Laz

I've checked out a little bit of PROGRESS, specifically whatever free stuff they have on YouTube (a few matches and the entire Chapter 13 show). I like it. The matches encompass a decent range and there's enough promise in certain guys (Paul Robinson, Will Ospreay, the London Riot, Mastiff, Rampage Brown, and Jimmy Havoc in particular) that I want to keep watching frequently. Is the VOD service they offer worth it? There's enough to like about the shows (in some ways reminding me of the short lived Hybrid Wrestling out of Ohio) but I'm wondering if it's worth the ~$8 US a month. Thoughts?

That's the issue. The only noteworthy PBP guy on the indies, at least that I can think of, is Exclaibur. He is not at all what ROH needs (and he's my current favorite).

My top 5 off that list would probably be... Bryan/Cena Bret/Owen TLC Shane/Test Rock/HHH

I loved DX because I was 11/12 and loved sophomoric humor. I hated 2006 DX because I was 20 and didn't find PG toilet humor entertaining.

Seconding the idea of killing the hard cam. Just watching something as recent as Rumble 2001, the E&C/Dudleys match, it's so fresh to see guys working for the live crowd instead of the TV crowd.

What if the Mid-South territory doesn't have the economic collapse when it did?

The crying and belly aching over Bischoff signing WWF cast-off's when Vince built his empire on signing away other promoters' top stars. HHH being anywhere near the same tier (in both talent and level of stardom) as Austin, Hogan, Flair, Rock, etc.

WWE is an '80s band. It's Metallica, it's Aerosmith, it's Motley Crüe, etc. They were the different upstart who stood out because they had the perfect look, sound, and feel of their era. They were such a huge part of the '80s that the sudden shift in '91/'92 of the culture in general rocked it so hard that it was reeling back for most of the decade nursing its hangover and trying desperately to find a way to stay relevant. Enter Austin. Enter ECW. Enter Attitude. For a while post-Attitude, the product was still very much trying to be edgy and insane. It wasn't until the rise of Cena in '07 and Benoit that they decided to be children's entertainment again, but that's ultimately not even the problem. Look at the box office for the last 5 years. Look at popular music. What's hip and cool? Reboots of '80s properties, sequels to series that don't need them, artists treading well paved roads, and a lack of art and authenticity abroad. During Dubya's second term we saw a rise in very cynical and sarcastic outlooks and voices where the only way to be "cool" is to self-deprecate and mock tropes of things you love. There's no urgency or legitimacy in any mainstream entertainment. What makes you think WWE is going to lead that charge? Vince chose the larger than life cartoon characters in the '80s because that's what we wanted as a market. We didn't want studies of human psyche, we wanted AHNOLD and SLY blowing bad guys away with the biggest guns they could carry. We didn't want introspective songwriters, we wanted "Girls Girls Girls." The WWF gave us what the culture wanted a few years after it became the norm. Attitude didn't develop until the '90s were almost over. We were sick of Reaganomics-laden machismo and wanted Quentin Tarantino. We were sick of hairspray and makeup and wanted legitimacy and earnestness. Then came beer drinkin', beer swillin', hell raisin' Steve Austin in 1997 and we ate it the fuck up. Right now we're in a creative dirge across the board. The few novel ideas out there are hidden behind walls of mediocrity disguised as meta dissections written and developed by people who don't understand what made everything work but remember certain moments without bar clue as to why they remember them. Maybe it'll get better. It probably will. Just don't expect WWE to do it for another 3-4 years after the rest of the culture does.

"Be strong." This man wrote that on the inside of his autobiography when I met him not long after my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I was just a fan to him, just another kid whose name he would never remember, and he took 10 minutes out of his busy day to talk to me and treated me like I was family. Thank you, Hot Rod.

Yeah, but a nickel and dime NFL guy makes a touchdown after a surprise interception and/or proves that he's a leader and be actually gets billed as a star. Cesaro and Owens year the houses down and stay stuck in that lower tier. Having a successful hierarchy only works when people move up and down based on results.

They'll brush it aside and just go "shucks, we're entertainment and playing characters," ignoring the actual issues beyond the camera. Like always.

How long until we get a Hulkamania shirt with the stars and bars on it?

How long until we get a Hulkamania shirt with the stars and bars on it? Maybe have it say "heritage not heat" on it?

Were he to work elsewhere, though, he could legitimately go back to a more mat-oriented style and be much safer.

WWE has turned into that old fling you run into now and then that makes you remember the great times you had together when you were younger and then you start seeing each other only to remember why you broke up in the first place but you keep giving each other second, third, fourth, etc. chances. I've never seen Steen/Owens work blander than he has since signing a WWE deal. I'm glad he's financially secure and being given a larger platform to perform but he's been the Black Album/Load since debuting on the main roster. Bad show. There were sparks of quality (I love how enthusiastic New Day are as super positive jackasses and Bray works well when he's going through bursts of actual motion instead of being "methodical" like every other WWE monster) but this show cemented why I stopped watching regularly.

I feel like Dragon Gate also has talents that stand out more from a visual perspective. You can immediately tell people apart even if you don't know everybody's name.

I would think it would depend on the era and audience. A WWWF match wouldn't have the same subtleties as a Georgia match, and World Class would be a different mix too. Even today, you see people working differently in Chikara than they do elsewhere.

"Quaalude sweater" may be even more inappropriate.

The follow up being botched (and Schiavone's infamous call regarding Foley) are what soured that moment. If they actually did the logical thing of Goldberg tearing through the nWo en route to obliterating Hogan and getting the title back it wouldn't be as looked down upon. If the WWF had done it in the main event? Austin would've run through the Corporation and beaten the hell out of whatever champ Vince hand picked to get the title back. Which is kinda/sorta what happened (the WWF Fingerpoke is basically Rumble '99).

It's absolutely worth continuing. If nothing else, making it one more year and seeing Erik Watts over for the first time in his career is a worthy point.

CM Punk in WCW would've been placed into a program with Vampiro on the basis that they both like the Misfits. They'd feud and tag up and Punk would eventually quit anyway.

Count me among those who had Champions of the Galaxy. It got to a point where I created a bunch of my own cards. I abandoned it when I got into the play by mail IWA and efeds, though.

Seconded. After that? The show becomes boring and stupid as opposed to just stupid.

That part doesn't bother me because it then, theoretically, makes the PPVs/Network specials more important simply by the title being on the line. It doesn't feel this way, though, because the entire show is a television program about what television writers feel a wrestling show looks like instead of being a wrestling show on TV. It's why ROH and LU feel so different (in addition to production, runtime, and match quality).

It's absolutely possible. Wrestling is a fictional narrative and the titles, essentially, are macguffins. They exist to propel the stories and are as important as the promotion makes them out to be. For recent examples, PWG has it so that the World and Tag titles are both very important to their shows, with Roderick Strong practically murdering Kyle O'Reily last year to get the World title that had eluded him for years and every team that took the Tag belts off the Young Bucks was then treated as immensely important. Currently, local indy XWA has it's title in the thick of its big current angle (a feud with ROH) and its importance has increased because the players surrounding it treat it as something important. It doesn't need to be the 100% focus, since the best shows are always ensemble pieces with multiple stories going on at once, but it should always be held in high regard as the apex achievement. After all, why would Rocky Balboa even care about Apollo Creed if Creed wasn't the champ?