BillThompson

I'll say this, I've been very happy with PWO since I became a member a few months back. Had I known about this place years ago chances are I never would have migrated away from pro wrestling for so long. Whether it continues as a message board or becomes something more than just a message board I'll be along for the ride, because this place delivers a high level of discussion that is engaging, thoughtful, and enhances my life as a pro wrestling fan in positive ways on a consistent basis.

A lot of people, like our own Bix, have been espousing the idea that Kane is a great worker. I respect and usually seek out the opinion of Bix, Dylan, and a few others when it comes to pretty much everything in wrestling. On this issue though, I'm not seeing what you guys are seeing. I've never had any major problems with Kane, and I'd even go so far as to call him a decent to sometimes good worker, But, great, I don't see greatness in his plodding and repetitive approach to working a match. His character also does little to entice my interest, and at the end of the day I still only see Kane the decent worker as opposed to Kane the great worker. To Bix, and anyone else who shares his opinion, what is it that you see in Kane that elicits claims of greatness?

Great video about Connor the Crusher, http://uproxx.com/sports/2014/05/wwes-tribute-to-stone-crusher-connor-michalek-will-break-your-entire-heart/

It's pretty common in the corporate environment. Target is pretty solid as a company, but when I was there we went through something like six executives in a three year span. Plus, I've heard it's a performance issue, and he's taking the fall for the lack of new content and the XBox problems. With the way Vince runs things I'm not surprised he fed someone to the sharks and is bringing someone new in.

Watching Bash at the Beach '96, and is this the beginning of the end of Tony Schiavone as a decent announcer? He's great in the main, but all card long he focuses on the main. Doesn't matter who is in the ring or who is wrestling, he just wants to talk about Bischoff, the soon to be NWO, and the main event. A sad moment for me was when Heenan gives Tenay a hard time for knowing the names to moves, and Schiavone (who used to make an effort at calling moves) tosses out a line about making up the names of moves when you don't actually know what they are.

You know what, I'm going to side with the caller on this one. Austin has made himself a public figure, and he has stated numerous times that he took some substances back in the day and worked a hard schedule. He's said this while refusing to comment about his domestic abuse incident and at the same time maintaining that the substances he took never affected him. Others have said differently, and I think it's an issue Austin should address. If he's willing to ask his guests tough questions about their pasts then he should be willing to answer tough questions about his past. Of course, it's his right to refuse to answer, but it is something I'd like to hear him answer. I also don't like how a lot of people seem to want to sweep this under the rug. I get that everyone loves Austin, I happen to like him and his podcast as well. But, domestic abuse is a serious issue, and Austin shouldn't get a free pass for the abuse he inflicted.

I know some people have been adamant that the plan all along was for Bryan to win at WrestleMania. At first I thought that but the more this Batista situation unfolds the more I think there's no way that was the case. That was Batista's slot, but luckily WWE listened this time and changed things on the fly.

They're all up in the Vault section on my PS3. It's great that they put them all up at once, and just goes to prove again how great the network is and will continue to be as it grows and they add more content. I do hope they've learned from how they've handled the ECW and WCCW shows and start the trend of putting things up in order though. I think that's a must, and I won't watch any of the WCCW or ECW Hardcore TV until the gaps in the order are filled in.

It has nothing to do with lightening up. We're watching wrestling, by its very nature its in the light realm the majority of the time. I don't think the forklift spot worked, nor did I think it was fun or cool. It was a bad moment and a call back to an era of the WWF that was plain awful most of the time. Something that was cool and a lot of fun in that match was Ricardo begging them to use the American announce table for their spot. That's an organic moment, and a small one, that worked within the match and added to the fun of the match. I'm with you. Granted, I was in middle school for the heart of the Attitude Era, so a lot of the juvenile stuff they did was appealing directly to me. And I'll also admit that a lot of it hasn't aged well, namely 1999 WWF, but it was really fun in the moment. I know an increasing amount of people like to talk about how overrated it was or how terrible it was, but they were doing 5's and 6's every week for well over a year, so it couldn't have been THAT BAD. I was in the thick of the Attitude Era, and I didn't like it then. I know a lot of people do, and I'm not going to take that away from anyone. I am, however, going to voice my opinion that I think it's probably the worst era in WWE history. Just as others are allowed to like it and voice that opinion, I'm allowed to dislike it and voice that opinion.

