NotJayTabb

"Chaos ensues in the PROJECT PIT" made me laugh out loud

I've no issue with Sharmell making the HoF. She was a good character for a few years, arguably enhancing the reign of world champion Booker T, she's a good promo so she'll probably do a nice speech, and I imagine her and Booker live in Texas, so it's a nice local induction. The idea of Booker getting to induct his wife into the HoF in his home state is sweet enough that I'm happy with this one.

It's frightening how quickly this all escalated too. Last week he's hospitalised with a broken hip, then on Saturday he suffers 3 heart attacks and is now at the end of the line. Very sad news. Like a lot of people above, I was a big fan as a kid. Razor Ramon just oozed cool, he stood out as someone with a bit of an edge in the WWF babyface landscape. He had some really good matches over the years when motivated, and clearly had a mind for wrestling. I remember Matt Morgan saying in TNA that Hall had taken him aside and advised him to slow down his back elbows in the corner, as that would let the impact of each one sink in with the audience. I wish we'd got to see more of that side of him.

Had half an hour spare on Saturday, so watched a couple of Tito matches on YouTube, both of which I very much enjoyed. Not all-time classics, but matches where I thought "If Tito wasn't this, it would be a lot worse". First was a 1990 match against Al Perez, a guy who I've always thought was fundamentally fine, but I've never been excited by. This was a really good 10 minute match, with Perez focusing on the back and Tito selling and making Perez look great. The other match was a 5 minute sprint from 1993 against Headshrinker Fatu, and it was good fun. I assumed by June 93 that Tito would be checking out, but he still had great energy, still knew how to work underneath against a bigger guy, and still really fun to watch. Feel like I want to go on a deeper Tito dig now.

Ridge Holland's real name is Luke Menzies, so a pairing of Luke and Butch means this definitely feels like its intentional

I'm not going to say Bron is a no-brainer either, because we all know how that goes, but he's got the advantage over Keith Lee of being 12 years younger and working the style that WWE like. As opposed to Lee, who they wanted to work more like a big man and to talk differently.

I think Zayn will finish lower in 2026, but I don't think it's his last few years negatively affecting him as much as the fact he was on a high when the last poll took place. At the time, he was coming off a great NXT run about to culminate in the highly anticipated Nakamura match, so his stock was at an all-time high. I actually think his main roster run has added to his case - we all knew he could play a great babyface, both with his body language in a mask and with his facial expressions without it. Now we also know he can play a great stooging heel, who knows exactly how to work to that character whilst still having great matches when he needs to. I think more highly of him now as an all-round performer than I did when I voted in 2016, but he wont have the buzz that he did at the time.

I remember the guy who wrote this was working on it nearly 20 years ago, and was sharing it chapter by chapter on The Smart Marks forums. He'd been sharing it for a few weeks by the time I moved out of my parents house and didn't have the internet for several month, so I never finished it, but I don't think we'd even got to the first XPW show by that point. Yeah, it was 100% a passion piece, the guy was a huge XPW fan and would post excitedly about getting a new interview with a random XPW guy that most people hadn't heard of. As I recall, he later became a CHIKARA ref and I think sadly passed a year or two ago.

After thoroughly enjoying the watch party on Saturday, I'm shocked at how there was almost no discussion of him first time around. Was there just a sudden footage burst in the last few years? He's so instantly interesting to watch, a big guy with a great look who makes everything feel important, and sells superbly. He's like a Superstar Billy Graham who can work. What really impressed me is how his selling felt like big stoogy selling as a heel, but with very little change felt like great sympathetic selling as a face. Not saying he's a lock for my list, I'll need to see more than just 2 hours to make the cut, but if the rest of his stuff is on par with the WP, then he'll be in.

The little bits of Veer I've seen have been decent enough that I'm looking forward to him finally arriving. He's got a cool look, he's a big guy who moves well and he looks pretty solid.

