Matt D

Part of me wonders if we're not getting Cena vs Shane at Mania one of these years.

And again, that's still a main event match, not an interesting seven minute Nick Kozak vs foreign heel undercard match. But it is not like you can really blame them.

Considering what you just said, they would have little logical need to post anything that hadn't already been converted and already posted for years if ever. Plus never the real bottom of the card stuff. While we're interested in that, it might damage the "brand."

So, there was a sense in the 90s that AJPW was superior because it had clean finishes. You can see that in the sheets. On the other hand, JCP was destroyed in part by years of unsatisfying Dusty Finishes. I think we're all a bit more nuanced than that though. It's about execution and moderation.

I can relate to that too. But if the end result is not good nor fun to watch, I'm not gonna enjoy that more than a really good match that I've seen before. It's gonna be a footnote. It's a balance. Plus with the really good matches that I've seen before that I go back and rewatch, there's always new things to pick up on based on other watching I've done and changes in me.

One thing that plays a little off of what people have been saying is that I'm much more interested in watching a wrestler's performance than looking for a great match. Moreover, I want to learn something from a match that I didn't know before. I'd rather watch a three star match which puts a wrestler in a situation I haven't seen him in before than a four and a half star match which has a lot of elements I've seen again and again from a certain wrestler. I like looking for understanding as I watch. I like an element of learning.

We more or less did when this back after GWE: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33616-what-did-you-learn-about-your-fandom-from-gwe/ I guess it'd be interesting to think about how things have changed in the year since then. I have a lot less time so I'm much less likely to go out of my way to watch something just to be part of the conversation. I think I'm pretty consistent in my tastes though, for good or ill (I imagine I frustrate Loss to a degree though I think it's probably somewhat refreshing too). I wish there was more time in the day. I wish I had more time to review things and write. I wish I had time to do some of the projects I want to do. I wish I had time to properly argue with Jerome. I haven't even had time to catch Reigns vs Cena yet, let alone the Mae Young Classic or anything else I'm supposed to be watching this year.

If that match was rated the drizzling shits then I think the issue is with the rating system.

I think that this caused a ton of damage with a subset of casuals and maybe prevented an even further opening up of things and that hit at the base a bit more, if that makes sense?

Anecdotally, it had a lot of mainstream appeal. You always hear that women were heavily into it. I remember it having a ton of buzz at the time and then people leaving in droves afterwards.

Don't worry. They blow it, ending the boom.

Especially as it has a monopoly?

Except in both cases, it actually doesn't mean anything, really. I've seen plenty of movies with critical/public consensus which I thought were not good at all, so it's never an argument to me. (it works better the other way around usually, when there's a consensus on something being really horrible, it usually is, although there are exceptions) Isn't the issue not whether or not it matters to you but whether or not it's used by enough people to move the needle, either commercially or as it pertains to reputation in general? I think we all appreciate the fact that you don't care what critics say and some of us don't care either (others use the RT aggregate as one factor in how to manage the large amount of media available at our fingertips in 2017, for instance). But again, the discussion isn't about what you or I or Coffey does but what the larger community does or doesn't do based on this.

I suppose it's telling he's published books on his Obits and not a compilation of his star ratings.

My point stands that here, at least we can have a conversation about it. It may not be a pleasant conversation, nor is it one anyone wants to see between the two of us right now, but we can have it.

I know sometimes it's frustrating to people who are sick of hearing about it but it keeps coming up for a reason. When people venture elsewhere, almost anywhere, they see it. It's a huge disconnect to so many of the conversations we've had here over a span of years and it's the majority, the wide majority, and furthermore, if you try to explain things to them, they think you have to be kidding. One narrative of this place (and i joked that it was a WON watchdog group when I first really started posting here six or seven years ago) is that in the historiography of modern wrestling, execution of moves, bumping, and workrate in general have been overvalued to the detriment of character portrayal, selling, crowd manipulation, and a thousand little tricks. Basically "hard skills" instead of "soft skills." It keeps coming back to the forefront because that value skewing shows up again and again elsewhere. It's ingrained to the point that it's impossible to ignore if you talk about wrestling anywhere else (and even if you watch a lot of wrestling in 2017) since it's become so metatextual on some ways. Between turnaround, the change to the WWE house style, and the rise of social media, it's probably going to get worse, not better, and we'll still be talking about it in 7 more years.

To be fair, one difference is that it's leading to a couple of good matches, no?

