Matt D

All I need is enough data points from enough different scenarios to feel confident about my triangulation.

Naylor leaving felt very weird at the time, that it was something that had to be done on a corporate level, that it had to be a clean sweep of sorts, just necessary business. I could be way off, mind you, but that's how it felt at the time.

Maybe they can just put Mr. Niebla in all the remaining matches to reassure us that it's mostly business as usual.

OJ, They're off youtube, but this is one of the Monterrey ones, right? http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1c12z8_el-hijo-del-santo-vs-blue-panther-5-28-00_sport

Good question. I watched a bunch early into my lucha watching, so my opinions are spurious at best. I liked this when I saw it a month or two ago: This might be the best single match to watch? A lot of the other 2006 stuff went down, unfortunately. There are a lot of fun trios with the Ultimo Guerrero, Atlantis, Rey Bucanero, Olimpico, Toscano/Tarzan Boy stable up against Mistico, Dr. Wagner, Jr., and Friends, like this, which will at least give you a sense of the spirit of things:

Have you seen much rudo Atlantis yet?

I'd guess it'd be more of a case of Vince booking a match and Taker just wanting to destroy someone. Shane has tons of hubris and a punchable face. It's more that Vince gave Shane a mythical task. The dragon doesn't care about the king who sends the knight to slay it. It just wants lunch.

I might regret saying this later, but anything to shake things up would be preferable to what we have now.

It's less about rewarding him than it is about not punishing him.

All NECW is off the internet? Was Maverick Wild a good sleazy heel or am I misremembering that from 16 years ago.

It's a reaction show. Falling asleep is a perfectly normal reaction to what WWE tries to pass off as wrestling these days. What will be funny is when the camera finds Will sleeping at Wrestlemania.

Astoundingly stacked big card by CMLL standards. Hair vs Hair: Volador, Jr. vs Nego Casas Hair vs Hair: Rush vs Maximo Sexy Mexico vs Japan: Mistico/Valiente/Mascara Dorada/Dragon Lee vs Okumura/Fuijin/Raijin/Kamaitachi When was the last time CMLL even ran an atomicos match? They didn't do one at any point that they had a 4 man Ingobernables line-up or at any point during Thunder vs UG when it might have made sense.

I'd be hesitant on that explanation. I really enjoy the two matches with Hogan in 91. I've written about them here before (though years ago, so always, there's a caveat there). But they weren't supposed to be great matches. That wasn't his role on the card. So it's more of a case that we weren't put in a position to know how good he was because it wasn't his job to have the sort of matches that would have shown us until years later.

Did Puppet H show up yet? That's the only thing from the trailer that I'm looking forward to. I miss Puppet H, but I miss the JBL/Cole show too, far more than I thought I would. Hornswoggle Lannister was great.

I don't think we should discount the possibility of Andy Kaufman at this stage.

"Turning" He's Jimmy Valiant in the York Foundation.

I've thought about this a little, but just haven't had time to post. The main thing I'm trying to do with a review is to answer the question of "What can we learn from this match?" What can we learn about the wrestlers, about the style, about the point in time? "This is a good match" is something that can be learned, but it's by far not the only thing that can be. Eight times out of ten, it's probably not about what can be learned so much as what can be reaffirmed, and I think that's okay too. I can't slip in all of the pop references that someone like Eric does. I can't craft mine to tell broad sweeping tangentially related entertaining stories like DEAN or Raven Mack. I don't utilize star ratings. But I try to distill something from the match that I think people should know about it.

Everytime someone loses, someone gains as well. That's the nature of the game.

I think they can make almost anything seem important with enough build, at least in the short term. We saw that with Reigns' title win.

Flair in 02 has the Arn moment. Arn should get a point for that.

We don't make ridiculous bets enough around here.

I think Dylan would stress more than "projects" but also making sure that HHH is the focal point, either through his human avatar on Earth in Rollins, or just himself, looking to things like his multiple highlighted segments at Mania last year and how he's presented as babyface now in some key ways.

You have to defeat Undertaker in a Chicken on a Pole match first.

The video was already sped up, but screw it. I'm posting anyway.

So, is he just back as a performer? Is this a Bischoff deal, or is he he going to have a business role? That's the only real question out of this that matters, right?