Jimmy Redman

Surely we can agree that there is a middle ground between stiffness and weak-looking offense where your stuff actually looks...good. My main problem with Tanahashi isn't his offensive moves per se - as in the fact that this move or that move looks silly or weak or whatever, although I see why it is a problem for others - but moreso his offensive strategy. He's terrible at working over the leg, and practically any Tanahashi match I see has him working over the leg. He can't make it compelling in any way, nor can he seemingly find someone who will actually sell it long-term, so it renders the middle portion of most of his matches a waste to me. I think one of the main reasons Invasion Attack turned out better than all the other Okada matches is because he worked the arm instead of the leg, it looked marginally better and it actually worked with the story of the match and was sold all the way through.

I love that whole story where Colon has to reach out to his eternal nemesis Abby to combat the destructive force of Stan and Brody. That is what the Rock/Cena tag should have been with 2 seconds of thought. And the lumberjack match rules too with them fighting all over the diamond and into the locker rooms.

To chime in, I'm someone who doesn't hate Tanahashi, but does see significant problems with his offense. And the short answer is that yes, context matters. Having sh*tty offense in the main event of New Japan is different to having sh*tty offense in the main event of WWE. I mean, I am personally someone who rarely cares about "sh*tty offense" as a talking point, I love Cena, don't see the problem with Edge's moveset, etc. I don't even completely hate Khali and he can't even move. But the way WWE is presented and how matches are presented is different to NJPW and puro. Expectations as far as what a guy does in a match is different. It's the same the other way around too. If Curtis Axel was in Lance Archer's position, he would probably look like a decent pro wrestler (like, amazingly, Lance Archer does), because his charisma and promo problems wouldn't matter so much and he could get by just clubbing folks. In WWE, he looks like a piece of sh*t because he can't talk, can't act, has no charisma and can't get crowds into his matches. Context matters.

I think Bryan being Bryan plus his monster push this year makes him a strong favourite for WOTY. He'd have to get absolutely slaughtered by booking in the next couple months to fumble from here. MOTY is also interesting because as you say, there's no easy pick and a lot of similarly strong matches from both big companies. The two Summerslam matches will split the WWE vote, but the NJPW vote will also be split between Invasion Attack, Ishii/Shibata, Ishii/Tana, I've even seen multiple people still going for things like Tana/Anderson at #1. So there's certainly no obvious winner.

No they don't. The British Bulldogs were a great team because you had a power house and the best technical wrestler on the planet teaming up with British accents and a pet bulldog (and sometimes a drunk manager). They were fantastic. If anything, Edwards and and Richards will be a modern day London and Kendrick - some throw away tag team used in throw away matches on free TV, with the occasional PPV offering to kill time. I am taking this as a pretty big insult to Londrick, who had a really nice, long tag title reign on Smackdown and were treated like reasonable deals for a WWE tag team in the 00s. They also beat the crap out of the Wolves, but that's neither here nor there. A throwaway tag team used for fodder is like 3MB.

That seems about right actually, since it was one of those "shoots~" that didn't make much storyline sense, referenced a bunch of shit nobody has ever heard of, and ended up making his character look really bad. Of course I fully believe that TNA would script such a promo. But I can also believe that it came from him.

I think both Summerslam matches have a decent shot at my Top 50 or so. But I prefer to let the dust settle a bit first before thinking in those terms.

The problem with this is, as someone has already said, Dave hated Hulk Hogan in the 80s. He can separate working ability from effectiveness when he wants to. I posed the "can we not watch or judge old footage at all then?" question in the Board thread to Dave, but he never replied to it.

As far as in ring goes I'd probably take Maria over the Bellas. Maria never reached the heights of the Bellas' best work, since circa 2011 with their title run they were pretty good, but the Bellas have also been pretty wretched at other times (like now), while Maria was pretty consistent and a decent sympathetic babyface for someone to beat up. But you're right in that all those other names you mentioned are better.

Wes Brisco?

For recent WWE, some matches I'd throw at you: Trish vs Mickie, NYR 2006 and WM22 Trish vs Lita, Raw 6/12/04 (with the horrific bump) and Unforgiven 2004 Mickie vs Melina, Backlash 2007 Melina vs Beth ( I Quit), ONS 2008 And also Kong vs Kim at Final Resolution 2008, and probably every other time as well.

