Coffey

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?

Great show. Felt different & fresh. A lot like how NXT feels for their TakeOver shows. Felt more "extreme" than Extreme Rules did. Didn't feel like a WWE ripoff product anymore. Some good gimmicks, good matches & good stipulations. That's all you can really ask from a show, right? There wasn't any Match of the Year candidates on the show but it was entertaining from beginning to end & I never felt like I wanted to skip/fast forward anything.

Will finish the rest of the PPV later but have been genuinely impressed so far. Up to the Hair Vs. Mask match. The 5150 Street Fight was death. Su Yung's gimmick was great. The 4-way opener was pretty good. Liked the Brian Cage match too.

Which is probably my favorite reason for being a member of Pro Wrestling Only as that echo chamber doesn't exist here. It's damn near impossible for me to read r/SquaredCircle or Twitter wrestling stuff anymore.

This reminds me of one of the Kevin Nash shoot interviews he did about leaving WWF for WCW, which ultimately was about money. There was a ceiling for pay in wrestling & they couldn't get through the ceiling. Nash was talking about how Bret Hart took less money because he just wanted to be the champion. So because Bret took less money, it meant all the other wrestlers got less money because Vince McMahon could just point to Bret and be like "he's the top guy & he's not getting that money." Bret didn't really know his worth - and this is why some wrestlers called him a mark - because he wanted to be booked strong instead of make more money. Forgetting that it's a job/career at the end of the day. And when you're the top dog, a lot of other wrestlers will look at you as the person with the responsibility of being the voice for the other wrestlers. At least according to the shoot. Scott Hall goes to WCW for more money. Has a clause in his contract (favored nations) where if someone else signed for more money, his pay goes up. So Nash comes in for more money, so Hall gets paid more. Bret comes in for more money, Hall & Nash both get paid more. It's a business and that's a smart business move. It's hard to look at the behind-the-scenes aspect of wrestling without taking into account the money & that it's a work, ya know? There's not a WCW that guys can walk to anymore. So I agree with you, it lowers the bar for everyone & it can make the fans apathetic to the company/card/workers... but also, I can't help but feel like why would the wrestlers work harder when they're not going to get more money or a better push if they do? Or to continue comparing it to other, non-wrestling jobs, they're working at their pay grade. Everyone is just coasting & doing just enough to not get fired.. but why should they do more? There's no incentive. Zack Ryder goes out & gets himself over, tries to grab the brass ring & gets buried. The Women's Revolution with all the 4-horsewomen busting their asses leads to Alexa Bliss & Carmella being on top. No one is hungry and they have really no reason to be if they're under the WWE umbrella. I imagine a lot of the roster has had the wind taken out of their sails on multiple occasions. Look at the majority of NXT call-ups: Ascension, Neville, The Revival, Tyler Breeze, Adam Rose, No Way Jose, Authors of Pain, Emma, Apollo Crews, Dana Brooke, The Vaudevillains, etc. Kevin Owens took a Mick Foley style spot - Chokeslammed off a cage through the announce table. What does he have to show for it a week later? Even at the end of the PPV on the same night no one was talking about it. Everyone was talking about the fans doing countdown chants instead. Risked breaking his body for what? Honestly, I wish we had more guys like Cody Rhodes, Austin Aries, Juice Robinson or Neville that were willing to walk away from WWE instead of just signing new contracts & coasting. I think it would improve the shows. But as a man (or woman), with a family to support... it would be really, really hard to turn down that money because of pride or wanting to prove your craft or because you're not featured on TV in the way you want.

The biggest issue is that with Dave Meltzer becoming so biased, it brings his journalistic integrity into question. At least for me. Maybe that's a bit much but that's how I feel. Like, Okada, Omega & The Young Bucks are straight-up treated more favorably than anyone else. He has always had strong opinions that leaned a certain way. Like you can tell he's a fan of car-crash ladder matches but lately it almost feels like Meltzer himself is a damn member of the Bullet Club. Having personal preferences & being a fan is cool but not when he spent so long trying to pretend he was above all of that & just a reporter. Now he just looks like a mark. He's never been a great (or elegant) speaker, he desperately needs an editor for his writing & now his Twitter is pretty much just trying to work trolls up. We can't pretend that he doesn't have an influence on a generation of wrestling fans. You even have the English commentators on live New Japan Pay-Per-Views referencing star ratings of matches for their wrestlers. Personally, I find it all really detrimental to pro-wrestling.

Woof.