sek69

The problem is that things like OTL and the magazine get a fraction of the push from the company that the afternoon Shouty Head Shows get. Plus you have ESPN Radio where they replace real journalists like SVP with meatheads like Danny Kannell who just aren't sold on head trauma being serious issue, and anyone who thinks so is part of the War on Football.

True, but it really exposes how in-the-bubble Dave gets when he gets Aspberger's level hung up on ESPN not treating WWE with journalistic integrity when in reality they're just more open about WWE stuff being a paid ad buy.

Was surprised to see Cedric hit a Brainbuster, I guess the no head drop rule doesn't apply in the CWC?

ESPN is widely mocked in most places for being the NFL's power bottom in their relationship, and they act like sports they don't have a contract to carry don't even exist.

Huh. My brain was convinced they were on ESPN but a quick check shows they were in fact syndicated.

Did ESPN Classics carry Herb's UWF at one point or am imagining that? Yes, I want to say they also briefly ran that weird AWF group that had rounds like World of Sport. Also the worst part of this will be endless Dave Meltzer rants on how ESPN isn't treating wrestling like a sport and how that's such a black eye to their journalistic cred (when in reality that ship sailed when they became official PR departments for the sports they cover).

To me, the CWC has been a success just for the reunion of Regal and Tajiri on Twitter.

That promo was even weirder since it came off like Cena's version of the Lost My Smile speech and implying he'd be gone for a while but IIRC he was back like the next week or two.

Well that's assuming the plan was to make him the champ, which it seems clear wasn't the case (at least at that time) until Roman got popped. At the time Dean was just another piece of meat to be served up to Brock.

There's no reason in either kayfabe or real life why Brock should have done anything more than he did with Dean. The guy was pushed as a borderline comedy geek who lost all his PPV matches, why would Brock be portrayed anywhere close to equal with him.

The gimmick of Eva Marie never actually wrestling a match is one of the best parts of Smackdown Live.

Chops like Flair, Steamboat, and Ronnie Garvin would throw where it was one at a time and looked like they were putting their all into it looked good. The whole "rapid fire chops" thing is what looks like crap no matter who's doing it. No selling a hard chop like Hawk, Nikita, or Sting used to do was the highlight of badassery. Now you look like a geek if you sell one.

The best part of the wedding deal was Lana in the background trying fruitlessly to ge the tiara out of her cake encrusted hair while Rusev was yelling at Foley. The comic timing those two had was great.

This seems to be the leading theory. From what I can tell it wasn't all that shooty-shoot but more like Joey was coming off like he gave 0 fucks.

Conor's statement did make me wonder who on the current roster would actually stand a chance against a trained fighter. Del Rio and Ziggler come to mind just based on their MMA and amateur wrestling backgrounds.

Doubtful, considering Trump's a Friend of Vince.

Gallagher has a unique persona, but his success would hinge on WWE writers overcoming the urge to make him the new Santino. Which you know they would the second they saw his old timey Conan O'Brien look.

As annoying as JBL can be on commentary, he's proven to be pretty good on the Legends show. I thought the episode with Booker was good, but like Chief said it wasn't breaking any new ground if you've heard any other Booker interview. Having said that, if you've never heard his story it's a must see, Booker's probably one of the most low key inspirational stories in wrestling.

New NWA World Championship Wrestling episodes are going up, seems to be picking up where they left off and going into 1989.

Calling him the worst seems wrong, but Verne Gagne booked the AWA around him and his friends for 20+ years and ran it into the ground by not changing with the times. The only time they didn't seem like a second tier promotion is when they were lucky enough to have Hogan around when Rocky III came out.

I would think Ryback's stiffness and apparent knack for injuring people would be a better criticism than his steroid use/RVD tights/Goldberg clone status.

The Midnights were a pretty big draw everywhere they went in the 80s.

Am I alone in not liking Mauro Ranallo? I mean, sure, he's more lively than the sea of WWE Announcerbot clones but his run on SD has not been impressive IMO. He seems better on the CWC shows so maybe it's just him being overproduced but he comes off as forced and/or a guy who did a ton of redbull and espresso shots before the show.

...this is against the grain? Maybe I'm blinded by nostalgia, but Raven from 1996-1999 and his brief resurgence in 2002-2004 was absolutely great. Seconding the love for Disco Inferno and the calls of overrated for Misawa. Disco knew his role as a comedic dipshit midcarder and reveled in it, Misawa's all offense and is terrible (IMO) at selling. Masato Tanaka has been the most consistently good Japanese talent for nearly 20 years. I haven't seen every single match he's ever worked, but I also haven't ever seen a bad match with him in it. In Misawa's defense, was it really selling when he spent most of his career getting legit dropped on his head? Also my probably-not-that-hot-take after watching years of 80s Memphis TV is that a lot of it sucked if Dundee or Dutch wasn't around.

So Smackdown was on the TV in the cafeteria at work and the Cena segement was on. A woman walking through stopped, looked at the TV, and said "John Cena! I know him because he's on the Today show a lot". So I guess that bit of cross branding is working for WWE.