Matt D

How do you make a comeback when you were FORCED to retire in the first place? Unless he's gonna wrestle somewhere else and I don't get the sense he would want to go slum it in GFW or ROH, especially considering how unhappy he looked when he got inducted into TNA's Hall of Fame.

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/bah-gawd-its-the-rattlesnake-1797324485

This is an interesting thing to look at. I'd be most curious what you find in the way of variation (versatility) in their matches. As someone who was most tuned in when they were wrestling Goldust and the Shield and that just dips in now and again these days, it does feel like a lot of sameness from them to me.

Great show. Great matches. Great interplay. This episode has me ready to rewatch big chunks of the feud. And of course, most of all, great concern for your valued and valuable friend. You guys were Paul Boesch's Army, the Space City Irregulars. Great touch on the switch of the ending song too.

He's going to end up as Alexa Bliss' Boo Bradley.

He's 2000'Juvi?

I tend to like Beau on the area specific shows more than BtS, personally.

It was great seeing the Ladd turn for instance.

The sense I get with the reels, and I may be wrong, but I don't think I am, is that the footage is not packaged together well on them. you get different falls of matches on separate reels, interviews all packed together, start and end bumpers here and there. You don't have a coherent product which is why it wasn't presented to us by Bruce as a coherent product. They'd have to basically reconstruct the old TV show from scratch by putting a puzzle together with the pieces flipped upsidedown (and some missing). We have a Hidden Gems thing coming up in August. That will have a number of single matches presented without context. Do I think we'd get a few (5-6) of the biggest Houston matches they'd have a year in that format if WWE had the library? Absolutely. But the content on the reels is not in a format for WWE to present it to us in any other way that they'd be comfortable presenting it. The x # of matches a week format we got from NWA On Demand is absolutely the best we can hope for from anyone (though they could go back and recreate cards as more and more matches end up on the platform, yes). I know you want to see the footage. I do too, but it'd just sit if WWE had it.

There's a much higher chance we see more with Corgan than with WWE.

Re: 3/1/86 show. Solie is such a worm. I can't understate how good the territory was in March, 1986 though. Pritchard just turned heel. Ron Fuller was back wrestling. Mr. Wrestling II was in as a heel part of the Stud Stable. Nightmares were still going strong. Adrian Street had the pink belt back. The Bullet drama which should have been played out was reaching a dramatic point as the LLT stip was almost over on Bob Armstrong. Golden/(robert)Fuller were working like the world's sloppiest but most daring wrecking crew dismantling limbs and having just gotten the titles against Tommy and Johnny Rich in a way that kept the Nightmares in the mix. Stubbs was unmasked and a total jerk as the Alabama champion. All of the Armstrongs were back. Just great stuff. I've enjoyed almost everything up til now, especially some of the big angles and certain talents especially (heel Robert Fuller, Nightmares, etc), but this is the first time where it's all been working this well.

This was just briefly mentioned, but I want to go deeper on the idea that Masters vs McIntyre could be a "memorable moment." I hadn't been thinking that way but I do think it's valid in the same way that something like Jumping Bomb Angels vs Glamour Girls at the Royal Rumble or Tiger Match vs Dynamite at MSG might be. The problem is that Masters vs Mcintyre was only really lauded within a subgroup of a much more schismed fandom relative to the others, but it was a touchpoint for that year for that group. The first two were examples of what "smarks" thought wrestling COULD be packed into the morass of what the WWF currently was. There was an element of that to Masters vs McIntyre, though I think it was pushing up both against what was being pushed on top in the WWE at the time AND against what was considered to be tops critically from an insider perspective (a lot of that coming from Masters being a more traditional selling-based babyface instead of a moves based babyface just as that shift was starting to take place more and more in the mainstream),

I just turned back. I swear I thought he was going to dislocate Jinder's arm when he raised it in victory. (also, guys, just to help you through, this was just posted with way better vq than what's been on youtube for the last year and it's pretty great:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS3tT748zAM

Is it too late to make Maria Brother Love's daughter?

I mean, when you get the opportunity, I know some other matches you couls watch... At this rate, with NWAonDemand down, i'm going to have to lose bets just to figure out what to watch. I'll have both of yours watched/written up by the end of this week barring disaster. I'm running casual and noteless tonight. (which means I'm not writing up this Bate/Dunne one either, though I will say that I love how into everything Dunne is. Surly teenager isn't necessarily a hard character, but the commitment is charming).

I made it about this far through the Nak match and while I think a bearhug is a good heat-generating move for Corbin, I decided I'm going to go back and watch that Dunne/Bate takeover match that people really liked instead. I'm just not good at modern WWE PPVs I guess. There's no urgency anymore and as much as I like you guys, without that, the shared live experience is good for Mania and little else. Nothing feels like it matters anymore.

I caught most of that tag match. It needed to be about 40% more Tag-Team-Y and 30% less Triple Threat Guy On The Floor-y.

This is going to make the hour and a half drive I have to do right now much better.

How much of this was losing Ward?

Wasn't his big face turn about Santa Claus?

Did post comeback Brock even draw more than once?

They should mention it in a measured way. Hell they do that on Ninja Warrior. "Here's a football player. He's big and strong and explosive, but football players don't always transfer well into Ninja warrior because..." There's such an inferiority complex in wrestling that the idea of someone saying "Brock's been competing in MMA circles for the last few years but WWE is a different game with different rules and different needs (stamina in a non-round system, different things being legal, pressures of submissions different with rope breaks, I don't know)" would never, ever happen. Steph showing ass for the first time in a year to Ronda didn't do anyone a bit of good when the night was over.

To be fair, I never quite liked it then either. I'm consistent on this one. Speaking of that, it's not kayfabe so much as consistency across a card (or, hate to use the word, but "universe") that's an issue. Brock is at least physically massive in a way that's not replicated with females.

I'd be happier with Stacey's deranged Diva's Revenge angle than this.