SAMS

- New Day v Usos was brilliant. I responded emotionally to this in a way I was completely not expecting to. The Usos in general were great, but this match was made by Xavier, who was outstanding in his role of taking the most humiliating punishment and garnering some sympathy; and Big E who seemed to finally have tapped into an ability to actually be serious, even if it didn't last the entire match. - Skipped Orton/Rusev. Nothing could force me to watch a Randy match at this point. - US Triple Threat was pretty bland whenever AJ wasn't involved. Whoever mentioned his mad bumping was on the money. He worked his ass off here to make Corbin look good. I didn't care about the finish, and it looks like nobody else did either. - Liked Charlotte/Natalya. Solid work, some great selling of the leg by Charlotte. Still had to suffer through her moonsault to the outside, which for my money is higher than Rollins' suicide dives as the least effective looking aerial move. Don't mind the DQ finish, even if heel DQ finishes aren't as cool as face versions. Do they even do face DQ finishes any more? - Skipped the WWE title match and Ziggler/Roode. - From a purist point of view I don't like the idea of Shane wrestling and I vehemently hated both his Taker and AJ matches. This one, didn't mind it so much. It played to Owens' strengths where he could just go around and fling insults but the action wasn't enough to keep me focused on my screen the whole time. Predictable bump by Owens and an identical bump by Shane from his Taker match. More interested in the Zayn/Owens dynamic for the future than how they executed the "heel" turn here. Was WAY too long at 39 minutes. For something that looked absolutely terrible on paper they surely over delivered.

Strangely for my GWWE watching I just blitzed through Valentine and Tito's '84 matches yesterday and I was sporadically checking the comments for the various matches here as I went along. I felt that this November match was the best in the series so I was surprised that you hadn't written up a review for it yet. Not to rush you or anything....but you should totally write up a review for it

It's also REALLY good

This reminds me of something Loss said. That he wished the way the company presented talent was more in line with the audience response. They see the vitriolic reaction to Roman and they think "hey, a negative reaction is better than no reaction." To what extent is this the reason the casual audience is being turned off? I'm still not fully understanding the backlash against Reigns. He had the look and he puts on good matches. Granted he's not too hot on the mic, but I think a lot of his issues can be laid at the feet of creative in that department. Rollins in the other hand has been pretty terrible in every regard since the Shield breakup. Plus the way they booked him during his title run was worse than anything Roman has had to endure.

Who's not seeing them as stars though? Is it just the hardcores, who often seem to only latch onto guys who have indie credibility? Or is the audience as a whole not responding to these bigger guys in the same way as years past? I will admit to having no sense of what mainstream consensus is on a myriad of topics, including this. So I have no clue.

Great performance from Styes. He was laying in some forearms at the beginning that Cena sold like legitimate weapons. He also carried his end in bringing a certain level of crispness to the proceedings, his counter into the Calf Crusher being the best example. My issue is that they were going for Cena being rusty or not fully healed after his injury and layoff, but the sequences laid out at the beginning required a level of intricacy that Cena isn't capable of. He's categorically not a micro wrestler but instead excels at the macro. Here the timing was consistently off and the work was less fluid than you would expect, even from a Cena match. Was a big fan of Cena's selling however - when he finally managed to hit the Five Knuckle Shuffle he didn't even manage to hit the ropes, and dropping down to deliver the punch he looked decidedly old. I'm becoming increasingly annoyed by Gallows and Andersons' involvement in Styles' big matches. I would have preferred for Styles, separate of The Club, to win here, then win the Summerslam match clean, and ultimately to definitively win the series, knowing in hindsight that Cena would get his win back at the Rumble anyhow. Plus that ref bump was weak. GOOD (3-3.5*)

You're completely right. But now more than ever, you're not just competing against other companies, you're competing against other forms of entertainment. I know this has always been the case, but kids nowadays have more access to more niche products than ever before. If you live in an area with only one shit internet supplier that sucks, but you need access to the internet so you'll begrudgingly hand over the money - kids don't feel like they need to watch wrestling, they'll just watch/stream/snapchat/tweet/whatever something else. Long term I don't see how this attitude is sustainable.

When recapping RAW with Alvarez, Dave at some point justifies the lack of creative direction in the company to a lack of financial incentive: they don't rely on live attendance; they have a set rate for TV and ratings aren't the be all and end all as they used to be; and network subscriptions are apparently seasonal so they also don't count - so, why bother producing anything good? They'll keep afloat regardless. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like a ludicrous way to run a business.

