Matt D

And there's the Moolah reference again.

Presumably, the issue, then, is Vince producing him.

My guess about the Bo thing is China.

They just did that a few days ago. It's up to Buzz vs Rich to beat Wahoo vs Race now. They should roll over and put up a Krupp vs Madril match or something.

Words to follow in the next week:

Pro wrestling comfort food. Sting vs Flair at ~10 minutes with a slightly shorter second act and a slightly more elaborate third act with a second bit of heat. The crowd was into it and ready to play along. Bayley was very over. There were some fun moments, mainly centered around Charlotte stooging (Flair Flop, trying to leave with the belt, some of her cut offs). A little bit of dissonance between how Bayley was portrayed in the match and how lightning and opportunistic the finish felt, but other than that, this was a nice bit of distilled pro wrestling.

And then there those goobers in the front row who spend the whole first fall waving.

I think the idea is that TNA offered to pay Storm a lot of money and then did not have said money to pay him with.

Yeah, Dick Kroll being there definitely made it feel more special too. I thought that Boesch (who I love on commentary) was a little more subdued given the situation as well. Glad you guys enjoyed it.

Quick thoughts: Every time they hit each other in any way, shape, or form. it was awesome. The repeated targeting of the stomach by Race to shape transitions and key moments in the match was awesome. Wahoo's selling was awesome. Wahoo's butterfly suplexes were awesome. The valuation of Race's vertical suplex was awesome. The fight that almost broke out in the front row towards the end was awesome. The holds, while well worked, were headlocks, and while they moved in and out of them sort of interestingly, it wasn't quite enough. Race, especially, really dropped a ball in the second fall by not using some sort of stomach hold. This was very much a NWA title match. It was very much a Race defense, though the two out of three structure meant that he took a little more than he might otherwise. It had all the pros and cons of that. Race stooged well and bled well. I just wish the holds were a little more interesting though they were absolutely well worked. There's a moment on a rope break where you can clearly see Wahoo call for a headbutt in the break. And you don't care. At all. Because the headbutt was that amazing. Just like every other headbutt Race threw in the match. I'm so glad we got to see this. I wish, even more, that we could have seen them in a non-title strap match, though.

Someone on DVDVR posted this as coming up this week: 05/30/1951 – Texas Rasslin’: Thesz vs Gunkel Journey back in time to see Lou Thesz defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Ray Gunkel in a 2-Out-of-3 Falls Match. 09/23/1964 – Gagne-Metrics Learn a different way to get in shape and feel great with Gagne-Metrics, courtesy of the Verne Gagne Foundation for Physical Fitness. 03/16/1961 – Gino ‘Gorilla Monsoon’ Marella The dominance of the late Gorilla Monsoon is on display in this hidden gem, as Dave Ruhl tries to defeat Gino Marella for a monetary prize. 02/11/1969 – NWA Title: Funk, Jr. vs Kiniski Witness Dory Funk Jr. establish his legacy when he battles the legendary Gene Kiniski for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. 01/12/1976 – Andre The Giant Feat Of Strength Discover why Andre The Giant earned the moniker of The Eighth Wonder of The World through these impressive Feats of Strength. 06/12/1976 – McMahon Interviews Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali uses his extraordinary charisma to show his determination to dominate the wrestling world in an interview with Vince McMahon. 07/07/1982 – Roddy Piper vs Jack Brisco Will the dirty and underhanded tactics of Roddy Piper cost him when he challenges Jack Brisco for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship? 09/22/1980 – Champs Collide: Race vs Backlund Styles clash when NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race collides with WWE Champion Bob Backlund to see who is the Undisputed Champion. 10/23/1983 – The Last Battle Of Atlanta In this historic confrontation, Buzz Sawyer and Tommy Rich battle inside a Steel Cage while Paul Ellering is confined to a cell of his own. 01/20/1987 – Ric Flair vs Barry Windham The allure of championship gold leads Barry Windham to push Ric Flair to the limit in this classic bout for the NWA World Heavyweight Title. 08/19/1995 – Brothers Of Destruction Before waging war with Kane in WWE, The Undertaker traveled to Smoky Mountain Wrestling to go one-on-one with Unabomb. 09/14/1996 – South Africa: Austin vs Bret Far from their battle at Survivor Series ’96, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Bret Hart lock up in this rarely seen encounter from South Africa. 09/11/1997 – ECW: Bret Hart vs Terry Funk Go beyond the mat to relive the first of many ‘Retirement Matches’ for Terry Funk when he faces off against WWE Champion Bret Hart. 10/11/2000 – Samoa Joe vs William Regal In a sign of things to come, Triple H travels to Ultimate Pro Wrestling to witness William Regal face future NXT Champion, Samoa Joe. 04/29/2012 – FCW Champion: Seth Rollins Seth Rollins proves he has the heart of a champion early in his career by defending the Florida Heavyweight Title against Kassius Ohno. --- So uh.. Last Battle of Atlanta?

