Parties

This is what philanthropic heroes like me and Jalen get for speaking the truth. Unbelievable. I am wondering how Rusev/Summer/Ziggler will be tied into Cena, if at all. Summer will somehow blow a US title shot for Rusev, teasing tension for as long as Vince allows himself to indulge in booking one of his patented crying, groveling valet angles. The heat with Cena seems to be pull Ziggler off Rusev altogether: maybe Ziggler prevents Rusev and Summer from cheating a win, but in such a way that Ziggler commands the HIAC shot. Or they keep Dolph just enough of a face so as to make Rusev the first opponent for the belt. Many options, and Cena temporarily filling out the Lana role is unexpected if nothing else.

Interesting to see that match after the PTBN Reaction crew were saying post-MSG that they want to see the New Day get more serious. Dragging Ziggler’s corpse out to the ring and then completing Big E’s transformation into Terry Gordy 2015 seemed to qualify, but Big E still lost, and that was still a lot of trombone, all told. Big Match John dropping the belt to Heel Ziggler in three weeks is some kind of thing right there.

Forgot to mention that Nikki mispronouncing "ratchet" felt accurate to her character. Ru Ru video package was tremendous. Really surprisingly funny. Segment started to drag once it got to the proposal, but it ended on an intriguing note (how will she try to get him a title?) and Summer is criminally underrated on the mic. She got this over and has been an unsung hero of RAW in recent weeks.

Tremendous hero's welcome hometown Sasha promo. Impressive that the highlight of the Divas Revolution has already become the build to Nikki-Banks. Plus: Alicia Fox hit the best suplex of anyone in a while, Brock included. Open Challenger will be... Big E? I know they did Xavier already, but New Day seem to be main eventing nowadays and haven't appeared before the crowd yet.

Dudleys-Rollins/Kane: Dudleys are #1 contenders getting a shot at New Day. Rollins and Kane are wrestling each other. What are they fighting for, and from a kayfabe perspective, why book this? But then: Cole served a purpose. He reminded us right after the match ended that Kane attacked the Dudleys last week on SD. Thus: motive. But then I remembered that the match was originally Big Show teaming with Rollins until Brock took him out? Anyway, everything about this was horrible, including a moment in which a guy was handcuffed, only to have said handcuffs break in half the moment a different dude gently bumped into them.

Owens-Sin Cara: “A twelve year old has no business at ringside.” For people who think there should be more squash matches on TV, this was it. Heel smashes lower-ranked babyfaces, heel’s next opponent makes the save to crowd chants. Competence! Then Stephanie castrated New Day for some reason. The Komen segment tells you what you need to know about how they view Reigns: starting the transition into becoming the next Cena "face of company". Everyone who still thinks he should turn heel may note how unlikely that is when he's being positioned like this.

The Cerebral Assassin’s sage wisdom: “Do unto others before they would do unto you.” Paige-Natalya: Amount of clothing Natalya’s required to wear hits new high. She will be wrestling in Rocky Balboa's sweatsuit by year’s end. Crowd was nearly silent during match. My irrational fanboy love of Paige’s heel turn continues.

Shield/Orton vs. Wyatts: Good match that felt like it went 20-25 mins if you include the ad breaks. Strauman was clumsy at times, but nothing awful. Reigns seems over-ish, and the succinct post-match promo helped. For a minute during the finishing stretch, it felt like 2013 again. Sheamus vs. Neville: 30 second match with two guys who seem dead in the water, in order to build to Barrett-Neville, a match that already made tape about seven times this spring. Sheamus carrying briefcase now feels like guy bringing past softball trophy to tonight's game. Kane continues his streak of getting over one decent joke per promo. Steph cuts babyface spiel in the one city on earth where Tom Brady is a babyface, while openly referring to "Demon Kane" and "Corporate Kane" as separate entities under those names.

RAW 20 Minute Opening Promo: Byron: “Simply put, Brock Lesnar is an anomaly.” JBL: “Plain and simple, the most decorated combat sports athlete of all time.” Decent crowd reaction for Reigns. Not that loud, but people in the crowd were eager to bump that fist!

I just watched the hour or so of SHINE 30: started really rough, got somewhat better as it went along. It feels petty to rag on them, given that many of these women are 21 year old novices seemingly being trained by Big Vito, but wow. Everything about it - cameras, audio, stage, ring, gear, characters, insanely bad announcing, everyone's name and gimmick reeking of Cinemax - feels super low-rent. I like WWN and wish them well, and thought there was some positives: Ivelisse carries herself well, the Thunderkitty gimmick is somewhat amusing. Plus a Naylor cameo! It's hard, though: whether it's the creep fan base or the actual presentation, there's something about women on the indies that feels like it has to be tremendous stuff to not make me kind of squeamish.

