Matt D

That's actually the most disappointing thing about Hero. Once upon a time, WWE would have properly punished him before showing him the door.

re: Austin. This is a little bit silly I guess, but I think he'd have to change his act a little. I've heard too many podcasts with the guy.

I agree with a chunk of that. The key point there is that it matters because he was such a trendsetter and in some ways even still is. That's why there's criticism. On the other hand, now I'm thinking I oversold how big a heel act Dibiase was in 92-93 just by looking at cards. Sorry, Parv.

He sure didn't care about the Duggan match at the time. The only mention of it in 93 was: "Duggan juiced from the mouth in that match and it was heavily pushed as U.S. vs. Japan and they are pushing that theme for the Wrestlemania main event with Bret Hart, which is ironic because Yokozuna and Fuji are both more American than Bret Hart." He was much more interested in the publicity of people protesting against it. I guess it's good that he's been able to put it in context retroactively though. He's forgetting the fact that Macho had knocked him down just the week before on the Royal Rumble as the finish of the damn match, but that was more WWF's fault than his. That led to a hilarious moment where Macho tried to point it out on TV only to get hushed. Savage is sort of hilarious announcing in 94 when he was frustrated about not being used and used a lot of his time as a pulpit to talk himself up. He wasn't quite so bad in 93. EDIT: Sorry about all the edits in the last post. I was researching as I went.

I haven't had a chance to listen yet but I don't think anyone thinks he doesn't care about booking or how wrestlers are presented. That has nothing to do with his tastes in what excites him in a wrestling match and what makes him dole out star ratings. I get what you're saying, I think, but usually that specific critique on Meltzer is primarily about tastes in wrestling matches. For instance, and again, i'm asking this because I haven't had a chance to hear it, did he talk about how good the European Tour Yoko/Duggan matches were from 93, with Yoko's cutoff timing being so great and Duggan very solid working from underneath, especially in front of crowds where the jingoistic thing was naturally nullified? The knockdown challenge was also expertly worked and it's a bit more memorable, but it had great build and emotion and crescendoed to a really nasty beat heel beatdown to garner heat for Yoko. How deeply did he go into that? EDIT: Looking through the 93 WONs, the only thing that interested him at the time was that the segment wasn't shown in parts of CA and Chicago due to protests from Asian Associations. Also: "Yokozuna and Jim Duggan are having horrible matches in the negative star range, although with all the TV behind Duggan's comeback, he's getting as big crowd reactions as ever. Mr. Fuji throws salt leading to Duggan getting counted out. " He was getting between -** to **1/2 from correspondents. EDIT 2: here's what he said when they came to the cow palace on 5/15: "Yokozuna pinned Jim Duggan in 6:56. Of that, two minutes was cheerleading and three minutes was a bearhug, but with Duggan, you don't go in with high expectations. This was the only match on the show with any heat and there was a huge pop when Duggan knocked Yokozuna off his feet. Even with a $3 kids discount, this was more of an old-time wrestling crowd that seemed to be there more out of habit than inspired by any of the angles as there was only one moment during Duggan-Yokozuna during the entire show with any real crowd intensity and the "Pavlovian" reactions to the babyface entrance music was way down." Which is sort of fair. I wish there was an Owen Hart match on the show or something, but the only thing he liked was Luger vs Hart which he felt was heatless. Here's what he said about the main: "8. Steiners beat Money Inc. via DQ in 15:40. The place emptied out big-time right after the ring introductions which tells you how much interest the tag title has right now. The wrestlers sensed it as they worked a sound storyline but it was pretty much lacking in action. Before the match they ordered the briefcase to be sent back to the dressing room. Finish saw Scott hit DiBiase with the Frankensteiner when Brooklyn Brawler ran to ringside with the briefcase and handed it to IRS who hit Scott with it. They simply announced Steiners as the winners to tease that the title had changed, but people have seen this too many times and the "fake" title change got no pop. Finally they announced it was a DQ and the titles didn't change. Disappointing match. *1/2."

I can see what they might think they can do. For one, Vince loves hillbillies. I could see him pushing that way with it. Not quite Hillbilly Jim but more "We're going to take you behind the woodshed." I also wouldn't be surprised if they don't think they can't siphon off some of Daniel Bryan's stuff onto him. He's a bearded misfit too and maybe the fans can relate to that, with the sing-along gimmick not that far off from Yes in some ways.

If appearances don't matter, you're saying you'd get the exact same enjoyment out of Kawada if he wrestled his entire career in a chicken suit. I'd get more enjoyment out of that probably too. Especially when he does the thing where he grabs the head and kicks a lot.

We need King of the Ring back.

Hunter is always better when he has less muscle on him anyway.

Pray it happens sooner cause this Stardust shit is embarrassingly horrific. Everyone likes it but you!

Their main agent is Joey Mercury but that's not what you mean.

Talk about a match getting dragged down by genre conventions. I know nothing about any of this, but whenever I see a random Taue match that's only 15 minutes long or so I'm going to give it a look now, since he's my new favorite Japanese guy. This had all the shapings of a great big vs little match. Marufuji's shooting himself in the foot by going for gutsy power moves or staying in holds long enough for Taue to get his hands on him only to fight back by going to the leg was all extremely effective. Taue really used his size well, from the opening dickishness with the sunset flip and dropkick to all the sense that if he just gets his hands on Marufuji, then the poor guy is doomed. I like that a lot of the big chokeslams were countered or escaped from instead of just kicked out of, and the blocking of the hand into the cross arm breaker was an incredible moment. That said, there was just too much. There's no economy in this at all. The biggest nearfall in the match was probably after the massive powerbomb and it might have meant something more if it wasn't surrounded by other ridiculous two count kickouts. I don't blame the match too much because it was something the crowd was conditioned to and everything was fairly clever, but it grated because there was a legitimately great little match in there and it got damned by its own very nature.

They should just do a gimmick tag match. Cena/Ambrose/Reigns/Sheamus vs HHH/Orton/Rollins/Kane or something. Just kill time. It's better than having Cena defend against any of the usual suspects.

Cena gets cheered in Boston. I kind of wanted Reigns to win and Rollins to immediately cash in (and I didn't want that at the start of the night but after Reigns took everyone out, I kind of did).

I'm kind of looking forward to Rollins stalking Cena and Heyman's promos on Cena.

I'm not sure I loved the first ladder match. When I said I was desensitized I meant that it felt longer than usual and there was SO much ladderness to it, so when I saw them make the ramp again in this match it seemed weird. The first one being frenetic didn't mean that the second one was better for being plodding. That said, I liked the Rollins/Ambrose stuff for the most part. Also, and I kind of hate saying this, but blood does make everything better.

The Everyone-in-the-Ring stuff has been kind of fascinating in this though.

I will say that Kane's a little bit interesting as a guy not trying to win himself. But just a little bit. Things like how he just broke down the ladder since Orton wasn't in a position to use it. I like the idea at least.

I feel sort of desensitized from the first ladder match of the night.

Gagne Lock = Match of the Night?

They sort of had to do that to justify the heel turn but man did it feel like they were about to really make a star there.

Sometimes HD is a problem. Seeing rows and rows of totally apathetic fans as Paige celebrated was just sad.

Of all guys that it would be reasonable for us to have footage of, Masked Superstar is pretty high up on my list of those I wish we had more of.

I thought we didn't have that episode.