Matt D

I kind of hate to say it, but the selling in and around the move didn't warrant either that or Graves' ankle excuse (which would have made sense after the anklelock). Good recoveries are important and the pancake was a good recovery, but that moment could have been made better by active (and off-script) selling, either of her ankle or of exhaustion, by Bayley.

And for me comparison it's just a helpful tool, one of many. It is a mean, certainly not an end.

Are we ranking matches are trying to understand (analyzing) them?

By purpose, I mean "what is this match trying to accomplish?"

Yeah, so, part of me really wants gordi's stuff to turn into a found footage horror tale.

I also wonder if we shouldn't be more focused on understanding, deconstructing, and classifying than ranking and rating.

I suppose what's most interesting to me, in this regard, is the intersection between the stuff outside the matches and the matches themselves. That's not an answer, but it's a step closer and broader. I care about purpose when it comes to matches. Other people generally haven't.

Watching wrestling live and watching on tape delay is absolutely the same as watching a sport live or on tape delay so long as you don't know the results/details of either. Likewise Game of Thrones.

I wish they would have done something to differentiate the titles. I'm not sure what that would be, maybe putting TV title rules on the IC title (perfect for Miz) or making the Raw tag titles six man ones (perfect for New Day) or the Smackdown women's title a tag title or something.

I look forward to the fifteen person York Foundation.

Just playing devil's advocate, what's the relative benefit to seeing MMA live?

Still are. We forget that sometimes because of the awesome bubble we've got going.

At the Rumble two years ago, we were right by the hard camera. Someone nearby had printed them all out and handed them out (Cesaro Section and other things). It's fan driven and it's amazing how far those things can spread.

The CMLL/ROH/NJPW working arrangement announced last week seems like something that could have potentially been mentioned. I guess this week you wonder how they report on this stuff without focusing heavily on the wellness policy stuff or maybe on Orton being opened up so severely, which did make Deadspin and other places, I imagine.

I really want to see what happens in a match next time Cena has to lose clean. I hope it involves sumo monster trucks.

Shane sure recovered quickly from that.

I decided it needed to be even more qualified. Probably should have gone the other way. Those kids in the front row are the best part of this match so far. They were going from giddy about the violence to ironically amused by it all to "oh shit!" and covering up.

What I'm seeing from the board tonight is the thought that (outside of Reigns, apparently) WWE Main Event Style peaked in 2014 and has been slowly declining sense as the snake eats its own tail and excess rules the day?

Well, that Got Juice sign as Lesnar passed was special.

So in other words, a political hit? It's more of a ratings famine.

I have this fun theory no one wants to listen to that Finn is the sacrificial lamb to explain the ratings due to the brand split, new TV coming back, and football starting, thus protecting Rollins.

Wrestling got worse and Cena adapted with the times?

That'd be an awesome belt for Drago in Lucha Underground. It's his personal Smoking Skull Belt.

Just saw this. Had to make the gif. Just pretend one of them is Kalisto time traveled back to 1990 so that this becomes relevant to this thread.

This just dropped. The first fall is awesome. That's about as far as I am now. Super Astro vs Fuerza is so great a match up. EDIT: Awesome primera and segunda but the tercera is bogged down a bit with submissions being broken up. Great finishing stretch though. Definitely check it out. Better use of my time than New Day tag and Ambrose vs Ziggler definitely.