If the finish of Mania - Rollins, Cena, and Bryan as champs - could have stuck, it would have lifted all boats. But aside from Wyatt again or maybe Barrett, I'm not sure who Bryan would have been booked against. Rusev would have been the ideal from a quality match perspective, but I suspect the constant effort to pair Bryan with Sheamus would have taken hold. There are actually more IC-level heels in the company that I would have guessed, and you could always turn or elevate someone. A feel good run of Bryan staving off those four contenders for 9-12 months would have been pretty great.

I am semi-watching this, but am replacing the bizarre Matthews/Pope commentary with a re-listen of Exile on Badstreet's 'Death of JCP' ep, in a beautiful venn diagram supernova of how wrestling companies sabotage themselves. The face of TNA/JCP alum Earl Hebner cackles inside a hallucinatory fireball.

It was 2/3rds TV style, 1/3 house show style. Or probably even more like 3/4s TV. Orton and Ziggler hammed it up a bit, Eden was used to rile up the crowd more than usual, Heyman seemed to be having fun out there, and New Day were even better than usual, but if you'd seen the same footage and were told it was from Smackdown, one likely wouldn't know the difference. They clearly toned it down: very different from MSG house shows I'd attended in the last couple years. I didn't really notice Cena's reaction as his music was cranked up and he was talking loudly during his entrance, but it seemed mostly positive. It is true that of late he really doesn't get a "John Cena sucks" response on Garden shows, as they're much more kid and family-oriented. It wasn't like people were mad that he won. The reactions in that match mostly seemed to be to the lighting snafus and to Rollins' near-wins. Crowd seemed quiet during the dumb finish with Kane.

Brock-Show: Highlight was actually Brock's awesome selling of the chokeslams. I liked the story they told and was going to say that I only wish the match had been longer until Brock came back for more. Not because it should have been competitive, but because I'd have liked ten more suplexes. Only negative was the terribly out of place hushed tones from the announcers trying to get this over as something gravely serious and Eden having to randomly announce “Let's hear it for the Big Show!” for no reason.

Stardust vs. Neville: Not sure what to even say about this. Cody's maniac gimmick seemed to get no reaction. People liked the Red Arrow and didn't seem to care about everything prior to that. Team Bella vs. PCB: Fine, but Bellas vs. BAD from SD was miles ahead of this. I stopped paying attention at certain points but I cop to continuing to give Paige the benefit of the doubt and actually liking her promo work, even when it's the indulgent faux-shoot stuff. Jericho vs. Owens: Actually really enjoyed Owens audible heeling this time around. Solid match: I continue to inexplicably enjoy Jericho as a house show worker even though he botches spots and isn't anything special in-ring. Agree that both guys were better in Japan. New Day-Dudleys: Holy hell that New Day promo was the highlight of the night. Probably of the week. Xavier was incredible here. So much good banter. "Don't touch me, dog." "Tricep meat." "An introverted man." "Shame." Loved that New Day kept the gold but feels like they're just delaying the title change until HIAC. But very entertaining, well laid out stuff from both teams, and New Day seem like the most over act in the company.

Orton/Ziggler vs. Sheamus/Rusev: Can't yet dismiss this as an episode of Smackdown, but so far it looks and sounds like one. Aside from the eye poke this wasn't anything special. Crowd seemed dead for an MSG opener until the finish. Faces are allowed to do a little more shtick and audience acknowledgment than usual. The post-match was more of a Rusev burial than a Sheamus face turn. Nothing worth worrying about, but still odd.

Orton/Sheamus was the opener for Summerslam in BK and did fine. Orton's actually a pretty good house show worker, but it's of course crazy that they didn't try to spice this up even a little bit. Half of these matches were presented to what will be much of the same crowd less than six weeks ago.

My suspicion is that Meltzer has a sweeping dislike for PR wrestling post-Brody, but that's just a guess. He never talks about it and when he does it's not favorably. Putting Gonzalez on the ballot when Brody is the namesake of your annual Best Brawler award seems highly unlikely.

And just to talk about some actual stuff from this week: RAW: Really liked Wyatt-Reigns. Smash mouth brawl that got over by the end. Did not see the rest of the show and don't care to based on the reactions. NXT: Decent if unexciting. Joe isn't much fun to watch these days. Highlights were the continued hotness of heel Emma, the increasing size of Breeze's hair and bell bottoms, and the highlight reel from Banks/Bayley. Smackdown: BAD vs. Team Bella was shockingly good. Not great, but really worth watching. Nikki throws some mudhole-stomping kicks, and both teams were worked way stiffer than most Divas matches. Naomi is a tale of two cities right now: one minute she botches a standing switch, the next she hits some lightning fast tilt-a-whirl counter that looks like 1995 Rey Mysterio. Tamina and Brie were barely in this and did fine when they were. Alicia Fox remains incredibly good (she hits a Yakuza kick here that's better than that of anyone in New Japan), and Nikki was trying to take Sasha's head off with repeated flurries of Misawa elbows. I can't believe how good the Banks-Nikki stuff was. That pairing is worlds more exciting than anything PCB is doing, and Charlotte might be the worst worker in this division right now. Then Owens and Ryback had a pretty lousy IC title match - with a terrible finish - and no one cared. If anyone wants to see why no one is over in this company, here you go. Both guys are better than this, but there's no excuse for how uninspired this was. Neville/Dragons vs. Wasteland was actually a very fun, fast-paced trios tag. Everyone worked hard and even the Ascension got some good stuff in. Main event was lame. Dudleys continue to suck, Kane's gimmickry was goofy bad, and Rollins continues to be booked as moron wimp poseur. Even New Day came out of this worse off.

Probably worth noting again that Vince is 70 years old. Writing a show which they claim is marketed to children, when it should be marketed to the 18-49 set, and is in fact most watched by folks 35-54. All of which in Hollywood/entertainment terms makes Vince seem downright ancient. Look at the most powerful showrunners of episodic programming. Even the oldest vets in the game – Carlton Cuse (55) of The Strain, Christopher Lloyd of Modern Family (55), Neil Baer of Under the Dome (58) – are way younger and considerably more in touch with the zeitgeist. (Exception to the rule is someone like Dick Wolf (68) of Law and Order, and he's now pretty hands off nowadays given that the franchise has been on the air since 1990.) The hottest shows on TV are being produced by people Steph/HHH's age, or younger. Part of why NXT feels fresh is likely that Ryan Ward is in his late thirties and watches a lot of indies. I was stunned to see the opening of this week's show was house show action from a Hype Bros/Gable-Jordan match that looked more shoestring than an Evolve show. I can't imagine what the reaction from someone like Vince or Dunn would be/was to showing footage like that. Even someone like David Stern of the NBA retired at 72. Bud Selig was 80, but serving as commissioner of the MLB is really different than being the guy micromanaging out 5-10 hours of scripted episodic TV every week. There's this notion that Vince will refuse to relinquish any control of these shows for as long as he's around, and that his employees expect him to die mid-bite of the roast beef sandwich he's choking down while over-producing some Sheamus video montage or screaming at Byron Saxton to stop using split infinitives or whatever. But if the slide continues, I don't think it's unthinkable for Vince to realize he's hurting more than he's helping. Especially given that from what I see week to week, it really doesn't seem like he likes the current roster at all. Even with Reigns, I don't get the sense that Vince views any of this crop as giving him the same rumbling down below that he got from Hogan, Warrior, Austin, Rock, or even Foley. He's a workaholic, but there are plenty of aspects of the business that he could still run while relinquishing day-to-day creative. He already did it once in his decision that he was too old to keep appearing on television. He may likewise one day soon realize that he's too old to be producing it. Lastly - the idea that they have too many hours to kill for the shows to be good is ridiculous and always has been. Vince's insistence on lining up all his toy soldiers when he's so apathetic about 90% of them hurts. But there are several better ways that they can fill three hours of RAW, none of which are a reset button. We talk about them here every week. The situation is not hopeless. It's a failure of imagination and longterm vision.

There's a perception among many online – largely inspired by Dave – that Edge was a great worker. He's got the spots, character, and bugged-eyed dynamo mannerisms that Meltzer responds to in Jericho, HBK, Tanahashi, Okada, etc. You can argue it to death, but his devotees have bought into the idea of Edge as big match worker who delivered high-workrate main events at Mania and other big PPVs. Plus like Michaels he has a resume of ladder/gimmick matches that a certain sect views as elite/legendary/what wrestling should be on a video game level. What they're responding to is mostly high spots, character, and keeping a fast pace. Match quality is the worst thing to argue for/against in HOF criteria, as Dave views crowd reaction as paramount in determining whether or not a match was great. Taker-HBK is better than Regal-Christian because more people liked it and it was higher on the card. One can't "prove" that Blue Panther has better matches than Randy Orton. Even discussions of who drew tend to become subjective. That's not to say it's pointless to debate one candidate vs. another, but the more incisive point is that Stern probably hasn't seen much old lucha, or didn't enjoy it enough to pursue it further when he did. Thus he should abstain, but didn't. Which in a sense only helps Ramirez without necessarily hurting the other Lucha options. As is the case in balloting for anything, most people aren't voting based on heavy research, comparative analysis, or digging in the crates. They're voting off the unreliable nature of memory, peer pressure/belief, and - above all else - simple X factors of "Do I think he was great?" Or to put it politically: "likeability". Koloff might be a great candidate, but I'm agnostic about him as a persona. Historical would be a category I would have to abstain from, as I can't even tell you from the most arbitrary and biased perspective who I even like in that group, let alone who's most important. How much of a worker do you need to have seen to say Yay or Nay? Five matches? Ten matches? Twenty? Does having not seen enough Lagarde or Ramirez (two guys who could/should probably be historical, not Lucha) disqualify me from thinking many of the Lucha candidates I have seen should be in? My point being: you can always watch more, and you should know what to abstain from, but it's hard for me to judge the voters based on what they have or haven't seen. You can have seen a ton of wrestling and possess vast knowledge - like Stern - and still have shitty taste. You can have taste that totally matches my own and know very little about why you're picking the people you're picking.

Anyone who hasn't seen their Smackdown cage match from 2005 against Batista/Rey needs to check it out. Genuinely among my favorite WWF/E matches ever and the way MNM use the cage and move around on it is extraordinary. It feels like something that should have headlined a mid-80s Great American Bash tour and instead it was just kind of a random SD main event in that brand's banner year.

Bar's too low if we're praising Kane/Seth for containing concepts such as “a storyline” or “continuity”. Yeah, there's longstanding tension that's being made into a match. But the writing has been horrendous, and all over the map from moment to moment: serious business, comedy, melodrama. Kane can make garbage passable as a seasoned, comfortable talker in backstage sketches, but it's still two dork robots using verbiage placed through Google's Uzbek-to-English translation. Regarding fall booking/taking chances: Survivor Series '98 was a 14-man tournament to crown a new world champ. Never would they book such a thing today. Austin-Taker was a fall program, today considered maybe the hottest feud they ever booked. '99-'00 were merely OK, but the whole tag team TLC phenomenon started at No Mercy '99. '01 was Austin-Angle moving into WWF vs. The Alliance, which was ambitious even if it bombed. '02 was the coronation of Lesnar (with back to back main events of, you guessed it, Taker-Brock). Fall '03 was terrible on the RAW side (HHH-Goldberg, Shane-Kane, Bischoff-Austin), but great on SD. Fall '04 sucked all around, but did have Taboo Tuesday, which was another case of a novel concept that bombed. '05: same deal as prior years (RAW sucks, SD's great) but intensified, where you have Michaels and HHH killing Cena's heat on RAW while SD is Batista/Eddy with a fun roster of Regal, Hardy, Kid Kash, Benoit, MNM, Juvi and Nunzio thrown in for good measure. You can see RAW falling into its bad habits around this time, if not earlier. '06: RAW's terrible (DX-McMahons, Spirit Squad, Kane-Umaga) with the yearlong Edge-Cena feud's conclusion in Sept as a somewhat bright spot. SD is King Booker/Finlay/Regal, MVP and Lashley rising, Rey-Chavo, a strong tag division that leads to the awesome 4-way ladder match that broke Mercury's face. Survivor Series seems pretty listless. December to Dismember effectively kills ECW as unique brand. Fall '07: Really bad compared to the fun first half of '07. HHH dominance of both shows (winning and losing multiple world titles, killing Umaga's heat). Lots of Orton, Khali, and Kennedy. Rey-Finlay and Batista-Taker are somewhat bright spots. '08: Summerslam's solid (Batista-Cena, Edge-Taker HIAC, Hardy-Henry, Punk-JBL). Unforgiven has two novel championship scrambles. Season is based on Jericho's big rise as top heel against HBK. '09: The rise of Punk over Jeff Hardy and Taker, Legacy/DX, more Cena-Orton. Beginning of openly running lame non-finishes on PPV so that they can do the same match three times in three months. Survivor Series headlined by Cena vs. HHH vs. HBK. The beginning of where they're at now with low buys and bad shows. '10: Terrible. Death of the Nexus heat, Cena as Barrett's manservant, Kane-Taker, lots of bad RAW-SD infighting via Bragging Rights. Survivor Series has a 5-on-5 match off the Rey-Del Rio feud, but otherwise a very bad season. '11: A HHH-Punk feud that I forgot happened, Cena-Del Rio. Hall of Pain Mark Henry title run. Rock brought in for Survivor Series tag w/ Cena against Miz/Truth to build their Mania feud. Bryan heel turn. '12: Largely dull, unmemorable midcard stuff headlined by Punk uniting with Heyman against Cena and Ryback. Intro of the Shield. Ziggler beats Cena for a MITB contract in the main event of the December PPV, which seems amazing to consider now. '13: The Daniel Bryan debacle culminating in the title unification with Cena-Orton. Punk-Ryback feud now reversed. Debut of the Wyatts. '14: Lesnar wins the title, Shield feuds with each other (plus Wyatt-Ambrose), Authority loses power at Survivor Series then gains it back a few weeks later. Start of NXT Takeover shows. When the shows have been good, it hasn't felt like they were taking Sept-Dec off. But the point remains that it's been ten years since the fall has felt as strong as the spring/summer. Meltzer's always credited Vince for being a guy who took the Paul Boesch lesson to heart: excuses (weather, football, other events booked the same night) are just that: excuses. I doubt Vince is looking at these ratings and saying, “NFL, what can ya do”. If he is, he's become a tired old man who's lost his grit.

