Hobbes

- Finished Night Two and really liked the tournament as a whole. It's a testament to the level of talent in this tournament that it was this good even with Hamill, Coleman and Henry all getting eliminated in the first round. You could run this tournament a second time with all the same guys, let those three go on deep runs, and I would be just as excited to see that as anything else they could book. - Henry and Hollis are obviously the two guys that seem like they'd fit in ROH or PWG, both in terms of working style and appearance. Henry and Lynch basically had a moderately toned down PWG undercard match on night two and that springboard power bomb Henry does would get over in even the most jaded workrate promotion. - I was really impressed with how Kongo Kong was able to have a second hoss vs. hoss match in two nights with Moose and have it feel different than his match with Tank the night before. - My match of the weekend is Rave vs. Henry but the four way is probably second. It's neck and neck between that and Collins/Coleman. I don't usually rate matches with stars but I think watching the rest of the tournament before the main event raised my enjoyment of that match by at least a star. They played off so many things that had happened previously. Kong having his third hoss battle of the tournament. the progression of Kong going from the top rope splash in match one to the rana in match two to the missed moonsault in match three. I loved how Kong largely dominated Gunner in their exchanges until Gunner got his revenge in the end. The Rave spitting stuff was a great callback, and I liked how his crossface didn't work the first two times but it did when he finally hit the From Dusk Til Dawn variation. I think one thing that really set the four way apart was how it was worked compared to most multi-man matches. I feel like most wrestlers view multi-man's as just spotfests with a million tags and multi-way spots and hey, that's one way to approach it and I like those matches. This match did have a fast pace and a bunch of tags, but it felt like a collection of mini-matches and little stories instead of just a stunt show. You had the multiple Kong vs. Gunner sequences that lead to an elimination, you had Hollis and Rave reuniting to work over Gunner and his leg, you had Kong laying waste to Hollis/Rave, and then you had the Hollis/Rave confrontation that was saved for the end. I even liked how the guys would use the special rules to bail out of the ring and force a tag. It was almost always done at a time where it would make sense for the person to both want to exit, and also be able to exit, and sometimes it would even be accompanied by the wrestler telling someone else "You deal with him". - I wasn't quite as high on Hollis as other people were until the finals, where I felt like he turned up his charisma another couple of notches. His facial expressions and physical reactions to situations were fantastic. - One of my spots of the weekend was on night two, was when Rave did his big clothesline to Miller and held the pose, just like he did to Henry, but this time the big tough guy Miller is standing and just patiently waiting for Rave to turn around. Simple, but awesome. - My one minor negative was it was a little weird to see Rave be the crafty, near riot starting heel and then have to transition to being the tournament winner who valiantly fights off interference and wins the whole thing clean. I like Rave, am glad he won and love him as a heel, so I don't know if I'd change anything, but it was a strange feeling. Al using a hushed "Owen Hart has died" tone in his commentary after the Miller screw job was a little overblown, and maybe the only bad spot in some otherwise great commentary from him, although I did enjoy how he kind of explained what he was feeling at the start of the main event. Bring on the next SCI. They're running it next month, that's what my dreams told me. Right guys? RIGHT?!

Finished this today. The part at the end with Chad talking about how much the hobby meant to him was oddly touching, and I loved Parv's existential crisis over a specific ranking of two matches. For the next celebration could we get Chad to just do a podcast about the different times and places where he reflected after seeing great matches? Those two stories were great. This podcast might finally get me to try Dory, although I have a long list of projects right now.

This is going to be great but it's also making me feel old that the early 00s indies are now old enough to warrant nostalgia revisits.

You guys were wondering about the background of the Punk/Samoa Joe matches. I watched the same Joe/Punk shoot interview that Chad was talking about. I think originally that show that had the second one hour draw was supposed to feature Steve Corino vs. Joe, and Corino had to pull out, leading to Gabe asking Joe and Punk to do the rematch months early.

