Bierschwale

Yeah, exactly. If you work from the starting point of the opening question ("What arguments does X-Pac have to even be in a conversation with an all-time great like Arn?") and the case is laid out through the entire thread, pretty clearly, that there's reason to put him within the same tier, which is the actual argument.

It seems weird to credit JR with finding the Hardys, They had already been regular jobbers as teens up and down the east coast by '96.

I thought that it was awesome. The most that I've liked any of the four since Battleground last year.

At least NJ stole it for the G1 winner and have used it terribly, too.

The surprise cash-ins have made it so that you already know that there's a 90% chance of a heel win, and now with only one title, the pool of potential winners is going to be much smaller. They haven't booked it creatively at all, and it's kind of deranged to me that there's only been one DQ loss on a cash-in. It's just played the fuck out. I'd also say that it has the same problem that EC had/has, in that with so many competitors, the matches themselves just don't stay memorable.

If Ziggler could be a WHC, I think Waltman could have, too.

One other thing for Waltman that doesn't put him above Arn but should be mentioned: If he's put in a slightly different era from his own, he could be a consistent singles main eventer. Can this really be said about Arn?

Yeah, an elbow drop off of the top of an ambulance is pretentious.

I'm absolutely in the bag for Ambrose at this point but he did a lot of things that were kind of amazing in that match, like hitting the rebound lariat off of the stretcher, because OF COURSE HE'S GONNA. It's a great signature spot for him, because it's so stubborn. Him doing the sign of the cross before climbing onto the ambulance was a bizarrely affecting unexpected touch, too. Wyatt as killer whale never gets old either, but they really put a lot of character and psychology (without any bullshit at all) into what's such an ineffective gimmick. Better on rewatch.

Oz-Takako was one of the weirder inter-promotional era feuds. They feuded because "why wouldn't they?", I guess, so it's never a really compelling story. Also, yeah, a straight brawl between the two of them isn't exactly what will pay the bills. A submission match would have been better and made for good foreshadowing for Takako's career. Still enjoyed this, and it's definitely the best-dressed wild fight.

But had he not come out, Kane/Show could have whomped him at will and left him for dead until Rusev, as the only other man left in the match, reentered the ring and tossed him out.

I think that Orton-Rollins is a must for Fast Lane, but absolutely cannot comprehend it as a WM match. I said before that I'd include Orton in a Team HHH-Team Sting six-man, which frees Rollins to actually provide closure to the Ambrose feud which I think is the perfect mechanism to turn him face. I don't think that a straight double turn with Reigns works, because I think that he needs to turn heel before Rollins goes face. He can't just become a face because he gets excised by The Authority, he needs his redemption (in a good, brutal match with Ambrose that makes Rollins realize who he "truly is") before the turn.

Maybe a super-troll match with Reigns, Bryan (because he has the right to a match for the title), Ambrose, Ryback, Wyatt, and Ziggler (the four eliminated by Kane and Show together, in order to show that The Authority believes in a fair fight) in a six-pack for the WM title shot. Just a total "fuck you".

Open question, but since I first saw the Danny Cannon-Kongo match on SC, do you think that Cannon might be the right type of flyer to put with Thatcher and get a really legit match out of it? His style of rolling in and out of spots seems like it'd play well to someone looking to torture him on the mat.

I'm pulling for HHH & Barrett/Big Show vs. Sting & Orton/Ziggler. I just can't deal with the prospect of a HHH-Sting singles match, no matter how elaborate the smoke and mirrors.

Rollins gave an incredible underdog babyface performance for most of the match. So of course his character has to be anything but an underdog babyface.

So the guy who can audible a Phoenix Splash is supposed to be our top heel.

Brock looks like he's blown three or four heart valves.

Will that month's worth of selling his left leg like it has gangrene pay off in a meaningful run in the Rumble for Ambrose? Of course it won't.

Can that be applied to the YBs winning best move with the stupidest looking maneuver of all time, as a weird form of ass-kissery or should I not be surprised when the Canadian Destroyer won like three years running, and the fucking Rainmaker was the two-time defending champ? And Heyman is incredibly effective at getting over the only thing that he cares about getting over, which is himself.

They were pretty good with that, actually, when I think that "faces not saving other faces" is often a huge weakness. The locker room save that led to the 11-on-3 match, the Rhodes Bros./Usos bailing him and Punk out from the combined Shield/Wyatts attack, and The Shield's save the night after WM all come to mind quickly enough. The only times when he wasn't that stand out are the first HHH beatdown (where Bryan got him with the punt to the head while Trips was standing over him which was the most important thing), the absurd one with the fake cops, and the write-out with Kane. All of those had storyline purpose instead of the babyfaces just not getting off of their asses.

I was incredibly pleased by that main event.

Because the Big Happy WrestleMania Ending actually works, and cash-ins aren't anything different at this point. They've had 14 MITB matches in the last ten years, and 11 successful cash-ins coming after a title match and four after a title change. A cash-in would be a heel version of the finish of WM IX that everyone has ridiculed since the moment it happened, except that it wouldn't be a Hogan ego-boost, it'd be a Vince ego-boost. Or a HHH ego-boost, or whoever comes up with it.

I can't understand the people who want Rollins to cash in after the WM main at all.

Well, he has the best chance of anyone that Heyman will be told under threat of death to not just talk about himself.