BillThompson

Really loved this, as I genuinely like all three men involved. Only place where Naylor gets me is when he goes after "smart marks" for not liking stuff that he likes. If anyone fits the term smart mark it's him, him finding some work in wrestling doesn't change that because it was him being such a smart mark that got him that work. I just shake my head at Rob putting down people for being smart marks who don't know anything, cause he's essentially dismissing himself.

EVOLVE Wrestling: 45 (07-10-2015) Timothy Thatcher vs. Drew Galloway Read the review at Blue Thunder Driver.

Guess you haven't seen the 20+ disc feud comp of these two guys, that series has been going for years & Steene helps make it awesome, its not just Generico, but thats just my opinion My comment was in reference to Joe's comment on Owen's work in WWE/NXT, not his indie work.

I prefer to forget the Bucks altogether.

Spent the past few days thinking about my tag team list. As of right now these are the twenty five teams I'd have on it, Top 10 Briscoe Brothers Hardy Boyz Rock n Roll Express Midnight Express (Condrey & Eaton) Midnight Express (Eaton & Lane) Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue Rockers Steiner Brothers Heavenly Bodies (Pritchard & Del Ray) Fantastics Top 20 Los Gringos Locos PG-13 Los Villanos Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard Demolition Dudley Boyz Hart Foundation Nightmares British Bulldogs Can-Am Express Top 25 America's Most Wanted Doom Enforcers Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen Los Guerreros

I disagree with Meltzer a lot, and it's okay to. I think the mistake most people make, and I made for a long time, is to hold his opinion as gospel. In the end his opinion is just an opinion. One that I think is crazy a lot of the time, but it's genuine and it has merit. We all have opinions that go against the grain or seem way out there. Let Meltzer have his, disagree with him plenty, but dismissing him entirely because he doesn't see eye to eye with you on a few matches is overkill. OH, sure I always took the 'its one guys lone opinion' approach. but giving this a 4.5 just seems to take the meaning out of that spell, how god damn long was it, where Meltzer didn't give 5 stars to a single WWE match. Was the gap between Austin/Bret '97 all the way up to Punk/Cena 2011? This being so close to 5 saps a lot of meaning out of that for me. Dave has his biases, same as everyone else. I think they are fairly clear in the way he talks about/rates modern NJPW, Jericho, Orton, and now Rollins. I don't really mind, because while I do think his opinions on all of the above often border on ludicrous as long as he's presenting his opinion in a solid manner that's good enough for me. I think it's okay for Dave's opinion to hold more weight because of who he is in the business, while at the same time recognizing that his opinion will not gel with your own a large portion of the time. I know there's at least one match this year that Dave gave ****+ to that I have at about *. That's a huge gulf and it doesn't invalidate either of our opinions, just shows how different people can come away from the same artistic endeavor with wildly different takes.

He's in my top 25 definitely, not sure where he'll fall yet but I could see him making the top 15.

Already have Rollins' mistress/girlfriend in developmental to represent the racist female quota. Of course she's a neo-Nazi and not whatever the hell Havok is, maybe that makes a world of difference!

I disagree with Meltzer a lot, and it's okay to. I think the mistake most people make, and I made for a long time, is to hold his opinion as gospel. In the end his opinion is just an opinion. One that I think is crazy a lot of the time, but it's genuine and it has merit. We all have opinions that go against the grain or seem way out there. Let Meltzer have his, disagree with him plenty, but dismissing him entirely because he doesn't see eye to eye with you on a few matches is overkill.

I have one Owens match at ****+, the work just isn't there for him in the ring. The Cena series was diminishing returns, the Zayn series never really got going, the Balor series is hampered by Balor being involved, and that's not much else. I like Owens a lot, enjoy his character too, but he's not the best wrestler in WWE/NXT this year, nor is he putting in the best character work.

This is why it's a silly argument. The wrestlers on the main roster have chances to work on their televised matches as well. They have the house show circuit, they have time before events, time in the back, etc. Wrestling has always been that way, and suddenly holding it against the people in NXT that they practice their matches beforehand strikes me as disingenuous and willfully ignoring wrestling history that is full of great matches that were practiced beforehand.

Of those four in particular, Carmella - Not good, not bad, just kind of there. Don't see much potential, and in completely superficial terms I don't think she can get by on being attractive either. Charlotte - Super athletic, and that's all she has going for her right now. She's shown that she needs to be led by a better worker, because when left to do the leading the match is usually terrible. While her main boon may be her athleticism, it's also what holds her back the most because she's usually very sloppy and doesn't seem to feel the need to improve because the fans pop for her sloppy athleticism. Eva Marie - She's trying, and I give her a ton of credit for that. Unlike a Carmella she could have survived on being just a pretty face. But, she's went and put in the time to try and become an actual pro wrestler. That being said, she's still not good. I'm willing to give her some more time, but I doubt if she'll ever really get being a pro wrestler. It's really all about timing with her and the fact that she has absolutely no idea of how to utilize timing or why it is important. You can see her walking through sequences that are supposed to be faster, etc. Emma - Very talented worker who has had a couple of good gimmicks, hopefully the second one is presented to the audience on the main roster and then built up unlike the first gimmick where they expected all the main roster fans to have watched NXT. Either way, she is quite good in the ring, and capable of being great when with the right opponent. Online she's really been pushing her sex appeal lately, which may speak to her fears of being lost in the shuffle after her first gimmick failed.

