Coffey

He should win, from a wrestling story perspective. But he dies so well, I expect there to at the very least be some post-match stuff to give us a rematch. I just love how both are so good at what they're currently doing. Gargano as the sympathetic babyface & Ciampa as the dastardly sneak-attacking heel.

I genuinely don't know who is winning Gargano/Ciampa either which makes the match more fun. Gargano has lost quite a bit lately, Ciampa is just back from injury. Could see Gargano going to the main roster... so I don't know. Going to be fun regardless.

I'm not seeing anything Ember's done that I would call good, including any of her NXT weekly stuff or Takeover stuff. She's very bland & awkward & her gimmick sucks. Her finish is too over the top & there's something about her movements that feels incredible phony. AJ Lee used to do the same thing, like she has to jump start herself before starting to do a move (especially running moves) and it's really weird to watch. Don't dig her at all. I think she's worse in the ring than Peyton Royce. Wasn't a fan of hers pre-NXT as Athena either. Never got the love for her and think she's a bad champ and a bad babyface.

More excited for TakeOver tonight than I am for Wrestlemania tomorrow. Tomorrow is more about the spectacle, the glitz & glam, the environment. Tonight is more about the matches, for me. It feels more old school... and Ciampa/Gargano is a big reason why I'm excited. Great build! Ladder match is going to be insane. Hope Ember Moon drops that title. I still think she's pretty bad. Black/Almas should be fun. Almas has been cash lately. Putting Vega with Almas was a great move. Tag match could go either way. Authors of Pain are so weird to me. It's like, I always think "eh, they're OK. Match won't be anything special." Then the match is really good and I act surprised. Eventually I gotta give them credit. They really bring it on big shows.

https://www.twitch.tv/tangent This dude is live-streaming WrestleCon. Super cool seeing all the wrestlers & whatnot roaming around. I've seen Jack Swagger, Jake Roberts, The Nasty Boys, Chavo & Vickie Guerrero, Medusa, Eric Bischoff, Carlito & who knows how many I've missed.

I dunno, I like Minoru but his match with Cody was really disappointing, so my hype for Minoru/Riddle is lower because of how average that match was. I was more excited for Low Ki, honestly.

How cool is this? In my home city, $2.00 to see Bruno Sammartino, Bobo Brazil & The Sheik!

Daniel Bryan is great but I don't consider him the greatest, so I voted no. I consider Misawa, Kobashi & Kawada (along with Stan Hansen, Ric Flair & Terry Funk) to be the greatest that ever did it & I don't think he's at that level. I had Daniel Bryan at #36 on my greatest wrestler list. Had a few wrestlers above him that I would now put him ahead of but I still don't think he's approaching my top 25. I do think he's night & day better than AJ Styles though.

Odds The Dudley Boys during their acceptance speech re-tell the Scott Hall "can't wait to kick out of it" story for the five-hundredth time?

Looking at results so not sure the episode numbers are exactly the same on the Network, episode 52 has Bret and Disco among a very underwhelming lineup of matches. Norton and Benoit had singles matches on episodes 11 and 14, depends if you are Fargo or Terre Haute. Goldberg wrestled on both episodes also. Hey, thank you for this!

Speaking of, anything we could do to get some new blood pumping into the forums? I know we attract a certain sort of wrestling fan, but having at least a little bit more activity wouldn't be a bad thing. Not saying I would ever want this place to turn into wrestlingforum or Reddit or anything but a couple new knowledgeable faces would certainly be welcome.

My fondest Thunder memory is a random match between Bret Hart Vs. Disco Inferno. I just remember when Bret slapped on the Sharpshooter it looked like he was killing Disco with it. Like the one he put on Jerry Lawler back in the day. I've wanted to see that match again since it first happened, so I could be able to get my chance now as soon as I find it. Also, there was a Thunder in my city where I was in one of the first few rows. So curious to see if I can find myself on camera. I remember Goldberg was there. And Scott Norton wrestled Chris Benoit.

I think they're clearly superior to the Headshrinkers in pretty much every measurable way. Promo, in-ring work & character work.

Exactly. I'm not a fan of The Young Bucks or Cody Rhodes but that doesn't matter because this show isn't about me.

