El-P

The post-Attitude, pre-Cena era of WWE sounds like the pits of boredom hell. PPV 48 For a Triple Threat match, Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles vs Raven was pretty good but the lack of heel/face dynamic really hurts everything. Raven is made out to be the biggest babyface of all without having turned really, since AJ & Jeff double team him for a while. Then it turns into a one on one match when Shane Douglas (finally !) attacks Raven and drags him away. Styles vs Jarrett was good but Jarrett has some annoying execution flaws like anticipating some moves way too early. And of course, Russo shows up and finally screws Jarrett (he tries to do the old « Who is he gonna hit ?» game but he’s so awful at anything he does that it was totally obvious). Nice, so now AJ Styles first title reign is thanks to Russo, who booked himself in the main event scene again. Rest of the show was terrible. Well, Chris Sabin vs Shark Boy was a pretty watchable little X-division match and Sandman & Devon Storm (in complete Crowbar costume) actually found a way to almost make the idiotic Hard Ten gimmick work. Almost. On the most terrible side of things, Kid Kash vs Trinity & Goldylocks (who’s a character I guess now that Scott Hudson debuted as the backstage interviewer) was not only awful but it also marks the debut of Abyss, whom from what I’ve seen is one of the stupidest garbage worker ever with a third rate gimmick. Well, his stock can only rise. Kid Kash wins BTW, so yeah, the woman abuser pig wins in the end. In the same « woman are sluts to be abused anyway » category, AMW vs David Young & Tracy was awful too. AMW were totally off, I guess not motivated by working a match which makes them and the whole tag team division look stupid. Tracy’s whole gimmick is talking bump and showing ass, litteraly I mean. Oh, and her big spot, which is basically Matt Borne’s bomb’s away, is called « The pie in the sky ». How classy. More PMS-like deal after the match with Nurse Veronica making a comeback. The only good segments on the undercard was a decent brawl between D-Lo Brown & Julio (not Dinero anymore, which is annoying since it makes him generic) and the Interrogators stuff with Justin Credible & Jerry Lynn, picking at each other until they just go at it. In other words, what I’m looking for now is Raven vs Shane Douglas and Justin Credible vs Jerry Lynn. Welcome to ECW 1999. Next week, for the first anniversary show : Sting. Really ? 2003/06/11 Raven vs AJ Styles vs Jeff Jarrett

NOAH fans ?

Still untangling my brain from trying to read this sentence. My God, man, where's the punctuation? THINK OF THE CHILDREN! There's a hypen You can use more than two h per sentence too.

Flair will win. Funk is better.

Yep, I guessed right. Now, can Funk pull it off ? I guess not but it would be awesome.

Well, I have 2/3 at least. In which order ? I don't think Hansen will finish #2 like I had him.

Actually, I think #3 will be Hansen. Flair, Funk, or Hansen? Hansen.

Miz ? Kofi Kingston ? I'm already going through vintage TNA, no need for more spot monkeys and dull-ass cosplayers.

Fujiwara's dazed no-selling in the corner makes Takada's leglock the equivalent of A Love Supreme. (I totally feel like I'm in the insult contest of Monkey Island now. )

Honestly, I'm baffled that of all the AJ guys, Misawa is the one who actually *gained spots* since 2006. Considering the criticims thrown at All Japan style and NOAHism, considering the fact Misawa is actually the one who died because of it, considering his NOAH work really isn't talked about with much enthousiasm, I really thought he would be the one who would drop he most out of the 4 pillars. I'm kinda stunned. Totally pulling for him though.

Takada's leglock still looks more realistic than Fujiwara's headbutts, so all is well.

The 619 impact always look awkward, especially when people bump like idiots from taking it. I've learned to deal with the fact Rey is gonna do it at some point and the setup is gonna be half-smart/half-ridiculous/contrived, but the impact looks weak most of the time. It's one of those moves where the Idea of it is much better than the actual execution. The 619 is a great Platonician pro-wrestling move.

And what about the 619 ? It is painfull.

