NintendoLogic

HHH could have simply ordered Del Rio to cash in like Vince did at the PPV.

The tournament was Vince's idea. For all we know, HHH views Punk as the legitimate champion and has getting the belt off him as his top priority.

The WWE creates its own reality. If they had gone through with the HHH pedigrees Punk scenario, the tournament would have simply been stricken from the books, just like Del Rio's #1 contendership was stricken after Punk was reinstated.

The main problem I had with the match was the blown spots. I don't demand robotically precise execution in my matches, and the botches didn't detract from my enjoyment of Punk/Cena at all. But there have to be some standards, especially when they're this egregious. Like the spot where Takako starts to go for a suicide dive, stops in her tracks, walks up to the ropes, and does a weak little double axehandle off the apron. And the Jackie Gayda-level bad blown armdrag. And Kansai nearly dropping Takako on her head during the first Splash Mountain attempt. On that note, I did like Hotta trying to salvage it by running in and trying to make it look like she broke it up. Match was fine otherwise.

That's not a huge surprise, what with the presidential address the announcers spent the entire show taking potshots at Obama for.

Loss and others consider this the greatest juniors match of all time. Ditch and others consider it good but not great. I think they're both right. I'm not a fan of the NJ junior style at all, so when I first watched this match, I was blown away by the fact that it didn't adhere to the typical junior formula. They didn't start out by wasting time with pointless matwork. Samurai brings the hate from the get-go, busting out every rudo tactic in the book in the process. Eventually, Liger snaps and unloads on Samurai with everything in his arsenal. And the closing stretch feels more organic than the usual my turn-your turn style. Upon subsequent viewings, the mach loses its luster a little. For one thing, Samurai blows through his heel spots too rapidly. By the end, he's got nothing left, and it's just another juniors match. It kind of reminded me of KENTA/SUWA in that respect. And I agree with MJH that the transitions were a little too abrupt. Still, it's an awesome match worth checking out.

In the wrestler comparison megathread, Loss stated, to the shock of many, that he had yet to watch the 1/20/97 Misawa/Kobashi match. It got me thinking that it'd be a good idea for all of us to fess up to the highly acclaimed, historically significant, or otherwise notable matches we haven't actually seen. I'll start. I've never seen Hogan/Andre. Or the HBK/Bret iron man match.

If you mean the '92 TOSJ Final, Loss needs your support over in the Yearbook thread. Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about. Just checked out the thread. Kind of surprised to see it take the beating it is. I'll rewatch the match tomorrow and post up. All this talk about 1/20/97 gives me an idea for a thread.

Not only did Punk come down the entrance ramp, he had a brand new Titantron. Also, this is kind of a minor detail, but his belt had a CM Punk nameplate.

So much for a slow burn.

He certainly was more restricted in what he could and couldn't do in the WWE. But I seriously doubt he was having his matches laid out Pat Patterson-style. Again, guys like Undertaker were pointing to DDP scripting his matches as evidence that the WCW guys couldn't work.

I dislike the NJ junior style immensely. But I watched Liger/Samurai recently, and it holds up really well. With that said, Bret takes it in a walk. Also, let me echo everyone else's comments about 1/20/97 being an absolute must-see. It's my all-time favorite singles match.

It was a response to this. Am I the only one seeing the irony ? So do you think that ECW match were Benoit had the tantrum in was scripted or called in the ring? I have no idea what you're refering to, I never watched WWECW. I'm saying how ironic is this that Chris Benoit of all people was supposed to pre-planned his matches beforehand in WWE because WWE produced guys can't work a lick, and that his memory slipping means he actually had to work like he always did, on the fly. Benoit supposedly trashed the notes DDP brought him for their PPV match in WCW, and at this point of his career, he's working on the fly because *his memory slipped*... Man. Sorry for the confusion. I've never heard anything about Benoit scripting his matches in response to the limitations of WWE workers. Is there any documentation of this?

I thought it was Undertaker who threw out DDP's notes.

TM/DK?

X-Pac tweeted that the Hunter taking over part is legit.

That's hilarious. Especially considering how great this Mark Henry heel push is going. I'm actually a bit bummed that Christian won the strap, because I was hoping that after the feuds with Show and Christian, that Orton and Henry would feud for the strap. I'd prefer to see Christian/Henry myself. Though it would be weird to see a heel vs. heel feud, I still think it would be awesome and that Henry and Christian could pull it off. My ideal scenario would be Daniel Bryan cashing in and then going on to face Henry. We already know he's great at working big man/little man matches, and Mizark is on fire right now.

One of the WON's readers on Punk/Cena: Another one of the WON's readers on Show/Henry: Jesus.

Del Rio has been tabbed as something of a golden boy as far as heels go. I think he will win the belt in a legitimate scheduled match. Truth on the other hand, it fits his conspiracy crazed heel gimmick to be part of a mini conspiracy to achieve what he has been gunning all summer and some for. I can see Vince working out an agreement behind the scenes after he wins the MITB in the early portion of the show, and Punk beating Cena, only for Vince to trigger the Truth contract to prevent Punk from leaving with the belt. This might turn Punk babyface going out and a "Cena overcomes the odds" storyline the WWE loves to do. I think the opposite is true. MITB seems to be the WWE's preferred method of elevating heels to the big time over the past few years, starting with Edge. Plus, Summerslam is coming up, and ADR-Cena is a much bigger money matchup than Truth-Cena. And I just don't see the WWE putting the belt on a guy who can't legally enter Canada.

You should look at house shows, but you'd have to weigh them properly. Here are the W-L records of everyone in the WWE through the end of June: http://www.pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/wwe...cle_51217.shtml As you can see, John Cena is barely over .500 on TV and PPV. But that's outweighed by the fact that he almost never jobs at house shows. If you only looked at TV/PPV, you'd be left with the impression that Cena was on roughly the same level as Kofi Kingston or Santino Marella, which is ludicrous. On the other hand, the top heels on both brands (other than Christian and Mark Henry, who started the year as faces), all have horrible records on the house show circuit. If you just looked at everything equally, you'd have results that don't accurately reflect their true positions on the card.

There have been plenty of Americans with less African ancestry than The Rock who were classified as black. Sally Hemings was three-fourths white. Homer Plessy was seven-eighths white.

OK, thanks for clearing that up. The fact that it wasn't 60 minutes was throwing me off. The time thing aside, it seems kind of weird to me to have a match end with a heel challenger who is behind in falls applying a submission.

So I rewatched Baba/Destroyer last night, and I still don't know what the ending is supposed to be. Baba gets the three-count, but the cowboy guys come in and complain that the count was too fast or something so the match gets restarted, then Destroyer locks in the figure-four and Baba appears to submit, but it turns out time ran out instead?

Well, Lyndon Johnson was no stranger to the n-word. I don't think Punk is homophobic, though. From his apology, it sounds like he gets it. Anyway, I think there is a fair amount of homophobia in wrestling. But it tends to be of the hyper-masculine insecure jock variety rather than the "thou shalt not lie with mankind" variety. Of course, for guys like AJ Styles, it's both.

Losing Danielson was a big blow, but Skip Sheffield going down is what really killed it. Once they lost their enforcer, it was hard to take them seriously as a legitimate threat.