Even though I'm a pretty big MMA fan, I wasn't looking forward to the MMA talk from this podcast, but I was surprised how much I liked it. Wade thinking that early UFC's were a work blew my mind.

Finally watched night one and like Childs, I enjoyed the show without being blown away by any individual match. That being said, with so many super indy all-star tournaments, it was really refreshing to see a tournament that was a nice mix of up and comers and polished veterans. - The announcing was great, as everyone is saying. Wilson and Getz did a great job of filling in every wrestler's backstory without sounding like smarmy know it all's (Like Matt Striker) and without sounding like they were just reading their research notes off a piece of paper (Like Joey Styles). If anything, they did almost too good a job covering the backstories, as a lot of times I got so engrossed in what they were saying that I had to rewind because I had glossed over the wrestling. With so much ground to cover in a tournament, it might have been better to have some prematch introduction videos, as others have said. - Tank/Kong was good, but a little disappointing. The opening part with the brawl outside was good, (although some of the strikes were surprisingly weak) and the end with Kong's big impressive moves was great, but the middle part with Tank doing three straight nerve holds was a letdown, especially in a nine minute match. I was just listening to part of the review of this show on This Week in Wrestling and I agree with Dylan that this could've been improved if it was just a 6-7 minute match. Cut out the middle part and you have a very good bomb throwing monster brawl. Godzilla vs. King Kongo Kong. It still amazes me that someone like Kong isn't getting booked everywhere. A big fat guy that can do moves as impressive as that splash can get over anywhere. - Coleman/Collins and Rave/Henry are tied for my match of night one. Coleman/Collins I liked immediately, because it felt like all of Coleman's athletic offense was being used not just because he was capable of doing it, but because that was the only way he'd be able to win. He almost always regained control with athleticism. Rave/Henry I was disappointed at on first watch because of how much it had been hyped, but on rewatch I enjoyed it a lot more and I noticed a lot of things about the match structure that I didn't on first watch. In fact, that may have been the smartest layout for a match I've seen all year. Rave getting consistently outworked on the mat early on and bailing to the outside so often was a great slow build, and there were multiple set ups that got paid off in the match. People are talking about the dueling spit spots, which were great, but I also really liked just a simple thing like Henry succeeding on a leapfrog and then catching Rave as he immediately tried to do the same. The end run with Rave being knocked out was awkward, but the improvised finish was great, as Rave bailing to the floor played into the early part of the match. It had that great "clean win by a cunning heel, but still kind of shitty that he just caught him off guard by bailing to the outside so often" feel. I liked Henry's babyface fire and overall performance but I need to see more Anthony Henry matches so I can tell if he really is that good or was just in a smart Jimmy Rave layout. The biggest compliment I can give to Night One is that even though I came into this show only knowing a few of the guys, I came out of it really wanting to see Night Two and having definite favorites.

