strobogo

I dunno, it sure sounded like support for Edge was way higher than Bryan during most of the match and at times there was a mixed reaction for Bryan, but only when it involved sequences with Edge.

I think circles like this/DVDVR/etc have leaned on that or even weirdly kind of taken pride in oh well they're all scum bags who cares for too long. Maybe we shouldn't overlook people being complete garbage humans because we like their play fights, idk.

I personally wouldn't hold that against him because he has so much other stuff I enjoy greatly that it's pretty easy to overlook what was essentially a like....2 month section of his career, with one single tour of Japan as champ with one actual defense and it sounds like he was trying to do it in a style that was years out of date already in 1989 and that he had never had to work before. It's also not like Tiger Misawa was putting out classic after classic at that time, either. But that's just me. It's pretty easy to overlook because he has so much stuff before and after that I greatly enjoy.

Bruno kind of sucks but in that 70s wrestling way that is also charming if you're in the right mood. I wish we lived in a timeline where all these US stars would put in the same effort in the States as they did in Japan.

That doesn't seem like a role Steamboat would have excelled in, yeah. I'm not sure top champion even in the US was really a role he was built for. Obviously not a slight on him or his abilities, but he was just built to be the chaser and if he did win the title, to lose it very shortly after.

There's some really great Steamboat stuff in AJ in the early 80s. I'm still very, very slowly working through the AJ Archive, into April 1986 after being at this shit for years at this point, and I have a lot of Steamboat matches in early 80s that I have marked down as recommended or highly recommended on my spreadsheet I've been keeping. 6/29/80 Jimmy Snuka-Ray Stevens (c.) vs. Ricky Steamboat-Jay Youngblood NWA World Tag Team Poor image quality, Maple Leaf Wrestling Event Highly Recommended 11/28/80 Abdullah The Butcher-Tor Kamata vs. Ricky Steamboat-Dick Slater Real World Tag League Bloody Recommended 12/9/80 Ricky Steamboat vs. The Sheik Bloody Recommended 5/29/81 Jumbo Tsuruta-Ricky Steamboat vs. Jimmy Snuka-The Destroyer Highly Recommended 6/3/81 Ricky Steamboat vs. Jimmy Snuka Bloody Highly Recommended 8/28/81 Mil Mascaras-Dos Caras vs. Ricky Steamboat-Chavo Guerrero PWF Cup Recommended 6/4/82 Ric Flair (c.) vs. Ricky Steamboat NWA World Heavyweight Recommended 11/26/82 Bruiser Brody-Stan Hansen vs. Jay Youngblood-Ricky Steamboat Real World Tag League Highly Recommended 12/2/82 Terry Funk-Dory Funk Jr. vs. Ricky Steamboat-Jay Youngblood Real World Tag League Clipped, Special Guest Referee: Lou Thesz Recommended 12/7/82 Ricky Steamboat vs. Harley Race Special Guest Referee: Lou Thesz Recommended 12/13/82 Ricky Steamboat vs. Atsushi Onita Recommended 2/23/84 Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ricky Steamboat UN Heavyweight Clipped, title vacated after death of David Von Erich Recommended The scale I have is Skippable (which could be boring or just bad or used for super clipped/cut up stuff not worth wasting your time on), Skippable But Interesting (which usually means some cool stuff or interesting combination of talent but otherwise isn't particularly memorable), Recommended (which means good and you should watch), Highly Recommended (Great and you should go out of your way to watch). When it comes to Misawa especially in the Tiger Mask period, I see all these big American names against him and I'm thinking this is probably going to be a disaster whereas in my younger days I'd expect well of course this is going to be a classic.

Of the week I have 1. Bianca/Sasha 2. WALTER/Ciampa 3. Roman/Edge/Bryan And when I really think about it, any of the three could be swapped and I'd be okay with the result in the top spot I think. All for very different reasons of what made them good. Will be interesting to see how they follow up both Takeover and WM, which both had the feeling of booking resets for most of the divisions, but I can absolutely see them just running Drew/Lashley, Edge/Roman, Apollo/Big E, New Day/AJ/Omos, and Sheamus/Riddle for the next 3 months. As for NXT, Balor can finally go do that WALTER match they wanted to do last year, KOR is poised as Kross' challenger, Adam Cole should never have another NXT match, and it's also time for Ciampa to move on.

In regards to Cody, he absolutely should be a heel. Even as a face, he's often a real dickhead and unlikeable shit who outright buries his opponents on promos even though they're his own talents, always dressed to the nines, has his own entrance set and pyro, the most self indulgent entrances and promos, etc. If you see that promo he cut for the house show they were weirdly promoting very hard, he talks about being self aware and he knows people talk about all that stuff because he's Dusty's kid so he's always had to be aware of himself and his actions and blah blah. And I'm thinking, this dude really should have turned this into a heel gimmick a year ago. Where he's the complete antithesis of Dusty. He's never had hard times. He is Dusty's Kid. He's royalty. Everyone knows he's the boss, that's why he gets all this extra shit. I find Cody in general to be somewhat unlikable even at times he was being a good face. I think he excels at being a heel anyway, and he's in a position where this heel gimmick is an absolute lay up, is very small tweaks to what he's already doing as a face, and would work especially well for his particular audience.

One draws the line where they draw the line. Some dudes you can easily overlook maybe fairly major negatives, while others can have lesser offensives that you just can't ignore. I don't know how you can turn that into an objective thing.

I wonder if Edge can stay uninjured long enough to do the Rollins feud

Roman should keep the belt through next year's WM and drop it to someone who has never been champ, never been in a WM main event. A Cesaro or Big E. Or someone else completely fresh who will be cemented as a top guy forever in victory. But my guess is he'll have run through every possible contender by Summerslam or HIAC and they'll be banking on getting Rock to have time between projects for WM.

Bryan doing seizure selling is pretty dark, considering

Bryan entering Ibushi's Murder Realm because someone dared headbutt him lol

Paul Heyman, also brought to you by snickers

Expecting Edge to win and then they announce on SD that he's injured and has to relinquish the belt

Paul Heyman has bored me for a long fucking time, but it's pretty amazing how he's managed to scheme his way into nearly every WM main event in a decade. This dude was working at shows as a photographer in the Vince Sr. era and he's still around.

It's criminal that Edge is getting this treatment while Christian is getting taken to the limit by Frankie Kazarian's hair plugs

Lol fuck that Bellas segment. Glad the crowd shit on it. That's really the best they could do for Bayley after the past almost 2 years that they've pretty much relied on her to carry Smackdown? Punked out by the Bella Moms.

I thought well it's gotta be her or Nakamura, because Nak won the Rumble and had a title match at WM....but Asuka won the Rumble, too, and has now had multiple singles titles matches at WM, plus a tag title match at WM, probably more screen time than Nak over the past 2-3 years, too.

Yes. That's been her impact finisher since she came back with the new look in the 2nd MYC.

Again an abrupt finish as it seemed like they were heading into a finishing sequence. But it was real good.

I think it's kind of neat how Rhea and Bianca both do this big power spots but in completely different ways from each other yet equally displaying their strength.

This doesn't have the emotional engagement with the crowd Sasha/Bianca had, but this is also really good.

They're out here pulling out UWFI spots

I don't think there was anything wrong with them being emotional at the beginning. It was a big moment in and out of story. Think of how many matches Ric Flair got all weepy eyed before, during, or after after 1997 or so. It's not like it was a crazy blood feud.