Woof

Johnny is at his best when the product is at its worst. I feel like him watching early ECW would be podcast gold.

Just listened. That was amazing. A tip of the cap to you, sir.

For reasons I can't explain, the timing on the PTBN add-drop on EP2 cracked me up. You guys were nerding out over comic book references and we get: Johnny: Top that, geeks. Kelly: I can't. Pete: I can't either. (beat) Lord Alfred Hayes: Promotional consideration paid for by the following! Too funny.

My own picks, based on how I think the WWE would book it given the current state of things, not on who I think is necessarily worthy and/or would provide interesting matches… RAW Braun Strowman (15 pts) Wins: Wyatt, Cesaro, Ambrose, Balor, Miz, Rollins, Sheamus Losses: Joe Draws: Reigns Roman Reigns (13 pts) Wins: Wyatt, Cesaro, Miz, Joe, Rollins, Sheamus Losses: Ambrose, Balor Draws: Strowman Bray Wyatt (10 pts) Wins: Cesaro, Ambrose, Miz, Joe, Sheamus Losses: Braun, Balor, Reigns Finn Balor (10 pts) Wins: Wyatt, Ambrose, Miz, Reigns, Sheamus Losses: Strowman, Cesaro, Joe, Rollins Samoa Joe (10 pts) Wins: Strowman, Cesaro, Balor, Miz, Rollins Losses: Wyatt, Ambrose, Reigns, Sheamus Seth Rollins (10 pts) Wins: Wyatt, Cesaro, Balor, Miz, Sheamus Losses: Strowman, Ambrose, Reigns, Joe Dean Ambrose (8 pts) Wins: Cesaro, Reigns, Joe, Rollins Losses: Strowman, Wyatt, Balor, Miz, Sheamus Sheamus (8 pts) Wins: Cesaro, Ambrose, Miz, Joe Losses: Strowman, Wyatt, Balor, Reigns, Rollins The Miz (4 pts) Wins: Cesaro, Ambrose Losses: Strowman, Wyatt, Balor, Reigns, Joe, Rollins, Sheamus Cesaro (2 pts) Wins: Balor Losses: Strowman, Wyatt, Ambrose, Miz, Reigns, Joe, Rollins, Sheamus SMACKDOWN Randy Orton (16 pts) Wins: Styles, Corbin, Ziggler, Mahal, Owens, Harper, Zayn, Dillinger Losses: Nakamura AJ Styles (14 pts) Wins: Corbin, Ziggler, Mahal, Owens, Harper, Zayn, Dillinger Losses: Orton, Nakamura Shinsuke Nakamura (14 pts) Wins: Styles, Ziggler, Owens, Harper, Orton, Zayn, Dillinger Losses: Corbin, Mahal Jinder Mahal (12 pts) Wins: Corbin, Ziggler, Harper, Zayn, Nakamura, Dillinger Losses: Styles, Owens, Orton Baron Corbin (10 pts) Wins: Ziggler, Harper, Zayn, Nakamura, Dillinger Losses: Styles, Mahal, Owens, Orton Kevin Owens (8 pts) Wins: Corbin, Mahal, Harper, Dillinger Losses: Styles, Ziggler, Orton, Zayn, Nakamura Dolph Ziggler (6 pts) Wins: Owens, Harper, Dillinger Losses: Styles, Corbin, Mahal, Orton, Zayn, Nakamura Sami Zayn (6 pts) Wins: Ziggler, Owens, Dillinger Losses: Styles, Corbin, Mahal, Harper, Orton, Nakamura Luke Harper (2 pts) Wins: Zayn Losses: Styles, Corbin, Ziggler, Mahal, Owens, Orton, Nakamura, Dillinger Tye Dillinger (2 pts) Wins: Harper Losses: Styles, Corbin, Ziggler, Mahal, Owens, Orton, Zayn, Nakamura Strowman then defeats Orton in the Raw vs SmackDown final, with the winner getting a title shot at SummerSlam. And I'd resurrect the Great American Bash name for the tournament as a whole, kicking off on the fourth of July and ending on Sunday the 30th with the final on whatever PPV du jour they come up with.

That WOULD be awesome, but I just sat down and figured out my version and yeah... my WWE booking goggles don't see that happening.

