Hobbes

Very good episode but a couple points: - I've heard Dylan talk a lot about how if certain candidates don't get in HOF this year, he might become an even stricter voter in the future. It seems a little weird to me to judge glaring omissions to the HOF as some kind of reason to raise your personal bar for voting. I know the logic is "If ___ can't get in, that sets a new higher standard, so I can't vote for anyone I see as a lesser candidate" but at the same time, I know there are candidates that you don't feel deserve to be in that are in. Shouldn't that lower your voting standards using the same logic? I can see valid reasons for no longer participating in the HOF all together, and I can also see valid reasons for not changing your standards and just trying to get in as many deserving candidates in as you can, but this seems like a weird middle ground to me. - When it was mentioned how Meltzer doesn't understand different business structures for wrestling companies, you mentioned how PWG was an exception. This was in the context of Meltzer possibly not giving Big Daddy his due. I agree that Dave's grasp of the older British scene is far from perfect, and that Big Daddy has a case to be in on historical significance alone. In the case of the PWG crack about Dave though, I'd just like to say that I don't think that Dave would be fonder of Big Daddy's case even if he accepted that the British model worked as well for it as the PWG model worked for PWG. I mean, Dave isn't sold on Big Daddy's HOF case, but he isn't campaigning for Super Dragon either. I just think that Dave isn't always great when it comes to looking for context when it comes to drawing, sometimes he just likes big numbers.

I've been reviewing BOLA match by match elsewhere and didn't feel like this was the thread for long form reviews, but there is one match that is so weird I just have to get it out there. Chris Hero vs. Jack Evans, PWG BOLA 2015, Night Three This is one of the craziest fucking things I've seen since the last crazy thing Jack Evans did, so, one night. First off, Jack comes to the ring all taped up, selling the beating he took from Brian Cage. Except he's covered in so much tape around his midsection and on his shoulder that I started to wonder if maybe someone thought Jack was a house and tried to TP him. He is also wearing a ridiculous hat for no apparent reason. Jack proceeds to grab the house mic after introductions and do another long promo. What you have to remember is that this is a super long show that went five hours plus, started ninety minutes late, and is taking place in a boiling hot building. But Jack talks, and he talks, and he talks. He talks about a shoot interview he just taped, he talks about being the Rock's favourite wrestler, he talks about Chris Hero letting himself go since the last time he saw him (In a legit earnest voice that made it fucking hilarious, even to Hero), he talks about E=MC2, he talks about the fans. The crowd, that was 50/50 for Jack despite all his previous heeling, is 85/15 against him by the end of the promo, screaming for him to shut up, screaming for Hero to kill him. Then it gets crazier. First of all, I don't know why Jack Evans decided that on each of the three nights of BOLA he was going to take three separate, different crazy bumps where he flies over the top rope and completely crashes and burns on the floor with no one else even so much as touching him, but he did. This match is pretty much a Hero mauling from the get go, with Chris getting almost all the offence. But then it gets weirder. Jack Evans kicks out at one. Every time. He doesn't do it the New Japan way either where he no sells and hulks up, no, he kicks out EMPHATICALLY at one every time, but then immediately sells it like he's dead. At one point he neck bridges out of a pin at one and then immediately drops back down like he's near death. The whole point is this cocky, arrogant prick not only refuses to lose, he won't even stay down for a two count. The problem is, Jack Evans, who had spent all weekend trying to get heel heat, who by the start of this match had become one of the only wrestlers in years to get 80 percent heel heat from a PWG crowd, turns himself babyface with this match structure. He's the ultimate underdog Jack, even if he's an asshole, and before long the crowd is chanting "You can't beat him" and "One" and popping big for every kickout. Hero, who had been very friendly and playful all through the start of the match, plays to the crowd beautifully, getting more and more angry. At one point he starts chopping and kicking Jack in two's, just so he can get a two count. Jack gets just as much offence as you'd like him to, a couple flurries, a couple flash pin attempts to make you think he's getting the upset. Hero finally kills him with this brutal looking short piledriver, and a Rainmaker version of an elbow smash. Hero not only has been working hard to re-establish piledrivers as a finisher in wrestling, but he has some of the most brutal ones I've seen. This match was all story. It told the story incredibly well. I don't know if it was the right story to tell if Jack truly wanted to be a heel in PWG, but it was a sight to see. I won't forget this match for a long time.

