Childs

Indie promoters have been using it for awhile. Ian ran a few "Revolution Strong Style" tourneys in IWA-MS as I recall, and Gabe's announcers have tossed it around at various points. I do think it's evolved from an NJ-specific term to a more generic (meaningless?) term for hard-hitting, Japanese-influenced wrestling.

Surely we can criticize Dave without slandering him, right? Because that's what it is when you attack his professional credibility without any hint of specific evidence: slander. I've said this before and I'll say it again--I am a veteran journalist, and I absolutely respect Dave as a fellow journalist, even though I'm not a fan of a lot of his stylistic choices.

Dave gave the same star rating (4 1/2) to the Survivior Series men's 5-on-5 as he did to the NXT tag match. I know it's beyond redundant to carp about him as a match critic, but that's just staggering.

Just had the same thought. It's been "imminent" for about six months now.

Struck me as almost the opposite. People largely shat on the undercard and then many seemed to dig the main event. And I say that as someone who thought most of the show was crap.

Dave made it sound like it might be awhile because of his mother's medical needs.

Here's a tribute his boss wrote about him: http://www.mncorn.org/2016/11/21/gone-too-soon/

Absolutely, I seem to be in the minority on this one.

and yet people went nuts when Mike Tyson did that shit You mean quick knockouts? That's a bad comparison, because people inherently understand that a real sporting event doesn't have a controlled ending. And in fact, fans wanted to see Tyson destroy his opponents in short order. That was his brand. If you're suggesting that's what we generally look for from wrestling main events, that's nonsense. That's what we look for in Goldberg matches though. Not really from Goldberg main events on big shows though.

and yet people went nuts when Mike Tyson did that shit You mean quick knockouts? That's a bad comparison, because people inherently understand that a real sporting event doesn't have a controlled ending. And in fact, fans wanted to see Tyson destroy his opponents in short order. That was his brand. If you're suggesting that's what we generally look for from wrestling main events, that's nonsense.

Agreed, but concerts are different. I think the thing forgotten, and why a lot of people were happy is that this match was a Goldberg match. Goldberg squashing Brock was him doing Born in the USA. If Goldberg and Brock did a 20 minute suplex heavy match, that would be more like a concert where Bruce played Backstreet Boys songs. Yeah, I guess part of it is that I was never a Goldberg mark, though I always liked him fine. Totally agree that they had no business doing a 20-minute epic. What I thought they might do after he hit the first two spears was their version of Hulk-Andre, and I would have enjoyed that more.

Say I paid $150 for a Springsteen ticket and Bruce came out, played "Born to Run," then ordered the E Street Band to destroy its instruments and walk off stage. Would that create a "moment?" I suppose. Would it prompt some discussion of his motivations? Yeah. Would it create any real sense of satisfaction? No, and WWE falls awfully short on delivering real satisfaction these days. That's how I look at it. Obviously, based on this thread, others see it very differently. And that's fine.

More idiotic than a really simple story (Lesnar totally underestimating Goldberg and paying for it) executed to perfection completely going over your head? You're almost willfully ignoring the broader context of a company that continues to undermine itself by treating the Monday Night Wars as the specialest time in the history of specialness. Not to mention they booked what was basically a one-match show and then didn't deliver the match. If it worked for you, great. To me, it felt like another example of this company treating its customers with utter contempt.

Bless your positive outlook. I would have been furious if I'd bought a ticket for that show.

Wow, there was really nothing more to that. I know it's cute to laugh at it but that was a dogshit ending to a dogshit show.

Ok...

Against every rational fiber in my body, I hope the main event is entertaining.

Is Shane going to fight off the stretcher? Fuckhead.

This match really hammers home how astounding it is that people watch all these guys and decide Roman is the one who sucks.

I swear Ambrose is more terrible than good.

I feel awful for Adam's family. He was a good dude and a valued member of this community.

I don't get the complaints about the main event. It was a really good, hard-hitting match that happened to be overshadowed by the earlier tag match. Thought Joe looked quite good, and the finishing run clicked.

Pretty sure they charge the lump sum.

It hurts me in my heart that you had Hansen-Kobashi (and so much other great stuff) below that garbage joshi cage match.

I didn't get that with Tommy End at all, though I agree with Phil that it feels like he should be cool to watch. That opener was a real dog of a match. But I certainly can't complain about a show with the one-two punch of Sabre-Gulak and Hero-Riddle. Two totally different matches that both hit the spot.