Eduardo

Yeah there was a lot of that, also it being on Thursday and Friday night did also hurt it. Also, the people I knew that were excited about RAW and people I knew that were excited about Smackdown tended to be different audiences, with different backgrounds.

Or they didn't actually have access to watching Smackdown and, thus, were stuck with Raw during the Triple H reign of terror. Smackdown was on UPN (through September 15th 2006)/CW (through September 26th 2008)/MyNetworkTv (which was over the air in many markets) until Sept 24th 2010 and debuted on SyFy October 1st, 2010. Pretty much the entire "true" brand split era, a case can be made that more people could access Smackdown than they could Raw on TNN/Spike/USA! More people overall did have access to Smackdown but there were also some markets that didn't carry UPN or had bad (at times) bad signals of that channel.

Brand split did provide a Smackdown that saw the growth of John Cena, saw Eddy Guerrero and Rey Mysterio Jr. become draws that WWE still is looking to imitate, Dave Batista also becoming a strong draw, and lots of other interesting stuff, including arguably Dave Finlay's best work, Mark Henry's best work too, Matt Hardy having weekly strong matches, and other random goodness, like Kid Kash and Jamie Noble having good runs.

I forgot how Dave phrased it, but I believe he was saying that Nick Bockwinkel would often share this idea of a "workrate match isn't necessarily the best match possible". On a list of best in-right workers, I wouldn't have Undertaker on my list, but I still like the guy a lot, and it's no diss when thinking he's not in the top 100 workers, of available recorded footage, around the globe. Also if some see him as a top 100 guy, I can understand that, unlike other workers who I just wouldn't at all.

Bret Hart, who was one of my favorite wrestlers as a child, talking shit about Mexican wrestling and Mexican wrestlers kinda fucked with me as a kid, ha. Seriously.

Re: Brock/Star/UFC I think Dave Batista has probably been a more impressive professional wrestling star/draw than Brock Lesnar.

Wow, that list is amazing. Super excited about watching all of this.

Was there any fallout from HHH intentionally potatoing Jim Ross, causing permanent damage, and blading him without consent? Of course not. Wasn't it encourage due to a past contract negotiation? This sounds so gruesome, it's disturbing to know it happened in the mid-2000's on live television. So yeah, WWE can't really be compared to other organizations or professions.

I never got to see his FIP work, but one of the counterpoints that used to be made on DVDVR to the meta-heel point was that his FIP work showed that he could work heel champion in front of an audience that was different from ROH. I think the repetition point, which was true (but also is true of other all time greats like El Hijo del Santo) gets ignored for whatever reason. I think people give Danielson the benefit of the doubt, or say it was him being meta as well. But that shouldn't change anything, really. I love Danielson, but at times, his selling could be disappointing, across all promotions. I remember in 2014, he wasn't selling the arm injury they were working at the time, and Dave Meltzer was claiming that WWE told him specifically not to sell it, or not to make it the focus. Having said all this, I still would rank him ridiculously high on a ballot.

I believe one of the criticisms, at least from Meltzer, was that JBL's research was mainly Eric Bischoff's book.

At this point, after seeing all of his matches on NWA Classics, I would say he's even a top three puncher of all time (available footage). He throws awesome combinations, just a great variety of punches. He has this amazing left uppercut that looks like something Juan Manuel Marquez would unleash.

People have been joking about Octagon since I got online in the late 1990's. Another possible thought for why you may be feeling this way: If you're approaching lucha libre with, "What's the best stuff, or the things I have to check out, etc." or for a GWE project, of course people are going to recommend stuff they are passionate about or think is great. It would take a very mean person to recommend you Villano III in 2015.

Two thoughts: 1. Among lucha libre watching fans, OJ has a blog on this very forum that has all types of great critiques on all types of lucha libre matches, even ones that are very popular among a lot of us like Santo vs Casas in 1997. There are hundreds of posts on this very forum, on the yearbook threads, about lucha libre matches that folks are hot or cold on. That's just on this forum. On Twitter, and elsewhere, people have all types of varying opinions on lucha libre, and that's just talking about English-written stuff. 2. On American-UK, English speaking internet circles, lucha libre has been historically ignored, erased or thought of as inferior. I just find this idea amusing that people being positive on lucha libre is a big turn off.

Yeah I know it's been said it's during the 1980's but Eddy took Casas' hair sometime in late 1990, from what I can tell from the footage.

1995 was at least easy to watch, for me anyways. A prefer that period to current day WWE, which just is so difficult to sit through. Also, the build-ups to Bret Hart vs Diesel and Bret Hart vs Davey Boy Smith were really good pro wrestling. Jim Ross had some shining moments on the WWF Mania breaking down the matches, and the promos from all the parties involved were rock solid.