I'm about a third of the way through night three and I can tell you that both night two and three are far more varied. I found night one to be a very good but not great show, but only if you like that go go go highspot style, as pretty much every match on night one is a variation of it. Two is significantly better. That being said, the final two matches of night one are two of it's best three match matches in my opinion, as I'd say the six man tag main was the best match, with Ospreay/Andrews second and Fenix/Sydal third. Night two is a great show. No MOTYC's but three matches a step below that level, all very different. Bailey/Galloway is a great underdog vs. big hoss match, the Lucha Underground guys tag is a balls to the wall spotfest, and Thatcher/Hero is a great blend of matwork and mano a mano brawling. Thatcher in PWG has been such a surprise, as in his first two singles matches there, that crowd has immediately accepted him, even though his style is so different than most of what they see.

I'm listening to the new Observer Radio and Dave and Bryan are having a very similar debate on HHH's vision and future running WWE as Dylan and Kris had on this show. Dave is playing the Dylan role in a tiny surprise. Worth going out of your way to listen to if you're an Observer subscriber, it's only a few minutes in.

This has been a great show so far. Solid booking, molten hot crowd, good wrestling, and even the commentary has been better than usual. If Sasha/Bayley lives up to it's potential this could be a show of the year contender.

Asuka's facial expressions and charisma are off the charts. The gleeful, almost frightening ass kicker.

Thought that might have been one of the best Barin Corbin performances I've seen. Gable is so over to that crowd. It might be too soon to split that team, but if NXT needs another guy in the NXT Title mix, the fans would easily accept him.

I get a definite Bret/Owen vibe after that match, Finn insisting on doing the double stomp even with his injury, Joe's reaction to that. I could see Finn/Joe losing the finals when Finn's knee gives out, leading to a Joe heel turn.

"What the fuck is this? Hammurabi's Code?" was the funniest thing Will has ever said.

Actually, the interesting question when you think about it is does any of this gets followed up on? It sounds like Impact for the next two months are going to be a bunch of context-less matches taped weeks and weeks ago that were originally intended for some stand alone "One Night Only" PPVs. Knowing that, I'm shocked TNA changed any title tonight. They are going to have to get really creative with their editing and voice over.

This show wasn't the worst way to spend three hours but when you consider that people paid between 35 and 50 dollars for it, depending on their cable providers...hoo boy. I can see the thought process of putting Hardy on top, especially when you're about to run a big new foreign market like India, but I really doubt he will draw much. If you look at twitter, it appears that tonight's PPV was heavily papered and it was 100 miles from Matt's hometown. I was shocked he got such a middling reaction tonight, especially since this was a casual crowd that seemingly only popped for stars from the past (Dreamer, Snow, Angle). I don't know if Matt Hardy was the guy to break a winning streak, and I don't know if world champion Matt Hardy and number one contender Brodus Clay is the direction any wrestling company should be going in in 2015. It's also worth noting that Pope hyped a special guest third commentator on twitter for days before the PPV, and then revealed that it was a Pope action figure. Good stuff.

I wasn't buying Dave's "Jericho is one of the most over guys on the house shows" stuff but then at SummerSlam, Jericho got the second biggest reaction next to Cena, so now I think there might actually something to it. As you pointed out, Dave and Bryan have been framing it as "WWE's booking is so toxic that you actually are more over if you barely work on TV" a lot of the time, so it isn't complete fawning over Jericho, it's bashing modern WWE booking.

Just got to the great point Alan made about wrestlers overvaluing their own experiences with wrestlers. I think that's why there's such a difference in opinion between workers and fans when it comes to how talented guys like Kane, Storm and Orton are. I wonder how many worker WO HOF voters are over or under rating guys based on their own personal experiences with the people up for vote. I'm sure if I was a wrestler, I would love mechanically smooth, safe guys who are "easy to work with" too, but that has nothing to do with how talented, successful or influential a wrestler was, which is the criteria for the Hall. If you order dinner, no matter if the dinner turned out bad or good, no one cares if the chef that made it was a great person or a horrible person. When your goal is to sell a product, the customer's opinions actually mean MORE than the employee's opinions, not less.

Dave on Wrestling Observer Radio said that all he knows is that Sting's injury is legit, it's to his neck, and it's serious.

Have to think that the Sting injury was real. It did not play into anything afterwards and they went straight to the finish. Given how scared Vince is to book older wrestlers, have to think that was Sting's nail in the coffin, which is bad because he was doing very well (Albeit a bit gassed) in a late 90s style WWF brawl.