I'm not sure the term "beautiful" really relates to anything in TNA except Lollipop. But thanks ! And yeah, group therapy by reviewing crappy wrestling promotions ! It can work ! We can't get much more down than these people went. So : PPV 47 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown to determine a N°1 contender was good. They played the familiarity game, so a lot of your-turn my-turn, but D-Lo did some impressive stuff (a frogspash to the outside). They did play the difference of strenght too. Raven attacks both guys. And the match next week will be a three-way since Raven was promised a title shot before. I don’t like three ways, but at least you got the three top guys in the same match. This is the infamous Glen Gilberti vs Jeff Jarrett main event, which makes everyone in the company look dumb. This is where a sense of hierarchy is actually important. As much as Gilberti was decent as a mouthpiece and as much as he can be fine in the middle of the undercard, having him in the main event and trying to work an epic match with Jarrett just fucks up everything. At least he should work from underneath, trying to sneak into a fluke victory. But no, he’s working as an ass-kicker and thinks he’s Kurt Angle again. Anyway, bad match with trading finishers (wow, every bit of WWE self-conscious epics tropes are there. Was this already a staple in WWE at the time ?), sloppy execution and Russo showing up again. The rest of the card was just as bad. Frankie Kazarian debuts in a six-man tag cluster with CM Punk & some guy named Matt Stryker, with an Y vs Kid Romeo, Swinger (yawn) and some green-ass guy named Damien Dothart. Punk isn’t made for this kind of stuff and Kazarian deserved a better set up since they teased a feud with Sabin already. More Hard Ten stupidity, this time with The Vampire Warrior. Tenay had to remind everyone that « He was Gangrel in WWE ». Seriously, let it go already, it's not like Gangrel was anything but JTTS. Well, so was D-Lo when you think about it. More stupid tournament matches, including AMW getting back together and having to carry BJ James & Konnan, both looking as lazy/bad as ever, and another « tag » match with Ron Killings alone (HarriSS doesn’t want to tag with him because he accuses him of playing the « race card », funny to have a guy with an SS tatoo play a racist shit) vs David Young & Tracy. Killings is one of those « wasted movements » workers like RVD or Booker T. Tracy takes stupid bumps and has a catfight with Desire. Tracy has to show lots of ass every week. Talking about women mistreatment, the Kid Kash & Trinity angle keeps on going… more verbal and physical abuse and now Trinity doesn’t do shit. So Goldylocks defends her, which leads to homophobic jokes by Kash, implying that Goldy & Trinty have sex together. Well, I did like Goldy’s answer though, talking about Kash’s « limp bizkit ». Ok, it wasn’t very smart and led to more woman abuse, until Erik Watts runs-in and saves the day to a big pop. They found a way to make people care about Erik Watts for a second, although of course, this whole angle should have stopped as soon as Trinity beat Kash weeks ago. Raven had actually two interview segments which shows how well this show is pre-planned... As always the Tenay interview was shooty and Raven reverted back to Scott Levy talking about his career, even telling the infamous Bischoff story where he just left the room. Bad show « saved » by a Raven promo, D-Lo vs AJ and Tracy’s ass.The main event was particulary embarrassing even beyond the subpar work. 2003/06/03 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown

He was selling.

As goc said, he had improved by the time he ended up in TNA as Malice. But as The Wall/AWOL, he was godawful indeed.

Interesting. The idea I have of early ROH is two bland guys in MMA shorts and kickpads doing AJ cosplay for 45 minutes while the crowd is doing dual chants. Maybe I'm completely off on this, and in this case well, one of these days, why not. I didn't know TNA audience were responsible for "this is awesome" chants. Damn them then.

Bingo.

Of course it did. If Bryan had landed around the top 20, I would have say no. But really, beating Kawada, Kobashi, Liger, three of the biggest sacred cows of the last 20 years. Yeah, for sure. I actually plan on diving into Daniel Bryan's whole career at some point. Maybe he's that great. Maybe not.

It shouldn't be, he's had a long and awesome career. Recency bias + US mainstream bias (and before people get worked up, I of all people am guilty of it with Bryan, so I speak for *myself* first). I absolutely don't believe all the people voting for Bryan had scrutinized his ROH career. I for one sure didn't do it, as ROH is a black hole that I'm not I ever want to get into. Too afraid I might just blast the whole company (for the record, I *hated* everything about Samoa Joe vs Kobashi, to give you an idea). Maybe one day. When I'm done with TNA.

I totally buy Funk's case, at least half of it, being made in Japan. Hansen is obviously a Japan candidate. Still, I agree with you, obviously, the only japanese guys left there are total sacred cows. They weren't going anywhere.

I'm very surprised about Misawa being above Kawada and Kobashi, for reasons I'll explain later. Since many people love Kobashi's NOH work, I really expected him to make the top 5. Rey beating both of them simply confirms, again, what I've been saying all along. I had Rey at #18 because, as much as I don't care for 00's WWE style and that damn 619, there was no denying Rey Jr. level of work over the last 20 years.

Hey, Memphis people, do you know that Raven once said in an interview that Lawler was the greatest ever ? You should rejoice, you and Raven are all and the same. Nice run by Lawler.

Great point.

Makes sense to me. I also agree I would have liked more talk about candidates that were like roses in bloom and others that had been sent to the pits of hell in recent years.