sek69

For WWE, Raw and Smackdown. I usually order the big 4 PPVs, although I went to a friend's house for Mania this year. I watch Impact and read the PPV reports online. I have ROH and CMLL on my regular DVR rotation along with Monterrey whenever I can find it on the schedule. Used to watch AAA until they lost their US TV, and I follow New Japan via their YouTube channel.

I had suspicions for a while, but I realized after Paul Orndorff debuted in the WWF that he'd been piledriving people for weeks and no one suffered a career ending broken neck yet. Then one of the replays they showed in a squash match showed the jobber's head didn't even come close to hitting the mat (but he still sold it as death) and the horse was out of the barn for me.

I could buy "worked" in the sense that I'm sure someone probably took a dive at some point, but it's not like UFC pays guys enough to take real punches/submission holds if the outcomes are predetermined.

After his big return, Dave mentioned that now there's MMA hardcores who are trying to downplay how big a deal Brock was in UFC because he went back to WWE. I know a lot of MMA purists hate pro wrestling, but that would ironically be some Vince level revisionist history to pull off.

I don't know who was the first to do the moves of doom routine, but Chief Jay was Hulking Up long before Hogan.

This is apropos of nothing, but reading yet another political Facebook post by Eric Bischoff where he comes across as so Republican it veers into Stephen Colbert parody realm. Then I realized he's made the most money in his career working for wrestling companies that were basically welfare queens. You'd think someone so fervent in his beliefs would be offended to be employed by someone who takes and takes and gives nothing in return.

I'm a lot more forgiving towards ROH than most folks here I'd wager, but after the millionth "set up finisher, opponent escapes" spot in the Steen-Generico match I was ready to throw something at the TV. Of all the things that indy guys seem to never learn, "less is more" is #1 by far.

Dusty's Achilles Heel seemed to be not really being all that good at building new stars that stuck. It wasn't all his fault, since you had guys like Nikita and Barry getting derailed by outside issues, but you largely had the same guys feuding in 1988 that you did in 1986. He was good getting mid card and tag team acts noticed, but it's like there was some kind of block about getting guys over the hump to main eventers. Regarding Russo, I watch the Monday Night Wars on WWE OnDemand and they just had the episode of RAW that was like the very essence of Russomania: show opens with Vince calling Taker and Kane pussies (such edgy language!), and that kicks off a show long routine of them coming out to interrupt EVERY MATCH that tries to take place on the show. There's not much that's more Russo than having it slammed in your face for two hours that this in ring stuff doesn't matter when there's STORYLINE that needs to unfold!

That ties into mine, how in lucha the first and second falls are not only rushed through most times but often won with the weakest move possible. It's even worse when they pin the two non captains in a trios match to win a fall with the most basic hold possible and they sell them like instant death. It comes off like the guy losing the fall just decided "fuck this, I'll get em in the next fall" or worse comes off like a pussy for losing to a weak move. Fragile referees are a big one as well, but WWE has noticeably toned ref bumps way down. Gone are the days that refs would go down on the slightest bump in every match, then sell being knocked out to the point that they'd be brain damaged if it was even slightly real.

What makes the Scott Hall story even sadder to a degree is in those brief moments of sobriety you see he is actually a pretty smart guy and seems to have a good business mind. Sort of like a next generation version of Jake Roberts.

So basically Cena is the hero the WWE Universe deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll boo him. Because he can take it.

So it looks like Damien Sandow's gimmick on Smackdown is to be the 2012 version of Mr. Backlund, down to the towel-around-the-neck-and-robe outfit.

I just saw that as (beside the obvious) as them just putting over how epic the match was. It was so great even the loser of the match goes up a notch. I did lol at guys in that video package trying to sell it as this era's Hulk-Andre. I get what they were trying to do, but it was a real "come the fuck on" moment for me.

Dave and Bryan had a great wink-wink "this guy's roided out of his mind" conversation after the return of Skip Sheffield/Ryback to Smackdown. Dave even mentioned that he might replace Mason Ryan as his "c'mon now" example of how strictly they manage the Wellness Policy.

This strikes me as a somewhat unfair caricature of Dave's actual point, which is that MMA has become successful largely by using promoting concepts that had been successful for wrestling in the past and that modern wrestling has inexplicably abandoned. I think most people realize that MMA and wrestling (and boxing too, for that matter) can all draw from the same well in terms of building a star or hyping a match. Dave loses the room when he takes that point and uses that to affirm that means they should be interchangeable, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is dumb and/or a mark who doesn't know what they're talking about. The easiest counter to his argument is that most sports (football, baseball, basketball, etc) promote their stars and big events the same way and no one tries to make the claim baseball = football or anything like that.

So I was at the Pirates' Opening Day game yesterday, and when hometown guy Neil Walker was introduced there was a small but noticeable chant of YES YES YES popping up.

I think the Titantron shot was to make the fans think Rock would be coming out (since Cena called him to come to the ring right before). The fans chanting We Want Brock kind of added to it for me, since at first it came off like "aren't we smart, we read the sheets and know you're talking to Brock but we don't really expect to see him" to marking out like a 5 year old when his music actually hit. This angle has the potential to be awesome since Brock's exactly the guy most Cena haters want to see fighting him. I loved him kicking Cena's hat after the F5, made it look like he was saying "fuck you, and fuck your stupid hat too".

Was it weird to anyone else that they acknowledged Lord Tensai was a WWE superstar from years back who went to Japan? They mentioned it like everyone watching in 2012 would remember Albert, it was almost like a gimmick they would give in the 80s to some newcomer to make it seem like they were more experienced than they were.

JR coming back to call HITC really made it hit home how much he's the Rock of announcing in terms of how far above everyone else he is. In fact, with the group I was watching with it turned into a major point of discussion during Rock/Cena how much the commentary was killing the epic feel of the match. There were times where you know JR would be selling his ass off making it seem like one or the other guy was in serious mortal danger, but Cole was like a wet blanket the whole time. Vince or someone else producing must have noticed too, since it seemed Lawler was trying to work harder than normal to hype things up and it didn't seem like he was comfortable doing it/

So Green Lantern Fan managed to get himself arrested this weekend: http://www.jailbase.com/en/arrested/fl-bso...owski-571202456 I'm guessing a cop asked him to move but he had to stop his stopwatch before doing so.

What I don't get is I've always heard Paco Alonso doesn't like having active wrestlers involved on the booking committee in CMLL, yet Ultimo Guerrero has been involved in booking *and* a main event guy for a while now.

Also I think the pic came from Shawn's Playgirl shoot with Bret photoshopped in.

Perhaps the beginners to lucha the topic was geared toward would be interested, you uppity cunt.

Pretty sure Vampiro in his prime was a big draw for female fans, perhaps Mexico was ahead of the curve on the whole "women love vampires" trend?

Considering he's the first guy to bash someone for being sloppy, hearing Bryan defend Low Ki for knocking that Evolve dude out (missing the point that the issue was him trying to do spots after the guy was clearly knocked the fuck out) was amusingly baffling. In his opinion, if you knock out someone with a move like a rolling kick, it's the fault of the guy taking the move because the guy doing the move is rolling forward and can't see where he's going.