Matt D

She shouldn't get called up. She's a draw in NXT. They should run with that as far as they can.

It's clear that the New Day is getting the Smilin' Babyface Diesel treatment, and that's sad. The snake is eating its own tail.

I'm 2:30 or so in. I sort of ape the previous comments to some degree. First and foremost, this is a HARD thing to do. There's no way I could explain it to someone not in our circle, like my wife, because unless you're going through it, it's impossible to see how hard it is. And Tim is so damn reasonable and earnestly excited for almost every one of Steven's picks, whether or not he could have included them on his list. I think, if nothing else, it showed me how thoroughly different my list will be from Tim's or Chad's, and I think while it's off the wall bonkers in some ways, it's very consistent with itself and with the values it presents. And Tim's was as well so far, absolutely. As was Steven's. There are just different ways to tackle the question. That doesn't mean I wasn't a little frustrated listening though.

I'm sympathetic to that but i feel like it's fair game if someone brings up the: "Well, it DID play well with the demographic (and Dave Meltzer)." argument. Michael Bay is probably a better example.

Also, there is the fact we have seen him wrestle so often, debated him, got tired of the style. When I was thirteen The Marshall Mathers LP was the pinnacle of hip hop to me. Argued about it, played it all the time, quoted every song with my friends. Now I think it sucks, and would never think of putting it on. But it is probably me who has changed, not the record. I've heard different styles, got into rap from different eras, been exposed to more stuff, started to appreciate different things. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. But it meant a ton at the time, so it must have something about it that makes it great or compelling or impactful, even if these days i don't care for it in the least. It is by that kind of rationale that Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels make my list. Lower than the wrestling equivalents of Talib Kweli or Kendrick Lamar or Nas, but higher than someone like Vince Staples, even though I'm ten times more likely to listen to Vince Staples than Eminem. This is pretty much the most fitting analogy of my rap fandom and my wrestling fandom as I've ever read. I don't know whether or not my opinions were wrong in the past, but my opinions have changed drastically. I was 19 when the MMLP came out and I couldn't have been happier with it as an album. It was over the top, vulgar, and packed full of all types of bells and whistles. At the same time I was a big fan of ECW, WCW Cruiserweights, and Kurt Angle. All of those things were essentially the Marshall Mathers LP in a wrestling ring. I was at a point in my life where subtlety wasn't high on my list of priorities. I wanted my music and my wrestling to be "action packed." I don't think the value of those things should be discarded now that I'm older and appreciate different things. Angle is really good at the style he wrestles, despite the fact that I'm not much interested in that style any more. I have him on my list, because at the time in which he was having his most famous matches his style was greatly appreciated. Some things don't hold as well as others, but after reading through this thread it is clear that most of us loved his stuff as it happened. Should we throw things away, because they don't fit in our current view, when they were praised by their intended audience? Counterpoint: some of the most successful things in the world are pretty terrible but are still praised by their intended audience. Nickelback comes to mind. Nickelback always comes to mind. It's your call whether that's good art or not.

That could be more about skill in the utilization of steroids than in pro wrestling, mind you. That's a totally different list.

But not nearly as good at implementing matwork.

I think there are a lot of interesting points here that don't entirely fit for the GWE discussion but that we should delve into deeper for their own sake.

Any chance that any more IWE with him from 71-72 exists?

He gets pissed off when Eddy Guerrero takes too long to sell.

2 Cold Scorpio! There's a guy that I just didn't see the footage in time for. A lot of it isn't hugely accessible. He could have been a contender.

I understand the idea that people's expectations might be too high but the only Wrestlemania I can think of with worse build than this is 27. And that's pretty close.

Whereas live crowds tend to go apeshit for Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle matches, despite the fact that a lot of people here think neither one of those guys "knows how to work". It's all in what you value as an individual. It's the wrestling equivalent of cotton candy or a firework display. Firework displays have a long history of dazzling crowds, but they are quickly forgotten. That's a weird analogy to me because I don't know what the artistic counterpoint to fireworks would be. Kurt Angle to me is like Def Leppard. Yeah, most of their work is grossly overproduced and their lyrics are juvenile to the point of being incomprehensible, but I still love listening to Hysteria and 30 years on I still sing along to "Pour Some Sugar On Me" because it makes me feel good. Their job, like Angle's, is to entertain me. They accomplish that in spades. Do they make me think the way U2 might? No. Do they make me appreciate musicianship the way Stevie Ray Vaughan might? Hardly. But I don't always want those things. If you can succeed in what you set out to do as an entertainer then it doesn't matter what other people do. Kurt Angle might not structure his matches in a way that is as pleasing to hardcore fans as somebody like Misawa does, but he's still succeeding at his goal, because his goal is not necessarily to please those fans. His work is not quickly forgotten by me. It left an impression on me that lingers to this day, whether or not it holds up to microscopic scrutiny. I think we've seen wrestlers that are able to do a lot of what Angle does well and also structure their matches far better. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive or that wrestling can only be entertaining in that wildly exciting, frenetic way if it's big and dumb. It can still be big without being dumb. It doesn't have to be an either/or.

