NintendoLogic

Ohno, indeed.

This inspired me to spend way too much time coming up with weather-related New York Post-style pun headlines. MACHO MAN RAIN-DY SAVAGE! EMERALD SNOW-SION! IN YOUR HOUSE: BEWARE OF FOG!

Looking at the history of TNA, I can't help but be reminded of the quote about America being the only country in history to go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening period of civilization.

The Naylor comments from a few pages ago got me to thinking. What ever happened to Kevin Cook?

Having rewatched both matches recently, I don't see the case for rating 19 over 17. One, 17 doesn't have 19's leg work that goes nowhere. Two, 17 doesn't have submissions being applied in the first ten minutes. Three, the finisher overkill in 19 was much worse.

That's always been Russo's MO, though. He's been pretty open about his view that his job is to pop ratings and that drawing money is "old school" and therefore irrelevant.

The problem with "Cena sucks" chants is that the people responsible for them suck even worse.

But when we look back at Kane's career, this might not even be in the top five. I'm not a fan of him as a worker, but I am impressed by his ability to remain consistently over despite receiving some of the worst booking imaginable.

I'd like to see a completely mercenary wrestler without any face or heel tendencies. He could just as easily be a hired gun for a heel champion or backup for an underdog babyface. He'd be up for anything as long as the money was right.

More wrestlers than I can count have worked Hitch's vodka-soaked popinjay gimmick. I don't know if any of them were former Trotskyists, though.

From the Wikipedia article on the UCWF: Spider-Man has Superhuman Class 10 strength. Does that make him the Rey Mysterio of Marvel? Also, Letha is a dead ringer for Beth Phoenix.

USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST If hating on Bonnie Tyler's Ravishing isn't a bannable offense, it should be. As for Hogan's relative lack of jingoistic angles, it wasn't necessarily for lack of trying. Didn't Vince try to bring in Nikita Koloff in 1985?

If Bret had stayed, they most likely would have had him put over Austin at Mania, right? And if Bret is defending at Mania, there's no need for him to drop the strap at Montreal. Which means that Shawn never defends the title against Undertaker at the Rumble. Which means that he never injures his back in a casket match. Which means that he isn't forced to take a four-year hiatus. In that scenario, how likely is it that Shawn jumps to WCW and takes Hunter with him?

It doesn't, at all. According to the most recent TVN study of sports fans over the age of 12, not only is the percentage of fans with no interest in wrestling higher than it's ever been, the ones who call themselves avid fans are disproportionately poor and uneducated. Bryan Alvarez actually made a pretty good point along those lines. Cirque du Soleil is regarded as high-class entertainment that appeals to affluent audiences. But when you get right down to it, it's just the circus. I don't know that wrestling couldn't do something similar.

I started looking up the total in-ring times of various PPVs to contest this. But then I realized that arguing over the logistics of a fantasy event that's never actually going to happen is about the most pointless endeavor imaginable, so I'm going to concede the point. 3 hours is probably pushing it, but 4 hours is doable. I figured you'd say Wrestlemania XXVII. Is this the one with Regal's antics where he's not sure who to interfere on behalf of, Vince's daughter or his girlfriend? Because that match was indeed so much more awesome than it had any right to be. The ladies brought so much hate (for a WWE women's match). And the post match promo where Vince is losing it and Regal makes Regal faces was gold too. Really solid sort of "filler" between bigger matches. Yeah, that's the one.

