NintendoLogic

Now he has stockholders he has to explain the WWE's first money-losing quarter in years to. Even if you take the film division and network startup costs out of the equation, they didn't make enough profit to cover dividend payments. Because business has been in steady decline for the past few years and he's desperate to turn things around?

Dolph's about a decade late.

Don't worry, most of them won't be nearly as long, I promise. My plan right now is to start with PBP with insights sprinkled throughout followed by a paragraph of analysis that ties everything together. Hopefully, I'll incorporate more analysis into the body of the review as I become more adept at organizing and articulating my thoughts. The PBP is largely for my benefit, as it enhances my attention to detail and forces me to consider how much of the action is really important. It is significantly more time-consuming, though, so I may switch things up at some point.

John Cena vs. CM Punk WWE Money in the Bank July 17, 2011 Some tentativeness to start. Punk puts on a headlock from the collar-and-elbow tie-up and transitions to a hammerlock. Cena reverses and does a snapmare into a chinlock. Punk makes the ropes and then goes for a roundhouse kick. Naturally, this sequence prompts "you can't wrestle" chants, which Punk has fun with by asking the audience who the chants are for. Cena gets a double-leg takedown. Punk puts him in the guard, but Cena reverses into an armbar and then works a wristlock as Punk stands up. Cena running the ropes leads to a shoulderblock and a headlock of his own. More rope running, and Punk takes control with a hiptoss and dropkick and goes back to the headlock. They run the ropes some more, which ends in Cena teasing an AA and Punk teasing a GTS. Punk takes Cena down with some kicks and stomps on him in the corner. He then tries to whip Cena in to the corner (1), but Cena reverses into a whip of his own and lands a one-handed bulldog. Punk kicks out of a pinfall attempt, so Cena applies a front chancery. Punk slugs his way out but gets levelled by a clothesline. Another kick out, so Cena goes back to the chinlock and actually does a pretty good job of working it. Punk reverses with a back suplex and whips Cena into the corner (2), with Cena doing a Bret Hart-style sternum-first bump. Cena fights out of a standing headscissors and whips Punk into the corner (3) and hits a fisherman suplex. He goes for the AA again, but Punk hits a DDT. Cena kicks out of a pinfall attempt, so Punk applies a figure-four headscissors. Cena tries to counter with an electric chair drop, but Punk elbows out and throws Cena out of the ring. He then hangs Cena on the apron and hits a diving knee drop. Pinfall attempt gets two, so Punk whips Cena into the corner (4) and goes for a shoulder tackle, but Cena dodges and Punk runs into the ringpost. Snapmare into a chinlock from Punk. Cena slugs his way out and whips Punk into the corner (6). He charges after but runs into a boot. Punk blows a top rope crossbody, landing on Cena's knee, and gets two on a pinfall attempt. Cena rolls to the apron. Punk tries to suplex him back in, but Cena does a suplex of his own and Punk does a flat back bump onto the floor. Yikes. Cena rolls Punk back into the ring and goes for a pin, which gets two. Another fisherman suplex from Cena followed by an elbow drop. Emerald Frosion (!) gets two. Punk wins a slugfest, but Cena applies an abdominal stretch, which pleased me because it's a move I mark out for. Punk counters with an eye rake and hiptoss, and both men take a breather after a double clothesline. When Cena recovers, he busts out some Vintage Cena shoulderblocks. Punk swings and Cena goes for the Protobomb, but Punk flips out and schoolboys him for two. Personally, I would have preferred it Punk hadn't swung in the first place. Cena tries to whip Punk into corner, but Punk reverses (7) and goes for the high knee, but Cena dodges and hits the Protobomb. He goes for you can't see me, but Punk kicks him in the head. I find it rather distressing that you can count the examples of people doing logical counters to Cena's goofy signature spots on one hand. Running knee knocks Cena out of the ring, and Punk follows with a tope. He rolls Cena back into the ring and goes for another top rope crossbody, but Cena rolls out of the way. After you can't see me and five knuckle shuffle, Cena goes for the AA. Punk tries to counter by landing on his feet, but he lands on his ass instead. He gets some kicks and goes for the GTS, but Cena counters with a gutwrench suplex. AA attempt, but Punk gets two jumping high knees and a bulldog. Slightly botched springboard clothesline gets two. Some kicks from Punk, but Cena ducks a roundhouse kick and locks in the STF. Punk makes the ropes and hits a roundhouse kick for two. Another top rope crossbody, but Cena rolls through and sets Punk up for the AA. Punk counters with a GTS attempt, but Cena reverses into another STF. He drags Punk to the center of the ring so he can't make the ropes, but Punk reverses into an Anaconda Vice. Cena gets to his feet and finally hits the AA, but it only gets two. Cena goes for a top rope leg drop, but Punk does a powerbomb-ish counter and signals for the GTS. Cena makes the ropes and hits a hangman and then gets the top rope leg drop for two. Another AA, but Punk kicks out again. Cena goes for a super AA, but Punk elbows out and hits a top rope frankensteiner. GTS finally connects, but Cena rolls out of the ring. One interesting thing about Cena is that in big matches, he generally does a better job of protecting his opponent's finisher than his own. Punk rolls Cena back into the ring, and Vince McMahon makes his way out with John Laurinaitis. Cena pops up and locks in the STF yet again, and Vince sends Laurinaitis to tell the timekeeper to ring the damn bell. Cena releases the hold and clocks Laurinaitis, telling Vince that he doesn't want to win that way. Punk then hits the GTS and gets three. There's some post-match shenanigans with Vince trying to get Del Rio to cash in, but let's forget about all that. God damn, did they get a bonus every time they whipped each other into the corner or something? My theory is that they had everything from roughly the double clothesline on pretty well mapped out and figured they'd build up to it by working old-school NWA title match style. But they didn't have the technical chops to keep it going on the mat, so it kind of meandered a bit in the middle portion. Beyond that, I think the match would've worked better if Cena had worked subtle heel like he did against RVD at ONS. Granted, his goody-two-shoes act was part of the bigger storyline, but that storyline ended up being fucking stupid. In all, though, this is about as good as modern WWE Main Event Style gets. There was more emphasis on working out of holds as opposed to simply powering out. The transitions were mostly solid. And the big spots were effectively built up to. More importantly, it felt like a Very Big Deal, which very few matches do these days. Overall, it's the best match of Punk's career by a wide margin. It's probably Cena's as well, but I could see somebody preferring the LMS match with Umaga. Final Verdict: Great

