C.S.

Nut shots really do make a match better.

This show has been a total slog. I don't care if Miz vs. Seth was a five-star match or whatever - I'm sick of seeing them wrestle each other and had no investment in the inevitable outcome of Seth's victory. Bryan vs. Cass sucked in every possible way. Cass is useless.

Bryan's lips look like he just swallowed a shit.

Uh oh, they're giving Rusev terrible Vince lines.

Bryan vs. Miz is official? When did that happen? Tonight? (Forgive me, I've basically zoned out the putrid commentary and endless video packages.)

If they're building toward Miz vs. Bryan, this is a weird way to do it. Maybe Cass does win tonight? :|

Nakamura has been a crippling disappointment since his NXT debut against Sami Zayn. I'd say this is probably his last chance to prove he can have a really good match, but who am I kidding? He'll probably win the World Title tonight, regardless. I don't see Big Cass winning. I think this sets up Miz somehow.

Conrad's approach sounds to me like Gordon Ramsay. By that I mean he's playing a character version of himself and adjusts the dial tone up or down depending on the show.

I have nothing to add to this situation, but finding out that this place used to be called New Millennium Blues puts a smile on my face for some reason.

I think he'd be just as successful, because the Dave stuff is already old to me, and I've only seen the three Network shows. It's the other stuff - the great stories, the "insider look" into how the WWE was run and Vince's mindset, etc. - that, for me, make the show worthwhile to listen to. I think all of the Dave bashing on the show is a side-effect of Conrad mentioning him every other sentence. "Dave thought this, reported that, gave this match x amount of stars."

I have no idea what Dave (or Bruce) thought, but I hated it. I think people in this thread are responding to me, not Dave.

True, but outside of the names and some of the 1980s WWF silliness that applied to many things there, Akeem and Virgil were still presented as legitimate competitors/presences for the most part. Even Polka Dot Dusty, while he was never going to be the world-beater he was in the NWA no matter what he wore, was still positioned as a strong upper-midcard babyface and given a WrestleMania match against Randy Savage. "Macho King" may not have been a main event gimmick, but Randy Savage was still a fairly big deal.

Did either of you read the full thread? My original point was that gimmicks often live or die based on what the wrestlers do with them. - Red Rooster could have been good. It wasn't because of Terry Taylor. - Undertaker could have been bad. It wasn't because of Mark Callaway. - Polka Dot Dusty could have sucked, and it certainly wasn't at the level of NWA Dusty, but he still made it work. - Fake Undertaker is an example of the gimmick being bad in the wrong hands. Yes, OBVIOUSLY, it was always intended for "holes" to eventually appear. Not sure why that was even mentioned. But at first, everyone* thought it was the real Undertaker - and yet it somehow sucked. *Everyone meaning "mark" child/teen fans, not Observer readers. - With Fake Diesel - not the best example, I concede - it demonstrates what Kevin Nash did with a pretty pedestrian bodyguard/muscle type vs. what Glenn Jacobs did. - While an evil dentist gimmick has delicious horror movie potential, I'm not sure anyone could have made Isaac Yankem, D.D.S. work. Maybe Matt Borne? (The original Doink - another gimmick that was proven to be a slow death in the wrong hands but great when Bourne had it.)

I thought he was great in tag teams with Daniel Bryan and X-Pac, and that's not solely down to the other guy. Corporate Kane was also good fun. I can't agree that he never made anything better because he's been involved in so much ridiculous crap that shoudn't have worked at all, including the Kane gimmick itself, and he elevated it with his personality and presence.

I was poking fun at the other poster for calling "undead monster" and "fire demon" great gimmicks with a straight face. Yes, they're considered great because Mark Callaway and Glenn Jacobs made them great. But let's not pretend they were good on paper. Imagine literally anyone else in those gimmicks. It takes a very special performer to make them work. With Taker, we actually have an example of someone else doing it: same costume, same music, same presentation - and it stunk. Remember, for weeks, the Brian Lee Taker was presented as the real deal, with camera angles and other magic tricks obscuring his actual identity, but it somehow wasn't good all of a sudden. The missing, magic ingredient was Mark Callaway.

What?! The Killer Bees were very popular and cool as hell. Who didn't love the switcheroo mask gimmick? Brian Lee sure did an incredible job as The Undertaker. Kane himself, Glenn Jacobs, lit the world on fire as Diesel. Great gimmicks, so what was the problem?

