Matt D

I doubt I'll be the low vote on Hansen but he's going to be outside my top 20. I think I have a pretty good sense of him now. In general, I find him unimaginative in Japan. I'm not saying anyone could do what he did, because he's talented and very good at portraying consequence and I enjoy him more elsewhere, but I think the "unrelenting guzzle," which is what I'd call his style there, is about the most uninteresting style imaginable. It's real in all the ways that wrestling should not be real.

Are we sure this isn't just WWE realizing that they need more guys at the top of the card over the next few years and keeping Cena out of that scene? Or is that too logical?

The injury actually protects Sting a bit.

The best thing about Sting is that he forces everyone not to work the super indy style.

Rollins finally gets to work like Honkytonk Man like he should be instead of like Blitzkreig on steroids.

It's easy to have a decisive finish if you're putting the loser over in the main event right after.

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. .