Beast

I hear that. But aside from giving into a return, it's the notion that the return is coming for the Saudi's WWE PR extravaganza #2. That whole deal is always going to leave a terrible taste in my mouth. I stopped watching WWE completely after WrestleMania and I don't see myself ever coming back the way its going. There's more than enough classic footage and shows on YouTube and I'm enjoying it.

Knox County Mayor Glen Jacobs? I shouldn't care, but it really bums me out that almost a decade retired (and steadfast against returning), Michaels would cave for a Saudi PR show.

I only listened to first half (long drive), but I was surprised by how good it was. I'd rather them use what's happening as a base for tangents. Much more interesting than the straight commentary I was expecting.

Eric posted a tweet that was something like "At All In, did anyone ask Dave Meltzer what steroids he uses?". And then Dave/Wade subtweeted. I guess Dave gave more background on his board about Eric sat at a booth with no line, drinking gin and tonics while Dave/Bryan/Wade/Bruce had a never-ending line at the Starrcast Autograph signings.

Finally watched this. I have an aversion to long matches (30+), but gave the AXS version a try. Ross and Barnett were perfectly fine and certainly helped me get into the action more. Thought the first half was very strong, including many spots that made me audibly gasp. Both table spots were bonkers (double foot stomp, dropkick off top), but that top-rope dragon suplex was gnarly and should have been the finish based on when it happened. I was with the match all the way past the first Rainmaker, but when that finish sequence started, boy was I done. Too many Rainmakers, too many Rainmakers that Omega recovered immediately from, even when Okada didn't go for the pin. Too many big, big, big moves hit (like Omega's Rain-Trigger) without pins or close calls. The last 5-minutes were disastrous and completely took away everything that came before. It was frustrating and it felt like a beauty pageant or something where Omega and Okada just wanted to show off what they can do, without playing into any of the stuff that came before. I just can't fathom how Omega constantly hitting big moves in-between Okada hitting his own finisher works. It doesn't help either guy and it devalued the finish. I don't do star ratings, but I'd probably go 4.25. I could see Dave giving it 5 stars because it's his deal, but in hindsight the 6 star rating feels even more of a PR stunt than it did back then. Can't care about the ratings of someone who thinks this is greater than (almost) all matches that came before it.

Those last two are beautiful.

This went on for a very long time, even cutting into Okerlund's Royal Rumble Report, showcasing how serious the situation was. I like what they were going for and since Doink had been around for over 2 months without stepping foot in the ring, this succeeded in pushing him as a major threat to the good guys. Vince must have saw Crush as a top tier player for 1993 which makes his heel turn in half a year so puzzling. In some ways he replaced Luger, but he must not have gotten over to the extent Vince wanted. On the other hand, Doink was on fire and ended up being paired with Bret Hart at Summerslam in his last big heel match. I assume the face turn came because he was connected with the crowds so much, but then of course they changed his entire character, added Dink, and he soon lost all of the momentum Bourne had built up. I wonder if face Doink would have worked if Bourne hadn't left...

Match in full is fine, lots of armwork. Reminded me of Armstrong and Benoit from the Clash, only the trading holds segment was twice as long. Neither Rhodes or Steamboat played up the face/face aspect at all so it was a long ten minutes of very little personality shown. The star power was big enough that the crowd didn't turn against them at all, but this was a very bland match for most of it, despite the various holds looking good. Sacrilegious opinion - Windham's Implant DDT looks just as good (if not better) than Jake's.

Somewhat underwhelming. Sting had some massive offense on Vader and the Windham-Rhodes dynamic is strong. Orndorff fits right into the uppercard scene for now. The teams in this match were subject to a long game of musical chairs. Originally it was Sting/Rhodes/Simmons/Hammer (why?) vs. Vader/Windham/Rude/Barbarian. Rude had the same injury that took him out of Starrcade, Hammer was declared injured the day of the show (also knocking him out of the Atlas arm wrestling deal), Barbarian was kicked off of the heel team due to his association with Cactus, and Simmons was laid out immediately before the match. Orndorff was a late replacement for Rude and of course, Cactus shows up for the last 60 seconds here as a "replacement" for Simmons. This never had much of a flow and Cactus showing up while the faces were in control anyway is lame. Good news is three solid main event feuds are continued out of this. At this time, WCW feels much more exciting than WWF, even with Raw beginning. I'll be curious to see how long this momentum carries on, assuming it lasts until at least Watts is fired.

All four guys looked great and these two teams have great chemistry, both with and against each other. Austin is already magnetic with every little thing he does feeling authentic. Douglas is at his in-ring peak here and it struck me how weird it is that this era remains his only interaction with Steamboat, Pillman & Austin. If these matches only get better, that's exciting. Felt like the perfect sampler of what would be a multi-month program.

