Parties

Will make my list. Best two-man team of the last 5 to 10 years. Anyone who thinks they aren't contenders for a nomination should watch the two big IWRG matches with Los Panteras this year.

What voice does Cody have now? It's like he's still doing the Stardust gimmick, but has added a growling Cajun accent? It actually makes the character way better if he becomes a Mardi Gras masker doing a John Goodman impression.

The best online analysis I've heard about their Network show is, "Edge and Christian were funny back when it was funny to be dumb." That said, I cannot look away and am actually amused by the frantic editing of spontaneous wrestling ephemera.

Yeah my query was more on the line of, "How do we expect the McMahons will troll Foley in this match?" rather than sincerely asking, "Do you think Shane/the company is dumb enough to intentionally redo that terrible bump?"

Thought we'd have to wait until next week for Jericho's "you're all sheep while I am a real smart guy" promo.

What is the over/under percentage on Taker throwing Shane through the roof of the cage, while ref Foley looks on in horror at a recreation of the shoot-worst bump of his life?

Flair is full of these, particularly re: Steamboat. "We wrestled hour broadways every night for years", "We wrestled five thousand times in our careers". It's hard to tell what's knowingly hyperbole w/ Ric, as he often says absurd things in his sincere voice and true things in his worker voice. But you'd think every match of his career from about 77-88 was a one-hour draw from the way he tells it.

I'm kind of a broken record on the mid-80s WWF Steamboat matches that I defend, but yes to Savage in Toronto and Bret in Boston. The Boston match w/ Jake is pretty undeniable. The Big Event in Toronto is the one people think sucks that I defend as a great spectacle. And the real guilty pleasure is Steamboat/JYD vs. Muraco/Fuji from the Cap Centre in '85. Match has pretty poor structure - Steamboat and Muraco basically throwing the kitchen sink at each other w/o much storytelling, while Fuji tries to do heel shtick and JYD tries to do as little as possible until it's time to threaten heels w/ his chain. But the crowd is unbelievably hot and do a lot to make what would seem weird on mute into a wild scene.

My gut reaction on this was Steamboat by far. Both dudes make my ballot, but Steamboat will be higher. Seeing his late 70s/early 80s stuff really elevated him for me. Re: Steamboat's lack of range – I think '78 Steamboat jacked-up Carolinas Babyface is pretty different than '86 Middleweight Technician, '89 World Champion “This is the National Wrestling Alliance, Where We Wrestle Because Wrestling's on the Marquee” Main Event Athlete, who is of course pretty different than the Sage Journeyman Vet who worked with Douglas, the Blondes, Rude, etc. They're all eras in the same character's career, but one strength of Steamboat is that he played his song well (and differently) at a number of different ages. He's not Miles Davis turning heel on Live/Evil: he's a Hank Mobley/Freddie Hubbard type who never left bebop but still played it with a lot of soul. I like archetypes when done right, and I've honestly never thought, "I'd like Steamboat more if he'd done a great heel run." Re: Hypothetical Steamboat face vs. face – I don't know if it would have been any good, but I absolutely could picture Steamboat (esp. 80s Steamboat) fitting into 2004-2010 Ring of Honor. Shaking hands before and after matches, no chicanery, emphasis on “the sport”. I don't really remember if there actually were a ton of face vs. face ROH matches in that time. Seemed like Gabe was always setting up matches where the storyline was in whether or not a guy would take heelish shortcuts. But there sure were a lot of face vs. Austin Aries or some other tweener who can't decide if he wants to respect the bro codes. Re: Bret's finishes – I say this just to ask rather than take anything away from him, but how many of his famous finishes likely came from Patterson or some other agent? From interviews it always seems like Patterson took particular pride/attention in working with Bret on the layouts of those big matches.

