tim

The question is do they really care that much about the quality of the product? They're making money doing the same stuff people have been complaining about for years. There are so many absurd missteps and periods of total mediocre shows that you could almost pick a random wrestling fan and they could book a more compelling product by themselves as long as they don't indulge in insanity like booking Cesaro vs. Regal as the WM main event or something. If enough people are tuning in (as long as Cena is around) then hey they're making their money. The question of course is what do they do if/when there's no more Cena. I hear a lot about how the problems are too unfocused, too many snap decisions/changes, Vince retuning everything minutes before the show, etc etc. but I don't see how that stuff even produces the overall stagnant product we have. I just don't see any EFFORT outside of a few key stories sometimes. It's not even that it's bad. It's just that nothing happens for a long time, then something happens and maybe it's neat for awhile, then after a few weeks it's not happening anymore and nothing happens again.

Decided to rewatch that Tanahashi/Naito match because I had mixed thoughts coming out of it when I watched it live. I enjoyed aspects of the home stretch but 1. the G1 had kind of brought me back into the wrestling fold, I was liking it a whole lot and this was pretty much the last final matchup I wanted to see so I was sort of annoyed; and 2. Naito's truly egregious no selling of the leg annoyed me. Watching it again knowing those two things are what they are, I liked it. I definitely don't think it's a MOTYC nor that it was really exceptional but it was fun main event New Japan stuff with a hot crowd and a big match feel. Naito's absurd level of no selling is still there though, definitely. I don't like to get too hung up on things like limb selling but when it's a very significant thematic feature of the match and you just don't sell at ALL unless the knee is just directly attacked then I think it's pretty bad. But for a long New Japan match I don't think this ever got dull. The opening stretch wasn't great or anything but it was fine, didn't seem to drag and they worked in a couple neat things. One thing I think was actually impressive with this match was how long they went with that opening stretch before they really started throwing bombs; they threw enough stuff at each other so that you got the sense of fatigue and a hard fought match up, but it was like 15 minutes in before Tanahashi hit that first wrist clutch German and after that the big moves really came out and it felt like a big deal. Added a lot to the home stretch which again I enjoyed. Naito's no selling during it still annoyed me, especially how he puts his knees up to block the High Fly Flow in a huge spot and moments later is hitting a picture perfect bridging dragon suplex like it ain't a thing. Still, ignore that and it's a really fun finishing run. Ignore the no selling (which this match really takes to another level) and it's very enjoyable but not any kind of MOTYC for me.

HYPOTHETICAL: What if John Cena jumped to TNA? Could he take viewers with him? Would TNA ruin it? Could TNA ride it to being a serious competitor if they booked it half right? Would Cena's star end up hurt more than WWE's overwhelmingly dominant position?

Chris Benoit's fucked up brain disagrees. When did Harley Race adviced Benoit to stop doing it ? Around 2000 ? Later ? Yeah though didn't that have to do with more ACTUAL headbutts, chair shots, etc? That stuff will fuck you up because hard objects and smashing against your skull. It seems like the diving headbutt can be done to easily avoid hard impact with the head. Maybe I'm wrong. If it's that bad he shouldn't be doing it of course.

I could well be talking out of my ass but a diving headbutt doesn't seem like it actually has a lot of impact to the skull. Like missing a top rope splash basically.

I like the powerbomb. Not so much the neckbreaker. The rana is great sparingly but I don't want to see it in the majority of his matches.

Turned out to be a heck of a match though. I really hope they aren't just teasing us with all these Cena/Cesaro interactions, those guys seem to have all the chemistry you could have hoped.

It seems to me like the Hall of Fame should broadly recognize the most outstanding contributors to pro wrestling. If that means drawing tons of money and putting asses in seat, fine; if it means exceptional ring work, fine. I think an exceptional case on either end should get someone in and if someone has both then all the better. It's why I think guys like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk probably deserve to be in right now. They presided over the golden age of US Indie wrestling. That might not translate to a lot of dollars or asses in seats but it translates to a huge productive contribution to professional wrestling and they are two of the guys most responsible for a several year run of an entire scene of wrestling that got massive critical praise and looking back feels like a really special era. There's something of an argument for Tanahashi in this outlook, yes, as he's on top in what must be conceded to be an era of overwhelming critical acclaim for New Japan; but a big difference is that Tanahashi is presiding over NJPW during a serious down period in business and overall profile while guys like Punk and Bryan presided over the US indies during their modern zenith.

I think ADR has been a great worker this year, but yeah I can see why people can't stand the guy as he has to most bland and "please dont give a shit about me" character ever.

After watching the Satanico match on the lucha set I think he's got a heck of a claim to this title. Those were some ungodly punch combos he was throwing.

If all this D Bry news is to be believed it's one of the more outrageous examples of WWE rationale catch 22 I can think of.

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, Wrestlemania III You know what, this match is pretty damn cool. Of course you have the big atmosphere and crazy hot crowd. But it's worked pretty darn good. Hogan hope spots tend to come off pretty cool transitions (Andre missing a headbutt and hitting his head on the turnbuckle, etc) and Hogan's brief runs of offense are pretty good and of course the crowd is nuts for them. The crowd is even into Andre's extended bearhug which keeps it from being dull. You get the cool, iconic visuals like Hogan collapsing under the weight of Andre when he goes for the slam out of the gate and Hogan up in the camera selling a bodyslam; and of course there's the ending. Fun stuff and a great spectacle. If I started ranking Wrestlemania matches I'd probably surprise myself by how well this would place.

