dawho5

Nobody has mentioned Kawada or Hansen's theme yet. Makes me so sad.

I tend to agree that Tanhashi is better than a lot of the backlash suggests, and has pretty good match structure if you remove certain aspects. But that's a discussion that seems like it belongs in another topic.

One thing I loved about this match was how the crowd was chanting for Bryan while Sheamus was in the ring. So the Shield takes over and works Sheamus over enough to get the crowd chanting for Sheamus instead. I know everything is heavily scripted, but a part of me wants to think that somebody called an audible. Also, the Bryan hot tag was incredible. And the finish didn't disappoint either. Great TV match.

I've never heard the full story on the Misawa-Kawada heat before. I kind of got the idea that there was some bad blood towards the end of the August 93 match when Misawa just kept suplexing Kawada before pinning him. Didn't seem like a real necessary thing when I watched it first few times and now that I know the ongoing chase storyline it almost seems to run counter to it.

I have to agree with Kawada about NOAH, The longer it went the more I hated watching main events not involving Taue.

Another guy this thread makes me think of is Nishimura. The guy can clearly do way more than what he does in any given match, but he uses the tools he chooses to within a match so well that it hardly matters.

- WWE Universe - best for business - JBL - Superstar/Diva Do I need to explain these? - modern forearm exchanges and one counts (most notably in NJ) I think they get in the way of how a wrestling match is supposed to flow. I don't object to either of these things existing, only their continued use in places they just don't belong. - matches that go longer just for the sake of being longer A match is supposed to tell a story. If you reach the point where that story has been told and just keep tacking stuff on to the ending you ruin the story. Longer does not always mean better.

Masa Fuchi I have three, all of which are on youtube if you search for the dates. There are a bunch of six mans and tags besides these that also give you a good idea of how great Fuchi is, but these really are standout performances for me. vs Toshiaki Kawada 7/18/91 vs Dan Kroffat 10/24/91 w/ Akira Taue vs Misawa/Kobashi 1/15/93

Masa Fuchi puts on a clinic here during a buildup tag to Kobashi vs Taue. Taue and Kobashi do great as well, especially Kobashi, but this is Fuchi's match.

I wanted to like AJ because she seemed to have an interesting character at times. But she was never great in-ring and the character changed too often it seemed like. She did end up saying one of the more confusing and infuriating lines I have heard so far though. On a random Raw or SD she was at the announce table and talked about how the Divas division was a joke and nobody knew how to wrestle. This blew me away for a few reasons. 1. Everybody knows this, the fans, the WWE, everybody. Why did it need to be said? Was some writer a little bit bitter about the fact that they had a few women who could wrestle and didn't care? Is the WWE trying to bury the divas even further? Or do they see it as some kind of heel thing when somebody "breaks kayfabe" to insult other wrestlers? 2. It's AJ. She's at best okay in-ring. If you give this to somebody a bit more legit then maybe it works better. And AJ gets all kinds of heel heat for it, which seemed to be the intention. Because it's really evil to suggest that the truth is...well, the truth. All around dumbshit stuff there. And of course we use that to launch into the Total Divas vs. other Divas feud that is only there to promote Total Divas. Which is the show made so they can keep the women who can't wrestle around. I'm pretty sure somebody's head exploded when they thought up that gem of an idea. I'm sure a lot of the women who gave a shit were thrilled about that one, AJ included.

It seemed like the WWE's stock price going down had some effect on their TV negotiations as well IIRC. I imagine for any publicly traded company stock price and quarterly financials say a lot to any companies that are working with it in any capacity about how said company is doing. Are advertisers going to stick around for two or three bad quarters if the payoff is big come Mania?

If I'm remembering correctly Charles picked up on this watching Mania.

So you combine that with Triple H and you have the creative direction of the WWE for the next 50 or 60 years. Good stuff there.

I think in the case of Stephanie it's really hard to blame her 100% for her major character flaw. Growing up and going to the WWF/E shows she had to get the idea that everything she wanted, she deserved because she was Vince's daughter. I think if you spend too much time inside that bubble it becomes your reality. So if she's self-important well past the point most of us can fathom I think she's not entirely to blame. It doesn't make it any easier to deal with, but that's my take on it.

I doubt it's going to be a big deal. It's just going to get passed around the midcard guys to make it look like it means something after Bryan hangs onto it for a while. The days of titles having meaning are long gone.

I'm with Matt on that point. You guys clearly know your stuff, but the discussion seems to lead you down avenues of thought that you haven't considered fully. Sort of an encapsulation of why PWO is a necessary thing to have for hardcore wrestling fans. I am loving this series so far even if it covers topics I only want to put some heavy watching time into at this point. The educational value of something like this is off the charts.

I would agree with the overarching idea in this thread that these things can all be good if they are done at the right time. But with everything set up for this PPV happens this month, you're not getting that. An example of a great use for Survivor Series would have been Shield/Wyatts after Elimination Chamber 2014. Why not have a 3 on 3 SS type match to settle things on a big PPV? My overall feeling on WWE's booking is that they avoid giving too much to midcard guys whenever possible, so I imagine this was actually pitched and rejected as it might make one and/or both of the teams too big. Maybe that's a part of it. Shoehorning these matches into feuds or certain times of the year ends up killing off any long term good effects they might have on guys getting over that the WWE doesn't care to have over. I think a lot of the time we look at wrestling differently than the McMahons do. We think that to make money you need to put on great feuds with great matches in the right spots. They think that making money is all about getting the fans to buy into them and their guys by whatever means necessary. And so we dissect all their decisions with the logic you would apply to something like the Monday Night Wars or the territory days, where you had to put on a good wrestling show to survive. But that's not the game anymore. The game is changing fan expectations to the point that you can put what you want (if you are a McMahon) and keep the majority of the fanbase despite not giving them what they really want in your main events.

I read the comments that don't warrant a thread pretty often, but I can understand not wanting some 300+ page thread with pages of discussion on one topic somewhere in there. I think that this idea, as with most, has it's strengths and weaknesses that most are going to be on one side of or another. I would question this decision being some kind of deal breaker for posting at PWO though. Do those threads appeal to a certain set of the posters here? Absolutely or they wouldn't exist. But I thought the whole point of PWO was to discuss wrestling, no matter where it was produced or when it came from, with other people who love pro wrestling. My feeling is that the board is fully functional in that respect without the two megathreads. Those who loved that setup will have to adjust, sure. But it's a small thing in the bigger picture when you look at the way this community functions as a whole. Are there that many places out there you can find discussion on whatever wrestling you feel like talking/reading about on that particular day? And if you are one of those who really loved the megathreads, start pitching ideas outside of new megathreads that might fill that gap. Maybe have a catchall thread for the different territories where you could talk about the AWA or Mid South or WCCW or lucha or whatever if that's what you're watching and you have some random seeming post or a question. There's already a dedicated animated GIF thread. It does seem like it would be easier to locate the things you're looking for that way rather than a huge thread with everything.

I love any of the Fantastics matches I've found, especially if Kikuchi is involved. I won't say that they are going to blow you away in All Japan terms, but they are great midcard warmups for the more serious main event stuff. I think that's one thing that can wear you out real quick if you just go through all the Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi/Taue/Akiyama stuff is that it's all very heavy and emotionally charged after a certain point. There's no light fare that's still good wrestling to change things up a little. I don't necessarily think something like the Fantastics vs. Kobashi/Kikuchi or Kroffat vs. Kobashi is an all time classic or even something superbly memorable, but it's nice to have those smaller matches peppered in between all the tags, six mans and singles matches that the big 5 and Hansen/Gordy/Williams/Ace/Vader worked that ended up being so great. It's almost like a wrestling show itself then, where you're not just getting big emotional matches over and over. You get a ten, fifteen minute spotfest that's easy to watch with enough cool stuff to keep you interested while not burning you out for the Kobashi/Misawa vs. Taue/Kawada tag that goes forty minutes.

I'm 100% with Loss and Dylan on a lot of the booking being purposefully hurtful to the wrestlers. I've seen enough of how they book things that I'm sure they know how they are affecting things. Maybe it's actually beneficial to have a lot of the good workers in the midcard where they'll be left to have their good matches without all the screwy booking out of fear that Trips and Steph could be outshone.

So I was thinking about the last two cash-ins and had an odd thought. In addition to being a major booking crutch the last two years it also brought us the always beloved Authority. They realized that with the fan reactions Bryan was getting he needed to go somewhere. So they built him up to the Cena match at SS 2013 and had Orton cash in post-match, but with Triple H doing the dirty work in a double cross. Then Triple H and Stephanie come out and start messing with Bryan for two weeks straight, with Bryan the helpless victim of a beating and Big Show positioned as the big guy with a bigger heart. He's forced against his will to not help and/or hurt Bryan, begging us fans to love Big Show, Daniel Bryan's would-be protector. So they give Bryan his moment (and I do mean moment) and try their best to make us forget him before they realize that won't work. But Trips and Steph are still around on every show, doing the job of the GM for them while the GM is there. And then our favorite couple goes off on vacation for a week and the GM's apparently screw things up royally by booking a bunch of handicap matches for the faces. Something that Triple H and Stephanie have been doing all along, but they must be punished when the Authority returns. Because we can't be allowed to think that things can run smoothly without those two around to guide their peons. And then they stick Bryan in a feud with the Wyatts because going from feuding with Cena for the belt, to feuding with Orton for the belt, to feuding with the Wyatts is the obvious sequence. If you want Bryan out of the picture. But hey, we made us a hot (for as long as he's messing with Bryan) heel in Orton, managed to find a reason to put Steph and Trips on TV bi-weekly for large amounts of time AND got Bryan out of the picture (temporarily, only to come back in temporarily) with one cash-in. So basically, thanks to all you fans for playing, but we've got a get-out-of-jail-free card to play. And we can tack on some stuff you're going to love because hey, go fuck yourself. So when you combine that with the WM31 cash-in, I think we're starting to see how that is going to be used going forward.

I'm making this thread because there was a recent thread regarding the common match style a promotion puts on and how matches that differ greatly from that style are looked at. It seems to me that Reigns vs. Lesnar is a highly atypical WWE match. I would go a little further to say that current Brock PPV matches tend to fall into that category. I'm not going to argue that it wasn't a great wrestling match, because it had me hooked and completely forgetting the Rollins cash in. I will question whether or not it may be somewhat overrated because so many WWE matches don't reach the level of realistic violence that we got from this match. There's something to be said for having matches like these in big settings that end up surpassing whatever expectations could have been in place beforehand. It's why shows like Mania and Summerslam are as big as they are, you can reasonably expect something far out of the ordinary to happen that will blow you away. I just question how much that big difference between the normal product and the Mania main event skews the way we view a match like that. I also question whether or not that is exactly the point of the whole thing. Is it actually the plan to set the bar so low during the majority of the year that when these anomaly matches happen they get an even bigger reaction? I find myself wondering if they are that smart about it or just lucky that Brock and Reigns were willing to do what they did. I've gone back and watched the Bret/Austin match that made Stone Cold a few times and wondered the same thing. I know the WWE is all about spectacle, but from what I've seen Vince has his own very clear views on how that spectacle ought to be presented. I'm curious to see what you guys think.

That was a fun listen and I tend to agree with Dylan on why he liked the matches and didn't like the booking. The actual finish to the podcast was far better than Will thought it was. Turns out Will is the curmudgeon, not Pete. Even if he's dead right about the IC champs congratulating Bryan.

Had a work day to let my mind digest things and sort them out. The finish to the Sting match was kind of an homage to his entire career in WCW. He breaks the sledgehammer but doesn't make sure the metal head of it is out of the ring while his foot is right next to it, then runs all the way back across the ring twice. Its the same old dumb Sting from WCW. I think that the finish to the Rusev/Cena match was right for the situation. The American face wins at Mania. But I also think that Cena taking Rusev's streak away was a total waste. You could have built up somebody like a Big E or Cesaro as an upper midcard face and had a program with the undefeated Rusev to launch them into the main event. Big E seems like enough of an athlete that he could physically match up with Rusev fairly well. But instead you booked yourself into the need to kill the streak. Just plain stupid. The Rousey stuff is certainly going to be an uptick for the WWE as far as exposure. I don't personally care for the idea, but that's what the fast forward button is for. I would agree that you keep her far, far away from the divas division. An amusing thought that was running through my head while that was going on was how Rousey could take out anybody in that ring with relative ease. Might be an interesting thing to do later on. I have to agree that Steph (as well as Triple H) will be all over WWE programming for as long as they can come up with reasons to be there. So basically forever. Wonderful idea that. As for the main event, my complaint is the same as the Rusev/Cena match. The only, only way to save the show was to do the ending they did. That means that on the way there they fucked up and could have avoided having to play the "cash in" card if they had been paying attention and/or willing to listen. I think the reason they keep MITB around is for this exact purpose. To get them out of shit they don't have other ways out of. Which means it will stay around forever. From a wrestling point of view there was a lot to like on the show. But it seemed mostly wasted by a bad build that called for some decisions to be made.

Something Parv said earlier just hit me. Orton got a pin over Rollins earlier in the night. Which means it's a really, really good chance that Orton is first in line for the title shot. Hoo fucking ray.