Coffey

That's not a road you want to go down because it just leads to nonsense about different amount of people watching television and DVR's and all that crap. Besides, I don't think Punk meant in general, I think he more means internet fans that have been watching for years. They're not going away. Casual fans obviously come and go. Right now wrestling isn't popular, so they left. UFC got hot and they have PPV with a million buys. I remember when pro-wrestling shirts used to be sold in the mall at one time. You can't really replicate that. Through the peaks and valleys, ups and downs, the one constant seems to be the long-time fans. Granted they all, for the most part, seem to be very negative and pessimistic (at least on the internet), but they still watch and I'm sure are a big portion of the viewing audience.

Chargers/Chiefs was actually a really good game. Went into overtime even. (Good as in entertaining to watch, not high caliber football).

WWE, especially RAW IS the wrestling world. When a young boy has aspirations of becoming a professional wrestler, they're not thinking of growing up to have matches in Ring of Honor in front of ~500 fans. They're picturing the same dream that The Miz pictured. RAW is the flagship show of the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. IN THE WORLD. If you don't watch RAW, you're out of the loop. It's as simple as that. No one knows who Davey Richards is but even my 52-year-old mother knows who Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold are. Nowadays they know John Cena. Personally speaking, contrary to popular belief, I *like* being in the loop. I like talking to my friends all week about what went down. I like being able to listen to The LAW or F4W & see if we have similar opinions. I like being able to kill time throughout the week on various message forums, such as here or DVDVR, or The Board or Something Awful & compare opinions, discuss current happenings, speculate on directions things are heading in & what not. I tried not watching RAW & guess what? That sucks worse than watching it & thinking it stinks. It doesn't matter if RAW is bad. It doesn't matter if I'm mostly negative. I'm in the loop! If you don't watch RAW you know what you are? You're the guy that shits up threads as you talk about 70's territories & how shows "sound" bad because you read the spoilers. Or how "WWE is bad" despite not watching it for five years so you really don't know what the Hell you're even talking about. I've been that guy & I sucked. At least if you watch the show & are still negative your opinions have some validity. You're not completely jaded by the tone of the author for the spoilers. It's a consistent & constant stream of new discussion. Every week, every show, there's new stuff that everyone can express their opinions on. How many times can you talk about the same Jumbo matches with the same three people? Why do I not watch TNA most weeks? Because it doesn't matter if I miss it. Why do I not watch Smackdown most weeks? Because it doesn't matter if I miss it. Why do I not watch ROH? Because it doesn't matter if I miss it. Sure other factors might be involved, like a conflicting schedule or enjoyment of each different example but ultimately they all have that in common: they don't matter. If you miss RAW though? I feel a week behind everywhere I go. My circle of friends, radio shows, message forums... even Facebook or Twitter! If you're a wrestling fan, you watch RAW. Just like you watch Royal Rumble & you watch Wrestlemania. I don't know, maybe I'm the only one that feels that way but judging by things that people like C.M. Punk says, I don't think I am. It's true! I feel like a lot of internet fans today are just like the elitist music nuts that like a band until they get a record deal or a music video. Then suddenly they're too mainstream or sold out or whatever. Dare I say it started with ECW in wrestling. Everyone wants to be more underground or whatever... but you know the lyrics to those Metallica songs. Just like you can talk about Dragongate or SMASH or NWA Hollywood.. but you'll still watch Wrestlemania & you still know John Cena's catchphrases. What's more annoying, the guy that is negative every week or the guy that calls him out for being negative every week? At least the guy being negative is talking about the subject not derailing the thread or flame-baiting. I'm a Green Bay Packers NFL football fan. I have been since 1993, when I was twelve years old. They won the Super Bowl last year. They're currently undefeated this year. I still find things to complain about, despite that fact that I'm as happy as a fan can possibly be right now. So if I talk about the secondary, or the special teams or the running game in a negative light, does that mean I'm not a real fan or should stop watching their games? Of course not. And you know what, if the Packers are knocked out of the playoffs, I'll still watch the Super Bowl. Just like if John Cena is in the main event of Wrestlemania, even if I'm not a huge fan of his, I'll still watch that pay-per-view & I'll still have a right to complain about it before & after too.