Started slow, but Benoit got a lot of chances to shine here and Armstrong was game for all of it. Jesse was huge in putting Benoit over and I imagine that if Watts had stayed, Benoit would have gotten some semblance of a push. Pairing him with Scorpio for Superbrawl (who'd just beaten Scotty Flamingo one match prior to this one) was the type of thing that'd get this style over. We may have seen a cruiserweight division (named or not) 3 years earlier. Hell, maybe Watts would have brought in Waltman before WWF scooped him up.

The Luger/Flair connection stood out to me as well this watch. I assume they knew Flair was gone by this point, but Heenan bringing in Luger to ally with Flair (and maybe Razor) is a very interesting scenario. One of those thought provoking near-misses of wrestling. One may have turned face quickly as WWE was getting very heel heavy, leading to Razor & Luger both turning in the latter half of the year.

This post aged well.... Sorry Charles, couldn't resist. In all seriousness, can we stop thinking that every Roman heel "moment" is a turn? His merchandise outsells the absent Cena now and to Vince he's the franchise. They will not give up and they will not turn him. We will continue to get start and stop storylines all built around Roman, whether he's champion or not. Obviously many of you enjoy that and that's cool. But the idea that WWE has any sort of master plan goes against the past 15 years (plus?) of hard evidence.

You guys are all a bunch of Charlie Brown's. Super pumped because of one show ending hot angle. Then next week (or maybe even 2-3 weeks from now) nothing will have changed. Rinse repeat. Here's a clue; if you have to debate whether Roman turned, he didn't. Remember post-Undertaker, he did the "this is my yard now" promo to 100% boos? Apparently on commentary, Cole and crew were discussing how Ambrose and Rollins made the heroic save for their best friend since Braun was trying to take advantage of his weakened state. Illogical BS over and over and over with some singular moments (WWE Trademark!) in between.

Maybe as a solo face, but him and Jerry in the 1983 run is full of fun promos like this:

This overshadows anything Dave said at this point. The context of his 35 years of covering the wrestling business and the more recent evolution of the locker room being full of performers just happy to be there. It's always been a cosmetic business and Dave is privy to WWE's mindset in that regard. But this was a learning experience, even if much of the reaction is disingenuous. Having spent the better part of the last decade listening to his weekly rants, this didn't stand out to me at all, but I guess that's the issue. I hope others take this opportunity to let him be the scapegoat and change their criticism coverage as well. Guarantee he won't deliberately talk about looks anymore and if he trips up, he'll immediately apologize and backpedal. What a day.

The wrestling fan twitter pile-on is more disturbing to me. It's like this comment exists in a vacuum. Peyton retweeting the clip must have been a big difference in the amount of reaction Dave usually receives about various things because he apologized and walked it back immediately.

It's truly astounding. Especially compared to other past uproars about Dave, this one is so nothing. Like at all. Like even if he wasn't talking about company mandated breast implants, he doesn't actually say or act in an inappropriate way.

He's talking about her main roster implants. Actually, not talking about them since he made sure to say nothing overtly, probably out of fear of this type of uproar. I'm not getting the fury. Beth Phoenix and Charlotte Flair are angry on Twitter at him now too. Are we pretending WWE wasn't a total looks based female performer company for the majority of its time as a modern promotion? And even with the new "revolution" still is pushing two skinny blondes as the champs? Dave literally barely touched upon that aspect, made sure to tip-toe and while I understand annoyance or disappointment, I'm not following the anger.

Don't know what I was expecting. Was intrigued by this, a rare matchup between Backlund and Keirn, former Florida tag partners 16 years before this. This is about 3 minutes long with Keirn fully immersed into the Skinner role and Backlund, a very bland babyface. The back and forth is surprisingly full of hiccups, with very little chemistry. Weird spots like heel Skinner blocking Backlund's atomic drop (used as a transition, rather than a finisher) and going for a roll up but being unable to hold it, leading directly into Backlund doing the same move w/ a bridge and getting the win. Keirn looks like a complete WWF character, but Backlund feels very stale even a month or so into his return. He shows very little personality and although I'm guessing Vince saw him as the '90s version of Pedro Morales in the Rock 'n' Wrestling Era, Backlund has lost the traits that made him so popular 15 years earlier. He looks old and is very bland, so it's no surprise he floundered for the next 18 months until the crazy heel turn. This had potential, but if Backlund couldn't pull anything worthwhile out of a feature match with a fellow Florida veteran, he wasn't going to be able to do anything with the New Generation of WWF wrestlers.

