Migs

Goosebumps.

The last I heard was he had a stretch of conflicts. I think we'll know more after the next tapings.

Also a key point. What happened last year at Wrestlemania that gets talked about? Meanwhile, you watch Savage-Steamboat and *during the match* they're describing it as one of the all-time greats and then kept it up until people believed it.

But shouldn't this be the goal? They can thread the needle if they just push people when they're hot and see if they catch on with casuals. The problem wasn't the Roman push, it was that they tried to wait, and in the interim, the organic support Roman had disappeared. Wrestling booking is all about riding the wave.

To be fair, they've main evented with Callihan two weeks in a row, and he's by far the most likely to have a garbage match (and I think he's usually enjoyable in those, although YMMV). They are going way too in on groups and beatdowns of late, though - not sure they really need three heel groups in a promotion this small.

Well, I meant more from a build and character perspective, as I think they've done really good stuff together leading to the show. I'm excited to see them pay off the build. Scurll's absolutely capable of a great match, although agreed that he's very inconsistent in singles matches. I think a lot of that is due to how over he is, oddly - most of the time in ROH, people are there to see his schtick, especially since he's frequently working someone who's essentially a JTTS. I loved the match with Okada at All In (although having a great match with Okada doesn't say much) and he's had some very good ones in New Japan (the title match with Ospreay last year was excellent, and not just as a spotfest, and I think Scurll was a big part of it). I'm honestly not sure how the match with Aldis will pan out from a work perspective, but I enjoy that they've played up their legit history and that Scurll has actually been manipulative and villainous in the build (as opposed to the cartoon of that he often is). I think they have the potential for a poor man's version of Cody-Aldis from All In - a crowd of grown men will not sob at the end of this, but they could tell a compelling story in a *** match.

It'll also be on Honor Club. Feels like it should be a fun show - Briscoes-RnR should be delightfully strange, and I think Aldis-Scurll should be fun - Aldis is great when he has someone fun to work with.

Yeah, seems like it'll be a good show. Particularly intrigued by the tag team title match. They've done a nice job with Johnny's heel turn, although I still don't really care at all about Cage.

I believe they were both just going to sign autographs.

Bobby Eaton's career would say so.

To be fair, and use the Austin analogy - Austin was immediately put into position after he won the title to be an underdog again. He was going up against the owner of the company, having the deck stacked against him (the classics against Dude Love, the handicap match against the Brothers of Destruction, etc.). That story started the night after Austin won the title. Now they wait so long to actually decide on who's going to win the main event of their biggest show that they have nothing prepped for after. So the crowned champions afterwards get to... do whatever? So it's a bit of chicken and egg here - yes the "you deserve it" era is a problem, but it's also that they don't really book to maintain momentum, so it sort of begs the fans to lose interest and find the next "you deserve it" moment, since that's the only thing they can properly book.

Multi-man matches provide a structure where Seth's strengths can shine. In a singles match, you need to build your own structure, and Seth's is basically just the standard 2010 indy template.

Yeah, but they have a million PPV names they could have used.

At least they learned from the messes they got into last year promoting multiple shows at once?

I tend to think they'd want to go in that sort of direction (basically their Youtube presence with matches added). The trick is selling that to a TV audience, although if they do matches at the level of, say, WCW Saturday Night in the 80s main events, they might be able to pull it off.

They did PPVs and house shows together, but none of the TV shows - Vince and Jesse did Superstars/SNME and Gorilla and Brain did Challenge.

They let Sam Roberts call matches now?

Have also been meaning to check this out, although there's so much to watch. Thanks for the write up of the first few, will try and jump in.

These two episodes weren't particularly compelling for someone who knows the stories, although Linda added some good details on the Savage-Liz breakup, and Cornette's additions on Montreal were worth a little. Much more interested in what's to come, especially the Gino story which hasn't gotten much press at all.

That feud got more violent as it went on, not less.

Michaels would be wrong, since that feud stretched well into the latter part of the year. I do think it''s fair to break up the PG Era into something like '08-'11, and '11-'14, with the break being the Pipe Bomb. The Pipe Bomb brought a lot of older fans back and changed the vibe of the shows and the crowds.