C.S.

I could see New Day/Edge and Christian going 15-20 minutes. You know the main event will be a "WWE-style epic," so at least 30 minutes there.

I went through the new Collections feature on the Network and watched two Daniel Bryan matches and re-watched Mark Henry's legendary salmon coat fake retirement speech: - Daniel Bryan vs. William Regal: Not the masterpiece you'd expect from these two, but very good given the constrictions of a short TV match on Superstars. It started out slowly but built up nicely and told a good story. Regal was apparently ribbed before the match, because the old "Man's Man" music played during his entrance, which had both Regal and Bryan laughing. - Daniel Bryan's WWE Tryout (Shooter Schultz and American Dragon vs. Lance Cade and Brian Kendrick): Holy shit, this was a ton of fun, It was honestly better than most matches you see on Raw, Smackdown, and regular NXT TV tapings. That's pretty amazing when all of the wrestlers in the match had only a few months of experience. Of course, it helps to know that Shawn Michaels gave them permission to go as long as they wanted - and they took advantage of that for sure. The crowd was really into it by the end too, which would be almost impossible to achieve with today's audience if you threw four unknown wrestlers out there cold. - Mark Henry's "Salmon Coat" speech: Still a classic. In retrospect, the commentary was a bit clumsy and Cena being in the ring should have given the whole thing away, but Henry's overflowing bucket of tears were enough to convince most people. The fans were massively into all of this and kept chanting "Thank you, Henry!" and "one more match!" Would Henry get the same reaction today? Probably not, as he's been criminally misused ever since this feud ended. On a side note: Henry was losing his hair badly by this point, which I hadn't noticed at the time, but it explains why he eventually shaved his head.

Without the gimmick, I'm not so sure Mark Calaway would have lasted any length of time. He certainly wasn't ever going to draw a cent as Mean Mark or any other variation of "himself." If the WWF had never come calling, I can easily imagine an alternate history where he's a lower-midcard big man in places like the GWF and ECW. His "blank" stares and pale skin were a major deficit that the character of The Undertaker turned into a strength.

Yeah, he didn't say it in a frustrated tone or anything like that, but it definitely felt like he was a bit wistful about "what could have been." In contrast, check out this video: Dolph Ziggler comes across as an unprofessional, whiny, bitter little douchebag bitch when he's supposedly "paying tribute" to Daniel Bryan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZyDPSuk6kw

What is everyone's opinion of the 1-Hour Iron Man Match with Rock?

True, but let's not pretend that Bryan is some master-level mic worker - he's far from it - but he connects to the audience anyway, even though he's very plainspoken and not particularly quotable (outside of "YES!" and so on). He also doesn't have what would be considered the most marketable look. Obviously, the hair and beard helped with that, but strip those away and he looks like any generic ROH indy worker.

I'm not saying Barrett is necessarily wrong to be frustrated, but at the same time, I don't think he's underachieving if he never makes it past IC/US. That seems to be his ceiling, and nothing about him tells me that he has been unfairly overlooked for a World Title reign. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sheamus has possibly overachieved, if anything. Yeah, Sheamus is fine and I like him a lot, but I'm not sure anyone would be saying he should be a future World Champ if he had never won the belt.

Just a difference in philosophy, but a lot of folks on this board have a very narrow and rigid view of wrestling IMO because they place 100% importance on "being a worker" and zero importance on all of the other factors that go into creating a complete wrestler. It's a viewpoint I can't imagine anyone in the wrestling business subscribing to, because someone who is a "great worker" and has nothing else going for him will be a jobber, period. Look at Brad Armstrong (who I loved, BTW, but let's not pretend he was able to display any kind of charisma or compelling character work). The fact that people are posting about Jake ("Not a great worker but an awesome promo, good character & good look.") and Piper ("He wasn’t the best worker in the world but in reality he didn’t need to cause he had charisma and could cut awesome promos that made his feuds matter.") in the same light backs up what I'm saying. Not sure how those posts are any different than what I said about Bryan. Obviously, I'm almost saying the opposite - that Bryan's tremendous work was enough to overcome some of his other (minor) flaws - so I realize it looks like I'm contradicting myself in a way. But not really, because the basic point remains the same - Bryan, Jake, Piper, etc. had certain (different) attributes in spades, while other attributes may have been lacking, but it didn't matter because the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. If Bryan didn't have that plainspoken regular guy charisma of his, if he didn't improve on the mic, if he didn't have that amazing connection with the audience, etc., it wouldn't have mattered how good he was "as a worker."