I don't know if WWE's hardcore fans are willing to spend more money than ever, as much as a lot of former WWE fans have gone from watching weekly and spending a little money monthly, to picking and choosing two to four big events and spending whatever it costs to attend/watch them. There are a lot of former fans who will watch WrestleMania and maybe Rumble and one or two other big shows, and they'll maybe buy a ticket when WWE runs in their area, but that's it. WWE has failed to create a full time main event draw since John Cena, and so more and more fans are no longer following the product as an on going hobby. It's just a fun event you'll see once in awhile and then immediately forget about. Casual fans are fickle and hard to hold on to, but I don't know if this "We have fewer fans but we can milk them for more money" mindset is anything but a slow moving train to obsolescence. It's also not something that will appeal to their TV partners, and that is a major revenue stream for the company. I know in terms of the rankings, Raw still is at or near the top of the cable ratings, but in terms of pure viewers they've lost a sizable percentage of their TV audience in three or four years. Part of that is probably cord cutting, but we live in a world where sports organizations are getting record TV deals because they're seen as the only properties left that are "DVR proof". I would've thought WWE would've had similar properties, and judging from the rumors about WWE's contract renewal expectations before they re-uped with USA, they thought so too. We were wrong.

1. Randy Savage: HEEL. Good at both, but I think his best work was as the unhinged, jealous man who could snap at any time. 2. Ric Flair: HEEL. But specifically the heel that you'd boo, but deep down you really wish you could be. 3. The Rock: FACE. Tough, because I feel like he's best as a face, but largely his success came as a face who acted like a heel. When he was first pushed as a clean cut third generation blue chip face, fans couldn't stand him. When he started to act like a heel, fans fell in love with him. So even though it's all muddled with Rock, I'm going face. 4. Kurt Angle: HEEL. His first few months/year or two specifically. When he was that guy who acted like a babyface but just tweaked it enough to let you know that he was a cocky asshole. The guy who when he said "I have a lot of retarded fans out there" you had to wonder if his character was oblivious to how that sounded, or really smartly jabbing them. 5. Mick Foley: FACE. Cactus Jack was scary to me when I was young, but looking back, even then his likeability shined through. He was a scary monster heel, but was a lot better at taking beatings than giving them. Even when he was a heel as Mankind, those background pieces with JR humanized him and made him likeable. After his first book came out there was no going back. 6. Shawn Michaels: HEEL. Even when Shawn tried to be a face in his prime he had a natural unlikeability and cockiness to him. His late career face run as the old cowboy gunslinger was good, but it says something when his best face run was when he stopped talking and emoting very much. 7. Bret Hart: FACE. Bret obviously relished being the white hat like few wrestlers ever did. He had a great heel run in WWF in the 90s but even then, he was mostly a heel just to Americans, and you could see some justifications for the way he felt. 8. Daniel Bryan: BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. Bryan's best character was actually as ROH world champion. He was a cocky prick who bragged about being the best wrestler in the world, but you had to respect him because he might have been correct. A spot that perfectly encapsulates his character is when he'd hold an opponent in a submission for four seconds after he reached the ropes, then yell at the ref that he "had five". It's a prick move, but technically not a rule breaking move, making him look like a jerk and a smart wrestler at the same time. He was a face against heels, a heel against faces, all without ever having to change a thing. He was a tweener, but in a completely different way than the edgy "shades of grey" characters of late 90s WWF.

I liked the four way but got burnt out on multi-man spotfests with it directly following the three way tag match. I could see AJ winning the ROH title and defending it in Japan. Styles vs. Elgin for the ROH World Title would probably be a good main event for their show in Japan in 2016.

I spoke too soon. #BigMike just got himself over.

Very fun three way spotfest tag. It's interesting that Elgin is still the least over guy in this four way by far. People thought he'd get US momentum off his great G1 but his reactions have been hit and miss at best. I can pick out individual boos and "Go back to Canada"'s from the audience.

I am not an ACH fan. That match did nothing to change that.

Cedric vs. Moose felt like an old school ECW match. Not much flow, a lot of long pauses in between spots, but pretty much everything they did was either athletically impressive, insane or both. Moose' first fall away slam into the guardrail looked awesome, and I loved that last corner dropkick he took right near the end of the match. Ending with the wrench and Veda Scott was a nice payoff to the storyline. Moose is ready to be moved up the card. Match was stupid dumb fun.

Don't know how it sounds in the building but on PPV this crowd sounds pretty hot.

Fish vs. Lethal wasn't fantastic but better than I expected. A good solid match.

There was a thread on the Observer board that Dave posted in just a day or two ago that I can't seem to find, but Dave said the site is doing very well right now, and is driven largely just by WWE and UFC. I also recall Bryan a few weeks ago saying that the site had the lowest percentage of subscriber loss post-WrestleMania that they've had a in a long time, maybe ever. When people requested more old Observers in the online archive, Dave asked if a $1 a month subscription increase would be worth it. Are the old Observers that much of a money maker or that hard to transcribe that it would take a dollar month until the end of time to subsidize having them being put on the site faster than one a week?