I surely didn't hate this as much as GOTNW but this falls pretty far below expectations, and not just because of the guys involved, but for the 'blood feud' vibe they were supposedly aiming for. I don't see much difference between how Zayn worked here than he did against someone like Cesaro in NXT. He's just the plucky underdog going up against a bully who's physically stronger than him, which seems completely counter intuitive to the narrative they are presenting. It ultimately works to create a watchable mid-card PPV match, but nothing close to greatness is evident here. GOOD (3-3.5*)

The triple suplexes, the tower of doom, the 'do-whatever-move-to-every-guy-in-each-corner' spots are why I can't go higher, but when this match was on it was really on. The interactions between Owens and Zayn were the best they'd been up to this point in their WWE run and conveyed a level of 'this is personal' that they completely whiffed on in their Payback match. Zayn just honing in on Owens and nailing him with that Helluva Kick got their feud over on the main roster to a greater extent than anything since the initial Owens turn in NXT. Cesaro took a backseat for the first half and then came out strong in the second, nailing one uppercut on Zayn in particular that had me thinking Zayn might have soiled himself. Also a big fan of Zayn seeing red at the end - too caught up in decimating Owens on the floor to realise that Miz was stealing the pin. GREAT (3.75-4*)

Thought this was much better than their Payback match a few weeks earlier. Styles working much more aggressively at the start gave the match more impetus and the transition to Roman taking over was amazing: with Styles trying to anatomically merge himself with Roman's knee. I though Roman did a decent job of selling his leg after Styles caught him with some form of shoulder tackle; the way Styles' head cracked against the apron before the table powerbomb was just brutal; and I really appreciated how they mixed up the finish compared to the Payback match with Roman hitting the Spear mid-air instead of dodging the Forearm first. The Forearm off the panel's table was a cool visual, but I agree with GOTNW that it really wasn't worth the generic arena brawling it took to get us there. And the less I say about Gallows and Anderson and The Usos interfering again the better. GREAT (3.75-4*) Edit: Will now admit that the Payback match is better.

Reigns is one of few people on the roster who I consistently enjoy watching, but his greatest weakness is his inability to work effectively on top - it's not a coincidence that his best two opponents are Brock and Braun - and the first half of this match really dragged due to this very reason. It seemed like Reigns took control almost immediately and forced Styles to crawl around selling while he sauntered around the ring trying to look menacing. The first time this match really kicks up a gear is when he hits that springboard forearm to the outside that lays waste to Roman. Styles desperately trying to get Roman back into the ring and, just before the 10 count, he realises he just won't make it is a fantastic moment, as the look he shows is of raw disappointment. I have to say I was surprised they went that route and it did feel like the match was a little short. Lo and behold I was right, as out comes Shane and the glut of bullshittery that followed was foreshadowed right then. I hated the DQ and the subsequent interference but that seems to be more a personal preference thing as it hasn't seemed to put off others as much as me. I feel that there's a good match in here somewhere, but I just can't quite find it. OKAY (2-2.75*) Edit: Upon a further rewatch, I can only think that I had 2000s WWE fatigue when I initially wrote this. I still have major issues around the McMahon involvement but there's too much quality here for me to ignore. This match didn't exhilarate me, but I'll admit that I was at least titillated this time round. GREAT (3.75-4*)

No Way Out 2000 - Triple H vs. Cactus Jack - WWE Title HIAC Match I am with OJ and Marty here in that I feel that the Rumble match is far superior to this one. My biggest problem stems from the sense that this was the first match I came to when working through the network chronologically that had a decidedly "self-conscious" element. The steps through the cell wall; Triple H nearly falling through the roof in the corner; the flaming 2X4 - that had a bleeding handle on it! - to me it comes across like they were trying to recreate the "magic", or at least the spectacle of the KotR 98 version, but categorically fell short in delivering any tangible surprises. Also, I admit to not knowing how they pull of any of the mat tricks, but surely it was intended for Foley to cave in the mat, no? I seem to have a great chasm between my reaction to this bump and the second big one from 98, and I have to credit that to how staged this one felt. So that's another negative. GOOD (3-3.5*)