Is that Alex Zayne (the former Ari Sterling in NXT)? I saw something on Twitter about him having glass in his eye after a GCW show, but they had to work on sewing his arm back together first before they could turn to that.

I just read that long post on his candidacy and thought "Austin Idol sounds great, I need to check him out", and then you go and drop the Watch Party news. Absolutely perfect

My only query with Revolution is about the main event. The AEW title match doesn't feel like a main event match up to me, to the point where I don't think it will close the show. Not the fault of Hangman, nor even Adam Cole, terrible as he is. It just doesn't feel like there's any danger of Cole winning the title, and the decision to have him lose to Orange Cassidy last month feels really odd, even with the cutesy "unsanctioned" fudging of his win record. MJF/Punk feels like the real main event here to me.

When you think of the early growing pains of AEW, that terrible faction with Brandi, death match legend Luther and Mel (the girl who shaved her head and was never seen again) feels like the worst. People laugh at the Librarians, but at least they mainly stayed on Dark, this got actual TV time.

He's also not had much ring time in the past 12 months, you'd expect him to be a little rusty and out of ring shape. Hopefully they don't rush him, let him get more and more ring time before giving him a push

I feel very comfortable in saying Page is better than any member of the Elite, he's proving to be a very good champion. The idea of him facing Adam Cole next isn't too thrilling, because of how dreadful Cole is, but I've more faith in Page getting something out of him than most.

Really great thread, have enjoyed reading through these. Brock is someone I've come back around on in recent years, didn't consider him for GWE16, but feels like he'll be a lock in 2026. Only match I think I disagree on in the SS13 match with Punk, which I guess I need to rewatch. My memory of it is that I didn't buy Punk having the offence to hurt Brock, and it paled in comparison to ADR/Christian and Bryan/Cena on the same card.

I wonder if they'll have him mainly working with the Knockouts division. Chelsea Green and the debuting Gisele Shaw are both Storm trainees, so there's already a connection there.

Batista keeps talking about wanting to direct too, and how he's trying to absorb knowledge from everyone he works with. Which given he's worked with the likes of Denis Villeneuve, Sam Mendes and (upcoming) Rian Johnson gives him a pretty good group to learn from

Well that's good to hear. I think he's a good enough wrestler with a fun enough gimmick to succeed on those terms, he doesn't need to add anything egregious to his matches. He seems like a nice guy too, came across really well as a guest on Conan O'Brien's podcast, so I hope he has a good run, can see him getting over as a midcard act.

Of all the "meme wrestlers" on the indies, Danhausen is probably one of the better workers and there's definitely a creative mind at work there. It just depends how much of his indie schtick he brings across. That spot where "Tequila" plays over the tannoy whilst his opponent staggers confused on the floor, for example, is dreadful and I hope TK wont allow it.

Feels like Veer might get a big ironic pop when he finally debuts

Gutted that I fell asleep during the Bolshoi watch party on Saturday (I'd been up and about since 6am, so by the time we got to 10pm for the WP, I was shattered), but I'm going to take an active interest in this thread because Bolshoi seems great. Also Jetta rules, big fan of Coventry's Loudest.

I imagine when the eventual split comes, MJF will fire him, only for TK to come out and sign Wardlow to a contract and a match with his former employer.

I think Theory has the benefit of being young - he's only 24 - yet already pretty talented, so Vince probably feels he can mould him early into the kind of wrestler he likes. I can definitely see Vince looking at a young guy in good shape, solid in ring and the mic, and thinking he is someone that he can work with. It's just novel to see Vince do that with a wrestler under the age of 30 these days. Agree with all the points on WALTER. In isolation, WALTER isn't a great ring name either*, and if a new wrestler emerged called Gunther Stark (U-boat connection aside) I don't think anyone would say it was a bad name. But when you've let the guy wrestle on one of the big 5 PPVs as WALTER, plus him wrestling on TV throughout the year, a name change makes zero sense. * This might be a cultural thing, arguably the best known Walter in the UK is a cartoon character called Walter the Softy, who is a typical bullied nerd character.