Coffey

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.

It even started before the match, really. Here are The Miz & R-Truth, the big "conspiracy" victims. Fired by Triple H. Fined $250,000 dollars each for their actions. Assaulted WWE superstars to close a WWE PPV before surrendering and being arrested. Then being attacked by Triple H while defenseless, the COO of WWE. Making YouTube videos about how they're going to sue WWE. Then Johnny Ace is the new GM & says "Hey, you're rehired. Glad we talked out that lawsuit." and they still come out to their old entrance, rapping & saying "you suck" like nothing changed or had happened at all. That whole entire show was fucked. From Rosa Mendez botching standing in the goddamn corner, to Mark Henry wrestling Randy Orton again after they had both just cut promos about how they were moving on from each other. EVERYTHING was fucked. It was awful.

EDIT: Nevermind, found it via Google.

In an effort to go in a new direction, I'm just going to list the things that I liked about this RAW. Sure, they might be small, little things, but I think it's better than just being completely hateful and writing paragraph after paragraph about all the shit that sucked. If you want to read that, you can read pretty much any message forum following that show. THINGS I LIKED: - The disarray to start the show, the slow pan showing to an empty commentary table. - Natalya's dress. - The first half-hour being Michael Cole free. - C.M. Punk asking Triple H if he could wear his blazer to do commentary. - Jack Swagger's Powerbomb on Evan Bourne - Air Boom now having matching attire, a tag team theme and a tag team entrance. - Brodus Clay hype video. - Mark Henry still continuing his dominance. - Ricardo Rodriguez - Dolph Ziggler (he might be the highlight of the show, week-in & week-out) That's all I can think of.

I want to believe that this is good news. I want to believe that this means things will change for Impact Wrestling (although I do think that lately they have done some pretty good stuff, namely the Bobby Roode build). I want to believe that this means TNA will have a more steady, logical, and fun directiion. Most importantly, they need continuity. However, due to pessimism and a less than stellar track record, I can not give TNA the benefit of the doubt. So I will have to take a "wait-and-see" approach. Just looking at the way that it is written, it does not sound like anything has even changed...just that they added yet another cook in the kitchen. Dixie Carter is still there. Vince Russo is still there, just with a fresh new job title. Hulk Hogan is still there (as he was just re-signed). Eric Bischoff is seemingly not going anywhere. The Hogan re-signing news was posted by PWInsider. I have no idea why when TNA make-up contracts they always have them end right before their biggest Pay-Per-View of the year in Bound for Glory. Wouldn't you think the contracts would end after that show? I'm not a business-man though, so whatever. So, apparently all TNA have done is add Brother Love to the creative "team." To me, it just seems like a lot of false hope from fans. Any news regarding Vince Russo not being in his current position excites people. I don't think that anyone wishes for TNA to fail. If they do, it is solely because they have lost faith in TNA and want them to fail so that someone else can pick up the pieces and try again. Most people want an alternative, something that doesn't suck which they can watch when WWE does. Vince Russo just has a reputation, a stench on him that is not going away. Sort of like how Paul Heyman has a reputation, or Jim Cornette has a reputation, both of which are opposite Vince Russo (regardless of how true it is or not). TNA does a lot of things that I just don't agree with. Re-signing Hulk Hogan, bringing back Jeff Hardy, keeping Vince Russo around, etc. I think Hogan can still bring something to a show, not in an in-ring sense, obviously, but as a talker and a name. So of course TNA seem to be building toward a Hogan match. Same with Ric Flair. He has a good mind for wrestling, he's still a good talker...but he should not be in the damn ring! I can't justify Jeff Hardy, after awhile you have to stop giving a guy chances. Vince Russo though? I'm not sure. Maybe with a real, true filter he can be beneficial. Just as an ideas guy. Come up with a bunch of ideas, any with potential we can mold into something useful. Instead, he comes up with ideas, but doesn't have a middle or an end, so we just get a lot of starting and then no continuity and a lot of confusion. If Prichard can help with that, then OK. I just have a lot of doubts. So TNA need to prove me wrong for a chance. Prove everyone wrong. A lot of people seem to be taking the "Prichard has to be better than Russo" stance but I'm not so sure. Is Russo even not going to be around? It sounds to me like Russo will be getting filtered through Prichard now but still doing the writing, so I have no idea. Even if it does fail, or even if it succeeds, the important thing to remember, no matter what, is that Bruce Prichard...LOVES YOU!

