Migs

Luger at Wrestle War '90 is probably the best example (he didn't actually lose at Capital Combat). On the flip side, Tommy Dreamer was made by being valiant in defeat to Sandman and then Raven. If we're picking one specific loss, losing the Singapore Caning match to the Sandman would be the one.

Agreed. Was pretty stunned that the belt getting thrown down wasn't #1. The chairs in the ring was a pretty big deal (it was the end of the opening of the show for years), but it's more top 10 than number 1. Regardless of the rankings themselves, the show was pretty fun, with a wide-ranging group of people talking about the moments.

I think the DIY-Revival matches have shown a good way forward on this - instead of using finishers to get kickouts, they used lower impact spots that lead to finishes as the tease (i.e. the cross body on a guy trying to give a piledriver almost always leads to a finish in tag matches, and they used that as a kickoff spot). Work a little smarter and not harder and you get a much friendlier style, I think.

Some interesting stuff in there, although they obviously could have gone for hours. Great Heyman promo at the end.

Cena winning the Rumble is sad from a "making a new star" perspective, but would probably be better than a lot of the other options. Unless maybe they go with a returning Balor? Owens doesn't want top give him a shot so he has to go win it?

It definitely feels like there's a big divide between people who were Goldberg marks and had a big moment last night, and those who aren't, who are kind of shrugging at this. (I'm in the latter group.) It was probably better than trying to do a real match. It was certainly interesting. I'm not sure it leads anywhere particularly interesting, but that's true of a lot of WWE main events with part-timers. I do think there's value overall in WWE booking matches in a more aggressively weird way. It opens possibilities in different ways to advance stories, and that's always a good thing.

I liked the animation and the overall tone, but the stories mostly lacked good payoffs. I'd watch another one, though.

How about "that kid is going to ask his Dad in 10 years why he didn't tell him to keep his shirt on"? (That was my wife's comment.)

3 weeks.

Rollins has found a way to make the shirt look even worse.

They always did the t-shirts when they did those filler Bragging Rights PPVs. Given the conceit of the shows, I think the uniformity looks good, though a lot of the guys look really odd wrestling in t-shirts.

Today Sid is ironically liked in an MST3K kind of way, or considered one of the worst wrestlers to ever get mega pushes. There is a podcast dedicated to bad wrestling of the 1990s, and they just attempted to do a Sid match marathon. I guess your Sid comparasion is akin to JvK's constant wondering how Chief Jay Strongbow is remembered fondly by fand s of the time and given strong pushes. Sid wasn't ironically liked during his time. He was over. Everywhere. At times super over. With his look and weird charisma, it was a no brainer to push him to the top your cards. You don't have a guy like Sid and have him toiling away in the mid card for years. Of course he wasn't a great worker, but when has that ever been the most important thing about getting a push in America? As part of the Skyscrapers and Horsemen, got SID SID SID chants a month into his JCP/WCW run. Went to WWE and was instantly more over than Hogan (who, granted, was on the decline, but still). Went back to WCW, got cheered over Sid. Went back to WWF in 1996, turned MSG into a bunch of screaming marks for a muscled up stiff who "can't work" over who was considered to be probably the best worker of the 90s in HBK in the smark capital of of the world. Went back to WCW, was the most over guy in the company besides Goldberg. That's not ironic. It's not ironic to understand why he kept getting the main event pushes in his career. Him being a flake was his biggest detriment, not his lack of ring skill. Not to mention how batshit crazy people went for him in ECW. But "weird charisma" also gets at why he was hard to book on top for a long period of time. He was not a great promo, which made it hard to build heated feuds. He couldn't really get across well his motivation - did he want a belt? To hurt people? To get revenge? He had something people responded to, but it was difficult to translate into an ongoing story. He was probably also hurt by the frequent turns (a WCW trademark, although it happened in the WWF with him too). He could have been a Goldberg-esque babyface killer and made some money that way, but everyone seemed to think he could also be used as a heel monster for babyfaces to slay. But he was a bad heel worker, even by big guy standards. With the reps, he might have been decent working a Hogan-style babyface match, but he never did that for an extended period.

I would argue they're two separate jokes. Strictly speaking, a joke setup is factual, and the punchline is the embellishment - the laugh line. The setup is "Joanna, you look lovely tonight." The line about Trump grabbing pussy is the punch line to that setup, and then there's an attempt at a second punch line by turning the word on Hathaway.

Isn't Styles an open Trump supporter? And doesn't that color the interpretation of his words in a week where there have been rampant reports of other Trump supporters stalking women/minorities and using "Trump won" as a justification? Even if there was a version of this that was an actual joke, this was a pretty bad time for it.

If they can be patient enough to wait until WM to blow off Styles-Cena, it feels like they have the ability to really put on an epic.

You're not wrong. In over her head as a babyface when called up but she's been the standout heel performer since turning. Perhaps since Punk as a heel with Heyman or the Shield before they were getting babyface pops? She's a real highlight of TV. Notice that there's no dueling chants. Just cheers for Sasha. Great to see.

I hate the hushed voices bullshit. There's no drama in it (we know the match is happening) and it cheapens real injuries. And it went on way, way too long.

Would love to have been live for Punk-Cena at Money in the Bank 2011.

Standard tag match, but worked reasonably well. Ending stretch was pretty fun, except for the weak DQ finish. Miller really visibly blades after the shot with the "brass knux" which were visibly duct tape. **1/2

What other wrestling shows were available in Puerto Rico, if any? Just curious what other styles the fans might have been seeing.