So is the FMW match confirmed for *****? Maybe so, but it's still useful because it has matches from the 70s and non-AAA lucha, which none of the other lists do.

It was on there as 5/18/92, which was the air date. I'll get to Jingus' requests, but I plan on doing Punk/Cena first because I want to make sure to get to it before it gets taken off Youtube. Also, I can't find the Kobashi/Homicide vs. Joe/Ki tag anywhere online.

Sometime last year, my wrestling fandom was in a state of flux. I wasn't really sure what I thought was good, and there were whole worlds out there I had little to no exposure to. So I set out to watch as many highly rated matches from as many styles and promotions as possible to provide a basis for drawing informed conclusions. Dave Meltzer and Scott Keith are probably the most prolific and well-known match reviewers on the Internet, so I used their ratings as a starting point. Loss' huge list of matches he gave star ratings to was invaluable for providing a different perspective. Also useful were the DVDVR 90s and 80s projects, Ditch's All Japan 90s Project, and the "matches you must see before you die" thread from this forum. In the end, though, I sought out basically anything that had been pimped by somebody. Now that my horizons have been significantly broadened and my perspective has somewhat shifted, I thought it would be fun to look at what I would consider the most authoritative and broad-ranging ***** match lists and see how I think the matches rated thusly hold up. Meltzer's list: http://www.puroresu.tv/forums/topic/498-wr...5-star-matches/ He didn't officially give ***** to the Dream Rush tag, but he said it was better than the 12/6/93 tag he did give ***** to, so I'm counting it. SKeith's list: http://www.freewebs.com/wrestlinglists/5.htm He has subsequently downgraded his ratings of the 2004 and 2010 Rumbles, which is a relief. Loss' list: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=4803 I figured I'd do Segunda Caida-style ratings and declare each match to be Epic, Great, Fun, or Skippable. My plan is to just review the matches in random order, but if anyone has any burning desire to hear my take on a particular match (and I can't imagine you do), feel free to make requests.