It didn't work because them brawling to the back killed the crowd, killed the little bit of momentum the match had, and implementing the forklift in the first place didn't add anything to the match for me.

It has nothing to do with lightening up. We're watching wrestling, by its very nature its in the light realm the majority of the time. I don't think the forklift spot worked, nor did I think it was fun or cool. It was a bad moment and a call back to an era of the WWF that was plain awful most of the time. Something that was cool and a lot of fun in that match was Ricardo begging them to use the American announce table for their spot. That's an organic moment, and a small one, that worked within the match and added to the fun of the match.

I don't want him to be more like Austin, I want him to be Daniel Bryan, the guy who can outwrestle anyone on the roster. The forklift spot was straight Attitude Era junk, and like most of that sort of stuff from the Attitude Era it was stupid and added nothing to the match. Others enjoy it, I'm cool with that, but I don't need or want stuff like the forklift.

Overall thoughts --Wasn't a big fan of RVD/Swagger/Cesaro. Some neat spots, but RVD really didn't belong in that feud, and I felt the match completely deflated once Swagger was eliminated. --Rusev is still terrible, only good thing about him is Lana. This match did nothing to change that. Maybe some people find him menacing, but I think he's sloppy and everything he does lacks impact, especially the way he does the Camel Clutch so that it looks like he's just sitting there. --Barrett/E was pretty decent, weak finish aside. Some nice bumps, both men were trying real hard, and now maybe they can retool or refresh E in some way. --Shield/Evolution was pretty good, glad the Shield looked like main event guys out there. I didn't like how Batista and Reigns were down in the ring for about five minutes while everyone else brawled outside, I didn't buy them being down for that long. Otherwise, match did what it should have, and I had fin with it. --I actually enjoyed Wyatt/Cena up until all the interference started. The ending was cheesy, and I should be happy that Wyatt won, but I don't think this win actually helped him all that much. --Paige was off on her timing, but she did try, it's just that Tamina isn't very good. --Bryan/Kane was, again, okay until it went and imbued the dead spirit of the Attitude Era. That's about when I checked out of the match. Not looking forward to this feud continuing either, as Kane should really be a one shot feud.

Because some of it is still great. One thing I'll say about this topic, I do feel that too many people are ignoring, or tossing aside, all the terrible stuff that took place pre-1996. There were a lot of horrendous matches, pointless squashes, stupid angles, and so on and so forth that happen in the early 90s, the 80s, and earlier. People bring up those areas of awfulness when talking about present day wrestling, but it seems to be ignored when discussing pre-1996.

That was a shoulder drop, not a head drop. Bryan's shoulder was the target, and having it hit the shoulder helped further the story in that match, as well as later in the night.

The both shoulders down is a tricky one, and when not executed properly makes a ref look like an idiot. Case in point, Bulldog versus Shawn from the Beware of Dog In Your House. Shawn hits a terrible looking kind of German Suplex, and Mike Chioda counts and wards the title to Bulldog because both Shawn's shoulders were on the mat. Of course there's shenanigans with another ref and the decision is turned into a double fall. However, it makes Chioda look stupid because every camera angle they use clearly shows both of Bulldog's shoulders were on the ground, and Chioda just ignored them.

I'm not one to find anything creepy or sinister, but I do find the Wyatt stuff to be really awesome.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Lucha, and how it's regarded among even "smart" wrestling fans. Obviously here, and a few other select places like DVDVR or Wrestling KO, Lucha is respected and viewed as just as valuable as American, European, or Japanese wrestling. However, in a lot of places it seems like Lucha is always treated as the neglected child. Best of lists are always populated with tons of wrestlers, matches, angles, and whatever else from American and Japanese feds, but anything Lucha showing up is a big deal because it feels like a rarity when it does. An article at Voices of Wrestling spurred this line of thought further, because in a "best of the first quarter of 2014" article there was only a cursory mention of anything Lucha (then again, I've become increasingly apathetic towards the loud "our opinion is fact" approach of VoW so maybe that says something). Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but for instance something like the 80s Lucha set seems like such a big deal to me because of how much focus we place on Japanese and American wrestling as compared to Lucha. Perhaps I'm completely wrong and off base, I'm open to that possibility.