TLC 2015 - Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns - WWE Title TLC Match For a match that I've yet to hear any real hype for, this match came out of nowhere and really blew me away. Right off the bat Reigns just tattoos Sheamus with a right to the face and it never lets up from there. I don't expect much in terms of layered psychology from a TLC match but at the least I appreciate when the work is rooted in some form of logic, and the logic here is that both guys were going to beat the tar out of each other. I don't think they attempted to climb the ladder until at least the mid-way point, and that wasn't because they were too busy setting up cute table spots on the outside. Tag team ladder/TLC matches almost always seem to come off better their singles counterparts, however due to neither guy being a high flier, they did away with the usual set-pieces and the match is so much better for it - highlighting Sheamus and Reigns' strengths, which both include having a bevy of stuff that looks effective. They brawl down the aisle and Sheamus gets flung across a table covered in chairs before going for the ride a second time, crashing through the tables set up near the entrance. There is something aberrant in seeing a guy of Sheamus' size being tossed around, and Reigns channeling his most arrogant side, dumping chairs on a prone Sheamus, just makes it all the better. For brevity the list of notable moments that follow are: - Sheamus suplexing Reigns through a table in the aisle - Roman deadlift powerbombing Sheamus onto a ladder - A Superman Punch variant off the steps - just with Reigns holding a goddamn chair - A Samoan Drop off the apron through a ladder - White Noise off the steps through a table!!! The finish with the League of Nations interfering was a major blight on the match, and seems only to have been included to allow the rematch the following night where Roman decks Vince, which we all know did wonders to get Roman over., but anybody who reveres the Brock/Roman match from Mania ought to give this a (re)watch because, booking aside, there's not many matches from this company that so thoroughly entertained me from bell to bell and incorporated this level of violence. This match has firmly entrenched itself as my no. 5 WWE MOTY behind the aforementioned Mania main event, the two Bayley/Sasha matches from NXT, and Roman and Bryan from Fastlane. EXCELLENT (4.25-4.75*)

Have you seen the 79 matches? I know Parv has heavily pimped the 78 match but the one from July 79 I think is the best of the bunch

I think that's everything right there.

Also how does WWE's "nobody is bigger than the company" mantra vibe with USA's desire for star power?

Despite the mega-contracts that the Premier League and the big four US sports have signed over the last few years, with the increased chord cutting and access to streaming links, how tenable is a business model reliant on TV money going to be? Surely there will come a point where this bubble will burst, so what's the plan after that?

To echo what Marty said, I feel the constant reruns of matchups on TV is diluting the significance of the PPV's. I can't get excited to see two guys (or women) go against each other for a big PPV match knowing that they've already had essentially the same match multiple times in the previous week, and if it's a title match, having the spectre of the obligatory rematch on the Raw or Smackdown afterwards. I may be in the minority, I'm not sure, but I like wrestling when it at least attempts to mimic elements of "real" sports. How many fights do boxers have a year? In soccer, at maximum, teams will face off 4 times domestically (at least in England) and perhaps another 4 times in Europe; in the NFL, teams can only play 3 times including the playoffs; in the NBA it's only 4 times not including any potential playoff series (which is another animal entirely); and so on. Keeping the key combatants away from each other both keeps the matchups fresh but also allows an organic buildup of anticipation. Instead WWE love to dissipate that anticipation on an almost weekly basis. It would be okay if the workers were called upon/or able to build upon each match and add layers each time to form a coherent narrative, but that never seems to happen. I also cosign the critique of not using the entirety of their roster to it's potential. There are a litany of bodies available to fill up TV time and for some reason people go missing for weeks, and occasionally months on end, with no explanation. In many ways I feel that just by using all of the people at their disposal, they could remedy a large part of what people find frustrating about their programming.

In regards to this project I feel that to a certain extent I have the great match/workrate portion of the criteria under control due to the litany of match lists available online. However, as somebody who has never watched the TV stuff week in week out due to regional issues etc. I have no clue how I'm going to tackle the character work/promo aspect without completely overlooking worthy candidates and especially those who's main case is based predominantly around these categories. Are people actively going back and rewatching entire segments and/or promos like you would a series of noteworthy matches for each candidate or are people relying more upon their memories of having watched these events in real time to gauge their feelings in this respect? I feel stupid asking for a list of relevant promos that people feel are necessary to watch because of the number of people already nominated BUT, especially for those less obvious, under the radar candidates that people feel will score strongly for character, any guidance would be appreciated. This counts doubly for anything pre-1990 as I know that this will be by far my greatest blindspot.

