BillThompson

Life happens, I fully understand that, Odin knows I'd never be able to commit to a podcast for that reason. Don't want you guys thinking I'm giving you a hard time for that, just expressing how much I do enjoy the podcast and look forward to whenever you release new episodes is all.

Length is the only thing that stops me from labeling this as a MOTY caliber match. It's really great though, and Owen is so awesome in this match. We talked about it on Twitter, and while I too love Owen as the goofy heel, he would have made such a great asskicker. Also, for my money this, along with this three or four month stretch, is what clearly shows Owen was an elite wrestler whereas someone like HBK really wasn't. Owen routinely went out there against either green or not so great workers like Edge and Shamrock and got great stuff out of them because he worked to their style and their strengths. He looked like gangbusters, but he made his opponents look like a million bucks too. Late in 1997 HBK essentially made Shamrock look like a joke in their match, then contrast that with this content where Owen comes across like an asskicker but Shamrock comes across tough as nails to boot.

There was that one, and I believe also some comments he made for a Hash tag match at a later WCW PPV.

Awesome sauce, because even if it's only sporadic episodes I love hearing you guys dig deep into wrestling, so I gladly welcome any and all new episodes.

Was talking about this on Twitter today; Shinya Hashimoto. Nowadays I think he's one of the best workers pro wrestling has ever seen. But, back in the mid-90s to early 2000s I was under the impression he was terrible. I know I read a few Scott Keith reviews where he called him a fat waste of space, or a terrible worker who dragged every match down. Young, impressionable, and stupid, I let Keith's words guide me and I dismissed Hash all the time. Man, now I don't think I could imagine a wrestling universe where Hash doesn't bring me so much joy.

Loss and Will, I can't express properly how much I enjoyed listening to your podcast the past couple of weeks. Please tell me that you plan on getting back to releasing episodes at some point?

Didn't ADR use the Cross Armbreaker as one of his main moves?

Nope, I don;t work for NWA, I just fail to see how their lineage doesn't somehow matter anymore. It's not like a huge amount of people know about RoH, or heck even NJPW, but I doubt anyone would question their titles. There's really no reason to question the validity of the title either because in just about every metric the title still ends up as a credible world title. It is remarkably easy to trace the NWA title lineage though, as it has at every step of the way been clearly tied to one promotion or another. You want to question the validity of TNA, but I'm not sure if you could find a million fans of NJPW who would tune into a TV show of theirs week after week. They've never been a global company that goes after those sort of numbers, but in terms of reach TNA has reached more people and gets talked about in wrestling circles just as much as NJPW. But, in the end that doesn't truly matter because the NWA has been smart enough to tie themselves to various independent organizations and larger groups like TNA and NJPW so that they would stay in the wrestling public eye.

I've said this before, but I'm not a big fan of ECW and for the most part I believe their importance and general quality has been overstated. Up until 1995-1996 I enjoyed ECW both as an in-ring product and as a fun time spent watching wrestling. Post-1996 I've found that the promotion became stale, predictable, and too in love with being hyperbolic and over the top just for the sake of being hyperbolic and over the top. The funny thing is that I believe the quality of the in-ring workers stayed pretty consistent throughout the history of the promotion. It was the booking and writing of Paul Heyman that took a nosedive post-1996, and by 1999 ECW was a product that I would contend was among the worst week to week wrestling I've had the displeasure of seeing. There's also the issue of the rabid ECW fans who I believe have done more damage to wrestling than people care to admit. The smart crowd with their chants of "ECW, ECW", "This is Awesome," "We are Awesome", "You Fucked Up," etc. made the matches a chore to sit through. It was no longer about the wrestling or the angles, but about the fans and their desire to get themselves over. It didn't matter if two of the wrestlers were trying like hell to entertain them, should they have the audacity to slightly mess up a move or to grab a headlock to talk things over for thirty seconds then the fans would start with their incessant and overbearing chants. To me that is ECW's ultimate legacy, and it's a terrible legacy to have, In the end of the day ECW is a promotion that never made any money, that suffered from truly awful booking from its promoter, and way overstayed its welcome. ECW still has a great reputation in most wrestling circles, but it is an unearned and dishonest reputation that is fueled by myth and nostalgia. To me ECW has become much like WWF's Attitude Era, something people want to remember fondly, but if they truly go back and revisit that promotion or that era they find out that 95% of what they thought was great is actually hogwash.

If you believe the carny rasslin' promoters that claim it's the same lineage, sure. In reality, the NWA has been dead for decades. Even if you think it's still alive and still the same, it's no longer a major league promotion and therefore no longer a World Title. It's not really a carny thing though, it's lineage can easily be traced, I've done it a few times myself. Regardless of the state of the NWA presently the title has always remained a prominent title, and given it's brief association with TNA and its present associations with NJPW it's still at a level of prominence that warrants its world title status.

In that case I think promoters/bookers need to start reeducating the people on simple being the thing.

Maybe I'm not seeing it, but how come more tag teams don't employ the Missile Dropkick/Rollup combo? Just watched the Hardys use it against the Acolytes and it seems to be such a simple, yet effective move that good tag teams should be using in their double team move set.

I see no reason to not renew, it's still a tremendous service that offers more content than I'll ever be able to partake in and is still adding content.

It still gets defended all over the world, and it has very impressive lineage, so I say it definitely counts as a world title still.

