Cap

I didn't submit a ballot but I did watch a lot of wrestling over about 6 months with the goal of seeing how I felt about a ballot at the end. Ultimately I didn't do it because I wasn't happy with my own list. As much as anything I just didn't have time to sit down with my list of 150 or say and sort through them thoughtfully. I learned... I have lots of huge blind spots that I really want to fix. I a sucker for blood. Blood can really make a good match great to me if it is implemented right. I love when it feels like the wrestlers go off script or take chances on a whim. I enjoy stiffness over move set almost every time. I really highly value wrestlers that create moments, images that get stuck in my mind. When everything comes together for a second and creates something visually and audibly that I just lose myself in... that is my favorite thing in wrestling. I learned there are certain guys that I enjoy more than most the types of matches they have tend to rate much higher for me than most. It helped me really get to the nuances of what I enjoy about work between moves, the relationship between character and work, and some of the above stuff about stiffness. I learned that I like smart wrestlers a lot, people who are really conscious of their limitations and work to maximize their skills and more importantly use what they have to make EVERYONE in the match look better. Finally, I learned I care a lot about how a character/persona is played out in someone's work (how they sell, how they move between the action, how they fire up, etc). I really like when the real meat and potatoes of a persona is built in the in-ring intricacies and the promos and walk outs and so on expand upon that. This is most prevalent when someone just never turns their character off in the ring. Everyone in my top 20 has that in spades.

I am not interested in the "if you don't like it don't watch" argument for all the reasons stated above. I would add that I think the WWE's business model and the things they have done to diversify establish themselves as synonymous with wrestling as a whole has made it really hard to quit the WWE. They make it really easy to buy in and almost not worth it opt out with the network. Even if I don't turn the network on for a few days I cant imagine getting rid of it really because I might be listening to a podcast and here someone reference I match from an old show I haven't seen or haven't seen in a while. It is just too easy, too accessible. I think there are a few talent related things they do that are brilliant for them and frustrating for me in terms of the main roster First, they appropriate the emotional investment certain populations of fans have in the "indy darlings" or whatever you want to call them. Even though I don't watch much, I will probably keep an eye on the product just to see what Zayn, Owens, Rollins, Styles, Joe, and so on are up to. They really peaked with this when they were running Punk vs Cena and Dragon vs Cena. I actually think they get how fans of these wrestlers think and they have proven that in how they have booked certain story-lines (their best in recent memory) and certain characters (Baron Corbin particularly). This blurs the lines in a way, but ultimately they seem to have fallen into using that knowledge to appease a subsection of their fanbase. Related, I am not sure who is making what decision and really running what, but whoever is deciding when and how to bring up NXT talent might be fucking up to some of us, but they are also allowing talent to gain a following with the hardcore fans and then bringing them onto the show in a way that is hard not to follow. I am not sure it is intentional, but this does allow them to play to a certain portion of the audience in that variety show kind of way. I am becoming increasingly convinced that NXT is less about developing talent now and more about a subsection of their "universe" that simultaneously appeases, energizes, and taps into a particular section of fans (of which I am a part). Eventually they are going to get to the point where they are producing, in a studio, the "journey through the indies" that is part of the appeal of guys like Punk, Dragon, Owens, etc. They are going to give them a less visible forum to have different kinds of matches, build their characters, showcase skills, "pay dues", and do something counter to the WWE culture, but it will all be under the WWE umbrella and script (already is, really). I suspect we are going to see more and more of the roster made up of former NXT folk and i don't think that necessarily means the product will change for the better. They are basically taking Wrestling's punk music scene and trying to get to the point where they reproduce it in bigger expensive studies and in some ways they are using some our favorite "punk" acts to start the process. I am not saying it is bad really. I love NXT and I am really happy to see lots of these people get the shot they want and the money they deserve. As long as they keep peppering in really talented people who have been working in other promotions and gathering their following, I don't see why it wont work and why I wouldn't continue to enjoy it. No complaint at all, but I also recognize it is one of the reasons I don't tune out completely. I am emotionally invested in a hand full of people that are working for the WWE, I am not alone in that, and the WWE knows it.