For what it's worth, from the Mailbag segment of today's WOR: BRYAN: "This person says, 'Dave, a few months back you said I was way off with my thoughts on HHH intentionally overselling Roman Reigns' chairshots, but now with him playing to the crowd multiple times during segments with Reigns, is it fair to say HHH may be partially trying to sabotage him?" DAVE: "Um... I don't think he's trying to sabotage him. I think he's trying to get himself over." BRYAN: "Yeah, here's the problem with that theory. Why would HHH want to sabotage Roman Reigns and ensure that when he goes out there in the main event of Wrestlemania, no one cares?" DAVE: "Exactly." BRYAN: "Doesn't make any sense." DAVE: "Plus, it's his company. And they've already made the call. Why would you want to sabotage a guy when you were one of the people that made that call? I mean, it isn't as if Vince McMahon made the call for um, for Roman Reigns and HHH was out there going, 'Oh no, we should do Dean Ambrose.' They were in agreement. Everyone was in agreement, that Roman Reigns, for years, that Roman Reigns was the guy. They all have the same mentality of what the top guy needs to be, and he's what they think he needs to be. So no, if anything, you know... I get how people would watch that thing from last week and think that, but it's more him trying to get himself over, as opposed to um, him trying to bury Roman Reigns. I never thought it was that. HHH wants to get himself over, and at the same time, you know, I can see, you're in the main event of Wrestlemania, uh, you need to get yourself over, to a degree. But he didn't need to do what he did. Like the crotch chop. I mean, the circumstances did dictate that he did need to beat him up and smash his face in. That was because they needed to cover for the nasal surgery."

If nothing else, this is poised to be one of the weirdest Manias ever. In recent memory, you could call 28 pretty weird (bad Rock-Cena main, Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy, Maria Menounos wrestling, Sheamus-Bryan in eighteen seconds, Kane beating Orton). 22's fairly weird (Torrie-Candace pillow fight, HBK-Vince as a primer for what Taker-Shane could be, Edge-Foley having a really surprisingly violent hardcore match, Boogeyman-Booker, Rey's title win going nine minutes with Angle and Orton, Taker-Henry casket match). 20 is an interesting show in that it's just old enough that you see tons of people who are now still working every night for the company and shouldn't be, people who've died, people who aren't wrestling on TV when you wish they were, and the last real throes of WCW. 19 is kind of a way you could see Vince and HHH amicably booking the stupid shit they wanted while splitting the difference w/ what fans like. Hunter burying the rising babyface is fourth from the top. A McMahon (Vince) having a crazy, indulgent, violent brawl with a major star (Hogan) is third. But then you still have the surprisingly awesome Rock-Austin last hurrah as ceremonial end of the Attitude Era and Brock-Angle on as the 2003 blue chippers who'd earned the top spot. 18 is kind of cool and unique in the modern era in that it has twelve matches. Lots of them are six minutes or less, but it's still a Mania where they found room for Albert, 2002 Curt Hennig, Test, Scott Hall, Chuck Palumbo, and Jazz. To say nothing of all the early ones.

A new Attitude Era, wherein you're allowed to say "son of a bitch" if you say it slowly, softly, and as if searching for other words. The camera staying too long on Taker to show him awkwardly standing with his back turned after his music stopped and Vince had resumed talking was sad. Dude should have just kept walking, grabbed his check and a to-go sandwich from catering, and made haste in his haunted Chevy Silverado.

Xavier's fascinating to me in that these guys are in theory heels. Specifically smug nerd heels. So if I cringe at Woods' references to Sonic the Hedgehog and picture some 70s Brisco/Race/Mulligan-type dudes just shaking their heads at the thought of it, then it is in theory effective heeling, non?

For the record, this makes him no different than 75% of C-level executives in America right now. You're brought in to "fix" a failing department, you fire everyone above a certain pay grade, and you bring in your team of past people you've worked with at other companies. It is common practice. And to his credit: developmental has gone from being a glaring sore spot (and detrimental to growth) into what many customers view as the company's best asset. The Performance Center, the worldly new approach to Talent Relations: he had to break some eggs to get a much improved end result. (People with jobs and livelihoods are not eggs. But for the sake of this argument, they are line items on a budget.) I love Reigns, but if he ends up being the martyr who allows Biff Busick, Nakamura, and Asuka to enter the kingdom of heaven, then that's a fair trade. HHH has made a number of bad crony hires, but there are only so many cognitively functional members of the Clique left. Demott was terrible and I've never heard anyone who's worked there have any love for him or explanation of why he got the gig. It'd be interesting to hear how Matt Bloom's doing at it now.

