Cox

Yeah, as one of the people arguing with Dave, I just don't get Dave's resistance to include the CWC in his awards. He'll say that CWC didn't produce enough episodes, but then when I point out that Total Divas finished 6th for Best Weekly TV show 2 years ago, it's because Total Divas was conceived as a continuous show rather than a one-time thing, which doesn't really make sense. When others have brought up CWC, he keeps bringing up the G1, which also doesn't make any sense as the G1 is not a weekly TV show, whereas CWC aired weekly for ten straight weeks. Dave will criticize so many fans (rightfully so) for being closed-minded about what wrestling they like, when he's being extremely closed-minded about whether CWC is a weekly show, which seems ludicrous to me. This is one of Dave's weirder stands, and I don't get it. While I'm posting about weird Dave things, in this week's Observer, when talking about Cody Rhodes purchasing pizzas for Evolve fans as part of Johnny Gargano's retirement, he said that Cody "bought 20 boxes of pizza." Seriously Dave? 20 boxes of pizza? Nobody says that they ordered a "box of pizza." That syntax makes Dave seem like an alien who has never had pizza before or something.

With CWC over, and with word from this week's WON that the Dusty Rhodes tag tournament is again a go for this year, I wonder if it might be something they're considering to replace the void left by the conclusion of the CWC, rather than running it as part of NXT again? They could use some NXT teams, some main roster teams that they aren't doing much with, and maybe a few outside teams as well. Just a thought, it would come off as a copycat of the CWC on one level, but on another level it would keep pumping out new content on the Network every week that will only make it more valuable.

Nah. TJP and Metallik signed. ZSJ and Ibushi didn't. I don't think it's any more complicated than that. ZSJ and Ibushi gave the tournament credibility by having legitimate international stars involved with the tournament, and they lose in the semis to the two guys who are under contract and who will be the focal points of the cruiserweight division initially.

One thing about the SummerSlam payoffs that came up on this week's Between the Sheets - it was Bad News Brown's low payoff for Wrestlemania, particularly in relation to what Roddy Piper made for that show, that eventually led to him leaving WWE after SummerSlam.

If that's the case, he's lucky that UFC didn't explode until after he started with WWE, because he never would have fought above outlaw shows in MMA, whereas he became a star in pro wrestling. Plus, every pro wrestler says this these days to try themselves look tougher than being a "fake pro wrestler."

I have a theory when it comes to Dave. I think when it comes to wrestling matches, he can only look forward and not backward. In 1983, he might have been excited to see the Last Battle of Atlanta, but in 2016, he's moved past that. He thinks wrestling should be enjoyed in the moment, which he has said is his reason for not going back and watching old matches, so he doesn't understand why anybody else would want to go back and look at old matches when wrestling has moved past 1983. I think Dave has a tendency to not really look outside of his own world view for a lot of things, so he doesn't understand why anybody would get excited for LBOA because he isn't excited for it and certainly wasn't wowed by the match.

They were on SportsChannel Philadelphia. Regional cable isn't great but it's a solid step or two above public access, especially considering the names they were using. You'd think they'd spring for someone better than Jay "Six Pack" Sulli or Stevie Wonderful on commentary.

This is almost as good as Quack's announcer seminar. That was $159 for like two hours of Mike Quackenbush teaching you to become a wrestling play by play guy. I'm sure all who attend both of these things will probably have a good time, but they will be no closer to becoming a wrestling announcer or a booker for an independent wrestling promotion than they were before the day started.

That's not exactly what I said. I'm just saying it's easier to tell on the indies who is good because on the indies, wrestlers do not have matches laid out for them by agents. I think for a worker to be truly great, they should be able to lay out their own matches. WWE does not permit that, and it probably results in better big matches on a per show basis than any company in the world. It's to their benefit. But it's also harder for me to call Reigns a great worker or a better worker than say Styles, who has had great matches everywhere he's worked. I can like Reigns' matches (and Cena's) without calling them great workers. That is a title I would be hesitant to call most current wrestlers, and something I would reserve more for older wrestlers or a guy like Styles, who has shown he can work for a variety of different promotions and have a variety of great matches in different styles.

I think Reigns is definitely a guy who has had great matches. He's an athletic big man who can clearly follow instructions well, and we've seen those are the top traits you need to be a great main event worker in WWE. I would hesitate to call him a great worker, if only because he has the greatest single advantage any wrestler could have in modern wrestling, and that's the WWE road agents laying out his matches. We've seen too many times that it's almost impossible to have a bad main event match in WWE, unless Brock Lesnar or HHH (or, God help us, both) are involved. That said, Reigns has certainly used this to his fullest advantage to have great matches with a wide number of wrestlers, including having what will probably be Lesnar's last great match. I like Reigns and I enjoy watching him, and he's certainly had a top 3-5 output in WWE over the past two years. But would he be as good without the WWE machine behind him? I think it's hard to say. For what it's worth, the only main eventer I feel comfortable saying is a great worker right now is Styles, and that's only because he has a 15 year global reputation of having great matches around the world. So it's not just Reigns I'm docking for this, and I'd certainly rather watch Reigns than Owens or Rollins or Balor.