It's something that's been mattering to me a lot more lately. Atmosphere means a lot. I mean, if two maestros are doing their thing on the mat I don't give a shit and one would expect the crowd to be (***respectfully***??) quiet and that can still be a great match. But a brawl, or a more "regular" match with your standard near full home stretch etc is all about building drama and a crowd going nuts for a big bump or kick out can kick the drama up a whole lot. A truly hot crowd can make an entirely match feel spectacular even if the work isn't great. A tepid crowd can make a match feel a step below and even sort of awkward. It's part of why I don't much enjoy Wrestlemanias anymore, the enormous often open air domes seem to be terrible at capturing sound.

I don't think many people around here think the Okada series is bad. They might think it is usually NOT good but the Tanahashi criticisms don't really stem from the Okada series which I think has produced one really good MOTYC-level match (G1 Day 8), one pretty good match (the first one Metlz rated *****) and one match with an utterly boring first 20 minutes and a dynamite home stretch (the recent KoPW match) and one match that I thought was a total chore to sit through and awfully boring (January Dome show). That's not an all time great series but it's not a terrible series indicating of shitty or even sub par workers. I can only speak for me but where my disdain of Tanahashi comes from is a lot of his 2009 run which I saw a lot of the pimped matches of -- he was painfully boring, did absolutely nothing interesting for the vast majority of his very long matches and then sprung into life for a hot but by-the-numbers finishing stretch -- and had to hear how he was shaping up to be an all time great and I couldn't help but adopt a "fuck this guy" attitude. Same story for the matches I saw him in between then and this year. This year most of the matches I've seen him in have been good, because I haven't been interested in watching Tanahashi matches that I didn't think I had a good chance of liking, but he still has glaring flaws. Dylan often talks about the insanity of how the same people who praise Tanahashi also inveigh against Cena's "weak" offense and shitty offense is definitely a flaw of Tanahashi's. He also is one of those guys who is content to work totally uninspired for 10-20 minutes and then run through a hot home stretch. Which is kind of a calling card for a lot of WON-hyped guys especially from Japan. I don't think the problem has ever been that Tanahashi is actively bad, I don't think he often is, but instead that he is just uninspired, hardly ever actively good, and gets absurd praise for it.

Kane has offered his destructive powers to the Authority. Tune in Monday nights to see Kane unleash hell on Earth by handing other people chairs.

Also man, after that Tyson Kidd match Michael Cole announcing that Tyson Kidd was the #1 twitter trend in the world and saying how it "shows the power of Total Divas" was quite a low blow.

Yeah John was off the chain tonight, that crazy counter he did on Sandow before the tag was great too. Even not being an FIP, Goldust manages to be one of the better hot tags in the business. Loved how prominent the Cena/Cesaro showdown was, here's hoping for an extended Smackdown match.

Over at DVDVR I just read a Matt D post wondering if MS1/Chicana is a match luchadors would hold in their mind as something worth paying homage to. This got me wondering about what wrestlers/fans in different countries consider to be their "canonical" matches. In the "mainstream" view of the American canon are matches like Steamboat/Flair, Steamboat/Savage, Bret/Austin, etc. Of course hardcore fans have their own canon including stuff from all around the world. What I'm interested in here is if any of our members living overseas, communicating frequently with foreign wrestling fans/people connected to wrestling, know what the fans and others involved in the business in Mexico or Japan consider to be the canonical matches in their own "bubble" -- or if they really have such a conception as we do. Do Japanese wrestlers/wrestling fans revere the AJPW 90s classics the way we do or do they hold different matches in high esteem? Do Mexican fans and luchadors have particular matches that have become bywords for classic wrestling in the way we might talk about Steamboat/Flair or 6/9/95?

Sangre Chicana - Super charismatic, some of the best punches in wrestling and is Jerry Lawler-level making big moments in the match as dramatic as possible. Super Astro - Dude can go on the mat and is one of the most spectacular fliers of all time. There needs to be way, way, way more prime Astro footage out there. Mocho Cota - Another guy who needs way more footage. I want to see him in a bloody apuestas. Goldust - How many tag wrestlers are better than him after this run? Rey Escorpion - Viciously beats up fat old men like few others.

I love that Rhodes vs. Jarrett/Flair tag. I shudder to think how high it would be if I made another list of my top WCW matches.

Roderick Strong & Jack Evans vs. Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer from Manhattan Mayhem is one of my favorite ROH matches.

Maybe they've just stuck you with the knuckleheads JVK. What literature student isn't a Bergman watching pedant? Nothing against Bergman; well maybe a little against him, I didn't think the Seventh Seal was that good. I'm 24 and I'm confident that anyone in my cohort knows what The Godfather is so maybe that particular bit is a UK thing.

Of course this is true but wouldn't it be nice to have a good wrestling product actually happening right now? Watching old stuff is great, God knows I spend a not insignificant amount of time doing it, but sometimes it kind of blows knowing almost all the good stuff you're watching IS old stuff.

Good match though it had some kinks in it. Here's hoping they pull out a real good one on a PPV, which I expect they will.

A lot of stuff tonight that might turn out questionable but at least it's not been dull.