MoS

Find it really weird that Bret v. Owen 'made' Owen while Kofi's elevation led to nowhere. Owen remained a tag team wrestler with occasional forays to the main event after the feud was over. That is exactly the same status as Kofi. At least Kofi got to be world champ. Owen never did. Owen spent the last couple of years of his life putting over Triple H at every single opportunity despite having so much sympathy from Montreal. He ended it as a joke heel character. I think it's completely wrong to say Punk has more aura than Bryan. Maybe he did in 2016, but not even close to true now. We have discussed here how the UFC run and his subsequent actions hurt his aura bad. Oh man, I absolutely positively cannot be on board with thinking Eco-friendly World Champ Bryan promos were anything but gold. Fickle wrestling fans smh

I apologise for my tone and for calling your post ignorant. I cannot in good faith call someone's post ignorant while forgetting the Bret-Own feud, that was really stupid of me lol. I take that back

I thought their first match was excellent. The cage match is one of the worst cage matches I have seen tbh. But yeah, fair point. I am completely blanking out on the cage match. When did this happen?

These are some of the most adorable vids ever

lol please. You are far from the only person who has picked Bret here. You will notice I did not call anyone else's post ignorant. I thought your post was ignorant, and I said as much. I didn't "snipe" at you, I made an argument and backed it with examples and reasoning. I started the thread with a question, but my OP made it very clear what my opinion is. I am going to argue for my opinion, sorry. This is not a question where I need to know the correct answer. Sniping at someone is rolling your eyes at them btw. But in any case, I will say that I should not have said the part about "You picked Bret cuz you watched him as a kid" so I take that back and apologise for that. That was questioning your motive and that is poor form. I stand behind everything else I said though.

They absolutely didn't feud for the better part of 10 years. That's completely inaccurate. You cannot say on one hand that you don't count one-off appearances and matches for Bryan, yet use one-off matches between Shawn and Bret as proof that they feuded. That's logically inconsistent. They started properly feuding in 1996. After that, they had a sum total of 2 matches. Sure, they sniped at each other on promos. But there was no concentrated, focused feuding. And Bryan and Roman have been feuding since the days of Team Hell No v. Shield. Further, how is Bret and Shawn a classic, all-time feud? They had SS 1992 and WM 12, two boring matches, and one infamous match which is more about Bret v. Vince than anything. This is not something I cooked up right now either - we have discussed this before - As far as hating Wyatt; it's not as if I am a big fan either. But their match at Royal Rumble 2014 was excellent; far better than any Bret-Diesel match. Wyatt family v. Bryan had some really strong matches. I have absolutely no use for the Fiend, but Bryan had the only decent match of the Fiend's run. Your point about Bret making fans care about workrate is also incorrect imo. Bret and Shawn were pushed to the top when the steroid scandal hit and Vince needed a small non-roiding guy as champ. There was no surging momentum in favour of Bret which led to Vince changing his entire wrestling philosophy. There's the famous story of Bret being told he was going to become world champ; he actually thought he was getting fired when Vince started talking to him. It's not as if the Bret run was so successful that it permanently changed the WWE mentality. Business remained bad until the rise of Steve Austin, and the Attitude Era was the exact opposite of fans "caring about match quality." That mentality remained the same throughout the 2000s, when Vince had the famous edict that anyone hired by developmental had to be 6'4" and 250 pounds. You know who changed that mentality though? Bryan, and to an extent CM Punk. Fans dragged Vince kicking and screaming into giving Bryan the main event at WM. In fact, since the rise of Bryan as a main eventer, we have basically, withvery few exceptions, have had workrate guys as champs. WWE became a workrate territory in the late 00s and 2010s, and once again, it was Punk and Bryan at the helm. I would also give Rey credit, but Rey always seemed like the exception to the rule to me. Since then, we have seen champs like Finn Balor, AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, etc, and I would argue that none of them would have sustained main event pushes had it not been for Bryan. As far as tag teams better than the Hart Foundation, I would rank the Bulldogs, Strikeforce, the Rockers, the Brainbusters and Demolition above them. If we stretch it a bit further, the LOD were also better. Hart Foundation are really overrated - they were perfectly good, but at no point were they great.

