NintendoLogic

It looks like both battle royals will be on the kickoff show, so be sure to tune in early if you want to see them.

Come on, guys. This is how you show WWE you mean business. We'll hit them where it hurts by, um...(checks notes) walking out of a show we already paid to attend.

It's worth noting that there was no buffer match between Black/Almas and Gargano/Ciampa. That's pretty much par for the course for NXT, but it's definitive proof that WWE crowds don't have to be brought down after a hot match before they can be brought back up again. Or at least they don't on shows that aren't 20 hours long.

Calling Chono an American wrestler because he happened to be born in Seattle due to his father being stationed there for business might be the worst opinion yet.

Pretty fantastic show overall. Someone could have Black/Almas or Gargano/Ciampa as their MOTY so far and I wouldn't argue against it.

I was actually thinking "couldn't he just escape the Gargano Escape by raking his eyes?" But then he did it. Thumbs up from me.

That has to be the best example of the hoist-by-his-own-petard spot I've ever seen.

Shayna Baszler seems to get plenty of heat. Maybe not as much as Ciampa right now, but she hasn't faced a babyface nearly as compelling as Gargano. It's really a credit to Johnny Wrestling that any heel he goes up against becomes Rick Rude at Superbrawl.

I think I liked that match more than Almas/Gargano. The bulk of the match was kind of just there, but the finishing stretch was the best of any match I've seen this year.

The impromptu Richochet-tossing contest is my spot of the year so far.

I once joked that Alberto Del Rio was Spanish for Jeff Jarrett. I guess Alberto El Patron is Spanish for Eddie Gilbert.

That's entirely untrue if you actually understand what the term is meant to describe; that is, the change in the operation and organisation of capitalism that began in the 1970s and the logic of which was politically hegemonic for about 35 years. Let me ask again. What exactly is the difference between neoliberalism and conservatism? Is it solely the the former is more socially tolerant?

The thing is, the Cena experience taught Vince McMahon not to listen to crowds. And seeing as how he has finally achieved his dream of creating a product where the brand rather than any individual wrestler is the draw, he has no incentive to change course. As long as Reigns doesn't completely tank business or do anything to embarrass the company, he's The Guy for the foreseeable future. As a side note, I rather dislike the use of the term "ace" to refer to the top guy in WWE. It's too much of a Japanism for my tastes. I blame jdw for popularizing it.

See, neoliberalism as described in this thread is essentially indistinguishable from conservatism (other than the diversity part, which historically has not been Vince McMahon's strong suit to say the least). The term has become basically meaningless. It's little more than an epithet used by leftists to describe anyone to their right.

For Matt D: Rick Rude in All Japan. You can't not watch. Note that this link contains two matches. Your assignment is the first one.

Funny you should say that. I would argue that virtually every modern wrestler is influenced by Dynamite Kid to a degree considering that he basically invented what we think of as workrate. The thing is, his influence is so pervasive that people don't even think about it in the same way a fish doesn't think about the water that surrounds it.

What exactly is the point of all these comparison threads? When you're comparing one elite worker to another, it's pretty much entirely a matter of personal taste.

Cena should spend the entire show in a skybox like the WCW guys at X7.

This has to be the first time Vince McMahon has ever been described as a neoliberal.

I searched for 伊達太郎 on Facebook, and it turned up a fellow named Shotaro Date who lives in Shibuya. He has a picture of the Kurdistan Communities Union flag as his profile picture, and the last post on his timeline (which predates him joining this board) is a link to a Reslo match between William Regal and Dave Taylor with a few comments in his distinctive writing style. I say his story checks out. I can't imagine anyone being this committed to a con with no conceivable payoff. I am curious as to why his timeline is filled with Ulster loyalist song lyrics, though.

Reviewed Nielsen/Yamada. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41463-don-nakaya-nielsen-vs-keiichi-yamada-njpw-super-fight-series-5888/

Let me begin by saying that I'm not certain of the proper spelling of Nielsen's last name. I've seen it spelled both Nielsen and Neilsen. His Japanese Wikipedia page has it as Nielsen, so I'll go with that. This is a Different Style Fight fought under a series of three-minute rounds. Nielsen has the size and reach advantage, and any clean hit from him is a potential knockout blow. But Yamada has the edge on the mat, even more so because of Nielsen's boxing gloves. Nielsen gets a few knockout teases, but for the most part, the first three rounds consist of Yamada taking him down virtually at will and forcing him to make the ropes. If this match were scored under a UWF/RINGS-style point system, Yamada would have won sometime in the middle of the third round. A clearly frustrated Nielsen cheap-shots Yamada toward the end of the third, leading to a pull-apart after the bell. The crowd senses that things are about to pick up, and sure enough, Yamada scores a half crab at the beginning of the fourth. But then Nielsen kicks Yamada's leg out of his leg and follows it up with a roundhouse kick to the head, and it's only a matter of time before the referee calls the match off. Fascinating match overall. I'm guessing the goal was to put over pro wrestling as the strongest fighting style while still respecting the differences in size and stardom between the two. In that, they succeeded with flying colors. They took perhaps a bit too long to set the table, but once they got going, it was incredibly riveting stuff. Good pick from shodate.

I didn't have much expectation of shodate liking Lawler/Snowman. I picked it for him because he always talks about how important realism is to him and that match has been praised in some circles as incredibly realistic and even UWFi-esque (which I actually don't agree with, but that's neither here nor there). I was kind of hoping for more than a single sentence worth of thoughts.

I think the idea of Benoit as someone who didn't connect with crowds comes from the term having a different meaning at that time. He got good reactions from the fans in attendance, but he wasn't someone whose presence or absence had much of an impact on attendance, ratings, or PPV buys. Eric Bischoff had a term for guys who got pops that didn't translate to business: the Duggan effect. He would've been a better fit for the WWE Network era where no individual act is really capable of moving the needle much in either direction.

For shodate: