Matt D

When you have to argue away gravity, it's probably not the move to do, yes.

I hate it too, except for in trios when the partners hold the guy up. I actually kind of liked this one because it looked like Rollins was standing on Cena's hand (held on the top rope) to keep him there

Don't we have one or two people here really into Rollins?

When was he good? Sleeper era? Granted, he was wrestling Rey a lot.

Sorrow's hat lives to be worn another day.

For a match I didn't really want to see(past the antics) that was very solid.

Owens' stuff is way more tolerable (and even enjoyable) when it focused and not so back and forth-y.

Johnny promised to eat his hat and record it. Remember?

Thankfully, Sting is better than 95% of the roster at working out of holds and getting a crowd behind him.

There you go. I had it backwards in my head from that.

It did. That's on my reading comprehension then. Sorry.

Yes, it was. I hope they have more of these planned. Madusa/Molly/Ivory, Sting/DDP/Vader, Owens/Cesaro/Ambrose. That's what I read at least.

Both matches today are from August 12 (Kris' results say April, I think, but I trust Boesch hyping it more). I haven't seen Reed vs Duggan yet. I did see the JYD/Dusty vs Dibiase/Kamala Bullrope + Chain match though. First we get the bloody promos from Dusty/JYD and Kamala/Akbar/Dibiase from the week before. I don't think any of this stuff had been out there so just seeing another bloody Dusty promo that I had never seen before was really cool. I really liked the Dibiase/Akbar one though. I thought Akbar did a great job and Kamala does something during the promo that was just way over the top. The match itself was a hell of a spectacle. It was only 7 minutes but it didn't really seem like a cheat because of the amount of action they put into it and the novelty of the match itself. Kamala played his character so well. Dibiase stooged like a king and Dusty just had this sense of absolute awareness of what to do in the little time they needed. The charisma between JYD and Dusty in there, especially in 83 was like nothing else. It is what it is, time-wise and I doubt it'd rate too high on the mid-south rankings, for instance, but it's still must see for historical value and the showmanship and the uniqueness of the gimmick and of Kamala interacting with Dusty.

My point was that the 84-91 Observers aren't hard to find.

Poor guy:

Well, I guess someone has to have Michaels in their top 10.

Good. I did a terrible job summing it up.

Thanks guys. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Hopefully I can get work under control a bit more by mid october and start doing companion pieces for WTBBP again. I had fun with it when I was able to.

I'm really glad to hear about the DVE match, Bruce. Thanks for the update. Safe travels to Japan. .

Okay, yeah. Conway Jr vs Valentine was some pretty great stuff too. The first fall was back and forth with a lot of Valentine stalling and stooging and a king of the mountain that was full of brutal Valentine shots. There was one slow bit of pedestrian arm control from Conway but in general, it was all enjoyable. It ended with Valentine starting on the leg and the second fall was really good stuff. I wasn't sure what to expect from Conway here but he sold the leg really well, and there was a unique sense of struggle for him to come back that I really haven't seen in too many other matches. It was just paced differently. Instead of hope spots and comebacks, there was this constant flow of him trying to fight back through the pain while Valentine more or less maintained control. Greg was so good here at closing the distance between them and controlling the situation. He also had some really good and varied stuff with the leg. I loved how he just stood on it, for instance. They got pretty heated at times too. I'm curious to see what other people think about it. I liked it a lot. Valentine was made for a 2/3 falls structure and it's a shame we don't have more of those sorts of matches from him. Post match is an interview from the following week setting up DVE vs Valentine for the Texas title. Bruce, please tell me we have that too.

The worst thing about this is that Pete is at the show so I'm going to have to step up and try to watch Conway, Jr. vs Greg Valentine tonight so that we, as a community, can figure out how good it is as soon as possible

There's not a ton of need for pre-91 issues I think. Anyone who really wants those already has them. Search-ability would be nice for research purposes, but yeah. Unless, of course it was 83 and prior.

In general, the way you view wrestling is probably a surprisingly healthy middle ground between some of the more extreme camps. It almost gives me hope for the future. I mean, nothing else about you does, but that does!

Here's what I wrote about PN News/Big Josh vs the Creatures from Halloween Havoc '91:

Personally, I think the two most interesting comparisons are Jericho and Michaels, both of whom often attempted ambitious things that outpaced their skill (Jericho's physical skill, Michaels' storytelling/acting skills). What I am seeing on the last couple of pages, however, is that people seem more forgiving of Punk (who was relatively ambitious in his attempts at both) when it comes to these, and that maybe he was able to overcome his limitations somehow.