NintendoLogic

Chris Benoit was obsessed with respect too. Just saying.

I missed the show, but I watched the Punk turn on Youtube. I was immediately struck by the way Rock sold Punk's clothesline like it was a Stan Hansen lariat. I have mixed feelings overall. On the one hand, Punk is way more compelling as a heel. On the other hand, I hate how in the WWE every heel under 300 pounds is a chickenshit pussy who can't win a fair fight. Punk being more interesting as a heel reminded me of something I've been thinking about recently. One of the big problems with the current product is that nobody consistently cuts a good babyface promo. Cena can cut a good serious promo when he wants to, but he's usually either insufferably jokey or cartoonishly angry. Punk usually looks embarrassed by the material he has to work with. Orton's speaking patterns and mannerisms are far more suited for a heel. And Sheamus just says "arse" a lot.

This reminds me of a review of Inception I saw recently that said that "we've entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn't nearly the same thing." I think that perfectly sums up today's wrestling scene. Anyway, I don't think Cena got good until about 2006. And I think that Angle's mechanics are being undersold in this thread. He's always had a really nice belly-to-belly suplex. And the matwork in the Eddy/Angle WMXX match is really good, some of the best I've seen in a WWE ring. Still, I'd give this to Cena without a second thought. Cena may be stale and formulaic, but he's shown that he can step outside the formula if need be (vs. Umaga, vs. Lesnar). Angle, on the other hand, has fundamentally flawed ideas about how to structure a match. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I like matches where big moments are built up to and mean something. In Angle's matches, they come out of nowhere and are forgotten ten seconds later.

I go out of town for a couple of weeks and you all start a discussion about fucking Kane? Come on, guys. I agree that "Wrestler A's best match is better than Wrestler B's best match, so Wrestler A is better" is too simplistic. But if Wrestler B doesn't have a single match that would make Wrestler A's top ten, I think it's safe to say that Wrestler A is better.

According to Dave, they were planning on releasing Kharma on Friday, but it got out a day early. WWE hates it when stuff gets out, so it'd be pretty funny if she ended up keeping her job as a result.

Yeah, rates have value in terms of putting the size of the PPV universe in perspective. But the number of buys hasn't increased in proportion with the number of households wired for PPV, which is why nobody looks at percentages anymore.

Any payoff was going to be weak. The laptop ended up being a deus ex machina to move the storyline in whatever direction they wanted any given week. That's the risk you run when you don't have a clear end goal and just make things up as you go along.

I do think we're seeing a gradual shift in the philosophy behind the women's division. Filling the division with bikini models when you can do Playboy shoots and swimsuit videos is one thing. But when the product is PG and none of them can work, what is there for them to do besides host Kiss Cam segments during commercial breaks? And the WWE schedule is a huge pain in the ass if you don't have a passion for the business. So the Maxines and Bellas of the world are increasingly deciding it's not worth the hassle and walking away.

I think talking about a feud needing the belt is backwards thinking. The primary goal of a promotion should be to get its titles over, and removing the TNA world title from its centerpiece feud does the opposite. Personally, I would've liked a Savage/Steamboat deal where Storm gets back at Roode by taking the one thing that means the most to him.

I feel like TNA put itself in a position where all its options were suboptimal. They pretty much had to put the belt on Aries the way they built it up, but it kind of takes the steam out of the Storm/Roode program.

Has the NFL been strongly influenced by MMA in recent years? The EPL? John Do you have a point? MMA is a sport. If it's a sport of such great influence, you'd think the Big Boys of Sport would be influence by it... rather than say... Entertainment Companies. John I was talking about professional wrestling promotions being influenced by MMA, not MMA's influence in general. Anyway, I think the MMA in ROH thing is being overstated. It's not like Kevin Steen and the Briscoes are busting out rear naked chokes. It's coming from guys like Davey Richards and Kyle O'Reilly who are already marks for the stuff. That's also why I think blaming Cornette for it is a mistake.

That there's no market for it now that the real thing is readily available.

Isn't this true of shoot style in general? I certainly think so, but not too many people here seem to agree.

Has the NFL been strongly influenced by MMA in recent years? The EPL? John Do you have a point?

Every promotion has been influenced by MMA in recent years. ROH just doesn't have the talent to draw nationally.

The point I was trying to make is that struggling promotions are like a Rorschach test. A lot of people will decide that whatever they don't like is the reason the promotion is struggling. Some people see an ether soaked rag and conclude that ROH sucks because it's become Smoky Mountain of Honor. Others see a Hybrid Fighting Rules match and conclude that ROH sucks because Cornette is drinking Meltzer's MMA Kool-Aid (I really wish that talking point would die).

I think it's funny that one group of fans thinks Cornette is trying to turn ROH into Smoky Mountain while another group thinks he's doing too much faux MMA.

I haven't pored through all the 1992 Observers, but in his writeup of that year's Bash, Dave says that Jushin Liger "was nowhere near his usual level but probably wasn't allowed to be anyway."

It made sense if he was going for the Double-Chickenwing. Not if he abandons it once they start to pick up the pace.

It's one thing to work holds if you're going 60. But five minutes of arm work in a 15 minute match is a bit much.

Steamboat's arm work is one of the things I like least about him. It never led to anything and was little more than filler.

I think mid-90s Shawn had good punches. I don't know why he largely abandoned them in favor of chops after his comeback. Anyway, we've been over this before, but Shawn is pretty much in the same boat as Ricky Steamboat in terms of having relatively weak offense. It's true that Steamboat was presented as a skilled wrestler who could get a pinfall at any time. But Shawn had the Sweet Chin Music as his great equalizer. And Shawn was facing guys significantly larger than him more often than Steamboat, so being able to knock someone out was more important than being able to roll someone up.

At the risk of starting this discussion again, there's a pretty big difference between having a temporary rush of adrenaline to fuel your comeback and disregarding targeted limb work so you can get all your MOVEZ in.

I don't really like this question. It automatically excludes Japanese and Mexican wrestlers, and within the US, the list of guys who are both all-time great workers and all-time great talkers is pretty short. It's pretty much just Flair, Lawler, Austin, Eddy, and maybe a couple of other guys.