Jimmy Redman

Funny, I remember that the first time they did a Raw in Edmonton after Benoit (in 2011, granted), John Cena used the crossface in the main event.

They can align RVD with Heyman when/if he wears out his welcome as something new for him to do, but yeah, thinking you could bring him back as a heel is pretty insane.

Fair enough. To be honest I am only basing this off the one part of the match I saw, where one of the guys (I want to say Brisco maybe?) took a "shot" and propelled himself over the top rope to the floor in basically the same way mechanically as he would if he was working properly (apart from landing on his feet at the end). My general point is that the business exposing aspect of it wasn't in the storyline reasons for "faking" a match, but in the way that watching a "fake" match just sort of reminds you that all matches are fake, if that makes sense, because you see these guys co operate and take their own bumps and so on. Which we all know of course, but again it is just that "don't throw it in my face" thing.

I think the issue is not so much with their motivation (which was kayfabe enough), but the actual way it was worked. Doing things like fingerpokes and taking ridiculous bumps over the top rope as a joke are a visual reminder to the viewer that guys take pretty much the same ridiculous bumps in other matches too...except those are supposed to be serious. That is the way in which it calls attention to the worked nature of wrestling. It has nothing to do with their kayfabe motivation, and everything to do with them visually mocking the way matches are worked. I think a better example to compare this to, instead of the Fingerpoke of Doom, would be the Shawn Michaels vs Triple H European Title "match" where they pretended to fight each other. Their motivation was kayfabe too (you're trying to force me to fight my buddy), but the end result was watching them go through what are supposed to be (in kayfabe) the legit motions of wrestling in a way that makes it visually clear that it isn't legit at all. Not saying that you couldn't enjoy either of them, or couldn't ignore that aspect of it, but it is clearly meta. This is basically just Meltzer's way of saying "We know it's fake, you don't have to beat us over the head with the fakeness."

There's the BxB Hulk vs Shingo Hair vs Title match from July 2010, don't remember the exact date.

Hunter's compulsive need to be the smartest man in the room any time he's on TV is hilarious.

And to add to that, TNA seem to make a point of having whatever newly-created faction constantly beat the crap out of the guys that TNA fans actually care about or could care about, rendering them progressively more and more useless while they try to push a faction full of jabronis down their throats. The Main Event Mafia basically reached the point of self-parody, where the entire angle consisted of nothing but old, tired WCW main eventers beating the AJ Styleses of the world over and over and over again ad nauseum.

I've seen Cena/Orton '07 multiple times in the last year and am still amazed at how great it is. And I also don't have a problem with the Bragging Rights tapout. If Orton was a babyface, sure he should have valiantly held on through the time limit to force overtime. But he was the heel, he's not supposed to be valiant. He was in excruciating pain and couldn't hold on any longer, whether he could hear/see the time ticking down or not. I think the amount of subs that happen in MMA close to a round ending are proof enough that it wasn't unrealistic.

I think it is in the Top Five, and I'm not entirely sure that the SD match wasn't better.

Waste or not, I just watched it and it was completely amazing. I don't want to give everything away for the rest of you, but for anyone who has been into the "The Shield always play the numbers in their favour" angle, watch for the payoff here.

This is what I'm thinking too. Ever since their first loss of any kind (which I want to say was Ambrose losing to Taker) the Shield have quietly been collecting quite a few losses for an "undefeated" team, dropping singles matches and getting out of more and more tags and six-man tags via DQ. And it hasn't slowed them down or killed the angle at all. The goalposts keep moving because every time you think (in kayfabe) that they might suffer a setback (members getting pinned, losing six-mans by DQ, now their first proper six-man loss) they always seem to just absorb it and keep pushing on as if nobody had made a dent in them at all. The Shield angle has basically centered around "Who can stop the Shield?", and this question becomes even harder to answer if beating them in a six-man tag isn't the silver bullet for the faces that we all thought it would be. Now what on earth is it going to take to stop the Shield? Taking their belts? That is the next logical step, but will THAT even stop them? It is easy to go into damage control because we all love the angle and want it to continue, but honestly while it sounds like a horrible idea on paper, I'm not so sure it is going to ruin anything in reality.

No one works like Kofi Kingston now. He's relatively over in part due to how he works. He's vaguely marketable that way. No one says he's actually any good. I do. *hides*

Basically that. And to tie it all back to the original post and thread title, more than anything it is just a shame that a guy with that much talent, and who had that much stock and promise at the time that Joe had, ended up with such a mediocre career after being almost completely derailed by booking. Especially considering the careers that his contemporaries ended up having. It just kind of went all wrong for Joe.