Like I said, they're professionals, they are grown adults, they make their own choices. I'm not jaded, I just choose to not be the spot police who deems it necessary to tell adults what they can and can not do in their given profession. It's not illegal, it's not them intentionally hurting someone else, it's them taking spots that will probably hurt them down the line. It's up to them to stop doing those spots for the good of their own health, and as long as those spots are still producing something I view as having merit I will enjoy it.

When it comes to how I react to something in terms of in-match awesomeness, intent is hardly ever a factor.

Sure, and she's a professional who knows the risks that come with her line of work. It looked awesome when it happened, and it still looks awesome. By no means do I want her to get hurt, and at the end of the day she should be smarter about the bumps she takes. But, she's a professional and just like Bryan, Austin, and so many others it's her call as to what bumps she takes and she is the one who will live with the consequences. No need for me to add my moralizing or armchair doctoring to the mix.

I'll be honest, I can't think of any off the top of my head. I'm putting Lane on my list on the basis of his great tag work.

No finalized order, but here's who I'm looking at having make the list right now, Top 25 Akira Taue Billy Robinson Bobby Eaton Bull Nakano Dustin Rhodes El Dandy El Hijo del Santo Jerry Lawler Jumbo Tsuruta Jun Akiyama Kurt Angle Mitsuharu Misawa Nick Bockwinkel Randy Savage Rey Mysterio Jr. Ric Flair El Satanico Shinya Hashimoto Stan Hansen Steven Regal Terry Funk Toshiaki Kawada Vader Virus Volk Han Top 50 Akira Hokuto Bill Dundee Blue Panther Buddy Rogers Chris Hero Genichiro Tenryu Jack Brisco Jim Breaks Kenta Kobashi LA Park Mascarita Dorada Owen Hart Pat O' Connor Rick Martel Ricky Steamboat Steve Austin Terry Rudge Toshiyo Yamada Eddie Guerrero Giant Baba Ricky Morton Negro Casas Daniel Bryan Kiyoshi Tamura Villano III Top 75 Aja Kong AJ Styles Andre the Giant Arn Anderson Chris Benoit Gran Hamada John Cena Jushin Liger Mark Henry Meiko Satomura Megumi Kudo Mocho Cota Too Cold Scorpio Tito Santana Tully Blanchard Ultimo Dragon Akira Maeda Bret Hart Manami Toyota Mick Foley Matt Hardy Bestia Salvaje Necro Butcher Super Dragon Jerry Blackwell Top 100 Angel Azteca Barry Windham Carlos Colon Greg Valentine Invader 1 Kerry von Erich Lex Luger Rick Rude Stan Lane Sting Timothy Thatcher Atlantis Bob Backlund Bobby Fulton Brock Lesnar Chigusa Nagayo Davey Boy Smith Dick Murdoch Dory Funk Jr. Dick Togo Emilio Charles Jr. Jerry Estrada Jay Briscoe Koko Ware Mariko Yoshida

The division needs to be built around Sasha. And that doesn't mean that she needs to be champ, but the visible top of the division. The heel champ who the face challenger chases, the non-champ heel who the new babyface has to get through to get to the champ, the top star who the champ has to beat to prove they are legitimate, etc. They need to establish clear heel/face dynamics. Sasha, Emma, Alicia, and Nikki are all fine heels. Charlotte, Nattie, Becky, and then eventually Bayley can function fine as the faces. Paige and Naomi seem like they could easily pull off the heel who doesn't know they're a heel sort of approach. Those women need to be the division, then maybe work in Kana, Alexa Bliss, and Dana Brooke when they are more ready. Summer Rae, Brie, Lana, Cameron, Tamina, etc. need to be kept out of wrestling roles. Valets, or enforcer for Tamina, should be their roles. Keep the division as the women's division and build feuds that are about the women as characters and not as bitchy Vince ideals.

I think that botch is an example of a move not hurting a match. It worked within the context of what they were trying to do. It's rare when that happens, but this is one of those times.

I think she got passed this year by Sasha and Hojo. Of course while I do believe those two women are as good as Kana, it doesn't help Kana that she barely ever makes tape anymore.

I don't believe there is a way to separate context from what is happening between the ropes. Wrestling is one giant story, and that story doesn't just encompass what is between the ropes. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm going to say a match was great because someone gave a great promo heading into the match. For me what that means is that understanding the context and all the pieces that went into a match can and does give me a greater understanding of the match. This in turn enhances my enjoyment of the match, as well as effects the way I look at the in-ring aspects of the match. To divorce context from the match is to look at the match in a vacuum. No matter what we don't ever do that, I don't think. We may try to tell ourselves that we do, but in reality we're always working off of some storyline, some previous match-up, some previous experience with the workers, just something in general.

I don't think it is. Let's say hypothetically it's 1993 and AJW is airing in the US and the NXT crowds are coming to these women's matches having just seen Hokuto/Kandori... the NXT girls aren't getting raved about. I'm not blaming anyone for that - your perspective is only what you've seen, and we've all been teenagers who thought the hot band at the time was the greatest thing ever - but it is what it is. Most of them probably haven't seen even Bull/Alundra which I'm not sure is any worse than these NXT matches (the Raw match is terrible) and on Big Egg it stunk because of what it was sharing the stage with. I'm as big of a Joshi fan as anyone else around these parts. The narrative that 90s Joshi, especially AJW, is untouchable and nothing can compare it to has always been false and is just as false today.

And, I disagree with everything you said. There was no rough around the edges, there was two professionals being really great at their craft and delivering a great match as a result.

Hey Alex, could you check your PM's, thanks.

Kelly is the absolute dirt worst.