Coffey

I don't know if he's the MOST unselfish guy, but I want to give a nod to Cactus Jack/Mick Foley. Maybe part of it was that he could always get over with his microphone skills so he was kind of bulletproof from losses but that dude never felt like he cared about winning the top matches & I would argue he made several guys, like Triple H, Edge or Randy Orton. Or at least really helped cement them as top guys. He could be a babyface or a heel & could work super serious or complete comedy. He was pretty beloved by the fans too. I actually think as a whole he kind of gets slept on anymore, especially when people are reminiscing about the Attitude Era. Outside of maybe mentioning the whole "that'll put asses in seats" thing or of course the HIAC, it's like Foley is an afterthought but a lot of the Rock, Austin, 'Taker, HHH stuff isn't what it is without him. Hell, even as the commissioner he was helping get acts like Edge & Christian over, as a non-wrestler. I guess the biggest knock against Foley would be he was never really the #1 guy because he was hot when Austin & Rock were also hot so he was like defacto #3 in line. Arguably behind 'Taker too. But really even before the Mankind HIAC days he was doing great shit with Shawn Michaels.

There are genuinely only two things that I ever remember about The Undertaker's Wrestlemania match with Snuka: 1. Snuka was wearing fucking boots. I remember thinking "WTF, Snuka never wears boots" because as a kid, a big part of his appeal, was that he wrestled bare foot & 2. the Tombstone finish looked like shit. I'm also interested in when the first on-air mention of his Wrestlemania streak is. I know it was already a thing by the time he wrestled Ric Flair at X-Seven.

Um. HOLY SHIT. That is awesome. Straight up.

To be fair, music has changed a lot over the last several years, ever since the internet really took off, honestly. The turn started with the Napster drama & now all music is pretty much streaming. No one really buys physical media anymore. Unless, like me, you're into vinyl but even that I end up ordering online because you can't find anything in person anymore. Especially in smaller cities like where I'm from. I turn 40-years-old this year & I still listen to multiple hours of music daily but, although technologically speaking, it's easier than ever to find new music, it's also harder to branch out, so-to-speak. It's kind of a shot in the dark & hope you get lucky method for me. According to the year in review for Spotify, I listened to over 40,000 minutes of music in 2020. Of my top 5 played artists of the year, 4 were bands/artists that I discovered in 2020. I think all of them I found via the "similar artists" option in Spotify. Oh, I like Flogging Molly, who is similar to them? The Rumjacks... they're pretty cool. I love Tom Waits, who is like him? Hmm, never heard of Tindersticks before! My most listened to albums of 2020 were all albums that came out in the last three years. It's not like I'm listening to the shit from when I was a teenager still, or not actively trying to seek out new music constantly but if I'm looking for new genres - how is someone like me ever going to stumble on someone like Bad Bunny? Maybe it's if you're in the Pop genre tab, or if there's a discover new artists or something? I also never click on the trending tab on YouTube. I honestly have no idea how kids find new music nowadays outside of word of mouth from friends & classmates. For me, it's all about just going down a random wormhole, clicking on similar artists, listening to a track or two & seeing if from the first few tracks I randomly click on if I like them. Very much an imperfect system. I could click on a band that I would really like otherwise, choose poorly in the first couple of tracks & completely write them off due to those choices. I don't watch TV, I watch streaming services. I don't get commercials, I use ad-blocks. I stream all of my music. I watch Twitch all the time too. So I don't feel like I'm out of touch, I just think it's hard to get targeted nowadays with new stuff if it's not in your specific, particular circle. I used to hear new stuff on Twitch when watching streamers but now that's gone with all of the copywrite shit making all of the streamers not be allowed to play music anymore. A friend just a few days ago did turn me onto the website music-map.com & I have been having some success with it thus far but it is genuinely a struggle to constantly & consistently continue to find new music. I don't care if AC/DC, U2 or Metallica come out with a new album, in example, I am actively seeking new artists - new to me, anyway. During the pandemic, I've had a lot of time to do so & it is not easy. When I was growing up, I had the radio & MTV & I could go into music stores & listen to the albums that were on the racks. I can't really do any of that anymore. Not where I'm at. I don't know who Bad Bunny is. After hearing his performance at the Royal Rumble, it was obvious his music isn't geared toward me or something that I would be into but I don't think that made me out of touch so much as it makes me prefer a different style of music. I can tell, usually when I'm getting passed by on shit. One time at a LAN center, I had to have an employee show me how to sync up a controller to a console to get a wireless controller to work. I had no idea how to do it. They showed me & then I asked for a controller with a cord instead. THAT was being out of touch.

