FLIK

Not counting joke reigns like Dave Arquete, to this day I still think Bradshaw is the single most undeserving person to get a major world title run in any company ever. I look back on his Smackdown run on top with nothing but misery & woe... That plus lack of depth & apparently Eddie not handling the pressure of being champ very well.

All 3 seemed fine with Tanahashi getting it but lots of talk about how wrestling's not what it used to be and there aren't many other good candidates. For most outstanding Mitchell thought Davey deserved it, Meltzer wasn't overly down on him but thinks the best guys are working in Japan these days and named Tanahashi & Devitt as 2 he thought were better, Alavarez had no opinion on it.

Basicaly just a lot of complaining, especially from Meltzer. Either about how the wrong pick won or that the runner's up were undeserving of being as high as they were. He went on a giant rant about how crazy he thought it was ROH (#4) was higher then WWE (#5) in the promotion of the year catagory because ROH didn't do as well financially. Sparked a lot of controversy over on the F4W boards, mainly ppl disagreeing w him and taking the stance that if money's all that matters and you shouldn't vote on the quality of the product why even have a vote at all for things like that since it can only ever boil down to WWE, UFC & maybe 1 or 2 others being considered. Lots of bitching about how some of the winners this year aren't as good those of the past as well, your usual "it's not like it used to be" spieal. All 3 seemed perplexed how Kevin Steen could possibly win best brawler when he didn't work for any "major" promotion all year too.

I think most people took it as over rated = over pushed by the promotion. Listened to the show Dave, Bryan & Bruce Mitchell did on the awards earlier today, what a miserable depressing affair.

Heh I know the answer is because money talks but I still don't get how so many ppl in wrestling still associate with, work for and work with Rob Feinstein. Like for sure if anyone was going to get black balled from the industry I thought it would be him

Don't remember whear but she did an int saying it was amicable and that they remained friends even after the breakup pretty much blaming it on the travel & other stuff that goes into being a wrestler not leaving much time for them to make the relationship work.

I counter your point with TNA

Don't think they were able to get a new tv deal so the owner just lost interest. If nothing else it'll always be an odd little footnote in wrestling history. 19 yr old kid wins 35 million in the lottery and decideds to money mark a GLOW tribute fed

In the grand scheme of things WWE isn't even maintaining their audiance though, they're just declining at a much slower rate then others so it's not as noticable. 2011 #s aren't as good as 2010, 2010 wasn't as good as 2009, etc.. They have their base and will always do really well but it's largely because of coasting on past acomplishments rather then anything thye're doing currently to make the product great. Not that I don't think Vince is a genius but I always take examples like those as proof that the ppl in charge of other companies were just really dumb more so then Vince was really smart. WWE likes to spin the tale that they crushed all their competition to reign supreme but really they were just lucky the other groups imploded from within due to incompetence.

Meh, I think you guys are reaching a bit on this one. Until it was brought up in this thread I only knew storm front as a weather term not a nazi website, I imagine the same is true for the majority of society.

Why not? I mean, if you want to judge it purely as a popularity contest then yeah ofcourse WWE crushes Chikara but really WWE wins that comparison by default. They have a built in mega audiance of which a large portion is pretty loyal and constantly watches no matter what but WWE hasn't really grown this year in any major way. Hasn't drawn in lots of new fans, minus the bump they got with Mark Henry on Smackdown ratings are constatnly either droping or remaing stagnant in the high 2's to low 3 range, minus the Rock shows & MITB PPV #s are down, Wrestlemania isn't even sold out yet, their stock is down significantly from whear it was this time last year. Chikara on the other hand, while appealing to a much smaller amount of ppl has actually shown positive growth in every way possible. They're drawing bigger crowds then they ever have, selling more dvds then ever, by the standards of internet Pay Per Views their's did really well, etc... I can easily see Quack > Vince Eh, I really think Meltzer's influence is greatly overrated these days in the sense that just because he isn't pushing something doesn't mean it's not popular or that just because he is it will be. There's a huge amount of alternate sources of info & coverage these days as well so him ignoring indy stuff doesn't matter like it once did.

Yeah, I thihk that's a big hurdle preventing a lot of guys from signing, WWE's weird like that.

Hmm, no denying Nash's very best stuff was light years ahead of the best Sid match but i'm not sure if you sat me down and said I had to choose between watching 100 Sid matches in a row or 100 Nash matches in a row I wouldn't pick Sid.

Always hated this match for those reasons. I've watched a lot of comedy wrestlers over the years and for me it takes more then putting on a cosplay outfit and or doing shitty versions of a famous dudes sig spots to be funny which is a trap a lot of Japanese comedy wrestlers fall into.

Also worth noting that this is pretty much the symbolic ending of the interpromotional era which AJW had been moving towards for a while anyways for a # of reasons.

That'sthe case for pretty much all your modern era announcers no matter whear they're placed in the arena. They get told to call what's being shown on tv rather then what's happening in ring since sometimes they differ.

