NintendoLogic

I'd like to see them do it like in New Japan where the briefcase holder has to defend it like a championship. That way, they're established as credible challengers even if they win the title on a fluke cash-in.

I think the Russian legsweep works best as a setup for the Octagon Special.

So WWE fired one of their executives after it was revealed that his wife is a notorious far-right Twitter troll. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anti-muslim-twitter-troll-amy-mek-mekelburg_us_5b0d9e40e4b0802d69cf0264?7z

European uppercuts are fantastic. At the very least, they seem like they'd be more likely to end a match than chops to the chest.

Randy Orton does that all the time. Is there a name for punching someone in the face while you have him in a headlock? That's something no one really does anymore.

Braun Strowman uses a running powerslam as a finisher. And Tanahashi has used the cloverleaf as a secondary finisher for years. I'd like to see the Calf Branding make a comeback.

I find deathmatch wrestling repugnant on basically every level, and scaffold matches uniformly suck, so I went into this with low expectations. To the match's credit, the scaffold was mostly a nonfactor. I find that gimmick matches work best when the gimmick is an accent rather than the centerpiece, like I Quit matches that feature the microphone as little as possible and strap matches where the wrestlers concentrate on whipping each other rather than trying to touch the four corners. Regardless, this felt like more of a carnival geek show where the goal was to use the light tubes as creatively as possible than a wrestling match. They lost me completely when Miyamoto kicked out of an Emerald Flowsion off the scaffold through a table. There were so many kickouts of big moves that by all rights should have ended the match, I half expected the finish to be something like a small package. As it turns out, the actual finish was appropriately brutal and incorporated the scaffold to boot. I also wasn't really feeling the use of traffic cones as weapons. That seemed more appropriate for a WWE comedy street fight than a Japanese deathmatch.

The Twitter machine says that Io isn't the only Stardom talent WWE has poached. My guess would be Mayu Iwatani or Hana Kimura.

My pick for fxnj is Antonio Inoki vs. Texas Red (Red Bastien under a mask). http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkfzr

Taz may have done it first, but I'm pretty sure Shamrock was responsible for popularizing it in mainstream American wrestling. In addition to the Billy Gunn segment, he made Vader tap out in his first WWF match. And I distinctly remember Brian Pillman mocking him in the Canadian Stampede ten-man by slamming his hand against the mat and yelling "He's tapping out!" during a pin attempt.

FOMO is a hell of a drug.

You mean Brock, right?

Networks are throwing money at WWE to produce hours of garbage while wages have been stagnant for decades. Our economy truly is broken.

I was actually going to say that Alexa is a good promo in the Miz sense of having good delivery of the bullshit they script for her but not saying anything that makes you more interested in her upcoming match. Come to think of it, that is pretty unfair to Miz.

For joeg:

Like what Sek said, the article has him as part of a group of guys charged with attacking a teenage girl: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19212498/mr_wrestling_ii_johnny_walker_rape/ Am I reading this right? Were there really three separate gang rapes in Honolulu in a five-day period?

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/996424982468030465 The funny thing is, the tweet Dave was responding to was sarcastic and the three subsequent tweets were clearly defending Dave. Not a huge deal, but still pretty funny coming from Mr. Reading Would Be Your Friend.

Ronda going for the title is fine, but this has to be the worst possible way to set it up. They might as well have uploaded footage of taking a pile of money and setting it on fire. At least, that's what it would be if booking still mattered.

Did Hulk Hogan feud with Don Muraco for six months before beating the Iron Sheik?

Anything that gets the belt off Nia is an unalloyed good in my book. And really, if Ronda is that much more of a star than the rest of the women (and she is), she should be the champion. An extended storyline with Natalya is more likely to cool her off than lead to bigger things. The interminable Sasha/Bayley feud hasn't exactly done wonders for either woman.

Bryan also has a family to care for now. In other news, Dave referred to Jumbo Tsuruta as "the Okada of his era" on Twitter today.

What exactly is your point? That we should want fans to be too stupid or emotional to separate fantasy and reality?

How do you figure? Nobody's going to pull a gun on him in the parking lot or anything like that, but the fans seem to be genuinely invested in seeing his character get his comeuppance. It's not like he's Elias and they're booing because it's fun to play along.

I've decided that Jumbo Tsuruta had the best stomps in wrestling history. I don't think anyone looked as vicious as him when laying the boots to someone. Yoshihiro Takayama is up there as well.

I'd like to believe that the fans won't allow Bryan to fall below a certain level, but I'm not at all confident. WWE tried to replicate the Bryan formula with Sami Zayn and Bayley and killed both of them dead. Even Cena hardly feels special anymore after losing too much.