The women's Rumble was a lot better than the men's. They got the last two & the winner right. The women feel young, fresh, energetic & hungry. Sans people like Nia. The men all feel outdated & stale. And I can't get excited for even potential match-ups like Riddle Vs. Bryan as Riddle is apparently a sex pest. At least I thought Damien Priest's main roster debut looked pretty good. Nothing else on the show mattered. Drew feels like an afterthought & has made no splash whatsoever as champion. Not sure what beating Goldberg is supposed to do for him. It was a lose-lose scenario. If you lose, you lost to an old man. If you win, grats, you beat an old man. Roman Reigns is the best thing WWE has going & they're having him waste his time with the likes of fucking Kevin Owens. Whom does the Stunner now for... reasons & got a bunch of tattoos but is still just a dude with a beer gut & neckbeard that wrestles in basketball shorts & looks like a fucking jobber. Sasha should be such a bigger star than she is. She just did The Mandalorian & WWE has her treading water with Carmella. The issue is you can tell that all the people in charge are old as dirt because they book the show as if it's for an audience of people old as dirt full of a bunch of outdated, bland talent. Like, who was clamoring for Kane to hobble his stupid ass down to the ring? The women's Rumble was def better than the men's but even that was full of NXT people, women pulling double duty & people like Torrie Wilson & Jillian Hall as "surprises" so even the women's side is very thin.

You can't make this shit up! What's next, they bringing back Alberto Del Rio again!?

I'm never willing to count Charlotte out of anything. She can be the first two-time Women's Royal Rumble winner.

At this point, what's even the worst case scenario? Because I'm already stone cold & completely dead on WWE. The Undertaker comes back & wins? Bray Wyatt? The Miz? Honestly, nothing would surprise me at this point. Triple H? Like, who cares? Wrestlemania last year was pathetic, so I can't imagine WWE is going to do anything this year, during the pandemic, from Royal Rumble to Wrestlemania. They already brought back Goldberg. Maybe Edge wins & we get Edge Vs. Randy Orton at Wrestlemania again! Yeah, buddy. Fuck it, let Nia Jax win the men's Rumble.

Nia Jax & making you wince. Name a more iconic duo. https://www.clippituser.tv/c/vqxerr

Alexa Bliss is the Belle Delphine of WWE. That's not a compliment.

OK, OK, hear me out... Who is better in wrestling, The Fiend or... The Boogeyman. I mean, Boogey isn't any good, of course, but he wasn't around for very long, wasn't stink up the main event & was never WWE champion. Nor did his nonsense spread to other characters in the way like The Fiend has possessed Alexa or whatever the fuck. Boogey had shit stuff too though, like when he bite the shit off Jillian's face. Oof.

Man, who the hell is backstage that has the boner for this terrible Alexa Bliss shit? I gotta believe a live crowd would have shit all over that.

This is what I said on Twitter too! I was surprised the amount of references people were making to everyone except the Destroyer. Granted I also only saw the picture of him in the mask due to Twitter because I'm certainly not watching RAW.

...with the Switchblade

It was all downhill for Vince after he lost his infamous hair to Donald Trump!

Glad Muertes is back & the new golden mask looked cool... but he didn't feel like he was in the best ring shape if I'm being honest.

Coincidentally, I made this exact point on Twitter five hours ago. Is it height, weight, both? How tall? How much weight? Is The Undertaker a big man? Hulk Hogan? Mark Henry? No one would argue about someone like André the Giant or The Great Khali but what about Kane or A-Train? Shit, half the roster in the WWF 80's was big men. We talking about the likes of The Warlord? If you start putting criteria on it, suddenly guys like King Kong Bundy or Bam Bam Bigelow might not even qualify.