Don't worry, Naylor will save us

http://www.wwe.com/superstars/wherearethey...meanstreetposse Really good article actually

Still disapointed to this day Mr. Backlund hasn't yet fulfilled his promise to procure the Cross Face Chicken Wing on Mr. McMahn.

Akira Maeda vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara 2/5/86 Didn't do much for me. Only thing I liked about the first half before the double countout was Fujiwara's headbutts, the rest felt like they were having a low level sparring match at the local gym. Start of the 2nd half when they re-started the match was pretty fun when it was all about them punching, kicking and pulling hair but that only lasted a few mins. Except for Maeda getting in a few more nice kicks I wasn't into the rest until they got to the finish. Last couple mins with Fujiwara working the arm bar was great stuff but it was also 100% all thanks to Fujiwara doing a great job bringing the desperation. Maeda for his part did jack squat to really put it over and his lack of selling ruined the ending as it totally looked more like Fujiwara got choked out then it did Maeda quit from the pain of the leg lock.

Re-watched Dreamslam 1 for the first time in I don't know how many years. Show's been talked to death so i'll only post quick thoughts Plum Mariko & Hikori Fukuoka vs Sakie Hasegawa & Kaoru Ito - Perfect opener, came away really wishing we'd have gotten a Sakie vs Plum singles match at some point as they were great together. Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari vs Terri Power & Saemi Numata - Somehow even more awful then i'd remembered Kaoru & Ultima Tigrita vs Tomoko Watanabe & Mima Shimoda - Not really a good match but better then I recalled. My memory was that this was really awkward and sloppy but wasn't that bad and for the most part decent. Rumi Kazama & Miki Hanada vs Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita - A lot better then I recalled. Maybe went 5 mins too long but otherwise damn good. Love how the AJW vs LLPW feud had more hatred to it then any of the other interpromotional pairings. (3WA Martial Arts Title) Bat Yoshinaga © vs Susan Howard - I've got a lot more tolerance for these sorts of matches now and this had a few enjoyable moments but for the most part was boring, draged and is still not my cup of tea. Devil Masami vs Chigusa Nagayo - Match I was most worried about not holding up but I still found this to be really amazing. I'm sure this exceded whatever exspectations ppl had at the time going in with Chigusa coming out of retirement at the ripe old age of 28 and proving she hadn't lost a step at all. Just two masters going at it in a classic old school style battle. I've seen about 6 or 7 singles matches between these 2 and this is prob my second fave. Best match on the show after Hokuto vs Kandori Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki - Great match, first 1/2 is really good though not as much as I remembered, 2nd half puts this over the top. Bull Nakano & Aja Kong vs Harley Saito & Eagle Sawai - Not quite as good as I remembered but still a really solid affair. LLPW team actually seemed game to do more but the Mega Monsters didn't seem up for it. Dynamite Kansai vs Yumiko Hotta - Remembered this as being a real good match but nothing super special in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that stayed with me was how stiff the match was. Watching it now I have a lot more apreciation for the entirety of it and not just the "oh wow what a kick" moments. The action was just as hard hitting as ever but in between all that I noticed for the first time that there was some really great selling and they built the match in a way to really milk the drama out of everything. Hotta especially steped up and had a good performance in this. Match is pretty much everything you could want out of battle between these two. Great stuff Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori - Contender for greatest match ever, nuff said. Manami Toyoda & Toshiyo Yamada vs Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyota - Fuckin hell this did not age well. Memory of this was being slightly disapointing but decent enough overall. Nope, much much worse then that. First 2/3 of this are abysmall. Ugly, awkward, no chemistry, no heat & doesn't play to anyones strengths. Just 4 great wrestlers having a horribly off night. The last 1/3 is actually pretty good once they get to the give sequence and start busting out the bigger moves and they manage to actually get the crowd back into things but yeah, so not fun up until then. Makes me apreciate their aweoms 5/5 rematch even more.

Nearfalls are especially what makes this. The build is really good but nothing mind blowing but the final stretch really puts it over the top. Re-watching Dreamslam 1 over the past few days I actually think this is only the 4th best match on the show.

Very first time I saw this I wasn't overly impressed, watched it a few more times over the years and switched to agreeing with most on how great this is. Re-watched this today and it's def on a short list of candidates for greatest match ever.

There's better ppl who could answer this but even from my limited NJPW knowledge I feel pretty safe saying the answer to the your last question is yes. He was pretty much the top gaijin in the company for the better part of about 15 years except for maybe when Vader was around or they had a guest aperance from a big outside name like Hogan or Flair. Don't remember whear but I read once that he was voted the most popular foreigner in company history by the fans. On his own he was never a draw but I don't think that was ever his role, he was supposed to be the guy you put against the top stars to make them look good. They did give him plenty of big wins though and always kept him really strong, he had 2 or 3 IWGP tag title runs and and though they were short he had 2 reigns as IWGP singles champ too back in the days before they whored the belt out and it still meant something. Was Eric ever on the ballot?

Meh, outside of Toyota in AJW and Fukuoka in JWP (who was doing it as a Toyota tribute spot) I don't recally that many others in joshi doing it