I've been working my way through 2015 PWG recently and I just saw one of those matches where I have to immediately talk about, even though it's the wee hours of the morning and I should be trying to get back to sleep. Trevor Lee and Andrew Everett vs. The Beaver Boys May 22 2015 PWG This is the kind of match that will get overlooked by a lot of people. It's on what is widely considered to be PWG's worst show in a long time (And rightly so), it was the main event of a show that went very long, which caused the crowd to be not quite as into it at the start as they normally may have, and it doesn't have the name value of some other big PWG matches this year. But hot damned if this wasn't one of the best tag matches I've seen in a while. PWG is very much 70-80% go go go spotfests, which isn't for everyone, but this was something of a rarity for PWG. You get a hot start, where Everett gets to show off his world class agility, and then with the ref distracted, he takes a chair shot to his surgically repaired knee. What follows is a very traditional, face in peril match. It's worked incredibly well, with so many great little touches. Everett's selling is great, just anguished screams and groans, he tries a springboard move but his knee gives out, he is about to mount a comeback but as he runs to the ropes his knee gives out. Even when he is trying to make a comeback off of his back, he is always kicking with just his good leg. And when it is time for him to mount his comeback, he changes his selling from screams to angry frustrated slaps of the mat, just to let you know the tide is about to turn. Just as good is Trevor Lee, who shows more far emotion than he has in PWG to date (To the point that even the commentary acknowledges it). He plays the angry, desperate partner so well. When Everett gets hit with the chair, Lee storms into the ring screaming obscenities with such emotion that the PWG crowd gives his performance a chant like he just did a crazy dive. At one point as he's watching Everett get beat down he has his hands in a praying position, and in one of my favorite spots in the match, he runs down the apron after Everett takes a particularly vicious bit of offense, not to illegally defend him, but just to reach through the ropes so he can offer him support and see if he's ok. The match is structured so smartly for the most part. Everett gets his fun offense in early before the attack which will limit what he can do, you get the great face in peril sequence, which leads to an angry Lee finally getting revenge by pulling the second rope down when one of the Beaver Boys hits it, which directly leads to a very nice Trevor Lee hot tag where he runs wild for awhile before the heels take control again, because with Everett hurt they have the numbers advantage. If there's a flaw to this match, it went probably two or three minutes longer than it should have. There was a perfect point to finish it, where Lee is hitting offense and Everett has recovered enough to slowly climb the turnbuckles, before eventually hitting a 630. Now, Everett does hit this move, and maybe two or three over moves that involve big vertical leaps, but because it was only two or three and he sold them so well, afterwards, it didn't really break my disbelief at all. Particularly the 630, where you can see Everett off to the side taking maybe 4 or 5 times longer to climb the turnbuckles than he usually would, all so he can hit that one big move he has left in him. Unfortunately, they proceed to kick out of it and do another two or three minutes of nearfalls, ending with Trevor Lee winning with a small package. It wasn't a horrible finish, as Everett, after taking a couple crazy bumps, recovers just enough to hold one of the Beaver Boys from breaking the pin, and it fit Trevor Lee's PWG gimmick of winning out of nowhere with small packages. The Beaver Boys played their parts fine, but this was the Lee and Everett show. It's quite possible that I end up liking this match more than anybody else, but I feel like it bridged the gap between a smartly worked old school tag and a fast paced modern PWG main event. I kind of think that the bulk of this match is kind of a PWG match for people who usually aren't into PWG. Oh and Everett and Lee took two or three insane bumps in this match, with none perhaps crazier than Alex Reynolds grabbing Everett by his hair and just tossing him on his head.

Really good episode, just a couple questions... 1. Dylan at one point says something to the effect of "WWN Live doesn't reward their loyal customers" and while I agreed with pretty much everything he said on the subject, I could see WWN saying that by giving the five dollar discount to all preorders, they are in fact rewarding their most loyal customers. I don't think that is a great business practice but I could see that being WWNLive's thinking. The only other justification I could see for their current pricing system is maybe they think if they offer a good deal that's time sensitive, people who were on the fence about ordering an iPPV may take that limited time sale as the push they need to order it immediately, rather than taking time to mull the decision over and eventually end up either forgetting about it or making other plans. Again, I'm not saying I agree with that thinking completely but I am just trying to think of reasons WWN is set up the way it currently is. 2. A theme that is already coming up in this podcast two episodes in is big companies like WWE nickle and diming small scale bootlegging operations on things they could probably let slide. I have no legal background so I'd be interested in knowing if companies like WWE have an incentive to go after every pirate operation they find, no matter how small, just so they don't set a precedent of looking the other way that could be used against them. If WWE were to ignore a couple of known small scale bootleggers for a year or two and then went after a third slightly larger/more infuriating one, could that third one use WWE's past leniency in other cases to help them in court?

I would say at the very least, as a match it is the best WrestleMania main event since Rock/Austin at X-7.

