Coffey

...but it's still just a DQ finish in a title match on the second biggest show of the year...

I really like Adam Cole. I think he's a future main roster world champion. I don't get EC3 though. To me, he's just a worse version of Texano.

There's been a lot of wrestlers that "kind of suck" over the years that WWE still used & at least tried to get some money out of. Like The Ultimate Warrior for example. Bray Wyatt could have been a lot bigger deal, even if he's not a great worker. The pomp & circumstance of his theatrical entrances alone should have made him a big deal. The Wyatt Family as a whole should have been a bigger threat but I just don't think WWE ever wanted them to actually be credible. Instead of being like The Family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre they were more like the Dungeon of Doom with Kevin Sullivan running around the woods in his wrestling trunks.

Fuck, Hogan... you can't be this fuckin' dense man, right? Good Lord... It's like he WANTS to never have a career again.

A Twitter user to Dave after his apology: "An apology is not enough! You should be fired." I laughed... but then thought it was a good way to summarize how I feel about it all. Not saying that what Dave Meltzer said was acceptable - regardless of if he's talking about her tits or weight - but people on Twitter will get outraged about things even when they know nothing about the people involved. Twitter is weird. It's basically just a social media mob roaming around from one issue to the next & then everyone piling on that until the new shiny thing pops up.

WWE Network alone has completely changed my fandom. Being able to put on any show I want, whenever I want is crazy. I distinctly recall when I was growing up putting on "scramblevision" just to listen to the shows that I could afford to order on PPV. Now WWE Network is ALL of the PPVs for $10/mo. and if you want, you basically always get WWE Network for free with free trials & different e-mails & whatnot. It's crazy. Just today after Jim Neidhart passed, someone mentioned the tag match of The Hart Foundation Vs. The Brainbusters from SummerSlam 1989. In less than a minute, I went to the WWE Network, went to the show & started that match. It's crazy to be able to do that. My newest kick is pro-wrestling action figures. I still own a few of the old Hasbro figures. I just found a bunch of Puroresu figures though that I'm super jealous of. I might look into getting some of them. I was looking for Stan Hansen & Terry Funk figures is how I stumbled upon them. Who knew that Great Muta & Antonio Inoki had so many toys!? Really cool.

Being a lifelong professional wrestling fan, that worst part about getting older is having to see all of the wrestlers you grew up watching pass away. Also, I really hope that Nattie found out via family, not Twitter notifications. Everyone that was tweeting about Anvil was tagging her in the posts. That would be a horrible way to find out about your father passing away. We just lost Masa Saito, Brickhouse Brown, Brian Christopher & Big Van Vader. Now apparently The Anvil as well. Sometimes wrestling is tough. You know professional wrestling has you jaded when a wrestler dies at sixty-three & your first thought it "at least he didn't die young" despite that being young for normal death. In the world of wrestling it feels like you're lucky to make it past forty-five. The Hart Foundation is one of my earliest childhood tag team memories. For some reason, I always think about them squashing The Bolsheviks at Wrestlemania.

Technically, this would be a criminal matter.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly where I'm at.

Some of my favorite wrestlers from yesteryear are guys that I question if they would even be given a shot in today's WWE. Earthquake, One Man Gang, King Kong Bundy - guys like that. They might have some wrestlers like Kevin Owens or Bray Wyatt on the roster but they're pretty far away from a One Man Gang. And Kevin Owens has taken A LOT of flak for how he looks. Wrestling is admittedly a very visually physical medium. And I think it's more fun when there's a large diversity in the roster. Height, weight, sex, ethnicity, etc.

There's way too many pinned threads.

When I first heard the story, my first thought was "wow, this is a huge deal in this day & age, I wonder if anything will happen?" I was talking to my friend John & I told him about this story & said "if Twitter got a hold of this story, it would blow up." I'm glad to see that it's becoming a bigger deal because if there's truth the story, it should not just be overlooked, brushed under the rug or defended as a rib or "boys will be boys" bullshit. Of course, WWE "looking into the manner" doesn't exactly instill any confidence in me but they can't play the ignorance card anymore at least. They've acknowledged it.

I still pop when Pentagon puts the zero fear hand on their face though. Such disrespect! lmfao

I would argue that fans were "grading on a curve" back then too. Trish & Lita were never good. They were just better than the Sable's & Debra's of the world. Actually the rose-colored glasses regarding Trish Stratus is one of my biggest pet peeves in all of wrestling. She worked hard & improved but people online acting like she was some super worker drives me bonkers. Helluva bumper though.

Yeah, I can agree with that. I'm definitely curious to see more of Barthel now. I already know what Lee can do, so mission accomplished I guess. Lee didn't have to eat him up.

I really like Keith Lee & was pretty excited hearing he had signed with NXT. That being said, his NXT debut, for me, left a lot to be desired. I was expecting more of a showcase for him, honestly. I think Marcel Barthel showed me more in that match than Keith Lee did.

What's the competition? The Rockers were pretty good but didn't have a ton of great matches back then, really. Honestly most of the teams from the eighties & early nineties weren't about work like today's shows seems to favor so I don't think it's that far-fetched if we're talking about in-ring quality. Brainbusters, maybe? From Attitude Era or later, maybe... the Hardys? Or like Smackdown Six era teams or something? Edge & Christian? There's definitely memorable tag teams from WWF history but as far as work is concerned, tag teams were better outside WWF.

I can't find a Terry Funk bobblehead & that makes me sad. Felt like wrestler bobbleheads would be more popular than they seem to be. There's a ton for most sports but wrestling, outside of a few WWE ones, aren't as abundant as I was anticipating.

Didn't Becky go like 7-0 to get the title shot against Carmella in the first place? Meanwhile, Charlotte was gone for like two months, and has lost to Carmella. But she randomly gets a chance to get added to the match anyway & wins it. So now Becky, after going 7-0, doesn't get her 1v1 match that she earned? From a kayfabe standpoint, GM standpoint & babyface standpoint that's fucked up. If Paige was a heel GM it would make some more sense but right now, it just feels like bad booking. Even if it's leading to a heel turn, it doesn't make sense.

Whereas I would say modern epics have the acting of an Adam Sandler movie with the special effects of Infinity War. That's my biggest issue with modern wrestling, actually. It's nothing but bell-to-bell ringwork with no substance outside of that. I just feel, regardless of the year, that pro-wrestling needs a draw for a match other than "well, the match will probably be good." But unless Meltzer starts giving out star ratings for promos, character work & gimmicks, that isn't going to happen.

Watching WWF WrestleVision Classic 1985 on WWE Network. I have never seen this show before. First match was Adrian Adonis Vs. Corporal Kirchner. The finish was Kirchner going for a Vertical Suplex & Adonis Adonis reversing it into a DDT-like pancake finish. In 1985! I popped. Jake himself didn't even come to WWF until 1986. Of course Jake was already doing Stampede & Georgia but that finish was genuinely surprising to me.

Man, I didn't read the spoilers or know that the title change was happening. That was the first NXT weekly show that I can remember watching as it aired too & I marked out. I bought into several of the false finishes too. I'm all-in on Tommaso Ciampa. I liked him in ROH but felt like he was missing something. In NXT, he feels like he's found it. Great heel character work.

In the WWE Network era, how can you determine the success of a PPV anymore? I'm curious how well received the all-women's PPV will be. Are they going to have all female ring announcers, commentators & referees too?