I would probably be the high vote on Scott Norton & One Man Gang in that one too! Bam Bam was awesome in ECW but that was mostly booking. He had a good bad ass aura about him which they didn't really capture in either WWF or WCW. I like Big Van Vader but I wouldn't vote him above The Undertaker I don't think, anymore. I don't know. I did in GWE I think. EDIT: Just checked, had Vader #11 (he has def dropped for me in the past five years) and Taker at #30 (and he's def went up)

Alexa Bliss teleporting on a swing set Pee-Wee's Playhouse style until The Fiend comesback maybe with a different clown mask & even bigger mallet this time!

If we're lucky, maybe they can bring back THE ANIMAL BATISTA and Evolution can ride again! But then, oh no, here comes The New Age Outlaws & X-Pac with HBK The Heartbreak Kid, Mr. Wrestlemania, Shawn Michaels! Now The Game, the Cerebral Assassin, the King of Kings... has to choose where his loyalties are! Does he choose Evolution or DGeneration-X!? What's that? *glass shatters* My God! It's Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Texas Rattlesnake! The Bionic Redneck is asking Hunter if he wants to bring back the 2-Man Power Trip! OH MYYYYY what is HHH going to do?? We'll be back, as WWE Monday Night RAW rolls onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

This is an interesting take. I would like to hear more about why you feel this way. If the goal was for Brock to win to give more of a rub to Roman... why not just have Roman be the one to beat 'Taker, like they ended up doing anyway? Maybe they feared it would give Roman backlash & make him a heel? Which... he currently is & is showing that it was probably the thing they should have done a long time ago. Brock didn't need the streak. He already had credibility. And if they wanted to make him the huge megamonster they did, why did they have him lose to John Cena in his first match back? WWE constantly shoots themselves in the foot. And sometimes still manage to limp to the right direction by accident anyway.

That's actually really shocking to me. I guess I just assumed with less people watching & attending, less people would be spending. So are the remaining fans just buying more to make-up for the less people or, how does this work? That's crazy.

Is WWE too big to die? In my life time I have seen a lot of pro wrestling companies come & go. The one constant has always been WWE. Now they're publicly traded & seemingly bigger than ever. But Vince McMahon is going to die during my lifetime - more than likely - and I have no idea what that will mean for the future of the company going forward. They've removed house shows entirely & currently have no paid attendance. So I imagine that has also tanked merch sales. You can pretty much get WWE Network for free, so they're not even really getting PPV money anymore. It feels like all of their eggs currently exist in the TV contracts basket & 1. TV is a dying medium & 2. they're definitely not going to get those huge contracts again with the way the ratings have been going & how bad the advertising money for wrestling shows is. And I believe the Saudi deal is over as well so that money also is seemingly gone? So... what's the business strategy going forward, as the wrestling company does everything it can do to not be a wrestling company? Triple H going to take it over with Steph & try to convince shareholders that it'll still be the same well-oiled, money-making machine? I feel like they need to do something big & drastic with the WWE network soon. Might we see WWE become solely a WWE Network product without anymore USA or FOX involvement in the future?

You got me there

I can't. I can't even watch it. It completely kills the shows & the nostalgia for me. It's not as bad, but watching old WCW shows & seeing them dub over the WCW themes with the WWE versions is also a shit sandwich. I hated that Taz talked all over it but it did show how much of a difference a real song makes. Jungle Boy seems like a genuine, cool dude, so I'm happy for him. I hope more is to follow for other stars. It's another way AEW could differentiate themselves from WWE, too. Don't give every single person a generic rock song. Part of what made buying into Mark Henry more believable to me, after all the Mae Young shit & what not, was him coming out to Three Six Mafia. I felt like it gave him credibility. Look how much of a difference it made for C.M. Punk when he switched from that shit scream rock song to Living Color. NWA Power using Dokken initially was cash too for the vibe they were going for. Completely changed when they switched to Pantera imo. Man. I'm really fucking bad about seeing a reply & then responding to the thread before reading the rest of the replies first. Most of these points are already made but still.