I'm looking forward to seeing 74 Lothario. That match sounds great. He was only 40. Any idea how long the Wahoo vs Harley match is, Bruce?

Join the Dave Musgrave-Steven Graham PWO Party Just add in Ivan Koloff and that's basically the Canadian Communist Party.

Fuji vs Morales was a hugely fun 7 minute sprint.

Fuji had pretty good timing when it came to interference, and his act was simple but effective when it came to mid-late 80s promos. It was nuts he won so many WON worst manager awards in a world with Frenchy Martin, Coach, and Big Daddy Dink. I think he was portrayed as more of a physical threat than most other managers and they got a lot of mileage out of that.

I hadn't seen that list before, actually. What it says is that it's very likely the two Slater vs Bock and the Rich vs Bock matches are there somewhere, which to me is great news.

That list is already incomplete, though, right? It doesn't have some of the other Thornton matches or Harley vs Andre, just to name a couple. It only has one Bock vs Brody too, and none of the Bock vs Dusty (can't remember if the one we had was a title match or not).

Hell of a trick. Can only do it once:

Also, I'm wondering when that Mephisto match is from. I don't see anything from 77 on. Most likely feels like 74 as he feuded with Lothario for the Texas title that year. Results are more scattered in the middle of the 70s though. Could be very cool.

It made me want to see the cage match, so we have to give it that. It's always really uncomfortable to see Gary Hart in physical peril post-accident. Lewin is the Randy Orton of 1979. He bores the crap out of me as a heel but I kind of love him as a cartwheeling babyface.

Someone somewhere (maybe here) said that Kendrick was wrestling exactly like they wanted Ambrose to wrestle, and I'm completely on board with that. It was pure up desperate hobo wrestling and it was awesome. Boxcar Kendrick.

While a match can stand on its own, so much of how this should be looked back upon hinges on the follow-up. As much as I think there's benefit to running with Ambrose as a strong babyface/tweener champion who wins for a long time (even if he's not exactly producing in the ring), there's much more upside to pushing Styles as a long-term champion stemming from this. We've seen the card for Backlash. Smackdown needs consistently high-quality main events to carry cards and to take up large chunks of the temporal real estate. They just don't have the roster size and depth to fill out cards. Styles, built up in this specific, definitive way, is a very workable solution to that problem.

I hadn't really watched this back at Summerslam and people's comments led me not to watch it after that. I was perfectly okay with this. I loved the teases for the top rope AA. I thought the submissions sequence was good though I wish there was more leg selling from Cena after the fact. They were even talking about how it hurts his strength and he wasn't selling it. Mauro may be my least favorite play-by-play announcer ever. He hurt the match at a number of points. I was, frankly, expecting a lot more in the way of finisher spam. It's pretty broken up. We've seen matches a lot worse in the last few years. It's certainly far better than most of the BS Brock does (and that his very presence creates). The ending felt appropriate. You can even say it was Styles constant struggling (and he made Cena earn almost everything) that let him kick out of the top rope AA. He was elbowing him in the skull the entire time. Things like that matter, if they make them matter. I think they did in this match. All that said, and this is going to sound absolutely crazy coming from me, but... All that said, I think the most important part of the match was the execution. I'm not sure I've ever seen a Cena match where all of his stuff looked so good. The Code Red was absolutely crisp. I loved his goofy dropkick early on. The top rope leg drop thing was picture perfect. He didn't bother with the stupid stunner, but his body cutter thing looked exactly like it should. He had that one clothesline which took off Styles' head. And Styles was just as good if not better. The forearms both hit dead on. I don't even understand how he managed some of the submissions reversals. Part of the calf crusher's visual effectiveness is that it comes at a weird and unsettling angle in the set up and that played into those submission reversals so well. There was a snap and a zing to everything. I'm not sure if without that, the match would have held up in that sort of dream match, top of the top, two men at the very best of their game, way that they were presenting it, and you need it to hold up to justify what they were doing. And while I didn't love all of the specifics of the selling, they sold the overarching story of the match and that was struggle, oneupsmanship, and perseverance. I thought the end worked as well as any match in the modern era that was so heavily carried by self-conscious WWE acting (and a lot of that was JBL hitting his mark and it actually representing what Cena was expressing in the ring as opposed to earlier points in the match where they'd bring something up that wasn't representative of what was happening).

Do we even have a singles Wahoo vs Race match on tape up until now? There's some garbage footage of tags, I know.