Matt D

Just be thankful there's no Shane match like last time?

In general, I don't think you're spending enough time watching Classics. That stuff might not be available forever.

Tito main evented against Bock in AWA too.

We didn't realize how big Tito was in Houston. Boesch gave him the Gold Cup in 81.

I'm still hung up on Tito or Jake.

I think the problem with these lists is that it's a squishy mix of trying to quantify qualitative things. You basically have to more carefully define what a star is before starting.

Bruce, I sure don't ask for much but the date of that Moolah match you posted is the same as a Summit show. Just tell us that when you found the reel with that match, you found the Race vs Wahoo and Bockwinkel vs Lothario main events too? Because man, those sound great.

That was the closest to "in real time" as I've watched an entire show since I was actually at the Rumble a couple of years ago. I just finished, with gaps for putting the kid down. Thoughts: Jose vs Aries: I know we're stereotyped as the punch people but Jose's punch is so beautiful. I liked Aries a lot here as the slimy veteran. It was interesting how many times that they went back towards the full nelson in the finishing stretch. There were some interesting layout things all night. Also, so, so man rotation forearms or punches or clotheslines or whatever. I think Jose could be a force on the main roster if they give him a chance to keep improving and then don't cut his legs off when he gets up. Great reaction for Itami. He seemed like a star (But then just about everyone did). Oh, I loved Aries tope too. Roode vs Almas: This was the perfect night for Roode's entrance. He seemed like the biggest thing in the world because it's so fresh and the viral videos and the fans were just totally ready for it. I thought Almas did a good job winning over the crowd, actually, but he's so much better as a heel that they should just turn him. If nothing else, I have no idea why they're not giving up on the entrance gear. Come on. Roode needs to just do the Test Pumphandle Power Slam. Roode vs Nakamura would be a completely fine Takeover main event on Roode's way to the main roster. I still think Vince and HHH have to love the guy. Moon vs Kay: Billie's Psylocke as Part of the Hellfire Club gimmick is strange, but whatever. She looked good. Moon looked pretty good. The crowd was willing to get behind her. The entrance was good. I wish they would actually be a little clearer on what she's supposed to be. Cleopatra Meets the Brood? That finisher is gold. Tag match: God this was great. They had me on the near falls to the extent that I'm probably giving an emotional response. The one off the double suplex is one of my favorites (I love it as a 3D break up roll up). Then the Shatter Machine counter completely had me. I think my favorite part of all of this might have been Becky and Sasha's response to the chop block. Thanks to the colorful hair, you caught them off the corner of the screen and they were so into it at that moment. The finishing stretch was the best one the WWE's done all year, absolutely. But I'd have to rewatch to say if it was the best match. Asuka vs Bayley: I thought the post match was wonderful. It was just visceral and she could have soaked up those cheers all night. As for the match itself, I really liked the first half. I think it was the smoothest and most polished Bayley had ever looked with the roll ups and some of her high risk offense. Graves trying to cover the power bomb attempt with the ankle being hurt was good, but she wasn't selling it. That would have been fine if not for the flub cover, so who knows. Either it was intentional and built into the match, at which point the lack of selling hurt it or wasn't intentional and was a decent recovery but was pasted over by Graves in a way that didn't help things. Moreover, Bayley seemed sort of blown up for a big chunk of it. Was that just me? I still thought the emotional core of the match was there and effective though. Asuka was really into her entrance with the wavy arms going like something out of Akira or some other cultural reference point I'm not hip enough to hit. Joe vs Nakamura: Amazing entrance. I almost wish Joe had responded by coming out to no music. The tension for the first touch was like something I'm not sure I've ever seen in WWE. Joe is the guy who should be main eventing Summerslam tomorrow, not Orton, not Finn, not Rollins, not Brock. This completely avoided the Nakamura Second Act Slump because Joe was in the driver's seat. Better than any of the Finn vs Joe matches and MAYBE Nakamura's best WWE match so far. The Sami match had more fireworks but it wasn't much more but fireworks. This had more gravitas, maybe. It could just be the recency though. Literally the only thing that will make me happy tomorrow night is if Ambrose beats Ziggler, and while he's celebrating, Joe comes out of the crowd and destroys him to set up the next Smackdown title program.

Are there any stakes to this Best of 7 series?

Not posting my longform reviews to everything but I will on this one:

No, Uncle Hunter will make Nakamura a star.

Isn't there a very valid argument that Vince hired away everyone else's stars in the 80s? Tito was an ethnic main eventer in Houston before he main evented shows for Vince. Hell, Boesch put him over Bockwinkel on his big Anniversary Show.

An interesting comparison is to look at what heels old Verne fed to himself in the 80s relative to what heels old Fritz and old Watts fed to themselves in the 80s.

I forever feel that he should have turned Greg in response to Martel getting the belt.

Even when they do something like a call back to Wrestlemania, it tends to be more of an idealized, symbolic Wrestlemania. The Platonic ideal of Wrestlemania, as opposed to anything that actually happened.

My gut says that this is an ol' Parv special where you're fixiated on something, here the idea that a booker should always defy the crowd and that everything that's happened to make wrestling something you no longer love is based off of that, and you're trying to quantify and classify it, using a number of other metrics to muddy the water so it's not so blatantly clear this is what you're doing (though it is) and also because you do honestly and earnestly find all of this interesting. You roll a rock down the hill. It becomes a snowball. You still want the rock to get there though. You have completely dismissed that there are times where going with the crowd is the right thing to do in the short, medium, and maybe even long-term and actually, seemingly, punished promoters for doing so.

Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, to some degree, go back to the medium changing. It's an age of binging. It's not about creating shows to be sold to syndication where you want any episode to be evergreen. It's about selling to things like Hulu and Netflix where people can watch whole seasons at once. People consume media differently in a digital age (And a DVD age before it for a lesser degree). Vince has always had a product which was capable of that, where there could be continuity from year to year and build to greater things. It's weekly. It's serialized, like superhero comics. It's basically one of the only three forms of fictional media in the world (that I know about) like that, with the third being Soap Opera. You can absolutely get that from watching old Memphis, which very often lived with its own history over time. The story always goes, however, that Vince can't remember minutia from a few months ago so he figures the fans wouldn't either.

It's not current but I don't care. There should be a national holiday for when dataintcash starts uploading again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU0DRaG2LSQ

Make sure to watch Baby Doll steal the horse.

All the credit to Andrew for pledging to go back and rewatching to comment, by the way. That's all we can ever ask for.

Show your work.

I want to reevaluate Studd actually.

I can absolutely see people clinging romantically in a few years to 2013-2014 with Shield six-mans and the rise of Bryan.

I thought we were talking about the NXT crowd chanting "Fight Forever" here.

There is no Post-Bryan era. We're still in the Post-Benoit workrate guilt era. Except for that there's a new generation of fans who didn't really live through Benoit, which was 9 years ago now (the difference between, oh, let's say 79 and 88 if you want to look at wildly different periods) and really longer if you factor in how one key element of Benoit was being a fan of him in the late 90s when Hogan and Nash were on top of WCW. He was made into a symbol then. Nine years ago.