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I'm not saying he's a Super Calo, but he has had a lot of nights where he seemed a stone's throw away from being a Super Calo

There has to be more high end Orton matches than Ultimo. And probably more decent mid card or TV matches as well. Ultimo is a guy I thought was awesome as a kid and then grew up and realized he was sloppy as hell and he was just a pure MOVEZ guy. Which can certainly be fun and definitely was for video games.

Sheamus without question. Drew is fucking boring.

It's acceptable to cheese any way you can to beat an S tier boss

It's just such an overused thing that long ago became a thing that has to be on the checklist of EPIC GREAT MATCH bullshit to make smarks think you're in intelligent worker and know how to sell

All I caught was MJF/Sammy and thought it fucking sucked. Hardcore "look at us, having this classic match" bullshit where you can tell every single second was planned out and they were patting themselves on the back at how smart and great they were while putting it together.

Having just tuned in late to AEW to see an avalanche tombstone get a 2 count and the match go on another 10+ minutes (lol), what actually really bugs me is the half a second sell after delivering a big move to sell and injury and it therefore not getting the win. 1. It's never a long enough sell to make a difference in a pin 2. It always telegraphs the kick out and any drama in the fall 3. It's been so over done in so many matches for so many years that at this point the actual surprise would be hitting the move with a sell by the performer of the move right before the pin and still getting the win. The only guy I can even think of doing this is RVD where he'd sell the frog splash as much as his opponent

I would assume it's less refusing to get vaccinated and more that he frequently and openly was not following quarantining protocols and putting everyone at risk. But also because he's a nut case drawing the kind of attention WWE certainly doesn't want, as well as conflicts with co-workers. There's probably 4-5 reasons to fire that fuck that had nothing to do with whether or not he got vaccinated.

The self inflicted misery to feel like you need to watch Raw every week in 2021 is an internal struggle I wouldn't wish upon my most hated enemies.

HBK wasn't even involved in a televised triple threat until his second run. He was involved in a couple of house show/dark matches with Bret and Sid in January/Feb 1997 and the next triple threat he did was at WM 20. So what it looks like is WWF did experiment with triple threats on house shows or Raw dark matches but the first televised one was June 23, 1997 and it was Owen vs HHH vs Goldust. And it happened two times in a row on that Raw.

WCW did them before WWF did them, as triangle matches, with tags, and first fall wins. They did it at Starrcade 1995 with Sting/Lex/Flair and then did a couple of tag versions on Nitro in 1996. I don't think the WWF did any until mid 1997.

Everything about that pic is bizarre. Vince going to a comedy show at all. Vince going to a Dave Chapelle show. Vince taking pics with the opener. Vince in jeans.

Chris Jericho has not been involved in a good singles match since 2010 or 2012. All the NJ matches sucked. The first match with Kenny was passable on an unusually weak WK. Every match he's had in AEW has sucked. If there was a tag or multi man match that was any good, he has undoubtable been the worst part of it. Jericho has so many years of his career that are an absolute blur of cringey promos and completely unmemorable matches. He's basically an older, shorter, pudgier Dolph Ziggler for most of the past 20 or so years.

I don't know if these cuts are really for a sale because if I'm taking a look at the books and just in general looking for ways to save some money, I'm seeing about 50 people who are under contract who are getting paid to wrestle exclusively on an internet show no one watches and isn't even promoted, I'm seeing guys like Fandango and Tyler Breeze who are have been around for ages doing nothing, who have been moved back to NXT because there was nothing for them on the main roster and then nothing for them in NXT, either. If I'm starting up a game of TEW, I'm probably immediately cutting 30-40 talents without hesitation. Seems like Shao Khan is playing life this way.

Brock vs Balor is what Brock vs AJ/Bryan would have been if Brock didn't respect those two

I think the narrative makes sense when most people think he could have been the top guy, foundation of JCP/WCW for years to come. Even when he became NWA Champion, it was a few years late and the NWA/WCW relationship was in a weird spot. Plus, he was rarely even headlining house shows as NWA Champ, let alone any big events.

Ultimately Jericho has 1 year I really really enjoy (1998 WCW), and 20 years where I'm either indifferent to him or actively dislike him and want to avoid him entirely, with a sprinkling of matches over those 20 years that I enjoy. Whereas with Barry, I'd be pretty happy to watch some of his work from really any period of his career except The Stalker/New Blackjacks/NWA run in the WWF.