I feel like I should say something since I watched the show but I'm not sure what to say. I had company over & honestly talked through the majority of the show, but the parts I watched were entertaining. The Muppets are funny. I won't argue that they're pretty much a nostalgia act for me but that is what I wanted, what I expected & what I got. The company allowed me to tune out Michael Cole for the night & that really helped my enjoyment of the show. The night seemed to me as if it was sort of booked like a show where WWE didn't think a lot of people would be watching. There were a lot of non-title matches and some stuff which wasn't particularly "fresh" if you know what I mean. like Dolph/Ryder again. I thought the Muppet segments were fine. I wasn't thinking the whole time about how it was silly, or broke kayfabe or trying to compare it to Robocop or any of that. If something wasn't particularly noteworthy to me, then I just tuned the show out, focused on my company, and let the television become background noise. I will say though that AJ looked adorable as Kitana from Mortal Kombat. That is one beautiful woman.

I actually prefer The Muppets of today to the Muppets of yesteryear. I've never liked Miss Piggy or Fozzy or Gonzo, but I fuckin' love Pepe the Shrimp & Renthro the Bear. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of WWE where I hate them now & loved them in the 80's. So I guess this doesn't apply to me. Of course the Muppets I really wanted to see weren't on the show (the two previously mentioned and the Swedish Chef) but Statler & Waldorf were, so I was happy. Coincidentally, I just heard the other day that Tylene Buck is a camwhore now. I wonder if she gets trolled by wrestling fans still? So if there's someone out there that wants to pay-per-minute to watch her past her prime stick a dildo up her ass, there ya go.

One that comes to mind for me is Macho Man going for a pinfall on Yokozuna after his big elbow in a Royal Rumble match. That was pretty dumb and led to his elimination.

WWE, to me, is in the biggest slump that I can remember for as long as I have been watching. There are so many things that irk me about the current product, that I struggle to even watch the free shows anymore. I missed RAW last week. Usually, if I miss a show, it leads to me downloading it afterward to check it out. Instead, I just read a recap and felt that that was good enough. I have not watched Smackdown in a couple of weeks, despite liking some things about it (RE: Mark Henry) recently. When you factor in the start/stop booking, the parity booking, the Triple H stuff, the Michael Cole commentary, the weekly Diva abomination and all the other "same old, same old" that goes into the week-to-week programming, it never really feels like you miss something. I have no doubt in my mind that I could skip an entire month of WWE shows and be completely caught up from one 10-15 minute pre-PPV recap. Or at least be caught up on the stuff that WWE seems to think is important. This last Monday, despite having company over to watch wrestling (as per usual), we decided to watch a Nasty Boyz shoot interview instead of RAW, while the TV was on Monday Night Football. Yes, we chose the Nasty Boyz talking over the current flagship show of WWE. Wrestling wise, lately I have been watching 80's Mid-South and NWA, thanks to Justin.TV. It's a lot more interesting to me and it still fills that void that I have where I want to follow more than just the matches. I like the television format. I want to see the weekly shows; the continuity. I like watching the natural progression. Of course, I also want to see at least semi-competent booking/writing. I don't ask for a lot, I just want a beginning, middle & an end to a story. The end should always be a blow-off match. WWE lately seems to have a lot of beginnings, then nonsensical middles and about five or six consecutive ends. Ask Randy Orton and Christian. Or Randy Orton and Mark Henry. Or Triple H and C.M. Punk. Or John Cena and Alberto Del Rio. I'm genuinely excited for the Muppet Show this coming Monday. I am a huge fan of The Muppets, always have been, and even plan on going to watch the new movie in the theater. The question I have to ask myself though is am I just setting myself up for another fall? Are WWE going to make me cringe when even seeing The Muppets?? I can speculate about a lot of things that seem like they would be funny: Statler & Waldorf on commentary, a Sheamus & Beeker confrontation, Miss Piggy with the Divas, Triple H & Gonzo in a nose-to-nose confrontation, The Swedish Chef trying to put Hornswoggle into a pie...but will any of it happen? Another thing that has me extremely weary lately is Linda McMahon running for senate in Connecticut again. The last thing I want to sit through is more of WWE trying to shove their Republican bullshit down my throat using their white-trash programming as a means to do so. Can anyone forget this nonsense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289YFguwRG0. To me, those are the type of segments that make me embarrassed to be a wrestling fan. I always think back to the Paul Heyman promo where he said Vince McMahon made wrestling a dirty word... Anyway, there's another issue that I wanted to address. Throughout the years that I have been reading the internet to discuss wrestling, a few questions constantly reoccur. Questions such as "Why does WWE seem to be against making money?" or "Why does WWE never push someone when they're hot?" or "Why does WWE seem to never have more than one or two guys at top and are afraid to make more stars?" Usually the questions were just rhetorical as there wasn't a logical way to answer them. Or at least so I thought. About a month ago, on DVDVR, someone posed an answer that made a lot of sense, logically. So I thought I would give credit where credit is due: Quoted post in context I think the conversation could serve as its own thread, for sure, and be an interesting debate. I had never looked at it from that perspective before. I am not sure how valid it is, but it certainly seems like it could be plausible. WWE as of now, seem to have Cena on top of RAW and Orton on top of Smackdown. Even when they're not the champion. WWE is a publicly traded company but how many of the people that own stock in the company care about the on-screen product? As long as they see gains, regardless of how they happen, or if they could be bigger, I'm sure that the stockholders are satisfied. Maybe WWE becoming publicly traded is the worst thing that could have ever happened to them. Maybe it is not and it just becomes a talking point scapegoat. I am not even sure anymore. One thing is for sure, at 30-years old, I definitely appear to not be the target demographic anymore. Especially as a 30-year old that has watched wrestling for twenty years and has internet access.

