PhilTLL

The Jesse Ventura in me would like to point out that this is an atrocious display of selective ethics on the part of the faces who run in. If it had been Vader choking Hogan to death, they would have stomped the shit out of him to break it up.

Ric Flair vs Barry Windham, 3/14/87 Greensboro 60:00. The last 16 minutes aired on WPW in April, and much of the show aired on Superbouts. What got shown is the high-quality stuff you expect from them.

That episode is over 10 years old now. In the 2010s the wrestling fanbase really started turning into a "fandom," and in my limited observation it's less redneck-ish than before. (I wish it weren't, but that's another topic.)

They teamed off-and-on from April to October 1994.

It's one letter too long. "LGBDT" is more elegant and doesn't make you say 5 "e" sounds in a row.

(Wrong quoted post...) During the last WGA strike in 2007, WWE productions were not subject to Guild rules: https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2007-11-15-0711140492-story.html

I did not know/had forgotten about this: What a kind and difficult task to take on. Legends House made him look like a sweetheart too.

What the hell was up with this? He kicked the cameraman *to the ground* like Josh Homme after too many shots and lines.

Having the other workers comprise the "crowd" is such a simple, effective, obvious thing that WWE should be doing. I don't know enough to tell if they're separated into faces and heels, but that would be great.

The only version I've ever seen of this is 32 minutes of TV time, and it has full intros and bell-to-bell of the match. I'll drop you a DM.

Obviously that wasn't the ONLY reason Styles/Taker was good, I should say, but all that insanity being rooted in the idea of two people having a fight in a graveyard helped tie it all together. Tonight's thing wasn't totally without entertainment value, but needs to be way MORE entertaining to be that senseless, if that makes any sense. Styles/Taker was much more entertaining in addition to being comprehensible.

Okay so, Bray Wyatt wins by vanishing for no apparent reason. Great. That was a fucking fizzle compared to last night. Not to continue on a Cornette-esque point, but Styles/Taker was good because it was rooted in two guys fighting until something tangible happened, which is what wrestling is good at, with very very few exceptions. Even the exceptions I'm thinking of, you know when it's over because any fight would be: Lawler/Funk empty arena ended because one of them got too maimed to continue. And Styles/Taker ended when one guy got buried. This on the other hand was some shit you'd see on the TV show Supernatural and the segment was more about historical references (and cheap winking laughs through historical reference) than any sort of coherent action.

OBSESSION. On WWE television. My good lord. This is kind of entertaining, but what is the tether to reality and the previous 3 hours here? I get why Styles/Taker happened where and when it did, and what was supposed to be happening, even when mystical death monks appeared. What am I supposed to be watching in context? A hallucination?

AJ went to the graveyard because he was a prideful SOB who thought he was better than the old broken down Undertaker. John Cena is on this children's TV set because ????. Was he teleported there against his will?

Michael Cole's idiot screams echoing through the replays are just priceless.

I think he might be done for the night. Thank god he was only in like 3 minutes of this whole thing. I wonder if he showed up excited to do more, and production was just like, we cannot use any of this.

I stand corrected, there were at least 8 extra workers in the building who had to do that thing. That was a strong candidate for worst 25+ minute match I've ever seen, for sure.

I feel like passing out face-first just like that. Why did I have to hear them talk about Shayna Baszler's Kukalaka Clutch or whatever 100 times last night, but that's just Edge's "this submission maneuver?"

A friend of mine texted me that he has just started the show, and I am intensely jealous of all that fast-forward time. Assuming this is over by the time he catches up. As for editing, where do you start, and how much of the show are you willing to sacrifice? Everyone in the building is working, I don't think there are any standby matches. The pre-show is owed to FS1, I think?

Just going from board timestamps, this is a 30-minute segment already. That might actually be longer than Styles/Taker?

Slamming faces into posters without talking shit about what's on the posters is just a wasted opportunity. An "additional storage facility!" What is this, a video game map?

Basically the same inert Edge/Orton match and inert LMS match we've seen for over 15 years on B-shows and TV. Minus the weapons shots for some reason?

Yeah, everything they're doing could incur a hospital trip, but I think they'd want to avoid any extra entanglements.

I guess it's proof that Mania is distracting me from the real world that I was again going to suggest a match needs blood, without realizing that's a terrible idea right now.

From the "ashamed to admit it" files, Michael Cole and JBL each had a good line during this. Cole popped JBL so hard with the "someone married YOU" routine that you could hear JBL frowning while he mumbled a joke-book reply. Then JBL described Otis as "Ivan Putski if he ate Bam Bam Bigelow."