pol

I do think there's something to Sammy's claim on Twitter that we are in the midst of a new boom period, it's just not happening at the gate. If you want new wrestling there's a ton more options out there now than there were even five years ago.

This was a good listen. One thing that really frustrates me about current WWE is that I don't think they truly understand which stars of theirs are most marketable in the cultural climate of 2015. I mean, you just have to look at at the stars that have generated the most mainstream buzz over the past few years and its CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. Guys like that and Sami Zayn are ten times more marketable than a Roman Reigns at this point. The modern fanbase of wrestling is people that like comic books/comic book movies, watch shows like Walking Dead and Big Bang Theory (ugh), and are all over Twitter and Tumblr - people that you could loosely term hipsters or nerds. That's the culture that WWE needs to draw from. Your generic cool guy musclehead like Reigns does nothing for those people - though ironically he did in the context of The Shield because he was just one part of a larger dynamic. The previous booms happened when the company was able to produce a superstar that jived perfectly with the cultural climate of the time. I don't see that happening again because theyre 1. completely out of touch and 2. not willing to run with it when they luck into something. I think for a company to become a solid #2 to WWE they'd have to have their finger on the pulse of pop culture in a way that WWE doesn't AND have someone willing to front the cash, which is a tall order. If Lucha Underground gets Univision that could be interesting, if only to see how WWE attempts to fuck with them.

Sheamus always makes that spot look great.

WWE has been a workrate promotion for several years now

Oh yeah, the 10 man was probably the MOTN. Forgot about that since it wasn't a tournament match. I don't think time was used very effectively on this show.

I missed most of the first half of the show. Thought the 10 man tag was really good, just lots of hot sequences. Honma is great as a FIP because the Kokeshi works as both as a great hope spot and the transition to the hot tag. Fish/Romero felt like a total nothing match. Just couldn't get into anything they did. It's odd that with the whole MMA gimmick reDragon have they don't really seem to work like that outside of a few select spots. O'Reilly/Barretta was enjoyable enough, but O'Reilly hamming it up big time was pretty annoying. Agreed that KUSHIDA/Dorada could've used more time. KUSHIDA has to be the smartest young worker they have - he was great setting up Dorada's offense, including the least ridiculous looking set up to the corner rope walk dropkick I've seen. I thought Dorada was pretty good selling the arm, which was a bit surprising since extended limb psychology isn't too much of a thing in lucha from what I've seen. Gedo looked like one of the best workers in the company in his match. Funny that he was nothing special during his prime and has found himself as this almost southern heel style worker that gets huge babyface reactions. Loved the Terry Funk punches and his working of holds. Taguchi was a perfectly fine warm body, but I hope the VOW guys are wrong about him being the one to make it out of his block - he's just so vanilla despite his comedy offense. I thought it was between this and KUSHIDA/Dorada for MOTN. Was amused by the mention of Wild Pegasus on commentary, I guess in Japan they don't care about that stuff.

Noted Alex Jones associate Billy Corgan now being involved in the cult of TNA is just perfect, really.

I thought Banks/Becky was structurally excellent, but the occasional awkwardness and the way you can see the cogs turning on some of the choreographed sequences really hurts pretty much all NXT women's matches for me. Does nobody else see that stuff or does it just not bother you as much?

Thanks for all your insight in this thread, jdw. I don't know how you're not sick of discussing this stuff after 20 years, but it's appreciated. I rewatched 6/6/97. I remembered this as being a spotfest of head drops but it's really not at all. It really feels like the prototype for the modern New Japan big match. Take away the dangerous moves and it's a rather characterless match for these two though - your stock 'Misawa eats a lot of stuff, then comes back' story without the wrinkles that make their better matches special. Still a good match by normal standards, but I can understand the dislike for it in terms of the changes it foreshadowed in the house style.

I don't really have a problem with the the videos themselves, although some of the content can be tedious at times. As mentioned I really hate how common the term 'botch' as a noun has become in smart fan parlance though. I'm not sure if there's any rational justification for that, it just sounds really stupid to me and tends to be used by the most annoying type of fans.

I think this thing has had a really toxic influence on wrestling discussion in general by putting undue emphasis on the mechanical aspects of wrestling. It's irritating to see people bring up how a wrestler "rarely botches" like it's a trait worthy of significant praise.