I don't think there's a wrestler alive who works more matches that leave me feeling "This seems good but it's missing something I can't quantify" than Randy Orton. So many wrestlers and writers praise the guy as a master worker too. I recently watched a Dustin Rhodes training video where he said Randy has the best timing in all of wrestling. The show as a whole was very good, but was so poorly booked in the lead up, both in terms of the match ups they made and the angles that built them, that I can't go as crazy for it as some people are. Between the Undertaker rehab win, the HHH win and the Rock/Rousey angle, it felt like this show's ultimate purpose was to build for a huge WrestleMania next year in Dallas. Also agree that this year's show seemed to, at least on paper, set up a lot of feuds for the next six months that seem way more interesting than what was booked here.

Rob Feinstein is pretty bad. Even if he hadn't been caught trolling for underage sex, his shady business practices and horrible work as an interviewer are reasons enough to dislike him.

Especially considering that he also said that he had seen this doctor cut out "a million" growths. So he wasn't lazy when it came to everyone else but he was when it came to Punk?

He did put over guys though. He may have bitched about it but he jobbed for HHH, Rock and Undertaker. It's not Punk's fault that that WWE decided to use him as the guy to put over established stars instead of younger talent. Other points from listening to the podcast: - Overall I'm behind Punk and the things he said, but if you want to try and find a flaw, I could've sworn that in one or two brief sentences he did kind of insinuate at one point that he wanted to become a Brock style part timer because he saw how the "business was changing". I don't have any problem with part time talent, but considering that Punk continues to have such strong objections over the pushes of part timers like Rock and Brock, it is kind of hypocritical. - I'm seeing people on other sites get up in arms about Punk saying he created the Shield. It was probably a poor choice of words on his part, as by his own account he just suggested three FCW guys to be his stable rather than established WWE guys. That said, I would give Punk credit for trying to turn a boring stable into an opportunity for three new guys, and Rollins and Ambrose maybe owe him a thank you for putting their names out there. At the same time I don't know if Punk had any more imput into their stable than that, and obviously the Reigns addition was WWE's idea and not his. - I wonder if WWE redoubles their efforts to make sure every guy released from here on out signs a non-disparagement clause. I realize that Punk is probably that 1 in 1000 guy who is a danger to speak his mind because he has money and no desire to ever return, but if I'm WWE I'm not only horrified at this podcast itself, but also that it is a story of how if you stand up to WWE legally, you can sometimes win. It'll be interesting to see if WWE tries to throw jabs at Punk on TV or if they leave him alone. If I'm WWE I never mention Punk's name again and hope that this podcast got it out of his system. Well, actually, if I'm WWE I build a time machine and promise Punk whatever it takes for him to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

I think one of the biggest criticisms of spotfests are that they don't "hold up" over time. A lot of matches built around cutting edge spots and not much else age poorly once said spots become old hat. I used to make that complaint myself all the time, but as I've grown older I realize that it doesn't matter to me if a match is timeless or not. Most wrestling, like most entertainment, is not made with the future in mind, it's made with entertaining people in the present in mind, and spotfests can be really good at that. Also, it's good to note that even if a lot of spotfests are devoid of psychology, selling and storytelling, there is still skill and craft involved in building the best ones. I've seen great spotfests, ones where the pace is fast, but they give enough time between the big moves for the crowd to breathe and react, ones where they end at the perfect moment with the most impressive move of the match. Then I've also seen spotfests with no flow, full of people standing around for 20 seconds at a time waiting for someone else to set up their next overly complicated move, matches where they peak with their biggest spot ten minutes in and then proceed to burn the crowd out by going another twelve.

I feel while ROH may have been deeper and more great matches in the year or two that came after, it's 2004 that was really my favorite year. The first shows post RF all the way through to Final Battle just had the feeling of a company on the rise, going hand in hand with the feeling that Joe was becoming king of the indies. Styles and Daniels being forced out helped freshen things up and the shows were still infrequent enough that pretty much every one felt like an event.

