Matt D

We have a lot of data points on Cody.

Nope, this isn't 78. Can't find the result anywhere, so I'm not sure (but it makes for a mystery card, which could be fun, right?) The match itself wasn't so great for the first ten minutes. Nerve holds. Even Lothario can't do do a lot with nerve holds. Boesch is great at filling the time in these situations. There are two sorts of announcers, the ones who make the match more emotional resonant and the ones who make the matches more entertaining. Boesch is in the latter camp but I've come to really like him. Everything from the ten minute mark was pretty good though. Some dueling claws, some armwork to counter the claw, Krupp looking pretty effective as a heel, a nice comeback. The Supersock as a counter to a top rope move is a weird parallel to Sweet Chin Music in that same scenario.

There's a bunch of Krupp up and down the Houston cards, so it'll be good to see how he worked in that gimmick against someone as good as Lothario. I will say that if that's the March 24, 1978 card, and you have that one, well, that's an interesting card.

I thought this was the second strongest Lewin singles match we've seen so far. He does well as a babyface against a stooging heel. Gino bumping around and eating his mysterious strikes from the orient and clubbering blows kept things moving. The blood took care of a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to Lewin selling. Some of his actual bumping was pretty rough (especially that one into the corner shoulder first) but they kept it sufficiently violent with the chairs. There are things I really like about Gino. He's more than willing to just cut someone off with a knee or strike when he's brawling but then he'll make sure to rake his opponent's eye not once before taking over. This was probably the best use of Hart we've seen up until now on Classics. I liked the mixed tag quite a bit too, for what it was. Sherri was very sympathetic. I wish we had seen Martin in control a bit more since she has great offense but she played her role well for what she was supposed to be doing. Entertaining stuff and Boesch is really fun on commentary in any sort of out of the norm situation like this.

The issue is with Edge's center of gravity. He literally can't get the opponent to land like that.

This thing is pretty damn stupid:

Panther/Puma could be the rivalry of the next decade.

The STF doesn't bother me because it's been built and has symbolic meaning. If the company treats it as a big deal and it's sold as a big deal, it's a big deal. I wonder if that means I'd be okay with the Rainmaker? I have no idea.

This might be easier for you: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLChv0pBLKwSz8ySu_UdvxPb6syzLG44_J

I can't listen to Exile, BtS, AND 6:05. I don't have the time for all of them. so I don't listen to 6:05. That said, I'm glad it exists so that others who can find the time to listen to it do listen (and if i do someday have the time to go back). That's like getting mad that there's too much wrestling on TV and not enough time to watch it all. I'd rather have too much to consume than too little.

I'm keeping up with this feud and little else on Raw right now. I liked the first few bits of move stealing, but thought it got to be a bit much by the end. It went from being clever and novel and trollish to being too cutesy.

Matt, I'm kind of surprised you liked this match considering you are not a Volador fan. I give Volador fair shakes. I think he's very good at certain things (hitting spots, complex sequences, being a dick to mascots). He's a very useful role player in tags and trios. Where he's most problematic is when he's in a singles match because he has a tendency to bring the worst out of his opponents, will be prone to hit spots for the sake of spots, make things overly complex, contrived, and obviously collaborative, and have far too drawn out finishing sequences where something less bloated would be more appropriate and make for a better, tighter, more impactful match. He does cool stuff but way too much of it to the point where none of it matters in the least. That's less of an issue in a tag because cut offs and trading of partners can dilute that in the very best way (though it's still a danger). Here, the pacing works very well, the escalation is meaningful and pays off, and as a whole, the thing doesn't overstay its welcome. I'm as hard as I am on him because he does a lot of things well and because I generally want to like his stuff, and often do for the first two to three fifths of his matches and then get increasingly frustrated after that. If I thought he was Thunder-quality or something, I wouldn't care nearly as much. A match that could and should be great getting ruined is far more heretical and offensive than a match that never had a shot at being good.