Nothing that hasn't been said, but for me: Road Warriors Miracle Violence Connection Holy Demon Army Motor City Machine Guns The Hollywood Blonds

I basically said I imagined that would be how it was to my wife. I was at XXX and it took me 30 minutes to walk from the ticket gate to my seat just because people were basically shoulder to shoulder trying to go in every different direction and about 20% of those people were not being cooperative humans. I can only imagine that this was much worse, especially with the scanners having problems.

I also agree with Loss's sentament. I had more or less stopped watching the main roster shows over the last 2-3 months. That is why I am not really mad about what I watched last night... I just to a point where it doesn't make sense to me. I would watch a hulu raw or smackdown here or there while I ate breakfast or cleaned or something and I did a little catching up this week to make sure I was up on all the "build" for this show, but I have more or less checked out. As a friend said to me a few years ago, "that wrestling isn't for me and there is plenty of wrestling that is". This isn't like an epiphany or even a change for me, I am just echoing that Loss's post resonates with how I generally approach the E. I will still watch major shows and generally keep tabs on things because there is too much talent up there to just ignore. The E has also just taken too prominent a role in the wrestling landscape for me to completely check out. They have brilliantly positioned themselves and designed a product that I will probably continue to pay for despite not being very interested in new output and I am generally ok with that.

I don't even think it was a conscious effort per say, but it was just like all the results decisions early on made so little sense that the only motivating factor for them could be to troll fans. I don't think it was a conspiracy theory, it was just so counter to anything that made sense to me as a fan that I couldn't rationalize it in another way. Austin's stunner on Rusev honestly brought be me back a bit. That was one of the best sell jobs for the stunner ever.

This card was so weird to me. The first three matches took the wind out of the sails on the results. I don't get too hung up on results, but it seemed like they were trolling us almost. I want to rewatch the Styles/Jericho match because I was enjoying it for the most part but just threw my hands in the air when Styles lost. I was not a huge fan of the street fight. I thought it was fun, but it was underwealming. It felt like they wanted to keep it from stealing the show so they tried to find a sweet spot for it. I may feel differently when I watch it again... but I was just dissapointed. I liked the Women's match a lot. They were pretty great. Sasha doing the Eddie stuff made me so giggly. I loved it. I also think I like the HIAC match more than most. I thought it was planned out well for who was in and what they needed to do. I didn't find it as dragging as most people. To me, it overperformed really. Baron Corbin winning the battle royal might have been my favorite outcome of the night. I have become a pretty big fan. While I am not sure how his act will translate to the main roster, I am more confident that they will succeed with him than I am with most call-ups. I also assume Corbin will be be going over AJ Styles by Summer Slam. The Rock/Cena/Wyatts stuff felt like a huge waste of my time. The main was good, but just felt underwealming to me. I need to watch it again with fresh eyes. I thought the match was well done, but it just couldn't bring a tired audience to like Roman. It couldn't live up to last year's main. It couldn't overcome all the factors working against it. Nothing changed. There is nothing to be excited about here. I am sort of looking forward to watching it again, but probably not for a few days.

I was talking about the ones in the videos.... not the skull people walking out with him. Did the ones in the videos have belts? I forget. Now I am confused. Why was Steph dressed as Beyonce again?

I think you are right, but I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. They are the post-apocalyptic masses.

I think they were supposed to be the nameless faceless masses who keep their mouths shut (or more accurately who have their mouths shut for them). They are how King Ache sees the WWE fans.

Nakamura has been fantastic for years doing this shtick. His sexuality isn't just irrelevant, the ambiguity adds to his persona, if anything. His ass kicking transcends his gender performance and that is quite literally one of the most obvious things that set him apart.

