Matt D

Not again. Poor Al Snow.

We need Chris to run numbers. Lots and lots of numbers.

Obviously the problem is that with soccer, unlike football, the youth leagues in the States aren't about winning but just being included and having fun. You can see why the Soviets never dominated.

If we're examining that, can we examine the theory that MMA devoured what should have been wrestling's last upcycle?

Bailey, Paige and Emma as the Crush Gals.

John Rogers is pretty solid. Leverage was a great show.

And when you add in the fancams?

Is that the best that ECW ever was, even counting the original run?

If someone who was foreign signed up through some sort of clever means, did they find those people and cut them off for now?

I imagine this is terribly unsurprising to anyone here, but I fall on the Dylan side of this. He and I have fairly similar views on wrestling, though I tend to lean towards overall narrative coherence and he focuses a bit more on building to big moments, but it's still on the same sector of the chart. To me, it's like this. Any number of factors can influence a great match: road agents, the crowd, the placement on the card, opportunity in general. The only way to really know how good a wrestler is, in the end, is to watch a number of their matches, the great ones and the not so great ones, tag matches and singles, matches where they're the heel and where they're the face, matches early in their career and late in their career. When you watch a lot of matches you start to learn things; you see patterns, you see them react to multiple situations, generally multiple times and you see how they choose to act and react in these situations. You see how they work towards the crowd. You see how they use their talents and those of the person in the ring with them and how they allow themselves to be used. You see how they wrestle in a big match setting and how they wrestle in a TV squash and how they wrestle in a long-ish house show match. You come at it from dozens of angles and you get a complete picture of their capabilities and how well they understand professional wrestling. You need a big enough sample size, and generally, that is pretty big. You can learn something from one match. You can learn a few things from a few matches, but you really need a 360 degree view to understand a wrestler. And I frankly think that you can. We watch a lot of wrestling. Charles is confident that he can recognize a good match. I give him more credit than that. I think if I gave him a list of five wrestlers, right now, that I know he's seen a lot of matches of, he could tell me various traits they had, various things they could do well and various things that one might do better than another. I've heard him on podcasts and read his stuff right here and I promise you he could that and do it well. Now, if he's more comfortable or more interested coming at things on a match by match basis and focusing his analysis that way, then that's fine. One of the best things about this place is that so many of us come at understanding and enjoying and appreciating pro wrestling so many different ways. It means that we generate a more robust and interesting picture, even if sometimes, we can't argue directly with one another since we're tackling things from too different an angle.

Inventors?

The worst is when he does the other person's voice. "So, what about this? we should do this, right?" Then he goes "Noooo," in the most petulant, patronizing voice possible and it's the bitchiest thing ever. He's creating his own mental morons in his head. It's just unsettling to listen to.

Slater'll come out soon as Clem.

I thought Kelly Kelly was actually fairly over at times, for what it's worth. It's not like she was Ashley or anything.

But are you calling them equally as useless as Kelly Kelly?

Obviously they're releasing a bunch of guys today to put up a smokescreen to distract from the Dunn/HHH feud getting out. Obviously.

The only one that's even barely worth listening to is the Gail Kim one, because he seems almost awestruck of her and especially so of her husband. The toadying is insane.

Bonnema always carried more of a family feel to me. You felt like you were part of the neighborhood or something.

I thought they did give some profit margins and what not and the million was US only. One thing Meltzer brings up all the time is that we don't know how many people currently are foreign subscribers and a lot of the most eager people probably found a way to subscribe.

84 AWA needed a Greg Gagne heel turn. I love Mid South in 84, with Dundee coming in and heating up the booking. It's got the Mr. Wrestling II heel run and the RnRs and Midnights coming in. There's something pretty special about JCP in 1985 too, with the rise of Magnum and advent of the Horsemen. ECW in 2009 was super enjoyable with Christian as the babyface Ace and a good mix of old and new talent. Portland in 1979 is over the top with Roddy and Martel as the babyfaces and Rose and the Sheepherders as probably the most iconic version of the army. WCW from fall 91 to summer 1992 with a million Dangerous Alliance matches given away and Pillman vs Liger and Steamboat returning and Dustin coming into his own, etc.

Ding, ding on Paige. Her act in NXT was that she was a badass post-apocalyptic warrior. Now she's a shrinking violet. And they changed absolutely moronic things about Rose's act, like how they emphasize the fans singing the music instead of shouting the "hey"and timing his jump with it. I couldn't figure out why the hell they would possibly do that. But yeah, Dunn sabotage makes way more sense than anything I could come up with. It might explain why they didn't go with the 5 Count on Big E too.

And hey, either it goes well or the internet will be hilarious to watch. Win, win.

He's the sort of guy that is hurt a lot by 2x a week, competitive matches I think.

Occasionally, I think likes should be enabled. Then I think better of it.

Again, not a top guy but if Haynes didn't take his ball and go home, how high do you think his WWF run might have gone?