The quote is based on reports he received of the show. If I remember correctly, last year's tournament had a lot of editing done as well. He's right that U.S. women's wrestling is totally graded on a curve. Or more specifically, I should just say WWE because I've never heard people overpraise Shimmer. The "Women's Revolution" does leave a bad taste in my mouth. Partly because of how transparent the PR push is, but also because it's all overrated to me. There have been a lot of great WWE women's matches in the past 5 years, especially from NXT. On the main roster, I can't go over how lame everyone seems, especially because they are portrayed as subservient to Stephanie and cheer when Mother Stephanie announces news like the PPV, Royal Rumble and title belts. You can't deny Bayley and Sasha especially have lost much of their momentum from NXT the past few years. The matches are clunky. They feel way more like a theatrical performance than most other matches and there's usually a few times each match that takes me out of it because of a botch, miscommunication, or whatever. I was one of the people that was not impressed with the Royal Rumble as well, even storytelling wise. And to be clear, I don't like WWE in general right now so I'm not giving the men a pass on this. Everything feels like a performance, not a competition. They've come a long way, but once the women's matches stop getting overpraised, we'll know that it's become a normal part of WWE shows rather than a PR campaign. Last thing, I did watch WrestleMania and I did think the Ronda match was the best match on the show. I haven't watched her since, but I was impressed with that match, Stephanie included. And that's not grading on a curve.

Watched the AXS episode featuring this and Naito vs Takahashi w/Barnett & Mauro commentary. I don't know the specific background leading up to this one; commentary claimed these two were partners in NOAH and Marufuji challenged Nakamura for the IC belt, but Cagematch.net shows they teamed one time. So I'm guessing this is just a unique dream match for this NJPW PPV. Maybe I'm biased because of how disappointing the WWE run has been, but I thought Marufuji outshone Nakamura in every way. He dominated the match and if this wasn't an NJPW vs NOAH match, I'd be more annoyed that he lost. These two had fantastic chemistry for the first half with Marufuji's speed allowing him to counter just about everything, leading to a brutal piledriver on the apron early on. He works over Nakamura's neck for a while, but it gets forgotten about as the match goes on. I've also just watched the Danielson/Daniels RoH Round Robin match from '02 which is also built around neck work and this paled in comparison. Marufuji tries twice to hit his finisher before finally doing so on the third try, but Nakamura still kicked out. Again, with the way the match was building and building (and the Shiranui happening after Nakamura hit his Bomaye from the top, but didn't cover), it seemed like the perfect end. Instead Nakamura kicked out, his his finisher again twice and got the win. Not a big fan of Nakamura's style and character; he's a natural heel but isn't booked that way here. The end seemed to tease this would continue down the line, but this was it as Marufuji didn't return to NJPW for over a year and didn't interact with Nakamura when he did.

Nothing special, very forgettable hard hitting match. The Jurassic Powers are basically a 1993 Powers Of Pain and it's shocking Vince didn't bring them in to dominate his tag division. Steiners always look good, but this is a very by the numbers deal. Norton and Hercules hit a spike powerbomb on Scott that looks nasty. Actually got me annoyed because there was no reason for Scott to land straight on his head/neck, especially with two monsters holding him up. Finishing sequence is decent, but after the Scott powerbomb it was hard to believe he'd get back up and immediately take control. Looks like Hercules may have attempted the finish early as he jumps off the top to a standing Rick and ends up just punching him before immediately trying again and this time getting suplexed. Not too knowledgable of NJPW from this period, but as this was a non-title match I can only assume the writing was on the wall for the Powers as they lost the belts a few weeks after. A win over the Steiners would have been a big deal.

Took a look at a couple of Jurassic Powers matches. They're barely mentioned in past posts and I guess their reputation is unremarkable. I've only known of them from Oliver Copp's TNM7 sim fantasy write-ups from the late '90s. The name grabbed me and the randomness of Norton & Hercules is intriguing. Thought this might be the Nasties from the '94 Cactus wars, but not really. Both teams hit hard, but the match itself is very bland. Basically a Power hits some moves, gets cutoff and double teamed as a face-in-peril, rinse repeat. Norton does some fantastic selling of his bandaged arm, including having trouble crawling back to his corner and initially failing on a powerslam attempt. The Nasties double teams and general offense is very generic and while Hercules and Norton look cool in their matching singlets, there's not much here.

To think both of these guys were at this level so early in their careers. Dragon especially comes off so polished, so impressive, so self-assured. Every move, every moment feels right from both of them. It's a quality you don't see in the majority of matches even at the WWE level. This feels like a fight, with logic and consequences. Matwork was great for the first 10 minutes and actually reminded me of a UFC fight. That's nonsense I know, but the way the counters and attempts bled into each other did feel like it was following some semblance of reality. After a point it did meander, but they switched things up and it started to get more exciting. Finishers and trademark moves were used well, leading to counters and reversals that felt logical due to both men being exposed to each other so much. I can't stand that sort of thing in modern WWE main events because the counters seem so rehearsed. These ones had fight to them and the struggle is all the difference. By the time the moves are attempted again, it feels right that the opponent will be expecting it and will attempt to block. Took me until the end to realize Shamrock reffing was a deliberate callback.