Shawn Michaels comes out to referee. His shorts are extremely distracting in the worst possible way. His hairline has already receded so much at this point that you could argue he’s already reached ‘Dad mode’, so why he/they thought this was a good idea is anybody’s guess. Triple H asks Vince, Shane and Steph to go to the back so he can destroy The Rock all by himself. This is already looking promising. Watching 70s All and New Japan I often wondered what it would look like if they did that style today. The opening 5 minutes of this match is exactly what it would look like. It’s almost absurd to see them doing wristlock exchanges and The Rock even bridges! Good stuff so far. The first 10 minutes moved at a very deliberate pace. Shawn calls for a break in the corner, Rock uses it to nail Triple H with a shot to the face then a Rock Bottom out of nowhere! First fall to The Rock at 49 minutes. Clearly they aren’t taking inspiration from Michaels and Hart’s WrestleMania XII version. Obligatory brawl through the crowd results in a fan taking a potshot at Triple H causing the crowd to be distracted, watching him being removed from the arena for the next 5-10 minutes. Once again, the pace is deliberate with mat work we’re really not used to seeing in Attitude Era WWF. The Rock is targeting Triple H’s leg, using a figure four earlier to good effect and once again going for it here, only to be kicked away then Triple H hits a Pedigree to even the score at 25 minutes. Both falls have been relatively surprising as neither were built up to in any tangible way. No break between falls here and Triple H rolls up Rock to sneak his way to a 2-1 advantage. Heavy booing from the crowd. They are finally back with us and paying attention to the action in the ring. As we reach the halfway point you can tell that fatigue is setting in. Rock goes for a back suplex in the aisle but he barely got Triple H a foot off the ground. Back in the ring Triple H hits a piledriver for yet another fall. This time going up 3-1 with 33 minutes gone. Rock takes a lot of flack for his weak offense, but in this match his punches have been great. He throws another one which just lays Triple H out. Rock goes for his patented DDT reversal but totally loses hold of Triple H. He recovers with a simple gut stomp and pulls it back to 3-2 with a regular DDT. Triple H tried to bring a chair into the mix earlier on only to have Shawn intervene. This time he he defends against some Rock offense with a firm shot to the head. He gets DQ’d to tie it up at 3 a piece only to capitalise on Rock’s discombobulation by pinning him with the aide of the ropes. Now The Rock’s busted open and visibly spent. Triple H locks in a sleeper and gets a pass out decision. Triple H is now up 5-3 with 12 minutes to go. They move to the outside and Triple H tries to put an exclamation point on proceedings by delivering the Rock Bottom on the announcer’s table only to succumb to the Pedigree instead. The table held strong which made it look twice as brutal as it should have. Shawn comes over and clearly is reminding both that they need to get into the finish as quickly as possible as time is running out. Rock manages to get back into the ring and Shawn counts Triple H out in double time. 5-4. The McMahon’s come down to ringside and as Triple H narrowly avoids a second countout they descend upon the ring. The Rock fights them off, hits a spinebuster and a People’s Elbow to tie it once again at 5-5. Shawn, after doing his own little bit to put down the McMahon’s gets bumped off the apron just as members of D-X enter the fray and we get a massive beatdown on The Rock. An ominous video appears on the titantron and The Undertaker appears! He cleans house, culminating with a Chokeslam on Triple H just as time expires which Shawn sees. After the dust has settled Finkel announces that due to Taker’s interference The Rock was DQ’d for the last fall thus making Triple H the winner and the new champion. The ending was a bit of a mess. Ironically the timing was basically perfect with Undertaker delivering the Chokeslam on Triple H with 1-2 seconds to go and just as Shawn was climbing up on the apron however after the announcement of the result Lawler and JR were confused over whether the DQ was in fact for the Tombstone Piledriver that Taker hit afterwards. It didn’t help that Shawn also motioned for a DQ a second time after the latter as well as the buzzer for time expiry going off a good 10 seconds after the graphic had already told us the match was finished. As for the match as a whole, I thought the deliberate style helped in the sense that I’m sure this was probably the first time either guy had realistically gone the full 60 minutes in a match (A point that they make ad nauseum about the Rock. His previous high had been around 30 in his and Triple H’s Ladder match in ‘98). Everything about what they did in the ring made perfect sense, and the gradual build of fatigue on both guys was the reason for most of the falls. In fact the narrative seemed to be that both guys were kind of out of their depth in this kind of match and basically whoever had the best endurance would survive to become the victor. Also, people often talk about the matches with Foley as being the star solidifying moment for Triple H, however for me when rewatching this stuff, it was him standing side by side in the ring with Michaels. With Austin gone, Undertaker gone, Bret gone, and Michaels gone, Triple H had mostly been feuding with the new guys on the block. Finally with him being in the ring with Shawn and looking the part, it hit home that he had finally arrived as a lock main eventer for me. At least in mid-2000. I think the Iron Man match is the closest thing in wrestling we have to how football (soccer) works. There’s a time limit and you try and score as many times as possible. While there were may falls in this match, none seemed to go against the run of the match, or finish off an extended section of dominance by one of the two. Mostly - and especially the early ones - seemed entirely random. The sensibleness of the match worked to its favour in many ways as it came across as extremely competent, however it really lacked the drama to make it special (Undertaker’s return aside). When I think back on the best football matches I’ve seen you have goals on the break, teams conceding when they themselves look most likely to score or a flurry of chances until the dam finally breaks and the dominant team gets their just rewards. This match didn’t really have any of that and I think suffers for that reason. However I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the match as a whole far exceeded my expectations heading into it and was thoroughly entertaining. ****

