NintendoLogic

Shouldn't the fact that Daddy's peers and UK wrestling historians, who presumably understand the business model, uniformly despise the guy count for something?

Let's not get carried away here. HHH is a far stronger candidate than Big Daddy in every way.

Dave going off on Big Daddy:

Haha, I had a feeling I'd be throwing up the jdw Bat-Signal with my analysis. I should note that I limited my analysis to singles matches since virtually all the notable tags involved Misawa and Kawada going with or against each other. On the Taue front, I like all the Misawa/Taue TC matches better than any Kawada/Taue match. In fact, I think that in a lot of ways, Taue was Misawa's ideal opponent. He was certainly more limited than Kawada and Kobashi, but he was also less prone to excess.

Wrestlers who are about to win a title sometimes do jobs to set up future challengers. Race never challenged Flair in Japan after this, but they probably didn't know that they wouldn't face each other again at the time. Yes, I get that. It's just that two days beforehand seemed a bit much. But if Race was challenging for the belt the next night, that makes sense.

So I watched Race/Flair from 5/22/84. Why did Flair do a clean job if he was winning the NWA title two days later?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81340.html It might be an overstatement to say that she bailed on Romney, but Republicans in blue states are doing everything they can to distance themselves from his remarks.

"On a hiding to nothing" is a British phrase referring to a situation where trying is pointless because winning is impossible. Translated to American, rovert was saying that advocating for Okada here is a lost cause. But yeah, you have to really be out of the loop to not recognize Okada as a standout candidate. Dave has been calling New Japan the best big match promotion in the world for a while now, and Okada's been a big part of that. I've only seen the Naito match and the second Tanahashi match, but both were really good and would be high-end MOTYCs in just about any year. If nothing else, he's a much stronger candidate, in both absolute and relative terms, than Tanahashi was last year.

Speaking of football season, Stone Cold has joined in the piling on of the scab refs. http://twitter.com/steveaustinBSR/status/247877624045633537

Sims said some time ago that he wouldn't vote for Dandy due to him basically falling off the face of the Earth over the past decade. His stint as a jobber in WCW does him no favors either.

Oh God, please no. If I were to list all the problems with the current product, "the championships are too protected" and "the heels aren't neutered enough" are the last things I'd come up with. If you're the world champion, you should be able to squash Tyson Kidd like a bug.

Don't ya think though, that if they wanted him to do suplexes and submission moves, he could easily do them on a basic level? That's not his role. Kofi flies around and does the same shit again and again and the little kids eat it up. Someone wrote somewhere once that "If they were 12 years old, Kofi Kingston would be my favorite wrestler.", and I totally get that. Hell, I've seen it at house shows over the years out here, the kids go crazy for the guy. But it's like I've said before, kid-friendly is not a synonym for infantile. You can fly around and entertain the kids without insulting the intelligence of adult viewers. Look at Rey Mysterio.

I thought the pre-taped Owen tributes were sincere (yes, even HHH's). The in-ring ones, however ("If you're not down with Owen Hart, I got two words for ya!"), were cringeworthy.

Terry Funk Ric Flair Jerry Lawler I give Funk the edge because of his unparalleled versatility and ability to reinvent himself. He's like the David Bowie of wrestling. But all these guys are all-time top 10, and you could plausibly put them in any order. Stan Hansen Steve Williams Terry Gordy There are very few people I would rank above Stan Hansen. Doc and Gordy are not among them. Neither are my parents. Bret Hart Steve Austin Shawn Michaels The way I see it, the best Austin matches rank among the very best in American history. But the drop-off from his top-shelf stuff and the next level down is pretty steep, IMO. Shawn had the opposite problem: a bunch of really good matches but few blow-away great ones. With Bret, you get both quality and quantity. I think the results of the Smarkschoice WWF poll from a few years ago bear this out. Bret has 12 matches in the top 50, of which 8 are in the top 20. Austin, on the other hand, has 7 in the top 50 but none after 22. Meanwhile, Shawn has 9 in the top 50 but only 3 in the top 20. Mitsuharu Misawa Toshiaki Kawada Kenta Kobashi This is another tough matchup between three all-time top 10 guys (top 5, even). In my view, it's a two-horse race between Misawa and Kawada for the top spot. Between the two, I give the edge to Misawa due to better performance against common opponents. Here's how I rank their matches with the other All Japan heavy hitters: vs. Kobashi: Misawa vs. Taue: Misawa vs. Hansen: Kawada vs. Jumbo: Misawa vs. Doc: Push I have it 3-1-1 in Misawa's favor. Others might see it differently.

Here's a couple more sets from the eras I have the strongest attachment to: mid-90s WWF and 90s All Japan. Steve Austin Bret Hart Shawn Michaels Toshiaki Kawada Kenta Kobashi Mitsuharu Misawa I have my own views, but I'd like to hear other people's rankings and justifications first so I can compare and contrast.

What was the last Angle match where he didn't kick out of his opponent's finisher and his opponent didn't kick out of the Angle Slam?

According to Dave, it was a testament to how well they built up Zeus.

The crowd seemed pretty dead all night, especially after HHH's "I'm retiring, but not really" speech.

Looking back at recent history, the Nexus attack on John Cena was at the end of an episode that contained, among other things, a match with Khali and Hornswoggle as a tag team, a dance contest between Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov, and a bunch of backstage silliness with the cast of the A-Team movie. It didn't seem to diminish the impact. If anything, it enhanced it.

More like he almost Sabu'd him.

The Sheamus/Orton vs. Del Rio/Ziggler match on Raw stretched the formula to the breaking point. In it, Orton backdropped Del Rio out of the ring and then took an eternity to crawl to his corner so Del Rio could make it back into the ring and crawl to his corner for the simultaneous tag. It's like someone at WWE saw this thread and decided to fuck with us.

I don't think silly comedy in the undercard is a big deal as long as it's clearly segregated from the main event. I'd say one of the things that hurt Kurt Angle's drawing power was him constantly bouncing back and forth between harmless goofball and vicious killer.

Mark Henry didn't seem to have too much trouble getting over as a heel last year.

Dave posted that in response to someone accusing him of blackballing Patera.

Is it just me or does this topic come up in some form every few months?