S.L.L.

FWIW, I was watching the DDP/Savage Spring Stampede '97 match for my Segunda Caida All-Request feature last night, and if you want to hear a really good Schiavone call of a match, that's a great place to look. "What have we become?" feels like it should be right up there with "Hulk Hogan, you can go straight to Hell" in terms of useful Schiavone moments.

Aw, man, the Ayn Rand thread is gonna go down as my last interaction with him. And I didn't even get to read his last post in it before he took it down. Johnny Sorrow, you read it, right? Do you remember what the gist of it was? I'd hate to think I'd have to go the rest of my life never knowing. Really, there are just so many unanswered questions that look like they'll remain that way. What were his views on homosexuality that he was so squeamish about revealing? Why did he always write "magic" with a J instead of a G? What was his actual defense of Ayn Rand? I always thought that if I kept digging, I'd find out someday, but now.... I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd make fun of WildPegasus again

I'm taking this as a sign that I should buy a gun. Anyway, if we're talking about WildPegasus-related Internet-quitting moments (at this point, I see no reason to remember him by his self-imposed slave name...in his heart, he was always WildPegasus), there was that one time he freaked me out so badly that I temporarily swore off responding to his posts ever again. If I misinterpret you, it's only because you're not stating things very clearly. ..... Hmmmmm...."Victory Through Guts"? I suppose. It was still only part of the equation. ..... I will not deny you your opinion.... ..... ....yet you continue to deny me my reality. I've said multiple times already that this is an aspect of wrestling, and an aspect of all storytelling, because it's a universal aspect of humanity. Whether or not it's the focus of any given work depends on how much the author chooses to emphasize it. Some stories emphasize it a lot. Some stories barely emphasize it at all. In professional wrestling, where the focus is always primarily on the conflict between two individuals, internal conflict is a much smaller focus than it is in other genres. Is it there? Yes. Is it actually played up to any significant degree? Sometimes, sure. Is it the focus of the whole damn genre? Fuck no, no matter how badly you want to believe it is. ..... Good for you. Just stop assuming your opinions are universal truths. ..... Because they paid more money more often to see guys do leg drops, a crossface chickenwing, a figure-four leglock that never semed to work, punches, elbows, powerslams, iron claws, scorpion deathlocks, stunners, an especially goofy elbowdrop, and a big fireman's carry takedown than to see dragon suplexes, powerbombs, and superplexes. In your vaunted Japan, they paid to see a kicks, lariats, elbowsmashes, and karate chops to the top of the head. They paid to see bigger moves, too, but I'm less than convinced that the popularity of Tatsumi Fujinami rode entirely on his doing the dragon suplex, or that the popularity of Jumbo Tsuruta rode entirely on his doing the powerbomb. Tiger Mask probably wouldn't have been nearly the star he was without his moves, but Sayama seems to have been a unique case. In Mexico, where there allegedly is no psychology and everyone just does highspots, people were paying to see a camel clutch, a double stomp, a gorilla press, and majistral cradles. It's very easy to get away from the fact that people like and want dragon suplexes, powerbombs, superplexes, and so on, because it's been demonstrated time and time again that they like and want other stuff a lot more. ..... Of course not, but there's a demonstrable middle ground that's existed as long as wrestling has. Why you can't see it is beyond me. ..... With the exception of Jushin Thunder Liger, no wrestler who has done a shooting star press has been super popular. As for your examples of what people like, one of those things is not like the other. Track, hockey, and boxing are sports. Movies are a medium of fiction. Professional wrestling is not a sport. Professional wrestling is a medium of fiction. Wrestling fans want more intense drama. The nature of the genre means that drama might come through more hardcore action. It also might not. ..... Alright, you've just gone completely off the rails into certifiable insanity. We, as human beings, perform surgery because we like gore? We witness childbirth because of the gore? You know, I always thought you were an idiot, but I at least thought you were a harmless one. I pray to God that you're a gimmick poster, because if not, you need to be locked up far, far away from decent society. The rest of your post doesn't matter. You're a sick, sick man.

