MoS

England or Australia? I dn't mind too much when the Windies win, even when they beat my team.

So, the Cricket World Cup is going on, and I suddenly realised HOLY SHIT I HAVEN"T TYPED IN MY BALLOT! Well, at least something good came out of India not making it to the finals. I can now fill the form in relative comfort.

Not complaining, but I did find it odd about Sting not mentioning Luger. I remember Flair hadn't mentioned Sting in his HoF speech, but I had chalked that to him being in TNA then.

Shock because it didn't feel like the finish, rather than at the result. No, that was at the result I feel. That crowd LOVES Bayley. Her losing the title was a pretty big deal. Exactly. It was because they cared should have read the rest of the thread and replied later, but I'll reiterate. If they cared so much then why were they all sitting when the finish came? I totally agree with the guy who said that the shock was at least in part b/c that didn't feel like the finish. And IMO it's not because the work didn't make it feel like a finish but because the crowd was inexplicably not treating it like a finishing stretch. No one was expecting Bayley to lose by submission, either by tap or pass out. My impression was they got a little to cute and decided to copy the Meisha-Holly finish and no one picked up on it. I know when the bell rang my reaction was of the "wait, what just happened" variety, I thought for a second maybe the timekeeper messed up. It's one of the reasons why I think wrestling shouldn't try to look too much towards MMA for inspiration. The Miesha-Holly finish was legit great stuff, but WWE went too long with it, and in wrestling, when you have a babyface trying to get up right before they are choked out, and the ref has stopped himself from calling for the bell 3 times, then you kind of have to break free from the hold and pay off the spot. It makes logical sense within the pro wrestling rules. I also hated it when they were trying the "ref stops the bout despte there being no pinfall; winner by tko!" that they were doing a few years back.

If I were hoping for a smooth transition to the Paul Levesque era, I would try to pretend that 2003 never happened.

This show was awesome. A bit bummed about the rather underwhelming reaction Asuka received for her victory, as well as the finish, although it went a bit too long for my taste. But I guess not a lot of the fans follow MMA.

The black people in the South fly and feel the flag is just pride too? I am not American, and I have only spent 4 months in America in my life - in Birmingham, Alabama - so I am not close to being qualified about this, but I made a bunch of black friends there, and a lot of them feel very uncomfortable with the Confederate flag being flown. One person I know is moving to Portland, and publicly stated that he is glad, because every time he drives from Mobile -or probably Dothan, I don't remember - to Birmingham, he feels really disturbed by that giant Confederate flag flying on the way.

Better organisation, I would think. It wasn't the dates so much as the geography of it. WWF used to be a NY-centric territory; Vince then declared war on AWA, and tried to open up L.A and I think S.A, which were dead, using Hogan. He needed to tour those places as many times, so the flights and the travel used to be brutal. By 1987, things had settled down, so they could afford to be more reasonable about it.

It's not about right or wrong - it's about what perceptions were at the time. The Confederate Flag was on a hit TV show, on the Georgia State Flag, on the Freebirds' attire, and all over the place. That pretty much makes it an irrefutable fact that a ton of people were okay with it back then, and I refuse to believe all of them were racist. The flag had multiple meanings at the time. Now, it really symbolizes only one thing - racism - and therefore definitely isn't acceptable anymore. The Nazi logo was originally a Japanese peace symbol. Does that mean all ancient Japanese people were raging anti-semites? Nope. Hindu peace symbol, not a Japanese peace symbol. And there is a huge difference between Hitler appropriating the swastika, which is still used in India ubiquitously, including on the wall of the apartment I am living in currently, taking the word "Aryan" from the Sanskrit language, and using it to his own end, and people continuing to use the Confederate flag, when the very origin of that flag was mired in bigotry and hatred. Horrible analogy.

This is probably cognitive bias, but I have really never seen Steph on interviews or anywhere where she behaves naturally. Corporate, prepared soundbytes; guarded, artificial smile, it's just very weird to watch. She always appears like a corporate bot to me instead of an actual person. That includes the HoF induction speech she gave for Trish.

I am not sure what America's laws are regarding hate speech, so this might be wrong, but I do not see any similarity between what happened with Bill Cosby and Hogan. Bill Cosby raped multiple women. He committed a crime on those women. This is more like if Cosby had been recorded in a very intimate moment ranting about how all Indians are cow-worshipping dotheads, or whatever slur some of you use against us, and then had that tape released without his consent.

Pure speculation, but I think it is Bryan's call. I've always felt that Vince, Hunter and Steph really like and respect Bryan. Not in a "he can be the top guy!" sense, but I always got the feeling that they had a lot of respect for his ability, and Triple H and Stephanie liked working with him. This is in contrast to Rey or even someone like Punk, where I always felt that despite their popularity, Vince felt a bit...unhappy with their success, or simply did not like the fact that they became as popular as they did. Hunter did aarguably the best heel work of his career apart from the 2005 Batista feud while working with Bryan, and Bryan is legit the last person for whom Steph showed ass or even the slightest display of vulnerability. That was 2 years ago, and since then, all we have got is Sting and Hunter stopping her from slapping them, and that is less her showing ass and more them behaving like self-respecting human beings who do not appreciate it when they are slapped unprovoked, at least physically. I just think that he maybe thought he could do the fan meetings, but after the huge emotional roller-coaster that his farewell was, he just did not want to go through the entire thing again.

I am wondering if anyone has him at No. 1? Because, realistically, he can very well end up being No. 2 on my list; he definitely will be in the top 5.

Please, please tell more. Please, don't encourage him! Hey, he could have weakened Haku before using his not-so-secret weapon of terrible dancing.

Please, please tell more.

I mentioned before that I think Gawker was in the wrong for doing what they did,but that doesn't mean I feel sorry for Hogan for the humiliation and the criticism and all the flak and potential financial damage he got as a result. Petty of me, I know, but when I hear someone say outright that they are racist, along with using racial and homophobic slurs, I am not going to feel sorry for them when someone else being an asshole cause them to get fucked.

I think of it as the opposite, but I have always thought of it in sports terms, and not from a pro wrestling purpose. For example, Novak Djokovic might end up being the best of all-time, but for his sheer talent and beautiful play, Roger Federer will always be the greatest for me. I do not really know how to import it into pro wrestling though.

Hogan is a racist, homophobic twat, but even racist, homophobic twats have a right to privacy, so while I am sure that gawker will try to be very self-righteous here, the fact is that they are in the wrong.

Rock is someone I thought of when I read the OP. He is known primarily for his promos, but he had quite a few really good matches.

It's 4 A.M in my part of the world, and I am really not thinking clearly. Neymar has Windham-like potential, and is Kobashi-like in his awesome rookieness. Hopefully, he goes on to realise his potential. Football is beautiful.

Right now, I will have to go with Steph McMahon. I think she has sold and shown fear for a maximum of 5 people in the last 10 years.

I can't believe I fucking did not realise Sara Del Rey was not nominated. I feel pissed at myself. She would have easily made my top 100.

Amongst the All Japan pillars, I have 1) Kawada 2) Misawa 3) Kobashi The gap between 2 and 3 is much closer than the gap between 1 and 2. Kawada is one of the performers whom I find transcendent.

The one point where I seem to disagree with most people here is the Lesnar-Angle ironman. Most people here consider it a pretty bad match, while I think it's actually the best 60-minute Ironman match WWE has ever done. I would be curious to see what the specific criticisms of the match are.

I am about to start on a 41 GB compilation of Eddie from 1989-1999. I really loke his WWE rin, so this binge-watching will determine where e ranks for me.