After putting in more thought and research than I did for most of my college term papers, I've finally come up with a card. There were quite a few difficulties along the way. Not only did I drop 6/9/95, I actually questioned whether to have any All Japan matches at all at the top of the card. Most of the more notable matches came from an era when the undercard was an afterthought, so I questioned whether they would fit on a supercard. Also, Hokuto/Kandori pretty much meant that any other match with blood was out. In addition, I operated under a few self-imposed constraints. On the title front, I limited myself to the old WWF Triple Crown: world title, tag titles, secondary singles title. I also limited myself to matches of which complete and unedited footage exists. Which is a shame, since I'm a huge fan of the Kliq tag match from Action Zone. Without further ado, here's what I've got. Naturally, the card is subject to change. Jushin Liger vs. El Samurai NJPW-4/30/92 Ideally, you want your opener to be something that'll pop the crowd while still leaving them wanting more. I don't know if any match fills the bill better than this. It's fast-paced with plenty of high-flying action and plenty of hate. It has everything you could conceivably want in an opening match. (21:15) Jim Cornette vs. Paul E. Dangerously WCW Great American Bash-7/23/89 This was the hardest spot on the card for me to fill. You want to start out with something exciting, but you don't want to put too much at the bottom of the card. I didn't want to have any outright clunkers, but I didn't know what could follow Liger/Samurai. Eventually, I threw up my hands and said "fuck it, I'm just going to put a comedy match here." And as far as those go, this is about as good as it gets. (6:22) Tag Titles Hart Foundation vs. Nasty Boys WWF Wrestlemania VII-3/24/91 I decided to fill out the middle of the card with high-end Sports Entertainment that would entertain the crowd without burning them out. First on that front is this very solid tag match. Plus, it puts the heels on the board for those who may be worried about too many babyfaces going over. (12:10) Secondary Singles Title Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude WWF Summerslam 1989-8/28/89 Again, this isn't a show-stealing masterpiece, but it is a testament to how easy it is to have a good match if you put in a little thought and stick to the basics. (16:02) Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori AJW Dreamslam-4/2/93 Now it's time to bring out the big guns. Some might question this match's position on the card, but the Hart/Austin submission match (which this is basically a superior version of) was at roughly this spot on the WM13 card. (30:27) Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley vs. Trish Stratus WWF No Way Out-2/25/01 After that, it's time to bring the crowd back down, but only a little. For that purpose, I stuck in this fun little match that was worlds better than it had any right to be. (8:30) Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi AJPW-7/29/93 The main reason I dropped 6/9/95 is because I wanted to squeeze as many matches as I could out of Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi (sorry, Taue). I entertained the idea of having this in the second spot, but putting this anywhere but near the top of the card would be an injustice. (22:35) World Title Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW-6/3/94 This actually wasn't a lock for the top spot. I thought about putting 7/24/95 here instead since it's shorter and would probably fit better on a supercard. But this is a dream card, so you might as well swing for the fences. I also slightly prefer 1/20/97 to this match. But Misawa/Kawada+Hansen/Kobashi > Misawa/Kobashi+Hansen/Kawada. (35:50) The total time from bell to bell is 153:11. With entrances and everything, it should be right around the 3-hour mark. I suppose I could add a few skits to bring it up to Wrestlemania length, but I think the in-ring action should be sufficient to give everybody their money's worth.

How much footage is there of that 12-woman AJW tag from 1987 that Dave gave ***** to?

After sitting through this Kane feud, the last thing I want to see is Cena trying to bring the hate.

In addition to Gisele, you had Gronk working a fake injury angle. It's a good thing too, because the Pats were in danger of garnering too much babyface sympathy heat after Brady's postgame promo.

I'm kind of surprised nobody's mentioned cutting Warrior off at the knees by kicking out at 3.1 and hogging the post-match spotlight.

Shaq is a bigger star than LT by several orders of magnitude. It's like the difference between Hulk Hogan and John Cena.

Well, Japanese-centric promotions don't even really get over well in Japan these days.

I don't have a problem with the Wrestlemania build so far. Punk/Jericho just started. Taker/HHH sucks, but it sucked last year too. And Rock/Cena sells itself. On a completely unrelated note, Vickie's totally being wasted as a manager right now. She rarely gets the chance to cut promos on behalf of her clients, and it seems like she gets tossed from ringside more often than she has an actual impact in matches.

And puro started with Japanese dudes copying American wrestlers. Sure, but it's not like homegrown doom metal bands are tearing up the charts. It's true that foreign films generally don't do well in America, but plenty of foreign actors have become stars here. Which brings me back to my earlier point. I don't see why a Japanese wrestler with the right size and look couldn't make it in the WWE. Lucha doesn't have much of a history of drawing in the US, but Alberto Del Rio has gotten a push because he's tall and speaks English.

So far, this is harder than I thought. Like DFA, my favorite matches tend to be of the epic variety, and those are usually the main events on the cards they originated from. So just putting a bunch of those together doesn't really work as a cohesive whole. Like, HBK/Mankind from Mind Games is a great match, but it wouldn't work as a show opener. I will say that my top two are pretty much set. #2 is Hokuto/Kandori from Dreamslam (best semi-main of all time), and #1 is 6/9/95 (best main event of all time, not to mention the best match of all time period). With that one-two punch on top of the card, I could run the undercard from December to Dismember and still send the fans home happy.