Death From Above

We've had our go home RAW and Smackdown so I guess it's about time for a proper thread. The card as we know it: - Darren Young/Damien Sandow vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Ascension vs. Mark Henry/Jack Swagger (Royal Rumble qualification) - The Usos vs. New Day © (tag team titles) - Kalisto vs. Alberto Del Rio © (United States championship) - Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose © Last Man Standing match (Intercontinental championship) - Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte © (Divas champioinship) - The Royal Rumble (WWE World Heavyweight championship)

Yeah he has barely been on TV at all. All I can recall recently on RAW is doing a clean job in like 3 minute to Neville, and one tag team match. They really seem done with him.

I genuinely think it would be difficult to turn him heel straight off a comeback in a way that didn't create a massive backlash. First of all given how Roman has been booked there would be a subsect of the audience that would cheer Bryan turning on him, hard (especially since Bryan is the beloved son that's been away which gives him even more love in the short term). Second off all you'd really be risking "oh God not more of Invincible Heels vs. Roman" backlash. Plus some fans just not buying this could "really" happen (Austin shaking hands with McMahon at Wrestlemania 17). You can't just turn a wrestler heel because he's popular. Having said that I think there's no doubt it gives you a short term boost. I just don't know if long term you gain as much as you risk losing. I think you could pull it off with CM Punk BUT that is clearly pure, fantasy, lala land stuff. That is not happening. He's gone and not coming back soon.

If I'm remembering right this only came up in his book in reference to the Lawler vs. Kerry Von Erich AWA title match, where Kerry was zonked out pre-match and bladed his arm, so Lawler goes right after it from the opening bell (which worked out amazing).

People should not no-sell this because this is hilarious.

I do think the complete uncreative level of the scripted promos is hurting a lot. I can't remember seeing a genuinely interesting backstage segment on RAW in the last two months because they are all exactly the same. You either get: - People standing at a 90 degree angle to a monitor, watching a match like some kind of owl (this is never interesting, and is on every single show) - A backstage promo where the reporter asks them questions - Two buddies talking This covers 95% of those in the last 2-3 months on RAW. The in-ring openers haven't been good either. Frankly The Miz has had more interesting in-ring promo segments than The Authority in the last 2-3 months because there's more of a chance of SOMETHING WEIRD happening in a Miz segment. The best promo segment on the whole have been New Day, and there's no way they aren't writing most of their own material. I'd also agree that, considering how relatively large their roster is, they pair the same guys too often. Why not do some really basic wrestling stuff, have Titus wrestle people that AREN'T STARDUST, and have Stardust cost him a couple matches by interference? Can we really not find a fifth tag team in the company for guys to wrestle outside of the Dudleys, Usos, New Day, Lucha Dragons (who are out as a unit), and the Wyatts (who are more of a special attraction act than part of the tag division)? You have the Ascension but I haven't seen them win a single match. I have no idea what their finisher is. I don't know. I feel like they have all the parts. Just put it together.

Leslie Nielson was a king.

The booking is not good but I think plenty of the workers are fine and I'd rank the period well ahead of the mid-90's Nadir. The Rumble will go a long way to clarifying just where it falls for me I think. I need them to show me something special but I do feel like it will be quite predictable.

That's a nice moment. I know it's full of character breaking but who cares about all that anymore especially since it will never air on TV. Between stuff like this and a show like UpUpDownDown it seems like the locker room is a pretty friendly place these days.

DX themselves weren't the most important thing but they do encapsulate one of the areas WCW failed badly. I have made it clear I am at best lukewarm on the Attitude Era and it's sophmoric, dirty material. But I think if you remember that time, it's kind of unqeustionable that this "edgy" material made WWE seem much cooler. WCW being a Turner product had certain restrictions, in terms of violence and language (guys having to try and get over saying BUTT because ASS is a step too far) made them feel pretty old fashioned. Turner's product got left behind on this front and their attempts to play catch up were generally pretty bad (getting on hardcore matches way too late, and doing them in the most white bread way possible because nobody could bleed or do anything crazy). I'm not saying this perception was right or wrong. But it absolutely happened, and DX as the poster child for that is fair enough, I guess. They represented the "edgy" WWF that WCW simply couldn't imitate even if they wanted to due to the restrictions of their paymasters. A lot of it was crude garbage, but let's be honest teenage males (and college age ones) love crude garbage, it is what it is. WCW being willing to engage in a game of catch-up that due to their network's rules they couldn't win, was in my view a serious mistake that made their brand seem less unique. They compounded that to the Nth degree by bringing in Russo and opening the gates in a time when interest in that sort of material was already fading, and it was a disaster.

