NintendoLogic

I guess that explains why they had that long Reigns/Rusev match last Monday.

It reminds me of the WWWA belt.

We still have three marquee matches left. When is this show scheduled to end?

I think those were supposed to be biker patches on his tights. Why, I have no idea.

Cena is probably the worst worker in the company right now. It's only a matter of time before his matches consist of literally nothing but finisher kick-outs and laying around.

How does Vince having to abort a planned Hogan/Roberts program because too many fans cheered for Jake when they taped the initial angle play into his crowd mastery rating?

Verne turned Hogan babyface at the end of 1981. Hogan's first title shot against Bockwinkel came in February of 1982. Rocky III came out in May of 1982. So Verne pushing Hogan as a top babyface predates Rocky. Yes, Verne brought him in as a heel. But he saw the reactions he was getting and, quelle horreur, let the crowd dictate to him. Not to mention the fact that he got Hogan over by booking him the exact same way he had booked the Crusher in previous decades. This idea that Verne had nothing to do with Hogan becoming a star is completely ludicrous. Come on now.

For what it's worth, the "this is awesome" chant was originally intended to be sarcastic. The first one was during the Monster's Ball match at Victory Road 2004 (yes, it's another thing we can thank TNA for), and the guy who claims to have started the chant says he did it to mock Raven, who had been a dick to him at a previous show. He had no idea that it would metastasize into what it has become.

I'm not a fan of Magnum/Tully either, but that's mainly because I think the match gimmick sucks. Here's every I Quit match ever: "SAY IT!" "NOOOOOOOO~!" "SAY IT!" *THUNK* Repeat until it's time to go home.

Looks like Brother Gawker has been DELETED. http://gawker.com/gawker-com-to-end-operations-next-week-1785455712

How many wrestler deaths can be linked solely to steroids? Plenty of steroid abusers have died, of course, but just about all of them were also abusing other substances. Steroid abuse is/was far worse in bodybuilding, but the death rate among bodybuilders is nowhere near what it is among wrestlers. I don't dispute the health hazards of steroids, but it seems pretty clear that cocaine and painkillers are far bigger contributors to mortality.

If you combined the in-ring action of 1992 WCW with the booking of 1997 WWF, you'd have the perfect promotion.

If it sets up a rematch, the result is fine. If it was just a one-off, then it's stupid. It seems increasingly apparent that the latter is the case.

Basically, I want to see something that looks competitive and allows me to suspend my disbelief. Most flippy-doo stuff fails on the second count because it requires too much obvious cooperation. Most mat-based stuff fails on the first count because if you're not throwing strikes, you're not doing everything you can to try to win.

I was surprised at how much I liked Ishii/Okada. Since Ishii was involved, I was afraid the match would involve a bunch of endless strike exchanges and pop-up no-selling. But there was none of that, just great hard-hitting wrestling. MOTYC for sure. I have to say, though, that I didn't recognize Gedo with his beard. At first, I was wondering what Jay Briscoe was doing at ringside.

The most depressing "you still got it" chant I've ever seen was for Steve Williams at a show he worked in Colorado a few months before he died. He was practically a walking skeleton at that point, so chanting something like that when it obviously wasn't true seemed rather cruel even if that wasn't the intention.

Am I missing something? None of the things Shawn said sound objectionable to me. It seems to me that RVD is reading too much into things. I disagree. A lot of it feels like a glorified exhibition. So what does a non-exhibition style look like? What kind of standard bearer are you talking about? I've gone on record as to the kinds of wrestling I like plenty of times. If you mean specifically within WoS, I already mentioned Rudge and Jones.

The plan was for Cena to win but be beaten so badly that he would have to be carried out, allowing Brock to claim that he was the moral victor. Instead, Cena cut that weird promo after the match.

W2BTD?

For all the complaints about Brock being selfish and uncooperative, it's worth remembering that WWE (apparently) double-crossed him with the end of the first Cena match.

Chops in general are stupid. Yes, they hurt. But it's not the kind of incapacitating pain that can end a match. They're the worst of both worlds: they hurt like hell and look like shit.

I'm not saying Del Rio is a UFC-caliber fighter. But he's not just some guy off the street either. I'm sure he knows enough to not "get his ass beat" by a featherweight. Combat sports have weight classes for a reason.

I don't care how good McGregor is. A featherweight isn't beating the ass of a trained fighter who outweighs him by 100 pounds.

Wresting criticism isn't taken seriously because wrestling doesn't reward serious analysis. It's an attempt to intellectualize something that fundamentally isn't intellectual. Even the most cerebral wrestling is still about 90 percent visceral. Putting too much thought into it leads to making mountains out of molehills and bending over backwards to see things that aren't really there.

It appears that TNA's business license has been revoked as of Saturday. https://tnbear.tn.gov/Ecommerce/FilingDetail.aspx?CN=129027161081156127145204026234034035153058153189