NintendoLogic

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a Cole fan. But he does appear to be HHH's latest pet project. Although Vince is apparently losing faith in Hunter, so who knows.

Their PPV title matches were both in May of 2016 (Payback on May 1 and Extreme Rules on May 22).

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a high-profile Roman match from the past couple of years that wasn't either an overbooked clusterfuck or a clash of the titans finisher spam match. Those match types both lend themselves to spending a lot of time laying around and taking a breather, which leads me to suspect that his physical condition is even worse than he's letting on. Even if it isn't, the ship has long since sailed on him being The Guy. The current era is just a holding pattern until Adam Cole is ready to take the reins.

I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to give in to FOMO and renew my Network subscription so I can watch this shitshow in real time even though I know it's far more likely to suck in a boring way than be the entertaining trainwreck we're all hoping for.

Only if he continues defending against top guys. I don't think it'll mean much if all of his defenses are against midcarders, just like beating the Young Bucks in the tag title tournament didn't do much for Private Party because there was no real follow-up.

A meaningless secondary belt isn't going to make anybody a bigger star. And it's not like they can make it the workrate title like the Intercontinental Championship in the 80s because pretty much every match in AEW is a workrate match.

Count me among those who think they have to use wrestlers to get the belt over before they can use the belt to get wrestlers over. Without the prestige conferred by a tippy-top guy, it's just a meaningless prop.

Serious as a heart attack, bubba.

I don't think any of us expected Michelle McCool's finisher to play a prominent role in a main event feud in 2020.

All I know about Kane's book is that it contains a chapter titled How Vince McMahon Took Over Pro Wrestling in the '80s As Explained by Austrian Economics.

KawadaSmile expressing dissatisfaction with the political situation in Brazil? Must be Monday! By the way, this is the commercial Samoa Joe got injured filming.

The Go Shiozaki/Kazuyuki Fujita GHC title match is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. It's like the Finnegans Wake or Trout Mask Replica of wrestling matches.

This entire segment is [chef's kiss]. The cartoon splat when Elias hit the ground is the icing on the cake.

Word on the street is that Braun is replacing Roman. Barf.

This just keeps getting better.

Let's be honest, Urkel is a much bigger mainstream star than Big Show, even within wrestling. I'm willing to bet that more people watched that episode of Family Matters where Urkel and Carl wrestled the Bushwhackers than ever watched a Big Show match.

Another member of the "also mentioned" master race checking in. To echo what C.S. said, some degree of escapism is necessary to make living in the horrible shitty fucked-up world we live in tolerable. Pro wrestling is the heart of a heartless world. And PWO is the heart of pro wrestling. For me, anyway. If not for this board, my perspective wouldn't be nearly as broad and I wouldn't be nearly as confident in going against the grain in matters of taste. As much as I appreciate it when people get something out of my contributions, it's barely a fraction of what I've gotten out of this board.

How many luchadores of note have lost their masks to non-masked wrestlers? The only ones I can think of are Konnan and Máscara Año 2000 (who both lost to Perro Aguayo, interestingly enough). Other than that, just about every high-profile mask vs. hair match has resulted in the masked wrestler coming out on top. Well, other than Rey Mysterio. But that happened in WCW has been more or less retconned away.

Counterpoint: House of Horrors.

PWO's favorite wrestler thinks all the indy guys whose livelihoods have been wrecked by the COVID-19 outbreak should just stop being poor. In addition to being terrible at wrestling, he's also terrible at social media. And him moving to Florida wasn't the shot in the dark he's making it out to be. He went down there because he received a contract solely based on his size without working a day in the indies.

Sports entertainers cutting to the front of the line while first responders and healthcare professionals can't get tested would be far worse, though. EDIT: cm funk just beat me to it

https://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemania/wrestlemania-36/article/wrestlemania-36-two-night-wwe-network-rob-gronkowski-host Now it's two nights with Gronk hosting. What a shitshow this is going to be.

Current picks after my rewatching project: 70s-Giant Baba vs. Billy Robinson, 7/24/76 80s-Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu, 1/28/86 90s-Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue, 6/9/95 00s-Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, 4/25/04 10s-Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk, 8/18/13

I experienced some major reshuffling as a result of my rewatching project. To wit, I changed my top three for 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2013. I also made my first MOTY selection for 2020.

Updated from my rewatching project: