BillThompson

Flair's probably right outside my top 10. Mainly because his later career stuff does hamper him. He's the opposite of Lawler, where late career Lawler is still a terrific worker who augmented his ways to make the young talent he was working with look like a million bucks. Watching him versus Tazz in 2000s WWF is a sight to behold, because he works circles around Tazz while making Tazz look like a million bucks. Flair remained Flair, and he still had his moments, but there's a good ten year chunk of his career where he became consistently mediocre. Some don't care about those years, but so much of those years for Flair made tape that it's not something I can look past. My current #1 contenders are Jumbo, Hansen, Lawler, and Hijo del Santo.

The podcast point is a very good one. I know that I love listening to a lot of wrestling podcasts, and I get a lot of my discussion from them. At the same time I do still love reading posts from people on here. I think both provide valuable insight and unique ways to connect with the wrestling world. For someone like me, who is mainly interesting in an analytical or interpretive look into the artistic side of pro wrestling it's all about the depth of discussion. There's no place online that goes as in-depth as here, but often the podcasts I listen to come close. I a lot of ways I treat this place the same as I do podcasts, I take just about all of it in, but feel woefully out of my league when it comes to participating, so I sparingly do.

Maybe this has been discussed already, I've been gone for a while so it may have been, don't know. Either way, I was listening to the Roundtable discussion of the 100 matches you need to see on the Network. Charles (Loss) and Pete (Shoe) made a point when discussing Sami Zayn versus Cesaro from NXT that struck a chord with me. Their basic point, and please feel free to tell me if I'm getting this wrong, was that Zayn/Cesaro didn't really seem like a WWE or NXT match. This was used as a negative about the match. This point, and the larger discussion, got me to thinking about whether or not it should matter that a match fits within the general wrestling style of a promotion. I don't think it should matter, because in the end we're watching wrestling. A match can be any style in any promotion. I love Joe Gacy versus Drew Gulak from CZW, but that's far removed from the predominant CZW style. All that matters to me is that they delivered a quality professional wrestling match that made sense within the context of the match they constructed. I'd say the same about Cesaro/Zayn. It was a quality pro wrestling match, and whether or not it was a representation of the NXT, or WWE, style is not a thought that entered my mind. And thinking about it I don't think it's an element of the match that matters. What say anyone else? Does a match need to fit within the overall style of a promotion to be great?

EVOLVE Wrestling: 35 (09-14-2014) Tracy Williams vs. Timothy Thatcher Williams is not very good, and try though he might Thatcher just can't help him to keep up. Very choppy stuff here, as Thatcher keeps leaving openings for Williams to do his own thing, but Williams insists on grappling with Thatcher. The result of that are sequences where Thatcher leaves himself exposed for unbelievable amounts of time, or where the chain of moves is executed super slow to allow Williams to try and keep up, though he usually fails. There are some nice moments like a Thatcher Butterfly Suplex and a wicked European Uppercut underneath the arm from Thatcher. However, there's also things like Williams forgetting mid-move whether he was going for a Snap Suplex or a DDT and awkwardly spiking Thatcher on his head as a result.

Can't really see a case for him. I guess I've never really been an Allmark guy. I'm not anti kitsch wrestling, but the way he goes about it keeps me at a distance from most of his work. There's something almost unbelievable, in a bad way, about the way he works a match.

Wrestling is wrestling, whether old school or in the present. As long as people are discussing wrestling I'm a happy camper.

Ivelisse has said as much herself.

He's in my top 10, for what that's worth.

This is what I was thinking as well, but I see little chance that Dunn allows Hunter's pet to get national TV time beyond being squashed by main roster wrestlers on innocuous Raws.

Again, rubbish, 700,000 people bought Wrestlemania on PPV for $60 last year despite it being a sixth of the price on the Network, They could easily go back to a PPV model, although it might not be as profitable. Sorry, but WWE is not 'done as a company' if X happens. They will be around for our lifetime in some form or another. They have tied everything about their company to the Network. This isn't like 24/7 where it was just a service for certain sections of their fanbase. The Network is their end all and be all, so much so that they have turned their back on PPV. It can be, and should be, a very viable service. But, if the numbers are not there to support it then things are as gloomy as can be for them. They can't turn to live attendance, they can't turn to PPV, and they were shown in their last TV negotiations that they don't have much more room for upward growth in that medium. If the Network fails then where do they go? Become a TV only product in a medium that shows diminishing returns? Try to get back on PPV when they've been shown the door by certain PPV providers and have told their fans that PPV is a dying medium?