From TomK's old Impact workrate reports: I don't know that that would be abnormally petty for wrestling, but it is notable that when presented with the same situation, HHH was actually pettier than Vince. That's kinda impressive.

At the moment, I was too shell-shocked over the "what" to really seriously think about the "why". My friends and I all agreed on carbon monoxide simply because it felt like the easiest "go-to" explanation for us, but even that still seemed wrong somehow, though I wasn't quite ready to think about how. Watching the show that night, the thought that Chris was more sinister than we were giving him credit for started to sneak up on us. It actually wasn't so much the Regal or Chavo tributes (though they helped put things in perspective afterwords) as it was all the mentions of how well-behaved Daniel was backstage at shows and the image that developed of Benoit as a strict, somewhat domineering father, which quickly turned into something worse. By the time I read confirmation of what really happened, I didn't know, but it no longer shocked me.

Seeing how poorly last year's MITB drew (and how poorly the non-Rumble gimmick match shows draw in general), and that this year's MITB matches were much weaker on paper than last year's (was there anyone in the Smackdown MITB match who seemed like someone they'd seriously dedicate a World Title program to? I know their roster is dessicated after the draft, but still....), that seems deeply unlikely. Either Cena/Punk popped a buyrate, or nothing popped a buyrate. On the rest, I think we agree. And on this, I think we very strongly agree.

And these polls are usually voted on by fairly dumb people. Basically, no one but the slowest 15.1% thinks that this is a shoot, and they like it anyway. Kinda like wrestling in general. Pointing out that it's a work, and all the ways in which it is obviously a work, does not make you smarter than the room, and if you think otherwise, I'm frankly embarrassed for you. A poll taking of Figure4.com readers a week after Punk beat Cena on a WWE PPV to win the WWE Title? One would hope that those specific folks would know (rather than believe) Punk is under contract now. One would hope that everyone would know (rather than believe) that everything that happens at a wrestling event without some very extreme circumstances attached to it (which neither the original promo nor the Comic-Con thing had) is a work. And while I recognize that not everyone does realize that, I think it is clear that everyone on this board realizes that. Why you would ever have assumed otherwise is beyond me, and I generally think you're better than that. If you just misunderstood, so be it. It happens. I just don't really see how that happened, so you came off to me like a guy desperate to believe that everyone else was falling for it, so that you could tell them they were wrong, when nobody really believed it in the first place. Yeah, I write lengthy bullshit ragging on other people, but I'd like to think that I'm complaining about things that are actually there rather than tilting at windmills. This was a windmill, and I thought it was very clearly a windmill. So when a guy who's smart enough to know better tells us that we actually all think it's a dragon, and only he can recognize it for the windmill it truly is, I just shake my head.

It can, but I'd think you'd have to be an idiot to do it. An extension would be far more likely, if he didn't just sign a new contract altogether. More disappointed. Not with you though. I know you were just making a general observation rather than trying to preach to anyone.

From the most recent F4Wonline news update: And these polls are usually voted on by fairly dumb people. Basically, no one but the slowest 15.1% thinks that this is a shoot, and they like it anyway. Kinda like wrestling in general. Pointing out that it's a work, and all the ways in which it is obviously a work, does not make you smarter than the room, and if you think otherwise, I'm frankly embarrassed for you.

Incidentally, a lot of the bad booking habits WWE developed in the past decade were developed seemingly with the intent of protecting HHH and further entrenching his spot at the top of the in-ring hierarchy. I would think the main hope in a transition of power would be that if HHH has more work to do behind the camera, he'll have less time/energy to spend in front of it (which already seems to be happening), and a lot of devices built to keep him propped up will start to fall by the wayside. Not saying that will happen, and if it does, it won't be overnight. But I think that's the most we can realistically hope for. And as far as how it all effects the Cena/Punk stuff and whether or not WWE is exciting RIGHT NOW...I remind everyone that on Sunday night, practically everyone here was acting like they couldn't fail, while on Monday night, practically everyone here was acting like they couldn't succeed. Has anyone considered that we might just not know yet?

