Goodear

Kidd's time in NXT finding his voice as a cat loving, beats wearing douche was time well spent. FACT.

Holy Shit, the Three Wise Men as a damn Legion of Doom/Monster Society of Evil is a recipe to print money. They combine their efforts into one big super worker like Valentine and holy snicker doodles. I would be concerned you might be going a little heavy on the gangs and stables personally but I think you can make it work. I'm kind of surprised you didn't send Bruno right back after Dibiase since you brought him back but you might be saving that.

I think absolutely minimalism plays a part in successful execution of the professional wrestling with the most obvious example being Hulk Hogan during his WWF World Title run who cut back basically anything that wasn't going to get the most reaction-for-the-buck because he didn't have to go all out for his audience. This is emphasized by how he would change it up when he would go to Japan and start busting out different stuff because he felt the audience there wouldn't be as receptive. You can also point to guys like Mick Foley who dumbed things way down from taking crazy risks and got more over with a sock puppet than he ever did doing sunset flips to the concrete. I think minimalism would help a great deal of talents and organizations who burn out crowds and continually raise the bar until a top rope springboard tombstone piledriver into a double superkick into a Styles Clash is the only thing that gets a reaction. It also keeps your roster healthier in the short term and emphasizes storytelling over popcorn munching explosions to the extreme.

I don't want to get into the pros and cons of Whatshisface because I don't care. I would have to think that The Bushwackers if anything separates Luke and Butch from any number of tag teams who couldn't evolve the act with time. They went from blood soaked brawlers to this kid friendly act and extended their careers for an extra 6 years or more. And the kid friendly stuff had to lucrative with the ball caps being an especially nice piece of merchandise. I don't know I can think of anyone that took such a drastic turn outside of Mick Foley who was so successful. I don't think you can argue that they had their largest degree of fame in WWF. Granted fame isn't everything. I'm still a little confused by Will's points about Fujinami being the 'easiest' Hall of Fame inductee. I assume he means from a merit based Hall of Fame taking into account drawing and performance but still I have to wonder if he would out do Savage in those areas. He doesn't seem as hyped to me as say Baba, Kawada, Jumbo or Misawa. Where would someone start to pick that up?

I mean its not like he's The Swedish Angel or something, he would fit right in on the vast majority of professional baseball teams where beards run rampant. The reality is they decided to try to make a new star because they didn't know if Bryan was going to be able to come back at all. He did and they had nowhere to put him other than in this mush of a mid card match. The larger problem is that they don't protect the mid card worth a damn and there was no one ready to step up into a major role with Daniel. If they had someone ready to stand up, I doubt they would have so many problems right now.

Alas Poor Superstar, I knew him well. Cut down in the prime of his life. Curse you javelin! Curse you! Barry Darsow for Son of Superstar. I was worried that the Islanders were going to drag Snuka down to be honest but it looks like he's elevating SD and Muraco has put on his working shoes. Good on him! I think we need to focus the shows a little more on him at times but positives abound. I would totally have Sarge mow down the Islanders one-by-one but it seems so backward to have a heel alone against the odds. And you cannot have another stable. No way. Bruno coming back in what seems like 3 weeks is a sign that the booking is flighty and will go whichever way the wind blows. It removes a sense of consequence when you reverse gears on what looks like a whim. You just killed any retirement angles or loser leaves town stipulations because you want to pop some numbers. I feel like this happens a lot in your tenure Parv where you switched the belts around a bunch when stuff didn't work immediately.

Oh no doubt, I always leaned towards it being a counter myself. As an aside, I really love Bret Hart roll up finishes because he is super awesome at them.

For all the shit we give WWE about their stop-start pushes, I'm definitely ready for them to give up on Bray Wyatt and toss him in the Adam Rose/Fandango trash heap. As somebody who no longer watches I'm curius. . Is Wyatt still over with the live crowds? How are his promos received? I think Bray could be tolerable if he went face and dropped some of the gimmicky shit from his promos. I wanna say his entrance package (GAAARUNK, Latern, Music) is over but the rest of the production is flagging because he doesn't have The Family to fill time for him.