Last great match I can recall is versus Savage at The Great American Bash '95, although that was mainly due to Savage and not Flair.

Pretty clear that I've talked about taking it with a grain of salt - you did see my inclusion of Delta Force among examples of Ebert's 1986 *** movies. I don't think many people treat them as diversions, and instead as references. They're not handed down by God on tablets. Mention Hart vs Hart cage match and you'll find out how quickly people do not take them as the Gospel. On the other hand, that is a decent reference for when making something like the YB: "Hmmm... Dave gave this five. We need to take a look at it to see what's doing." And from there people agree, disagree, and some decent discussion happens. If that same match got **, which is actually close to the *** that I thought of it at the time rather than the *****? That match at ** never would have entered into YB discussion other than checking out the finish. It's been useful in pro wrestling. It's useful in movies. It's useful in a number of things. In all my film writing throughout the years I've always used star ratings. I don't mind them, they are a nice shorthand way to allow people to know where I would group a movie compared to other movies. I keep personal star ratings for wrestling matches I consider great, but for whatever reason I don't include the star ratings with my online wrestling writing.

Around the middle of 95 I'd say. They were never great together, but around that time they finally started feeding off of one another rather than just doing their own thing. Then WCW goes and inserts Dusty at the end of 95 and the announcing immediately turns into a bunch of unintelligible crap.

Shawn had already been wrestling regularly by that point and cleared to be in the ring. He's in a wrestling match, he should be counted out first and then checked on by the ref, or if they're really concerned do what they always do and send out other officials to check on Shawn while Hebner is counting him out.

Another one that I just watched that drove me nuts is from Owen Hart versus Shawn Michaels at In Your House 6. Owen nails Shawn with an Enzuguri and sends Shawn to the outside. Instead of counting freaking Earl Hebner jumps down first to check and see if Shawn was okay. Lawler was on commentary and jumped on that right away, such an odd and stupid thing to do.

Tony Schiavone gets a lot of crap, but from about 1993 to early 1996 I've found him to be pretty darn underrated. He had great chemistry with Jesse Ventura, and I wish they had been able to stay together longer. Just as he was building up nice chemistry with Bobby Heenan they felt the need to insert Dusty Rhodes into the mix. That's where I really feel that things started to go downhill for Schiavone, and Starrcade '95 was probably the breaking point. He gets unmercifully ragged on by Dusty for bothering to actually call the action in the ring and call moves by their names. You can hear Schiavone slowly losing the will to fight back until by the end of the night he's gone from calling a German Suplex a German Suplex to calling it a throw to the mat to appease the idiotic Dusty. It's kind of sad to hear actually.

I've been going through all the PPVs on the Network in chronological order and among many thing that have piqued my interest is the varying rules that referees enforce, some of which are very odd. For instance in SuperBrawl VI Savage has Flair in a Figure-Four, and Flair gets to the ropes. It's a no DQ cage match though, so as the announcers explain Savage doesn't have to break. For some reason the referee comes over and kicks Flair's hands off the ropes. It's a puzzling moment, because if it is a No DQ match, then what does it matter if Flair is grabbing the ropes, why kick his hand away? Another is around 1993-1994 in WCW I noticed refs admonishing guys on just about every show for open hand slaps to the face and warning them that they would be disqualified if they did it again. Closed fists are illegal, not open hand slaps, so the admonishments always struck me as very odd. These are just a couple, I have more, but I figured this would make for an interesting topic to explore some weird calls referees have made in pro wrestling, or at the very least some odd ways they've gone about enforcing nebulous rule.