There is no huge change needed. They have lost money for one year, not year after year. It is completely false to say they are regularly losing money - they just negotiated the most lucrative television deal in their history. Hardly in trouble. If the network continues to be mediocre or starts to flatline they will ditch it. They will cut costs and make the company leaner and more streamlined. They are an immensely stable, well structured company with an extremely loyal fanbase. Those sorts of companies don't just go out of business, barring major disasters and ineptitude. They have proven time and time again that bad booking is no barrier to profit and success. Companies like that do go out of business, the world is littered with them. And if they ditch the Network then they are done as a company, they have tied their future into that service and there is no turning back.

Yes, but how many times can they shift money around and do massive budget cuts before there is no budget left to cut and no money left to be shifted around? That's how companies go out of business, when they refuse to accept that change is needed and stay the course. Losing money year after year can only be held off for so long, especially in a field where much of your revenue is based on the viability of your product to sell advertisements.

I think you're reading that all wrong. They have the stars, they have the talent that the fans have shown they want to get behind. The fans have cheered/booed vocally for Barrett, Ziggler, Cesaro, Rusev, Ambrose, and even Reigns once upon a time. Yet at the end of the match when most of them were in the ring the fans did not care. That's not really because of booking, it's because of a fan base that feels their cheers/boos don't matter. Barrett, Cesaro and Rusev aren't 'stars'. They are solid midcard acts. Not sure there is much money to be made with any of them on top. You're missing the point. The fans were reacting to them, the fans were, and probably still are, behind them. The Rumble wasn't dead because they aren't stars, it was dead because the fans had no reason to care, because they knew that yet again they weren't being listened to. So, they reacted with silence, and even the guys who they like and cheer/boo for were met with silence.

I always laugh at hyperbolic posts like this. WWE will be alive for decades if not centuries, it is a huge multinational corporation with an incredibly loyal fanbase who tune in every week despite the consistently awful booking. Every person in this thread has probably vowed never to watch again after some terrible show that wasted their time or unfair treatment of a worker ofr awful booking decision. How many new fans are they getting though? How many kids tuning in for John Cena keep up with the product after they turn, say, 12 without the memories the older fans have that keep them loyal. A lot of kids probably are tuning out at age twelve. That is nothing new, all my friends did in 2001/2002 when we turned that age and the attitude era died down. They will always get new fans, especially the children of the adults who are fans. The product is still aimed towards the PG market, so they are likely content having children and diehards as the consistent fanbase. They know they can do virtually whatever and maintain steady ratings and revenue. The problem with your stance is that this is what companies say when the tide is slowly turning against them. "Don't worry about customer complaints guys, we've been around for years and will be for many years to come. We'll just keep doing what we do and eventually things will even out." Now, I'm not saying WWE will go out of business today, tomorrow, or even ten years from now. However, they are presently showing to be a company that is tone deaf when it comes to delivering a product their fans want to see. There's already been a slow trickle of fans online posting pics of their cancellation screens from the Network. They aren't making a difference now, but over time as fans continue to turn away and they continue to not make new fans things could get bad for them. Heck, WWE may be around forever, but is it really that hard to look at the history of the business world and not think that a company who is experiencing relatively rough times and continues to shit on their fans could possibly be heading towards a future where they go belly up? I don't think it is, and to dismiss it is hubris. WWE is way different from most companies. It has proved for years that it can survive and thrive despite shoddy booking that goes against the wishes of hardcore fans. They have exploited other forms of revenue and maximised the existing streams like advertising. This business is unique - TNA can survive for over a decade despite losing money and putting out an awful product, and they don't have half the infrastructure. Most of all there is zero competition and it is still a market that reaches out to millions. It is ridiculous hyperbole to say a booking decision like this will have any major effect of the future survival or even profitability of WWE. They are losing even the casuals though. Ratings continue to drop, the Network continues to not show growth, live attendance continues to go down, PPV is dead for them, and they as a company are losing a lot of money. It's not this one decision, it's a string of them not listening to the fans that is catching up with them. It will most likely continue to stockpile, and it may be a downward spiral they can't stop, slow though it may be.

I think you're reading that all wrong. They have the stars, they have the talent that the fans have shown they want to get behind. The fans have cheered/booed vocally for Barrett, Ziggler, Cesaro, Rusev, Ambrose, and even Reigns once upon a time. Yet at the end of the match when most of them were in the ring the fans did not care. That's not really because of booking, it's because of a fan base that feels their cheers/boos don't matter.