How many times did Bret do this though? His volume is shockingly thin. His best matches are really really excellent, but there are not a whole lot of them.

This is a pretty ignorant post. Dismissing Bryan's run because "bingo halls in front of 200 people" is insulting in and of itself, but it can easily be flipped over and held against Bret because for most of the early and mid-90s, Bret was headlining in high school gyms in front of barely a thousand people because business was in the toilet. As far as classic feuds for Bryan Danuelson goes, you really should check out his stuff with Morishima. He also wrestled in Tokyo Dome. WHich, you know, is not a bingo hall. Further, he was the tag team champ in the 80s and had plenty of great teams to work with. Yet the Hart Foundation wouldn't be in the top 5 WWF teams of the 80s. You know why? Because other teams had better matches. Further, yes, there were constant reports of Bret dogging it at house shows. It was a big theme actually. One of the earliest things Shawn fans used to say was that Shawn was better cuz he does not dog it at house shows, while Bret did. The mentality of "great match" is something I can turn around and use for Bryan and against Bret. Bret worked in a system where great matches were not the expectation. However, Bret clearly cared about having great matches, because that was his only calling card. It was the only way he could get noticed. So he had plenty of motivation to put up great matches. It was the reason he didn't do much on house show but turned things up on TV and PPVs. Because he was the only one attempting to have great matches, it was easier for him to stand out. I don't believe he would have had the reputation of being the best if he was in early 90s WCW where the calibre and level of wrestling was much higher. On the other hand, when Bryan came along, everyone was trying to have a great match and steal the show. Being noticed therefore was much harder. The fact that he managed to stand out in that mentality and gain a reputation of being the best for YEARS AND YEARS is a point in his favour, not against him. He also managed to get over organically and force the promotion to push him to the top in WWE, when WWE had been a workrate promotion for years and probably wanted him to be the midcard workrate guy having great matches. Even in WWE, Bryan has the Authority feud, a feud that was not only classic and career-defining, it literally reshaped the contours of WWE booking and fan interaction and participation, the ramifications of which are still being felt to this day. Bret has the Austin feud as a classic feud and..that's it. Bret and Shawn never really had a feud, because they hated each other too much to work together. Bryan as a heel also had a great feud with Kofi. Further,Bryan-Roman is shaping up to become a pretty epic feud, since now they have wrestled each other and feuded as fellow faces, heel Bryan and face ROman, and face Bryan and heel Roman. That is exactly how you get an epic feud. As far as feuds against useless big men go, Bryan-Wyatt matches trump Bret-Diesel matches. Dismissing Bryan's run as only having incredible matches is also stupid given that at this point, he has been a WWE headliner longer than Bret ever was. He has had more WWE classic main events than Bret did. Really, your reasoning amounts to "What I saw as a kid is more important, therefore Bret is better."

This came to me cuz I recently saw a tweet which said "How has Bryan been one of the best wrestlers in the world for 20 years? Even Bret couldn't do that." For me, this makes no sense. For me, this answer is obvious. I love Bret, he is great, but Daniel Bryan is one of the GOAT contenders, clearly several steps above Bret, in the league of Flair, Jumbo, Hansen, Casas, etc. Bret is great, but he is not in that league. Bryan is. Bryan debuted in 1998. He had a bunch of great matches in 2001, and he was consistently great in 2002, and he remains a consistently best-in-the-world wrestler in 2020, and has been so during the entire time period, apart from his retirement. On the other hand, Bret was a good tag wrestler in the 80s. I know the Hart Foundation is pushed as a lot, but I think they are an overrated tag team; they are very good, but they were rarely great. He had a very good 1990s, but the only two years I can see being comparable to Daniel is 1994 and 1997. Everything else is several steps below Bryan's work. And gain, Bryan has been at this elite GOAT-level work for 20 years. So, let's all start 2021 with this debate. Whom do you all think is better? I would love to hear your thoughts on this comparison.

