Bierschwale

I found one match on a Nitro from February 2000 where he ate in under 90 seconds to Prince Iaukea. God, all of that is terrible. Let's just say that he never did. He had four matches for the TV title (against Iaukea and Ultimo in '97, Booker in '98, and Rick Steiner in '99) which I think says something.

No way is Hunter sympathetic enough to be Ralphus.

Because this is the "ruminate upon/shit talk Hunter" Microscope thread, what's the hypothetical best possible usage of HHH in his career if he has to have a prominent and memorable role? I thought of this a while ago, but I kind of think that it's him and Waltman as an American '90s-'00s version of the Bulldogs. The DBS comparison is spot on to me. It means him playing a face, yes, but the Bulldogs ate up almost all of their matches just like Trips anyway. I feel like that that could have been really effective. Oh, and if someone had to have the personal career path as HHH in real life (fucking his way to VP of Operations), who's the best replacement? I always go with Dustin. Seems so obvious to get to have Dusty and Vince as in-laws alone.

Tim Thatcher. That's your cage monster Matanza Cueto.

I've wondered from the beginning of being a joshi fan if Aja-Bull was a really bad feud for their female audience long-term, especially when compared to Chigusa-Dump.

If you can beat LU's "person being fed alive to a cage monster", I want to see it.

The TNA end discussion killed me. Also, I'm going with Angle or Disco Inferno as the N-Bomber.

It worked, but again on Corpus Christi Wrestling History: they also ran the John Cena Appreciation Night RAW here in January. That is a hell of an attempted town-killing.

The Clash with the Horsemen-JTex cage match was in Corpus Christi. It feels like that's worth pointing out.

I think that those were the best-looking punches Cena's thrown in years.

That was a lot of finishers.

Absolutely. The Ascension look good for the first time ever... taking out both high-energy Hispanic teams. Then they kill the PTPs' heat by having Darren take out Cesaro.

Edge had about five years straight at the top of the card as a heel, but it's hard to call him a "main eventer" throughout.

I'm pro-three hour RAW but not with 20 PPVs a year.

They can't cycle talent, but they can use the shorter runs to minimize overexposure. Reigns doesn't have a match at EC and Orton hasn't been on TV since Payback.

I definitely like the Booker/Goldust RAW match more than the Austin/HHH match, and Jericho's very good in it. That Christian/Jericho team against the Hardys in their second run would have been a great feud.

I don't think that anyone has ever been better at getting over just because they're there than Sid. He has an impossible and inexplicable magnetism. Wrestling's version of Chance the Gardener.

Came to post just that. I'm pretty convinced that the dueling hot tags only exist so they can get the "panoramic" shots from the face corner.