The AJ and Bryan matches are almost literally the same spot for spot, beat for beat after the first however many minutes of Bryan stalling at the start.

Disagree. Bobby was paranoid that Tony or Dusty could be part of it, too. He didn't trust ANYONE. Dusty is the one that had a bad reaction, but an understandable wtf Bobby kind of one if he didn't know Brain was going to say something like that.

As we're getting into BATB 96 in our Nitro Party, I'm just imaging how fucking terrible this angle would have been in the WWF at the time. At BATB, you don't know who the third man is. Gene says the voice rang somewhere in his head, but it was muffled and he couldn't quite place it. So it's someone Gene's been associated with, which is basically everyone in WWF or WCW. Lex goes out in the first few minutes, and you're kind of on edge that he's the third man, because he's been a heel or tweener despite the partnership and friendship with Sting since he returned to WCW before the last month or two. But then you wonder, well shit, did Sting do it on purpose? Is HE the third man? BUT THEN, Randy Savage was from the WWF, too...is he the third man? The subtle paranoia just in the match itself is excellent and there's not a single bit of it played up on commentary. I can only imagine Vince and Jerry Lawler calling the WWF version of this match, where the WCW guys would be cartoony stooges who aren't a physical threat at all but just use every cheap heat tactic imaginable and within a month HBK would be lining them up and superkicking them one by one. Basically the Invasion but even worse. And Team WCW would have been like....Marc Mero, Sid, and the third man would have to be, idk, Undertaker? Boy would it have been terrible.

I think Sandow's career says otherwise. No one cared about him in a tag team with KC James. No one cared about him post Rhodes Scholars. No one cared about him post-Miz stunt double road in WWE, no one cared about him in TNA (and it was a disaster), NWA lol. Sandow has done nothing to make fans care about Damian Sandow his entire career. Literally the only two times he was over it was because of the other guy he was paired with and once separate, he tanked immediately.

Hogan belongs somewhere on the list, but god god bad Hogan is about the worst thing imaginable

All I ended up seeing was Charlotte vs Rhea and lol'd that Charlotte did multiple Andrade spots in a row and thinking about how many women in recent years have done tribute spots of their significant others or even guys they've hooked up with, and yet you never ever see any of the men doing that.

Nitro is a really fun show, though. Outside of the Hogan heavy bullshit weeks. Even at first with Hogan, it's real fun stuff. There's a real lull between January-March 1996 but then it kicks back into high gear as soon as Hogan stops being the focus and the Eddie/Benoit/Malenko group gets back from Japan. Flair/Macho is wonderful stuff, the Sting/Lex angle and partnership is great, the Steiners are back and throwing dudes around, Giant is awesome when he's not around Hogan, Regal is getting a lot of TV time, crowds are hot, production is great. Love 1992/1993 Saturday Nights. There's some occasional wonky booking stuff but not really any weirder or dumber than any other promotion.

Yeah it means they're performing really hard Anyway back to some Hogan stuff for a bit, also 100% forgot that they kept playing promo packages for him every week on Nitro the whole time he's gone. Often multiple times per episode. There's never a reason given why he just vanished off TV after saying Hulkamania was stronger than ever, but they keep playing these packages of him with celebrities or beating up Vader (and OMG and Meng), and Bischoff frequently mentions no doubt Hogan is watching, stronger than ever, etc. Then one week, Sullivan is cutting a promo about BENOIT and says Hogan is going to be coming back looking for revenge against him/Arn/Flair/Giant/Jimmy and this is why he's had to keep the alliance with Arn/Flair, and says: "I'm going to get rid of Benoit so we can get rid of Hogan!" Which is pretty baffling. Giant then cuts a promo being pissed about being the champ yet WCW keeps airing all these Hogan videos when Hogan isn't even around anymore. And both times it's played up like Hogan lost at Uncensored or something. My memory (which god how fucking bad is my memory when I went through all of this shit TWICE for a blog in the past 5-7 years and still don't remember most of it) was Hogan just kind of vanished until the NWO turn for no reason given and no mention of him. Instead, they're airing double promos for him the whole time and it's clearly being built around him returning and taking the belt off of Giant. Which does happen in a roundabout way, just not the way it seemed planned at this point.