I believe the Rooster story. Prichard has a point: Why would Vince hire a wrestler and invest money, promotion, and TV time just for the sake of a rib? Okay, there was the Dusty polka dot look that was supposedly a rib, but I could just as easily see Vince thinking something that gaudy was actually fashionable - after all, look at the outfits Vince himself wore back then. Either way, Dusty earned Vince's respect by getting that over. Anyway, it's easy to look at the Rooster now, laugh at it, and mock it for being such a terrible idea. But tons of WWE gimmicks are atrocious on paper - Undertaker and Kane, anyone? - and they got over like gangbusters because of the talent involved. I believe someone like a, say, Michael Hayes could have gotten the Red Rooster gimmick over with his cocky moonwalk strut, charisma, etc. Taylor never embraced the character and probably didn't have the personality to put it over the top. Ironically, I thought he displayed both charisma and personality with the WWE-like "Taylor Made Man" in WCW a few years later. Maybe he learned his lessons from the failed Rooster stint? I don't know. I wonder if the real rib on Taylor was when he returned to the WWF in '93 or '94 as "Terrific" Terry Taylor - a bland gimmick for what Vince probably saw as a bland performer who didn't know how to sports-entertain.

Ryan Ward? That's the one. Thanks. Whatever happened to him..? Come to think of it, I have no idea. Does anybody know? We still don't.

So, what is Bruce's "tell"? How do you know when he's bullshitting? I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. There are undoubtedly thousands of times Meltzer has gotten it wrong or been duped by a bad source. But there are also times Bruce might be BSing or at least withholding information. I've enjoyed his Network show so far (I haven't listened to the podcasts yet) because he always offers a unique perspective on famous backstage stories.

Watts was credited for the Survivor Series '95 Wild Card Match (which was subsequently buried by the hosts), but I can't remember if he was also credited for the Shawn-Owen angle. As for why I haven't listened to the previous podcasts, it's because I don't listen to podcasts in general. But now that I have a car that can connect to my phone automatically, I should really start. As you've already pointed out, there's really very little reason to have video on these things - I'm not sure there were even any clips this week - so I'd lose nothing by listening in the car. BTW, how are you getting the Network podcasts in MP3?

I enjoyed the Shawn Michaels 1995 episode of Something ELSE to Wrestle on WWE Network - although I'm sure it's all old news to the podcast listeners - but my God, the Bruce/Conrad arguments feel really fake and forced. Conrad accusing Bruce, who is essentially of BOSS, of kissing WWE's ass feels beyond manufactured for the sake of drama. I'll give them both credit for being great actors though - their "put upon" expressions look genuine, if nothing else. I would love for Vince to listen to one episode of this show and say, "Damn it, no more Meltzer! You're banned from mentioning him ever again, pal." Every other word out of Conrad's mouth is Meltzer this and Meltzer that. It's lame and obnoxious. With that said, I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing Conrad - I think he does a pretty good job (and a thankless job at that) of steering the ship of the show. Otherwise, these shows are a fun trip down memory lane and a great reminder of some classic angles I had almost forgotten about - like the Shawn-Owen "post concussion syndrome" collapse on Raw, which was incredible stuff at the time and absolutely seemed real to me, or at least cast enough doubt in my mind.

I enjoyed the Shawn Michaels 1995 episode of Something ELSE to Wrestle on WWE Network - although I'm sure it's all old news to the podcast listeners - but my God, the Bruce/Conrad arguments feel really fake and forced. Conrad accusing Bruce, who is essentially of BOSS, of kissing WWE's ass feels beyond manufactured for the sake of drama. I'll give them both credit for being great actors though - their "put upon" expressions look genuine, if nothing else. I would love for Vince to listen to one episode of this show and say, "Damn it, no more Meltzer! You're banned from mentioning him ever again, pal." Every other word out of Conrad's mouth is Meltzer this and Meltzer that. It's lame and obnoxious. With that said, I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing Conrad - I think he does a pretty good job (and a thankless job at that) of steering the ship of the show. Otherwise, these shows are a fun trip down memory lane and a great reminder of some classic angles I had almost forgotten about - like the Shawn-Owen "post concussion syndrome" collapse on Raw, which was incredible stuff at the time and absolutely seemed real to me, or at least cast enough doubt in my mind.

Hey, you asked.

It's simple: She's drop dead gorgeous, but also comes across as drop dead dumb. The latter doesn't appeal to me. Same as KawadaSmiles not finding Finn Balor handsome because he's bland in the ring.

This thread has officially become "my smark favorite is damn handsome too." Lana disagrees. Look, as a straight guy who has never seen Rusev in person, I'm clearly more qualified to judge his looks than his wife! My take on that is one's perception of attractiveness goes beyond physical appearance, and depending on how one sees another, a good looking person might end up being average to the eye of the beholder, and vice-versa. While all you say is indeed true, my perception of Finn being really bland "downgrades" his overall attractiveness, you know. Contrast that with my first post in this thread: Ric Flair wasn't exactly beautiful, but he carried himself like really no one else did, and that surely counts for his attractiveness - and I think that also applied to people like HBK and CM Punk. Likewise, Bryan being this wholesome person makes him stand out more amongst others. Fair enough, as I feel the same way about Torrie Wilson - drop dead gorgeous but comes across as such a useless, brainless bimbo with nothing upstairs that it's impossible for me to find her attractive.