Good show like usual, was saddened to not hear Thatcher, Bucick, or Gulak get drafted. And to hear Titus go after so many dudes he's way better than. Come to think of it, was Hero drafted at all?

Yea, I think the best outcome is something along those lines. Do a short match (8 to 10 minutes) where Cena comes out firing because he feels getting the jump on Brock is the only way he stands a chance. Maybe they mirror the SS match with Cena hitting an AA a minute or two in, but Brock kicks out. He can laugh if off or whatever, but they can tell the story that Cena's early onslaught as at the very least neutralized Brock. They go back and forth at a quick pace with impact stuff and Lesnar lands the F-5 about five minutes in. They sell the idea that both have taken a match's worth of punishment in five minutes and it is just a matter of who has enough left. Brock goes on sustained offense for a couple of minutes, maybe Cena gets another big near fall kick out, then Lesnar puts him away cleanly. Doing something along those lines puts over Cena as taking the fight to block and showing a lot of heart, while Brock looks even more dominant since he took some offense and withstood it just fine. Someone posted that they should book the NoC rematch this way in the SummerSlam topic right after SummerSlam ended, if only I could remember who? Seriously though, it's easy and simple booking that makes perfect sense. Cena is the conquering hero, the person whom the majority of the fan base believes can take down the monster, regardless of what happened at SummerSlam. At NoC Cena throws everything he has at Brock, even has him on the ropes at various times, but in the end Brock still wins a dominant, yet surprisingly competitive match. This leaves the door open for believable challengers, because if Brock just squashes everyone that doesn't help anyone and doesn't really build to much. But if he defends the title against guys like Henry, Ryback, Sheamus, or Show in competitive yet dominant matches then it makes the moment when he loses all the more sweeter.

They really should only go two routes with Brock now. 1) He rematches Cena at Night of Champions and Cena throws everything he has at Brock. He's classic Cena, looking like he's going to overcome the odds and slay the monster, but no matter what he does Brock keeps getting back up and in the end he's still the one standing. From there he goes on to face the few babyfaces they are willing to throw at him and he dominates them, but doesn't completely squash them. This all leads to Mania, where if a babyface is ready, like a Bryan, the demon can finally be slayed. If not take the most over guy and have Brock route him, maybe even a Cena 3. 2) He squashes Cena in their rematch, and squashes everyone. Personally I feel #1 is the way to go, because it will make for better wrestling, and it will build up Brock more than just having him squash people.

Since about the third week after launch the Network has run pretty flawlessly on my PS3, laptop, and phone. Only issue I've had a couple of times has been a Chrome thing where I had to uninstall and reinstall Chrome.

Kickoff Match: Cesaro vs. RVD Jack Swagger vs. Rusev (Flag Match) AJ Lee vs. Paige Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins (Lumberjack Match) Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar

In terms of pure talent though, I don't think Show measures up. Andre in his prime was more athletic, and throughout his career had more of what I consider true wrestling talent, ie; selling, working the crowd, bumping, knowing when and where to place moves, comebacks, etc. Again, I don;t want this to sound like I'm slamming Show, but while he's always been a good talent I don;t think he comes close to the Mount Rushmore level of talent that Andre possessed.

For me it's not appealing in and of itself, but it's wrestling, no different than any other type of wrestling.

Andre's body of work easily trumps Show's body of work. I'm not trying to diss on Show, and his longevity has been impressive. But, I'd put Andre's peaks above Show's peaks, and I'd still put late Andre over prime Show because they both basically served the same function, Andre just served it better and worked a better style for getting people over.

I should add, I'm not someone who hates the Big Show, and I think he has a lot of talent himself. It's just, no, he's nowhere near as talented as Andre.

It depends on the workers really. The comedy inter-gender matches don't do much for me, nor do the matches where a 105 pound woman somehow manages to toss around a 250 pound dude. However, watching Candice LeRae or Heidi Lovelace put on bumping and selling clinics can, and does, make certain intergender matches worthwhile.

I liked the Busick/Thatcher Beyond Wrestling match for the most part, but I don't see how it relates to 50s wrestling. To me it was completely post-modern. And overly aggressive. It's more aggressive, but the style Thatcher/Busick/Gulak are working is essentially a stripped down modern style that hearkens back to the 1950s. It's not about building up to a big move, or even working over a specific body part, but rather using mat work and wrestling control to work over your opponent, essentially grind him to a finish. In a lot of ways it's very catch-as-catch can on a base level, and when watching a lot of older catch stuff I can very much see the matches this trio of guys are having fitting into that time frame. Really, because I just see them borrowing elements from everywhere, not really working from a catch-as-can base. They never really ground that hard in catch. It was more about dressing and undressing holds. These guys were overly aggressive w/ a focus on stiffness and much nastier throws. The influences seemed to be shoot style and British heavyweight workers as opposed to the really great catch workers. The people in the room were really annoying as well. "Please don't tap" may have overtaken "this is awesome" as the worst chant conceivable. They definitely borrow from a lot of places, but I think the base they work off of is a catch-as-catch can style. The people in the room I can't/won't defend, they are a prime example of smart crowds and why I really don't like the modern wrestling crowd. That Andre comment is pretty hard to ignore, because in every way possible Andre was a more talented wrestler than the Big Show, and that even includes his later period stuff where he can barely move.