So what about now since Roode won the title anyway?

I'm curious where the loose/lose stuff came from. I never used to see it and now it appears to be everywhere. That might be my biggest pet peeve ever. Loose is the opposite of tight, not what happens when you're defeated. STOP IT!

I actually think Mistico was a really, really bad signing by WWE, especially on paper. Not because he won't move merch, can't get over or isn't good enough. More so because WWE has never given a piss about Cruiserweights, wrestling takes a backseat to talking & he didn't even speak English. So, on paper, you had a guy that has to get over on look/moves alone and can only communicate, initially, with Primo & Chavo, both of whom were jobbers that barely made TV. I'm not sure if the thinking process went beyond "we need a new Mysterio, this guy is popular and wears a mask."

Unfortunately, the quarter ratings didn't show that. The opening promo, for the first half hour, got a 1.38. The final 15 minutes with the title change got a 1.29 (lowest rating of the show). The end of the first hour got a 1.42 which was the highest of the show.. and was Gunner Vs. Abyss and the Velvey Sky slop. *sigh*

This isn't how over/under works.. You have to give a number, ideally one where it is hard to choose which side. That number needs to not be a whole number, so that there aren't any push. C'mon, man!

Dixie Carter on Twitter said this was the most watched show in Impact Wrestling history, so I'm curious to see the numbers and the breakdown. http://twitter.com/#!/TNADixie

This is pretty much exactly how I feel too. I don't dislike Roode, Storm is just.. better. At everything.

"Cowboy" James Storm has been in TNA Wrestling since the first PPV. He was the best part of two tag teams (America's Most Wanted & Beer Money) neither of which sucked. He's a homegrown TNA talent, not a "WWE reject". He's charismatic, funny and not a bad wrestler. He's also a pretty good promo. If there was anyone on that roster that I would try to build the company around, it is probably him. Honestly, I figured WWE would have scooped him up quite some time ago. Although I still think Bobby Roode should have won the World Title on Sunday from Kurt Angle after all of that build-up, last night James Storm won the title. The show was not good, especially after that forty minute opening "promo" JUST WOULD NOT END. Plus, Storm won the title in like a two or three minutes match, doing nothing but a Superkick (I assume because Angle is fucked up and can't work due to injuries). Nevertheless, Storm deserves it and I'm glad, as of right now, that he's the top guy. Video: (this deserves its own thread)

He looks like a job guy now, so... I've never bought into Christian as a main eventer and I doubt that I ever will. Unless he's being a goofy comedy act, or falling off a ladder, I don't care about him at all, honestly. His Edge & Christian tag team run was the only time I could ever stand him. I know some of his ECW stuff was praised, some his recent solo stuff with Randy Orton, even maybe some TNA stuff, but to me he just screams jobber.