Agreed. I am rewatching it now. I came away really thinking they were really good on first watch and I am noticing it again this time around. I sometimes don't love Graves because he can get into that Jesse Ventura mode of needlessly pointing out logical flaws in a match, but I think he is also really good at getting a matches nuance and accenting that without beating the audience over the head with it. He does seem like he is better with Phillips.

Yeah, Aries has more or less always been a born heel. With the exception of his return to face the rest of Generation Next, I have never gotten really excited about his face work. I am not sure it was a carry job, but Baron was very impressive here. I am kind of excited to rewatch this match too.

This is something that has been bothering me for the last several years in this PG Post-Benoit era of wrestling. To me a good referee is one who is only noticed when he is supposed to be (a ref bump, a shoving match with Flair, threatening a DQ, checking if someone is submitting, etc), these days we have the referee constantly in the middle of the action, down on the mat checking on both guys after nearly every move they take, derailing the momentum of the match to wipe away a trickle of blood. It is, at least to me, a major distraction and tends to pull me out of the story being told. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the guys and girls getting hurt, but over the last several years I've just found it jarring how often I am noticing "there is the referee again, making sure someone is okay after they took a backdrop." Then last night I couldn't help but smile at the "Let Joe Bleed" chant, because that was at least in my opinion, overkill. It's a contact sport, he wasn't in any danger, shit happens. Yeah, I am such a mark for blood in a match, especially when it just sort of happens. I don't want blood in every match, but when an intense feud is being blown off or someone really wants to tell a story of a fight going to the next level, blood can be a powerful way to tell that story. I think that with the intense performance joe was putting on would have really set this match apart and with them stopping the match every few seconds to clean it up, it just lost a lot of momentum to me. I was so into it and so pumped when Joe pushed the ref away and even thought it was pretty cool when he wiped it away himself. After like the second or third stop I was just rolling my eyes. I just wanted to see them wrestle. Also, cheers to a fellow WVian

He's not as good as the other people they feature This... Also, its a crowded room right now. I expect some call ups might make some room for him, but who knows. I also wont be surprised if he gets called up without getting his big NXT run.

Yeah, this was an incredible show. I thought the tag match was well on its way to great before losing a little momentum in obvious spots. They did really well to work around stuff, but the flow and pace of the match dropped off. That said, I was thinking of the Southern Boys vs Midnights about half way through this match with the pace they were going, the stages they were moving through and what they were getting done in terms of setting the pace for the night. Aries vs Baron was deceptively good to me. It wasn't great, but it was fun. Baron is a fantastic character and his jawing helped. Aries worked really well as the little guy. I loved the way he worked that into the match with his offense. He is great at that. The end was fine for a first match in a feud. Nakamura vs Sami was lights out. I have to watch it again before I give it my stars, but this felt elite. Between the forearms and two spots in the ropes where they seemed to go off script just a touch and up the brutality, it felt pretty unique among NXT/WWE matches at the time. It just felt like the plan went well and in the moment they both decided push their boundaries. I loved it. The ending seemed off, but at that point it almost didn't matter. Asuka vs Bayley was also really good. It was just about everything I thought it was going to be and maybe a little more with the finish. I really liked what they did. I imagine this one might actually improve to me as I rewatch it. It really had a great build of a clash of titans and it paid that off. It wasn't as good as the Sasha stuff and i am actually really high on the Bayley/Jax match, but this was pretty good stuff. The Joe vs Finn match is such a strange bird to me. It is, as others have mentioned, an elite performance from Joe. He was 100% on. Finn was really good too and was feeding off Joe. The stoppages killed me. I know they are fine with some people. I know some people might even think they added to the drama, but I hate it. I hate them stopping a match for blood and I hated how many times they did it here. If they had let this go it might have threatened the Nak vs Sami as best match of the night, but all the momentum killers, making sure the match was clean... it just took so much away from this match for me. This might be the worst case of this too because they were putting on such a great match too. I have to rewatch the last three matches today or tomorrow for sure. they were just so lights out good.

