Jimmy Redman

LOL. For the hell of it, here's another one... Nattie (in front of pink screen): You know, maybe it's wrong of me, but I feel threatened by TJ's friendship with Cesaro. Flashbacks of TJ and Cesaro acting like two puppy dogs in love. Nattie's Mom [at the house with cats nipping at her sandals]: When I was your age, dear, I felt the same way about your dad's friendship with Uncle Bret. Nattie: I know, Mommy, but that was Uncle Bret and Daddy. This is different. This thing with TJ and Cesaro, I don't know, it's... Nattie's Mom: (Puts her arms around Nattie) You have to let TJ have his own friends and his own life. He's been through so much this year already. Nattie (in front of pink screen): I've decided that if TJ can have a best friend, so can I! Flashback footage of Nattie sharing coffee and giggling with the newest Total Divas cast member Renee Young. Nattie (in front of pink screen): I'm really nervous aboot asking Renee Young to be my new BFF. She seems so with it, so together. What if she says no? Awesome. I think my favourite Nattie moment was another "ring general" thing, that moment in one of the early seasons when she pees a little in the ring, and she goes ballistic cutting promos on Alicia for kicking her in the bladder and making her pee because "I HAVE NEVER BEEN KICKED IN THE STOMACH DURING A MATCH BEFORE~!" As if a boot to the gut isn't the first move and a constant transition in basically every WWE match in recorded history. But she's NEVER been kicked in the gut before!

Octagon at #26! I popped!

I feel like I probably do have opinions on every single semi-forgotten act WWE has had in the last 15 years. Bombard away.

Two minutes into NXT this week and they're playing the Jordan and Gable post-match interview and I'm crying even more than he is. Fuck man. Seems like this show will just be recapping Takeover and showing Crews/Drifter, which still makes it a better show than Mania.

I also voted for Pete Roberts, and he's a guy who people really should give a fair shake to if they haven't yet. I also wish he could have been higher on the final list.

That is undeniably true. What a world we live in.

His cousin The Rock had a flamethrower. He could wipe out every smark in the country with that thing.

As I was telling Parv, I experienced immense personal failure when, after listening to Parv sigh all over the place about Inoki and making a big deal about how I didn't want to do that for my list, I did, in fact, get to Edge and let out a big ass Inoki sigh. It's not BIGLAV or objectivity as much as the fact that he has a very long list of Great Matches and I am partial to a long list of Great Matches. Thanks for all the kind words guys. I'm glad we pulled it off because we truly don't know what we're doing.

Seeing the list roll out, it occurs to me that I probably won't be the high vote on very many guys on the bottom half of my ballot, if at all (apart from the obvious). The second half of my ballot is largely filled with guys that are actually pretty popular, but I've only seen enough/liked enough to put them as far as they are, and in most cases there are plenty of people who rate them much higher. It may only be once we get into like the 50s that my favourites come up that only I'm high on.

Yep this has been my favourite so far.

I think it's pretty obvious that Demon Finn stole Ambrose's chainsaw to use for his NXT entrance and used up all the petrol, causing it to not start at Mania. This will be the impetus for them to feud in 2018. Long term build.

Sasha would fucking LOVE a 36 disc Eddie comp. Someone hook a girl up. On Bayley/Asuka, you brought up the amount of offense Bayley got in, and I've seen that noted by quite a few people after the show, but I really like it and think it fits perfectly for a few reasons. Firstly, it fits with what Bayley's been doing. She's obviously an underdog babyface, but her underdog-ness comes more from her sympathetic, sweet nature than her size or ability levels. In the beginning she was the shy, sweet girl who couldn't really compete in the land of sharks, but she's clearly grown up and isn't that girl anymore. She's risen to the top of NXT, improved tremendously along the way, and since winning the belt she's been working as an ace way more than as an underdog. She's grown into her role. Furthermore, when Bayley meets a challenge she rises to it. In her big Brooklyn title match, she came out swinging and wailed on Sasha for a long time. When Sasha went after her broken hand, Bayley responded at Respect by stomping the shit out of her in retaliation! When she faced a monster in Nia, she threw her whole arsenal at her. So when faced with the challenge of the ass kicking grappler Asuka, she rises to the challenge and trades holds with her, bangs with her, and basically shows that she's up for it, and that there's a reason why she's the champ. It's consistent with how she's worked big matches so far. Secondly, in a completely different way it also fits perfectly with what Asuka has been doing, and how they treat her at Takeovers specifically. On TV Asuka faces jobber girls and basically works extended squashes with them. Every now and then she'll have a semi big match like vs Dana, and they'll do a little more, but she'll still be dominant. Then when she works at Takeover, she'll work much more even and her opponent (Emma) gets a lot more in. Asuka is booked dominant on TV so that when she gets to the big shows, the fact that she is challenged by her opponent is a big deal. It protects her, and it also REALLY puts over the idea of the Takeovers as big shows, shows where the really special matches happen that you just don't see on TV. I love it on all levels.