I don't see any of the four involved in the 'tournament" getting over in this environment. Its basically the worst possible way to debut those particular talents who need the ring space to actually perform. Corbin would actually be a better choice in my mind than any of them because he doesn't need the room and can be impressive standing there not getting in the way. The rest of them need space to work and they won't be able to with 19 other guys in the way. Battle Royals are awful for getting over high flyers or smaller guys.

I kind of wonder if the booking of the match itself hurt Owen's ability to draw. To this day, I have heard two theories regarding the finish 1) that Owen countered the victory roll because no one knew Bret better than him or 2) Owen got lucky and just collapsed on top of his brother. I wonder if it had been more obvious that Owen was doing something intentional and moved the finish to something like a low blow or grabbing the ropes, if it would have led to a different outcome regarding the push. One thing about that WrestleMania I also don't like is the banana peal finish to the main event where Yoko just falls off the ropes for no reason. I never got that finish. Booking wise compared to today, I think comparing everything to being "as bad as Daniel Bryan" kind of misses the larger point that nothing is working right now and the entire show is in shambles. I don't think D. Bryan's not being in the main event is even the biggest problem right now looking at the build. Its just this shapeless mess of a card.

So. Fantasy booking is fun right? Right. So here we go. First off, some rules are in order. I’m going to be working from the WrestleMania card to start and not making any last minute changes. I’m also going to use real WWE as a barometer for who I can and cannot use. So if someone gets injured in the real, I will have to deal with that injury as well. I also am beholden to the WWE/NXT roster as it actually exists so when Brock Lesnar goes, he goes. Since he didn’t go, he stays. I also won’t add Nakamura to the roster unless that actually happens because otherwise the roster would become unrecognizable in about a week. This inserts constraints to the fantasy booking to ground it a bit in reality. With that in mind, here is the basic plan. I contend that the biggest issue currently hurting WWE is a lack of characters with clear and consistent motivations. The second biggest issue is that nothing is sticking in mental space due to the amount of high level matches that are given out week to week to fill time. That being said, WWE RAW and Smackdown will no longer be giving away as many main event matches as previous. We are protecting matchups so the big shows are big and to not burn out match ups that lose all value. I try to give a structure to these things more in a bullet point form as though I was trying to write an actual script for the show rather than move-by-move or word-by-word. We do want a structured show though so it doesn’t turn into guys stepping on each other’s moves or killing stuff like dives out of the ring. I will also give you, gentle reader, my thinking regarding the moves and why I am making them. I found in constructing Wrestlemania that one of the larger problems with the card is that the natural cadence for the line up is to start with the less important matches and build to your more heavily built matches. What this leads to is a lot of multi-man matches in a row which is not ideal because it goes from cluster to cluster to cluster. Thats a lot of clusters. I’m not happy about it but I can’t see moving one of the five singles matches down there to make it work. Match 1: Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal In terms of Sheamus, I think we all see his introduction as inevitable. I would guess that (based on current direction) he may attack Curtis Axel before the match to ‘make room’ to continue the Axel storyline. I think this may be a mistake considering that Axel is getting some face reactions. On the other hand, I’m not certain keeping Sheamus a face is important in the long term. I’ll roll with Sheamus taking out Axel before the match and see where I feel its going. One of the most recent missteps from WWE is the whole NXT tournament to get in the Battle Royal that contains four guys who won’t stand out at all in a Battle Royal. I’d almost be happier with Baron Corbin in here just for size reasons but for the sake of continuity, let us say Adrian Neville is your winner. He will get a mini angle out of the Battle Royal to give him a post-RAW match. Kane and Big Show (much to your delight) will begin the Battle Royal the way the Royal Rumble ended with them being a dominant