He certainly ended up doing better than Umaga... Well yes, but I wasn't comparing their situations in life so much as their respective pushes and booking. In the ensuing 12 months after the debut of the Samoan savage character Joe was apparently so lucky to have avoided (not that I believe Joe was ever going to be Umaga, but others claimed it, and regardless the comparison was a common one at the time), Joe failed to win the title off Jarrett, lost to Angle and had Russo come in and kill him fairly dead, while Umaga was protected mercilessly, had two PPV main events with Cena and then was part of the biggest drawing wrestling match of all time. Joe should have been so unlucky.

What makes Joe's situation even more sad/hilarious is when you think back to 2006 and the amount of people who went "Oh My God, look at that guy in face paint playing a Samoan Savage character in 2006! Thank God Samoa Joe re-signed with TNA where he'll be respected instead of ending up as Umaga!" Yep.

If you liked that AJ/Daniels match, you should definitely check out their LMS from 2012. It bring the hate in a similar way.

Yeah, that aspect isn't surprising at all. He's one of the top post-Attitude stars who aren't Cena (along with Orton, Batista, Jeff Hardy, Punk, Rey), and especially now with his sudden retirement and rushed HOF induction, he is firmly positioned as a WWE Legend to the current generation. This is a weird blast from the past too, as I was actually the one who supplied the research to Meltzer in the first place. Amazing how bored I used to be at uni.

This always drove me insane. I have also noticed that Cole and co. have started to do it on WWE TV too (especially in the service of replaying the same Hunter/Cena angle 47,000 times in one week) and it is incredibly annoying.

I'm pretty sure the amazing Rey vs Noble match was 1st May 2004. I don't know if this is a coincidence or not but wwe.com have a list up at the moment of the Top 10 Velocity matches http://www.wwe.com/classics/10-best-wwe-velocity-matches I suppose the Cena vs Danielson match should be included for historical significance.

I think with Hunter, when it comes down to it the fans generally like him and respect him for who he is, but he isn't really beloved. He isn't held with the same reverence that, say, Shawn Michaels or Taker are. Those guys are living legends to fans, whereas Hunter is just...not quite there. But they try to book as if he is at that level, and it doesn't work. Maybe it is because he was always a heel and pretty ineffectual as a face outside of DX. Maybe it is because everyone knows about his relationship with Steph and can't help but feel he hasn't earned everything he's got. Maybe it is because he has been constantly pushed down people's throats for 15 years now without respite and it feels artificial. Maybe it is because he is booked so strongly all the time and has a hard time showing the vulnerability that makes people empathise with you. I don't know. But it seems they will never stop booking him as Hunter The Living Legend in these big angles until people start giving them the desired reaction, without realising that the way they portray him as such an infallible badass means they are never going to get it.

He didn't seem too worried about that when he said he would break Sting's neck before the match. Plus he didn't have to fatally stab him. Just a little poke.

I also thought that Bully should have stabbed Sting with the knife. In reality they should have maybe had a spot where Bully picks it up and attempts to before being dodged and the knife discarded, just to show that he had the intention of using it, if that makes sense.

Matt Hardy during his post-Edge run on Smackdown. You could even say Jeff as well, even though he did get a main event level push eventually.

Depending on when exactly you reviewed this originally and where you found that list, it is entirely possible that I am the alleged drug addict in question. I know I definitely put it on a list of my TNA Top 10 sometime in the last 12 months, and it isn't a match I see mentioned by other people much, if at all. Whether it was me or not, I'll say that I rate the match highly for two reasons. One, as far as spotfests go I thought it was far more than just fun and was in fact really freaking excellent. I loved all of the big spots and bumps, and as you say AJ is working for quite a few men in it. I am a nut for these kind of spotfests when they are done right, and I thought this one was done really, really right. Two, I am fairly certain this was the first match I watched when I went back to 2005 and revisited the X Division glory days, so I think the excitement of seeing everything again as it should be, so to speak, blew me away a little after so many years of being so tired of TNA. It made me remember all over again why I love AJ so much. I agree with your rankings otherwise though. The AJ/Abyss cage match is unreal, the Joe matches rule, and after watching most of the important X-D matches of 2005 I came away thinking Unbreakable was possibly the weakest one, even though it had the most hype.

They do OK referencing Cesaro's "rugby background" and how that makes him aggressive in the ring. The thigh wraps aren't really OTT or gimmicky at all. Of course that is JBL's influence in repping his favourite sport, just like JR did. Unless that counts as football but I assume you meant American Football. For a different one, they do push Gabriel as an extreme sports nut and link it to his high-risk in-ring style.