To begin, I'll say this: I think some of this stuff is a work, not a shoot. Meaning: HHH knows that if he bloodies Reigns and throws crotch chops, it'll get more of a reaction (esp. online) than if he did some more temperate slow burn storyline where Reigns comes off looking his equal and they do a bunch of dull contract signing skits. We're all talking about it extensively here. What looked like a dud Mania main event two weeks ago is now filled with political intrigue. Some of this may simply be a worked shoot angle produced by HHH, a guy whose entire life is a worked shoot. Loss, two things you said here stood out: “HHH and Stephanie have made clear that as soon as they get the chance, Dunn is out the door.” I'm not doubting it, but when have they made this clear? And if they think Dunn sucks at the job (which he does) or is undermining them to the point of insubordination, why don't they just say so to Vince? Why would Vince take Dunn's side over that of his daughter and son-in-law, who clearly have more of a future in the company than Dunn does? People are assuming Vince has an incredibly strong allegiance to Dunn that rivals his love for his own daughter. “One day, [Vince]'ll look up and realize he doesn't run his company anymore, and it will have all happened so incrementally that he didn't even notice it until after the fact.” If we've thought of this many years ahead of time, isn't it possible that Vince is aware of it too? I don't see it quite as a deal where Vince is duped or is oblivious to the HHH-Dunn dynamic. Perhaps Vince gets older, his health fails in some fashion, Dunn sees the writing on the wall and opts to retire rather than getting Future Endeavored. Same end result, but I do think that Vince is still wily enough that we can assume he's aware that both sides are in conflict, if they in fact are. All of HHH's manuevering here would have to be perfectly executed in a way that doesn't raise Vince's ire, and Steph's as well if we think she has any fondness for the old man. If we're throwing conspiracy theories around, here's one: Vince knows Hunter is Machiavellian, and has brought Shane back into the fold because he thinks Shane will carry on something closer to Vince's vision than Hunter will. Maybe King Lear just likes having his three kids all back in the nest. If you believe that art here imitates life, then Shane is resentful of Steph and Hunter for taking his spot, and has come to view himself as the rightful fourth generation heir. That makes him a potential pawn or potential spoiler, depending on what shakes out. Maybe Shane turns out to be Fredo, but Vince's will and testament haven't been written yet, and there's likely a lot of time left on the clock. Also: There's way too much speculation/assumption/fantasy booking in those Cageside Seats pieces to be holding them as credible. Hunter pushed Laurenitis aside for being terrible at his job. No shit. Dunn missed a cool looking shot of the Shield on a PPV because Dunn sucks at his job. Dunn thought Adam Rose, Paige, and Bo Dallas didn't have star power or the right look for TV because he hates accents and love handles. If that's your proof of Mafia Warfare, then that's pretty weak tea. I totally buy that HHH is a power-hungry manipulator who views interoffice politics as Game of Thrones drama, but those CS pieces still lack depth/meat/evidence. They need sources, or to show their work in a better way than linking to their own prior conjectures. But even if Hunter wants Dunn gone (very good possibility), the conspiracy theorists still haven't explained why that translates to burying Reigns via two consecutive main events at Mania. Stomperspc summarized it well: “Rather than accepting that it is equal parts the usual incompetent booking combined with Triple H’s usual desire to make himself look good at all costs, this theory has been concocted to explain it.” I'm a Banality of Evil guy on this one. Mediocre employees following bad orders out of self-preservation. Ignorantly thinking they could transparently redo the Bryan movement with Reigns note for note. It isn't that an intricate plan came together to destroy Reigns. It's that they botched his push several times in a row, and Hunter wants to be the star of the all-time biggest Mania. Coupled with JVK's hesitation theories: Vince knows he only has time to create one more ace babyface, and he's not sure if Reigns is that last, best option. The “political hit” theory doesn't explain how Reigns became a Dunn guy or why that matters. There'd have to be some sort of rift between Reigns and Hunter, where Hunter either came to dislike Reigns personally, or came to decide that Reigns was in Dunn's pocket rather than his own. (I've kind of always enjoyed the theory that Hunter resents Reigns for being the Rock's cousin, as I'll at least totally buy that Hunter really, really dislikes the Rock.) If the Shield were HHH's pet project two years ago, was Reigns simply the one of the three that Hunter didn't like for whatever reasons? What does Reigns moving from being a “Hunter” guy to becoming a “Vince/Dunn" guy look like? One last point that came to mind on reading JVK's take. I'm almost certainly not the first person to come to this conclusion, but it's amusing that there are parallels to Hardcore Fans vs. Vince/Dunn and the Ideologues vs. Party Politicos conflicts playing out on both the right and left of American politics right now. Vince/Dunn (the two-party establishment) believe that eventually the crowds will come to their senses and swallow the conventional wisdom that Owens is a slob, Cesaro a boring Swiss socialist, etc. Meanwhile the crowds get louder, the gap between polarized views widens, and the rhetoric grows divisive.

