El-P

Funny, I have been watching Christophe Agius (the French WWE announcer of these last 20 years and to me a legit top 5 announcers ever) show/podcast on Youtube, and at the WM31 episode he's been saying the same thing. I must preface by saying he's incredibly genuine (and humble. and fun to listen to) and never just giving the company line (very seldom does he appear to do so and even when that happens he manages to balance his arguments). He said that in his opinion they missed the opportunity that night with Reigns, as although he was rejected by the crowd, you could feel that the way the match was structured, with Lesnar walking over Roman, had the crowd slowly but surely gaining support for him. To him if Roman had won, the pop would have been lesser than with Rollins on that night, but that would have won over the crowd and would have got Roman to be finally accepted. That show is awesome BTW in term of little backstage tidbits and anecdotes from the few times him and Philippe Chéreau have been brought to the US (a few Manias, Summerslam and Rumbles in the last decade), gives you a peak to the backstage and mostly the WWE company from a very different point of view. I guess only @SirEdger around here can really make something about this info, but there you go.

Drawing money. As late as early 1999 Hogan vs Flair was a major success for them and actually drew their last big PPV number. Nope. Him vs Flair in 1996 is what got the company hot before the nWo had it going over the edge. His feud with DDP was one of the hottest of 1997 and it absolutely made DDP. The idea that Savage was good for commentary is exactly what bit Vince in the ass. As far as Piper's go, his first angle leading to Starrcade was pretty great and it drew big time. Hogan also stepped up quite a bit to work that match and make it ok, as Piper, who was always a struggle in the ring (yeah, I know, the Bret and Valentine matches, that's two in an entire career), who pretty much done by then. So, that first stint was really a success. After that point, yeah, it became a laughable mess at best and horrific at worst (Age in a Cage). Should have ended at Starrcade. Well ok, the first stuff with Flair was actually pretty fun too.

YOSHI-HASHI had the match of his life against Okada. Agree Tama vs Tanahashi was a pretty cool match, and the difference to me is striking in term of what Tama brought to the game compared to Tanga Loa vs Ishii, in which I thought Loa really didn't measure up at all and in the end it was Ishii just forcing a more meaty match than it had any right to be (I would not have minded this to be a semi-squash, but it would not have made sense in this context, and less so when the shows are way shorter because of the pandemic). ZSJ is the MVP, that's official. That Great O-Khan match was the most enjoyable I've seen. He's much better when he's rolling around than when's he's doing claws and shit. I guess Ibushi vs Yano was the "best" (as in, less offensive) Yano you'll get. KENTA vs Takagi was a worthwhile main event, as KENTA really is putting himself on his opponent's level (well, as much as he can), so you'll get this match against Takagi and you'll get jackshit against Yano or Yujiro.

AJ had the best match of then night. Shane was also in the ring, alongside the ref.

What if the Khan vs Khan feud was a work ? What if in the end, Nick Khan is working for a sell and the one buying was.... Shad Khan ? All jokes aside, if that means no more Shane O-Mac match at Mania, this is a win-win for everybody.

The one thing that WWE always had over WCW is that it was Vince's vision, for better or worse. The fact there was one decision made at the end of the day. Of course that was before Vince lost his mind. But that's a really good thing especially since, judging from his track record until now, he is a good booker who also learns from his mistakes. The issue is indeed him running himself into the ground by overworking himself. The two Dark shows should probably been given some other people to oversee them. I don't want Coach Tony K. to burn himself out. As far as creative people, I guess Callis would not be bad, although IMPACT's booking was always D'Amore more than anyone else.

@Coffey Should I stop posting on this board ?

Sure ! Who's left who's out there though that would make a big impact ? And no, Braun Strowman is not a good answer.

Apparently Kiera Hogan has been signed. Yes ! Hopefully she keeps on doing that good heel shit she was doing in IMPACT. She just can't stop moving her lips, just annoying (and funny) as hell, pretty cool to have a very vocal kind of worker these days (see also White, Jay).

That would be pretty cool. And have Brian Pillman Jr. work against Rey Fénix or something.

Honestly, having Wyatt & Rowan show up to pay homage to Brodie would not be the worst idea. Bray and him were very close.

Holy shit ! Clap clap clap

The old idea of "cool" looks like "toxic masculinity" to younger folks.