Trying to compare other big men to Vader is hopeless because Vader is a legitimate freak that could do things literally no one else in wrestling history could do. When you combine that with him having a really great mind for building matches, he's really very special. I know some people actually critique that if anything, Vader is TOO giving in some matches letting other guys get offense in, but to me that's part of what makes him so compelling and exciting. He could just destroy people in squashes, he could show ass, he could brawl, he could do power moves, he had a little high flying, he could do UWFi... Vader has basically everything. There's not really much point to comparing people to Vader to me, because there simply are no comparable superheavyweights to Vader. He's a truly unique figure in a 100 year history in the business. I'm not saying I'd vote Vader #1 all time. But he'd probably be in my top 10 if I still did Listmania. The range of his material is amazing.

In terms of keeping up to date with weekly TV through traditional TV? Never more than three at a time. We might have been the last white people in North America to get cable (actually never had cable, we have satellite now, but whatever). Internet was my main way of following wrestling basically from high school (late 90's) onwards.

This has been mentioned in the past, but apparently J-Cup is a much bigger deal to hardcore fans like us than it ever really was in business terms.

This might seem like a bizarre choice on the surface but I'd actually argue the Real World Tag League final became that night, in a way, for AJPW. It came right at the end of the year's touring for them (at least it did in the 90's, but I think so as well going further back), and I feel it actually got played up a lot more than the Champion Carnival. All Japan was also a very tag-focussed company on TV (both regular and 6-man tags that at least slightly eased the load on guys physically) and the tag titles for a long time probably meant more there than in any other major company. When you also start looking at the teams that won over the years... it's a goddamn hall of fame in itself. For a long time it was a great way to cap off the year. They don't really have a true Wreslemania kind of night, but I'd say for me that comes closest. January 4th is clearly that night for New Japan and is the second biggest annual event in the business from my perspective.

Never saw his work out of the WWF but he was my favourite jobber as a kid.

I do think it's incredibly interesting that in the last few weeks there were two Wyatts Interrupt The Authority segments, and both times the Wyatts got a massive pop that dies out as soon as it's clear they are still supposed to be loner heels.

His reaction warrants more a feud with Neville than anything else. It would be a total waste of Neville's strength taking bumps though. Instead he somehow got bumped from doing bad segments with New Day into an even higher slot.

Jericho trying to put himself over as a threat to Lesnar was just sad. At least the crowd was polite and didn't laugh. The Wyatts remind me of pre-Badass Undertaker where they get a big reaction to the gimmick but it seems like nobody really cares about their TV work. I would be a lot more hyped about Wyatts vs The World expect they already made the Rumble into Roman vs The World in the most boring way imaginable by guaranteeing him being number one. It's the least interesting way to do the match, but I'm not remotely surprised.

T R A S H

I cannot coherently express how much I hated that segment right now.

I'm glad there are still some wrestlers (theoretically) getting paid there, but there's nothing else to even say anymore. This thread is almost 9 years old and the question posed in the title was quite relevant then. The fact it's lasted this long is astonishing. It has no value or relevance as a wrestling company, but again I'll at least be nice and say it's great that it keeps some people in work. Also holy crap this thread is nearly 9 years old.

Dolph Ziggler moved from "hey this guy seems like a good wrestler" in the first two weeks I was back watching WWE to "Oh Jesus Christ he's going to do the shoulder to the ringpost, and the 10 nearfall rollup sequence again" real fast. He's a prime example of a guy who is still working matches as if he's on the 80's house show circuit and not a guy on national TV where we can SEE YOU DO THAT EVERY MATCH. Ambrose's rebound lariat spot is in that category too but with Ziggler it's, like, his entire act that I am feeling that way about already.

I started laughing when the old people start clapping along and I realized this was real and not a parody video. Then I was afraid.

Nice list. I'm sure I must have had one myself at some point, but my viewing really over the last decade has been so spotty that it would be swiss cheese now.

As much as I'm against Triple H/Reigns at Wrestlemania I can completely see it for the one simple obvious reason: Triple H wants to tell the whole world he main evented a show in front of (a real or imaginary) 100K audience. I'm sure, if it happens, he will spin it to the writers in many different ways, but inside that is what it comes down to. I would much prefer Brock/Reigns again, obviously, but I'm not holding my breath right now.