sek69

The match he had with Tully when he was still a no name jobber was tremendous. He went up for the slingshot suplex like he was Zack Sabre sized. No wonder Dusty saw potential in him.

It's always amazes me that the same Bill Watts who would separate heels and faces, expect his talent to always win bar fights to prove wrestlers were the toughest, and "handle" fans who got to rowdy was also a long time Observer reader. That sounds like a silly thing in 2018 to be surprised at, but so many old school guys like that were always big time mad that Dave and other sheet writers were openly discussing the business.

We dd it guys, we hit Peak Stupid. Just saw the Twitter account for the Wrestling reality podcast try to concern troll people in to going after Dave's "sponsors" for saying the people who continually go after him with wrong information have learning disabilities. I've never felt more embarrassment for humankind as a species.

WWE keeps saying in PR that they got where they were by listening to the fans, then put acts they want on top regardless of if the fans accept it or not. At this point, you have to think at least part of the resentment is more people seeing through the con. Hell, Steph even uses it as a way to get heat by doing the phony pandering to the crowd bit.

The scariest thing I've seen Brock do is run. A dude that big, that strong, and that fast is nightmare fuel. Like, if you pissed him off you didn't even have the option of running away from him unless you were a track star. Also Cesaro does things that don't seem like they should be possible, but does so with ease.

This is the best (probably only) article about Hussein.

This thread has the unexpected result of showing where Randy Orton gets so much of his stellar personality from.

Hogan wouldn't need to pull any politics anyway since Snuka's behavior was going to get him shitcanned no matter what. (also can we take a moment to think about how many drugs one must do for 1980s Vince to say you're out of control?)

The match itself was laid out modern style, yes, I was referring to the build and the atmosphere leading up to it. Nick Aldis was the well dressed World Champ coming in to the territory to show that while the local star is great, he's not better than the champ. The crowd was there to see their guy beat the champ and that's what they got. The lesson everyone should take away is that despit 20+ years of Russo bullshit and lazy WWE writing, booking good wrestling isn't *that* hard. Companies just spent a long time making it that way. If you view your fans as the paying customers you want to make happy instead of an obstacle that needs to be overcome/swerved/talked down to, you're going to have better results. Granted, that's a bit easier when you're building to an one off show rather than a promotion that runs year round, but it's still a point that needs to be learned.

Nah, that felt like a big NWA World Title match from the 70s and 80s in every way. It's clearly what Cody was aiming for and he nailed it.

In the defense of all the folks mentioned prior, the crowd turns on babyfaces these days because WWE is very bad at booking babyfaces and has been for a while. Crowds never turned on Bruno, only turned on Hogan when he was still doing his super 1980s babyface schtick in the 90s, never turned on Austin or Rock. It's only been in the last decade plus that suddenly babyfaces are wearing out their welcomes at a record pace. When you don't book your heroes to be dipshits who always lose in the end, they tend to stay heroes. Funny how that works out.

Tama Tonga thinks so, he was trying to troll him on Twitter a while back before the company told their guys to knock that shit off.

I would love to see Roman in literally any other promotion in the world where he would be able to take advantage of the charisma and promo abiliity that seems to be there but gets run over by WWE scripting. I would love to see him be able to work a match free of WWE tropes like spamming Superman punches and spears like a little kid playing a video game who only knows two buttons. It probably won't happen since he seems pretty Ride or Die with WWE, but I get the feeling he would be a much bigger star outside the company.

I think they split him away from the Shield too quickly the first time and he wasn't ready for the level he was pushed at that time. Remember that the nausea-inducing multi cut zoom cam that plagues WWE TV to this day was first introduced to cover for Roman's green-ness during the Shield beatdowns. That was the main fuel to the resentment fire: fans saw a guy not ready for prime time get pushed ahead of the guy they wanted to see in that role. Of course now Roman's vastly improved as a worker, he's more or less perfected WWE Main Event House Style. If that's not your cup of tea you probably won't like his matches much, but he usually can be called upon to have a good match with practically anyone. He's shown flashes of being a good promo when not given garbage to work with from the script writers, and can generally give off the air of being a badass that you would want in a top guy. He could probably use a refresh in the wardrobe department, but they seem content to keep his gimmick as "the guy who used to be and sometimes still is in the Shield. wasn't that cool?".