This is just mind boggling to me. I really don't think Danielson has a major weakness. He's good at striking, matwork, structuring matches, character work etc. Yikes, quoting other people is a pain in the ass on this board, even when you turn off HTML. Anyway, unless I'm misunderstanding the intent of this thread, Danielson more than fits the bill. He does not initially look like a star. He's not someone you'd see and immediately expect big things from. Divorce yourself from a decade of knowing him, his matches, his reputation, and his Meltzer rating. Now imagine you're seeing him for the first time. Do you expect him to be a future WrestleMania main eventer? His mic work, in particular, was not always strong - and some would argue that he's still not among the elite all-time great talkers. Yet, he made that simple, humble, plainspoken speaking style work for him. He also made his simple, humble look work for him. He is far greater than the sum of his parts. I'd also nominate Bret Hart for this category.

There you go. Thanks, much appreciated!

Daniel Bryan seems to epitomize the topic of this thread.

Sheamus's complete lack of caring over losing the title (granted, that could've been because he knew he was on camera and didn't want to appear unprofessional) was a nice contrast to Barrett's desperate "I should have been World Champion!" declaration (alongside Bulldog, Regal, etc.).

Going to request again that the Titus controversy get split off into its own thread. It's worthy of that at this point, especially when it has dominated most of this one.

This Titus issue deserves its own thread IMO. Can it be split off into one? Anyway, Batista outright told Titus to ask for his release: https://twitter.com/DaveBautista/status/697585006563217408 What galls me is the hypocrisy of the situation. Vince and Kurt Angle can fight on a plane like two immature college kids, but Titus gets 90 60 days for far less. Shit like this makes it hard to enjoy this company.

Next year IMO. Sting is the headliner this year. If they bump Sting out of that spot for Bryan, people will complain. If they don't bump Sting and make Bryan secondary, people will complain.

Joey Styles tweeted this: https://twitter.com/JoeyStyles/status/696780664704598016 That alone would be enough to cement Bryan's legacy. But he accomplished so much more. Some might argue that CM Punk paved the way for this too. Maybe. But the truth is, Bryan was better in almost every conceivable metric - from in-ring performances to drawing power. True, Punk was a master on the mic (although highly overrated and unmotivated in that and other departments - outside of amazing moments like the "Pipe Bomb" speech and a few others - IMO anyway), but Bryan's simple talking points were enough to drive the fans into a frenzy. Edit: More tweets from wrestlers Double edit: From Kevin Owens. Damn, cue the waterworks. https://twitter.com/FightOwensFight/status/696819657085300736

Yep, confirmed on Facebook. Very sad.

Devastating but inevitable news. When he wasn't cleared and brought back after ALL those other injuries, I think we all kinda knew this was the end of the road for Daniel Bryan. The haircut and shave all but confirmed it.

From WWE.com: http://www.wwe.com/inside/axl-rotten-passes-away

I don't recall that being the case. JBL questioned Bischoff on a lot of things but gave him the freedom to tell his side of the story.

Agreed. Easily the best show on the Network, especially now that Stone Cold is no longer live.

According to Total Divas (I know, I know...), Mandy Rose - Amanda from Tough Enough - was signed to a five year deal. Can that possibly be true? Seems like a long deal for someone so unproven. In other news from that show: - R-Truth is afraid of cats. - Tyson Kidd is depressed. - Big E is involved with Nattie's sister.

I am still having no luck finding much information on the Battle of the Underdogs/Underdog Challenge. Even http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com isn't much help. Is there another/better resource?

There was definitely a tournament of some kind. It was on WCW Saturday Night over a span of several weeks. Bob Cook won it.