Reel

Big E cut a fired-up promo after he lost the belt (which will look great in the 'Mania promo package), and has been less than ho-hum on SmackDown since. He's gonna win, and last time I looked he wasn't the favorite, so I'd bet on him. I think Ronda doesn't need to be in the Rumble. She can just show up and roll the footage from the match where she put Becky over and that match is made, so I'm going Bianca for back-to-back wins.

The Aramis/Vikingo match from this week's Azteca show is good. Not 'go out of your way to watch it' good, but if you like those guys, or are interested in checking them out it's worth your time.

I have a clipped version of the Nagata match, I'll upload it. Update: Its on archive.org called Brock Nagata, DM me if you can't find it.

I really like the stuff with Steamboat. I think it is pretty underrated actually, and Shane has his moments in ECW, but injuries caught up with him sometime between 96 and 97 and he's just a different guy at that point. I'm with Clayton, I made a list last year of people I'm considering and he's on it, but it's a rather big list, and I don't think he sniffs the top 100, but I'm not ruling it out.

I caught the show when the Moxley match started, I'm not big on him so I was never gonna like it, and the last match having the surprise of Gage and Tremont, and not FTR, seemed like a bit of a dud. The other thing and I'm not saying the GCW show wasn't sold out, but it did strike me, as a person who has seen bands there, that you could fit a lot more people in there than GCW did.

I don't want to get into a back in forth about it, and if it was 1991 I'd absolutely believe they pitched him Sheik Ali or something, I just think that it is entirely reasonable that something other than that happened. This entire thread has turned into: take a small bit of the information reported, extrapolate on it assuming the worst and dumbest possible thing, and then acting like it for sure happened.

It is exactly a stretch, though. He wanted to be released, they had a meeting, he didn't like the pitch they made, he still wants to be released. There are a ton of reasons why he'd be pissed, mostly because he wants to be released and they don't want to release him.

Is there anything to back up this idea that they pitched Ali some racist gimmick? I haven't seen it. Just people speculating. Seems like it's a lot of people reading what they want to into the situation. Like when there were reports that Sami Zayn had heat with management and everyone on twitter thought he was starting a union.

Harlem Bravado being a highlight of a weekly wrestling TV show is not something I thought I'd ever see, but Andre Chase is pretty great.

seemed like it was over like crazy to me

She may get on my GWE ballot based entirely on matches she put up on her youtube page.

Should I nominate Kevin Randleman?

Chad Gable rules

I meant major more in terms of the popular view of the territories, not as an identifier of business or size, like the map in a WWE documentary is divided into x number of territories, Portland would be on there.

At some point, based on the mountains of evidence over decades, you have to stop expecting wwe to be intellectually honest or think they'll do anything not in their own best interest.

I think the NHL on TNT has proven that this isn't entirely the case.

Owen is in because he ran a territory people know about and have seen and we're getting to a point where that is enough for a good chunk of people. How many major territory promoters aren't in at this point?

Longevity and owning the building aren't negatives, but they're pretty much his entire argument.

If Don Owen is in the Hall of Fame for promoting Portland, shouldn't Buddy Rose be getting reconsidered for being the best wrestler and biggest star of that territory? He won't and I don't really think he should, but I also don't think Don Owen should be in the hall for longevity and the foresight to own the building they shot TV in.

I'm sure MLW will settle out of court and end up with some cash and the rights to battlebowl.

The Kofi match. for me, is the crowning achievement of his career. He convinced people that they had wanted Kofi to be world champ for years and then it culminated in a great match on Wrestlemania. Also, not sure why Miz is taking so much heat in this thread. In terms of being a good wrestler, he's closer to Bryan than he is to Bray Wyatt.

I watched a ton of 205 Live from last year in the past few weeks, it's a fun show. It's mostly indie vet vs PC recruit, and some of them can get rough, but generally, its a good show. It's also a showcase for a lot of the new people that are gonna show up in NXT. The Grayson Waller thing sort of came out of nowhere, but having watched his stuff on 205 Live, it's, like, oh this dude is good and now I can see why they went with him.

I do think there's a bit of a "Public Enemy is the best tag team in the world" stuff that goes along with a lot of the AEW stuff, but the stuff Bryan did with Roman in WWE before he left was also great. So it's not all hype and sure he's being given opportunities to have the sorts of matches that no one else is, but he's been on a pretty incredible run.

I thought it was Arisa Nakajima, pretty handily.

I don't know what these NCAA athletes are thinking or how they're going to work out, and I have no clue if WWE's plans will work out, but if you look at who they want to sign and the things Nick Khan says publically, they see the PC as a recruitment tool for the sort of athletes they want. Brookside and Smiley teach the beginner classes, I believe.