I always thought Bockwinkle was overrated as from what I've seen, he's pretty boring (at least to me). I guess I just haven't seen enough stuff. That's pretty interesting to me. When I thought about this thread (as it was obviously coming), I thought of Savage, Flair & Funk first. Thinking about it a little bit more, I still just come back to those names, although the order changes. Lawler is really good too. It's really hard for me to put anyone over Flair. The difference for me between this thread and that 90's thread is that in the 80's, I have to cut my list down. In the 90's, I struggle to fill the list up! So, that's a good thing.

I think Todd Martin completely missed the point. It's not about "A Miz run-in." First of all, it was Miz & R-Truth both, with weapons, doing an attack, from the crowd, after a Hell in a Cell match. Secondly, and most importantly, it's not about that attack. It's about the motifs BEHIND that attack. The entire "conspiracy" angle. Which I thought Jerry Lawler did a pretty good job explaining, in the ring, on the microphone last night...but I guess it still went over the head of a lot of people.

At Hell in a Cell (the previous night), The Miz & R-Truth did a run-in after the WWE title main event. This is a black & white picture of the aftermath. It is also the reason why I cared to watch RAW at all...and I'm glad that I did! From reading around various websites today, the feelings on RAW last night seem to be.. mixed. I, however, liked the majority of what I saw. Namely the closing angle with everyone walking out on C.O.O. Triple H & the awesome 12-man tag team match (which even featured Mason Ryan). WWE right now have a lot entertaining guys on the roster. Although not main event caliber (at least not all of them, not in my opinion), people like Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston & Dolph Ziggler are damn entertaining to watch. They bring that high energy feel to the show, and I'm not talking about the Owen Hart & Koko B. Ware tag team. I wasn't a fan of how Mark Henry was used over the course of the night though. He's been built as this unstoppable monster. He has beat Randy Orton clean in the middle with his finish on two consecutive PPVs. One for the title, the next (in a Cell) to defend the title. That's pretty impressive. However, after the Cell match, Orton beat him down with a chair and he ran away. On RAW last night, after Randy Orton had already wrestled a match, Mark Henry came out to start some shit or potentially split a wig. A brawl broke out, with security doing run-ins to pull the two apart. For the first time since becoming a new & improved THUMP-slam throwing main eventer, Orton got the upper hand on Henry. I'm O.K. with that, actually, because you need people to believe the babyface can win too. But then later in the night, Henry was talking about "unsafe working conditions" and there not being good enough security. This is the same Henry that purposely injured people with a Pillmanizer (Kane, Big Show, Vlad Koslov) and just earlier in the night was subdued by said inept security. It just didn't make a whole lot of sense. Whatever. Storyline "kayfabe" or not, this was hilarious to me. What does Morrison have to lose at this point though? He's already in the doghouse, being completely buried (see his twenty second loss to Alberto Del Rio) & his wife was fired. At least he's doing something entertaining for a change! Go Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, Kevin Von Erich has been going off. Shitting on Mark Henry & even Chris Jericho. Here's his Tweets: Pretty funny burn at the end there. I'm surprised WWE never tried to get Lacey Von Erich though. She seems to be exactly what they would be looking for. A famous name, blond with big fake tits. Maybe she is being black-balled because she worked that Hogan/Flair show? I have no idea. She would have to be better than fuckin' Kelly Kelly though. Take that either way... Allah Ackbarrrrrr!!

How about "Diamond" Dallas Page? Not too many "classic" matches but he did have good matches against Savage, Hart, random Johnny B. Badd and even Goldberg. Plus his stuff with Benoit, Raven and Eddie Guerrero. I think some of the Jersey Triad stuff happened in 1999 too. I remember there being some decent tag matches.