Putting aside what was reported at the time (which was entirely HHH related), was there anything about Batista's act that was reliant on Attitude era-ish content? Anything at all? I'm not saying he's lying, because he has no clear motivation (besides maybe not rocking the boat too much if he ever wants to go back), but this always kinda rung false to me.

My perpetually slow-moving (but to be completed by tonight, I swear!) All-Request Friday Night article on Segunda Caida opened with a review of a Brunzell/Bret match where I mostly focused on the Monsoon/Heenan commentary in light of this thread. Part One of a Three-Part, Week-Long Friday Looking back a week later, "firing on all cylinders" sounds like slightly stronger praise than I really wanted to give him, but this still felt more like the idealized Gorilla than the one we usually got.

You don't have to bet. As I mentioned in the Texas results podcast, I showed the Kerry/Kevin vs. Gordy/Roberts Badstreet Match to a friend of mine and his girlfriend one night, and at one point, he leaned over to his girl and asked "hey, honey, guess which one of these guys doesn't have a foot?". I assume she ruled out Kevin, but beyond that, she couldn't tell. He gets a similar reaction anytime I watch the '92 Rumble with someone who didn't know about the amputation before. I tend to agree with Will that his WWF run was super underwhelming, but I did like his showing in that match, if only because of how perfectly it played into the whole "Flair vs. the World" storyline of the match. Flair is already having to fight off basically the entire WWF roster single-handedly, and then Kerry rolls out, and it's like "oh, fuck...YOU again?!". Kinda made me wish that they did more with Valentine in that match and that Garvin and Dusty were still on the roster.

The CMLL boom last decade was built largely on two things: Mistico and heel vs. heel feuds. Usually, they got across this "tiers of heeldom" idea, where one heel would be more heelish than the other in the context of their feud. Like, Perros del Mal usually came off as more sympathetic than Los Capos. But they were still clearly heels when put up against actual babyfaces.

That's strange, I used to live with two Jewish girls, and SLL or Bix can correct me if I'm wrong about this, but in the Jewish faith, you are considered Jewish if your mother is Jewish, which makes Rock a Samoan. Or Jewish, I'm not quite sure. I actually didn't realize it for ages since my mother (who was born Protestant) converted to Judaism when she married my dad, but this is correct. Though Will is also correct in that this isn't an equivalent situation. Personally, I don't really see what the fuss is about. The Rock is black AND he's Samoan. But if you must make a distinction...Rock debuted in 1996. In 1996, Samoans still had invincible heads, but blacks didn't. The Rock does not now and did not ever have an invincible head. Therefore, logically, he must be black. I DEFY this point to be disputed.

It's up (and reviewed) at my blog, too. Very fun competitive squash. Whats the address, or is it Segunda Caida? Yeah, that's Segunda Caida. Not solely my blog, admittedly, but still.

It's up (and reviewed) at my blog, too. Very fun competitive squash.