Dave today called Jericho the second or third most over guy in WWE right now (after Brock, but I assume he's smart enough to add Cena as well), so it's clear that 1) dude loves some Y2J and continues to view him with rose-colored glasses, and 2) maybe he's not always putting as much thought into these questions of when/why/how money's made as certain voters are. (This was in the context of saying that Brock and Jericho are the biggest stars precisely because they're rarely on RAW, given that RAW is damaging the careers of everyone on the roster.) Also: wow, you get ten wrestler selections and five non-wrestlers? Hell, in that case I'd certainly add JYD and Jimmy Hart to my list. And probably Gary Hart too as a fifth non-wrestler pick, as I buy into the legend of him as the creative visionary of World Class, and a great manager before/after. Don Owen has a great case too, but World Class seems so much more influential and profitable in its prime (though that idea may get me hanged by the Portland advocates here). Weird that with ten picks, you can if you're someone only voting in one category then vote for almost everyone in said category. Historical has 15 candidates, but Modern US, Japan, Mexico, Europe, etc. all have 9-13. Could partially explain the perception here from some that the Japanese voters work as a bloc of sorts, but curious then that the Lucha voters are perceived to be all over the map with diverse choices. Probably doesn't help that Dave/Bryan never discuss any of the Lucha candidates or vouch for them the way they have for Edge, Koloff, etc.

OK, but I'm what I'm asking is: how do you measure Hart's "draw"? Or that of any manager? We can say that he was the guy who managed the monsters who fought Lawler. I buy that he was the recurring element, and that fans might have really wanted to see him get his comeuppance. But that's not the same thing as quantifiably saying, "Feuds/events X, Y, and Z in which Hart was a focal point did great business, or this feud did phenomenal ratings." What are the specifics to saying "huge draw for years"? I'm hoping someone who knows Memphis better than I do has/can make the case for Hart as a guy who improved business when he was on top. Maybe it's all more subjective than I'm suggesting here, but people have done deep dives into various territorial guys' drawing ability in the past, and I wonder if anyone's done it for Heenan/Hart/Cornette. Re: Cornette vs. Hart - did Hart's stable vs. Lawler do better business than RNRs/Midnights? (I have no idea - I'm asking.) Also, and this sincerely isn't directed at Grimmas, as it's a pervasive semantic pet peeve that I'm totally guilty of along with so many other people on wrestling boards/writing/podcasts/etc, but: saying "could be argued that" has really run its course as a rhetorical trope. It's something that a handful of guys in IWC circles started saying, and now we all say it constantly, and honestly I think it's a super lame, backdoor way of half-heartedly making one's points. "Could be argued that" now reads to me as: What I'm about to say may or may not be true, but I can't prove it or really decide how I feel, and thus don't want to get into a back-and-forth of backing it up, so I'm going introduce this as something that some other anonymous person might suggest. It's not that everyone needs 120% conviction for everything they propose, esp. on a pro wrestling message board. But personally, I'd say that "could be argued that" isn't as fulfilling or interesting as actually just acknowledging what you think, even if what you think is undecided/murky/tentative/subject to change. Sorry for the long-winded pedantic streak for something so petty, but it's just one weird, tiresome turn of phrase that I've heard/read four hundred times this year.