Matt D

I'd like to see Swagger/Henry vs New Day next month.

Best thing about Ambrose is that he sells like Philip Marlowe getting stomped on by a gangster's muscle.

On the one hand, I kind of buy that he used the broken table to get back up. On the other hand, this is still going on one Kevin Owens finisher later.

He's still surprisingly explosive at times. Just saying.

"We have no intention of giving the crowd what they want to cheer for," was the excuse last year.

Sandow was an unexpected victim of the racism of one Terry Bollea

Sandow was the second most over guy in the arena a year ago.

Which is why you're a bastion of sympathy for everyone who tries to work his way through this difficult jungle during the GWE process.

I'm generally high on his 2010 rudo work, so long as he's not in a singles match with Volador, but that's really just a blip in his career.

I'm betting on the most boring possible outcome. I'm just not sure if that's Reigns winning, HHH winning, or Brock winning after HHH eliminates Reigns. I'm not saying those are necessarily the wrong choices, just the most boring ones.

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant. Matt, so in your opinion the only way a movie can be bad is if there is a good movie you can compare it to? There is a value in being groundbreaking, but there are plenty of things that are groundbreaking but not necessarily good. If Transformers was the first movie ever made, it would still be a bad piece of art. It would still have all the same issues whether or not other movies exist. Comparing it to other things makes it easier to see those flaws, but those flaws exist with or without those other movies. No, I just think the use of comparisons is a good way to categorize, analyze, evaluate, and understand something. Most learning works best when it builds off of what we've already learned. There's a term for that, but I can't remember it right now (which may or may not be ironic).

I will say that I was pretty certain Trips was going to enter himself each of the last two years and he didn't.

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match. What if you go in looking for Avengers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars? Or even Independence Day or the animated Transformers: The Movie from the 80s? There are good spotfests and bad spotfests, good garbage matches and bad garbage matches, etc. Good summer blockbusters and bad ones. And there are common elements between good spotfests and good garbage matches and good lucha title matches even if there are differences too just like there are commonalities between a good blockbuster and the Godfather. EDIT: I will admit that sometimes you could find something that's good that doesn't have those common elements, but I think it's very exceptional and well worth examining when it does. You are kind of saying the same thing I'm saying. Transformers isn't good at being a big, dumb, summer blockbuster, but the last few Fast and the Furious movies are great at it. You can watch a Fast and Furious movie and understand why they are doing every single ridiculous thing that they are doing. You can see all of the absurd car stunts. You can believe that all of those outrageous characters love each other and would go on international crime sprees to help their "family." The jokes are funny, and you end up rooting for the heroes despite the fact that they have to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. What I'm saying is that Transformers isn't bad because the Fast and Furious movies exist. Transformers is bad all by itself. There really isn't a reason to bring up any other movie when discussing why it is bad. Ah see, I disagree there a bit. Blockbusters, by their nature, have certain hurdles they have to overcome. You bring up the other movies to show that other movies HAVE managed to overcome those hurdles. The movie COULD have been better. We have proof of that. The match could have been better, quite probably if they had done A, B, or C, because they did A, B, or C, in this match, which had a similar context/theme/etc. that was better. That doesn't mean that you think the match could have been better if it had a completely different context, if it was a spotfest instead of a garbage match, etc, just that you think it could have been better if it did these things that other great garbage matches did instead.

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match. What if you go in looking for Avengers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars? Or even Independence Day or the animated Transformers: The Movie from the 80s? There are good spotfests and bad spotfests, good garbage matches and bad garbage matches, etc. Good summer blockbusters and bad ones. And there are common elements between good spotfests and good garbage matches and good lucha title matches even if there are differences too just like there are commonalities between a good blockbuster and the Godfather. EDIT: I will admit that sometimes you could find something that's good that doesn't have those common elements, but I think it's very exceptional and well worth examining when it does.

I'd like to see Dylan look at those, frankly. People pushed at #1 need that level of scrutiny. I'll gladly talk about any Bock match I haven't already if people point that out.

Tags in general, then, as I think the Dibiase matches are much worse in some ways because you go in with slightly higher expectations re: no Brody and then it's Hansen dragging them down instead of coming off as "Well, at least he's better than Brody."

Just curious (and this is the last I'll say on this, for a while a bit. I just honestly don't know), what % of Hansen's matches from the 80s that we have on tape are his tags with Hansen? What % of his total output for the decade were those matches? Am I wrong in saying that's the majority of what we have on tape from what we'd consider his home promotion in the 80s? AWA and PR (and some of those really strong singles matches from AJPW) feel like the exception instead of the norm to me.

First African America WWF Woman's champion? Hell of a lot better notable on paper for corporate reasons than "Pimp." The reality doesn't matter. It's WWE's Hall of Fame.

I'm sort of honing it in, but I do feel like Grey could be in my top 30 as well.

Now I've changed my mind and decided that you don't deserve to put Casas on your list. You can't have Breaks either. I would deny Cota to no one.

I'm cool with just Casas. I'm tempted to rank Just Aja Kong but I have no idea where to put her.

I need to do a write up/summation of Hector Garza soon, since he'll do moderately well on my list based on his 00s rudo work and no one else is ranking him.

I'll have three in my top ten, as things are now.

If I can't vote for Bock then Satanico.

I'm going to have to rewatch the death match and see how this built to it.