I don't want to crap this thread up, or over-exaggerate and fall victim to hyperbole, but with that being said, Earl Hebner is literally my least favorite referee of all-time.. and no one else is close. A lot of his problems have been mentioned by Loss on the first page, but the thing that absolutely completely kills it for me are his near-falls. I won't point out exactly what it is he does, as once you see it you can't unsee it and it takes you out of the matches completely (like once you notice Bret Hart never closes his mouth while wrestling) but I absolutely loathe the man reffing any match that is supposed to have a lot of drama toward the end. He just kills all the suspense for me.

See, I kind of disagree. Although it's true that Cena, Orton (and HHH to an extent) were always around (and on top) I think the exact opposite of "opened up the top of the card" has happened. To me, it feels like they rely on those three MORE than they have in years past. Sure, Punk, Del Rio, Henry, etc. have been slotted in...but it's still just Orton, Cena & HHH to me. I really like what they're doing with Mark Henry. I won't complain about that at all. As soon as he's toppled by a babyface, it will be pretty much a picture-perfect wrestling story. Build up a monster, make him dominate, let a David beat Goliath. That's cool, I'm fine with that. I'll even give them credit for letting Orton lose clean, twice. But then they both said they were done with each other and moving on. Then after they both said that, we get Orton Vs. Henry on RAW. Then Orton wins a 41-man Battle Royal. Then we get Orton Vs. Henry on Smackdown... It's just annoying. Del Rio wins the Royal Rumble, then jobs in the curtain jerk of Wrestlemania. He talks about "his destiny" for about five months too long. Now he's doing title swaps with Cena every two weeks on PPV. He was just so mishandled I don't think anyone can take him seriously as a main eventer. He's a dirty foreigner for the marine Cena to topple, humiliate and embarrass. I just don't get it. Why can only two people shine at a time?

There's more than Mark Henry, for sure (Dolph Ziggler comes to mind) but the bad FAR outweighs the good. WWE as a whole is really hard to watch right now. It used to be that if RAW sucked, you could check out Smackdown and more than likely be fine with it. Or if both RAW and Smackdown were bad, you would at least get good matches on the Pay-Per-View. Now you get Michael Cole shitting up literally every single show, the PPVs are so close together that they're basically another TV and on top of that RAW & Smackdown BOTH suck. So it's just best, at least for me, to take a hiatus. WWE really fucking sucks right now. Hope you like John Cena and Randy Orton! Also: The Game, King of Kings, Cerebral Assassin, Monarch of the Mat, Triple H, the COO. That damn good. Beaten them all. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. RAW is just straight two hours of HHH.

Whatever, criteria be damned, barring something crazy happening in the next two months, my ballot is going to have Dolph Ziggler and Austin Aries on it.

So Wrestler of the Year is only main event guys too? Man, I need a handbook or something. Is there a category that is like Most Outstanding Wrestler but includes non-drawing factors outside of the ring as well, such as playing their character, promo's, etc.?

Well, I think it's an unfair metric, for starters. Some guys are never put in a position where they can draw. Dolph Ziggler has been great this year. No one would try to argue that he is a draw though. Hell, the draw of WWE is the name of the company. That's why it's on the ticket. It's not like old wrestling posters that would say ANDRE THE GIANT VS. BOBO BRAZIL. It says WWE Presents: WWE Show. The draw is the name WWE, not the individuals. I think Vince McMahon molded it to be that way, but still, I think it factors into the discussion. People don't buy Wrestlemania because Alberto Del Rio won the Royal Rumble, they buy it because it's Wrestlemania. Just like every year people will watch the Super Bowl, it doesn't matter what two teams are there. Also, what is the percentage breakdown like here if we're factoring in drawing power in 2011? How much of the vote does it matter? Are there rules written down somewhere? Is the drawing power 33.3% of the factoring elements, with in-ring work/"work rate" and promos/talking being the other 66.6%? When it comes down to it, it's all opinion based. Because the quality of matches is opinion based. It's subjective. It's not like this is some exact science. At the end of the year, it'll be a bunch of wrestling fans writing names down and e-mailing them to a wrestling site.