So were the three guys in the "commission" who called a sit down with Konnan and King anyone of note or just actors? Maybe it was just because they were playing mob boss stereotypes we've all seen in countless movies but they seemed familiar.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Jeff Hardy is the modern day Jake Roberts in the sense that he seems to be really smart when he's not completely fucked up. Nakamura seems to be a guy who's more checked out mentally than broken down physically, so Jeff coming up with something to keep him interested makes sense.

The most mindblowing part of the Ole tidbit is that he was only 48 in 1990. He looked like he was in his mid 50s for the prior 15 years.

Just the fact that so much of WWE's roster are guys who wouldn't have got a second look (if even a first) shows Bryan's historical importance. You could argue Punk played a role too, but him being Punk could have easily soured WWE on guys like him. Bryan proved that fans will accept a smaller guy as a star even if the company does literally everything in their power to undermine him. It really stands out on a show like All In, where a guy like Billy Gunn (who was never seen as a "big guy" in WWE) looked like the Big Show in the battle royal. People who never thought they had a chance to make it in WWE are now able to take their shot, and it really is because of Bryan.

Anyone else catch Cole going into Dad Voice admonishing Renee for popping during the finish of one of the matches? "NO CHEERING!"

Foley switching to the serious Cactus voice is my favorite thing in wrestling. It was always so underrated how each of his characters had a completely different promo style.

The thing with the Fox deal is since they lost UFC they have large gaps on the FS1/FS2 schedule to fill, so the worst thing that could happen if Smackdown bombs is they get moved from the main Fox network to FS1. That would be a step down, but not a giant one. It's being put on Friday nights, which isn't a high ratings night so there won't be nearly as much pressure on them.

Coach needs to be as far away as possible. His brand of smugness combined with acting like he was still hosting SportsCenter, all while getting clowned by Graves and Cole for being a dipshit was getting very old.

Yeah, since WWE is financially set for the next several years at least there's no motivation for them to try anything new or creative. Their best times came when they were motivated to take over the territories and then when they were getting their asses kicked in the Monday Night War. Now there's really no more mountains to climb, and all they can do is throw their weight around to keep anyone else from getting a foothold anywhere as a strong #2 promotion. They could always take the view of since they don't have to worry about money it's the best time to take risks since an idea failing won't sink them, but it seldom works that way. No one wants to be the one to take the blame if something goes sideways and pisses off a sponsor, or Fox, or the Saudis (although it seems like the only way that happens is if they see a woman wrestler in their gear). What I do see happening is a change in the mindset that WWE is always the end goal for all wrestlers. Even if they back up the money truck for Cody and the Bucks, most will still get developmental offers below indy value. Women will continue to get embarrassinly low offers (I suppose they might be willing to pay someone like Tessa, but she might still have the "bad attitude" tag). Plus the trend will likely continue that anyone who shows potential in NXT will end up getting wasted on the main roster. Combined with the overscripting and lack of creative freedom, I wouldn't be surprised if folks start weighing the ability to have more freedom in their work/better travel schedule and decide maybe WWE isn't the be-all-end-all anymore. As far as criticizing them about it, I'm at a place now that I just accept that this is how WWE is doing buisness now. I don't get upset about it, hell it even can be funny when stuff like Becky's heel turn goes completely backwards on them. WWE is basically the Wal-Mart of wrestling now: they're the largest, they tend to not treat the people who work for them very well, and they try to run anyone who competes with them out of business.

Jesus, that's brutal even for 80s Dave. If you aren't aware the jet reference was about this plane getting shot down a month prior, killing a US congressman and being one of the biggest escalations during the Cold War.

I kind of would be. Bryan apparently was lobbying hard to have a match with him and he said no, you'd think that would have been the better itch-causer than some NXT guys.