I just really want to see the show be successful because I think that would be better for the health of the industry.

I am pretty confident in saying that Usos vs New Day is the best tag team rivalry of the modern era, maybe even more than the Smackdown Six era, and should be mentioned in the same breath as Rock N Roll vs Midnight Express. I was just thinking how not only have I never seen them have a bad match, I don't remember seeing them have one anything less than great. I remember when The Usos never made TV & were cooking chicken on YouTube and I said they should use them because they're good. I got one right! They are good & putting them on TV was a good thing.

Ehh... Am I the only one who considers Trish wildly overrated? There were at least a 5-6 other women during her era who were better than she was IMO, and that's in WWE alone. No, not at all. She was a shit worker, which I'll go to my grave saying. But she was very pretty and was a great bumper... and back then, that was enough to help her stand out. Plus she had charisma & could talk. Which also put her ahead of a lot of the other ladies. Like, what happens if you give Jackie or Lita a mic? They knew they could with Trish. Very similar to modern day Alexa Bliss. Is she a great worker? No, but she's vastly improved & has enough tools in other departments to make-up for some of the lack of ring skill. Wrestlings never been about just in-ring & it never will be. Trish is overrated but she worked in her era, like Alexa works now.

If it counts, ECW on TNN was on Friday nights.

Going back to Alberto Del Rio, I think a lot of people gloss over how integral to the whole package of presenting Del Rio that Ricardo Rodriguez was. I would argue that he is the reason Del Rio ever got over in the first place & WWE dropping him meant that Del Rio just started treading water as just another wrestler trading wins & losses with the rest of the roster. ADR also used to have a lot more showcase to him. He used to come out in the nice cars with the scarf & dressing like a rich star. Then he was just a dude coming to the ring in trunks going through the motions. The shine wore off but no one was trying to keep it polished. I think it would be a mistake for WWE to bring him back. He's 40, with a ton of baggage & is not over. It's not really worth it. But there were moments when I thought that Del Rio was going to be big. The biggest I can think of was WWE giving him the 40-man Royal Rumble win. Then him losing in the Wrestlemania opener to Edge, that's pretty much that beginning of the end for his character.

Wrestlemania: Piper/Orndorf Vs. Hogan/Mr. T Wrestlemania 2: Hogan/ King Kong Bundy Wrestlemania 3: Hogan/Andre Wrestlemania 4: Tournament with DiBiase/Savage main Wrestlemania 5: Hogan/Savage Wrestlemania 6: Hogan/Warrior Wrestlemania 7: Hogan/Slaughter So if you remove Hulk Hogan from the equation, from all of the early Wrestlemania main events, you have Roddy Piper, Paul Orndorf, Mr. T., Andre the Giant, Ted DiBiase, Randy Savage, The Ultimate Warrior & Sgt. Slaughter all in the Hall of Fame & only King Kong Bundy not. They should remedy that.

In professional wrestling, is there a better first name of talent than Ric(k)? Ric Flair Rick Rude Ricky Steamboat Ricky Morton Rick Martel Rick Steiner There's been good Steves but I can't think of enough to compete with Ricks. Maybe Chris? This is the definition of a comment that doesn't warrant a thread.

First thing that came to mind was when Hulk Hogan "Hulked Up" against The Rock at Wrestlemania 18. The crowd lost their minds.

Well, I mean, it's the Dave Meltzer thread. Who should I zero-in on in this thread if not Dave Meltzer? Constantly defending Mike Elgin or skirting the issues (or linking to fucking Tumblr) is a terrible thing to do, especially for someone with his platform. But, you know, I guess he's a morally upstanding guy! Or we can talk about his defending of the n-word because it was just an insider term...

The more you learn/read about Meltzer, the more you realize he's kind of a piece of shit. So him getting involved in pro-wrestling makes sense, because it's bottom-of-the-barrel carney boys club trash. The more you dig on wrestling, the behind-the-scenes of wrestling, the worse it gets.

They need to film some new Legends of Wrestling Roundtable discussions with a new panel & new topics - excluding the Monday Night Wars. Don't put Ric Flair or Michael Hayes on there, get some newer WWE Hall of Fame inductees or something.