Matt D

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.

The most interesting aspect of that to me was that they had hit a point where I think the fans were actually more than okay with a Reigns win. if he had won that match, it would have felt satisfying. People would have cheered. People would have smiled. So it does feel on some level that they made the fans want something, or at least accept something, and then gave them something that they "needed" instead. It's the sort of real heel heat generation that you don't often get in the modern product. In fact, I'd like to see Loss (who has spoken up strongly about the lack of heels being allowed to garner that heat, if I remember correctly) speak on that. He was so focused on the bait and switch element, the sort of out of character promotional element, that I haven't seen him say too much about the in character element.

Hey, I can't be blamed for the fact that it seemed like Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard were going to be there and Paul Roma and Mongo's dog showed up instead.

Andre/Hogan kind of rules, yeah.

Experience was key here. There were moments of people freezing or jumping the gun. It's going to make it hard to unseat the champ.

I love the 5 minutes of Pedro vs Fuji we have. I fully expect Fuji in the 70s to be awesome. Screw April 1.

I thought we marked out like crazy for him?

I know this is a surprise to nobody that commentary sucked but it really does explain why there are so many different spectrum of opinion on this match. One of the great advantages of being at WM live is not having to deal with that shit. I sure if I watched the Daniel Bryan WM matches last year I wouldn't like it as much. As far the Rousey thing, this is a guy who lives mixing his pro wrestling with MMA and MMA with his pro wrestling. Why wouldn't he be giddy about Rousey showing up at Wrestlemania. Short of having the Diaz brothers or Paige Vanzant working with Steph and Triple H it doesn't get any better. That's fair. I suppose I'd enjoy Brock Lesnar fighting the Incredible Hulk too.

I'm stereotyping. Work with me. But also, doesn't that sort of fit what a Group #2 audience would want? Stars that feel like stars and are protected as such even though Sting isn't about to have a great match and Orton is fairly problematic?