sek69

It also bugs me how when wrestlers retire and become managers or announcers they lose their special magic wrestler powers and suddenly can be beaten up with ease.

Beautiful. I guess the new WWE line is if the internet doesn't like the Coach, its because they're racist.

Short term, yes. Long term, no. During the match itself, getting the crowd to pop is a good thing. However the temptation is to overdo the move/spot/whatever that gets the pop and that ends up with stuff that prompted this thread about exposing the business.

Coey makes me mad because he's a great reviewer and knows his stuff like no one's business, but he's exactly the type of fan Coffey talked about. He's calmed down lately but his old forum had a folder devoted to him and his crew trolling other wrestling forums and mocking people who's intellect didn't match up to his. It's not like he would explain why (he did sometimes, but not usually), it was just post after post of "OMG ST00PID NEWB~!"

Coey could be a thread all his own.

Also, with WWE having more compelling storylines backstage than in front of the camera, it's the perfect time for Spike and TNA to strike. Vince is looking like he can't get out of his own way these days, and if TNA can put together any semblance of a coherent show, I think it will make a lot of new fans.

TNA has the advantage of having NWA affiliates across the US and Canada they could use for house shows, like how the JJ-Raven title switch took place in Ontario.

That's it precisely. They can't bitch at Vince, so they shoot the messenger. Freud would have a field day with HHH transferring his issues with Vince onto JR.

That reminds me so much of the bosses I had when I worked retail, they'd tell us to never give in to customers no matter what. The customers would then usually just ask to speak to the manager, who would promptly cave in and make me look like an asshole.

Whether TNA wants to compete with WWE or not, Vince is surely going to see this as a threat. I expect him to make moves toward anyone they employ not under an ironclad TNA contract. I'd assume this is Spike testing the waters to see if TNA can hang in prime time. I'd also assume the WWE/Spike breakup wasn't as lovey-dovey as both sides want us to believe and Spike might want to give Vince a parting thumb in the eye by proving they don't need his company if they want to air wrestling.

*points at the BrainBusters*

The Flair Flop to me is just like the People's Elbow or Hulking Up that are intrinsic to wrestling and everyone just accepts. At least the Flair Flop is usually done after taking a pounding from an opponent, he just doesn't randomly do it during the match. One Flair thing that does bug me is how when a wrestler misses a move and hits the canvas, it hurts. When Ric Flair elbowdrops his coat, it doesn't.

LOL @ needing 3 guys and Orton stomping on him to get the guy into police custody.

That really, really, REALLY, (really) bothered me during the match with HHH where the whole match was basically Hunter trying to shatter HBK's spine, and yet he's magically healed enough to kip up which shot the entire point of the match squarely in the ass. Arg.

One thing that surprised me was the VQ on some of these matches. I understand that some of these matches were rare finds but I'm surprised they didn't cause goodhelmet to have a stroke. I've been watching a lot of Adrian Adonis on this set, mainly because he always impressed me as a young mark despite being a fat guy firmly entrenched in the Adorable gimmick. Watching him work without having to sell a gimmick made me really appriciate what a solid in ring talent he was. I used to look at the WWF tag title history and see Adonis and Murdoch listed and think "wtf?" but now thanks to this and the Mid South set I can say they are probably two of the most underrated guys ever.

I have a huge problem with this. George South did so many jobs that he should NEVE be able to look like a viable threat against the world champion. THis is a big criticism against Flair, that he was too giving. How are we to expect Flair to hold his own against a Nikita Koloff or Hawk when he is having trouble with whatever random-jobber-you-choose? I've heard this knock on Flair, and while I think it definately has some merit (especially when he was facing jobbers), wouldn't the opposite of that be what HHH gets knocked for? To me, it's a sign of a good worker where they can wrestle a jobber and make you think (at least for a second) that the jobber might actually pull one out. Flair was always good at making the audience look at his opponent as better than they were. That might have ended up hurting in the long run, since Flair would make guys look like a million bucks, then a lot of those guys would tank as soon as they were programmed with someone else.

They're showing they can hold an audience over a 3 week period. That has to be pleasing to Spike and the Carters.

It'a not quite so bad with a punch, doing it with a weapon is silly because you're basically saying "I went through the effort of getting a weapon to hit you with and now I will protect you from it".

If this is all a work, what's the point? a JR vs Vince match headlining a PPV?

Continuing Sass's rant, when HHH hits people with his sledgehammer (like when he beat up Flair) and he's obviously got his hand over the hammer part just irks the shit out of me. It reminds me of how Hogan would put his hand on his opponent then punch the hand rather than his opponent. Now obviously HHH can't be out there braining people for real with a sledge, but why would such a devoted student of the game-UUH use a weapon that he needs to expose the business to protect people from.

World Class 1985-1988 This is what got me into wrestling, the Von Erichs-Freebirds feud was one of the hottest in wrestling. It's even more amazing when you consider almost everyone in the promotion was coked out of their minds the entire run. UWF 1986-1987 I got into this when World Class was starting to run out of gas. Bill Watts' booking with talent that never really performed at the level they did here anywhere else. Except for that guy with the painted face who was Eddie Gilbert's bodyguard. I hear he was pretty good later on. NWA 1989-1990 For obvious reasons, but even the undercard was better than what WWF was offering for main events. WWF 1997-1999 The last time WWF TV was truly Must See TV. Between Austin and DX, you really didn't know what to expect each week.

Carlito, after trying to imitate Ric Flair and failing: "Whatever. Wooing isn't cool anyway" Also, I was watching the WWF set and the famous Mean Gene "fuck it" goof was in there. What cracked me up was Jesse's HILARIOUS rant afterwards that seemed half-cover, half-shoot on how he was happy something finally bad happened to Gene. No one made sounding pissed as funny as Jesse.

TNA needs to stop putting Styles in three ways every PPV. They can't seem to resist putting as many high flyers in the ring as possible, which does nothing but encourage spot-mania. I'd like to see Styles go one on one with someone and let that decide once and for all if he's worth all the praise or not.

Another sub-argument to this discussion is a lot of the people who "say a supposedly "great" American match is only **1/2" are usually parroting someone else's opinion and can't really define why they rate the match like they did. It also doesn't help when every paragraph includes passive-aggressive comments on how everyone who disagrees with you is a fucking moron.

I wouldn't call you a snob, helmet (well maybe a VQ snob, but not a wrestling snob ) Anyone who can acknowledge that it's possible for a US promotion to have a good match with no puro workers involved is okay by me. The puro snob would say the bad Japanese match was still better than the bad American match. I've seen that before a million times where a review of a shitty puro match was topped off with something like "it sucked but it was better than watching a Kane match".