I was watching it on mute so I missed every word, but the opening angle sounds insane from Meltzer's writeup. - Shane's "She doesn't know, does she?" - Openly acknowledging the stock and ratings collapse. - An angle where Vince admits he's secretly always wished that it was Shane, not Steph running things? - Shane saying he wants to own RAW, with Vince then stating that if you own RAW, you own everything in the company that actually matters to him? I'm not saying any of that is a shoot or even realism, but on paper the whole thing sounds like a weird meta-commentary acknowledging that their direction's sucked for years, but then using Stephanie as a kayfabe scapegoat. Which in a weird way kinda makes her seem like a babyface who's getting maligned.

Brock squashing HHH in five minutes might now have been the correct Mania finish. Reigns is so much colder now than he was two months ago. Unreal how bad this push has been. Ambrose takes a massive beating and looked heroic in the process. Lesnar looked far beyond the leagues of both faces, and was cheered much louder than both of them combined. This show was so bad that I forgot we were essentially getting Brock-Reigns II. From a booking/kayfabe perspective, I don't even get why going through a cardboard table is supposed to incapacitate anyone - let alone Brock - for five minutes. Then the corny stuff with putting the table on him. Even the Reigns-Lesnar stuff felt subdued and second-rate. Reigns booed the entire match. First crowd shot is several people motioning thumbs down. Hunter not even trying to phone a reaction in. I need to rewatch this, because I'm really surprised to see it getting high marks here (aside from Ambrose eating suplexes on the floor which was just madness).

WWE Network ad is nothing but Attitude Era hardcore matches and Jim Ross calls. Good stuff.

E+C deeming New Day ripoffs of them was telling. Edge debating who was more "entertaining" was awful. Burying the League of Nations in order to start a face turn. Edge burying Del Rio's career after Del Rio brings up the kayfabe retirement from five years ago. I guess New Day vs. Sheamus/Rusev is a solid Mania match?

I don't understand people praising the crowd tonight. Felt dead for most of the show and brief dueling chants don't impress me much. JBL talking Japanese wrestling felt like your uncle asking you if you've ever listened to Phish. This had all the hallmarks of bad 2016 Jericho. Jericho visibly/audibly calling spots. Jericho overzealously trying aerial stuff he can't do anymore. Jericho timidly taking another guy's offense in a way that looks botched. Jericho with a terrible Liontamer. I did like him dropkicking the rope to knock Styles off it, but so much of this sucked. Crowd booing Jericho kicking out of the Clash tells the story. On the upside, Styles does has good theme music.

That was some horrible verbiage from Saxton. The gray jacket and black t-shirt has been the aging downfall of many men, and the Nature Boy fell to it here. Like a game show host making an Entertainment Tonight appearance with his last breath. Match was OK until the weak ending. Heels talking trash mid-match has already gotten old. Brie had some good moments and some clueless ones. But Charlotte had as many embarrassing moments, if not more. Finish was bad, Cole explaining it was worse.

