MoS

If I am being honest, yeah, this question came to me cuz I was reading an Observer, not from 1990, but from sometime in the 00s, when Dave was discussing Aja's HOF credentials, and he mentioned this. Regardless, what do you think of Dump, and how would you compare her to Aja? I agree Aja is a better worker, but Dump had a presence that was out of this world. I have seen matches with the Crush Gals where she is like, drinking their blood almost, and everyone in the crowd is weeping

So, in hindsight, what was the use of EVIL getting the world title? Did it accomplish anything? When it happened, people pointed to Jay White as Gedo elevating a heel by giving him the world title. But while White was absolutely elevated and became a main eventer, can the same really be said about EVIL? That reign seems so completely pointless. I would have kept the title on Naito but given Ospereay the big win yesterday to elevate him to the main event.

Incidentally, someone asked Cardi what she thinks of Sasha, and Cardi said Sasha is great and that she's a Sasha fan

I thought Hiromu-Ishimorinwas an unfocused confusing match with a bunch of high spots laid together in a haphazard way. There was some attempt at working Hiromu's arm that would promptly get forgotten as soon as it was time for the next high spot. I liked the main event, but there was no reason for it to go 48 minutes. They could have easily gone 10 less minutes. Regardless, Ibushi was the MVP of the 2-day event and I look forward to his title reign.

Haha not at all. That's the thing: I don't know anyone who wants this, and I think anyone who does so is genuinely nuts

Would genuinely like to study and examine the minds of the people who want Goldberg in their world title scene in 2021

You all are going to get poor Steph injured again with all this hype

Oh don't get me wrong, I love Aja. It's just that there definitely was a narrative that she was an inferior version of Dump, and I wanted to hear your thoughts cuz reading your reviews gave me the idea that you don't like Dump too much and like Aja a whole lot more

A Sachin Tendulkar reference on a wrestling forum delights the Indian in me. 2021 shaping up to be a better year already

lol true and he did win here, but doesn't this mean Ibushi can never lose hereinafter. Like, how do you claim you are God and then lose at any point?!?!?!

The strike exchanges in Ibushi-Naito have been much better than they were in Okada-Ospereay. Maybe that means I have been overrating Okada all along. I honestly have been feeling the latter for the past few months, since Okada started doing that stupid gimmick in front of no fans. No way would Misawa-San have been so underwhelming and disappointing in a similar situation

This event is reinforcing my belief that Okada and Ibushi are the only NJPW wrestlers who are all-timers, since they are the only ones who can overcome the terrible aspects of modern NJPW house style to actually stand out and feel impressive and excellent

Watching Okada-Ospereay really drives home the point of how much I absolutely despise modern NJPW strong-style strike exchanges. They are masturbatory, self-indulgent bullshit. Like they watched Misawa-Kawada but absolutely did not understand any kind of context in their matches.

At this point, TNA has been in existence longer than Lebell's SoCal promotion, Shire's NorCal promotion, and, I *think* Mid-South as well

I would be interested in your thoughts on the narrative of heel Aja being a cheap knockoff of Dump

This has been said before, but my issue with Aldis is that he comes across as a cosplaying guy too much, not so much in the ring, but in his promos. His promos are basically "Watch Ric Flair 80s promos and emulate them" except of course it doesn't work cuz the contexts are so different

I added a poll, something I had meant to do a day back or so. I am not a big fan of polls because I find people just vote and do not actually discuss and flesh out their opinions/arguments, but I would be curious to see what the general PWO consensus is, whether I am an outlier here.

I'll give Bret this though: from 1984 to 1997, he improved every single year, which is a really long time to be constantly getting better. I don't think Bryan can claim the same over a similar time period

Come on. Development then was hardly what it is now, and the 2nd cut was purely due to PR reasons. As soon as there was enough space and distance, he was brought back... literally as a conquering hero.

I really don't, which is what I tried to clarify in my subsequent comments here. I do however think that the Hart Foundation is really overrated. I think Bret hadn't really found himself or his character during the 80s and therefore HF matches were bland and whatever personality was exhibited was by Neidhart, who is pretty one-note. Once Bret found his voice in the early '90s, his game went up several notches.

I have talked about Rey before. Angle isn't really a trailblazer, both because his olympic gold medal status created an exception that proved a rule, and because he was a main eventer in his own right for a very short time, and was disposed of with basically no change in overall mentality. As far as the others, Eddy and Benoit received "thank you" reigns that basically amounted to nothing. I don't think Jericho received even that. I do think the struggle over Bryan's main event push and presence remains an epoch-marking, transcendental change in WWE and wrestling philosophy, both for good and for bad. It is something that becomes evident imo when you look at week-to-week booking and the larger implications, which led to a substantive change in WWE main event philosophy, and the evolution of WWE main event wrestling style, which I have tried to explain in my previous posts in the thread. That said, I think you are right and raise a very valid point about the WWF house style beginning to change when the WCW talent influx happened in 2000.

On that note, it would be remiss of me if I didn't share this meme - Both Bret and Bryan >>> Shawn. I doubt that statement would lead to nearly as much discussion and debate as this thread's question has produced

I think both of us have made our points but yeah I just wanted to touch on this, cuz I feel it might require a clarification. Yes, this is based on my dislike of Diesel. Also, I am sure my posts in this thread have made me sound as if I don't rate Bret. I actually think very highly of him. I just feel he is a clear step below the all-time tier, and I feel Bryan is on that level. But that doesn't mean I think Bret was not great; he absolutely was, and he was the best WWF worker of the 90s. If anything, it's Shawn whom I dislike and who I think is terribly overrated, at least as far as his singles work is concerned.

Is there footage of this? I am assuming it was a house show match, unless my memory is completely betraying me

I think after due consideration that I am willing to concede that Bret had more memorable feuds than Bryan. I don't think that's an indictment of Bryan as much as that of modern WWE booking, which is schizophrenic, inconsistent, constantly second guessing, stop-start with no long-term planning. That means that any story involving two wrestlers is basically impossible to be memorable in modern WWE. Regardless, if you think Bret was better because he had more memorable feuds, then fair enough - your wrestling, your criteria. However, I think it would be wrong to say that Bryan hasn't had memorable storylines or angles or moments or matches. With Bryan, it's weird because even though he might not have had a lot of career opponents, his individual arc is extremely memorable because it basically became a proxy contest between fans and management, as well as an exercise in discovering that he was far more than an indie workrate guy, and thus, allowing other indie guys to ascend to the main event. The Authority stuff, the yes movement, the no movement, Team Hell-No, Eco-friendly Vegan World Champion, his WWE run is littered with memorable angles and stories. There's a real depth of resume, ever since he first won the world title and started shouting Yes, almost 10 years ago. He made Kane interesting!!