Matt D

Yeah, injuries. There were reports that Mark Henry was selling an injury on house shows over the weekend and I have no idea if it was legit or him selling the Brock stuff or what. WWE doesn't usually show that attention to detail but Henry himself is a guy who seems to care about it.

How prevalent were roids among top talent in Japan? It never seemed as big an issue as in the states, or perhaps just wasn't covered as much. Nor did you have a bunch of Warlords running around drawing your attention to it. But it must've had some kind of presence. Not sure if this helps, but here's something Meltzer said in a March 1992 Observer when everything was coming to a head in the US.

One of the maddening things about following pro wrestling is that whenever there is something real that happens, it eventually gets made into a work.

Raw is going to be weird between the Bryan hijacking, the potential for CM Punk chants, One-Eyed Cena and NAO in a Tag Team Cage match in 2014. I wonder if the Shield promo about Punk was a dry run for Raw. I'm going to be automatically disappointed since nothing, in my head, can live up to Cory Graves as Fake Diesel CM Punk, and for some strange reason, I don't think they're going to do that. Midget Punk would be pretty good too though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DOCegPA8Pw Hogan could totally do a neck wringer on someone at Mania. Forget this hosting crap. It's right there. Neck Wringer.

I was trying to think of something and really couldn't. I guess sometime in Dec/Jan of 1990-1991, Perfect had just reclaimed the IC belt and he was wrestling Piper on the house shows and I saw a local promo where he said he'd take the IC belt from Perfect and I didn't want that to happen because I wanted Kerry to get it back. I really thought that Piper might get it on a house show because his promo was good. Even by that point, maybe ten, I realized that nothing would ever happen on house shows since there were no cameras. But I always felt like the dates on that were right before Summerslam, but that makes no sense, so it really had to be in December/Jan.

Probably a mild understatement to say he's lucky to have you.

I think that's more about "small white workrate indy guys" the only other Japanese wrestler they have that I know is Yoshi Tatsu who is pretty much a non-entity for them. Wouldn't hurt to have him for when they do their rare Japan tours. I don't know. if I was doing a Crusierweight only show, I'd probably want to sign Richards for it, if he was right there, and I can't stand him as a wrestler.

1.) Best I can tell, there's been nothing new since last summer. It's mainly KENTA speculation, but if that was the case then the arguments about them not signing Richards/Edwards because they had too many guys like them already would be a little contradictory.

Neither here nor there, but we'll have to make some call about double posting. Do we keep using the microscope threads as central repositories? Do we use the new EVERYTHING threads? Do we double post things?

Neither here nor there, but we'll have to make some call about double posting. Do we keep using the microscope threads as central repositories? Do we use the new EVERYTHING threads? Do we double post things?

I get it, and you guys did a good job at what you set out to do, absolutely. I just came in expecting something else and was a little disappointed accordingly. It fit the Wrestling With the Past format that you guys used for the Bret and IC/TV title shows much better than what I have wanted would have.

I think most people here would put Rikishi as being better than HHH.

What is there to breakdown? Breaking down HHH's ringwork is like breaking down a Nickelback record. Sure, you could try it, but... I have full faith that Dylan and Will could do it. I've seen them both do it before in a myriad of ways for both the best and the worst wrestlers in the world. I don't know Scott really (at least I think I don't. Does he post here? If he doesn't, he should), but he obviously has some vivid memories of these matches and strong feelings about them, so I think he could likely pull together patterns as well. It was interesting to hear someone defend Triple H as a character/presence/etc. since that argument is so often one sided, but a lot of it is also common sense and a lot of the positive raised were really personal things. I just thought that using this format to really dissect the work of a wrestler who's been in as many "big matches" as just about anyone in the last twenty years would be a bit more novel and interesting than the chronological view, especially since, as I said before, that was the brunt of the initial argument of people having better years than Trips. I guess I kind of wanted an argument about the hundred guys who were better and how and why instead of just a chronological view and poking at some of the usual talking points. That said, they covered almost three hours with what they had, which might have been necessary for a starting point of this argument and it probably worked better for a broader audience. I just don't think the initial issue that spurred on this podcast in the first place was really touched on, let alone resolved.