It was almost poetic that Mick Foley’s career (at least until he returned) would end unceremoniously by eating two Pedigree’s after he failed to reach the announcer’s table with a dive off the apron, previously launched himself in an attempt to elbow The Rock, only to fall significantly short and just plant his sternum directly into the edge of the table. It was a fitting microcosm of his final few months that after a disappointing in ring year in 1999 he managed a renaissance of sorts with the classic Street Fight with Triple H at the Royal Rumble only for the rematch at No Way Out to end up as a major regression. They tried too hard to rekindle the magic of Foley’s previous Hell In A Cell outing and the match ultimately came off as contrived and cartoonish. The opening section was pretty good with Big Show going strong until he succumbed to a three on one beat down but the middle section was dead, and especially after Foley was eliminated it really began to drag. I could have totally done without the McMahon drama, especially Shane and Vince’s fight, which required Triple H and The Rock to lie prone in the middle of the ring for several minutes. The heel turn is weird in hindsight considering how close it is to the finale of the main event to WrestleMania X-Seven, down to the chair shots and Vince pumping the air in time with the referee’s count. Not a bad match but way too overbooked and another casualty in WWE’s catalog of underwhelming multi-man matches. ***1/4

More slower periods than I remember from watching it as a child. Wouldn’t necessarily call them dead spots, but it wasn’t balls to the wall from bell to bell. I remembered this as being Jack destroying Triple H, with Jack being the focus of my attention, however on rewatch I feel that Triple H by far steals the show and makes this match what it is. We have Cactus Jack doing his regular stuff, but his work on top - bar his very nice forearm punches - wasn’t exactly engrossing, while Triple H was bumping like a maniac. The match for me definitely gets a boost from the accidental puncturing of Triple H’s calf from a suplex on a wooden pallet. You can tell he feels it immediately but it’s only when he sees it gushing later on that you can tell he really processes what has happened. This injury factors into his wobbly leg selling later on which I think is my favourite thing Triple H ever does in any of his matches. My biggest memory from this match, and I’m not surprised after rewatch as it’s the biggest spot, is the Pedigree on the tacs. The fact that one could have gone in his eye still makes me question the sanity of Foley and I cringe a little every time I see it. But it works for a great visual with tacs in his forehead. Triple H sells afterwards like he’s been in a war, clearly the worse for wear despite the victory. ****3/4

They had great set ups for all the spots. For some, the process of setting up the tables is too contrived, but that only really works as a criticism for the final dive off the balcony, as they do spend a decent amount of time stalling while Bubba keeps pulling tables from the back, which knocks it down a little. The early part of the match has the Hardy’s flying all over the place - there isn’t any pandering to the crowd before any of the dives we see today, which I hate. This is would be yet another chapter in the development of the car crash matches that the Hardy’s, Dudley’s and E&C ended up defining at the back end of the Attitude Era. The style gets disparaged at times but it delivers solid action, as there is rarely any let up or dead spots, and the guys truly look like they’re killing themselves for the win. While you would never encourage current guys to imitate it, this fact really separates it from multi-man matches now where guys have to lie around the ring for long periods having not endured enough punishment to warrant it. One of my favourite matches as a kid that totally holds up now 17 years later. ****