Yeah, that was pretty much the moment DiBiase was dead in the water, where they really dropped the ball. They built him up for months to turn babyface against Orton, and the crowd was responding and ready to cheer for him when the moment actually happened.....then they didn't pull the trigger. Evolution kind of limped on for a bit after that and petered out, I don't even remember how it ended. This is patently false. The Ted vs Orton "match" was only the second thing that had ever slightly hinted at a Ted turn. The first being the week before when Ted surprised Orton by pinning him in the main event clusterf*ck for...something or other, which led to the "match" as Ted's punishment. The crowd responded to it really well, because the match itself was brilliant and tremendously well worked, but it came out of absolutely nowhere at the time. If Ted was actually getting a babyface push, that would have been the beginning, not the culmination of it. And things went back to normal the next week so in actual fact he got no babyface push at all. People assumed that he would mainly because he was in the Marine 2 movie and was always pegged as the "future star" of the team ahead of Cody, so everyone assumed the plan was to split Ted from the group by the end of 2009 when the movie came out. But the reality is, they never even bothered. FYI, Legacy limped on as Orton's lackeys for a couple more months, until Ted pinned Orton in the Chamber and then Orton was the one who turned babyface against the both of them, leading to the triple threat at Mania 26. So we ended up with face Orton, Million Dollar Ted and Dashing Cody by the summer.

Yes NL should watch this too. I think it is the best match they had together. It gets a bit Angle-y at the end, and I'm not sure how it compares in terms of Cena's individual performance, but as a match I like it a lot.

I think Trish was legitimately the best heel in WWE/the US in 2004. That may sound like damning with faint praise depending on how you feel about that time period, but the point is for a girl in that company, it's pretty impressive.

In the interests of comparison, while I'm not going to be as eloquent as a Matt D on the subject, here are my thoughts on the July SNME match. TL;DR: I couldn't possibly disagree with you more.

I will. Just for shits and giggles tell me why I shouldn't.

I might have to run alongside you and watch the ones that I haven't seen. I don't remember the Unforgiven match at all.

I think the opposite actually. A heel turn wouldn't work because most of the guys who hate him would immediately start liking him, because heels are cool and are better workers. Plus at this point, everyone would be too relieved that it finally happened to truly hate it.

The last time I watched this I think I called it something like the first 10 minutes of a good 15 minute match. People sh*t on it ridiculously but it's not a bad match, more just an average match that ended really abruptly just when it should have got going. From memory Shawn Michaels said that he and Angle went really long in their match, so it's probable they had to shave some minutes from this match on the night, which goes some way in explaining why it was so weird.

This is something I am going to explore in depth at some point. I feel like Cena was always good. Every time I see something of his from 2002-05 I like it and am impressed with how good he looked, especially relative to common sensibility at the time.

Jose Lothario?

Its a shame Rosa is apparently having issues IRL because they had a great slow-burning relationship tease going on like two years ago on Smackdown and I so wanted it to come to fruition.

I could. I wrote up a piece HERE on Cena/Punk from February that basically walks through their intentions. I've done detailed bits on all their previous matches as well, but I don't remember how narrative based they were off hand. One that immediately comes to mind is the small novel I wrote on Rock vs Cena I, which was all about the way the match built from Cena's end: It didn't really lead to anything different in the booking, of course, but the point is that if you look closely at a lot of Cena's big matches I think you can see the kind of 'train of thought' details that you're looking for.

This is mine. I watched this match quite a few times before I learned about the context and never once realised that it wasn't supposed to happen that way. The way they not only hold the match together but also perfectly incorporated it into the Steph angle by having her drag him back out was amazing.

