NintendoLogic

CM Punk last year was pretty similar, albeit it later in the match. He had been in there for fifty minutes or so and his elimination had no build or drama and was treated as a nonevent. He was eliminated by Kane in screwjob fashion. It was supposed to set up Punk-Kane at Wrestlemania. Bryan's elimination sets up nothing.

Holy shit. This company really is that stupid.

Looks like they're giving Bray the Diesel Rumble push.

I have to say, that was quite the video game match.

6/9/95 is "only" 42:37. Regardless, it's an unequivocal must-see. Inoki/Robinson from 12/11/75 is worth checking out. I think Funk/Brisco from 1/29/74 is quite good. Even if it isn't, every educated fan should watch it at least once because it's widely regarded as the archetypal old-school NWA title match. Speaking of polarizing matches, the 8/8/88 Inoki/Fujinami broadway was left off the DVDVR set, but it has its advocates.

WWE's hand was forced by outside circumstances. Punk leaving blew up their Mania plans, and the Yes chant at the Michigan State game embarrassed them. Plus, the plan was always for Brock to win the belt at Summerslam, so there was no harm in giving him a Benoit-esque placeholder run.

I don't want to turn this into a RISE ABOVE RACISM pissing contest, but I've witnessed tons of racism first-hand (I don't mean coded language, I mean stuff like the n-word with expletives attached). It's been my experience that racists in the real world (not politicians trying to exploit racist sentiment, but actual racists) are pretty open about it. There's no subtlety or coding. If there really was a significant race-based backlash against Jones, it'd be easy to detect. There'd be no need to bend over backwards to find some kind of racial subtext. Just look at how the argument has shifted over the course of two pages. We've gone from "they hate a talented black man" to "they hate an arrogant black man who doesn't know his place" to "they hate a black man who doesn't fit into acceptable archetypes of arrogance." On that note, describing Muhammad Ali as the type of harmless shucking-and-jiving black man who white audiences love is a pretty brazen rewriting of history.

Let me get this straight. Fans hate Bones because he's an uppity Negro, but they like Rampage because he's.....the right kind of uppity Negro? Do you guys have any idea how ridiculous you sound?

Why would you book a storyline with your most over babyface that ends in heartbreak?

I'd rank Bret/Austin at Survivor Series #1 with the Submission (NOT I QUIT) Match at WM13 #2. The rest of my top ten, in chronological order: Slaughter/Sheik, Boot Camp Match Bret/Perfect, KOTR 93 Bret/Owen, WM10 HBK/Mankind, Mind Games Angle/Austin, Summerslam 2001 Eddy/Brock, No Way Out 2004 Cena/Umaga, Royal Rumble 2007 Brock/Punk, Summerslam 2013

I came across this site some time ago. It's an interesting combination of "Meltzer consensus" and "PWO consensus", for lack of better terms. It's kind of neat to see a list that highly rates both Davey Richards vs. Eddie Edwards and El Dandy vs. Negro Casas.

I heard that they were waiting until WM32 since it's in Dallas and he lives in Texas. Speaking of Texas, you'd think Stan Hansen would be a no-brainer. Does he have heat with Vince?

On the plus side, Booker T comparing a lumberjack match to Gilligan's Island and saying that they all died on the island absolutely slayed me. I'm literally still laughing at that.

Was it still an open question before then? I thought it was settled long ago. Other promotions may have sunk to lower depths, but they at least had the decency to go out of business in a timely manner. No promotion in history has been as bad for as long as TNA.

That would serve as an admission that WCW once did something that was a good idea, so I'm sure you can see the issue.

Yeah, cable TV is basically nonexistent in Japan (I recall Dave saying that less than 10% of Japanese households have it). There's no way any wrestling show is going to have ratings good enough to justify a prime time slot on network TV, and having a show on cable in Japan is like having a show on Destination America.

Direct comparisons to WWE are absurd because they have all sorts of structural advantages New Japan doesn't. How well would WWE be drawing if Raw aired at 3 in the morning? A better comparison would be like if ROH drew 10000+ to MSG.

Not to mention last year when crowds everywhere, not just in the big markets, rejected babyface Batista. Also, this past Raw was in Corpus Christi, which is traditionally a hot wrestling town. And the crowd was dead as a doornail for most of the night and particularly at the end.

Serious question: from a total package standpoint, has WWE ever been worse than it is now? The godawful booking and dead crowds make Raw an absolute chore to get through, and the in-ring product isn't nearly good enough to compensate. The crowds are the biggest killer because they suck the life out of everything. The good stuff seems not as good and the not-so-good stuff is unbearable. I know there's no chance of WWE going under in the foreseeable future, but watching Raw really feels like watching a dying promotion.

Not exactly. HHH was going to be Austin's post-Mania challenger, but an Austin heel turn wasn't the original plan. Austin heard some boos at No Way Out, so he decided that the Stone Cold character had run its course and it was time to turn. But then HHH decided he didn't want to turn face, which is how we ended up with the Two-Man Power Trip.

It really takes some astonishing hubris to classify wrestlers as independent contractors while pulling crap like this.

He's a showoff who loves to steal the show and entertain the WWE Universe.

Watch NXT.

Apparently, Double J has been so busy scouring the globe for performers to add to his global database that he forgot to hire a proofreader.

Every Soap Opera ever? How are soaps doing these days?