The Man in Blak

Setting the over-the-top snark aside, I think there is a kernel of truth hiding in here that speaks to "versatility" from a different angle than I was originally thinking: emotional breadth. Bret's work in the ring exemplifies a very specific tone for professional wrestling. Bret did have the capacity to show some fire, as well as a mean streak, but those characterizations were still variations of a similar theme: professional wrestling as stoic competition that only occasionally breaks down when the animosity between two competitors can't be contained by the rules. So many aspects of Bret's performance drive home that wins and losses are important and what happens in that ring is *real*, even after the match is over. But there's no room left for theatricality. There's no room left for larger-than-life escapism or soaring emotion. There's no room for, ahem, sports entertainment. And there's a very sad possibility that Bret would have been as awkward and out of place in 1998 or 1999, even if Montreal and Owen's death wouldn't have happened, because that notion of wrestling was rapidly losing ground to an approach that, for better or worse, more directly engaged with the fans emotionally. Bret's match with Piper at Wrestlemania VII is one of my favorite Bret matches, but it's also demonstrative of this hole in his game. He has some clever moments (like playing possum to nearly sucker Piper into a pinfall), but even that moment is mainly couched in competition, presenting Bret as a crafty competitor who's not above exploiting Piper's misplaced sympathy for that all-important victory. All of the rest of the emotion in that match orbits around Piper and what he discovers he's willing (and not willing) to do to retain the only championship he's even had the opportunity to hold. It's not that Bret isn't part of the story; it's that he is far from being the primary agent of its change or its delivery to the crowd. His feud with Owen underscores this weakness in another way. In his WMX match with Owen, the animosity builds and builds, but it still never really breaks out of the structural conceit of competition; there's a slap, but it immediately drives into a nearfall for the victory. And, sure, perhaps that approach was meant to leave room for and build to more heated conflict in the next match, a freaking cage match at Summerslam that was begging for that Magnum/Tully moment, the suggestion that the hatred between these two men finally transcended wrestling, transcended competition, transcended family. But that moment of danger never arrives. Never even comes close. I love the Piper match. I love the Owen WMX match. I love the 1-2-3 Kid title defense on Raw. I love the SS and WM13 matches with Austin, another heated feud that FINALLY teased out some real emotions from Bret, from frustration to national pride. But, with the exception of Piper/Bret, I love those matches primarily because of their craft, their artistry through the form of wrestling, rather than their stories. And there's more than one way to tell a story in a wrestling ring than just professional wrestling.

I'm not sure what the fantasy match speculation buys us in this comparison but, while we're here, how would John Cena have worked Bob Backlund? (Glib answer: he would have worked him however the gaggle of WWE "producers" would have told him.) Separate-but-somewhat-related-question for versatility: what are Cena's best performances for selling limbwork?

I still have a lot of Cena to watch before casting my vote here, but the idea of Bret being a worker that wasn't versatile kind of blows my mind.

Austin and Heyman both seem like guys that are clever enough to think that the illusion of an Austin/Lesnar WM match may actually be more marketable from a meta/smark standpoint than an actual Austin/Lesnar WM match. They both also seem like guys who are not only willing but eager, at times, to go off-script and tweak Vince a little bit. Anyway, I wouldn't believe that an Austin/Lesnar match was happening at Wrestlemania until someone rang the bell at Wrestlemania 32 and both guys were in the ring, facing each other. No way in hell. Fun promo, though.

Just for the sake of reference, here's a segment of Scott Keith's play-by-play from his write-up of Cena/Owens. (SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: This is not an endorsement of Scott Keith as any form of critic, wrestling or otherwise, to be taken seriously. Please refrain from driving heavy machinery for up to twenty four hours after taking Scott Keith seriously.) I've deliberately broken up the sentences to show when control was traded around or close to a nearfall: - Owens with a chinlock, but Cena tries to power out, so Owens hits the DDT for two. - Owens slugs away, but Cena rolls him up for two - so Owens puts him down with a senton for two. Cena fights back, but Owens gets a version of White Noise for two. Cannonball in the corner gets two. Cena makes the comeback, but walks into the Pop Up Powerbomb for two. - Owens to the top, but Cena trips him up and hits the FU for two. - They slug it out and [Owens] puts him down with a superkick, - then stops for some mockery, which earns him an STF. [from Cena] - Owens powers out and hits own FU for two, - but Cena gets a tornado DDT for two. Guillotine legdrop gets two. - Owens with the powerbomb for two. - Owens slugs away, but Cena gets the stunner for two. - To the top, but Owens reverses to a fisherman’s suplex in mid-air for two, then goes up again with a swanton for two. Cena puts him down with a lariat, but the Pop Up Powerbomb out of nowhere finishes at 19:55! And there's not really much in the way of transitions between these points either, other than Owens jawing with the fans (which is good, but also started to lose its sting near the end) and a couple of signature Cena punch-trading sequences. That's a lot of zig-zagging in the latter half of a match. Would you have said the same for Rock and Austin after their Wrestlemania XV match?