He's a guy that sometimes does things mechanically that a first year wrestling student would do better, but I think that blinds some people to how many of the little things he does right, and to me personally, the intangibles will almost always trump how smooth a guy is in the ring. To some his selling and facial expressions may be over the top, but when you consider that a large portion of his fanbase are children, I would say they're usually pretty appropriate. You could make a case that no "Ace" of WWF/WWE (Bruno/Hogan/Austin) has been involved in more good to great matches than Cena. It is true that Austin's career was shortened by injuries and Bruno and Hogan's primes happened in eras where top guys weren't getting the opportunity to wrestle two non-squash TV matches a week and a PPV every month, but I would say that kind of generational difference could work in Cena's favor as well. I'd argue that Cena's schedule has been as demanding, if not more so, than any of those other guys, with the modern standards for how much you have to do physically in a match being so much higher, along with the fact that by all accounts Cena is an absolute workhorse away from the ring, with all the charity work, promotional activities and side projects he does. To me, it's admirable and amazing that this guy has continued to put in an honest effort week in and week out, when he probably reached the point years ago where he could've gotten by doing less. The first match he had with Brock, post Lesnar's return, stands out to me as a guy taking a level of abuse in the ring that a lot of guys of his stature wouldn't be willing to do. It's also worth noting that CM Punk and Daniel Bryan's best WWE matches might have been against Cena, even though some people like to say that the former two guys carried the latter.

I've always found wrestler's distaste for heavily scripted matches to be silly. Wrestling has always been a business where weaknesses are covered up. Don't have a great look? Here's a mask. Can't cut a promo? Here's a manager who can. Yet those kind of fixes never receive the derision that scripting a match does. There are wrestlers out there who have a lot of good tools, are mechanically sound, but can't think on their feet to call a good match as it happens. To me, pre-planning their matches is just another smart way to patch up a hole in someone's talent. DDP is often derided for being a guy who loved to plot everything out, yet his match with Bill Goldberg at Halloween Havoc is considered by a lot of people to be one of the best Goldberg ever had. Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VI surprised a lot of people in it's day for it's quality, and if I remember correctly, that whole match was rehearsed before the show. I like stand up comedy. I've seen great comedians who could just work the crowd for an hour, all off the top of their head, and I've also seen great comedians who have clearly crafted every single joke they're saying down to the word over a period of months or years. I might be a little in awe of the people who can just improvise, but at the end of the day I don't look down on the comedians who have made me laugh just us much with much more deliberate work. It's the end result that indicates quality, not the difficulty of the process that made it. Regal and Austin enjoying Savage/Steamboat until they found out it was scripted out move for move is like someone eating a piece of cake, finding it delicious, only to change their mind when they find out it was made from a pre-packaged mix instead of from scratch. Maybe instead of that making you think less of the final product that you enjoyed, it should make you more open to the way it was made.

That in terms of severity, the last bump was only a 7 out of 10. The point being that the spot that killed Misawa wasn't so much some extra brutal fuck up, but just the final straw for a body that had taken so much abuse over the years.

Meltzer has mentioned how Tanahashi has been very banged up for quite awhile now, and that working the G-1 made it worse. I think he said or wrote something recently to the effect of "Working with these neck injuries is likely going to make Tanahashi very limited in a few years". I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly but I think he might have even went to the hospital between matches at one point during the tournament.

Bret had creative control in his contract, it's just that simple. No matter what else you think about the situation, Bret was within his contractual rights to do what he did. Did it potentially make things more complicated for Vince? Sure, but it's his fault for giving Bret that control in his contract. It's been funny to watch Meltzer every two to three months have to respond to someone who says Vince had no choice but to screw Bret. I think a lot of people still believe that there was a very real danger of Bret showing up on Nitro with the WWF Championship, or that Bret refused to lose the title at all, period. Both those points have been debunked countless times, which makes Vince's case for doing it even flimsier.