Also in the most recent Observer is this paragraph regarding Shaq at Wrestlemania: Didn't Vince used to be the guy who'd rather lose money off of 500k buys than make money off of 300k? Whose purse are his balls in?

The interesting thing to me is the apparent revelation that Chris Brown is a Bret Hart fan.

See, this is why I think having a no-blood policy makes no sense if you're still going to book car-crash matches. All things considered, taking a razor to your forehead is a hell of a lot safer than falling off a ladder.

I probably could have worded it better, but I suppose I got my point across eventually. He was a top guy, but Luger was being positioned as the tippy-top guy. The Rumble was the start of the shift back to Bret. Arguably RVD in 2006, but that wasn't so much for him as it was for the new ECW. This past year is interesting in that it provides a direct apples-to-apples comparison. Del Rio won both the Rumble and MITB and received a far bigger boost from the latter.

To be sure, I'm not saying that the Rumble win itself elevated someone as much as it served as confirmation that the winner was on his way to bigger and better things (or that someone who had been injured was definitively back in a couple of cases). And the main period I was thinking of was from 1993 (the first year the winner received an automatic title shot at Wrestlemania) to 2005 (the year MITB was introduced). Let's break it down: 1993-Yokozuna definitely. 1994-Bret had already won the title before, but his first reign was widely considered a flop, and he spent a good chunk of the previous year feuding with Jerry Lawler. This was part of building him back up as the ace. (Yeah, technically he tied with Luger, but we all know Bret really won.) 1995-This probably wasn't so much an attempt to elevate Shawn as it was building someone up to feed to Diesel. 1996-This was definitely part of building up Shawn as the guy. 1997-No elevation, just part of the WWF's screwy booking during the first few months of 1997. 1998-Austin was a runaway freight train by this point, but the Rumble win was the exclamation point. 1999-Ummm...yeah. Let's pretend this never happened. 2000-The first instance during this time period of the winner already being super over. 2001-Re-establishes Austin after a lengthy absence. 2002-Re-establishes HHH after a lengthy absence. 2003-Brock was already established, this was just part of his title chase. 2004-Benoit was a solid hand who had been in a few world title matches, but he wasn't anywhere near Wrestlemania main event level before this. 2005-Batista definitely. 2006 marked the first time since 1995 that the Rumble winner wasn't in the Wrestlemania main event, and it was all downhill from there.

While watching Elimination Chamber, it occurred to me that the Royal Rumble has become just another PPV. MITB has taken its place as a way to elevate guys to the main event, and now the Chamber has taken its place as a way to establish feuds for Wrestlemania. When you take away those aspects and a Pat Patterson laying things out, all you're really left with is a big battle royal with some comedy spots. I wouldn't be surprised if it joined Survivor Series in becoming largely irrelevant. On a completely unrelated note, I've been watching a lot of Bret Hart lately. Five Moves of Doom is a myth, yo.

Yeah, 2005-06 is probably the one exception to TNA never successfully executing a storyline from start to finish. Sting no-selling the guitar shot and winning the title at Bound for Glory felt like a satisfying conclusion to the era of Jarrett's new-wave Honky Tonk Man act being the centerpiece of the promotion.

