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Yeah. My main issues with it are: You can't have this type of stupid ass angle on the same show where Shane/AJ an Miz/Cena are these 4th wall leaning angles. And you DEFINITELY can't make this the defacto most important feud of the show and allegedly WM. Turning this into a title feud is so wtf I literally can't even comprehend the thought that went into it. It'd be like turning Jake/Rude or Jake/Martel into a title feud. Because in the end, once you make it a title match, it's about the title more than the angle that led to it, so those months put into this out of time angle now become all about the title.

I, too, watched BITTT this week. Calling it a kayfabe talk show is more than a stretch, as they outright shit on Bayley's booking killing her character, and how much of a waste Shane/AJ is, among other many other things that weren't even close to being in kayfabe. JBL at one point talks about the Miz and how he was the guy to throw him out of the locker room only for storyline purposes. It's for sure 95%+ out of character and any semblance of kayfabe. This is a show that had a segment dedicated to JBL throwing a shit fit about Mauro being voted Observer announcer of the year. It would be similar to calling E&C or Ride Along kayfabe shows. The whole conceit of BITTT is a non WWE guy brings internet topics up to a couple of WWE guys and they discuss it openly and honestly.

I agree. Big, dramatic, clash of the titans style match with a superb crowd. I usually dislike Hogan but he was pretty good here and the Rock gave an excellent performance. They adapted pretty expertly (almost shockingly so) to the crowd flipping the face-heel dynamic. I don't think they were really adapting. It was pretty clear fans were going to pick Hogan over Rock during that match, and Rock's promo earlier in the event was a heel promo at Hulk and his fans. The match was certainly laid out in a way that they were expecting the fans to be cheering for Hogan over Rock. IIRC, Hogan has mentioned that they actually flew him home the day before WM or at least after he'd already gotten to Toronto just to get the red and yellow gear for the match based on the reactions that week at Axxess, but then when he got back they decided to stick with the NWO stuff anyway. So there isn't a lot of doubt they knew exactly what was going to happen during the match, it was just how much it was going to play into it which ended up being pretty much the whole way. The only thing keeping Rock from full heel was not cheating to win or mocking Hogan when he did it, which was fine since he wasn't turning heel. Then they didn't crap on the Rock when he made the save and posed with Hogan which was respectful and showed it was more about loving Hulk, then hating Rock or trying to get themselves over like nowadays has turned into. All the heat towards Rock dissipated as soon as the match was over, and the stadium was just standing cheering because they enjoyed wrestling and just saw something historic. Instead of getting pissed over booking decisions.

I wouldn't even put the WM8 as the best Flair/Macho match, let alone a top WM match.

Probably. The crowd was silent during that entire interview, so any catcalls should be very easy to hear. I wouldn't be surprised if someone yelled that out, because the whole promo was basically "My life sucked, my face was broken, my wife left me, but Hulkamania saved my life". The whole thing sounded like a suicide note until the end, so it makes sense someone in the crowd would have picked up on that and yelled it out. I'm definitely never, ever going to watch that Raw again so i can't say for sure.

I don't know if I'd put him below Trevor Rhodes/Murdoch, but he's certainly well, well below Dustin or Goldust as individual characters, let alone if you consider Dustin's entire career as both. Cody's whole career has basically been "what if you made a CAW in Here Comes the Pain and named him Rhodes?".

All I've seen of Raw was that Braun smashing Roman on the ramp gif, and I give that 5 stars.

Picture a real sport and a fake sport. And then picture that Hogan was actually more jacked than Rock in 2002. And that Hogan more than held his own in that match. It's like watching John Wick 2 and saying you can't believe that 50 year old Keanu is beating the shit out of all these 25 year old guys, so the movie ain't shit. Wrestling isn't about ages, it's about appearance and performance, which is why guys deep into their 40s can still be jacked to the tits and look completely credible against guys half their age and make money. In that particular match (and I'd argue every match he had for the next year and a half or so), Hulk wrestled like a guy 10+ years younger than he was. And that's what is important.

At that point you should have no compunctions just finding a torrent of whole years of ROH events, which are very easy to find online. It should be so fucking easy to digitize a master of all their old events and make them available for download, but if they're not going to, just got to XWT or whatever and cut them out of the easy money they could have had by doing the most basic of things.

Hogan was literally more mobile in Rock/Hogan than he had been in probably 5 years. What do you mean he could barely move? Wrestling today isn't about theatrical performance, it's about seeing how many moves and kick outs you can do to get a holy shit or this is awesome chant. There is nothing that wrestling today that is even close to Hogan/Rock at 18. Even when Cena and Rock tried to recreate the dynamic, it just turned into a bunch of finisher spam and kick outs and basically ignoring the crowd for large chunks of time to get their shit in.

I agree. Big, dramatic, clash of the titans style match with a superb crowd. I usually dislike Hogan but he was pretty good here and the Rock gave an excellent performance. They adapted pretty expertly (almost shockingly so) to the crowd flipping the face-heel dynamic. I don't think they were really adapting. It was pretty clear fans were going to pick Hogan over Rock during that match, and Rock's promo earlier in the event was a heel promo at Hulk and his fans. The match was certainly laid out in a way that they were expecting the fans to be cheering for Hogan over Rock.

WM 15 and 19 don't, but 17 is still a masterpiece, imo.

