Matt D

I could see it as an ego/attention thing. The people creating new content want to make sure eyes only fall on their content. Or what not. If anyone wants to put forth another Wacoan-style Hunter conspiracy, have at it.

Jarrett needs to get on Tumblr.

If I was Jarrett I'd jump on the Busisk/Gulag/Thatcher train

DDP had a pink Cadillac

Orton's true calling was as a comedy mid-card face.

Flair probably fucking loves Angle as a wrestler. Angle's actually a good example of what Flair might have been without his preternatural instincts and ability to both read a crowd and (more importantly) define a crowd's expectations

Flair shoots cannot be unseen.

The arm injury happened before the match began. Cena immediately covered it by injuring the arm. When I was a kid and really into basketball, Marcus Webb, a benchwarmer for the Celtics broke his finger cracking his knuckles on the bench. This injury is kind of up there with that.

I should have said "Goodhandmanship" but I can't make that sound like a thing.

It's hard to say since Parv undervalues workmanship.

It was effective, which is sometimes better than great.

Let's talk about Cena vs Zayn. It's looking like Sami hurt himself on the way in(apologies for the sped up gif. That's what gifyoutube does for me): Cena immediately hit two protobombs to start the match (after the commercial break) and gave them reason to portray it as those hurt the shoulder. Sami sold like a king, broadly selling to the back row as if it was a wrestling injury, instead of a legit one. That they still accomplished a lot of what they set out to do given the circumstance was pretty amazing.

He's a guy they can put Rollins over without anyone getting damaged and the size difference will make it potentially striking if they can do it right.

I don't have the evidence to back this up right now, but Jericho seems like a poster boy for not knowing his limitations to the detriment of matches, and if not a poster boy for this, then someone who often times "doesn't get it." The hissy fit over people criticizing his RVD match comes to mind. Hardy on the other hand feels a bit more like "one of the best tv workers of the 00s," someone whose delusions actually make him better. I'm not really seeing this comparison.

Well this sure looks great.

I think everyone has raised good and valid points and backed then up well and I'm not going to disagree with them so much explain that it is more of a personal feeling. To the very last point, it's not about great matches to me. I know I stand out on that. It is about gauging how well someone understands the art of professional wrestling and then how well that person can execute that understanding. Contextual information matters especially as a tool to understand a wrestler's body of work. Subtextual information matters as well. We are criticizing art here after all. We have imperfect information, yes, but we do our best. I completely understand if someone feels differently or if someone feels the same but that it doesn't matter in this case. More later if people want it.

The Nick Bockwinkel Championship is way better than the John Cena Championship.

Wrestling is way closer to Jazz than Basketball.

Close listening to announcers is the wave of the future. Also a sign that we're picking apart almost everything there is to pick apart in wrestling.

And then there's the idea of being a road agent too. AND the idea of some guys promoting let's say one town in a territory.

I kind of want to do a close listen on Gorilla/Jesse, because you think, by their nature, they'd almost cancel each other out. It's Vince I find sort of embarrassing with Jesse, because when Ventura would point something out, Vince would squirm and go "Well, I don't know about that..."

I'm still wrapping my head around the idea of a booker as someone who actually "books talent," which I realize is a personal failing on my fault for not making that connection for so long. I always used to see a booker bringing in talent as cronyism and there's something to that, but mostly, it's the other way around. During the territory days, the talent that a booker could book through personal connections to supplement who the promoter might be able to book through professional connections was probably more important than the actual storylines he used.

It's more about what you can learn about him as a complete performer from watching his late era work than the late era work in and of itself. I need to see the 04 stuff with Lawler too.

He trained Murdoch and Ox Baker? And Eddie Sharkey, apparently, which creates a weird sort of family tree.

I'm tossing Bob Geigel's name out there just to hear what people think.