Oct. 03, 2011 * Mark Henry is the best thing in all of U.S. wrestling in 2011. I hated him running away from Orton & his chair after the match though. Nice to know that a Hell in a Cell match can not end a feud! I'm not sure why no one here seems to use the blog feature anymore, but I wanted to jot some of my random wrestling thoughts lately down. This will be pretty unorganized and focus a lot on current WWE or TNA. Although I'll occasionally hit a nostalgia trip and mention something from years ago. Granted I know full well that I am not as learned as a lot of people here about the history of wrestling. I claim to be nothing but a normal fan with his own random thoughts. Feel free to comment, I just didn't wanna spam up a thread: * I don't understand why Alberto Del Rio lost the WWE title two weeks ago if he was just going to win it back last night at Hell in a Cell anyway. Same with Beth Phoenix: why not let her win the title in her hometown of Buffalo if you're just going to give her the belt two weeks later anyway? * Speaking of Beth Phoenix, I'm really glad that the Divas title is off of Kelly² & she held it for way too long. She can't even run the ropes properly & it's completely ridiculous that she's even wrestling, let alone a multi-month champion. At least Trish improved! I'm not sure if women can draw in the States, probably not, but what can draw in wrestling anymore? WWE offering a bunch of different aspects during their show is not a bad thing. They're slowly seemingly bringing the tag division back to relevance. Cody brought back the old IC belt. Why not try to improve the women too? Let Tamina get some work in. Beth/Tamina or Natalia/Tamina. Maybe try to groom AJ Lee as the female Ricky Morton. She's still really green but I think she has a lot of potential and it seems like it would be pretty easy to put sympathy heat on a pretty, small girl. Give little girls a role model too. * It was noted by someone on, I think DVDVR that John Cena is "the Jason Voorhees of WWE." Now I can't stop picturing him in a hockey mask & it's hilarious. No matter who has the belt, he's going to keep coming. You can't stop him. He'll get you eventually. * I wish everything in WWE didn't feel like a second-rate rehash of the most popular characters/angles in WWE history. I wish WWE, when trying to recreate things, would at least look farther back in history than like six or seven years ago. Randy Orton is a poor man's Steve Austin with his tweener gimmick. John Cena is the Hulk Hogan style 80's babyface. Punk/HHH is pretty much Austin/McMahon all over again. Although now it's morphing into some sort of weird conspiracy angle featuring like six other people (Miz, Truth, Ace, McMahon(s), Nash). At least it's kinda different that way though. * I think Kofi/Bourne is a good tag team. Whoever chose the name "Air Boom" should be fired though. Also, they should do more double-team moves, have an actual tag team entrance not just a spliced singles entrance together. Give them matching outfits, not just matching colors and a damn tag team finisher! The Dudleys were super over in large part because The Dudley Death Drop was booked as, well, death. I think they have potential but if WWE treats it half-assed, it'll be viewed as half-assed. * I really like Booker T. on commentary. He's still learning and makes mistakes, which sometimes make moments a lot more awkward, but he's funny and feels fresh. He had the lines of the night at the PPV last night and on RAW last week. "I had that steak at Denny's this morning!" in reference to Ross saying Sheamus was tougher than a $2 steak. * Impact Wrestling is doing some good things lately. I think Eric Young and Robbie E. are legitimately funny. The Robert Roode road to the title is fun. I like joker Sting. * Watching older stuff, I sometimes wish I would have been born about five years earlier. I just turned 30, but I missed a lot of great stuff the first time around in the 80's. I'm a big fan of Nikita Koloff, but I completely missed Magnum TA. I got to see some WCW Muta, but had no access to his Japan stuff. Now as an adult, I can seek it out but it's not the same as seeing it happen at a current state with the eyes of a child. I took for granted how many greats I was watching growing up: DiBiase, Rude, Roberts, Santana, Valentine, Duggan, Steamboat, Perfect, Adonis, Piper, Bad News, Eaton, Morton, Savage, etc.

Why not? It was still him. There have been good workers that excelled in shitty gimmicks before. Hell, Kane is a pretty shitty gimmick when you think about it. It sucks that he was pigeon-holed but it's more about the body of work than the moves anyway and I just find him...below average. Regardless of if he's doing a Big Boot/Jackknife Powerbomb or a Chokeslam/Tombstone. Ya know? This has been derailed kind of anyway, as I don't think anyone would argue trying to put Kane on the list (since this spawned from him being above Lance Storm). But I would agree that Storm shouldn't be there either. So it's all good.

Well, he was also Isaac Yankem DDS & fake Diesel, neither of which can be ignored when we're looking at his 90's work. And both of those runs were absolutely abysmal. Even when he first showed up as Kane, he was still pretty bad. Go back and look at his early Tombstones, to Taker or Vader, and try not to cringe!