W2BTD

The crowd was horrid. Killed the Ibushi match, which was well worked and very good. They were dragged kicking & screaming into the Ishii/Honma match. Just as they started to dig the work in the main, they went quiet for the run in & post. VERY curious to see how a hot crowds in Korakuen or Osaka or wherever take to the sports entertainment stuff in the main events moving forward.

Ishii is well on his way to ultimately being my Wrestler of the Year, especially with Bryan mired in gimmicky stuff, Tanahashi settling into tags for the foreseeable future , and Okada apparently headed into a long sports entertainment type feud.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2014/05/03/new-japan-wrestling-dontaku-review/

We'll be interviewing Rob Conway later tonight for the VOW podcast. If you have something you'd like to ask Rob, leave it here and we'll try our best to get to it. Thanks!

Pretty sure I read an article awhile ago that effective next year (or 2016?) WWE has effectively put the kibosh on other companies doing this. Not really. They are trying to make it harder (especially for WrestleCon, who they are really mad at more than the wrestling shows), by locking up public buildings as part of the deal to bring Mania to whatever city, but they can't and never will be able to do a thing about private buildings. Sapolsky already has a building booked in California for next year. I think it's petty. In my opinion, these fringe events have essentially zero impact on WWE business. WWE fans are going to go to the WWE stuff regardless. Very few people (as in, likely close to zero) are ditching HOF or Axxess for a small indie show they've never heard of. I personally believe the fringe events make WWE (and obviously the city) more money, because there are people who come to town who wouldn't have otherwise if it was just WWE events (I fit into this category, as i've been to multiple Mania cities, but would likely never go if not for the fringe stuff and never spend any money on WWE anyway).

Hero/Tanaka was fantastic. MOTY contender for sure. Ricochet/Gargano was great as well. I liked Ki/Trent but it was a notch below the other two. The Saturday show was the worst DGUSA show i've ever seen, and i've seen almost all of them. Dreadfully bad.

Brilliant show. Great angles, great matches, great long term booking all comes together. http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2014/04/06/new-japan-invasion-attack-2014-review/

With the Network, i've been cleaning up some blind spots (mostly Attitude Era stuff, which turned me off of the WWE product and I stopped following as closely as I have the rest of my life), which has included going back and watching lots of Triple H matches. Triple H is a guy that i've always tended to skip when I got a hold of shows over the years, because I almost never liked his stuff and decided to stop wasting time on him. So being older and more open minded, i've decided to go back and watch the stuff I blew off in real time. My conclusion is that now I remember why I skipped his stuff for all of those years. His matches feel like they should be good, but they almost never are. Two good examples of these "epic" Triple H fights/brawls are vs Jericho at Fully Loaded 2000, and the Last Man Standing vs HBK at Royal Rumble 2004. Both matches are long, and supposed to be intense, but for me they are just...boring. I often have to go back and rewind when watching Trips, because I find myself zoning out and not paying attention. I know it's not the most fresh opinion, and comes off super smarky, but he just might be the most overrated performer of recent vintage.

I hope they eventually buy everything. Why not? Starrcade '84 still crashes the Roku app.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2014/03/15/new-japan-cup-round-one-review-31514/ Fun show, recommended.

Jason Felix put these two lists together for us at Voices of Wrestling. A fun, goofy project for sure, with all roads seemingly leading to BAD NEWS BARRETT as the linear champ. Singles matches only: http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2014/03/12/who-is-the-reigning-linear-wwe-champion/ Multi-man matches included: http://whywouldanyonereadthis.com/2014/03/12/who-is-the-linear-wwe-champion-including-multi-man-matches/ Many people have spotted errors already, but all roads eventually lead back to Barrett. I know there are some hardcore historians here, so I figured some of you would enjoy this, and possibly find more breaks in the chain.

Not Japanese though, so this would open the door for Yokozuna.

RE: the match to match psychology of Zayn/Cesaro This is a Zayn trademark, as he is probably the best in the world right now at putting together a story with a long series of matches. He's done the same with Kevin Steen in ROH, Kota Ibushi in DDT, Samuray Del Sol in DGUSA, etc.

As badly as I want to say Okada, of the guys listed I would agree with Dylan and go with Nakamura. I could see Vince totally getting into his gimmick. But like someone else mentioned, the best answer is probably Minoru Suzuki. Put him with Heyman and I could see a year long main event run where he puts over Cena in the end working out very well.

Couldn't disagree more with this. I thought the Zayn/Cesaro match was nothing like your typical WWE style main event. For me it felt more like a modern New Japan style match or even something they would have done five years ago in ROH. Which is part of the reason I thought it was so good, it was such a departure from the norm. It highlighted the strengths of each man, especially Zayn's high level emotional selling, which is to me what made him possibly the best wrestler in the world before he ever step foot in WWE. He conveys underdog emotion better than anybody on the planet, and this match was Exhibit.A of the great stuff he was doing in a million different places before he signed.