The PTBN series about re-booking WM cards without reusing a match from the actual show has been stuck in my craw for a while, so even though this is wildly untimely at this point, I'm going to do a few. One change, though: they had the rule that you had to keep the champs as they were (and I generally will), but could change the Rumble winner, but if I can change the Rumble winner, I should also be able to change any title matches from a PPV between RR & WM. Free TV changes will stay, but the BIGGEST STOPS ON THE ROAD TO WRESTLEMANIA count as WrestleMania. Will keep all celebrities involved in a match as well. Working backwards... WrestleMania 31 1) Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal: won by Mark Henry last eliminating Hideo Itami. 2) 2/3 falls match: Goldust/Damien Mizdow vs. The Miz/Stardust. 3) WWE Tag Team Championship: Cesaro/Tyson Kidd © vs. Mark Henry/Hideo Itami vs. Kofi Kingston/Big E. Langston vs. Ryback/Dolph Ziggler. 4) Falls count anywhere: Luke Harper vs. Bray Wyatt. 5) WWE Divas Championship: Nikki Bella © vs. Charlotte vs. Paige. 6) John Cena/Randy Orton vs. Sting/The Undertaker. 7) WWE United States Championship: Daniel Bryan vs. Rusev ©. 8) WWE Intercontinental Championship ("I Quit" cage match): Dean Ambrose © vs. Seth Rollins. 9) No disqualification: AJ Lee vs. Stephanie McMahon. 10) WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Brock Lesnar © vs, Roman Reigns. 1) Excluding Henry/Itami, nobody else in the battle royal is on the rest of the card giving it a different composition from the real one. My "company man" (in terms of who's debased themselves more for the enjoyment of Vince) ranking goes Kane/Henry/Show, and I like Henry more than Kane so he gets the "lifetime achievement award" win. 2) These storylines both stalled out, unfortunately, so this is my best solution. It's easy to combine them because they had similar themes. 2/3 ensures enough time for meaningful interaction between the two original feud partners and they can do a better job repackaging Cody/Sandow post-WM than in reality. 3) Hate to squeeze out the Usos but Jey was already hurt and I wanted to keep the "cruiser/bruiser" theme going. Originally booked as a four-way until the Usos are ruled out earlier in the day, they get to pick their replacements, so they go to Henry and ask him to pick his own partner and he picks Itami. Not anything that would need to go anywhere further than that, but it'd be a nice moment. 4) Wouldn't have to be a blowoff as much as just two dudes with history having a good brawl. They can reform the Family later, it doesn't matter. 5) Flairs gonna flair. 6) Okay, so, I don't really like Sting-'Taker as a dream match. The dynamics of it are weird, especially at WM. We got a "dream match" that wasn't really a dream match in reality, so I'm just going to have a better not-dream match that's a lot more interesting, at least. Cena doesn't have anything much to do without the Rusev feud, and Orton-Rollins didn't need to be a Mania match. Orton comes back in January and gets into what becomes a four-way at the Rumble (because I don't care enough about that match that I don't mind changing it) and the Orton-Rollins blowoff is at Fastlane. This is the Authority going amok and pitting their enemies against each other. It's face-face and just a generational battle. Old guys go over because duh. 7) So Daniel Bryan might need something to do, right? Well, here we go. It can be America vs. Russia, but America from the perspective of its most common man who can do the most uncommon of things. The son of a log-scaler. It's a completely fresh match that writes itself. 8) Ambrose beats Barrett at Fastlane (as Loss said, I believe, it was pretty clear in January that the IC title win at WM was Ambrose's until they realized that they'd need to give DB something to do) to take the IC title, and Rollins is just too petty to let him have it. The gimmick makes up for the failures of the HIAC match that I can't undo, and it's just two guys who have no regard for their physical well-being trapped in a cage together trying to kill each other. You can't beat Magnum-Tully, and I wouldn't even try. That was about personal hatred and masculinity fought between two guys who just hated each other. This is about betrayal and brotherhood and catharsis (and it's an "I Quit" because being able to have the mic to scream at each other enhances the personal drama, any referencing of one of the greatest matches in wrestling history is just a reference). Just two turntables and a microphone, no referee to stop the match in the unlikely event that someone might bleed. 9) If I have to have an overbooked clusterfuck where all of the build is centered on shoot aspects that desperately tries to skirt actually talking about them featuring an Authority member, I'm going to take Stephanie every day. Instead of alter kaker DX vs. alter kaker nWo, we can have the sad Authority cuckolds brawl with the many on-screen loves of April Mendez and Ronda Rousey whomping Triple H in a situation that actually matters. 10) The match that we actually saw wasn't officially Lesnar-Reigns; it was Lesnar-Reigns-Rollins. I'd like to see how that Lesnar-Reigns story might have actually ended.

A lot of Matt Hardy talk has made me want to bring this up; am I crazy for thinking that the MNM match from December to Dismember is a lot better than the Royal Rumble match (and actually one of the best WWE matches of the decade)?

I'd also say that Matt has Jericho beat for gimmick match work.

In any regard? I'd certainly call Hardy the better babyface without hesitation.

They had a match at the Electric Factory for 3PW in '03, yeah.

Yeah, this is more of a "charisma-off" than a match but it's still good viewing.

-Charles Robinson. -True Arn-style rotating spinebusters. -Chris Hamrick. -Deceptively tall guys like Barry and Dustin. -Jim Cornette on commentary. -Babyface tag matches where the one working FIP is the bigger and stronger of the two. -Wifebeater's bag of Herr's Sour Cream & Onion chips. -Every interpromotional match featuring Hokuto and LCO in their incredibly elaborate dress that is worn just to shove it in their opponents' faces that they made it in the fed that actually had money.