OK, so as previously noted, what I'm basically looking for in wrestling is guys who can play their roles effectively, and deliver matches built around a story that grows organically from said matches. But again, those are the basics. That's really the bare minimum of what I expect from my wrestling. It keeps me from calling, say, The Great Khali a terrible wrestler - he knows his role and shuts his mouth knows what to do with that, especially given his physical limitations. But it's not enough on it's own to make me call him a great wrestler, or even a good one, just one who meets my baseline expectations. So now that I've established those baseline expectations, here's what I'm looking for to genuinely impress me: 1. PERFORMING THE AFOREMENTIONED BASICS REALLY, REALLY WELL One of the weird things about the knock against people who like "smart" matches - aside from the fact that it leaves me wondering if they would prefer to watch "stupid" matches - is that they seem to automatically assume that those people are praising people as great for being mediocre. Like, Mark Henry gets praised for playing his role well, but then people try to shoot it down by pointing out that he's supposed to be playing his role, so they're just praising him for performing one of the basic functions of a wrestler. But if a guy is being praised as good or great, shouldn't it be a given that the people praising him are saying he's good or great at the things they're praising him for? Shouldn't it be a given that people who think highly of Henry because of how he plays his role think highly of his role-playing, rather than thinking that he's mediocre? Is that something that really needs to be explained? I'm not saying you have to agree, mind you, but does a guy who says Henry is great because of how he plays his role need to further explain "by the way, I think he's great at playing his role, just to clarify"? Do people really read Henry praise and see "I think Mark Henry is great because he's mediocre"? Really? Is there really confusion over that? But I digress. Like I said, Khali does the baseline of what I expect from him...but that's about it. But really great wrestlers tend to be really great at playing their roles. In fact, just to hazard a guess, I would say that every great wrestler ever takes those bare-bones standards and fleshes them out as much as they can, and pretty much every other positive trait I can say about them is ultimately an extension of that. 2. GRABBING ME EARLY It's 2011. There's A LOT of wrestling out there readily available for me to watch, even if we just narrow it down to stuff that's gotten praise. I try to watch as much of it as possible, but there just aren't enough hours in the day nor days in my life to see all there is to see. My subsequent impatience with wrestling matches is, to a large extent, a byproduct of this, but it's not like this isn't a good trait for a wrestling match to have in the first place. The sooner you get me into a match, the more likely it is that I'll stay all the way through, and the more likely I'll think fondly of it when it's over. Of course.... 3. NOT LETTING GO ....that is kinda dependent on whether or not you can actually keep my attention once you've got it. It tends to be a lot easier to keep my attention once you've grabbed it early than it is to get me to sit through an OK match that really grabs me at the end, but a match can start strong and fall apart as it goes along. I'm not saying every match has to be go-go-go all the time. I've seen plenty of slower-paced matches that have kept my interest throughout. And for that matter, I've seen plenty of matches that bend over backwards to make me give a shit about them with big spots worked at a blistering pace that I couldn't care less about. There are lots of ways to hook me. Just find one and keep me hooked all the way through, and the specifics of what kind of match you're wrestling won't be an issue to me. 4. MEMORABLE MOMENTS I like a match to give me something to remember it by. This can come in a billion different forms - a particularly spectacular move, a great selling performance, a memorable plot development, a great moment of characterization, hell, something as simple as a facial expression can do it for me if it's done right. It can be just about anything, just give me a moment that I can point to when talking about how cool a match is to my friends. 5. THE BIGGER THE CONFLICT, THE BETTER I've loved my fair share of "wrestling in a vacuum" matches before, but when you're talking about the primo stuff, I want my wrestling matches to feel like a big deal. It's a big part of the reason why I mourn the death of WWECW. Yeah, Superstars kept delivering the goods from underutilized wrestlers, but as much as I dug Chris Masters' 2010 run, I would've much rather seen him gunning for the ECW Title with an actual storyline and some fire behind it than watch him score the full Worldwide point every week. Yeah, it was the "third brand", and the belt didn't have the prestige of other titles, but it was something, and within the demi-fed itself, it meant something, and it gave the matches in the brand that little extra something that, as great as Superstars is, we just don't have anymore. And that's true for me across the board - when the match feels important, I'm usually going to get more out of it, at least as long as it's doing everything else right. 