Sean Liska

I'm guessing Owens goes up to the main roster and they trainsition to Joe-Balor for a while.

I hate how "logical" is so often a euphemism for "simple and boring". Lance Storm's perspective is logical. Todd Martin is logical. Jim Cornette's ROH booking was always called logical.

The word "bury" should have been eliminated from internet conversation after HHH cut that promo vowing to bury Daniel Bryan. It doesn't mean anything anymore.

RVD was supposed to beat Awesone for the title and they shot the big angle where Awesome destroyed RVD at the Arena. Then, RVD broke his ankle and Awesone left. Then the idea was for RVD to chase Credible. But they realized they were going to lose TV, and the idea was to save it for their new outlet. Obviously that never came. Sabu post-97 was more of an upper card guy with name value, Taz and RVD were ahead of him on the depth chart. Agreed on things getting very repetitive during the TNN run.

To me that's the business model and not a sign that the booking sucked. The booking grew company revenue tremendously, in a way that no one else has been able to in the post-84 era. The fact that the Monday Night Wars were going on and he felt compelled to pay Taz $150,000 a year when he didn't really have the money is separate from the fact that he took Taz from being an unknown and made him a guy that could go on the road and draw 2K-3K. And no one else has been able to create stars that can draw at the same level.

To me its always unfair to just say that Heyman's booking didn't draw any money. Look at those ECW TV shows from 1993. Look at how small-time indy it was. His booking grew ECW into something that could go into a Chicago and draw 4,000 or 3,000 in Buffalo or 4,000 in Pittsburgh or 3,000 in Dayton. ROH has similar exposure and can't top 1,000. You can knock the business model for not turning a profit, but the creative put an impressive amount of asses in seats. Since the national expansion of the mid-80's, no other company that started as an indy fed ever grew close to what ECW did. Because of the ability to make stars and, yes, get brand loyalty.

Was at the Columbus show last night. Breeze worked as an underdog babyface against Corbin and was pretty great at it. Enjoyed him much more in-ring than I have as a heel. The crowd loved him (3 guys behind me shouted every lyric to his song, too funny), they may have something there. Also I'm even more convinced that Sasha Banks is one of the best workers in the world. I never thought it would be a 23-year old developmental diva that carries on the tradition of guys like Negro Casas and Tenryu in laying everything in and making everything look so good, but there you go. When she's in control, she doesn't sit in chinlocks. She hooks in nasty looking submissions and works them. I loved it.

It's amazing how great New Day is on a weekly basis. How could they not let Big E or Xavier talk for all of this time? Who else on the roster has hidden skills like that?

I'm with RM. You don't get to pound your chest about what a true hardcore fan you are when you start following the team as they're about to win their second title in a few years, and are now trying to win 3 titles in 6 years. Anyone can be a big fan when youre watching a historically fun team. Sorry, I live in Chicago and once again tonight my neighborhood will be swarmed by drunk 22-year old hockey fanatics who can't tell you what position Chris Chelios played. Let's keep this PWO - transport Punk to the 80s as a Hogan challenger. Is he closer to Savage or Perfect in success?

Punk's been super passionate about the Hawks since at least 2013.

What do you guys think of Dave's steadfast contention that NJPW is 1987 Crockett? I see where he's coming from, but to me Okada is the big difference.

If you like lucha, then Arena Mexico has to have the highest volume of great matches of any arena. If you're more of a puro guy, it has to be Korakuen Hall. If you lean towards American, a little trickier depending on your preference - I'd say the Mid-South Coliseum has to be the winner based off of weekly shows there for 25 years with such great talent for a lot of tha time.

I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone argue 2000 as the peak because of all the great TV matches. It's usually pay-per-view matches that people like, and the booking was also solid to great most of the time. Now, instead of one or the other, we have neither. We don't get great PPV matches anymore? I would have to disagree on that. Lesnar/Reigns, Lesnar/Rollins/Cena, Bryan/Reigns, Cena/Owens, etc. My point was just that as brutal as the 3-hour format is in a lot of ways, we have gotten spoiled with the amount of good wrestling available. There was not a RAW in 2000 that had two matches as good as the Montreal RAW with Ambrose/Rollins and Zayn/Cena. Cena/Cesaro last year was a throwaway match only hardcores remember and it was better than anything from 98-2000 on TV.

I just don't think you can put on a 3-hour TV show every week, year after year, and keep people engaged all the time. I'm a big apologist of the current product, but you have to be realistic about what it is. DVR that thing and start about 90 minutes in so you can skip the Truth-Miz match 140 minutes into the show and not lose your mind. It is interesting, though. Almost everyone considers 2000 to be WWE's TV peak. But if you go back and look at results, it's amazing how many shows only had one match longer than 4 minutes. We've gotten spoiled with the amount of great wrestling matches on TV. But you have to fight to get it.

Owens is heading to the main roster and is advertised going forward with house show matches against Cena. It looks like HHH really does see something in guys like him and Zayn and they weren't just getting pushed to give NXT indy cred.

Memphis is probably my favorite TV show ever and one of the main reasons is that every week had the urgency of a go-home show. Alabama was the same way. So I can definitely see as a writer where booking in two week segments would be fun. But it would be really hard to keep the PPVs special while doing 3 hours of RAW every week.

Dave actually put the Discovery memo in the Observer this week - it noted that many advertisers for the station had TNA on their Do Not Advertise list.

I have no problem with women getting main events, but that means they should be just as good of overall performers as WWE's male headliners, or else it's just a novelty/charity thing. I'm not sure the current women fit that bill outside of Sasha Banks.

What about the huge Seth Rollins push over the last year?

Man, watching the way Sasha was working that arm last night like a grizzled vet from the 80's - she's become one of my favorite wrestlers in the world, up there with Negro and Joe and Bryan. Unbelievable stuff.

Vince still owns all of the stock and makes all of the final decisions. He can just fire the people who are disloyal to him and find new yes-men. He can cut HHH out of the will and cost him 9 figures. Vince steps down when he wants to.

It tells you they think Mayweather may make them more money one day and Chyna won't.

Lets be honest, though. Most wrestling fans have forgiven and forgotten when it comes the Austin/Debra stuff. It's too inconvenient not to. He was and still is so entertaining. Who here vows to never watch Hart/Austin at SS96 again or not enjoy listening to Austin's podcast interview with Lawler. If a wrestler I don't enjoy did the same thing, like a Dragon Gate guy, I would probably always bring it up. But with Austin? Eh, it was his one bad moment, he's sorry, should he be ostracized for the rest of his life for one mistake, etc. I'm not saying I'm morally right in this, it just makes my life as a wrestling fan easier. And I think a lot of people are the same.

So what's all this fun at the Observer board about an older wrestling figure getting mad at Dave because of Todd's 80s Observer recap audio segments and Todd subsequently disappearing?