squad, eliminating some of the lesser guys in the rumble like Fandango, Sin Cara and Zach Ryder. They will be instructed to not treat the eliminations like putting groceries in the back of their Honda Civic. I want to give Titus O’Neil some shine here and give him a strong elimination like Mark Henry and a good knock down on The Big Show. Final Six are Show, Kane, Miz, Mizdow, Sheamus and Ryback. Big Show accidentally cracks Kane with a knockout blow and both get eliminated moments later with Sheamus Brogue kicking Kane off the apron and Ryback meat hooking Show in the back. This will be needed to make the great Kane-Show angle really kick off! (No it won’t. But its important to have this plot point regardless.) Miz tries to shove Mizdow in front of him during the traditional final four showdown. Mizdow finally turns on Miz while Ryback and Sheamus stand by in bemusement. Mizdow eliminates Miz and chased him to the back. In essence, eliminating himself without having to kill his heat with an elimination immediately after his big moment. Ryback gets the surprise elimination on Sheamus by countering a Brogue kick. This should come off as a bit unexpected with most people predicting Sheamus to win to set up the evening as having unpredictable (but not unrealistic) outcomes. This also puts some momentum behind Ryback for stuff to come down the line. Order of Elimination: Zach Ryder (by Adam Rose) Heath Slater (by Adrian Neville) Adam Rose (by Goldust) Jack Swagger (by Kane & Big Show) Sin Cara (by Mark Henry) Erik Rowan (by Big Show) Adrian Neville (by Kane) Darren Young (by Kane & Big Show) Fandango (by Big Show) Mark Henry (by Titus O’Neil) Titus O’Neil (by The Miz) Goldust (by Kane) Big Show (by Ryback) Kane (by Sheamus) The Miz (by Mizdow) Mizdow leaves the ring Sheamus (by Ryback) Match 2: Tag Title 4 Way With Jey Uso hurt, Jimmy attempts to start the match solo against the other competitors but Kidd and Cesaro demand that he not be allowed to compete without a partner. This partner comes from an unlikely source as Big E offers to team up with him after conferring with Woods and Kingston. He is doing this because it is simply the right thing to do. We are trying to make our good guys act like good people here. I’m also planning on moving Big E to better things than the New Day trio and might as well start that transition here. Kidd and Cesaro take the bulk of the match as they have to fend off the other teams. For one, they’re the best workers of the bunch and, for two, we are going to build some desperation into the match so going into the finish comes off as a grand escape. Finish comes after the inevitable pile up on the outside of the ring. I want Tyson to take advantage of the number of people around the ring to post Jey on the outside and pin him despite the fact he is not in the actual match. This is designed to get the tag champs some actual heel heat by doing something dastardly rather than being awesome wrestlers that get face reactions. Again, faces do good things and heels do bad things. Match 3: Ladder Match for the IC Title First off, we are going to tone down this shit to Wrestlemania X levels so these morons don’t cripple each other. We aren’t here to make anyone’s career shorter, I’m looking at you Daniel Bryan. You ain’t ramming your head into shit sir. I want to reestablish Harper coming off Mania as more than midcard heater so we are going to highlight him as a monster during the contest. He’s not really going to be involved in the finish so he has to be a bit dominant during the bulk of the match. We will let him get taken out by the three main faces hitting all of their finishers culminating with the running knee. I don’t have large plans for Barrett or Truth coming out of the show so they may get some moments but I’m not focusing on them. Barrett will likely get shuffled into Harper’s current role and may main event some shows as the midcarder facing higher guys on the card. I need to reevaluate his role going forward. Finish is Dolph and Bryan being on the top of the ladder reaching for the belts when Ambrose pulls Bryan down. This frees Dolph to pull down the strap to take the win. Bryan looks on in shock as Dean leaves the ring in frustration yelling at no one in particular. Match 4: Bella Twins vs. AJ Lee & Paige We are going to give the fans a chance to catch their breaths here and start to work through any residual problems with Bryan not going over. Bellas are encouraged to play with the crowd and stall away here. They should feel empowered to feed into the ‘you can’t wrestle’ chants or any other backlash. Structure is simple with heel stalling - face shine - heel heat - face rally and win. NO false finishes or too much