This is a really fun trip down memory lane. Early ROH is what got me back into wresting while I was in college. I also love the bit about the first Round Robin Challenge. For years ki vs Dragon from that show was my favorite match. I was always perplexed about how I hated special ref matches in general and I was never a huge shamrock fan, but he had such an amazing track record as a special ref.

I buy most of this, but how exactly is Owens a B-version of Punk? Is it just the "I play by my own rules and I am the best" thing? I also agree that his feuds have been handled horribly in the WWE, but the Zayne stuff in NXT was good, just short lived.

I like both of them quite a bit and it would be tough for me to rank them. I would imagine they would wind up somewhere in the 85-100 range if I made a list, with Necro being a touch higher. Part of that his homerism (I am from WV) and part is just thinking he is a little more dynamic. I really like how quickly Necro goes from kicking ass to getting his ass kicked in the most extreme forms. I think that is a pretty unique talent. Obviously Necro's ability to take a beating is one of his selling points, but that isn't his real strength to me. I think he is best when he uses his unique style to put guys in new kinds of danger. For example, I am a lot lower on the Joe matches than most because to me there is not enough Necro offense to make it compelling. It was an interesting spectacle, for sure. I like the Low Ki match a lot more because that felt like a really unique dynamic and brought out a different kind of urgency in Ki. I love Super Dragon too though. I think his evolution from grappling and jumping around to ass kicker was awesome and I think he does a really good job telling the story of a fight (as does Necro). Maybe it is because of the mask, but Super Dragon always stood out as a guy with fantastic body language and deceptively good selling (when he wants to). I am not sure anyone in wrestling history has done the "thats it, fuck this guy, I am done with this shit" beat down and he implements it into lots of different parts of the match. Oddly enough, my favorite match from both men is their match against one another. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that match. Even with that table botch (that I think actually adds to the chaos) that match is tops to me.

I loved the New Day when they were a wink-and-nod critique of their own gimmick, but - like was pointed out early in the thread - once the WWE got a hold of them things sort of tapered off. They always miss the forest for the trees with stuff like this and think the wrong things connect. I assume the company has taken a more hands on approach in booking them and micromanaging what they do because it certainly doesn't have the same edge. They usually make me chuckle once or twice in a promo though. It is probably just me imposing my own will on the product, but I imagine that is where the New Day is actually being creative and diverging or playing up or down what the company wants. Owens is a guy that I have soured on a little bit lately and I am a long time fan of the guy. I think his decent to madness stuff in ROH and his ROH title run were AWESOME. His appeal has always been finding a way to push the boundaries of how to build a character (and usually how to be a heel). When he first got to NXT and WWE I thought he was translating what he had done in the indies really well to the bigger stage. It was "PG" but it still felt fresh to the product. I actually found the "I'm a good dad and that is why I have to be an ass hole" thing to be solid, but they don't really commit to it anymore. he hasn't evolved much in terms of the little things he does. His strength is being on the mic and being a prick to people and then backing it up in the ring with monster offense early and "your hero just killed me" selling late. I always thought he was also better at prolonged blood feuds. He evolved more fluidly (as perhaps all wrestlers do) that way and he hasn't really got that. Even the Ambrose stuff (which I generally liked) felt more like a placeholder feud for both. As for his work, I still think he is pretty good at bringing something new and fresh to a match, a character that is developed on the mic, on the internet, and in the ring all at once. It feels more complete and a 2016 version of a 1985 approach to cultivating a persona. The E wont let him be a monster though, and that is where he thrives in terms of building a match that is more than spots or more than an "indy" style back and forth. I get why they haven't let him do that. I just think he has the skills to really work some good psychology into the match and really tell a compelling story, but he is a longform story teller, not as much a short, wwe-style-picture-book storyteller. As for being nerdy... I once got my girlfriend to agree to take a weekend trip to drive across Ohio for an ROH double shot. About 2 weeks before the shows we broke up (coincidence?), so I took my mom. I just got a River Song Funko Pop figure in the mail for my office. It will join Capt. Picard, Jon Snow, Daniel Bryan, and the Tenth Doctor (David Tennantt is my Doctor, god damn it). My favorite author is (probably) Frank Herbert and my favorite band is (probably) the Hold Steady. I am not saying I am king shit of nerd mountain but I am certainly not cool in any conventional sense of the term.

