NintendoLogic

There's plenty of precedent for HHH going over at the big PPV and returning the job at the next PPV where it means far less. It's happened to his last three non-Undertaker Mania opponents. It also happened to Goldberg in 2003.

Is it just me, or has Meltzer been whiffing a lot on the big stories lately? The Bryan push, the Batista heel turn, and now Punk at Raw.

funkdoc, don't you post on SRK (or used to) as Josh the Funkdoc? I'm BarrelO over there. I haven't been a regular poster in forever, though.

I'm probably as much of a body part work zealot as anyone, so I guess I'll explain where I'm coming from. Wrestling is a form of narrative fiction, and leaving major plot points unresolved is bad storytelling. A wrestler doesn't have to be wedded to a single strategy for the entire match, but there should be clearly defined reasons for any shift in strategy. Everything doesn't have to lead to the finish, but everything should lead to something.

I think there is a lot of overlap between Bryan fans and Punk fans, but I don't think fans are going to really get behind Punk if they feel that he's being offered up as a consolation prize. He'll probably get a "at least it wasn't Orton or Batista" pop when he wins, but I doubt it'll last.

Trying to give Big Show the Yes chant has to be one of the more comical booking decisions in recent memory.

I thought the slapfight was stupid as shit even after seeing the go-home segment.

I also like Suzuki as a pick. When I first saw him in 2007, I remember thinking that if WWE let him do his thing, he'd be the most over heel in the company in a month's time even if he never cut a single promo.

At the risk of completely derailing this thread, how could they tell the difference? Aren't, um, tools blurred out in Japanese porn?

This is the first I've heard of Hogan being upset over Savage/Steamboat. It's not true, is it?

Bret was clearly the best worker in the US in the 90s. I don't even see how that's arguable.

I returned from my post-Benoit sabbatical in 2010, and WWE didn't seem to be anything special from an in-ring standpoint that year. If it was, it was confined to the undercard and B-shows. Then again, my tastes have shifted pretty significantly since then, so maybe I'd view it more fondly if I revisited it. Anyway, 2010 was a transition year for WWE. In a year's time, HBK, HHH, Batista, Jericho, Taker, and Edge would all be done as full-time performers, and WWE seemed to be scrambling to fill the gap left by their absence. This would culminate in WM27, the worst Mania in recent memory. It seems to me that the real turning point in terms of consistent quality in featured matches was 2011. That was when Punk and Bryan were elevated to being tippy-top guys and Henry got his monster push. As for the question posed in the OP, Foley was the master of the falls count anywhere match.

Right, which is why I compared the Chamber match to a high-end Rumble match. I guess my broader point is that I don't really like gimmick matches, at least not in terms of viewing them as GOAT contenders.

That's actually when I started getting seriously into wrestling. I rented the WWF Royal Rumble Super NES game from Blockbuster, which got me into watching Raw. My stepdad still forbade me from watching wrestling at that point, so I had to do it on the down low. I turned the volume all the way down and sat real close to the TV so I could quickly change the channel whenever my parents entered the room. Anwyay, I'm pretty much in the same boat as a lot of you guys. I don't shout the fact that I'm a fan from the rooftops, but I don't hide or deny it either. If it comes up in the course of a conversation, I'll cop to it. I do, however, make an effort to censor the extent of my fandom. Unless I know that the person I'm talking to is a huge fan, I'll restrict my discussion to WWF/E and maybe WCW. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet anyone in person who comes close to my level of fandom. Of the people I interact with regularly, the only one who follows wrestling is my brother, and he's a dilettante compared to me. Then again, I'm a dilettante compared to a lot of people here. As for how it affects one's chances with the opposite sex (or same sex, as the case may be), my interest in wrestling has come up on a few dates. It's usually been in a roundabout manner, like "What TV shows do you watch?" "To be honest, the only show I watch regularly is Monday Night Raw." This revelation has never led to a bonding moment over our shared love of wrestling, but it's never brought the date to a screeching halt either. Or maybe they were mortified and I just didn't pick up on it, who knows. Anyway, during one of these dates, I got to mentioning Misawa and how he died in the ring. My date said something to the effect of "Well, at least he died doing what he loved." I guess that's one way of looking at it.

I don't remember ever seeing a commercial for a show that wasn't under the Raw or Smackdown brand.

They just showed a commercial for an upcoming house show. It wasn't billed as Raw or Smackdown, just WWE Live. How long has this been going on?

This might be blasphemy, but I find myself increasingly not a fan of the Wargames concept. The fact that the match can't end before everyone is in the cage makes it difficult for me to get invested in anything that happens before The Match Beyond. Plus, even the better Wargames matches are driven more by the booking and gimmick than the individual talents of the wrestlers.

I would never impugn Loss' good name by accusing him of partaking of the wacky tobacky, but I do agree that his praise for the Chamber match was quite hyperbolic. It really takes me out of a match when it has that many blatantly choreographed set pieces. It was like a high-end Rumble match in that I found it highly entertaining but have no real desire to ever watch it again.

Well, at least they went the extra mile in piling on the odds against Bryan this time around. But I didn't like how Bryan attacked Kane first. It felt like gratuitous shades of gray bullshit. Kane is a corporate tool who wants to screw Bryan out of the title. Does he really need motivation beyond that?

I liked how in the beginning even though the Shield were the de facto faces, they were still doing heelish things like raking Harper's eyes against the ropes.

The Rollins-in-peril segment could've been trimmed or eliminated entirely, but that match definitely delivered.

So far, the most entertaining thing about this show has been the postmatch bad news updates. Shield/Wyatts is about to start, so shit better pick up soon.

I can't buy into this. If wrestlers are such superhuman athletes that targeted limb work doesn't faze them, why do it? You've just wasted your time (and more importantly, mine) doing something that doesn't lead to anything meaningful. It's like Chekhov's gun.

How the hell can Chikara afford to run a developmental promotion?

My guess is that we'll get the HHH special where he goes over at Wrestlemania and does the return job at Extreme Rules where it means nothing. That happened once back in 2010, to a then very green Sheamus. HHH shouldn't have been losing to green rookies on first half of the card Wrestlemania match anyway. It's happened with his last three non-Undertaker Wrestlemania opponents.