Giant Dudes trios match was good, if only to give Harper ring time. Ryback as FIP feels like Reigns being sublimated: a weird, dumb, misinformed way for bookers to think they're creating sympathy for their guy when they're actually burying them. Or it's more HHH conspiracy theory brilliance. Big Show screaming encouragement from the apron just felt even more oblivious. Finish of the match was really fun and I agree with the Twitter proposal of Ryback-Harper for fifteen minutes at Mania. Masked Kane remains worlds beyond Unmasked Kane.

Jun Akiyama/Yuma Aoyagi vs. Kento Miyahara/Jake Lee (AJPW, 2/16) Under the radar match that turned out to be good. A few years back Akiyama and Miyahara had an excellent singles, so this piqued my interest. Aoyagi is the rookie who Akiyama gave his old-school blue tights to for being a protege-level student: he delivers here, running around elbow smashing Miyahara off the apron and crushing Lee with good matwork. The Akiyama-Miyahara interactions are fun veteran spots: their take on a series of Irish whips on the floor makes for good comedy. The home stretch is hot, or at least very warm, and this is an immensely watchable twenty minute tag filmed at what I assume is the Japan equiv. of Memphis’ Channel 5 studio. This is where Kings Road meets its mortal end. Part of what makes this so good is that it shows how much better wrestling is when filmed in front of a steady single camera without jump cuts. You get a better, more impressive sense of action and how it feels live. Jay White vs. David Finlay (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Strong seven minute opener between two guys looking to prove something. Finlay worked well as the tenacious guy from underneath while White was the blue chipper whose prowess led to the inevitable beatdown. Finlay in particular impressed me with his dad’s rolling Fireman’s carry slam and wrenching on White’s head during pinning combinations for some added realism. These two laid it in on the striking and other offense too, as they managed to work fast but still hit quite hard. Jushin Liger/Tiger Mask IV/Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Kazushi Sakuraba/Gedo/YOSHI-HASHI (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Liger-Sak on the mat is fun: you can see Liger working hard and both of them trying to make it credible. Tiger Mask even hits a good kick in on Hashi here. Gedo has a great look for wrestling as he’s just a bearded psycho here, almost in the spirit of Dick Togo. But the inexplicable star of this is Taguchi. I believe Meltzer dismissed this as typical Taguchi, which is why he and I differ on assessing lots of wrestling, as this was anything but the norm. Fired up Taguchi running the ropes to smash his butt into people’s faces is surprisingly awesome, and he showed tons of ambition and veteran wit here when hulking up and mounting a fun comeback. Tencozy vs. Yuji Nagata/Manabu Nakanishi (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) This was awful, but it feels pointless to even pan it. Four immobile, beat-up guys having a bad ten-minute tag. Tenzan doing terrible chops so that he doesn’t have to bend his elbow. Guys shoving each other in the chest lazily. I’ve liked Kojima at times and he’s actually pretty expressive here, esp. in contrast to the other three guys. I guess Nagata has decent moments here too? The Nakanishi-Tenzan stuff is just brutal, but Kojima by the end has some nice Roddy Piper mannerisms that save the finish from being a total mess. Los Ingobernobles vs. Kushida/Michael Elgin/Juice Robinson (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Naito’s a guy who I liked as a rookie. In his black trunks days he looked like the truth: lots of aggression, sharp technique, and good hope spots. When he became an impotent third-string babyface, he failed. Just a massive disappointment with bad matches. But this new gimmick is a ton of fun and he is killing it in the role. Him being the twisted, disgraceful leader of a band of gravediggers is highly entertaining, and this is one moment where Gedo/Jado actually deserve the praise they get for being elite bookers. I thought this was a tremendous match. Bushi is charismatic as the smug rudo jerk. Kushida’s really good as the flying babyface: even when doing pointless cartwheels into dropkicks, he’s still really fun and working fast enough that you can forgive his indulgences. Naito gives a beatdown on the floor to Kushida early on that is gold, and in the ring he has some great interactions with everybody. Even Elgin, who I’ve been very critical of in the past, has some good power offense here. Robinson was fine, and I thought he showed charisma. Even EVIL was good. So here you have Bushi, who I’ve always liked, and then five guys who’ve sucked recently but all