Hobbes

Flair certainly faced some challenges in his career, and what he accomplished ranks up there with anybody, but is his career any more "improbable" than Bryan's? We're not talking about just another undersized talent that broke through in WWE, we're talking about a guy who was the complete opposite of what WWE values, in terms of appearance, but also in terms of temperament. He didn't have the mic skills of Punk, he didn't have the flash of a Michaels or a Rey, and he certainly didn't have the drive to be the top star that Punk/HBK/Bret had. He was a polite, undersized, unassuming looking vegan who had no desire to play the political games most top WWE/WWF stars throughout history have played. Bryan suffered three concussions shortly after he debuted as a wrestler, and went on to suffer countless more, yet still had a 15 year career. He was fired by WWE twice before he made it as a top star, and WWE went out of their way to bury him as a boring virgin geek character for much of the time he spent there. Yet somehow, he managed to become one of the most over wrestlers in the company, and built a fanbase the hijacked WWE's PPVs and television week after week until they finally relented and built an entire WrestleMania around him. This was a guy that Gabe Sapolsky once thought was a nice complimentary piece but couldn't be "the man" in ROH, a company literally built for guys like him. The fact that he forced himself to the top of not only that promotion, but WWE, is about as improbable as it gets. More so than Punk, Bret or HBK. Only Rey compares.

I don't know if that Bryan character was necessarily supposed to be a pure heel as much as something that straddled the face/heel line. I vaguely recall an old Observer during this period where Dave said Bryan's character was meant to be a face against the heels and a heel against the faces. It very much felt like his character was the cocky asshole who kept saying saying he was the best in the world, but who was so good you almost couldn't hold it against him because he just might be right. The old "I have til five referee" spot is a pretty good encapsulation of his persona at that time: he is not usually breaking the rules, but he's bending them to their limits, which again, made him come off as a guy who was being a prick, but a prick you admired because he was so smart. Now, was it effective in terms of drawing heel heat when it needed to? Not always, as my recollections of that time period are that Bryan only got booed rarely against the absolutely most over stars. ROH at that time though was very much sold as a workrate promotion, where every DVD needed to have a "buzzworthy match" as a selling point. I don't know if under those constraints if Bryan, as the ace of the promotion, was going to be able to do some of the more toned down, traditional things to get a better heel reaction, and still fulfill the overall marching orders of the company. The character he did was about as good a middle ground as could be done I think, and got him more over than ever before within ROH. The Hero/Punk IWA-MS marathons came before most of Bryan's longer matches, and quite honestly are probably a bigger part of those two's indy legacies than Bryan's. Bryan probably did lengthier matches more often than his peers, but that was probably at least in part simply due to the fact that he had more opportunities to have the free reign to do that than others did, as most of his longest matches came during his ROH title reign when he was the focal point of the promotion and had the run of the place. Super Dragon and Joey Ryan worked a 60 minute iron man match, AJ and Christopher Daniels worked a 60 minute draw in PWG, and Punk would go on to work the two hour long Joe matches. Bryan by comparison worked the hour plus match with Aries pre-title reign, and then had his string of lengthy matches as champion, the two with Strong, the Cabana 60 minute draw, the Nigel 60 minute draw, the Joe 60 minute draw. The Cabana and Nigel matches happened on the same weekend for ROH, so those in particular felt like they were being done more as a gimmick than anything else. Bryan generally though seemed to like 15-18 and 20-25 as his two sweet spots for match length, although he tended to like to work 30-35 in his highest profile matches. In terms of "padding his stats", while the sheer fact that he worked 60 minutes plus probably bought him some attention and cred from some circles (Although again, not as much as the Hero/Punk matches brought those two), I don't think they really padded his case as a great worker by people in the long term. None of those Bryan epics seem to be viewed as anywhere close to Bryan's best by most long term fans of his. The Aries match comes closest in terms of how it's perceived, but even at the time it was released on DVD, I recall fan reaction being split on if it was great or far too excessive and masturbatory. The Colt draw got some "You've got to see this" buzz, but only around the fact that Bryan separated his shoulder eight minutes in and still went 60. The lengthy Strong matches weren't universally praised either, despite a hard sell from Gabe, and were mostly overshadowed by the weird worked shoot "these guys really don't like each other and are being unprofessional" stuff that went along with them. I don't think many people would consider Bryan's 60 minute draws with Joe and Nigel to be his best matches with either guy.