Bored at the office afternoon timekiller… Imagine if you will that the WWE, in another effort to throw some first-run content up on the network, decided to rip off the G1 Climax tournament idea and booked two 10-man round robin blocks (one from Raw, one from SmackDown) for house shows, throwing the relevant matches on the network like New Japan does. Who makes the cut? Or if you're really ambitious, who beats who along the way? Also, what kind of WWE-ized name would they give it? Eligible rosters as of today are: RAW Apollo Crews Big Cass Big Show Bo Dallas Braun Strowman Bray Wyatt Brock Lesnar Cesaro Curt Hawkins Curtis Axel Dash Wilder Dean Ambrose Elias Samson Enzo Amore Finn Balor Goldust Heath Slater Jeff Hardy Kalisto Karl Anderson Luke Gallows Matt Hardy The Miz R-Truth Rhyno Roman Reigns Samoa Joe Scott Dawson Seth Rollins Sheamus Titus O'Neil SMACKDOWN Aiden English AJ Styles Baron Corbin Big E Chad Gable Chris Jericho Dolph Ziggler Epico Colon Erick Rowan Fandango James Ellsworth Jason Jordan Jey Uso Jimmy Uso Jinder Mahal John Cena Kane Kevin Owens Kofi Kingston Konnor Luke Harper Mike Kanellis Mojo Rawley Primo Colon Randy Orton Rusev Sami Zayn Samir Singh Shinsuke Nakamura Sin Car Sunii Singh Tye Dillinger Viktor Xavier Woods Zack Ryder

I think this episode of CWF-Mid Atlantic finally drove home for me what it is I love about that show and has me making sure I never miss an episode (even though I occassionally fall behind): the matches/wrestlers never over-extend themselves. I grow so numb whenever I watch Evolve/PWG/ROH or other "Super Indies" because every match is wrestled like a main event and by the time we're halfway through I've OD'd on big dives and spots. Plus it seems like guys are in overdrive when it comes to trying to get their personality over. Watching becomes exhausting. CWF matches, even though they aren't always great, are almost always exactly what they need to be. Guys wrestle to their role and they get over with the home crowd (and with me in my living room) based on personality and real basic storytelling. It's so wonderfully meat-and-potatoes that when they occassionally slip in something like Trevor Lee vs Chip Day it feels like a rewarding dessert sundae. Like NXT when it's working right it hits all the right notes and makes for a breezy hour watch that satisfies the wrestling fan in me like few other things can.

The fact that you had that Soul Train conversation without bringing up the Jive Soul Bro himself is blasphemous. VIVA LA REVERAND SLICK!

And yet they hyped a Joe-Nakamura rematch to take place on the Australian Tour inside a steel cage.

The move is called a slingblade. It refers to a gardening tool with a hooked blade (hence being named for a hooking clothesline in wrestling). Cole is calling it correctly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_blade

Not sure I'd call it the greatest, but 2002 had an excellent first year of in-ring stuff for ROH coupled with the fantastic run of the Smackdown Six in WWE. Plus TNA was throwing out some decent stuff in their formative days in and around all the crap booking. I don't have a TON of familiarity with Japan at that time, but I have a Best of Japan 2002 comp somewhere that I rather enjoyed and early NOAH certainly doesn't suck.

Well then. I guess the next logical follow-up would be is there anyone out there who would be interested in co-hosting such a show? Mind you I have no clue if I have the time to devote to such a project right now, but you gotta start somewhere.

Out of curiousity, would there be any interest in a Titans/WTBBP-style show looking back at the formative days of ROH? Or is the "podcast breaking down a single show" arena too full right now?

As a listener this one would hold the most interest to me. I think if you took something like the Fingerpoke Of Doom and devoted a good 45 minutes to trying to really assess, "what was the goal", "what was the longterm hope", "why did it not work" and so on, as opposed to just doing the usual, "Fuck Nash and Hogan" hot takez you might have a fascinating listen. The dumbest ideas in wrestling usually had some decent intention behind them, misguided as they may have been. Your territories idea seems a little dry and might be better served as a written series rather than a podcast, but that's just me.

I think the CWC sort of overplayed that angle and since they're using alot of those guys in NXT now it permeats the air, especially in light of high profile signings like Aries, Roode, and Joe who were able to keep their previous names (and by default, reputations). Guys that are more "developmental" projects like No Way Jose, Tye Dillinger, Authors Of Pain, Moss & Sabbatelli, Fulton & Wolfe, they all get more old school "characters" once they've paid their NXT dues. I think the show is at its best when there's a balance of the two types.

I'm a sucker for young lions matches. There's a purity of sport to them that I find endearing.