Zayn vs Cesaro - LOVED this. The pacing here was fantastic, and they told a multi match story which is something I always love (reminded me of the great KENTA/Nakajima feud of 2009, the recent vintage gold standard of multi match psychology). Everything was executed flawlessly. I am a sucker for the "underdog/lower ranked guy fighting to the death" style of match, so this was obviously right up my alley. And boy did Zayn fight to the DEATH. Absolutely loved the well placed one count spot, late match strike exchange, and out of nowhere fighting spirit style throws and near fall teases. The closing stretch of Cesaro screaming at Zayn to JUST DIE and finally killing him to finish him off was just great. Really just a perfect match. Could easily go five on this, but if I have to think about it then it probably isn't perfect. But this will likely be a strong MOTY contender for me unless the year is beyond great like it was last year. ****3/4 Paige vs Emma - Best women's match i've seen since the Gail Kim/Taryn Terrell bouts in TNA. They'd never get this kind of time on RAW. I liked this a lot and it held up on a rewatch. Paige is very talented. Emma gets the most out of her abilities and these two just gel together. **** Neville vs Dallas - Didn't like this at all. Neville barely did any flying in what should have been a real stunt show/showcase in front of a bunch of fresh eyes. Dallas missed a huge opportunity to have a break out performance, and was his usual ho-hum "just a guy" mediocre self. If Neville is following marching orders I can't blame him, but this is not the same Pac who improved tenfold in Dragon Gate and was on the cusp of being elite when he left. And he hasn't been that guy in a while. The finish was super flat, and this was probably the most dull ladder match i've seen in recent memory. Maybe ever. **3/4 The rest of the show was the usual borderline laughable NXT junk, from the goofy dated gimmick tag champs, Mojo Rawley who I think is the shits as a big aggressive guy with his softer than bread offense, and other assorted WWE Performance Center assembly line type create-a-wrestlers. And Too Cool is one of my most hated acts of all time, so that instantly made me cranky.

Here is the exact post dave made where this is coming from:

He was basing it on that particular nights efforts only, and it was guys he & Steve Austin thought could be top guys in JCP. He said Orton could be third or fourth heel in the pecking order, and they agreed that Cesaro would make it but would need a partner like Eaton or a mouthpiece like Cornette. I'll try to find the exact quote.

They tried this on RAW, and he was still shit on. Is the Vince the only promoter ever who consistently sticks with his guns to this level when things clearly aren't working? Is this his biggest flaw?

I'm sticking with my original outside the box prediction of an Orton/Batista double turn, with The Authority giving up on Orton and Batista as the new face. And yes, I think they are crazy enough to close the show with it. At this point, I think Orton will get cheered anyway and play into the turn.

If I wanted to "troll" this board re:Lawler, there is a 1,000 page Lawler thread in the microscope section where I could have a field day. The crux of my argument wasn't even anti Lawler, it was style bias/preference and the idea that Lawler was never considered a worker on the level of the guys in the poll, particularly among Dave and his readers. It then splintered into the definition of work/workrate and how it is applied by Meltzer. I was asked to make a list, and declined, on the premise it would come off as a troll and really derail things. I just about never agree with Dylan but have a ton of respect for him and his opinions, so when pressed by him I threw one together because there is a level of trust there. If I wanted to troll I would have come in guns blazing from the jump, instead of being prodded to put up names that I am fully aware run counter to the tastes on this site. The reason I come here is because almost nobody agrees with my tastes here. I like the alternative points of view. I put a lot of thought into my posts to avoid being labeled a troll. It's not my fault if you can't handle a my takes if they run counter to what you think. That's on you, not me.

I was given a chance to write the New Japan Fantasticamania wrap up for #103, and also the New Beginning wrap up that will presumably be in #104. Grateful to Alan4L for helping make the connection, and i'd like to thank Brian for giving me the opportunity.

Come to think of it, nobody really uses "workrate" at all very much these days, period. This thread is the most i've seen it used in recent memory.

People getting bogged down in semantics. It was a workrate list, in the sense that it was a list of guys who are generally considered to be some of the best workers of all time. You guys are over complicating things by getting wrapped up in the semantics of worker/workrate. It's pretty clear what the list was intended to be, unless you don't want it to be. Workrate has evolved into a synonym for work. I never hear anybody use the term "good workrate" anymore to describe someone who works a hard pace but isn't a good worker. It's morphed into the same thing.

I had the Gracie B-team New Japan nonsense in mind when I typed that, but since it came up i'm not a fan of shoot style either. And Bix, in that context I was referring to traditional pro wrestling style highspots.