When current wrestling gets exciting again I lose interest in writing to fix it. But I should get back to this. Alternate WWE Universe happenings before this week's show; Relevant Extreme Rules PPV results from 25th April: - Hart Dynasty defeat ShoMiz for the Tag Team Titles when Miz submits to the Sharpshooter. - CM Punk defeats Rey Mysterio when Joey Mercury debuts as the mysterious hooded third man. - Edge defeats Chris Jericho in the cage for the World Title (in my alternate universe, I scrapped the WM 26 MITB match in anticipation of the July MITB PPV, which means no Swagger cash in). The WWE Draft is held on 26th April with a special three-hour edition of Raw. Relevant results: - ShoMiz lose a tag team title rematch, Show gets traded to Smackdown, KO punches Miz to end their tag team. - Chris Jericho gets traded to Raw - R-Truth gets traded to Raw - Christian gets traded to Smackdown So in terms of the NXT Pros, we end up with Miz, Jericho, Truth, Regal & Carlito on Raw, and Punk, Matt and Christian on Smackdown. And so we resume... NXT Season 1, Week 5 27th April 2010 from Hershey, PA "Wild and Young", opening video, fireworks, etc. Heath Slater & Christian vs Skip Sheffield & William Regal Christian and Regal pick up where their ECW rivalry left off and do some more work together. Christian and Slater continue to work well as a team, while Regal and Skip are prone to comedic miscommunications. Finish comes when, of course, Christian hits Regal with the Killswitch. > Christian pins Regal Heath Slater 1-1 : Skip Sheffield 1-1 Backstage the camera meets Miz as he enters the building, sporting a huge shiner on his eye. He is asked about his woes of the last 48 hours, but before he can go off on one Bryan walks up trying not to smirk, and failing miserably. Bryan jokes about his black eye. Miz gets angry and asks Bryan where he gets off saying things like "The Hart Dynasty will tie The Miz in knots." (in Miz's annoying high-pitched mimicking voice) Bryan points out that he was right, and Miz says he'd like to have seen Bryan not tap to the Sharpshooter. Bryan tells him he knows at least five counters to the Sharpshooter, and would have been happy to help train him for the submission match if he'd have reached out. Miz flips out at the idea that his Rookie wants to train HIM, cuts a promo on him and ends up storming off. Bryan looks pretty bemused about the whole thing. We see Regal and Skip walking along the hallway. Regal is still a tad groggy from the Killswitch but has enough energy to chastise Skip about whatever boneheaded mistakes he made during the match, to which Skip is apologetic - all "I'm sorry Mr. Regal" - and consoles him by accidentally patting him VERY hard on the back, making Regal wince in pain. In the SES locker room, Punk is questioning a rather subdued Darren Young on the past week. "Did you have a drink yesterday?" and so on, to which Young replies in the negative. Punk looks happy and interested in Young and NXT for the first time, talking up his future as the winner of NXT and a Straight Edge ambassador, while Gallows and Serena are sullen and jealous at the attention Punk is giving Young. We see a series of cut away interviews on the character and ability of David Otunga. Jericho and Matt talk about facing him in the ring - "he has raw power, just needs to put the pieces together" type stuff. Random people talk about how much of a dick he is, acting above everyone else and not even shaking hands or introducing himself to WWE Superstars like he should. Miz on the other hand raves about his A List cred and superstar potential. R-Truth tries to defend him and says that he just needs to learn how to conduct himself properly, but admits that so far Otunga hasn't really been listening to him. This leads to the David Otunga promo video featuring "Google me." Backstage the camera catches sight of Jericho and he is asked about how he feels losing the World Title to Edge and being traded to Raw. Jericho pouts and ignores the question. Wade Barrett comes to save him and tells them to talk about him instead, and cuts a promo about being dominant on NXT. A Michael Tarver promo video airs to lead into the main event. Daniel Bryan & The Miz vs Michael Tarver & Carlito Bryan brushes past Miz to do his ramp skip thing. These guys continue to just not get along during the match, arguing about who starts, tagging in and out aggressively, and so on. Bryan once again seems to look a lot better than Miz wrestling-wise. Tarver is intense but also kind of shitty, Carlito is late-era Carlito. In the end another argument between Bryan and Miz leads to Carlito rolling Bryan up and putting his feet on the ropes to steal it. Post-match both men blame the other and continue to argue. > Carlito pins Bryan Daniel Bryan 0-2 : Michael Tarver 1-1 Next week on NXT, the next stage of the competition is revealed as the Rookies keep searching for precious wins.