Well I just don't think being a draw should factor in to determining who is the best in a worked industry as determined by the fans. Nor do I think WWE should change their writing based on week-to-week rating numbers in 2011, but what the Hell do I know? No one is going to say that Hogan was better in '89 because he made more money than Savage. I feel like it would be like losing Iron Chef because of plating. It's just ridiculous.

I really think the days of being a draw as criteria should be a thing of the past. It just doesn't matter like it used to. The days of the territories are gone. PPV numbers are down all over. Ratings are down. Shit, there's not a draw anywhere in all of wrestling, so why are we still holding it against people?

The last couple of weeks here on PWO, we have seen several threads talking about who was the best at working in various decades. This, in turn, led to me having a conversation in person with one of my friends about it. That conversation then spawned into a lot of listing names and trying to back-up each selection with examples of why they were great. We were better at eliminating names than being able to defend them and bump them up, for one reason or another. It probably had a lot to do with our pessimism and cynicism. That being said, that discussion then morphed into "OK, well if these guys are great if we're solely looking at in-ring work, who are the top guys if we look at everything BUT in-ring work?" I'm not sure if this would make a good thread or not, so I thought I would write a blog about it instead. I do have two questions to ask at the end. Obviously there were a few names that immediately sprang to mind: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, Hulk Hogan.. I should preface this by saying that there are a lot of people with a bigger knowledge or pro-wrestling than me, especially around these parts. I was born in 1981 and didn't start watching wrestling until about 1987 or so. I missed the territory days and for me, growing up, it was a lot of WWF and then later on some TBS NWA/WCW and some ECW at the end of 1998. I took a hiatus from wrestling sometime around the WWF steroid trial. I came back and starting watching against, unsurprisingly, in 1996. So I saw a lot from '87-'92 then from '96-present. I got internet access in January of 1999, right after Starrcade 1998, where I saw Kevin Nash end the streak of Goldberg. One of the first things that I did was go on-line to read about impressions of it, and to my surprise, I saw a lot of people shitting on both Nash and Goldberg, and from there.. things changed. As that were, if anything, I just found myself finding more information about wrestling, broadening my horizons and seeing a lot more wrestlers, promotions, and shows due to the power of this media age. I was able to read about the history of wrestling, watch the work of guys when they were still in their prime, see recognizable faces without the WWF gimmicks attached to them. Even so, I find it hard-pressed to name too many names in this discussion with them not being huge WWF mainstays. Hulkster, Rocky, Stone Cold. There have been a lot of great promo guys over the years. Ric Flair was name-dropped, as an example. However, a big part of what made Flair great was he would build-up the match and then the match would deliver too. But if we're taking the match out of the equation and we're just going on the ability to get over a character, have memorable stories and promos? He's still in the conversation but from the stuff I have seen, it was more about his matches. Growing up, using Hulk Hogan as an example, I remember the stories; the soap opera. I remember him getting squashed by Earthquake and having kids sent in their get well soon cards. I remember Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter and Hogan getting a fireball in the face. I remember the Mega Powers exploding and Savage attacking Hogan in the medical room as the doctors were tending to Miss Elizabeth. Hell, I remember Zeus blocking the steel cage door and beating Hogan down so that his match with The Big Boss Man didn't happen! Then Hogan would cut promos, monumental promos about fault lines cracking, towers falling and dog-paddling... The Rock did everything from sing-a-long songs to the infamous "This is your life" segment. He was legitimately funny and entertaining. I remember having discussions about his ring work actually, because it was not as crisp as that of others. More specifically knocking his Sharpshooter or Belly-to-Belly Suplex or whatever. When it came right down to it though, none of that mattered. He was just too entertaining and you wanted to see what he would do next. The same with Austin. Who is he going to stun? What is he going to drive to the ring? It wasn't about the matches at all. So here are my questions: 1. How much do the actual matches really matter, especially in this day and age. 2. Who is in the conversation that isn't Hulk Hogan, The Rock or Steve Austin? I'm sure a case could be made for Jake "The Snake" Roberts. Maybe Mick Foley.