It can make sense, if they make it make sense. It doesn't make sense in every situation without them doing the legwork (you know, "putting the work into it" not "working over the leg." Homograph. One of those wrestling terminology issues.). It could make sense, but then so could masked confusion or twin magic or poison mist or preternaturally hard heads. It doesn't inherently make sense on its own and shouldn't be naturally forgiven unless they actively make it work within the match.

Again, it goes back to transitions. Wrestling is a collaborative art form. Sport is a competition. Narratives are narratives sure, but it's a different world. The parallel isn't sport. It's a movie about sport or a well balanced fight scene in a genre novel (though that involves one person instead of two. Maybe a comic where you have both a writer and an artist working in tandem). There's a different level of control and cooperation and the ability to craft a story that's proactive and not just reactive. I watched Butch Reed vs Dick Murdoch last night. The first 15 minutes or so are based on armwork. Murdoch sells well, even when he tries to regain some sense of offense. Reed is mostly focused. At the end of the 15 minutes, the time limit ends, and they agree to go on in the match. This leads to a break in the momentum, stalling, and Reed getting frustrated, shifting his gameplan, and going with haymakers instead. That allows Murdoch, who was knocked out of the ring, to recover his arm enough and engage in some rope running as, by this point, Reed just wants to get him. Out of that, he gets a quick cut off and starts on the leg. Now, later on, Reed goes back to the arm as a way of fighting back, which is one thing that brings the match to a next level, but if he never went back to the arm, it'd still be perfectly acceptable because of the way they transitioned out of it and gave Murdoch time to recover. There were enough dots to transition out of it while still respect what happened earlier in the match. Reed's shift in behavior (which is a word I'd use even more than gameplan or strategy) was believable to me and fit his character and the match and wasn't dissonant to the rest of the actions and consequences of those actions that surrounded it.

According to Kris' lucha report it's Liosas Nuevo Laredo.

People should check out Mascara Dorada/Volador vs Flamita/Caristico. It's up on youtube. Very fun match with great action, great spots, some surprising and enjoyable rudo work from Dorada (and Volador, who's a natural jerk) in the middle, and it never wears out its welcome or escalates to the point of ridiculousness. Plus it's cool to see Flamita interact with these guys.

If you can connect the dots and contrive that story from what you're watching, sure, but the dots have to be there. You can't just accept the dropping of one thing or another unless the match justifies it. It's not a get out of jail free card just because it exists in sport.

Looking forward to tonight's Mixed tag match with a young Sherri and Judy Martin. I won't get to it tomorrow though but Martin's one of my favorites.

What matters most is the way they transition between chapters. The comparison to sport is the wrong path to go down though.

I know that you qualified this, but I think in this regard, look is a tool just like moves or blood or southern tag tricks or spots or weapons or whatever else. A lot of the discussion we have is split into a couple of categories. 1.) How good are the tools? 2.) How well does a wrestler use the tools he has? In this regard, when it comes to look, I think we do a pretty good job hitting #2 a lot of the time. Maybe not enough focus is given to #1 when it comes to "look." Wrestlers have to work extremely hard to get a good body just like they have to in order to hit moves smoothly and what not. It's not a big issue to me because I care about #2 a hundred times more and I'll factor that in just as much as I will anything else. That means that if Mike Shaw was able to utilize his look extremely well to have good matches, I'd value that as much as Scott Steiner doing the same, all other things equal.

I just hate when soundcloud crashes when I'm 2:36:00 into a 4 hour podcast because I have to listen over the span of two weeks. It's better with the iPhone6. I wish that it could remember where i am on multiple podcasts at once. I had an MP3 Player that could do that with multiple audio files.

Miz preparing to do the Giant Swing is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuFQEYXrffs&app=desktop that one?

The cool thing about ten years from now is that there'll be a backlash against "storytelling" and towards action in three years or so and then there'll be another backlash against that backlash and things'll come full circle by the end of it and everyone will appreciate Jerry Lawler again.