I'm a big PWG fan, in part because they only run ten shows a year. If they ran weekly, would it get desensitizing? Sure. But ten shows a year of bleeding edge spotfests I can enjoy. I don't think I've ever sat through a PWG DVD in one sitting, but I don't see that as a negative, just like how I don't see the fact that I would vomit if I ate a whole chocolate cake in one sitting as a negative of chocolate cake. I feel about the shows the same way I used to feel about those marathon IWA-MS shows: if I had to watch them live, I might not enjoy them as much, but I don't have to watch them live. While the majority of PWG is focused on highspots, crowd interaction comedy, and hot nearfalls above all else, it's a narative a little overstated by some. In the last year PWG has booked Timothy Thatcher, Drew Gulak, Drew Galloway and other guys that don't fit the "American Dragon Gate" narrative. PWG also includes regulars like Roderick Strong, Chris Hero and Mike Bailey, who are workers that even a lot of people who aren't fans of PWG overall still enjoy. The majority of the PWG product still is go-go-go, but the overall vibe of the promotion ebbs and flows, and I feel at times in the last 6-8 months the overall product has started to move a tiny bit back to being more varied. BOLA night 2 of 2015 in particular is a pretty varied card, and probably the show that prompted Dave to make that misguided comment about PWG being the most varied promotion on earth, as cards like that are a rarity for PWG, not the norm. That said, I feel pretty confident that most people will find at least one match to like from that show, between Hero/Thatcher, the Lucha Underground tag, Bailey/Galloway, and the hardcore brawl main event. All very different matches. Again, that kind of variety isn't the norm for PWG, but they're capable of it. Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't plug The Beaver Boys vs. Andrew Everett/Trevor Lee match from last year's DDT4 show. I've talked about it here before, and the show as a whole was probably PWG's worst of the year, but I believe it's an incredibly underrated match that kind of bridges the gap between what people expect from PWG and what some feel PWG is missing. It still has a good pace and lots of highspots, but it has a great traditional tag structure, some nice little detail work, and a very good, almost perfectly consistent leg sell job from Andrew Everett. I don't know if it's worth buying the whole show for that one match, but if you can see it, watch it.

A modern pick would be Timothy Thatcher and Drew Gulak. I see people who think they're two of the best wrestlers going today, and people who say they refuse to sit through another one of their matches. I feel like many of these other picks are great, but some of them are more divisive as time has passed and a backlash has formed. Thatcher and Gulak are provoking extreme reactions from people in the moment.

I was about to mention this. Joe on a previous show cut a very brief, very intense promo about that situation to set the first Necro match up. Joe generally cut this kind of calm and collected "I'm the man" cadence on promos at this time, and here he was just screaming about how Necro was fucking dead for what he had done. It wasn't some lengthy intricate storyline, but I appreciated them going the extra mile to give context for a dream match that could've easily gotten away without it.