I thought it was neck problems that ended DDP's career. I don't know that bumping on your back would have much to do with those. Flat back bumping can cause concussions. It can most certainly cause neck problems. From Dave's Misawa obit: "Most likely, if he had gone to a doctor in the U.S., like Steve Austin or DDP did when they had serious neck injuries, his level of his neck damage would have been discovered. It’s very possible, if not likely, he’d have been told, like Austin, DDP and Ted DiBiase had, that one more bad bump could leave him as a paraplegic. DiBiase retired at that point, although in the last year has talked of coming back for one last match. Austin and DDP wrestled a few times after that diagnosis, but got out for good, in the case of Austin, spurning some huge offers to come back, and at times considering them." I'm no doctor, but I would think it would take more than a few months of flat back bumps to jack up someone's neck to that degree. I'm not saying that it had no impact at all, mind you. EDIT: After reading up some more, it seems that what actually ended DDP's career was the neck injury he sustained in this match against Hardcore Holly on Smackdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRyVqXSaM34 Check out the superplex at 3:44. Ouch. Also, I was under the impression that the main reason for luchadores bumping the way they do is the fact that the mats in Mexico are a lot harder than in the US and Japan.

I thought it was neck problems that ended DDP's career. I don't know that bumping on your back would have much to do with those. Anyway, after thinking about it, I think you'd have to add Guerrero and Benoit to the conversation since there's a strong argument that going to the WWE was directly responsible for their deaths.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount Jarrett. He's lost most of his power in TNA, he and his father are no longer on speaking terms, and he's completely burned his bridges with the WWE so he's SOL if/when TNA goes under.

In other news, this Hunter Golden dude totally plagiarized the shit out of Loss' first post in this thread: http://sportales.com/wrestling/the-ric-fla...-a-closer-look/ Or could it be that Hunter Golden IS Loss? We're through the looking glass here, people.

Yet he has the power to fire the RAW GM, but not to make himself the RAW GM. And he apparently only has that power while Raw is on the air. He was all set to fire Laurinaitis before Undertaker showed up, but then he did nothing the entire rest of the week.

Arguing over Flair's age when he went to see Ray Stevens or whoever it was misses the point. The main takeaway is that when he was a fan, Flair had certain expectations of what he wanted to see when he went to a wrestling match and was disappointed when they didn't happen. So when he was in the ring, he made sure to do those things so that the people who came to see him weren't similarly disappointed.

Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker Hell in a Cell, No Mercy 2002 I've heard a lot of people whose opinions I wouldn't dismiss out of hand praise this match to the heavens and call it a MOTDC. I would like to know why. The story of the match is centered around Lesnar going after Taker's broken hand, but Taker completely undermines it with his inconsistent (to put it charitably) selling. It starts out well enough. Taker clubs Lesnar with his cast, busting him open in the process, but he doubles over in pain after every blow. This does a nice job of getting over a "this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me" vibe. So Lesnar goes after the hand, destroying it with some chairshots and ripping off the cast. Once the cast comes off, though, Taker's hand apparently magically heals, as he does punches and chokeslams with no trouble at all. It's bad enough that the announcers have to play the "he's running on pure adrenaline" card to cover for it.

The more Flair I see, the more convinced I become that the Flair Formula is a misnomer. The term "fomula" implies a certain degree of order and structure. Mid-2000s Shawn Michaels, for example, clearly had a formula. Flair just had a big grab bag of signature spots that he would employ when the mood struck him. Like, there was no real rhyme or reason as to whether he would beg off at the 3 minute mark or the 20 minute mark. And since a lot of his matches had finishes (rollup, time limit draw, schmoz) that didn't really have to be built up to, the stuff in between the signature spots tended to be little more than filler. When people talk about Flair matches all being the same, I think that's what they mean.

I don't know how legit this is (considering it's Hogan, probably not very), but: http://www.nme.com/news/metallica/61668 If nothing else, he would've Hulked up after the bus landed on him.

Does that mean that Bryan is going to drop the strap to The Mountie?

I'm just getting warmed up. HUNTER HEARST HAIL-MSLEY! COLDUST! SURVIV-BRRR SERIES!