MoS

You have been weirdly aggressive and really annoying. First off, you are wrong about what Pedro meant. When he won the title for the first time, Bruno was burnt out and did not want to wrestle much, if at all. For the first year or so of Pedro's title reign, he only wrestled in his tiny hometown of Pittsburgh, and that was just cuz he was also a co-promoter there. Pedro was absolutely THE guy. His reign ended only cuz he did not draw as well outside of NYC as Bruno had, therefore Vince Sr. basically had to beg Bruno to come back and take the belt again. It is also weird that you claim that Pedro was not THE guy, and then say that WWE has been catering to POC audience by pushing....Mustafa Ali. Bobby Lashley, who was doing absolutely nothing until he lucked into MVP being a lifesaver. Like, Mustafa Ali is your go-to example to try and claim that WWE has tried to cater to PoCs? Also, FWIW, Joeg is not trying to target only WWE in his criticism, which is something you have claimed multiple times, in really aggressive ways as "annoying 10-year dated smark talking points" or whatever. He has frequently criticised AEW of the same thing, mentioning that all the tippy top guys there are skinny white guys in their 30s. You may not agree with it, but don't go ascribing bad faith motivations when there are none.

Completely agreed that MMA and wrestling should be split off for box office draw. Apart from the reason you correctly stated, the nature of the business of wrestling and MMA has become so different too. MMA is now a primarily PPV industry, while wrestling is a ratings business now

Hager revealed it recently on a podcast with Jericho. As I said, the reaction he got was the opposite of what he must have been expecting lol Triple H used to try his best lol. It just would never work on account of Rock being a million times more charismatic than Hunter could ever be

He also refused to put over Jack Swagger, and it was one of the few things that unified wrestling twitter, cuz literally everyone was like "He was right to do that, good decision by Cena." Also, while Cena is right up there, I would still put Rock over him. As I said in my OP, Cena had the more squashy, jobber-y losses, but he was also booked like a superman in some of his matches. Certainly his booking run had him feel like a Superman far more than Rock's run. Rock's run was much briefer (although obviously had much higher highs) and even during that run, he was jobbing clean to Big Bossman, E&C, and even tapping to a Chris Benoit crossface. I guess this might be due to the fact that Cena was the undisputed number one guy in his run, while Rock always felt like the 1A to Stone Cold's 1, even when Austin was off TV for most of the year. I still think Rock would be my pick for the most unselfish top guy.

I know Baba relegated himself to comedy 6-mans when he got older, but did he ever put over someone as conclusively and in an epoch-marking way as Jumbo put over Misawa or even Misawa did for Kobashi in 03?

I think Darby Allin and Private Party in particular are potential superstars on AEW's roster. Darby in particular I see REALLY appealing to teenagers and kids

jdw's puro reports were excellent too

Apropos of nothing, but Mox is literally the coolest motherfucker in pro wrestling since Austin/Rock

Thanks very much!

Watching a section of WWE apologists lose their minds about the Observer awards and bitching about AEW bias and anti-WWE bias is hilarious. A year with some of the worst booking in WWE history while they lost a record amount of viewers has led to WWE getting shafted in the awards, how shocking

What is the usual training routine for the Performance Center trainees? What are the drills and programs that they follow?

I dunno how many people agree with me on this, but I prefer face Flair to heel Flair, and I've always been disappointed that I didn't see more of face Flair when he was in his prime

Thanks a lot! You're a good brother and I really wanted some joke ready to own your ass, but I couldn't accomplish it. So I will just hope you keep sharing extremely insightful, productive wrestling discussions during our lives!, even though they are from another board like modern-day DVDVR EWWW

Thank you so much, good bubba @KawadaSmile!!! I just told my mom about this place where all of us just fight with each other about a niche topic no one cares about, and mom literally just said "Well, whatever, I hope you all are happy and hopeful about the coming life"

The only contribution I will have here is that the official starting and process happens as quick as we can process any new footage. Of course, we will always disagree on what the footage meant/means, but we need to get to and understand what that footage means, at the very least! Anyway, discussions and debates will be much more fruitful if we name and link them, just so the newer kids no what we are fighting about

Thanks so much guys, this is basically the greatest achievement I will ever have in my life, it doesn't even matter what I go on to do for the rest of years on our planet. This is the peak

Wow, I seem to have started a discussion that does deserve a thread. Anyway, not to interrupt, but I GOT STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN TO WISH MY MOM A HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND I AM SO FUCKING HAPPY!! This made my mom's day!!!

I totally understand the spirit of what you were saying. On the other hand though, I think the Hart Foundation is like, the most overrated tag team in WWF history ever, which means that while I loved the character work and personality that Anvil brought to the matches, his actual in-ring work was absolutely terrible. It's very damning in my opinion cuz that meant Bret was carrying on his shoulders the work part of the matches, but he himself had zero kind of captivating character or personality, so it made the matches quite boring. I think the first time Bret got a defined character he could focus on and sink his teeth into, was with the Piper and Davey matches in 1992. His in-ring work became a lot more memorable after that

lol yeah, Tony was literally reminiscing with Mike Simpervieve about all the discussions and arguments they used to have on DVDVR 20 years ago. Dude is most definitely is one of us, for good and for bad

Ha! True, but I really don't think Riho is getting the title back. I don't think AEW is putting the title on her again

Here, eat your heart out. Imo, it's definitely him. And I am delighted that the biggest competition and scare Vince has had in this millennium is a DVDVR shitposter and PWO lurker

Can you at least link us to what you said please

I am a massive Shida fan, I think she has had excellent matches. I also think people who hate Riho are stupid, cuz not only are her matches great, but she is a proven ratings draw, every match she has had has gained viewers, and during the crowd era, her matches would get increasingly more heat as they progress, which is a surefire shot of a great worker and a box office draw. I just think that, given Britt's excellent segments and promos, she feels like she has a lot more upside than either Riho or Shida, and she can be a great champ and the only one who elevates the women's division to truly another level. It's why I feel the belt needs her. The old-school mentality of the belt going to the most over person

Absolutely stunned that Britt lost. She is by far the biggest (only?) star in the women's division, the belt needs her. It's the only case in major league American wrestling today where the world title needs someone more than the person needs the world title. Instead, she lost to Nyla and like, when was the last time Nyla was even on Dynamite? Not stunned that Fenix lost, but still disappointed. He needs to win big singles matches. He is otherworldly great, and definitely can be world champ. So far he is the wrestler of the year for me, this Archer match was tremendous as well

When did the commentators start calling Taker the "best pure striker in history"? Cuz that always seemed to me to be ridiculous and plainly stupid, even by pro wrestling standards. Taker's punches were fine, but not even slightly close to the all-time great tier. And given he basically never threw any other strike apart from punches, this bold claim was made because of his punches