I have had really severe depression issues for a long time, issues that have made me self-harm and attempt suicide, and I have shared these issues right here with the good PWO brothers. Depression is not an excuse to be an asshole to other people, especially those who are going through a tragedy. Depression does not preclude accountability. I hope Bruce gets all the help he needs, but, I also hope he recognizes the harm he has caused to others, and understands and acknowledges it. No one is above apology or making mistakes and fucking up. I hope he realizes that.

Happy new year everyone! The world still sucks, but at least we have wrestling..and each other

Speaking as someone who is usually very active in the weekly threads, I was just too overwhelmed with emotions and trying to find excuses for my tears lol. I genuinely, at this moment, don't remember the last wrestling show that made me this emotional.

I don't know what to say here. Call me a mark, call me a gullible joker, call me a naive fan, call me whatever. What I do know is today's show broke me down and made me cry on multiple occasions. There have been a lot of wrestling deaths, but the last time I experienced anything close to this was when Eddy died. Nearly every segment made me emotional, and a lot of them made me weep openly. I don't even know why. I couldn't tell you. All I know is, they did have that effect on me. The final video package just killed me, man. I have no logical explanation for it. It just killed me. Rest in power, Brodie, you absolute stud.

The opening segment already has got me crying. Man, is there any wrestler that is the opposite of Brodie more than the YB. None of this matters tonight but still

Steph tweeted commiserations while acknowledging his indie (and AEW) name. I think Brodie was one of the few wrestlers who was so beloved, petty things like inter-promotional rivalry get completely transcended and overwhelmed in the wake of such tragedy. I don't remember such outpouring of love, sadness and solidarity for a wrestler literally ever. Eddy and Owen could have had this but of course A) social media wasn't around then to amplify such voices; and circumstances surrounding their deaths were far more controversial than they are here

He used to be a school teacher, but he is retired now. Dylan had a really good line about it on Twitter and it got a genuine LOL out of me -

It's Wednesday. You know what that means

Some hilarious Twitter content for you good people

If he had just said "Sorry, I fucked up", he would still have a job and would not be the most hated guy on wrestling Twitter. Brodie's son being called -1 is adorable. He seems like wrestling is his entire life. I watched a Brodie-Kingston match from Chikara today. Man, Brodie was so so great for so so long, it's crazy.

Both Marty and Jerome are fantastic here. Excellent stuff, boys

I honestly don't know what the fuck Mitchell wants. Brodie's wife in the wake of the immediate tragedy gave a short summary of what happened. Now that there are some hours to process this awful tragedy, she has shared additional details. What the fuck does Mitchell want? A signed, sealed and certified death certificate that clearly states that COVID wasn't responsible for his death? That's pathetic and embarrassing. He should be extremely ashamed of himself right now. But I bet both his sorry ass and Snowden's pathetic ass will double down even more on their previous comments.

This Alexa Bliss shit is putrid. I had turned on Raw cuz India beat Australia in test cricket in Australia, something that's exceedingly rare, so I was in a good mood. That didn't last. It's like an e-grade horror script adapted by middle-school theatre writers featuring a bunch of untrained actors. It's just awful

I legit cannot imagine sitting through 3 hours of putrid crap that is Raw. Massive respect to people who manage to do that

More details have come - he was supposed to take a couple of weeks off after the dog collar match. He felt sick during then, esp after, as was mentioned earlier in the thread, he couldn't finish a workout on his bike. They kept it quiet, but Tony Khan and the EVPs knew. It's almost as if more details would have gradually come out and satisfying the curiosity of dumbass pro wrestling reporters was not his wife's priority when she made her post. Of course Bruce Mitchell has decided to double down on it instead of recognising he fucker up badly and apologising. And of course Jonathan Snowden has had a complete meltdown, including calls to fight people and pretending to be a tough guy. Pathetic behaviour and it's a shame that the passing of someone who was genuinely loved by everyone has given a bunch of ugly little shits to showcase their shittiness.

Even Heyman, whom Steph hated by all accounts, kind of sorts of puts her over in shoot interviews. Ofc Paul E is the ultimate carny and could have been looking after his future bottom line, but A) he did shit on Vince quite enough when he was on the outs with WWE; and B ) shitting on Steph never stopped Road Dogg from getting a job again in WWE