NintendoLogic

This strikes me as a somewhat unfair caricature of Dave's actual point, which is that MMA has become successful largely by using promoting concepts that had been successful for wrestling in the past and that modern wrestling has inexplicably abandoned.

Lots of interesting stuff in this thread, and I don't think I'll be able to address all of it in one sitting. First of all, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's a pretty small group that looks at something like Punk/Henry as a MOTYC. I don't think too many people on the F4W board would hold that opinion. It's funny you should mention that, because Okada/Naito isn't context-heavy at all. Pretty much all the drama comes from the in-ring action. Okada works Naito's neck to set up the Rainmaker, and Naito works Okada's leg to neutralize the size advantage. You don't really need to know anything about either guy to get into it. I can count the number of Naito matches I had seen before this one on hand, and I literally have not seen a single other Okada match, and I dug the match a lot. Something like Taker/HHH is much more reliant on the booking and other external factors. It kind of comes with the territory when you say that there are certain things that make wrestling good that apply universally regardless of promotion and time period. Also, this board is hyper-analytical in general, so if something doesn't jibe with someone's previously expressed opinions, people are going to pick up on it. For what it's worth, I don't think it's necessarily a problem. Wrestling is inherently subjective. Sometimes, a match is more than the sum of its parts. Sometimes, the opposite is true. I for one will readily admit that I've overlooked things that my favorite wrestlers have done that would annoy the shit out of me if someone I didn't like did it.

If true, that is absolutely insane. The previous record was 1.2 million buys for WM23, and if they beat that by more than 50%...wow. If I were Vince, I'd put the title on Rock tomorrow and let him keep it as long as he wants.

My recollection is that Brock didn't draw well, but he also headlined when the overall product was arguably the worst it's ever been. It'll be interesting to see how he works the mic. He was generally considered a below average promo during his first WWE run, but he drew millions with his shit talk in UFC.

So if Brock has a good run this time around, he's pretty much a lock for the WON HOF, right?

History has shown that it only takes one crowd to get something going. There wasn't much detectable outrage to the Matt Hardy firing until the Raw at MSG with the "YOU SCREWED MATT" chants. But it picked up from there to the point that not only did Hardy get rehired, they had to turn Lita heel.

Damn, hella Buzz Killingtons in this thread.

Thinking about it, it's quite striking how much of Wrestlemania was dedicated to putting over the previous generation of stars at the expense of the current crop. Rock went over Cena. Taker and HHH made it abundantly clear that the only wrestlers they considered worthy opponents were each other. Big Show got his Wrestlemania moment at the expense of Cody Rhodes and won a worthless vanity belt in the process. Even Kane/Orton kind of fits in to that dynamic. The only new-school guy who got a win over a member of the old guard was CM Punk. It's like the WWE was admitting that the current product sucks and put all the old guys over as a kind of apology. Also, while I enjoyed Taker/HHH, it is annoying to see two guys who don't need any help getting over and aren't responsible for carrying the company avail themselves of every booking gimmick known to man in order to monopolize the crowd heat at the biggest show of the year. And the patrons of the bar I watched it at were laughing at Shawn's dramatic gestures.

Add another match from this weekend to the queue. http://www.rspwfaq.net/2012/04/smark-rant-...nia-xxviii.html