Specific to Cena/Owens, I think my issue is the how much desperation was presented at that point in the match. The timing and fallout from the failed pop-up powerbomb is a good example of this -- going for it early gives Owens a little bit of protection for it, but giving it to Cena so early robbed the move of so much of its drama because there was no way in the world Cena wasn't kicking out of that. Even someone like me, who is still catching up on a ten-year gap for modern WWE, knows that they aren't putting down Cena like that. And then Owens, in the one and maybe only aspect of his performance that was lacking, sold a little bit of frustration from the kickout, but actually ended up underplaying the failure of a move which, to this point, had indeed been presented as a bonafide "death certificate" in NXT. I don't need Owens "talking to his gods" like Warrior in the Savage match at Wrestlemania VII, but I wanted something more than what we got (and what we got later on when he hit the 2nd one and ended up just landing on Cena for the pin as usual). Some of this is the WWE template working against them (and, as you said elsewhere, that's probably a discussion better suited for common match criticisms); once you pick up the trope of "trading finishers," then you know that an early/surprise finisher isn't going to clinch it. But some of that, for me, also comes down to specific individual performances in that match.

I'm about to cue this up, so I haven't hit the discussion of match layouts in the episode yet, but I wholeheartedly agree that they are a huge problem for WWE right now. Maybe it's a case where the writers are coming to the agents and telling them they have to fit ten pounds of dog crap in a five pound bag. Maybe they're breaking in a new team of agents altogether. Whatever the reason may be, it doesn't really matter because they are consistently presenting the talent in a suboptimal light, even by the typical standards of modern WWE (and that's saying something).

Cena/Owens isn't anywhere near MOTYC status for me but, in a way, I think that's actually a feature, not a bug. This match was clearly designed as an Owens showcase and, for that very specific goal, it succeeded big-time. It also leaves the door open for Cena and Owens to build a bigger and better match to match the bigger stakes at MITB. I agree with this 100%, though.

I'm not sure if it's possible to put together a worse blueprint for that match. Chickenshit heel champ Rollins works the match like Triple H against the man he betrayed, who casually walks down to the ring and works the match like it was happening tomorrow night? It's hard to blame the fans for failing to buy in when WWE doesn't even attempt to sell any of the history leading up to this match. And then they roll with a Dusty Finish as the cherry on the shit sundae?

Selfishly, I was worried at first that this deal would cut off the syndication broadcasts through Sinclair, since our local cable company carries those, but does not offer Destination America; it sounds like the syndicated broadcasts will continue with this deal, though. Regardless, I am excited for this deal, especially if DA will continue to stay hands off on creative matters. I wonder if this will inspire WWE and RoH to be less cooperative with each other, as far as footage and Samoa Joe are concerned.

This gets exposed big-time in their 10/2/95 rematch on Raw (not in the yearbook), which is effectively a lower-octane version of their match here. The flashy bumps are replaced with even more cutoffs from Lafitte and he has absolutely no idea how to fill the time between them, outside of jawing with the fans (who don't really bite on him being a remotely credible threat to beat Bret after this match). Watching that Raw rematch, though, does help drive home how important the high spots are here. Hart's dive at the beginning is fantastic, but Lafitte's somersault plancha bump is just ridiculous; a "holy sh*t" moment every time I rewatch. Without the exclamation points (and there are more than these two), I don't know that the fans would have bought into this but, as it is, it's a fun match.

Jumping off from the Microscope thread: Bret Hart's WCW run vs. Curt Hennig's WWF run.

Someone uploaded this to Youtube but, oddly enough, everything from Armstrong slamming Dibiase into the turnbuckle to Ted escaping the sleeper is apparently cut, so you don't really get to see Armstrong's comeback or Dibiase's ability to feed, as mentioned here. (Extra motivation for seeking out the set, right? ) I think "shades of Savage vs. Steamboat" for the sequence of nearfalls early on is overselling it a bit, but the rest of what's uploaded is a decent little match that could be considerably enhanced by Armstrong's missing comeback.

