Matt D

One of the little things I loved was the way he actually scrambled away to bait Nakamura toward the ropes so he could dump him for the big follow up dive. Also I just want to jump on the Joe bandwagon. Even if it was only for one night it really was the best Joe since the Angle cage match and hopefully they've got a follow up ready for him because it'd be a shame for a fired up Joe to go waste. He's done to Joe recently too.

I don't think that had anything to do with anything.

Points to Buddy Rose.

I kind of liked the crazy demon hulking up though. I want more of that.

I need to rewatch that later, too.

They're working this like a sprint and that makes a ton of sense after the last match. They can't follow that with steak, so give the people candy.

They had lost me at one point of the forearms because I don't have a super high tolerance for that sort of thing, but they got me back by the end of that, between the blood and the selling, which I wasn't expecting at all.

And people have to follow this? They should just go home and try the last matches again tomorrow.

Corbin's come so far.

I was really into the tag match, myself. The revival was so much fun. I'll take old tricks over big spots anyday especially when they're presented as meaning something. I thought maybe there was one too many folds on the peril segments. At one point I blinked when they were working on Dawson and I had no idea how Gable got in there. That moment where they really took control and the crowd came unglued in the middle of the match was amazing though. Magic. I wish they hadn't gone so far with the pin reversals towards the end. The first one or two were really good but they kept going with it. All in all, I had fun, though.

And Brody didn't. Dory is anecdotal.

One is willing to rewatch matches?

At least you wear it with pride, I guess.

Are they all obscure Canadians? I'm also vaguely annoyed that the "You know, all the stuff Ric Flair does well, but better, and a whole bunch of stuff he doesn't do well." argument didn't win anyone over on Bockwinkel.

This is actually how I came to like Demolition. Even when it was the same, it was different and it was earned, so long as you looked closely enough at least. You asked how that happened. It happened by watching a lot of stuff and getting frustrated by the same things and having that broken by them, of all things.

I forget how high you had him but he's top 15 for me.

Boo. Throw things at the Brody voters. Booooo. (I kid)

I do think a lot of the "Let's focus on matches," mindset right now is more about burnout than anything else. Matches are of a lesser scope, 'easier' in general if not in the specific. I do think the genie is out of the bottle though, and some of the questions we've raised in the last few years just aren't going anywhere (and neither, I'd bet, are some of the more standout voices). There's been a lot of leveling up here over the last couple of years, and I think most of us have discovered new directions and possibilities we want to explore. A lot of us could only hit the tip of the iceberg when it came to certain styles or eras or genres, or even just new lenses to look at matches and wrestlers we're more familiar with. I don't know. Maybe I'm fortunate in that there are whole areas I haven't seen much of and some people aren't so lucky (though even then, I can't wait for Dylan to start to go through the nwaclassics footage, for instance; stuff keeps showing up all over the net!), but this feels like just the start to me, not like an ending.

It is a pretty small country when you think about it.

I'm pretty high on Grey.

Maximizing understanding is the god king of this entire project, more so than the end result list, I think.

I think we'd drive each other and everyone else nuts arguing "purpose vs entertainment." It might be worth it. I don't know. Looking forward to hearing this one though, once I can find some time. Let's not distract from that. I'll be doing a lot of listening at work next week. That's for sure.

I wish I had ten hours to talk about mine. I'm trying to figure what to do with my list. I'll probably just shrug and post it here next week. It doesn't feel right on SC and that's my only other outlet.

Nick Bockwinkel, you reprobates.

I was just going to remark wondering how high you had Christian, because he's very close to where I have him there.