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I'm talking about matches from the past couple of months. From the CWC qualifying shows on. What I've seen has been a dingy looking product with uninterested fans and uninterested wrestlers. 70 in particular was just awful.

It's just a bizarrely flat product. Even flatter than current TV ROH. The crowd never seems like it actually wants to be at the shows, very little reaction to anything going on, the wrestlers seem to be going through the motions because they have nothing to play off of, and in general the shows have a weird funeral like feel to them. Evolve is a weird ass product to me. With all the great talent they have, it's not a great show by any stretch.

They said the entire Evolve/DG library will be up by January 2017. Evolve is the saddest product. I've never seen a company where the fans and wrestlers seem to resent being at each show.

Yeah the selection is pretty terrible. Just a few random EVOLVE, Shine, and DG USA shows with no planning or theme beyond "People on WWE/TNA/LU are on this and we can put them on the thumbnail".

USADA is the worst. Ruining MMA, imo. I'm sure the new owners are trying to find a way to get out of their USADA agreement.

Oh we doing Abby gifs now?

I would argue that Flair was sloppy as fuck when he did any technical stuff, was terrible at calling his spots, was terrible about improvising, his main spots made little sense, his psychology was generally terrible (the Flair/Vader matches being so praised has always confused me, Flair, never known for brawling in his entire career, out brawls and punches Vader multiple times in both of those matches). At this point in my life, having seen so much of Flair from all eras of his career, I firmly believe that if he hadn't have been the promo guy he was, he would have had a Terry Taylor level career and would never been in the running for greatest ever. I could name probably 50 guys that are better than Flair. Including Terry Taylor. I think the mythology of Ric Flair came from so many people who became big in the late 80s-90s being kids or teens and seeing Ric Flair as the guy, then idolizing him, then those people took over the business and kept building his legacy over the past 25 years. Give Ric average promo skills, and I don't think people would so easily overlook his fairly average ring skills.

There's no reason for them to carry weight was my point. Especially when you know he will give higher ratings to guys he's friends with, or rate something higher because of the promotion it takes place in, or etc etc etc. I don't see how writing the Observer makes his opinions on wrestling any more important than some random dude who watches a ton of wrestling. His words about financials and whatnot should hold more weight than the average person, but his personal taste in matches means as much as the personal taste of any other guy.

Completely meaningless. DM's rankings are just as important as any other random fan who watches wrestling. If your judgement of what a good match is depends on what someone else's judgement of what a good match is, why bother watching at all?

Personally, back to the topic of AJPW there is stuff in the direct aftermath of the exodus that I enjoy more than most acclaimed mid 90s matches. Hansen/Kae vs Tenryu/Kawada or Fuchi vs Chono have a rawness to them that is nearly impossible for me to find in any given Four Corners match. Flair did a lot of mat work, but mat work that went nowhere and didn't contribute to the story of the match. Ric Flair has always driven me crazy doing 25 minutes of chops and arm work to set up the figure four.

What else could the TLC main event be? There's literally nothing else for SD to headline besides AJ vs Dean.

So the Pacers struggled to beat the 2016 Lakers and I turn it to Smackdown on a whim, and what do I see? Another AJ vs Dean match. That has to be, what, their 6th match in a month and a half? SD's roster is thin as fuck to begin with. Why are they just running the same match over and over? Do something wacky like AJ vs Apollo Crews or something. But I do have to lol at how god damn mean AJ is to James Ellsworth in every interaction of theirs I've seen.

Who did it better (worse)? Johnny Valentine, 1969 OR Ric Flair, 2010

Dave has very specific tastes. Things he loves: Japanese men stiffing the fuck out of each other, Japanese men dropping each other on their heads, and lots of cool flips and spots. If you take his ratings seriously, you have to know that he'll give any random Young Bucks match 4 stars even if he's seen them do the same match spot for spot 4 times. If you think the YB suck, then you probably shouldn't look too much into Dave's ratings.

Beyond both being black and wearing bright colors, I have no idea where you'd get that comparison. There are no similarities in work style, ability, promo style, characters, or popularity. Fans will look back on New Day as a shining beacon of what letting guys be themselves can do in an era where everything is scripted and timed to the second. There has not been a more consistently quality act in WWE in the past year and a half. They're the only group that goes out there and are trusted to be themselves and say whatever the fuck they want. 9/10 times, it works perfectly. New Day going from 3 guys struggling to getting paired up as bizarre black preacher...things?...., to cutting loose and being themselves, becoming one of if not the most over group in the company and being the biggest merch movers at WM weekend, all on the basis of them getting over for being themselves, is nothing short of amazing. Particularly in the era they're a part of.