C/Ped from DVDVR. I'm in Alexandria for business, so I had to watch this in a bar. Here are some preliminary thoughts. First of all, the relative lack of video packages was interesting. You figure they'd use it to give the good workers more time to work, but it seems they used it to give more time to the pointless filler matches. Second, Michael Cole seemed to be on his best behavior. He mostly stuck to play-by-play, and he even toned it down during the Johnny/Teddy match. Then again, the bar was pretty loud, and I didn't hear a whole lot of what the announcers were saying. So if Cole said something egregiously stupid, I apologize for missing it. Bryan/Sheamus was an act of pure troll genius. In all seriousness, though, it's yet another example of the ass-backwards mentality of this company where the big PPV matches set up the soap opera bullshit rather than the other way around. I think they figured Sheamus winning quickly and decisively would pop the crowd, but the opposite ended up being true. Kane/Orton was better than I expected. I especially dug the Choshu/Hashimoto lariat tribute spot. The crowd at the bar was pretty into it too. Orton's dropkick, him kicking out of the first chokeslam, and the super chokeslam all got huge pops. Show/Rhodes also exceeded my expectations. I don't see the point of putting the IC title on Show, though. The only people who could conceivably be a threat to him are ridiculously above that title. The Divas tag match was an abortion. Beth having to come out to Eve's music was bad enough, and jobbing her out to an injured non-wrestler was the icing on the cake. The Castle Grayskull play set in HHH's entrance was epic. I really enjoyed the HIAC match, and I was firmly in the thumbs-down camp for last year's Taker-HHH match. This one was a gloriously overbooked mess in the best possible way. They spent too much time on HBK's internal turmoil, and they ran out of steam toward the end. But I was thoroughly entertained. It's not something I'd want to watch over and over, but as an over-the-top Wrestlemania spectacle, it was great. The three of them hugging it out afterwards was lame, though. The GM tag match was what it was. Mainly, it confirmed that Zack Ryder is the only person in wrestling dumber than Sting. Punk/Jericho was good. It was the spiritual successor of Angle/Benoit with the nearfalls and submission reversals, but it was about as good as that kind of match can be. I wish they hadn't shown Brodus' mama. She should be left to the viewer's imagination like Maris on Frasier. So Cena is back to wearing jorts. I guess the troops have received enough tribute for the time being. Rock/Cena was pretty good, but it was all over the place structurally. One minute Rock is viciously slamming Cena's head into the steps, the next he's working a raise the arm three times babyface comeback spot. Not to mention the finisher trading in the middle that came out of nowhere and went nowhere. I don't understand how a match they had a year to plan out could be so disjointed. I can't imagine that they'd want to decisively put a part-timer over their biggest star, but I don't see how this feud can continue. Rock cost Cena the title at WM27, laid him out after their match at Survivor Series, and won clean at WM28 in a match Cena said meant everything to him. What can you do after all that except say that Rock is officially Cena's daddy? No Brock and no blood in the Cell were letdowns. But other than Bryan/Sheamus, every match that had the potential to be good was at least decent, and I got a little something from the matches I expected nothing from. Based on that, I give it a thumbs up.

God damn it. Now I have to watch a Davey Richards match. http://www.rspwfaq.net/2012/04/richards-v-elgin.html

My tone was probably excessively snarky, so I retract that. Regardless, I was quite underwhelmed by Hokuto's selling. The "lopsided German" looked like a regular old German to me. And her overall treatment of the arm pales in comparison to her performance a month prior. When Kandori went after her arm, she frantically scrambled for the ropes like her life depended on it. When Yamada went after her arm, she was basically all "Hey, cut it out, will ya?" The your-turn-my-turn finishing stretch was no picnic either.

Finally managed to track this down. Honestly, it was a huge disappointment. I don't know what match everyone else was watching, but in the one I saw, Hokuto's arm barely seemed to be inconveniencing her. Even when she went out to get it re-taped, she did it as casually as if she were going to get a sip of water. And when Yamada went after the arm, she didn't show anywhere near the urgency she did against Kandori.

This might be the most depressing match I've ever seen. Kobashi is in late 80s Andre territory at this point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0uSoDFuQ8w

I like Breaks just fine from a mechanical standpoint, but I'm not a fan of his crybaby schtick. I much prefer Skull Murphy as a character, even though he's a far worse worker.

Again, I dig Marty Jones the most out of the WoS guys. He works the mat as well as anyone, but he also uses plenty of roughhouse tactics. He comes across to me as a proto-William Regal, which makes sense since he's the one who trained Regal.

Jerry Lawler did an interview with the Miami Herald recently. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/28/2720...wwe-jungle.html He mostly tows the company line, but there is an interesting quote in the piece. I've never really thought of it that way. But it's pretty much true, isn't it?

Personally, my biggest problems with British wrestling are the absence of storytelling, the lack of drama due to the almost complete absence of nearfalls, and the uniformly horrible finishes. Regardless, I watched a ton of Marty Jones based on your pimping of him, and I would say that the best WoS matches are Jones vs. Terry Rudge and Jones vs. Bull Blitzer. One other note in light of that one thread criticizing Gorilla Monsoon's announcing: Kent Walton talked all the time about how so-and-so wasn't going to get a submission with such-and-such hold. And he's in the Hall of Fame. Is there a double standard?

In 2001, Dave was working on a piece about Wrestlemania X-7. The WWF opened up the books for him, which revealed that for every single big stadium show in company history, the actual attendance figures (or at least what the WWF considered to be the actual figures) were significantly lower than the announced figures.

Dave also claims to have personally seen the WWF's internal computerized records. So it's not just Zane.

There's also a pair of DGUSA iPPVs. I might get the Friday one since it's only $1.99 and Smackdown is going to be mostly video packages.

http://www.wwe.com/inside/overtheropes/wwe...nt-announcement Is this really an appropriate role for someone who got a bad conduct discharge from the actual Marines?

The context is that the aforementioned big star told Dave that "after what's gone down" (whatever that means), Rock should show up on the day of Wrestlemania and announce that he isn't going to do the job.

To add on to what's been said, I hate spots like the ref disallowing a hot tag because he didn't see it. Stuff like that puts the heat on the referee rather than on the heels where it belongs.

From DVDVR: This seems like something that would degenerate into a 40 page thread over at PWO. Shall we have at it?