Of all the comedy in wrestling, I don't know why Joey Ryan is any more egregious than anything else.

https://soundcloud.com/jerryvonkramer/parejas-increibles-1 As the Greatest Wrestler Ever countdown begins the podcast party continues, as Matt D and Jimmy Redman come together across oceans, timezones and wrestling philosophies to talk about their GWE ballots. The first of what will be many hour-ish long shows takes us through 100-85.

My guess is that it's a woman.

I can see the storyline now... Maryse: My husband doesn't have the biggest tool in the shed, but he satisfies me. I don't know though, should I see what else is out there? Nikki: Girl, if you're not sure about your man, you should totally, you know, explore your options. Just don't ever tell Mike [Miz] about it. [ignoring that they're filming this for the whole world.] Cue a wacky misadventure involving den mother Nattie trying to help Maryse find a male prostitute. Nattie: [in front of a pink background] If Maryse is not happy in the bedroom, she won't be happy in the ring. That could put me and the other girls in danger. I have to protect myself out there, and helping Maryse with her love life is the only way I can do that. There is nothing about this that I can't believe wouldn't actually happen. Nattie's promo in particular is spot on. You should write her promos.

Sees thread title: Reads thread: GIFSoup

I think a strong case for Takaiwa could be put forward since he is still going strong, though it is more piecing together fun performances in tag matches and the occasional great match than an obviously great run, especially for folks who follow japanese wrestling more casually. Big pop for Dean's picks. I am sure he won't disappoint. I also wonder how many Battlarts wrestlers we're gonna go through before we get to Trish Stratus. Assuming brainfollower put in his ballot, quite a few I hope.

You can see that in pockets over the years, when they do something like have Randy Orton win the World Title at 24 years of age, because they wanted someone to beat Brock's record so they could use "youngest World Heavyweight Champion in history" as a talking point for a chosen one like Randy forever. But yeah it's gone into hyperdrive, trying to manufacture Wrestlemania Moments ™ basically before they've even happened just to be able to write their own narrative.

I love how they had Lita - a former Women's Champion - announce that this was the "first ever Women's Championship". I thought it was just a Lita flub...and then they kept saying it. Minor details are one thing but they had a Women's Championship for literally their entire history save for the last six years. The level of ignoring history there was staggering, even for WWE standards. Like, they were literally showing clips of the Women's Championship while they were saying this.

Definitely on Charlotte. That's why she was the choice to win the belt back at the start of the angle. She's going to get a lot of opportunities just because she's El Hija Del Flair.

You are the only cloud yeller. Ladder clusterfucks are fun!

Tip of the cap to the Chris Masters voters!

Buff. Bagwell.

That's a good point though. A guy winning a lot isn't always the same as being pushed strongly. There was a big thing a while ago where I think Parv went into Roman's push and how he's actually not protected that much in terms of wins and losses. BUT despite that he clearly is being pushed as the next big thing. It's all about TV time and presence in main feuds and how they are presented by the announcers. If they just say something over and over enough times, it will be true. On one hand it just goes to show you how much they have separated wins/losses and pushes in their minds. You can add Ryback in 2012 to the list of guys who got way over just from simply being booked strongly and winning all the time. It works it's just that they're not willing to do it for their actual top guys. They seem to think the only reason Bryan worked was because they held him down, so now the top face has to be "held down" all the time to get sympathy, so they lose and get screwed over and over, like they're trapped in some perpetual Ricky Morton segment. And in Roman's case it makes zero sense. This company has been built for decades on a dominant babyface champion, right up to Cena, and for some reason they've all got amnesia about it now.