back and forth. Paige is your face in peril because I’m trying to avoid chants for AJ’s husband. She can come in as the hot tag before tagging Paige back in for the finish, which will be the faces catching both Bellas in their finishes for a double tap out. Match 5: Undertaker vs. Bray Wyatt I want Bray’s entrance to really play into the Buzzard imagery of his gimmick as I’m going to be playing that up significantly coming out of the show. I’m thinking if we can use shadows and lighting properly we can get some huge wings on the guy which is kind of what I’m looking for in my mind. Undertaker on the other hand I want to go in a Western ‘Saint of Killers’ vibe from the comic book Preacher. Kind of a last gunfighter deal with the man with no name riding in on a pale horse. I think we need to let Bryan work to his strengths by working towards his cut off spots. Taker works from underneath for most of the match which goes to show the mystical power isn’t with him anymore. Bray is more the juggernaut who can only get slowed down. Finish comes when Undertaker has Bray by the throat by Wyatt bats his hand aside and locks in the Sister Abigail for a two count. Bray quickly follows up with another for the three. We aren’t going to heavy on Taker being indestructible here because this is probably it going forward. Match 6: Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins I don’t really have many match notes here. Randy should take 60% of the match (especially early) because we want to put some energy the crowd after what may be a deflating Undertaker loss (although I suspect it won’t be the same sort of response as last year). Finish comes when Randy sidesteps the flying knee and follows with the RKO. We’re building for the upcoming angle here and Rollins dropping a fall just means Orton will work in the spot I have in mind for him more naturally. Match 7: US Title Match Rusev vs. John Cena With coming off the high of the Orton win, we are going to have Rusev really smash the hell out of Cena early and dominate the ‘old man’. Cena’s rallies are to be short and cut off quickly by a dominant force. I want him to throw that lariat though because mmmm thats a good lariat. Finish will be Cena powering out of the Accolade and backing Rusev into a corner ala Hogan and Iron Sheik. But when Cena grabs the rebounding Rusev and tries to hoist him for the Attitude Adjustment, his back gives way and he has to set Rusev back down. Rusev super kicks him for three. Match 8: Sting vs. Triple H Sting’s entrance is going to hard to handle because we don’t want him to just walk out, because thats lame and the ‘special’ entrances are being taken by Bray and Undertaker. As a result, he’s not really going to have an entrance. Instead Triple H will do his normal spot light entrance and the lights will come up and Sting will already be in the ring behind Trips. Sting will go to pull him into the death drop but Trips will scoot out and sell it like his life is flashing before his eyes. Structure is going to be simple again with Sting shining hard before Hunter gets an advantage with some rule breaker standards like eye rakes and choking. Sting comes back and we go to the finish without multiple changes in momentum. We’re downshifting a bit so these guys can keep up and not be overwhelmed in the position. Finish is a strait rally for Sting with standard comeback leading to a Stinger Splash being followed with the Scorpion Death Drop for the three. Match 9: World Title Match Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns Seth Rollins rolls down to ringside solo to watch the proceedings with the briefcase in hand. He jumps the apron and manages to pop Brock in the head with the case as Heyman has the referee (not on purpose). Reigns follows with the spear for the three. Seth comes into the ring with the case but rather than go after Reigns, they embrace. Brock comes for revenge only to have Dean Ambrose run in from the back to make it 3-on-1. Show closes with the triple powerbomb and the old music going over the sound system. Heyman is freaking out, yo. He’s not in on the turn. Idea is to get people talking about what happens next. I know normally WrestleMania is supposed to end stuff but considering the build up to this Mania being so poor, we needed to give people a reason to turn back in next week. I think a Shield reunion gives us that major hook. I was completely unsure Reigns can carry the belt solo, I have far fewer qualms going in this direction. You’ll also note that this puts IC title match into a different light and move Daniel Bryan into a role higher in the card than drifting around like a leaf in the wind. There you have it. Next time, Monday Night Reow.

