NintendoLogic

There must be an extra long Elias performance in the cards.

Speaking of Clinton, while going through some 1993 Observers, I discovered that Yoshiaki Fujiwara attended the inaugural ball. How on earth did he manage an invite?

Two friends/brothers turned bitter enemies compete in an I Quit match. Right when one is about finish the other off, he decides he can't go through with it and quits voluntarily. The two then reconcile.

Faithless fools. When your time on earth is done, enjoy nothing. But seriously, there has to be something inherently unlikable about him for him to receive such intense negative reactions for such a long time. He's developed into a fine worker, but he's never going to be The Guy and trying to force him into that position is dragging the whole product down.

It's a matter of perception. Bret had wrestled as a junior heavyweight in Japan, so he was pigeonholed as a small guy even though he was the same size as Piper and Savage. Also, Piper could generate heat with his promos in a way that Bret and Shawn couldn't.

I'd actually go with 1994 as Dustin's best year. He may have been in more great matches in 1992, but did more of the heavy lifting in his great 1994 matches.

CM Punk was neck-and-neck with Cena in merch sales for a while in 2011.

I was bearish on WWE's long-term prospects for a long time because of the steep declines in traditional metrics of popularity. It was mainly rights fees keeping them afloat, so I figured they'd face their reckoning when it was time to renew their TV deals. But they somehow always ended up swimming in money at a level every other promotion in history could only dream of. Granted, it was mainly due to trends outside of WWE's control, so it's possible that outside forces could end up bringing them down. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm surprised so many people see Bryan/Hardy as a close call. Hardy may have been a bigger star at his peak, but Bryan virtually single-handedly changed how WWE evaluates talent and puts together matches.

Here's Dave at Starrcast. Draw your own conclusions.

It's not that WWE doesn't have to worry about losing fans. It's that fans are no longer WWE's target audience. It's television networks (who they're selling content to) and corporate sponsors (who they're selling a brand to). It's resulted in WWE becoming an American version of CMLL in that it's become basically impossible for them to go out of business. As with CMLL, that's a double-edged sword. In both cases, you'll be treated to a steady supply of quality matches if you're a fan of the house style, but you'll also have to learn to accept their often-maddening booking because there's no economic incentives forcing them to change course. One silver lining is that a lot of the sleazy behavior they got away with in the past won't fly today because networks/sponsors won't stand for it. On balance, I'd say a cleaner industry that puts out a less artistically appealing product is a net positive.

Is that Funaki as Meiko's interpreter?

Color me surprised that Dave considers Rock/Angle/Taker to be the best triple threat match in WWE history. I figured he'd almost certainly go with Benoit/HHH/HBK or Lesnar/Rollins/Cena.

Ask and ye shall receive.

The correct answer for Rude's best year is so obvious as to not even really be worth discussing. A far more difficult and interesting question would be his second-best year. It's almost certainly either 1989 or 1993. The highs in 1989 are higher, but there's also a lot less meat. Other than the Warrior matches, what else is there besides Survivor Series and a couple of matches on SNME? I don't think anything else made tape, and there are no handhelds that I know of. Meanwhile, 1993 featured a bunch of OK-to-decent matches but nothing really earth-shattering.

Has anybody ever crunched the numbers on how well Pedro Morales drew as WWWF champion? I've heard Dave and others claim that he drew poorly outside of MSG, which is why they practically begged Bruno to come back. But I recently heard Jim Cornette say that the decision to take the belt off Morales was driven by the constant fear of riots while he was champion. To be honest, that sounds more plausible to me. I find it hard to believe that they'd wait nearly three years to pull the trigger if the territory was hurting that badly.

Any thoughts on the best WWF match of 1983? I don't know of any matches from that year that are considered any good.

Between Park's resurgence and Villano III benefiting from the death bump, I think this will be the year the WON HOF lucha logjam finally breaks.

I'm a bit curious as to why this is listed as a no-DQ match (not just here but in other places as well). Doesn't it end in a DQ?

Confirmed by CMLL's Twitter account. He was 66.

Nobody in the audience bought her trash talk, though. Does playing to the crowd mean anything if the crowd doesn't buy what you're selling? Face it, it's not 1985 anymore.

Reigns won and the fans accepted it. Let's just admit it. Vince outsmarted us all.

That match was worked exactly how it should have been. I can't wait to see Alexa win the title back at Hell in a Cell.

Brie/Maryse at Evolution? Women's Revolution, bay bay!

Two squashes at Summerslam? When was the last time that happened?