It neutralizes the in-character unlikability(?) of heels. Outside of the people directly linked to them, it's not really relevant or effective for a heel to show a lot of goodwill and fondness, excepting Fake Nice heels like Kurt Angle. If anything, some of them should be drawing heat off the corporate sunshine stuff. "Stephanie McMahon made me wear this crap, I'm just here to beat people up," etc. I mean, if you want heels that generate actual antipathy instead of that "pretending to be a bad guy but really Doing It All For The WWE Universe because we're all in this together" feeling. I don't mind that they all do autograph sessions and other real-world stuff together, this isn't 1985, but there's no good wrestling reason to have heels do Good Person Things on screen. We all know it's a work and heels are not devious and despicable in real life. (Except when they are, but that's another story.) Heels are playing characters. Just because you don't wear a pink ribbon pin doesn't mean you are anti-cancer awareness. When more heels than faces wear the pins on-screen, there's a problem. If Nia Jax wants to wear a pin at the airport, that's one thing. But being a monster heel and having it on her outfit walking the ramp is another. I disagree with these completely. This is not an era where people even have gimmicks, let alone gimmicks where supporting breast cancer awareness or pediatric cancer charities has any impact on their characters as heels. People have sick family members. Nia Jax isn't worried about breast cancer? Kevin Owens explicitly does every thing he does to provide for his family. Supporting a children's charity is out of character for him? This is not like...Papa Shango out there with charity ribbons pinned to his hat. They're all playing characters, but they're not really characters anymore. They're performers and athletes instead of over the top gimmicks. The people with actual characters that aren't "Normal person who is happy to win cleanly" and "Normal person is happy to win by cheating" aren't wearing the pins and ribbons. Which is basically just the Wyatts, Taker, and Brock. And nothing applies to Brock and Taker anyway. It's not 1985 is right. In no way is the wrestlers on the show supporting various charities some character or show breaking thing. It's really pretty bizarre to me that anyone could come to that conclusion. Even wrestling characters have families, and their family members get cancer, too. Even Jason Voorhees loved his mama.

I'm not sure what being PC has to do with any of that, but sure. I took this as a reference to WWE-PC: putting smiles on faces because it's all for the fans!, keeping it family friendly and smooth around the edges, lots of loud charity work and confused advocacy, etc. Heels who wear pink ribbons and Connor's Cure badges. This has always been a weird complaint to me. As if people who cheat to win matches don't care about women or children in their lives or something.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why they picked TJP to win the CWC. I get that Ibushi and ZSJ didn't want to sign, but of the elite eight, he would have been my eighth choice. In fact, I watched the Evolve show where he qualified and was far more interested in Fred Yehi, who I had never even heard of before. TJP has been such a non-factor everywhere he's been, which is pretty much everywhere. And he never lasts long anywhere, which seems to say a lot about his personality. Cruiserweights were DOA largely in part due to TJP being the face of the division.

Only match I'm interested in is Rusev/Roman, because I know those two have a great match against each other in them, and this has to be the time they pull it out. Everything else I feel like I've seen 30 times this year. Including Rusev/Roman. I will never understand WWE's insistence on running PPV matches 2-3 times before the PPV. Not even like a short match with no finish, but PPV length match a week or two before the big show.

Interpromotional hatred is one of the best things about puro, imo.

It's not like the Universal Title feud is really any different. It's a rehashed Authority era "face of the company" storyline, where the feud is about who has the approval of HHH and Stephanie, except HHH can't even be bothered to come on TV to explain himself until football season is over. Maybe they should just get rid of the term "main event". And "PPV". And "special event". How special is a 3-4 hour show every other Sunday when you have a 3+ hour show every Monday and a 2+ hour show every Thursday (including TS)? Up until about May of this year, Raw was actually longer than all the PPVs, that still went off the air 10-15 minutes early despite them having their own Network and conceivably being able to go until 2 in the morning if they really wanted to.

He should have made the point that the first ever female main event should be in a heated feud with a logical build instead of a feud that feels like it won't ever end and they've had 7 TV matches (not including tags) since March. Does anyone really want to see them have another match, regardless of gimmick and card position? It's the stalest feud in the company right now. Putting it in the main event can't change that.

I don't want to say Taue is a smarter worker than Kawada, but over the years I've decided that Kawada is my least favorite member of the Four Corners, when I had him at the top when I first discovered AJPW in the late 90s. But least favorite of those 4 is like when I say Ric Flair was never the best guy in the Horsemen, and sometimes at the bottom of the 4 (specifically the Arn/Tully/Barry/Ric version). I can't even argue that Taue was better than Kawada, but I've certainly found myself enjoying Taue more than Kawada over the past few years.

Lol.

Jumbo is undoubtedly in the top 10 all time worldwide. Probably top 5 and up.