Floyd Mayweather's last PPV was the least bought Mayweather PPV since before he became a star against Oscar de la Hoya in May 2007. Granted it was against Andre Berto, but Mayweather-Pacquiao did leave a bad taste for a lot of folks. Canelo Alvarez vs Miguel Cotto just drew double what Mayweather and Berto did on PPV during the same time frame. So I don't think too many fans would be as excited in 2016 as they would have in 2014 or 2015.

I would still argue one of Atlantis' strong points was being Blue Panther's best dancing partner, by a significant margin. Both in singles and trios matches. There are a couple of trios matches out there, involving El HIjo Del Santo, Negro Casas, Atlantis, and Blue Panther, where the sequences between Atlantis-Panther were worked at a higher level than Santo-Casas. Panther never reached that level of work with anyone other than Atlantis. That might be more of a negative on Panther though.

Great match. Thought the babyfaces looked awesome in this. Always curious about how Santana looked outside of the WWF. Gran Markus' promos are weirdly contradicting. He's saying Santana isn't a real Mexican, then he appears to be saying he is one, and accuses Santana of crossing over the river without documents. I mean, he doesn't say it that way, he says it using slurs, but that's pretty much what he says.

Yep, national is one thing but ratings in S.A. are supposed to be pretty good: "The San Antonio Spurs finished the 2014-15 NBA regular season with the league's highest average local TV ratings. The Spurs had an 8.6/15 combined average rating/share for 74 games aired locally on FOX Sports Southwest, KENS-TV (KENS 5) and KMYS-TV (CW 35), per Nielsen Media Research. The Spurs ratings are up 7 percent overall from last season, when they finished second in the league in local TV ratings. The Silver and Black have ranked No. 1 or 2 in the NBA in local TV broadcast ratings 13 out of the last 14 seasons." (http://www.nba.com/spurs/san-antonio-spurs-finish-2014-15-nba-season-no-1-local-tv-ratings) Benefit from having long-term figures (Duncan, Pop, Ginobili, Parker), consistency, always winning, no NFL team, fan loyalty and probably those silly H-E-B commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3pxZSmxL5M

Isn't there an issue though of giving workers points for a style or part of his career that you're not necessarily familiar with? Like, Vader wasn't anything to write home about in Mexico either.

Wasn't the world different back then in the sense that company champions either had a lot more say, and/or bookers put more thought and nuance into who they lost to, as opposed to today? It was a pretty different world back then. Rey Mysterio Jr. not wanting to drop the Intercontinental title a few years back, due to the company promising him a long reign but then going back on their word, is the closest thing to stories you would hear about champions in previous decades.

El Hijo del Santo just made a post about this on Facebook an hour ago, that Lizmark has passed away. He was 66 years old. Official CMLL Twitter account confirms: https://twitter.com/CMLL_OFICIAL/status/677360516298178560

Who would Mayweather work with at a hypothetical WM 32? Also, level of interest in Mayweather and perception with him at this point probably isn't even worth it.

I've had a soft spot for Mauro since he would come out on Wrestling Observer Lives in the early 2000's and his PRIDE stuff. His work on Showtime Boxing has been pretty impressive as, I may be totally wrong here, I don't think he was a big time boxing fan growing up. He clearly puts a lot of preparation and work into his broadcasts, and fits well with Al Bernstein and Paulie Malignaggi. He sounds far more comfortable and relaxed with those guys than he ever did with Frank Shamrock and Pat Miletich in his Strikeforce run. Compare Mauro to someone like former WWE play-by-play guy Todd Grisham working the ESPN boxing broadcasts and you can see a huge different in quality. So I'm glad he will still be able to work those Showtime broadcasts (and the Glory Kickboxing events), and am overall happy he is getting this opportunity. Also, he's a great champion of bringing awareness to mental illness. I hope this WWE gig works out good for him.

Why do you imagine he was offered something? According to Meltzer, it seemed like a pretty cut and dry situation. Hart called them a few times, the company didn't do anything. Then as soon as Hart said he would have his lawyer look into the situation, McMahon quickly got involved and told him the footage would be taken down the next day (which it was). No mention of any compensation or prior consent. Maybe something is getting worked out now afterwards, which would be cool, since I would like to see the footage if a deal is struck with Hart. I guess Ray Carney should just have kept those Mark Rappaport films, done whatever he wants with them, because they can't possibly be worth anything and who cares what Rappaport wants. Anyways, wish WWE would upload more footage it actually owns, which is more than plentiful, but whatever.