6. THE BETTER THE CONFLICT, THE BETTER You know what I like a lot? Like, not just in wrestling, but in practically everything? Opposites. On a base-level, if both wrestlers can play their roles well and build a match organically out of that, they're meeting my expectations, but it's always better when those characters by nature conflict and contrast with each other in some way. Champion vs. challenger, grizzled veteran vs. young up-and-comer, big bad bruiser vs. scrappy overmatched guy, virtuous babyface vs. slimy heel...this is another one where there's a million ways to do it, but whatever it is, I love seeing it done. Hell, I even dug those cheesy 80's/early 90's WWF angles where guys feuded just because some aspect of their gimmicks naturally conflicted with each others. I loved Repo Man feuding with Davey Boy Smith just because he was the British Bulldog and Repo Man didn't like dogs because of all of his run ins with them in his day (night?) job, or Randy Savage immediately feuding with Razor Ramon when he debuted just because he was the Macho Man and he took exception to Razor constantly talking about "oozing machismo". Not to mention all the "feuding musical styles" rivalries over the years. I still think that if the face/heel roles were swapped, the West Texas Rednecks/No Limit Soldiers feud would have been a license to print money. I mean, "Rap is Crap" is a pretty exclusionary statement, and I don't know that you would want your faces to exclude people so easily. But then, Rey wasn't really cut out for heeldom at that point...maybe when the initial feud ran it's course, you could have him jump ship, and eventually, he and the Rednecks manage to find common ground over....OK, I don't actually know where the common musical ground there is, but I imagine West Texas Rednecks plus Rey and their new experimental sound feuding with No Limit Soldier holdout Brad Armstrong and his gang of fellow self-hating southerners (his brothers, PG-13, Tracy Smothers, Tony Anthony, Jimmy Golden, maybe bring back Robert Fuller doing a Suge Knight wannabe gimmick as their manager) would be pretty awesome. Maybe, I dunno. But I think you get the idea. I like contrast in my conflict. 7. END WITH A BANG I like wrestling matches to start strong, I like them to stay strong throughout, so it shouldn't be surprising that I like them to finish strong as well. Basically, I'm looking for one of three things: a decisive finish, an interesting finish, or an interesting decisive finish. Preferably it's one of the latter two, but as a general rule, I do prefer clean finishes to screwy ones, and will usually lean towards matches that have them. That said, if a screwy finish is really well done, I'm not going to complain. 8. ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN A little while back, I got to see the Flying Karamazov Brothers perform. If you don't know, they're a comedy juggling troupe, and they are capable of some pretty spectacular stuff. However, there was one bit where one of them prefaced the routine by telling the audience that he was sick of hearing people complaining about pro jugglers dropping things during their performances. "We perform preposterously elaborate routines, of course we're going to drop a pin once in a while, why should we be ashamed, and why should you complain?" Something like that. But here's the kicker: he said that in their next bit, it was all too possible that they might drop a pin or two...but wherever it landed, they didn't want us to touch it or give it back to them or anything like that. They were going to play it where it lied. As it happened, there was one pin dropped in the routine (probably the best in the show, IMO), and it didn't land anywhere really crazy like in a little old lady's lap or whatever. But the guy did get it back in the air, and he did so without dropping any of the other pins he was juggling at the time. Point is, I think the Flying Karamazov Brothers' attitude to dropped objects in juggling pretty nicely matches my attitude towards botched spots in wrestling. Shit happens. I accept that. But what do you do when shit happens? You play it where it lies. Sure, if you botch a spot, and everyone acts like it went off without a hitch, that's stupid, and that's something I'll hold against a match. But if, say, a guy goes for a dropkick that was supposed to hit but fucks up and clearly misses, and his opponent responds by taking advantage of the situation and stomping the guy's head in, I see nothing wrong with that segment. Shit happens. It's what you do with it that matters. 9. SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT With today's heavily scripted promos, awkward line readings can be a legitimate problem. But strictly speaking, I always thought it was more important for a promo to sound sincere than to sound coherent. I mean, I generally want my promos to be both, but if I have to choose, I'd rather have a stammering, mumbling, mush-mouthed promo from someone who clearly meant what they were talking about (even if you couldn't quite make out what it was) than a perfectly recited soliloquy from someone who didn't seem like he believed a word of it any day. Hell, you all remember Owen Hart's promo from Rumble '94 after he turned on Bret, right? The infamous "that's why I kicked your leg out of your leg" promo? I think that was one of the best promos of the 90's. Seriously. I don't think Owen strung together more than three words in a row at any given time that actually made sense, but the raw emotion of his delivery was almost painful to watch (in a good way). He just masterfully conveyed this guy who had built up years of resentment over being stuck in Bret's shadow, and just when he thinks he's finally going to get to stand alongside him as an equal as one half of the tag champs, Bret actively sabotages it (from Owen's POV), and that's the last straw as Owen basically has a nervous breakdown live on PPV and just goes off on this incoherent, insane, howling stream-of-consciousness rant. Of course he's babbling like an idiot, but why would he do anything else? 10. OFFENSE IS IMPORTANT.... ....because it's not much of a wrestling match if you're not trying to win. But as far as the extent to which offense is important goes, I need every wrestler to be able to do ONE move well. Specifically, I need them to be able to do one low-end move - usually a strike - that they use regularly in all their matches well. You wanna know why having good punches is such a big deal for some of us? Well, I can't speak for everyone in that movement, but for me, it's because something like 99% of all wrestlers throw punches, and something like 99% of all wrestling matches have punches in them, and there are quite a lot of wrestlers from both now and then who use punches as a primary staple of their offensive diet. So the way I see it, if a move is going to be used that much, it better be used well. And if you can't do that, throw a forearm, or a chop, or a kick, or something else along those lines, and then worry about the top-rope Burning Hammer. 11. JUST TO REITERATE MY ONE RULE ON SELLING Sell things the way you want people to buy them. And you damn well better do it, because selling is every bit as important to wrestling as Loss says it is.

