Matt D

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.

There's a cultural discussion about violence and bumps and spots and workrate and concussions and "fight forever," in a post-Bryan world. It is, in fact, the only thing that I think could make this thread more painful.

Come on. It's basic hero's journey stuff. Osprey, the young protagonist, smug and full of hubris due to his age, skill, and the facile praise he received from blind adulators. crashed up against the end of the second act, flying too close to the sun. Now he has to reexamine his world view and broaden himself as a person in order to rise once more and face his true enemy, the nefarious Pete Dunne. Obviously Vader is just Thunderlips in all of this. He's the storm that Osprey tried to conquer when he should have been focused on the affairs of (small, flippy) men.

Can't they just send the Briscoes to Arena Mexico.

I watched Sting vs DDP from 99. I forgot how pervasive signs that were about the people who made them were back then. The self-aggrandizement of wrestling fans has gone from irritating signs that have nothing to do with the actual wrestling in the late 90s to people with far too little fulfillment and accomplishment in their real lives running Twitter gimmicks.

Everyone will be glad to know that the Big Skye vs Van Hammer match that I remembered as being surprisingly good is actually surprisingly good. Part of that is the hot 93 crowd but still.

Lots of Florida here: https://www.youtube.com/user/4WrestlingFans Lots of Stampede (including Heel Marty Jones for people who care and haven't seen it yet) here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSaeqaILNyHNtIlJnHDaSA

Melissa Joan Hart is a big fan. She's probably a secret Stu niece.

Obviously the real enemy is Martin Luther.

A really good, taunting promo from Dunne could fix that.

You really want to watch SummerSlam now after that already overlong Rusev vs Reigns match on TV, don't you ? And to get that cool Demon entrance that you only get to see on majo… ok nevermind. SummerSlam doesn't look appealing one bit to me. Is there a NXT show the same week-end like last year (which was great) ? Yes: Nakamura vs Samoa Joe © Asuka © vs Bayley II Revival vs Gargano/Ciampa Aries vs No Way Jose (you'd find him amusing in short doses) Almas (Sombra) vs Roode Debut of Ember Moon(Athena)?

The argument would be that it was due to the Monday Night War and that we've only seen a return to jobber matches (in very specific situations) over the last couple of years, and really, save for Ryback, just in the last month.

I feel that NXT works, as a territory, on a week to week basis despite all of that and for the most part, despite its fans. I think you're undervaluing structural issues, whether they be twitter, the rise of MMA and sports-driven casuals going that way, or the sheer amount of TV that WWE has to produce now without filler.

Nothing quite highlights the problem with 3 Hour Raws than hotshotting the Demon's debut and Roman vs Rusev two weeks before Summerslam, even in a world where these guys don't have to be on Smackdown.

Three years later and it feels like we're in a different world. Three Hour Raw, Smackdown as its own brand, NXT, CWC, The C shows (does anyone even watch them at this point?) A TNA with stuff that has surprising buzz for good reasons or bad. Two seasons of Lucha Underground with a third starting soon. THREE CMLL shows streamed live a week. An hour of Elite each week. AAA TV A whole NJPW streaming service with a lot of shows live, plus whatever US TV they have. ROH TV and whatever big shows THEY have. Fairly easy access to Mexican indies and to PR TV And what feels like a thousand indies (some of them like PWG or Evolve or Beyond whatever shooting out matches that people are giving 4* + to on an almost weekly basis). That goes without all of the WWF house shows popping up at once or the full TV shows from territories or NWAOnDemand which has ~3-4 matches a week (some of them lost classics) or Stardom and other Japanese Indies (or non Indies like AJPW) not on my radar. And we've got two DVDVR 80s sets in play. Two. Plus the 00s work being done. There's so much instantly available at our fingertips. You can't realistically follow wrestling in 2016 if you have a family and a job. Not in a way to really keep up with the conversation. I tried for a month or so last year to really watch as much of the matches with Catch Point as I could, to catch up with it and keep up with it, and while I enjoyed a lot of it, especially their matches with Chris Hero, it was just too much. If you had given me plane tickets, a hotel room, and show tickets to the SCI a few weeks ago, I would have turned them down. I didn't even want to hear about it. Something that takes up that much real estate and time investment just doesn't fit into the level of adulting I have to do combined with the bit of wrestling (likely relatively small compared to a lot of people here, but still substantial) that I am currently invested in. If I try to take on any more, it all becomes indistinguishable noise.

I love seeing Marty go through classics for the first time. Just dropping that here, especially since he's a young punk.

CMLL. Mask. Stilts.

Good post from overbooked. I think that one element related to this is the fans' ages. When you're young and on the internet and caught up in the moment and discovering the freedom that comes with having the veil lifted and the inner working of the business and tapping into the Meltzerian culture of workrate it leads to a too cool for school attitude where you become part of something fresh by rebelling against the establishment (even if, numerically, you ARE the establishment online). Wrestling is a bs carny business where athleticism is not necessarily the most important thing and there are plenty of territories where a guy like Bulldog Bob Brown or Verne or whoever used power and politics to keep himself on top. That led to a certain ease of resentment which isn't necessarily based on facts, and, a counter-reaction of circling the wagons whenever something new does come around.

Jerry Flynn would solve all of your problems.

OVW has a ridiculously fun roster.

I'm good. Everyone drop what you're doing and watch Hayes vs Doc - Cage Match that just went up. Holy shit, was that great.

Drew a house? Got both guys a payday? Got a little guy to look strong against a monster and former world champion even in losing? Showed that he's willing to do business despite his big mouth?

This couldn't really have lived up to my expectations for it. I'm really glad we have it though. Great novelty. It just didn't really know what it wanted to be. Obviously, Tatum had huge reason to go after Gilbert, but they seemed to be transitioning forward so there wasn't going to be real payoff here. While Tatum portrayed a wronged man with a just cause, he was still John Tatum with his stooging, bumping, and over the top facial expressions. They work so well as a heel positioned as a heel, but this was far more nebulous. Some of the best stuff here was when they were trying to out heel one another. The rest of the best stuff was the punching at the end which was really heated. There was just too much in the way of armbars for a match like this, and really, even though he worked well from underneath and was full of fury (for the most part) when on top, the crowd just never got behind Tatum and that hurt the match. Still really glad we have it though. The post match was, indeed, awesome.