Matt D

That's what made Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble so special and why they're not nearly as special now.

If he does that then a few of you should do a live watching party podcast for it.

The money is in the chase? He should have just won by Summerslam.

I think the finish makes the match better in some ways because the work had gotten to the point where the crowd was finally behind Reigns.

Thanks to everyone who took the walk with me, especially Elliott who wrote probably the most compelling defense of any wrestler I've seen in this process and Childs for being so damn reasonable. I've come to appreciate him even If not particularly enjoy him. He won't be in my top ten but he will make my top 25 over dozens of wrestlers I like more because he's simply better than them.

Thanks for the heads up Kelly.

If only he spent the 80s in Minnesota instead.

I was blown away with the singles when I came across them around 09. Great TV matches.

Berzerker was a top three WWF worker in 92. Best offense in the company and huge bumps.

We trust our eyes the most.

Hey, nepotism gave us Gino too.

I'm very interested in seeing more Tiger Conway, Jr. at this point. I thought he looked pretty good in the match we saw and I don't think he'd a name in Houston for so long if there wasn't something to him.

I loved the Lunde match too. "A blast" was my first thought as well. Great foil for Reed's debut. There are a couple of other Lunde matches in the results that sound interesting (Conway, Jr., Williams, Murdoch, Crews, Iron Mike Sharpe(?!)). That Lothario match sounds great. I was somewhat higher on Dusty/Bock than Pete too, but I won't be able to delve into it more deeply until after Thanksgiving.

I don't think it's just preferences though. I think that's where I agree with Parv (though only half way, mind you). There are objective talents. That Hansen does what he does, and does it in a way no one else really manages to is impressive. The personal preference comes in how much we value that relative to other things. So we don't discard it. He's not going to be in my top twenty. He'll be somewhere outside of there, because my preferences lead me to both enjoy and value other elements of wrestling more, but I still respect what he does and have to account for what he does, and that means he'll be higher than a lot of wrestlers who do things I value more, but don't do them as well as what he does well. They're preferences but they're weighted preferences. Where we have to take this on faith is that how we weigh things will be different from person to person. At the end of the day I think this process is more about examining ourselves and one another's opinions than the wrestling itself.

On the bright side they could turn Becky Lynch back into a Riverdancer to be his valet.

Oh, you guys got Khawk. That's great.

Elliott, I still have big issues with him along the lines of creative collaboration and the simple fact that at various points I actively hate the role that he's playing so well, but you made a great defense of the fact that he was playing that role in the first place, and while he won't end up in my top twenty, he will do very well in this project overall, and I'm more than fine with that at this juncture. That said, I think there's a danger in defending roles so thoroughly. A guy who does the right thing for the matches he's in, for the crowd that he's in front of, executed very well? Sounds like Davey Richards to me. A guy who has a following who is financially successful in his role, at least on a minor level. One's based in hardnosed closing of opportunities. The other's based on frenetic opening of them without restraint. Both fit the desires of the crowd they're in front of. When it comes to that defense, where's the line other than the fact you personally prefer the role of one to the role of another?

Hey, at least Goldust is back, and if the roster gets depleted any further, they'll be forced to give him TV time.

Next year at MITB, Reigns should destroy everyone in the match and break all the ladders to make sure no one wins.

Wow, I don't think Bock vs Reed was even on our radar. I'm haven't seen more than three or four minutes of Bock vs Dusty. I'm with Grimmas. Any new Andre is gold. Dusty vs Reed sounds really exciting too. I'm not sure we have any singles matches between them. I know people were curious just in the last day or two about how good Lunde was pre-Arn and that's a good opponent for us to see.

I really want to see Goldust vs Owens for some reason.

Just Dallas then?

The biggest problem I have with the AJPW tags in general is often being unable to find a narrative throughline. In many, the action can be very good (not necessarily Brody matches here) and there's a competitive sense of struggle, absolutely, but I can't add it all up into any greater whole. I wonder if that's something that you handle better than I do because you're more tuned in to sports than I am. Still, I think any specific game has its own implicit story that you can draw out of it. I should probably be able to find that in these tags, but wrestling isn't real. It's artificial and the fact that so many of these tags don't have a finish specifically means that they don't really have to build anything. So you have extremely believable moments but ones that don't come together into a greater whole. Sometimes you do, of course, but a lot of times you don't. Does that make sense?