That's kind of what I was getting at. Since there is no time limit to his defenses it's not like he's necessarily using his superior stamina to outlast his opponents until the time limit expires (like a heel Flair might have done), but rather he's saying "if you want to get this title off of me you're going to have to earn it because I'm in no hurry here so unless you hit me with something sudden, this is gonna take awhile". It's both an in-ring strategy (I'm going to use my conditioning to wear you down) and a character proclamation (I'm going to leave no room for doubt about my greatness). He's had moments in his defenses where he could have picked up an early win and backed off, as if to say, "unh unh, I want you to push me harder than this before I put you out of your misery and if you happen to get me before then, so be it". It's such a fascinating story because he has to toe the line of being a heel at times to keep it going, but it's never outright cockiness. Instead its this very real sense of "this is the promotion where I got my start and where I call home and I finally won the belt, so before I go off and become a big star nationally I want to get everything I can out of this reign". Just killer character work.

Pete and Tim, have either of you gone back and watched the insanely long Trevor Lee/Roy Wilkins match from early in the year where Lee won the title? Lee's whole title reign being built off of that one match and the idea that his title defenses have no time limit is fascinating to me. I know the idea from a booking standpoint is just because you CAN go long doesn't mean you should (and I would generally agree with that), but in this case it's a kayfabe thing where Lee the Champion is doing precisely that; extending his matches intentionally as a way of proving no matter what an opponent throws at him, he can wait them out. He had a 45 minute match with Jesse Adler back in April that was interesting because Adler is essentially still a rookie who had no business going that long with the champ, but Lee made it work by wrestling as if to say, "I'm gonna give you every chance to beat me, kid, it's up to you to do it" before finally putting him away. I feel like all his defenses have had that element of "I'm gonnna let you get your best shots in before I beat you", which is just such a unique approach to a title reign. Thoughts?

I'll only seem to have a problem with it when I switch between platforms. If I start something on my Roku it may not be there when I fire up the iPad and vice-versa.

RE: CWF-MA. That show opening angle was a lot of fun. And I have to say, one of my favorite things currently in wrestling is Cecil Scott's call whenever Aaron Biggs hits his Thesz Press finish. "AHHH! IT'S A MURDER!". Cracks me up every time. He's a really good color man alongside Stutts and his absence is really noticeable when he's not there. His psychology talk during some of Trevor Lee's longer matches this year has really helped those matches.

Love the show, guys, but you really need to do something about the weird timing issues on the second fall. It's been a couple of weeks now with Tim's responses to Pete actually cutting him off and now this week we get this weird pre-echo for Pete. Plus the volume disparity between you both was pretty extreme. Hate to bitch, but the tech issues make it hard to follow what you're saying sometimes.

I'm not really sure any revisionism needs to be done. It's not like TNA posed a true threat at any point. What would WWE really need to retcon about TNA's history? Exactly. What are they gonna do, create a narrative that makes TNA look like it ever mattered? Considering AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Bobby Roode were perceived like stars by the WWE audience as soon as they passed the door, TNA did matter a little bit more than people give it credit for. So there's always room for revisionism. Yeah, but that doesn't really require the usual WWE "revisionism", it just requires them to suddenly start acknowledging that TNA was once a thing. Basically, they don't ever mention TNA or ROH by name these days because they both have national TV deals, so whether they are truly competetive or not, they are still competition. If TNA goes under and WWE starts mentioning them specifically its not really revising history, it's acknowledging it. Vince McMahon saying in all the Monday Night War pieces that he "never believed in hurting my competition, merely beating them" in regards to the shady tactics Bischoff was using while completely ignoring the way he tried to put JCP out of business by creating a PPV to run against Starrcade and throwing the first Royal Rumble on free TV against a JCP PPV, now THAT is revising history.

It's up ROH's YouTube channel. Simply tremendous stuff.

I'm not really sure any revisionism needs to be done. It's not like TNA posed a true threat at any point. What would WWE really need to retcon about TNA's history? The only change is they'll start ackowledging it on TV as a place today's stars (AJ, Joe, Roode) got their start. Having one less "major" company wouldn't be good for the boys, but I get the feeling that void would be filled sooner rather than later. Jarrett's probably licking his chops at the prospect of resurrecting Global Force (or whatever it was called).

Really enjoying the show, guys. Has a bit of a morning radio show feel thanks to the sound drops and the chemistry you have with each other. It makes a nice supplement to watching the shows. Thanks.