I'm changing my answer decisively to Hogan/Rock after just watching it again. What a perfect blend of 80s and late 90s WWF main event styles, with the hottest crowd you could possibly ever ask for, in an battle between the two biggest icons of their eras. Like if there is one match that really defines the concept of WM, it might be this. Shit is MAGICAL. They literally could have done nothing but headlocks, shoulder blocks, and tests of strength had had the most incredible reactions. Yet this is a match where you have Hogan doing chokeslams and Rock Bottoms, letting a dude kick out of the leg drop at WM, fans losing their fucking minds for Hogan (heel) low blowing Rock (face), and what might be the single greatest crowd of any match in company history. WM isn't and has never been about workrate. Arguably until the past few years, WWE's main event in general has never been. The Showcase of the Immortals tagline has never been more true than during this match.

They do have a streaming service with most of their back catalog, do they not? ROH World or something like that.

If I recall that was only after Brock beat the shit out of him in the Rumble I suppose you could argue Braun learned his lesson from Survivor Series 2015 or something. The Braun as pushed on Raw since last August seems like a character that would never show respect to another alpha. At the same time, that was preferable to having Taker come out and beat his ass, so whatever. It will never be mentioned again anyway.

That's not what was said. He does have something to offer, but not 5 star super worker offer. People are expecting Sami/Nak or Joe/Nak quality matches out of Roode now for some reason. His bar doesn't get that high, so people going into matches expecting greatness are never going to get it out of a Roode match. They'll get something decent to pretty good.

I think it's mostly because they haven't actually watched what he's done on the indies. Those random money mark NY shows that somehow book Kurt Angle and 10 other former legend types don't exactly have the same crowds that are watching FloSlam, Evolve has a tiny audience, TNA might as well not exist. Those same people who complained for 2 years at how poorly Sandow was being misused weren't throwing down money to see him at HOH or Impact, either.

The Hardys can't go in straight matches anymore. Matt especially at times looks like he has trouble walking. The actual wrestling they've done in front of live audiences has been the worst part of Broken Saga stuff. I mean, that's kind of why they went with this gimmick, to hide that they can't really work straight matches anymore. Bubba certainly didn't look good in the last WWE run. Daniels is still probably the same consistent slightly above average wonder he's been for 30 years, I'll give you that.

I think you have a bit of a persecution complex, tbh. He can't list every 5 star match ever in Mexico, so he just named the first one he thought of/his favorite. Literally all there is to it.

Lol at ROH's title scene World Champion: Christopher Daniels (46) Tag Team Champions: Hardy Boys (39 and 42) Six Man Tag Team Champions: Bully Ray (45)

Before Cody's indie run exposed him, he had a reputation of being a secretly great talent held down by the MACHINE. I'm pretty sure he wasn't getting streamers because of his abs.

Show me please or what are you talking about? Dave Meltzer‏ @davemeltzerWON 7h7 hours agoMore Dave Meltzer Retweeted winyberto Atlantis vs. Villano III Dave Meltzer added, winyberto @winy_leal @davemeltzerWON in mexican wrestling, which match do you consider a five stars? 3 replies3 retweets14 likes Reply 3 Retweet 3 Like 14 Read the question. Read the answer. Which match do you consider a five star match in Mexican wrestling. He then gives an answer of a match that he considers a five star match in Mexican wrestling. No where does that imply that is the sole five star match in Mexican wrestling. He answered in a commensurate way with the way the question was asked. He has plenty of 5 star matches from lucha promotions in the past. He could have listed any one of them. That also wouldn't mean he was saying any of those was the sole five star match. You KNOW he has rated more than one lucha match at 5 stars, so I don't know what your problem with this is. You simply misread. It happens.This is a dude that has covered lucha extensively for 30+ years and his favorite weekly wrestling show is a lucha show. I don't know what more you could want this guy to do to help you feel more validated in liking lucha.

I don't know that I can pick one, but I do have a list of my favorites: Warrior vs Hogan WM6 Warrior vs Savage WM 7 Bret vs Owen WM 10 Bret vs Austin WM 13 Austin vs Rock WM 17 Flair vs Taker WM 18 Hogan vs Rock WM 18 Sting vs HHH Bryan vs HHH McMahon vs Hogan

TNA wasn't even around when Tough Enough started, so I assume that was just another one of his lines to rile up the smarks, like having never heard of the name "Ellering" in pro wrestling, and just generally being a huge asshole all show. Amazing how booking someone as close to their real selves as possible works every time. It was literally the only time I've ever heard him be entertaining on TNA. As for why you wouldn't wait and do ADR/Lashley at Slammiversary, I am almost 100% positive that Del Rio will have left the company before the PPV. I'm sure the plan was to get some buzz with ADR for a month or so, then put the title back on Lashley before Alberto inevitably no shows and has a falling out with management.

You're basically arguing against yourself when you acknowledge that wrestling fans look past weight if a wrestler is talented, yet also hate fat wrestlers and ROH fans in particular have an issue with Bull due to his weight. You yourself had said you'd never actually seen Bull James work and didn't know anything about him other than he was a husky dude, so YOU'RE the one that judged him based on his weight. Meanwhile, ROH fans judged him because he's not a very good wrestler and is a terrible fit for a workrate promotion. If he was good, his weight wouldn't matter, right? Put him on one of those baseball stadium shows and people wouldn't boo him, because he fits in there. ROH fans have traditionally never been very kind to ex-WWE talent unless they could really go in the ring.