You seem to be the outlier on Reigns/Cena. I won't be able to see it for a few days at least and really, given my time constraints right now, wasn't going to watch it at all given the feedback. Care to go into more detail? As someone who also enjoyed Reigns/Cena, I gotta tell you that I'm generally fan of the WWE "Big Match John" formula. As such, I really enjoyed the AJ Styles match at the start of the year. If you didn't enjoy that, this will probably not be for you. It's on the lower end of his big matches but I thought what was there worked really well. I enjoyed how it progressed and the spots they were able to get in and I thought it paced itself quite well. I seem to be in the minority so there you go. "Big Match John" feels like a different creature after the Owens feud (after the Bryan match?).

You seem to be the outlier on Reigns/Cena. I won't be able to see it for a few days at least and really, given my time constraints right now, wasn't going to watch it at all given the feedback. Care to go into more detail?

Second best news I had all day! Glad to hear it.

Even blonde, bloated, late WWF Bravo?

I'm still iffy on this. For instance, I'll do serious work at some point to prove that John Studd is hugely underrated as a stooging, heat-seeking heel due to the critical over emphasis on workrate and execution (two areas where he doesn't excel). That doesn't mean he's one of my favorites. It just means that I think he should be ranked as middle of the pack overall (and very good at certain elements) instead of one of the worst ever. This, on the other hand, seems more like personal favorites where you look past their flaws for various reasons. I could say Sandow because I watched him coming up in MA indies and was hugely entertained by him back in 2000 or so. I think more accurate would be 2010s Rey Bucanero, who I gained a personal connection for when I was watching a lot of 2006 CMLL to really figure out week to week lucha, and then later went back and watched a lot of the earlier GdI tags. He's obviously lost a step but I still enjoy it when he tries to go in a big singles match or when he's paired with interesting opponents. He's got a lot of personality in the ring without some of the failings of Ultimo Guerrero (Structurally, though he makes up for it in presence) or Mr. Niebla (TOO much clowning and too much booze). He worked up to Hechicero's level this year, for instance, but he's better as a role player in a trios match.

While, yes, I absolutely hope that he genuinely and earnestly improves his quality of life and overall health through this, I'm pretty certain he's going to find some way to monetize the entire thing and work a bunch of people instead. Wooooo?

On to Disc 2: Hogan vs Earthquake: Did you hear that crowd when Quake came out and they realized it was the main event. That's probably my single biggest takeaway on this taping, just how into everything this crowd was. It's so refreshing and earnest. Ah well. I liked this a lot. Great layout. It's funny that Hogan's not afraid to belabor his inability to get Quake down with one shot but Roma or the Rockers weren't. Perfect layout, really. It's interesting how active Jimmy Hart was here. This is his biggest angle in his entire WWF run and he well knew it. Dibiase vs Bossman: I know they had some other matches after the turn that probably made tape but I don't remember any. This started just like the Hogan match with a heel beat down ambush. I wonder just how many of these dark show matches started like that. Dibiase had a lot of interesting stuff when he was in control, little headbutts and elbows to the top of the skull and the fist drops, of course, and a killer clothesline, just a lot of varied and mean looking offense. He looked really good here all around. That post-match sure doesn't come off well in 2017 does it? Warrior/Tornado vs Rude/Hennig: Easily the most purely entertaining thing on the set so far. Warrior was such a nut. I love him in a tag setting because he's so unpredictable. Even his own partner doesn't know what he'd do for the most part. Pre-match, he seems to be giving Kerry the claw, for instance. He's the best guy on the apron because he just climbs the ropes and waves his arms around like a lunatic and he's the most believable guy in the world to come in and screw his own partner by distracting the ref. Total joy to see Rude and Hennig as a team. They worked together so well with Rude stooging and Hennig bumping to insane degrees. I don't love his WWF run for a lot of reasons but bumping for Kerry and Warrior is pretty much the ideal. Because this was more of a house show style match, he was going even more extreme. Against other opponents it wouldn't have worked but here, given the cartoony element, it was like a Saturday Morning Slam match or something. Best part of the match? I might have read too much of this, but I don't think I did. So at one point, Hennig's got a standing toehold on Kerry (he spun with it once to pull him back to his corner, but after that he just hung on to it). They'd just swarmed the leg during a Warrior ref distraction/cut off. So Heenan gives them a signal from the outside, Hennig reaches over and grabs Rude's hand, the ref starts to notice, Heenan yell's "BREAK!" and they heels let go before the ref sees it. That in itself would have all been great, but then Hennig shouts "I'M GOING TO BREAK HIS LEG!" to cover, to the ref, why Heenan shouted that. Is that the best thing or what?