suddenly seem to really be delivering in their roles. i also really liked that this was the beginning of more to come in building heat between Kushida and this faction. Toru Yano/The Briscoes vs. Bad Luck Fale/Yujiro Takahashi/Tama Tonga [NEVER 6-Man Titles] (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) How great are the Briscoes? They are perfect for this company right now. So what is needed in terms of credible chaos. They even make Yano, Japan’s favorite Louis Anderson impersonator, into something good. Fale and Yujiro were terrible: just a bunch of slow, meaningless clubbering. This is the NWO C-team for sure. Tonga is a bump machine who worked hard flying around the ring. Briscoes try to save the match with great coordinated team spots, and they make this watchable amidst some truly bad work from Fale. The Young Bucks vs. re:Dragon vs. Matt Sydal/Ricochet [Jr. Tag Titles] (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Horrible Matt Jackson-Ricochet exchange to start: Matt’s awful overacting mixed with Ricochet’s overblown acrobatics. We get a terribly dumb spot where O’Reilly back body drops his partner out of the ring so that Fish can hang onto the ring post and flip onto a bunch of other guys. That spot aside, they actually looked pretty good and worked such devastating moves at such a fast pace that even in their excess they seem impressive. Everyone else truly sucked. The second helping of Matt Jackson and Ricochet here was remarkably bad. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more business exposing worker than Matt right now. The Cody Hall shit was dreadful. I’ve never seen an NWO imitation act that was also actively imitating the things that killed WCW, but such is the Bullet Club. I’ve long liked Sydal, but post-ayahuasca Sydal is really hit-or-miss. Like he’ll take a great bump into the corner, but then he gets a look in his eye where you can tell that in his own mind he’s riding a raft down the Parana River shared with a monkey and the ghost of Neem Karoli Baba. The final spot was cool, but why does Nick Jackson laugh through every bump he takes? I say this as someone who really enjoyed the Bucks when I saw them live at an ROH show last year, but they have to be in the running for Most Overrated right now. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii [NEVER Title] (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Horrible opening. Same dumb premise as their Tokyo Dome match where each guy lets the other freely punch and suplex them. Once they went to the mat I actually liked this, but this one just took too long to get good. It’s bizarrely stupid that these guys continue to insist on working the way they do, as the second half of this was absolutely great, except for Shibata botching a Triangle Choke and Ishii having to put himself into it. Really hard to judge their matches as the home stretch in both has been tremendous, but the stuff at the start is so glaringly bad. Hiroshi Tanahashi/Togi Makabe/Tomoaki Honma vs. Kenny Omega/Karl Anderson/Luke Gallows (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Gallows and Anderson weren’t much here. The Bullet Club gimmickry is so bad that it isn’t even worth continuing to address here. Just idiocy. Makabe always blows. Honma’s wasted here. Tanahashi’s only in this match to get beaten down by Omega. Every 2016 WWE Divas match has been better than this. Every single one. Kazuchida Okada vs. Hirooki Goto [iWGP Title] (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11) Typical Goto title challenge. Never gets it done, looks mediocre in the process, no one cares. In the final minutes Goto looked like a true jobber and no threat at all to Okada. Which is a fine way to book, but really an odd position for Goto to have been in for the better part of eight years. Dull match, two stars, time to watch real wrestlers on Fastlane.

Ziggler and Owens didn't have much chemistry. Had Ziggler not had his jobbing frown on the entire match, there might have been a moment of suspense. Two guys each trying to call the match and actively working against each other, leading to lots of headlocks and pointless flurries of Dolph launching himself into turnbuckles. Did they botch a crotch spot? Owens' bump into the post was great though, and to his credit Ziggler took Owens' big implant suplex off the top very well (though that move not being a deathblow finisher is crazy). When Ibushi leaving New Japan is the biggest news to come out of your match, it can't help but seem that something's off.

Very good tag opener. Banks playing to the crowd felt like a change of pace as well. Tamina botching the pin breakup was kinda SMH, if only because it sometimes feels like she can never catch a break. Naomi has become very solid, and Lynch off the top rope was a lot of fun.