It could also be him wanting to or needed to dedicate extra attention to his other interests. I would imagine that this could be a very compelling time to up the activity with regard to sustainability issues. Maybe he just wanted to sort out those things. Maybe he is really Dr. Who and he had to leave for a bit to avoid crossing his own time stream in the next few weeks. It is tough to tell really.

I am not 100% sure this is going to make sense, but I find this notion of familiarity really interesting. It is something I have been struggling with lately because I have been exposing myself to a lot of stuff that is new to me and revisiting a lot of stuff I haven't watched in a long time. I have come to really value getting an understanding of wrestling in a particular time and space before I think too much about rating matches or chiming in on particular wrestlers. While I find the intent discussion interesting I tend to think of it in terms of something that isn't quite intent as much as it is "smarts" or proficiency in navigating a match in a given time and space. I find that I have a much richer appreciation wrestling if I give myself some time to just watch a hand full of matches from that time period and general place to get the mannerisms, expectations, pace, tendencies in storytelling, what is normal, and more importantly abnormal. For me it makes the watching more rewarding, particularly if I am watching something I haven't watch much of before (80s and 90s Lucha is my go to example recently). For me, this also makes the question of intent a little less important, because I see wrestlers as moving through a specific kind of wrestling landscape and making their marks within it, always creating and recreating the style as they go. I don't tend to assume most of the matches I find to be great were designed to be all time classics (which leads me to a sort of distaste for some things - but that is a different, well documented conversation). They were products of a series of factors coming together in the right ways. Getting to something great is almost dialectical, a series of exchanges and tensions between styles, individuals, expectations, etc that creates something that really stands out and grabs you. That doesn't necessitate a sort of micro-level intent, but draws my attention to how wrestlers cultivate certain characters/personas/mannerisms/moves that then thrive in a given context (or don't). So I don't usually think of it in terms of intent, but rather how a wrestler (consciously or not) is navigating the terrain and if they are pushing boundaries in compelling ways. For me - and this is a complete matter of scope right now - this draws my attention to matches and that is sort of the unit I am am currently working with and thinking about. However, it is inevitable that my attention be drawn to wrestlers and careers with this way of thinking as i watch more, which is already happening with some of my very favorite wrestlers that I have put my eyeball and brain power into enjoying and assessing.

I doubt it is him trying to get out to work indies at this point. I would actually be a little surprised if he didn't make a push for it down the road, but his retirement didn't feel like something he did haphazardly or just to appease the WWE. I would imagine it sticks for a while. I obviously don't know the guy at all, but from a distance he strikes me as the kind of person that would have trouble being around wrestling if he can't wrestle. It could be any number of things. Here is to hoping it isn't something serious.

I knew it ranked highly on the set, but hadn't seen it pop up on this thread before and really don't remember it being dropped much. Granted, my visits to and exploration of the board are spotty at best and my podcast listening isn't the most consistent. Plus, this is obviously a working list for everyone and can't be expected to be up an up to the minute account. It just didn't seem canonical like Duggan/DiBiase or any number of Flair matches. Whatever, that's all inconsequential. I am glad people like it as much as I do. It is one of those where the angle and the match are inseparable to me. The angle informs and animates the match in really substantive ways. I was marking out over Bill Watts little promo before the match.

I watched that DiBiase/Flair match on the Mid-South set a couple weeks ago and thought I might on an island in how much I loved it. I have it at ****3/4. It is so brilliant and so intense.