I think Slater and Rhyno are going to wind up winning the tag team title tournament and get a brief run as champs, so that will probably be Slater's one moment of glory in WWE. And good for him, he's doing a great job with this gimmick.

Finally, somebody decided to talk about the Montreal Screwjob.

Lucha Underground and The Ultimate Fighter both count, and TUF has won.

For reasons that only seem to make sense to Dave, the Cruiserweight Classic doesn't count towards the Best Weekly TV Show award in the WON Awards this year.

What they really should have done is swapped Bryan and Cena. Bryan vs Lesnar has an incredible story of Bryan as the ultimate underdog trying to beat the beast incarnate, the same storyline they were going to do at SummerSlam. There would have been no fan backlash for Cena getting dumped in the Rumble, and in fact they could have had Rusev do it to set up their Wrestlemania match. The only reason not to do Bryan vs Lesnar is the fear that Lesnar's physical style would probably hurt Bryan, but considering WWE put Bryan in a ladder match at Wrestlemania, clearly they weren't exactly looking out for the guy's long term health anyway. Their stubborn reluctance that Reigns had to win, and Bryan had to get thrown out early in the Rumble, is the reason Reigns hasn't gotten over to this day, and it easily could have been averted.

Should Daniel Bryan have won the 2015 Royal Rumble, though? His career ended 3 months later. I think time had vindicated WWE's decision not to have Daniel Bryan win. I think their biggest mistake, and I've said this since last year, was putting Bryan in there in the first place, as it was a total no-win situation for Reigns. They should have put Bryan in an undercard match or held his return until after the Rumble. If Daniel Bryan isn't in the 2015 Royal Rumble, the crowd doesn't turn against Reigns that night, and it's possible some of the backlash is averted.

Jimmy Hart isn't even in the WON HOF. Not to speak ill of the dead, but if Hart isn't in, then the guy who WON voters voted Worst Manager of the Year 11 out of 12 years he was active, who wasn't a good promo, wasn't a good bumper, and rarely managed anybody of consequence, and never really added anything to the acts that he managed...well, that guy probably isn't making the WON HOF. No offense to the guy, I'm sure he was a wonderful man who made a lot of people in his life happy, and he lived a pretty cool life compared to most, but he was never anywhere near one of the best in his field, even compared only to WWF managers from 1984-1995.

I think Alison Brie has gone to PWG shows with Gillian Jacobs, so I could see her being a pretty good fit for this.

Is there any evidence that Dave watches any Evolve at all? Doesn't seem like something he's really pimped much at all, above and beyond brief synopses in the Observer. You'd think Gabe would still be sending Dave DVDs to review, like he did in the ROH days.

Here's my crazy Brawl for All What If: Kurt Angle signs with the WWF in October 1998, two months after the Brawl for All ends. What happens in a hypothetical Brawl for All with Kurt Angle under contract? If he's still in any type of shape after the Olympics (which granted, were two years ago), I see him utilizing the Dan Severn "take people down at will" strategy, only being fast enough to avoid getting popped. Granted, he has NO stand up, and if he wins the Brawl for All, you can't really debut him since he doesn't, you know, know how to wrestle a worked match at all, but I think he's an interesting what if that could have conceivably been in the thing if it had happened 3 months later.

Rod McMahon is #1 and the best, and it's horribly disappointing that Chris Benoit robbed us of seeing him on WWE TV (though it is more disappointing that he murdered his wife and son, of course).

WCW once had a stable consisting of The Nightstalker, The Motor City Madman, and Big Cat Curtis Hughes. It's hard to think of a worse, more useless stable.

The way they did the draft inherently screwed over Smackdown. Three out of every top five wrestlers went to Raw, so 18 of the top 30 acts (60%) went to Raw. Then they did the even split in the back half of the draft. The better way to do this would have been to do an even split in the top half of the draft and then do the 3 of 5 picks go to Raw deal to fill out the Raw roster. Raw doesn't need significantly more top guys on their roster to fill 3 hours, they just need more warm bodies for matches since they're a longer show. Instead, the Smackdown roster is so weak that Dolph fucking Ziggler needs to wrestle Dean Ambrose in a Smackdown title match at SummerSlam that nobody is going to give two shits about, since Ziggler has been putting over Baron Corbin for the past 3 months. It's been said before, but WWE really could have done this better.

Yep, that's me. It was nice to finally get to put my Communication degree to use by podcasting, 12 years after I graduated college. I had a blast doing this, Kris and Bix are great at what they do and I just tried not to get in the way too much.

He's become a sports anchor of some renown in the US on ESPN's Sportscenter.