Page starts to show life around Spring Stampede 1994 if I recall correctly as he has a nice opener with Johnny B. Badd but doesn't really take off until he gets the diamond cutter over around 1996. Speaking of Johnny B. Badd and Brian Pillman more specifically, I believe they were on the verge of slow burning Pillman for a heel turn which would take place six months down the line when he turned on Brad Armstrong in six months at Clash of the Champions XX. He would be teaming with Barry Windham for a short period before transitioning to Austin and the Hollywood Blondes.

I think if you look at their peak skills and line them up that Bobby might edge Arn out as being one of the best tag team technicians ever especially when it came to working heel. But when you look at the secondary targets, Arn seems to be clearly better at so many things like working promos, working singles matches, and fitting into a variety of roles that he pulls ahead as a whole. I don't see Bobby having the same kind of depth across categories.

I was going for a short hand way of explaining the question in terms of match length but I totally agree that match length isn't the great barometer it is sometimes portrayed as. I think there is a subset of match reviews that claim anything under 10 is too short and the 20 minute length is ideal. I'm basically trying to get across there are more ways to perform than that. That being said, complete style changes don't interest me as much as an ability to adjust to different situations in context. For example, if Negro Casas demonstrated he couldn't work Memphis style, I don't see that as a reason to hold that against him. If he can only work one type of match in Mexico (only matwork, only brawls), that's a far larger problem. Looking at it I would agree and say questions 1 and 3 could easily be merged into one question.

This is an interesting question. Are you looking at working with other top-level guys as a plus or minus? On one hand, working with top talent should make for better matches and angles if you are going in with a great promo guy. On the other hand, I think we need to consider if an opponent is considered a top level talent because the original worker elevated them to that point. For example, do people consider Akira Taue a top level talent when discussing Misawa's case as a great? Is Taue considered a great because he worked with Misawa or is he a great period? This seems like an endless loop of a question.

In the latest Ric Flair thread, Loss said... "It would be cool to come up with a standard list of questions that could be used to compare and contrast wrestlers, not so much to limit comparisons to just those questions, but to give us a starting point and some structure." So how about it? Here are some I come up with trying to stay away from "Does he bump good" and more detailed points of comparison that might separate people in a more minute way. 1) Does the wrestler perform with their character in mind and is it internally consistent? Note this says character and not gimmick, which would still pertain to the All Japan guys and so on. I'm not talking about Kamala working like an untrained savage. That's a different question and, I think, a simpler one that most people would cover without thinking. 2) Can the wrestler perform in a variety of situations? Can the wrestler squash a guy in under 5 minutes? Do a ten minute sprint? 20 minute main event? 30 minute epic? Broadway? Does he wrestle differently against different tiers of opponents? Does he work well against big guys, small guys, young guys, old guys? 3) Does he wrestle with a different attitude based on where he is in a story progression and is it appropriate? Does the wrestler work differently based on context where (for example) he works differently when coming off a big loss or in the third fall of a mask-vs-mask match.

I'm not trying to dog pile here on Parv but the show has some major issues and needs help stat. Parv is suffering from fore site where he is expecting Ted Dibiase, Randy Savage and (now) Curt Hennig to be in 1988 form while it being 1983. In doing so, he's sunk major time and energy into the future as he knows it to be ahead of the curve and its coming off as ignoring the present of the company. He basically angered 1/2 the roster to give a job guy a WrestleMania battle royal win based on facts not based on current performance. The titles are in shambles with the World title getting given to Snuka as an afterthought after Backlund was stripped of the title, Pedro being unable to perform and a series of tag team champions that aren't working out. They come off as afterthoughts in the promotion to the Ted Dibiase angle which isn't catching on. If I was Parv, I would circle the wagons and get the straps on the most over people he has and wide that wave while he moves the younger guys to the back of the line to develop in the background. No one is 'too big' for the belt at this point, you need to move tickets anyway you can.

