NintendoLogic

Meltzer and Alvarez have said it's not a bait and switch and they are legitimately airing the Punk/Perry footage. They apparently won't be showing footage of the incident that made TK fear for his life, unfortunately.

I went to bed right before the main event started. I wasn't expecting it to be any good from an in-ring standpoint and the outcome was a foregone conclusion, so I didn't need to see it live. I figured I could watch it in the morning if it got positive reviews. When I saw it went 45, I immediately noped out.

Are we sure Vince is really gone?

This final boss Rock entrance is all the stars.

That wasn't quite the all-timer I was hoping for, but the drama starting when Sami kicked out of the double powerbomb was off the charts.

Isn't Michael Cole from upstate New York?

Match was pretty mid, but at least the right guy won. If Jimmy had won, that would have been the worst Mania match result in years.

Is Jason Kelce really the greatest center of all time?

Awesome Truth are the tag champions in 2024 and it's legitimately a heart-warming moment. I'm not sure what to make of this.

Maybe he pulled a Mil Mascaras an insisted on eliminating himself.

He's actually been claiming that for a while now. Regardless, it's still hilarious. Hogan would be a national treasure if he wasn't such a racist.

Those are Eagles colors, my dudes.

The only thing I remember about that MITB match is the crowd booing the shit out of Drew when it looked like he was going to win. His chosen one gimmick was so wretched he had to go to TNA to wash off the stench.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a sex pest than to speak and remove all doubt. Also, this is yet another reason to do away with the dumb tradition of shaking everyone's hand every time you see them.

26 is the last Mania I can remember with this many well-built stories going in. That fact seems have been largely forgotten in retrospect because of how the show underperformed on PPV. When you take into account both strength of stories and business being on fire, this is probably the best build for a Mania since X-7.

Wait a minute...did I just hear myself say three minutes? In all seriousness, three-minute matches seem pretty pointless. Owen Hart/123 Kid at KOTR 1994 is probably as short as a match can possibly be while still having some substance and it went 3:37.

I think it's at least partially because wrestling in Japan has traditionally been presented as more of a sport and you hardly ever see family dynasties in non-worked sports. Also, Japanese athletes tend to be more secretive about their private lives, so their children don't really grow up exposed to the business. After Misawa died, it was reported that wrestlers who had known him for decades didn't even know he had children.

I miss the days when the big stars were all self-made men like Terry Funk, Greg Valentine, and Kerry Von Erich. Pro wrestling has pretty much always been infested with nepo babies. Which is to be expected as the most reliable way to gain entrance to a closed society, which wrestling historically was, is family connections. By the way, Beefcake was a perfectly serviceable worker before the accident. Not great by any means, but decent enough that he could team with the aforementioned Valentine and actually bring something to the table.

It really is staggering how Roman has become a bit player in the story centered around the championships he's held forever. It's not really his fault, though. Hollywood Rock in the modern wrestling landscape is like Messi in MLS. Being upstaged is inevitable.

If you're not actually ill, the wearing of masks is mostly a seasonal thing. In the springtime, the northern winds blow dust and industrial pollutants in from China. I hardly ever get sick, but I got sick as a dog when I was in Korea March 2016 because I didn't mask up.

The mid-to-late 70s were actually a rough period for most territories (Detroit and California were on death's door by the end of the decade while others had fallen off noticeably from earlier in the decade). Some other examples to consider: the WWF's post-Attitude Era decline coincides with the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the collapse of WWE's PPV business in the late 2000s coincides with the financial crisis. Conversely, the peak of Hulkamania and the Attitude Era both took place amid strong economic growth. Booking always matters to a degree, but booking mistakes become magnified when times are tough because pro wrestling seems to be pretty idiot-proof if the economy is strong enough. 1999 WWF is some of the most wretched television ever produced, wrestling or otherwise, but it didn't even dent the company's popularity. Perhaps the greatest testament to how awful 1999-2000 WCW was is how many fans they drove off during an economic boom.

The fact that he sounds like Lord Alfred Hayes makes it even better. Also, it looks like Ospreay could be on his way to avenge his countryman.

A decade or so ago, Rey was on the verge of packing it in because his knees were shot. Stem cell therapy saved his career. Modern medicine is truly wondrous...if you can afford it.

People have pointed to the 80s oil glut as a factor in the declines of World Class and Mid-South due to its impact on the economies of Texas and Oklahoma. Has there been any analysis of what impact, if any, the farm crisis had on the AWA? More broadly, it seems like there should be more consideration of the strength of the economy as a whole as a factor in the success of wrestling promotions.

Okada is a better wrestler and a much bigger star than Kingston, so it's only fitting that he would be the one to lend some prestige to the Continental belt. And it was a good match to boot, so it's a win all around.