Good show. I think one thing people have forgotten is how bad a lot of the crowds were during the last wrestling boom. Go back and watch those late 90s Raws and Nitros and a ton of those fans are just watching the trons, completely spazzing out when they see that they are on TV. In some ways those crowds had a real party atmosphere that most wrestling is missing these days, but much of the time they also felt like wrestling was only half of the reason why there were there. Between YouTube and social media, I feel like people have gotten that "I'M ON TV" thing largely out of their systems, and modern crowds are better for it. As Rob said, modern crowds are also a lot more forgiving. I see guys make major botches in the most smarky workrate indies going, Evolve and PWG, and no one chants "You fucked up" or even turns on the matches. Yeah, modern crowds chant, and a couple of them ("We are awesome" and "Wreeeeestling...Yaaaay") are really annoying, but usually the chants are appreciative and about what's going on in the ring. It's easy to be cynical about the "Women's Wrestling" and "You Deserve This" chants at the last Bayley/Sasha match, but I believe that was genuine appreciation from those fans and it prompted genuine emotion from the wrestlers, and isn't that what the whole fucking thing is about? Like the guys said, most of the worst chants come out when fans are bored. That's not limited to wrestling, I'm a hockey fan and I've seen fans chant for their local baseball team and throw food and jerseys on the ice when they're unhappy. If what you gives fans captivates them, their smarkiness goes way down.

I was recently researching the Hogan/Goldberg World title change for a podcast with Matt Feuerstein, so I actually have a quote handy from the Death of WCW about the booking of this. Now, I realize that Bryan Alvarez and R.D. Reynolds aren't exactly Woodward and Bernstein, but the book was endorsed by Meltzer, so I'm assuming the following story has been vetted:

There might be a difference between "favorite" lists and "greatest" lists but they do have one huge thing in common: They're generally only interesting if you know each voter's thought processes behind them. The sum total ranking of wrestlers from a few dozen people who I vaguely know isn't that fun. To me, the fun in these rankings comes from seeing what criteria each person uses, and how they judge each performer by that criteria. A bunch of lists of wrestlers means little to me, but people writing out their thought processes? I'll read those all day. Parv, there's no reason you can't make your list using your favored criteria, and I know that many people, including me, would be interested in reading how you interpret the project, how you're judging the wrestlers, and the thought process behind your decisions. You might be bored and frustrated by other list makers who don't use your criteria, but your list is still valid to you, and still has merit to the people who read it. When you add up all the rankings, the final list isn't going to be "the greatest", but it's not going to be "favorites" either, it's going to be a bunch of people each defining what a 100 wrestler ranking means to them. I think the enjoyment is going to be reading people's interpretations, not in who "won".

As someone who has just been observing (and enjoying) the GWE discussions for months, I'm not as surprised that people are having this argument as much as I'm surprised that they're having it this deep into the process. Parv seems to be looking for some kind of clinical, "authoritative" GWE list, one that tries to de-empasize people's personal tastes and where their heads are currently at as fans in 2015. I don't know if such a list is even possible, but if it is, it's been pretty clear from the start that this project was never going to fit that bill. The kind of project I think Parv is looking for.would need a lot of strict criteria, and could only be open to a very small, select group of voters who have seen a ton of footage, that are fans of an incredible spread of styles, regions and eras. Speaking as someone who just reads this forum, this project never gave off any impression of even coming close to attempting that. It's always been about trying to encourage as many people to vote as possible, using whatever criteria they want. If anything, I get the impression that for a lot of people, the poll is almost secondary to sparking discussion here. In fact, we know for certain that there's people participating on the GWE forum discussions that don't even intend to cast a ballot. I could get behind the kind of Parv's list is talking about, it would be an interesting exercise, but again, this clearly was never aiming to be that. To suddenly realize that now is perplexing. All that being said, while I understand that people are worried that Parv is stifling conversation by intimidating some people, I hope this doesn't turn into some kind of witch hunt to run him out of town. I like his podcasts, he provokes interesting conversations here, he's clearly passionate about his views, I can put up with him getting a little snooty sometimes and heavily sighing whenever Will started talking during the Fair for Flair podcast. I grew up reading peak jdw and Boston Idol on tOA, this is nothing.

But that's the problem, he's never going to get concrete numbers for things as it pertains to Daddy, because they simply don't exist. That's why I think the case to be made is just to forget about debating his drawing record and go for "Big Daddy is so strong in historical significance by being a house hold name that he should get in on that alone. He's to historical significance as Daniel Bryan is to in ring work. " Every other argument is getting too muddled, when the strongest argument for him might be the simplest.

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.