I always laugh at hyperbolic posts like this. WWE will be alive for decades if not centuries, it is a huge multinational corporation with an incredibly loyal fanbase who tune in every week despite the consistently awful booking. Every person in this thread has probably vowed never to watch again after some terrible show that wasted their time or unfair treatment of a worker ofr awful booking decision. How many new fans are they getting though? How many kids tuning in for John Cena keep up with the product after they turn, say, 12 without the memories the older fans have that keep them loyal. A lot of kids probably are tuning out at age twelve. That is nothing new, all my friends did in 2001/2002 when we turned that age and the attitude era died down. They will always get new fans, especially the children of the adults who are fans. The product is still aimed towards the PG market, so they are likely content having children and diehards as the consistent fanbase. They know they can do virtually whatever and maintain steady ratings and revenue. The problem with your stance is that this is what companies say when the tide is slowly turning against them. "Don't worry about customer complaints guys, we've been around for years and will be for many years to come. We'll just keep doing what we do and eventually things will even out." Now, I'm not saying WWE will go out of business today, tomorrow, or even ten years from now. However, they are presently showing to be a company that is tone deaf when it comes to delivering a product their fans want to see. There's already been a slow trickle of fans online posting pics of their cancellation screens from the Network. They aren't making a difference now, but over time as fans continue to turn away and they continue to not make new fans things could get bad for them. Heck, WWE may be around forever, but is it really that hard to look at the history of the business world and not think that a company who is experiencing relatively rough times and continues to shit on their fans could possibly be heading towards a future where they go belly up? I don't think it is, and to dismiss it is hubris.

I'm not going to be one of the people who writes WWE off for good. I'm realistic, I'll be back. I do need a break though. I enjoy wrestling that makes me happy and that's why I won't be watching any current WWE for a while. I have countless matches from the past to explore, old WWF/WWE to watch, present day Lucha, Puro, and various indies to make me happy. That's all I want as a wrestling fan and right now WWE isn't doing that. I'll still watch NXT, but I view that as a separate thing at this point. I'll be back, but for right now this is one abusive relationship I need some space from.

It's Vince showing that he's not out of touch.

There are six or seven guys in the ring that WWE fans usually care about, and the crowd is dead silent. None of this is registering with Vince though.

Vince knows what he's doing!

Probably my second favorite mini behind Dorada. A really fast worker who had snap and polish to all his moves. Another mini who could connect with non-Lucha crowds, and who is really great at making audiences feel for him despite being behind a mask. He's definitely someone in contention for my top 100.

Do you mean old PPVs? If so, they're not cropping them. They were shot in 4:3. The bars are just filling in your 16:9 screen. Yeah thats what I meant. Any ideas what the first PPV is when they stopped using those bars. They don't use those bars though. That's just your widescreen TV adjusting for a show that was recorded in an aspect ration that isn't quite widescreen.

There's way more CMLL footage available now than there ever has been, so much so that the abundance of CMLL footage/TV is a complaint among a lot of CMLL fans. The CMLL isn't as readily available argument doesn't hold water.

I've seen Maximo get over just fine without diving, and he could have done that in the third. I've also seen plenty of Lucha where guys forsake their usual routine in order to sell damage to a body part. There's no real reason I see as legitimate for excusing Maximo's piss poor selling in the third fall.

Supreme Pro Wrestling: 13th Anniversary (04-21-2013) Cjay Kurz vs. Timothy Thatcher Really good contest, though Kurz flubbing a handful of spots stops this from being great. To be clear, he still connects in the spots he flubs, but they are Knees and Kicks that need to connect with Thatcher's head but end up hitting his chest instead. Thatcher is very, very good in this match, doing all the little things that make me like him so much as a pro wrestler. He works for things, and that makes all the difference in the world. He wants a Headlock, but Kurz turtles up, so instead of just squeezing a half locked in Headlock he grinds his elbow into the shoulderblades of Kurz, getting him to pop his head up so he can latch on a tight Headlock. There's also a sequence where he blocks a kick and Slaps Kurz in the head, and they repeat the sequence again. Then there's the finish where he takes a series of Kicks, and he leans into them so that they look far more vicious than they actually are. Perhaps that's another reason this match isn't great, it's more a series of great Thatcher moments than one cohesive whole. But, I'm not sure that's entirely true as for the most part Kurz is right there with Thatcher, albeit a few steps behind.