TV is still where the money is though. Meltzer keeps harping on about how the old wrestling model where you use TV to promote your live and PPV busines is no longer viable, you need TV money to operate now.

Was just thinking the other day that it seemed odd that the Can Ams were never pushed beyond the level of a midcard tag team. Was it just a matter of them being too small to be gaijin main eventers? Kroffat being Jr. Heavyweight champion while being clearly bigger than Kawada seems bizarre.

Rewatching the Kawada/Misawa feud, to me 7/24/95 feels like the point at which the story fell off a cliff. After taking Misawa to the brink in 6/3/94, the time limit draw in the 95 Carny and then finally getting the pinfall over him in 6/9/95, there was nowhere for the story to go but Kawada finally defeating his nemesis in a singles match. The subsequent matches are no doubt good to great in a vacuum, but feel flat to me because the story was no longer progressing in a logical way. It's a real shame because I think the way All Japan told long unfolding stories via in-ring action is pretty much unrivalled by any other promotion, but they really dropped the ball there creatively even if it didn't hurt business.

I doubt a company whose promotional material resembles photoshops put together by a 15 year old for his e-fed website circa 2001 is going to be particularly on the ball when it comes to utilizing modern technology, but you never know.

Full BOSJ brackets: BLOCK A Jushin Liger Ryuske Taguchi Yohei Komatsu Trent Baretta Gedo Kyle O'Reilly Cavernario Chase Owens BLOCK B Tiger Mask KUSHIDA Alex Shelly Mascara Dorada Rocky Romero David Finlay Bobby Fish Nick Jackson The thing really seemed primed for KUSHIDA to win, but when they have a clear tournament winner like that they often like to go in a different direction. That would be the result I'd like to see anyway. The NEVER title feels a lot less prestigious than it did last year to me.

Aaand it's the lowest non-holiday non-football viewership since 1997

Another 6 months of working my way through AJPW stuff has changed my view on this. I've really started to dig that methodical style. Part what make Misawa so great is his workmanlike, business as usual attitude. He goes about working over his opponent like it's just another day at the office. I've recently realised that something I really get into is guys who effectively communicate "I'm really good at the sport of wrestling" through the way they carry themselves in the ring and execute their offense. Misawa is the epitome of that in 90s All Japan and I think the methodical openings are a big part of that. It also makes it all the more meaningful when he does show that he's in real danger.

There's a lot of talk of Misawa's great offense. Should it be held against him that he had the benefit of working in a style where it was acceptable and even expected for guys to stiff each other for real? If you're only concerned with the end result I guess it doesn't matter, but if you value working around limitations it's something to consider.

Parv's point about Misawa/Kobashi vs. Kawada/Taue being a lot of great, but less structured stuff bookended by a hot opening and closing stretch reminds me of a lot of 90s All Japan tags, especially the 6 mans. It's hard to complain too much because all that stuff in the middle is really great, but it does take many of the matches down a notch for me.

I'd also be interested in knowing more about that. It's worth watching Kawada/Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Taue/Fuchi/Ogawa 04/21/93, his last match teaming with Misawa's side. Kawada makes several nods towards Taue during the match including using the Nodowa Otoshi. At the end he raises his partners' hands and is visibly tearing up. Strange deal.

I'm up to 98 in my own journey through this stuff. What was with the Misawa -> Taue -> Kobashi -> Misawa route the TC took late 96/early 97? 01/20/97 seems like the perfect time for Kobashi to finally get his win over Misawa, especially when they ended up giving it away on an untelevised CC stop just a couple months later. Kawada finally getting his win over Misawa under the cheapest circumstances possible around the same time is another weird, questionable booking decision.

If the matches are still great I personally won't care. It's his body and it's his decision to do with it what he pleases. However, I too am high on inability to adapt, and if Bryan is delivering lesser work because of an unwillingness to adapt, for any reason, then that is definitely something that should be held against him. I agree with that. I should have mentioned in my last post that I don't think the quality of his work has dropped.

I don't think Bryan's 2015 showcases an inability to adapt so much as a lack of desire to, though. Penalizing him for that is tantamount to penalizing him for poor life decisions, imo.

This is what I'm wondering - is it possible to recognise a carry job without greater context? Is it simply a matter of 'Guy #1 is typically great and Guy #2 is typically awful and they had a good match, therefore Guy #2 was carried'?