Matt D

I started with the first episode before it became Continental and I was not expecting that Boomer Lynch (Oh hey, it's Tom Lintz) promo. Welcome to Alabama I guess, right? I shouldn't have been laughing at the suggestion that Cash somehow had an illegal head. Humungous/Armstrong vs Fuller/Flair in a cage sounds like the coolest thing ever.

There's nothing quite like Johnny talking about midgets, I guess.

I haven't had a lot of time to comment. I was really high on Tiger vs Tully too. I think we've been underrating Tiger a bit. There's a way he slips into holds that feels so natural. Very little in that match seemed rote or staged or like something they'd done a thousand times. It was all organic pieces, capitalizing on specific moments, even if it meant that they came at something in a slightly unique angle or in an order that was a little unorthodox. That layered a believably onto everything, bolstered by the selling and the reactions. It's the sort of thing you get out of a match from 1981 that you'd almost never see in even the best matches today. And Nick, I do wonder if it's a case that main events were just on different reels? Maybe they weren't aired as much as a way to drive people to go to the live show? They'd air everything but the main events sometimes? (even if he had them). It does feel like we haven't been getting those main events lately. The Gino vs Wahoo match from this show, for instance, was the one that Boesch was talking about the next week, lauding Gino for how tough he was and how much he bled. Obviously, I want Wahoo vs Bockwinkel as much as anyone in the world, and Funk vs Wahoo sounds as good as anything we've gotten. That's not to say we haven't gotten great stuff, the Duo vs Casey/Tiger and Tully vs Tiger matches were both 4* from Pete, and well deserved. The midget stuff was great (again, with a bunch of different and unique spots), and I enjoyed Robinson vs Dory too, especially Boesch's commentary. But boy do those main events ever sound great.

A lot of that is that we haven't seen Santo like we have some of the others. It'd be a fun project, though, to do a mini GWE style thing (or a tournament) with the Parent/Child combos.

Hey, I don't even have a list of quality singles matches that do involve gimmicks.

I appreciated that he made an attempt to work like the Spoiler what with the stomach claw used so heavily and some of the top rope offense (though not much). I always hate when you get a fake Destroyer who doesn't work at all like the Destroyer, for instance. I'm only through the singles midget match but I love how we see spots in these that we've never seen before. It really does feel like the circus coming around every year and having to change up the act at least a little. Boesch really seemed to appreciate it as well with his "There IS something new under the sun!" line.

The talking point is that his deal is having good gimmick matches but not much else. I'm not sure if that actually holds up.

Bob Orton, Sr./Jr. Have to be up there too. Shame we don't have more of Sr. I mean, same with Warren/Nick Bockwinkel. Or Gory Guerrero/Pick a Kid. Really, though. The answer has to be Johnny/Greg Valentine, right? No one listed here feels all that close in ring from the footage we have.

Hey, awesome. Welcome to the club. Let us know what you think of some matches once you start watching.

It's going to take a little bit of getting used to (and to figure out what site to go to directly instead of just the landing page). I was still having trouble with my tablet (and it's an older tablet so that's probably on me). I think I've got it now that I figured out I need to turn the thing around a couple of time to access search/video. I didn't get to the end of the process last night because I needed the PC to reset the password. I'll test it full on tonight. It did work fine on my phone, though. I'm pretty sure a "Recently Added" section has to be coming.

He should be a heel for less than a year. He should be dominant. He should steamroll people.

I guess I was just saying he would have had opportunities, ten years of opportunities (and in that regard, we ought to look at Hogan from 82-99 or so, right? Not just from 84-93). Then it comes down to this: Would Cena have become just another guy eventually if he had turned or is there something innately special about him that would have allowed him to be able to make the most of that opportunity, and come out of it with even a broader appeal?

On the one hand, I'll buy an argument that he only has his longevity due to this weird twist of fate (along with his ability to wrestle as an Ace of course and his workaholic attitude and the make-a-wish stuff). On the other, who else were they going to push? I think he gets pushed consistently either way, especially during the years and years of a split brand.

Could he have been a potentially bigger draw as a singular entity over the last many years if they turned him for a while ten years ago?

Pretty soon it'll be how much people spend on gacha in the mobile game.

This plus expanding and running a lot more international shows. WWE reached the saturation point in the US a long time ago which is why they've been constantly breaking into new markets every year for the past decade as opposed to doing a few Euro tours, Canada, and a Japanese tour. I don't know that turning Cena would or wouldn't have made more or less money. I'm not arguing for it either direction. What I am saying is that WWE not going with "wrestling 101" booking when it came to Cena sure worked out pretty well for them, and there's no reason to think it won't work out with Roman as well. Actually, isn't what you're saying that they found ways to deal with the dwindling returns of not picking up new US fans? You can't say this is the saturation point when we've seen booms before. And they had to find ways to deal with the dwindling returns because Cena WASN'T bringing in the same amount of fans as stars of previous generations, right? So obviously, while they've managed that shortfall by tapping new markets and finding new revenue streams, maybe it didn't work all that well for them because they had to do so in the first place?

Controlled for inflation? I don't know. It's like blaming Sting for 1992. Sure, you can do it, but it's not the whole picture. Plus we're dealing with a counter-factual. Could he have drawn more if they turned him? I think so. You don't. Neither of us can prove it. Do we think that there was a boom at any point in the period after 2001? It sure doesn't feel that way. Are they just better at getting money out of a smaller pool of people?

Which is not at all how WWE has operated for years, so I don't know why anyone would expect them to suddenly start back up. Wrestling 101 says you turn John Cena when crowds were booing him 3 months into his title reign. Instead, the hate got worse and worse and worse and yet Cena became the biggest star the industry had produced since Rock and Austin, and he's ended up making the company more money than anyone. Has he?

Wrestling 101 is 95% of the time just simple logic and coherence.

Do you think they've properly utilized that data to maximize their profits?

How do you know they didn't create that portion to a large extent by not listening to the fans? Vince sure as hell isn't going out there and shutting his eyes and listening. (Unless he really is blind!)

It's happened throughout wrestling history. The whole Eddie Graham idea of "listening to the crowd." Heel gets familiar enough with the crowd that he starts to get over with pockets as a face and that pressure builds up. There are generally cool elements to being a bad guy, especially a tough/edgy bad guy. He goes babyface. It's pro wrestling 101. I absolutely think that Cena would have ultimately been more over with everyone as a babyface if he spent a year as a heel at some point. I think it would work with Reigns. I especially think it would work with Reigns because 1) He's become an extremely good pro wrestler, 2) he'd make a great heel right now because he has so much to be resentful about and 3) he can portray the exact sort of heel that would get him over huge as a face with all facets of the audience after a certain point. We've basically already seen that. I get that you're annoyed with people or whatever, and I'm sick of explaining to people why Reigns is actually a really good pro wrestler and having them not even want to engage on the conversation, too, but that doesn't mean that a heel turn wouldn't make him a bigger face in the end. It absolutely would. I don't think the Cena Sucks/Let's Go Cena stuff has actually been a boon to business relative to what something more definitive could have done. I honestly don't.

I tend to look for meaning in matches. For resonance. For weight. Selling is the language of imparting meaning on actions in wrestling. It's the way to show the audience that something matters. Consistent selling over multiple matches is a big part of that. Symbols are defined over time and that shapes how they are utilized. That said, no two matches are the same and no two stories need be the same, and it is situational. It's not a one-size fits all.

Alexa killed it in that opening segment. It's something we've seen a bunch of times before in one permeation or another but that's rarely worked as well as that one did. She's the most nuanced one dimensional character ever.