My first instinct was to vote Jericho for this, even though I do think Hardy's "Mattitude"-era stuff is underrated from a standpoint of overall performance. I haven't seen much of Hardy's post-Edge career, though. (And I added a request for recommendations to Hardy's GWE thread, just in case other folks have a similar gap in exposure.) "Hilarious undercard heel" Jericho in WCW is one of my favorite undercard characters ever, but he is cringeworthy as a conventional babyface. His work against Wyatt last year was dreadful.

In addition to GAB 2007 (which was mentioned earlier in the thread), what are the other recommended matches to check out from Hardy's post-Edge career?

Cornette's show is included into the MLW Radio feed: http://mlwradio.libsyn.com/rss

This is the standalone RSS feed that I use to download episodes via Downcast (iPhone podcatcher): http://podcastrss.play.it/wooooo-nation_mp3_128.xml

I'm still listening, but Bret is so awkward and aloof on this episode, even more so than usual. Flair is constantly trying to drag conversation out of him and keep things upbeat. I am (or was, anyway) a big Bret fan, but he exemplifies all of the negative stereotypes that have built up for him over the years here. Also, my face keeps twitching whenever Bret says "workrate" unironically. EDIT: Wow, Bret didn't even need a shovel for Kevin Sullivan; he's happy to carry that dirt by hand. They should have asked Bret to trash WCW earlier in the episode, since that seemed to wake him up.

After seeing some of the discussions in the GWE threads, I just wanted to make sure, that's all. Thanks for the clarification. I'm in a similar situation as dedhemingway as far as exposure goes, but I have been gradually working my way through some of the match recommendations through the GWE forums, yearbooks, and Microscope threads to try and put myself in a situation where I can educate myself as much as possible before casting a ballot.

So, as far as recommended guidelines go for considering candidates, should this entirely be limited to their in-ring work or should promo ability be included as a factor? Also, should we give any consideration at all for planned matches vs. matches called in the ring? Or are both of these factors better left as potential concerns for the individual voter?

The Angle episode was mostly a mutual slurpfest that went nowhere, but the Meltzer episode turned out really well. I thought I was going to drive into a ditch when I heard Flair say that the only two reporters that have credibility in the wrestling business were Meltzer and Mark Madden (?!?!) but, other than that and Meltzer's awful sound quality, it was well worth the listen. There are some friendly little jabs at Bret Hart and Wade Keller too, which I know some folks will enjoy. If anything, it reminded me of how much I wish Dave would do a podcast without Bryan Alvarez, but that's a topic for another thread.

I'm surprised that Cena going over Lesnar at Extreme Rules hasn't been mentioned yet. Piper getting a non-title win over Hogan at Halloween Havoc, right in the middle of the Hogan/Sting build for Starrcade, is still baffling.

So, you're basically on the elevator with me. And the things that drew me back into watching WWE last year were: - Morbid curiosity about the CM Punk situation at the Royal Rumble. - American Dragon not only being in WWE, but hovering around the main event in a great meta-narrative vs. Triple H. - The WWE Network just came out, including an indies-ish "NXT" promotion that had the audacity to have a great women's division. - New characters like the Shield, Bray Wyatt, and Cesaro seemed interesting. If you compare those points against where we are this year, you have: - CM Punk has left to get pounded in MMA, burning virtually every bridge possible on his way out - Daniel Bryan is effectively relegated to Smackdown - NXT is stlll around and thriving, thankfully. - Even though Rollins and Reigns are hanging around the main event now, virtually everybody mentioned here is either treading water or considerably less interesting now than they were a year ago. NXT is great, but it wasn't enough to deter me from cancelling my WWE network sub right before Wrestlemania. That's just me, though. Maybe a pitch that centered around NXT (which is still great) and the ability to revisit old content on the WWE Network would work for other people in my situation.

Did Stardust just stop caring after the Brotherhood heel turn? Is there something going on behind the scenes? He was fairly sharp in his first few weeks with the gimmick but, outside of the post-match promo at Fastlane, Cody has totally out of sorts for a while now. The way that WWE abruptly derailed the Goldust feud is really odd too.

Rusev's cheesy foreign heel schtick has never been interesting to me, but he has gradually won me over by kicking people in the face, so I'm taken aback that Lana (who's done even less with a more over-the-top character) is somehow perceived as the bigger superstar out of the two. They should be using the loss to Cena to fuel even more ridiculous foreign heel shenanigans with these two at this point, not breaking them up. I think he's considerably better off than Wyatt, though, if only because I think he could excel as a midcard comedy act. Give that man a miniature American flag and bring Jimmy Hart back in to do a new recording of "He's An All-American Boy." Oh, that wacky Rusev.