wanted his Mom shot!"Twitter Dave is a character he's embraced, he's said as much, and this one thing was just a weird ill timed thing to immediately tweet upon Bruno, his friend, passing away. If you're gonna embrace Twitter to engage morons because you've been told it's what you do, it's gonna bite you in the ass occasionally. Number one, no one cares. It doesn't matter if 187 or 188 is real. It's a mythology and it doesn't effect anyone or anything to let it be. And anyone going crazy on Twitter calling Dave terrible things over this ? They're assholes who are over reacting on purpose because Twitter is a sewer. But people just pointing out that it was an ill timed tweet has gotten a response of crazy hostility and escalation of weird anger from some people. I know Dave was full of emotion and then finished the obit he's already had written. ( Not a criticism, that's how it's done) and just tweeted an ill timed and honestly strange tweet. Shit, if we all want to redirect our feelings of anger and frustration, there's no better than the New York Times obit of Bruno which is condescending and awful. Man, that NYT obit really was terrible. The guy spent as much space re-litigating the fakeness of wrestling as he did describing Bruno's life. And he didn't seem to have interviewed anyone. It always amazes me how often the "fake" thing still gets brought up in the wider world.

Honestly, it's "fucking bizarre and at least slightly troubling" that you think it's inappropriate to discuss the facts of a prominent person's life on the occasion of his death. Do you think obituaries are disrespectful? How do you think they come into existence? Fucking magic? Someone has to report and check the facts of the person's life.

Sure. If I were researching an obit on Bruno, I would check out Daves feed for possible reference points. I wouldnt take it as gospel, but good chance I would look at it.

Bruno Sammartino is not your friend or your uncle. He was a public figure. People are writing news stories about him today. It would be better if those stories are accurate. So the timing is perfect.

You know what's fun? People A: This was a little socially clueless, maybe shouldn't had said that. People B: Isn't it amazing how people will get outraged about anything? I'm outraged. People A: We are not outraged at all, it just came off wrong. People B: People will get outraged over anything. Dude, call it outrage. Call it what you want. You felt the need to make a sarcastic comment on twitter about the appropriateness of Daves completely topical, reasonable tweet. Now youre throwing up your hands like you were a coolheaded non-participant, which is bullshit. Normally, I would hold my tongue on all of this because it it is a silly kerfuffle. But I get so sick of social media scolding culture, and this is a prime example.

Why because Bruno just died today. That's why people don't like it. I saw that he paid tribute and that's the right thing to have done. A significant news story ? It's a fecking sell out number for msg from over forty years ago. I'm not desperate to be outraged but bringing it up today but now isn't the time or place. Bruno's death is a significant news story. I know that when I'm writing an obituary for a prominent person, which I've done plenty of times, I work extra hard to get the facts right. An obituary is like the final word on someone's life. If anything, I'd argue it's more important to be careful with the details in that context. I know if I were writing Bruno's obituary, I would be happy that Dave, as an authority in the field, clarified this point. Then maybe don't go on twitter, and just send correction notices to people writing the article with the mistake in it? Why shouldn't he post factual (and in no way negative or critical) information on Twitter? Have we really become this infantilized? I don't even get where people are coming from with this.

Why because Bruno just died today. That's why people don't like it. I saw that he paid tribute and that's the right thing to have done. A significant news story ? It's a fecking sell out number for msg from over forty years ago. I'm not desperate to be outraged but bringing it up today but now isn't the time or place. Bruno's death is a significant news story. I know that when I'm writing an obituary for a prominent person, which I've done plenty of times, I work extra hard to get the facts right. An obituary is like the final word on someone's life. If anything, I'd argue it's more important to be careful with the details in that context. I know if I were writing Bruno's obituary, I would be happy that Dave, as an authority in the field, clarified this point.

Why isn't it the moment to bring it up? He paid tribute to Bruno. He will no doubt do so again in a long obituary. But he's a reporter, and this is a significant news story on his beat. He's not besmirching Bruno's legacy by pointing out a widespread factual error. He's doing his job. For fuck's sake, people are so desperate to be outraged these days that they don't even think.

But seriously, people should fuck off with the Dave criticism on this one. He tweeted about his deep admiration for Bruno. But he's a reporter who's watching misinformation spread, and he spoke up about it in a respectful way. That's what he's supposed to do.

He had that rare quality -- in the way Daniel Bryan does now though Bruno was obviously a bigger star -- of feeling absolutely real. Whenever I talk to Baltimore wrestling fans a little older than me, Bruno is the first name to come up, and the feeling for him is not cartoony, it's genuine. I interviewed him a while back, maybe a year or two after the Benoit thing, and he seemed like exactly the guy you'd want him to be -- righteous and concerned about the younger wrestlers without giving in to sanctimony. It would be hard to find a guy with a higher approval rating in this screwy world.

not in the context i look at it a submission match should have of mat work in it and its fits the setting that match sets as per the name of the stipulation i expect form submission match worker in the ring trading submission holds to secure a tapout victory i quit is by any means mean match like watching someone in th head with a chair or threting to put someone eys out with the wooden leg so soon as ny one uses weapons or leaves the ring it become an i quit match or that is how o view it submission matches should be pure mat work and limb work as part of work toward the affomaetioned tap out victory iv never seen an i quit match end in clean submission holds for hpld victory ie wuth not weapon or brawking involved its a match structure debate in my eyes You seem to judge wrestling based on extremely rigid parameters that exist only in your head, and you demonstrate little understanding of the context in which matches were actually worked. There is no debate to be had with you because you talk past everyone. This argument is particularly stupid because to submit someone literally means to make them say I quit. There is no difference.

I watched it again. Brock gassed out in less than five minutes, to a degree where he couldn't execute his basic offense. On top of that, we got almost none of the intense, violent exchanges that distinguished the first match. Still, I thought they were having a pretty good match for about eight minutes, right up to the point where Brock countered Roman's third spear attempt with that boss-looking knee. But then Brock went to the F-5, which Roman kicked out of to no reaction, despite the fact WWE protected the move for a year. Instead of adjusting, Brock went back to the F-5 four more times as the crowd shat on it more and more vociferously. His choices were both monotonous and horribly misguided given the reaction. The blood was cool but came way too late to fuel any kind of drama, especially when they were going to beat the poor bastard anyway. Basically, I thought the match was worse, not better, on rewatch. The design actively killed any potential drama. Roman came off as a resilient weakling. Brock came off as a guy without the fitness or range of skills to handle a big match. It was a failure, plain and simple.

Amazing on tape as well. That match was a big gateway drug for me in terms of deepening my exploration of both the indies and Japan. Is it one of those time and place things in terms of the 5 stars? Probably, but I will always feel great affection for it.

I've been surprised over the course of the week to realize there's a significant segment of folks who rated the ladder match above the main event. As I said in the original Takeover thread, I no longer feel anything toward those WWE stunt fest matches. I don't even hate them. I'm just indifferent. But for a lot of people, that style is obviously the pinnacle of wrestling. I guess it's a testament to WWE that they satisfied such a wide range of tastes at a high level in the course of one, five-match show.

I guess what struck me was not that Hulk and Vince are full of shit, which is what you would expect, but that the director bought their bullshit as gospel. He regarded the WMIII match as the climax of the story, and he liked the crap they fed him, so he rolled with it uncritically. Again, its not a big deal compared to the shit he got right about the human story. But it did not reflect well on his understanding of the wrestling story.