Presentation matters when it comes to this.

Villano III was on there until the last second, when I was entering my list, and I finally decided that I couldn't justify him if pressed. He was more or less the only person I felt like that about. He was on based on glimpses I'd seen and rep. No one else on my list was like that. I just couldn't do it. My list is probably going to give you an aneurysm, OJ. Sorry.

Not really Bubble again, but guys who I just didn't have enough time to do a last lap with. The ones that I just didn't feel confident enough to place. Someone like Jack Brisco could have been, I don't know, 40 on the weighted scale of footage, but I just didn't feel like I had enough of a grasp of him. Villano III, Keith Haward, Van Buyten, Leo Burke, Espanto, Jr., Gino Hernandez, Jerry Estrada, Little Guido, Super Astro, Alan Sargent, Ron Starr, Jack Brisco.

Too much on my plate over the next few weeks. Pulled the bandaid off and submitted my ballot. Still a few things I would have liked to look into but it's off into the ether now for good or ill.

In some ways, that's part of what made Christian so amazing in 2009, that he was constantly resequencing the same moves to different and compelling effects on a week to week basis.

I think that's actually changed, Parv, maybe if only because Vince doesn't have as close a handle on things as he once did. It was on shows like the ignored WWECW in 07-09 where you really started to see this sort of thing rise up, or on Smackdown where it was obvious far less attention was being paid, or on the C-Shows, where you could tell just by the announcing that they didn't have that same level of "Adult Supervision". Then it bled into the three hour Raws as well. It's arguable that this had something to do with a generation of wrestlers coming in that were somehow different from the ones before, but there's a lot on the plate here.

A way to stay sane in the midst of 7+ hours of TV a week?

Can you imagine the sort of Indy tour he'd have if he got cut? Well, you probably can't (which is fine, honest), but ask Pete or Chad if they can.

I bet an 8 year old takes this stuff way more seriously and follows things from a kayfabe perspective way and is way more into "learned psychology" than more than most 30 year olds watching. It's also something that happens a lot. It's basically the midcard house style now. I would have NEVER given Kofi Kingston credit for it, but after reading his thread, and thinking about those matches, yeah, sure, absolutely. He just does it without it feeling as natural and impactful as others I'd actually give more credit to, like Cesaro (at least to me). If it's caviar, then they sell it by the pound.

This goes back to my "It's not wrestling that's changed; it's us." argument. Except for I think the circle keeps repeating itself.

I'm not sure that's true in 2016. There's an entire fanbase that doesn't simply swallow what the announcers are feeding them, the same one that got behind Daniel Bryan. Wrestlemania XXX was Bryan's crowning, but Cesaro was the prince on that show, the same swell of support rising him up, and this was while he was in the Real Americans having tag matches with the Rhodes' brothers. He was not positioned to be the person that people were supposed to get behind, but he was, to a certain section of the crowd, and it was almost entirely due to SOMETHING in his ringwork, and something that wasn't just the standard WWE Mass Appeal that they were trying to push. I think fan-driven narratives are more important in 2016 than ever. Cesaro got himself over through his ringwork alone to the point where they almost had to push him. Slightly different question: do you think it's not important, if you're on TV against the same sorts of opponents on TV week in and week out 2-3 times, plus house shows, to change things up in creative and interesting ways within your matches? If you don't do that, do you think the fans will notice or care, even if the announcers don't play it up one way or the other because they're barely focused on calling the match anyway. Hell, it's not like the live crowd has Michael Cole and JBL bickering in their ears about tangential stuff, and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to think that people excited to go to a Smackdown taping on a Tuesday night won't make extra sure to watch the Raw that week closely, so that they can prime themselves for the show they're about to see. And likewise for the people going to Raw the next Monday when it comes to Smackdown. That's the live crowd that they're playing to. And that goes without asking the question of just who actually watches Superstars week in and week out and whether or not it makes sense to assume those people are paying a certain amount of attention, especially in an age of serialized television that builds season to season as opposed to "Crime of the Week" type shows. I think it could well be a reaction to the current audience base and the current style of TV and really shouldn't be dismissed so casually.

I think you're underplaying the "learned psychology" and rearranging of spots in Cesaro matches. He's also very good at teasing things and paying them off later. He often comes off not as a character so much as a force of nature, but in a productive way instead of a Brock way, in a way that really utilizes the WWE house style to the fullest as opposed to a way that actively breaks it.