The Young Bucks are the GOAT tag team. Kenny Omega is a GOAT contender. All three have pushed pro-wrestling forward in more ways than one (stylistically, building upon teams like the MCMG but also bringing that meta aspect we talked about before; building upon the deep modern Japanese style created by Tanahashi & Okada with a twist from the geeky culture of comedy wrestling via DDT) The Usos are a good tag team, they are better than the GoD for sure. Roman Reigns is a good wrestler, he's also the most protected pro-wrestler in the last 10 years so like Orton and the likes, we'll never know exactly what he could be all about outside of the overproduced, overpatterned, and in his case, overprotected environment. With his physical attributes and charisma and tendency to be game, I think he would have done pretty damn well, probably be more interesting even. Young Bucks & Kenny Omega are part of the foundation (including in term of in-ring style, but also in term of relating to an audience that has been dying for a main alternative product) for the hottest new pro-wrestling product in 20 years. Roman Reigns will always be synonymous with WWE fighting and trolling his own audience and has been the Top Dog in an era ratings and attendance have dropped (of course, being pushed forever as the Top Dog makes him still the biggest "mover" by default, as showed by last Monday). John Cena he ain't (in any way shape of form). Usos have produced lots of good matches and many DUIS but are protected because they are not related to Samoa Joe. There. I think this is about the fairest picture I can paint. (and I do mean everything I wrote here)

Totally agree.

Kurt Angle vs Mr. Anderson in TNA at Lockdown 2010. Awesome match, brillant performance by Angle (as a pissed off babyface), Anderson is game as fuck (in more ways than one). Angle walks out the door by stepping on Anderson's balls. One of my favorite TNA matches ever.

They need gamers from Twitch. Youtube is almost for boomers at this point. Is WWE still streaming stuff on Facebook ?

ZSJ is trying his best to steal the MVP status from Ishii. Terrific match with Ibushi, who looked better than he has in the last few matches. Ishii gave one of his selling masterclass in an excellent outing against KENTA. Nagata vs Takagi was also excellent and a mighty fine replacement for Naito. Nagata is what, 53 ? He's way into that "greatest post 50 years old workers ever" conversation. The lesser be said about the other two matches the better. Next day for A Block is gonna be super rough (plus Nagata won't be there, instead we get... Bushi... yikes) apart from the main event, as there will be a curiosity as whether the usually waste-of-time guys can be carried to something good or at least not offensive (Great O-Khan has the best chance), so less easy fast-forward.

I don't watch MMA and know jackshit about it, but the segment itself came off hot. Paige Van Zant seems like she could be fun to have around and Masvidal looked like a star. On the other hand, after the awful Wardlow match, I have no desire whatsoever to see another bad shoot-style match involving Jake Hager. So, jury's out on this one. Lambert as Jim Cornette (and every boomer wrestling fan) has been awesome, I can have him as a manager every week forever.

Everyone wants to forget the neck tattoo even exist. Every AEW fan has PTSD from the neck tattoo. The neck tattoo doesn't exist, like Indiana Jones 4 and the last Star Wars trilogy. The neck tattoo should be blurred on TV.

The one case that has always fascinated me, and much more now, is the infamous Malenko vs Benoit match at HoggWild 96. First off I talked about how crowds should not be judged at all, but this is a special case as this was not a pro-wrestling fan crowd at all, but still. But the thing is, the exact same match happening in Korakuen Hall or the ECW Arena at the exact same date is probably a great match. But in this context, I have no idea what to make of it. It's a very unique case of course, but it's a fascinating one to me.

Holy shit didn't see this one coming !

It is. I don't mind supernatural stuff, I don't even mind when it's done in a straight camp way (and I mean, I was eating up the LU stuff). The Alexa Bliss stuff is something I suspect a part of me would actually enjoy if the execution/production was not so WWE (watched a bunch of it on Youtube, so there goes the "social media numbers mean something" out of the window !)

Wasn't that Lawler's deal too ? Not sure in his case it was just to not seem too old to headline though...

Ashley Valentine actually sounds like a cooler name than Charlotte Flair, which does have a gimmicky feel to it (the Charlotte part next to the Flair last name). Of course it's not as odd, in a way, as Dominik Mysterio !