I thought the New Breed was unleashed nine years ago.

There are a lot of points people have made in this thread that I'll be addressing later, but right now seems like a pretty good time to look at this one. It's interesting you mention this with regards to the importance of guys playing their roles, because when I wrote this.... ....those were exactly the kind of guys I had in mind. Hell, just look at the description - "Little Indy Guy Who Constantly Kicks Out Of EVERYTHING Because Of His Fighting Spirit~". If character is supposed to drive plot - and it is - then the fact that the character is largely defined by the plot ahead of time (kicking out of everything because of fighting spirit) pretty much dooms him from the start. "Little Indy Guy Who Has Fighting Spirit" is a character, if something of a simplistic, commonplace one, and you can do something with that. But when the little indy guy and his little indy opponent decide "hey, it'd be really cool if we hit a lot of finishers and kicked out 'cause we've got FIGHTING SPIRIT~! like Kobashi" and build a match around spts because they looked cool on tapes so naturally they'll make their match better even if there's no reason their characters should be doing those things, they're no longer putting together a wrestling match so much as a lame, second-rate simulation of one. And when I think about the problems I have with certain corners of the current indy scene (and to a lesser extent, the current puro scene), that's it: guys just trying to do cool stuff with no rhyme or reason instead of growing matches organically from their own characters.

So, simplified: on the most basic level, what makes for good wrestling to me and why? Well, let's start super-basic: I'm looking for wrestlers who can wrestle. I know that's kinda redundant and more than a little obvious, but while there are wrestlers I like for their out-of-the-ring stuff, I don't know that there's anyone I'd consider great who can't deliver in the ring. I mean, not to rehash this argument from the thread Jerry linked, but that's why they call it "wrestling", because it's about wrestling. If it wasn't, they'd call it the Vince Russo Comedy Incest Hour or something like that. But that's kind of a given. What does it mean to "deliver in the ring" for me? Well, I think wrestling is narrative entertainment, so first and foremost, you've got to tell me a story. Even if it's just "these two guys are opponents in this bout, and each one wants to beat the other", give me a story and sell me on it. How do you sell me on it? Play your role. The essence of drama is that the plot develops as an extension of the characters. If the wrestlers aren't driving the story, it's gonna be a lousy, unconvincing story if there is one at all. And if that's the case, it's not much of a match. How do you effectively play your role in a match? This is where it gets complicated. Different rolls from different wrestlers in different styles in different promotions in different corners of the world call on you to do different things. But there is ONE hard and fast rule that applies universally: "sell things the way you want people to buy them". Now, that obviously applies to selling itself, but it really applies to everything you do in the ring. If you're a big, bruising powerhouse, wrestle like a big, bruising powerhouse. If you're a tiny, high-energy dude who relies on his speed to outmaneuver opponents, wrestle like a tiny, high-energy dude who relies on his speed to outmaneuver opponents. If you're some sort of weird, supernatural monster, wrestle like a weird, supernatural monster. Don't tell me you're one thing and than act like another in the ring just because it's cool when other wrestlers do it. It doesn't sell me on your character, which doesn't sell me on the story, which doesn't sell me on the match. And that's the bare bones of it. There's more to it than that, of course, but on the most basic level, that's what it takes. I'll flesh it out more a bit later.