Johnny Rodz vs Kevin Von Erich - 1/21/80, MSG I think the main responsibility of a jobber is ultimately to make his opponent look better going out than coming in and in this match, Rodz absolutely fails in this charge. It seems there is an early exchange where Kevin ignores something Johnny does on the early mat section and Rodz decides to sink the match as a result. He escapes very early on a head scissors reversal and basically ignores all of Kevin's attempts to rally until the finish. If anything this match makes both guys seem worse and that's not the jobber way. I give this 1/2 a Larry Santo

Adding the caveat that I've seen tiny amounts of Mid South stuff, I really can't remember a single Ted punch. They may in fact be underrated but Bossman's punches sing with the amount of velocity they would muster. Ask me to envision a Bossman punch and I can see it my memory bank clearly (probably the uppercut). Now powerslams are a different story.

One advantage to jobber matches is that if you don't like what you are watching, its probably going to be over in less than 10 minutes and you can get on with your life. In this instance, you want to back away slowly backwards from SD Jones while juggling up with some cuddly, snuggly Johnny Rodz. Rodz's opening mat control segment is surprisingly snug and well executed as he keeps the stronger Jones down and off the canvas. The major flaw here is that Rodz will sit in holds a bit without really cranking down on them. This is especially evident during the arm bars where he is more just holding onto SD's arm than applying pressure. To be clear, when I say 'major flaw' I mean with Rodz' work because Jones is a walking talking weird punching flaw that ain't no one going to be able to cover at this point. Rodz is sure to get over that he can't outfight Jones and goes to cheap shots a lot to transition but can never maintain the advantage he had at the onset. Rod has some good B-level heeling work here which wouldn't overshadow anything especially dastardly theoretically down the card. Sounds like jobber behavior to me. I give this 2 1/2 Larry Santos.

To piggy back off FPTrees, it is my preference to have big characters in the middle of card who can be easily plugged into character based feuds and angles. If you can't write up a feud for a character like Adam Rose in less than 20 seconds, you have some major writing problems. That being said, WWE Prime has major writing problems so I don't know if anyone is going to come up and succeed in that environment. They are terrible at protecting the mid-card and will run anyone into the ground regardless of talent.

I know we like to pick on Johnny and all but this makes a whole lot more sense to me than a bunch of people who are watching a show they are completely primed and ready to hate. Why put yourself through all that? You don't all have a reaction podcast to do the next day. This is coming from someone who isn't going to watch the show because BLECH.

Yes if we add the obvious caveat that he's booked properly. Xavier is actually one of the oddest call ups because he wasn't riding any momentum out of NXT and hasn't done anything since. Woods really doesn't have standout attributes or performances to point to as reasons why he will succeed. Breeze has a bunch of matches where he's at the very least hung with good guys and did some great stooging before he moved up the card.

If WWE still had managers, Sylvester would have a much better place to go in the company. I really enjoyed his visually slimy role leading Rusev and Dawkins but as a singles? I don't see him going anywhere in that position.

Regarding Nikita Kollof training at the gym... There is actually some workout footage for Nikita Kollof leading up to the Great American Bash 1998 Title Match against Ric Flair that was attached to the Pro Wrestling Illustrated VHS tape but I can't find it on the You that Tubes. It was kind of proto-Brock Lesnar throwing logs around as Nikita Russian Sickled a heavy bag and Ivan was like stretching Nikita's neck with the chain across his forehead yelling about doing it for Moscow.