Matt D

I'm torn. I still think the way this works best is as Triple H's apprentice and you kind of need the long hair and facial hair for that, or at least the long hair, but he should probably sell out and totally go corporate by cutting the hair, shaving etc. Being in a suit most of the time and what have you. I also think he should start working like a dick and tease dives but not do them and do a bunch of leverage stuff and what have you.

In that case shouldn't they put a 20 minute preview or what not?

And he's a Freebird. What's your excuse?

We're running with "Cerebral Architect"

Internet tone problems. I wasn't kidding. The way I minimize my tedium should have an appreciation course in a college somewhere.

The way I navigate through the bureaucratic bullshit in the day to day existence of my job is absolutely art.

They only seem to run one house show at a time on Fridays. They're in Providence on the 20th. There's your date.

Well if you are going to have someone portray a farmyard rooster....

I really think they should have done a network special one night tournament to crown the champion, with Rollins getting a first round bye (and maybe bracketed vs. the winner of Reigns vs Ambrose). Then do MITB as a normal PPV. That's how you get people to buy the network.

We call you pretentious, absolutely, but that's only because my write up on Bock vs Hennig broadway is lost in the ether of the internet.

I don't think it could ever survive Vince shouting in announcers' ears.

The difference is I don't think anyone else is having the discussion but the thirty or so of us?

Do we have any sense of whether Ziggler actually moves metrics? Or is it just a vocal part of the live audience that is behind him? It could be the illusion of goodwill. Over at DVDVR, I said they should put it on Brock and I still think they should. That way they could even play up his absence as a strength, that his contract lets him have the time between fights he had in MMA but they can't strip him of the belt and that he's basically holding WWE hostage and no one can stop him. You could have Heyman basically running things with Cesaro (holding a secondary belt that in Brock's absence becomes a primary belt), and play up Bryan as sort of the savior of the WWE in trying to get the belt back when he's healthy again.

I think the flipside would be Savage as an artist, since he took so much care in planning out his matches, though.

Neither here nor there, but I've been writing more than anyone ever ought to about Jindrak over at Segunda Caida recently. After seeing what I have, my gut says he could have been used fairly well in the WWE mid-card around 2009, and actually could have been part of a really solid babyface tag team with Masters around that time, where he could have been the hot tag, but one that could have also sold well in a double FIP.

It's all tricky in that regard because someone like Shawn Michaels would get pissed off when a match didn't go how he wanted, not necessarily because he wanted that match to draw money, but because he wanted it to be a CLASSIC. That's sort of after the era a lot of us care the most about, though. That said, there are stories about someone like JJ Dillon who would go out and try to have a great match to impress the boys (though of course the moral of the story is that he got reamed because he wasn't supposed to do that and he didn't play his role right to draw money, but it does show that such a thing could matter to wrestlers even in the early 80s).

I think there are two different arguments here and it's worthwhile to separate them on some level. The first is: "Can Pro Wrestling be seen as art even if the intent of wrestlers is simply to make money?" or "Is this a reasonable way to view pro wrestling?" maybe. The second is "What are the downsides and difficulties in trying to understand drawing power?" I think I said it before, but to me, looking at someone who we think is a draw and then trying to figure out how they drew and why they were a draw and what made them a draw relative to their peers, is the key part of this. It's understanding the numbers, and then, if you want to get a total picture, cross-referencing that with the artistic elements and see where they intersect.

Let him do a tag with Kane. Or maybe Wyatt will be a face by then. Just do something where he can be protected and it'll draw interest.

Though, Cena says that Arn lets him do whatever now and I tend to believe it.

Iggy Azalea is part of the top 2 songs on the Billboard 100 right now. Does that mean she's the best singer in the world? Even if so, what about the producers she's worked with, etc? The best drawing wrestler is Cena. Wrestling is an industry but it's also an art form. It's a performance art. Now, I think there's a great argument for Cena being the best wrestler on multiple metrics, but wrestling is art. You're looking at things too narrowly, just like you argue that the people who ONLY look at work are missing the big picture. Making money might be the big picture, but there are a dozen other pictures to look at and most of them make for way more interesting conversation.

It'll probably help draw? If drawing is even a thing anymore? It'll give him a more celebratory retirement match? I think there's probably some casual interest in "What can taker do after Brock beat the streak?" That seems like a thing Kris' friends would talk to him at the water cooler about.

I think some of this is really about what the discussion is actually about. Are we talking about the WON HOF? Are we talking about the context of why a wrestler only got to wrestle ten minute matches and we can't judge their output well? Are we talking GOAT? Or are we just trying to figure out if someone's a better wrestler than someone else, based on our own specific criteria at the time. With almost any talk here, we are usually on the same page with one another what we're talking about and sometimes it matters a lot and sometimes it matters a little. I think far more important than "Did he draw?" would be "why did he draw?" in as what specific things did the wrestler do to get to that point. That's the same thing with great matches. "Did he have great matches?" is an okay starting point but then go in depth and start to look for patterns.

So, not TOP GUY, but certainly a draw and a "Star." Tom Zenk as part of the Can Am Connection. They were getting super over. There was momentum there. They were going to get pushed to the title if he didn't leave.

Paige was sort of a Mad Max Warrior in NXT. This is pretty far off of that.