Matt D

WWF @ Sassari, Italy - April 11, 1989 WWF @ Cagliari, Italy - April 12, 1989 WWF @ Palermo, Italy - April 13, 1989 WWF @ ?, Italy - April 1989 WWF IC Champion Rick Rude pinned Bret Hart I know sometimes fancams from the European tours popped up. I kind of wish we had that one.

Not at all. We go off on tangents like this that start off as Dave-related. It's 4400 posts long. I started all this and I really didn't even have a horse in this race. I just thought it was weird that you'd start professional coverage of a sporting event with a Thumbs Up/Down poll from your readers.

Look, if we can't repeatedly answer "Yes" to the "Is TNA the worst promotion ever?" note, you can't get away with that here.

The script was pretty much a non-entity. Did we really learn anything there?

Quite the opposite.

You guys are like the Vader of message boards.

Kris Z, the Calvary.

I just don't think I'd lead with it in my publication's evaluation/recap of the show.

We live in a nostalgia-driven culture. Maybe that doesn't work in the south? How did the Dukes of Hazzard movie do? EDIT: Eh, it made more than its budget, and hey, that was ten years ago.

They won't shell out 60 dollars to see a Sting match. They'll perk their ears up at the idea that Sting is having a match in WWE finally and take a look at what else is there. The match itself is just an attraction to get people to the door. Everything else will pull them in. A Sting match would just be a doorbuster.

That kind of gives credence to Bryan vs Sheamus in the Wrestlemania Midcard. Otherwise they would have either been glad that he was building Bryan and the feeling they tapped into up or they would have just clued him in.

I think that's because the Network puts us in a whole new world. The amazing thing is sometimes they actually look like they realize how they can leverage it too.

Warrior couldn't walk. They wanted to use Hogan somehow, but apparently the idea of someone even running into his fist was hard to get approved (they eventually did). Warrior doesn't look like Warrior. Sting sort of looks like Sting (though he looks more like an old heavy in a gangster movie), and the make-up covers up some of it. I think the end product wouldn't be ultimately satisfying but that you could raise interest in it because for a lot of the people they're trying to draw (and have to draw with the network, out of sight is out of mind and... I know how we can solve this. Kris needs to tell us what all of his casual wrestling fan buddies think.

Am I the only one who finds the Thumbs Up/Down/Middle for UFC events sort of weird? I get it for wrestling because almost every TV show has individual episodes rated by users on IMDB. That's pretty understandable, and it does lead off from the reader contribution history of the WON. MMA is a sporting event though. I couldn't see a sporting publication leading their coverage of NBA on whether or not people thought it was a good game or just an okay one.

Cody on JBL/Cole is probably the single most entertaining thing WWE does right now.

He's not going to pop a buyrate but he can generate interest over 2 generations of lapsed fans in the network. They need to tap every source they can there, to the point where, like I said, I don't think they should put him on PPV, but they should make a network exclusive event around his last match. (I think the right pairing is probably Cena, not Wyatt or Daniel). It's WWE, if they present something as important, it will be looked at by the fanbase as important. That's how it works 9 times out of 10. They're just sort of bad at presenting anything as important because they have the announcers shit on almost everything. Look at what they did, on extremely short notice with Warrior. They give Sting that sort of push on the network coming in, build it to one big event, and I think it'd generate interest. You tap into 20% of the lapsed fans who watched Nitro at its height and stopped either in 01 or well before it and that's more than worth spending a week making some exclusive content with Sting and one live event that you could make money off of anyway. If they present him as important, then whoever beats him gets a rub. It's all artificial and it's all cost/benefit. As he's fresh and has a lot of history behind him, I think it'd be easier to heat him up over a short period of time to put someone over, draw lapsed eyes to the network (and really, the entire point of the network is to tap into nostalgia. If their younger fanbase hasn't bought in for Mania, when are they going to?), and sell some merchandise than it would be for most of the talents they have on the roster now.

Evolution should win because that way they can rationalize putting Bryan on last so the babyface wins at the end of the night and putting Bryan on last is more important than the Shield winning. (ALSO NEXT MONTH CAN BE QUASI-WAR GAMES)

Look at what just happened with Warrior. (I also don't think it should be a Mania match vs Taker, granted. I think they should build to some special to go along with Nitro and Monday Night Wars coming on the network with one big match to capitalize on his name, which in some ways does mean more since most of the audience they're targeting haven't seen him in years and years).

I think there's going to be one moment to capitalize on that people will be interested in. I don't think that there will be two. They just milked Ultimate Warrior Nostalgia in a huge way. I think they can tap into that to get people into the network. Have him come back for one big match vs someone (in this case Bryan since he could make it work and is the champ), make it a network only special and tie it to Nitro and the Monday Night Wars show debuting on the network. I honestly think they need to do big launches like that, big pushes now and again.

You just don't want him to climb a cage in anger.

Sami Zayn is a better Bryan than Bryan in a lot of ways, at least character-wise.

There is no better case study for the things WWE does wrong than that debut. He got bitchslapped by HHH in an in ring encounter too. And then he didn't even get a decisive win. I don't think he was announced the winner. The match just stopped due to the concussion. It was so bad.

Bryan can run into his fist. It'll be fine. Just have it be a WWE storytelling match with a lot of dramatic looks and a few holds and Bryan doing most of the bumping and working from underneath.

And it'd be the perfect way to draw lapsed WCW fans to try out the network. Bryan could make it work. Sting could say he wants a taste of that big gold belt one last time. The way I see it, past as an ambassador and a talking head, the only real value in Sting is in one match. I think there'll be a lot of interest the first time they use him. I think it should be in some sort of network exclusive and I think you need to do it at a point that's not Mania. No one will be interested in seeing him twice but there are a ton of lapsed 28-35 year old lunkheads who were on their high school baseball teams in 1997 and picked the black baseball bat for a reason. Grab their 60 bucks, put Bryan over as defeating an icon, and send Sting off to talking head land.

Part of the problem with Tensai is that they gave him a bunch of BS wins over top guys all at once. It's a crappy way to get someone over. It was even worse when they did it with Curtis Axel who had probably the worst debut I've ever seen in my life.