Matt D

All I caught of that was the last minute of Ziggler being in and then Sheamus vs Ryback. So I can't judge. What I saw was a lot of fun though. I guess I'm glad I missed what I didn't? Part of me half thought that Bryan was going to clock him with the belt. I'm an eternal optimist tonight.

Back to the Owens match: I do think sometimes a match that's somewhat less "great" but can be more of a spectacle or more or more spectacular can be the RIGHT match. It's not always about what we think is good or appropriate. That match got Owens buzz, maybe even more buzz than a more balanced, more even match, one that we'd rank higher on MOTY or MOTD lists. And some people build that into how they rate a match. I generally don't, but I'll at least admit it. EDIT: I hadn't seen Redman's comments when I wrote that (just caught that), but good post on her.

Also, it's John Fucking Cena. It takes three finishers from most guys to beat him.

I loved how much Cena gave him in the first half of the match. It was all heat with some really great cut offs and compelling offense and good selling. They basically bypassed the shine altogether. I think that was to make Owens look even stronger (and I had thought through the match to make him look stronger in defeat). As it was, it made the match feel uneven to me. Unbalanced. I think that the finishing stretch was way too long with way too many kick outs. That said, they were relatively judicious in the use of the Pop Up Power Bomb and AA. Because of that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I would have liked to see more selling to delay the pins more, maybe? The one place I DIDN'T want to see it was after the Pop Up Powerbomb. He sort of fell onto him slowly. I would have loved him having an adrenaline burst and really driving in the pin there with the feet moving and what not. That's a nitpick though. Really great heat segment and a fun and compelling finishing stretch that went on way too long relative to the way they structured the match. In some ways I kind of liken it to Sabu vs Cena actually, in that Owens got to do all sort of stuff that we never see against Cena and that in and of itself was a lot of fun to see. I've said "compelling" twice now and I'll say it again. It more compelling than great, but I'm totally okay with that because compelling is so rare.

Absolutely. The Ascension look good for the first time ever... taking out both high-energy Hispanic teams. Then they kill the PTPs' heat by having Darren take out Cesaro. I'm playing catch up. I thought that they looked good too. Especially Viktor, both his clubbering and his power offense.

I'm not actually sure this is the sort of match that played to Rusev's strengths anyway.

I just can't get over how much of this stuff we don't have. I suppose I should just be glad for how much we do.

I actually think they could have done a lot better with Axel too. It's weird that we had Axel, Sandow, Ascension, New Day and Bo all going at the same time. All sort of delusional meta gimmicks.

I think with any over act, be it Warrior or Hogan or the Warriors or the Bushwhackers that aren't over for reasons that do appeal directly to workrate fans, it's worthwhile to try to deconstruct what they did over time and figure out just why they were over. So in that regard, maybe we don't give the Road Warriors the credit that we even give guys like Warrior and Hogan.

I'm not going to fantasy book (pair him with Cena as his Julius Smokes then have him turn on cena after x months), but you think they did as much with him that they should have, on the pacing that they should have?

WWE can afford to waste a guy who is actually over? As they have so many? IT's their job to figure it out. They get paid ... how much do the writing team get paid?

He was hot back in March and they failed to figure out how to capitalize on that. In part that was the nature of the Mizdow gimmick. It couldn't survive the split. But they had months to figure out how to do it.

Match finder has Four major Casas vs Satanico singles matches 1995-03-05 Arena Coliseo 4 of 4: Satánico © b Negro Casas [CMLL MIDDLE] 1998-10-19 Arena Puebla 1 of 1: Negro Casas b Satánico [hair] 1998-10-27 Arena Coliseo 5 of 5: Satánico © b Negro Casas [CMLL MIDDLE] 1998-12-02 Carpa Astros, Tlalpan, Distrito Federal 1 of 1: Satánico © b Negro Casas [CMLL MIDDLE] None of them look like they made TV. Were any of them taped somehow anyway?

There was definitely some sense of live reactions for Total Divas on TV/PPVs last summer, though. I'd call that more anecdotal than anything else, but it was there.

Wow. He had a good match with Mil Mascaras. I should probably stop joking around.

I was looking at some of the random tough enough entries and one woman said that she was inspired by the hardyz and lita, so there you go. Still relevant. No one ever answered my question from the original post though, about Lauper.

http://www.dailymotion.com/nitroe Lots of JCP/WCW and WWF TV. He's been posting Pro NY from 92 this week.

Conversely, the Satanico Feud is so terrific you can't write Dandy off without having seen it, so you have to watch it, yes.

I await the six podcasts you guys will do on fake pro wrestling.

I kind of feel like this match should be embedded in the confirmation e-mail for the forum. "Welcome to the forum. Here, check out this match."

Of all of my really hilarious blindspots and areas where I just know nothing, I think Tenyru is the most hilarious. He's a different human being than Tenzan right? It's not a Mutoh/Muta thing. (It's nice to finally have a post where the Bobby Davis avatar pays off)

One of my favorite part of these is when someone's doing an extended Dusty impression and it goes on long enough that I forget who's doing it and can't figure it out. (It was Kris)

Like anything else in modern WWE, it gets more interesting when Vince stops paying attention to it.

I'm buying that thing if I can figure out how. I made that decision earlier today actually. You can ask Loss. I bugged him to check for me.

Bill, Steven, etc, is this on your radar yet? http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv664s_mil-mascaras-ultimo-dragon-vs-earthquake-john-tenta-billy-gun-stan-lane-1993-japan_sport It's surreal.