Matt D

Is it true that Rusev and Lana will only sign for people wearing the Rusev shirt? If so, that's kind of awesome.

I'm not going to speak for Bill, but I do think it's easy to dismiss what he said by saying he just likes stiffness and that would be a simplification. I think that's part of it maybe, but it's instead a disconnect between how a wrestler is being presented/lauded/remembered and what he actually does. The old "Brody syndrome."

I'm more worried about how it might affect me watching Suits and cautiously optimistic for a new night of SyFy programming. I wonder if the ratings were good enough after the move to Thursday that this suddenly became a good idea.

I thought the first match as star dust was actually pretty cool as he had totally changed his move set. It was great for one night. the problem is that his entire utility was as a hot tag.

I'm not even sure how they could run the mizdow act as a face. Maybe he could be Cena's mascot. Or part of a face tag team where he apes what's happening to his partner. Doing Miz's moves and putting on the sunglasses doesn't cut it.

There's some talk that some of the roster may or may not miss Smackdown due to the Europe tour.

The Hunter Addendum

Posted this in ep 1. Reposting here instead. I've edited my comments there to actually be about the right episode. Anyway: Made it the rest of the way through yesterday. This was probably one of my favorite history based podcasts ever. The level of research as opposed to just recollection from everyone involved was obvious and it was focused and I learned a lot. Even the huge aside on Gilbert was interesting because I hadn't known any of that. It was all balanced too. This wasn't just "JCP is stupid" for three hours. When things were done well, credit was given. When they were done poorly, reasons were sought out, etc.

Got one and two mixed up, but if I never did post my final comments on this, then here they are: I thought this was a lot of fun with a lot of obviously love. I actually sort of wish it went into the decline even in more depth than it did, but that's sort of ridiculous in the face of all the great stuff early on. I don't have a huge affinity to Texas wrestling so going in depth on some of these angles were a great way to live vicariously through you guys, especially given the personal connection.

The only thing I can think for bottom right is current Satanico. It's tricky. I think late-era Andre would be up there, but that, in and of itself, shows some of the dangers of the chart. Andre may not have had physical ability but he certainly had a toolbox (in his size, his reputation, and his opponents' willingness to sell for him), even when completely immobile, that let's say Mr. Electricity Steve Regal didn't at any point of his career. Of course, pro wrestling understanding is all about using WHATEVER tools you have available to their maximum effect, but you can't cancel out some of these things. And like the Shawn Michaels mention before, I actually think that Brody would have scored pretty well in that top right column, because his stamina was legendary and he certainly knew what he was doing. It's just that what he was doing wasn't meant to make good matches, but instead to protect himself. So I do think that this isn't the answer, but it could be a useful tool or at least a way to inspire some discussion.

From what I've seen, his AWA run is what I gravitate towards. He had other constraints in Japan. For some people, that's what made him great, how he used those constraints to be a force. For me, without them, he was able to show a different side. I love how chickenshit he is against Bock and the Hennig match is spectacular.

I snuck in the Strong match. I hadn't seen him since 2004 I think and I haven't seen any other 2015 Thatcher yet. We've got an easter egg hunt in a few so there's no time for a full write up. Just bullet points. -What stood out the most to me was how there was a great sense of character with both wrestlers helping to decide everything they do. -The pre match promo led into a lot of the early match. I like that Thatcher's first real flurry was due to Strong glaring at hte crowd and getting shrugged off on a dropkick. -The impression I get is that Strong keeps getting free and getting a shot in because he's not trying to out wrestle him. He's not trying to prove anything like a lot of the guys who wrestle Thatcher are. He just wants to get some distance and get a quick shot in to keep control. He's real quick at putting his foot on the ropes or taking a shortcut. Or just hitting a cut off kick. They really get across the idea that Thatcher is so dangerous that if he just can string together a couple of moves you're dead. -I like Thatcher's selling on his comeback a lot. -The counter into the crab was clunky but at the same time, I loved Thatcher going for the punch to the arm to stop it while it was happening. -Definitely a match where both guys came out looking really strong.

She had a torn ACL but apparently is booked for the upcoming Europe tour.

It's a shame that they won't get to run some sort of Tamina vs AJ program since Tamina's about to come back.

It's got to be at least somewhat telling that they let her win on the way out, right?

Are we to assume that's Dunn?

Basically, her lens of understanding life is being Vince's daughter, growing up in the business as the princess, and then, when she tries to look for some sort of theoretical framework or mdoel to overlay over those experiences, she ends up using this hollow business marketing approach that she's been trained in. That's a scary combination.

The thing that sort of resonated the most to me was that maybe Bryan wasn't actually that close to Connor. That was one. Another was that the facetiming every Monday was something that I think WWE could have easily added in to the story to make it even better from a corporate spin level so I don't get why they didn't. They could have said he facetimed with superstars every Monday and even left Roberts out of it if they wanted to. I don't 100% know what to make of Steph and Trips as people. I actually think Stephanie is pretty fascinating as a 2.5 dimensional person if you sort of plug in everything we've seen of her (from the 9/11 relation to Vince on basically) and plug it into a computer.

About 40 mins in. Will do more tomorrow morning I like when you guys sort of stumble upon realizations, like when you used George Scott to time the 1986 sale attempt to Vince.

I don't actually think he presented the company in THAT bad a light, frankly.

I think something that might help would be if they defined just what the Intercontinental championship stands for. I think we all have an image in our head from a non-kayfabe standpoint, that it was "the best wrestler" or the "workrate title" or "the b-show headliner," but it actually has no meaning from a kayfabe perspective. What does "intercontinental" represent. Is it innately more important than the US title since the US title means you're the champion of one country but the intercontinental championship is the champion of at least two continents? That's one reason why I like the idea of a television champion so much. I know it's moot now that all belts are defending on TV but in the past it at least had a purpose. It had a kayfabe explanation behind it. It meant something.

I would still qualify that and I hate qualifying things. I think that selling and psychology and storytelling and body language and what not are most important. I understand that other people feel differently and have always felt differently. Wrestling is art. It's subjective. I think it's fair to say that much of the smart community valued "action" more than those other factors in the 80s. Some of us think they were wrong to. Some of us don't. We've been around this circle. Of course, then John will come in and say that what i just said about much of the smart community valuing "action" isn't true because some people valued the other things more back then. So we can go around in that circle too.

The idea, as far as I understand it, is to make more meaningful threads that can be used long term instead of having a few general catch all ones. There'll be growing pains but once a few of these threads are established there shouldn't a thousand popping up (just a hundred, relatively), and in theory, all discussion will be better organized. This is getting friction because of people being happy with the status quo, because of understandable laziness, and people being unsure whether or not to make a new thread or where to put things. I see the argument on both sides, but I think in practice, the community will probably find a middle ground like Will's saying. If someone has a general question about the AWA TV title tournament, it'll probably end up in a General AWA Questions thread instead of a General Questions and Comments thread. There won't necessarily need to be a specific thread about the AWA TV Title Tournament. If that's the big difference, I'm perfectly fine with it.

No, if only because they have too much TV to fill and I've seen no indication that they know how to manage it over time. Bryan's going to end up eating way too many falls in order to establish challengers because they like to use non-title matches that way too much.

I was in the UK during the Euros back in 04 and it amazed me how every car you'd see on the street had a flag attached to it, which is something I only saw in the US immediately after 9/11.