One of the more interesting parts of the first WWE ECW DVD set was in the documentary, where Vince talked about the Tazz/HHH match. He actually outright said that, while he must have had a reason at the time for putting HHH over since he wouldn't have done it if he didn't have a reason, he couldn't remember what it was, couldn't think of one, and said that in hindsight, it was a mistake. I never really liked Taz, so I don't really care one way or the other about it, but very weird to see Vince openly acknowledging that he screwed something up.

Does it have to go that way, though? Well, probably, yeah, but maybe we could at least try to clear the air. Look, we all like the professional wrestling. I think that's kinda obvious. But the why's and how's of it can be pretty variable. There's nothing wrong with that. I want to make that perfectly clear. But I do want to get this out of the open, stripped of the other subjects these arguments tend to manifest in (Mark Henry, anyone?), so that we all know where we're coming from in other threads. I think a lot of us have an idea of what a lot of other posters look for in wrestling, but some of those ideas are probably more accurate than others, and in any case, you won't get a better answer than a definitive statement from the poster themselves. And if comments elsewhere don't line up with comments here, well, then we can know if there's any goalpost-moving going on. So, simplified: on the most basic level, what makes for good wrestling to you and why? I have an All-Request Friday Night to write, but when I'm done, if this thread has any legs, I'll give my own answer.

Not before I concede the point about the Demos having objectively superior offense to the Roadies and the PoP. I don't know what I was smoking to make me rank them ahead of the goddamn Barbarian in that respect, but it must have been some pretty powerful stuff. So yeah, in the interest of maintaining intellectual honesty, there you go. Now.... This is a really strong point. It's been alluded to a few times already, and I know I've been thinking about it all thread long. Hell, there are a fair amount of threads here and elsewhere that break down into this issue. I'm gonna spin it off into a separate thread, both so we can keep this one on-topic, and because I think it's time we isolated this and addressed it specifically from whatever other conversation it stemmed from.

Wrong, because I don't think wrestling is sillier on a surface level than soccer or trading stocks to get actual money. I don't ask you to agree on this, but this is what I think. I don't consider pro-wrestling *laughable* on a surface level. Alright, let's agree to disagree on that one. I'm saying that there are lots of examples of people overthinking unremarkable and/or silly things in order to establish them as serious. I then listed a bunch of them, including Chris Coey, someone who was notorious as an overthinker, and took wrestling very, very seriously because of it, not in spite of it. You said their gimmick was laughable to anyone over the age of 12. I'll allow goofy, though I still don't see how they're any goofier than is to be expected in wrestling. I'll even allow weak looking offense, though the teams you're comparing them to weren't exactly offensive dynamos either (Doomsday Device aside), and in fact were probably the Demos inferiors in that regard. I will refer to what I said to Jerry earlier re: their physiques. If anything, you could argue that 80's WWF was one of the worse places they could be in terms of getting over, since WWF from the rise of Hogan forward was always a much more physique-centric promotion. The fact that they got as far as they did there is actually kinda impressive when I stop and think about it. In any of the territories of the time, no one would have batted an eyelash at their physique. Everywhere else, guys built like the Roadies or the PoP were the exceptions, not the rule. They're no doughier than Murdoch, and no one had a problem with Dickie Bird being booked as a tough guy. Commonplace wrestling gimmick + standard "tough guy" wrestler physique for the era + superior workers to the act they were knocking off = too laughable for wrestling outside of 80's WWF? Not buying it.