NintendoLogic

I'm sorry, it drives me crazy when peopple call this an I Quit match. It's better than an I Quit match precisely because it doesn't have the bullshit with the microphone to drag it down. Anyway, this is probably my most watched match of all time. The things that make it great have been pretty well covered, so I'll just talk about how similar it is to Hokuto/Kandori. They both feature brawling mixed with submission wrestling, they both have storylines centered around blood loss, they even both have crappy crowd brawling segments. I don't think it's anything more than a coincidence, but it's a pretty remarkable one.

I had no idea Cena had a gay brother.

That something's name was Terrell Davis.

OK, admit it. Who watched the first episode? I did, and the main takeaway for me was that Jane Geddes is basically a real-life Big Johnny.

The 4/26/80 match is the one where Martel gets his leg worked over, right? I thought that was the one that got all the praise.

I remember HHH/Punk being a good hate-filled brawl before the overbooking kicked in. I have no real desire to revisit it to see if it holds up, though. Add the walkout to the list of HHH booking sins. They made the entire roster except for the tippy-top babyfaces look like whining pussies to get HHH over as a babyface authority figure.

If I'm not mistaken, Dave based his rating on the TV edit that only showed 22 minutes of the match.

I like DVDVR, but I can see it not having much to offer if you don't follow current US wrestling and aren't participating in the 80s Project. On the one hand, discussion there tends toward the more superficial and less introspective, which doesn't do it for me when I like to dig deeper. On the other hand, a lot of the discussion here isn't relevant at all to me or my interests, so it's nice to have a place where I can discuss Raw with people who (mostly) aren't dipshits. In any event, I think we can all agree that PWO and DVDVR are both far superior to the F4W board. In fact, as far as wrestling message boards that require a paid subscription go, I'm not sure F4W compares favorably to the Punchsport Pagoda at Something Awful. Incidentally, I actually discovered this board through SA.

Looking at WWE's SEC filings, here's its revenue from rights fees for every year since 2000. 2000: 12.2 million 2001: 35.2 2002: 53.3 2003: 58.5 2004: 71.1 2005: 78.0 2006: 81.5 2007: 92.4 2008: 100.7 2009: 111.9 2010: 127.0 2011: 131.5 2012: 139.5 Here's WWE's operating income from the same period. 2000: 84.7 million 2001: 87.2 2002: 44.7 2003: 26.6 2004: 73.6 2005: 50.3 2006: 70.5 2007: 68.4 2008: 70.3 2009: 77.1 2010: 82.3 2011: 37.0 2012: 43.2 For the 2006 transition period (WWE's fiscal year began on May 1 until 2007), the numbers are 58.7 and 39.2, respectively. As you can see, rights fees have been a big part of WWE's bottom line for a while now, but the gap has been especially wide the past few years. Good on them for finding new ways to stay profitable, but that's an awful lot of eggs in the rights basket.

The rights fees explosion is the main thing keeping WWE profitable, so if the bubble ever bursts, they're screwed.

I love that HITC with Ryback. He's an absolute killing machine beast who only lost because it was a two on one what with Brad Maddox and the fast count. In no way did Ryback look bad in that. If anything it made Punk look like a pussy. Who gives a shit about the pinfall?

Who knew the Dead Kennedys were such wrestling fans? Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables A compilation of matches that inspired fans to throw garbage in the ring. In God We Trust, Inc. The best of The Brother Love Show. Plastic Surgery Disasters A Chyna career retrospective. Frankenchrist A collection of Shawn Michaels kip-up comebacks. Bedtime for Democracy Covering Linda's Senate campaigns.

So according to TMZ, George Clooney and Stacy Keibler are donezo. What are the chances she hops back on the WWE gravy train?

I think Vader/Shamrock is absolutely necessary. Not only is it probably Vader's best WWF match, it has the novelty value of being a quasi-UWFi match in a WWF ring.

Hey, it's no skin off my nose either way. I think JIP would be fine, but I need to rewatch the match to say what I think the cutoff point should be. I was just putting that out there. Anyway, this is the set I've been looking forward to the most. 1997 is probably my favorite year overall.

On the Bret/Taker front, Summerslam outdrew Wrestlemania that year, and that was the justification for including Hogan/Earthquake on the 1990 yearbook.

Just out of curiosity, is anything other than the ten-man going to be included from Canadian Stampede?

Forget middle-aged wrestlers. How about a wrestler from the Middle Ages?

I'm not really sure what exactly is ballet-like about a short-arm lariat.

The most hilarious description I've seen of Goto/Shibata is Scott Keith saying it was like Brock/Cena but better. That match sucked, but Okada/Tanahashi from Invasion Attack is still my MOTY.

I'm not saying that never happens, but Rey does actively set his opponent up the majority of the time. In any event, the 619 and Flair getting thrown off the top are both terrible.

Rey's opponents don't maneuver themselves onto the rope, Rey puts them there. Honestly, the biggest problem with the 619 is that the guy lays prone long enough for Rey to run the length of the ring and back. I just can't buy Rey's offense leaving someone incapacitated for that long.

While thinking recently about how many wrestling styles there really are, it occurred to me that a lot of styles are rather fluid and tend to blend together. From there, I took some inspiration from goodhelmet's match suggestion thread and thought about coming up with a list of a handful (as in no more than 10) of matches that cover as broad a spectrum of styles as possible. Note that this isn't a best-of list, it's more of a sampler pack. I keep going back and forth with matches, but here's my current tentative list. Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind, In Your House: Mind Games I think this match best represents WWE Main Event style because it would have worked in just about any era. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, COTC 6 The most celebrated NWA-style title match. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi, 10/21/97 A match that showcases both what King's Road once was and what it would end up becoming. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda, 4/24/05 A good jumping-off point for shoot/quasi-shoot style. Midnight Express vs. Rock & Roll Express, WrestleWar The quintessential Southern tag. Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase, 3/22/85 This one checks off a lot of boxes. You get a cage match, a gimmick match, and a bloody brawl. CMLL minis trios, 10/3/97 Is there a better workrate trios match? Works as an introduction to lucha and junior-style wrestling in general. Bryan Danielson vs. Takeshi Morishima, Final Battle Another match that works on several levels. It's David vs. Goliath, workrate indy, and garbage indy all in one. You may not agree with my selections, but they should give you an idea of what I'm looking for. Any other suggestions?

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Doing a headscissors or drop toehold to drape someone over the middle rope isn't really that impressive.