I've never seen this before but came across it today. It's from the Feb 24, 1992 Observer, and I would LOVE for the Dave who wrote it to have to have a conversation with the Dave of today.

Now I want to see the Kane vs X-Pac and Jericho vs X-Pac matches and compare. Kind of. You have to figure that there are Kane/X-Pac vs Jarrett/Owen matches that are better than anything Jericho did in 1999, at least. Anyone remember how the D-Lo/Mark Henry tag was. That was on PPV at least.

Did Kane have better matches than Chris Jericho in the WWF in 1999? I mean, it's possible right? What was Kane doing that year? Tagging with X-Pac?

I'm going to want to see this in action first to really wrap my head around it and the organization behind it, but in five years or so, this could make this place one of the best resources on the internet for wrestling (not that it isn't already in some ways).

Question, slightly related: Chris Jericho had a lot of complaints against him in 1999. The internet at the time screamed bloody murder about it. Were those complaints valid in retrospect?

Elimination Chamber is in Minneapolis. My only sense of that crowd as fans are how afraid Verne was to book any heel with heat in 1981 there. That's probably not an up to date opinion though.

Ki did have a fairly long run in FCW, but a lot of that he was out with an injury I think.

Johnny is right that the company doesn't want to say no to free money. Look, I know how counter-intuitive it is, but we can't take this as a given. Apparently, the way things are set up this year with the TV rights and stock price and what not, Vince is, for all practical purposes, a billionaire again. Look at the booking over time from 2001 when they won onwards. How many booking decisions feel like something to do with vanity or personal reasons or amusing/entertaining Vince or whatever else as opposed to creating the best possible product. Look back into the years before that, even. Wrestling is a screwed up, vindictive business/form of entertainment, full of money marks and extremely personal decisions. That was before Vince won the war. They've practically gone out of their way not to make new stars since 2004 when Brock left, between parity of results and stop-start pushing and making sure the WWE brand was more important than any single wrestler. They'd absolutely leave money on the table for the world's worst reasons. How can you possibly take the opposite as a given when there are dozens and dozens of examples otherwise? Obviously the primary goal is to make money and they have the stockholders to answer to now, but it's still a freaking circus and it's one more bulletproof than ever in 2014. Dave said that basically, they would have to have Death of WCW level destructive "talent" to screw up the business right now.

In the few times I watched RAW, and this was back after Summerslam, what I saw were promos burying Bryan with the heels all in the ring and him just standing on the outside taking it all breathing heavily. I don't know if things have progressed from there, but that's just ass-backwards in terms of wrestling logic. The problem is that HHH and Steph don't really show much vulnerability. Heels are meant to be shit-scared of faces. Think back to Austin vs. McMahon. There McMhaon had ALL of the power, all of the backup, he was built up as the big boss. Yet, McMahon always always gave you the impression that Austin was a total badass who would kick his ass. He was scared of Austin. On promos he'd never run Austin DOWN, he'd actually be talking him up but a la wrestling 101 talking up the extent of his retribution even more. That's why Vince McMahon is one of the greatest heels of all time. McMahon would be a dick, but Austin would get his payback spots. Always. Again, HHH was there, and he seems to have learned nothing at all from it. The can't leave Bryan fuming on the side of the ring after he's just been verbally buried. Visually, it makes him look weak and ineffectual. If the ACTIONS are reaffirming what the heels are saying week after week, then they are in effect burying the face. Now, instead of either taking it or rushing into the ring and getting demolished (which I kind of preferred), he came out on Monday and seemed to be trying to actively use the crowd to take over the show. I likened it on DVDVR to the world's most passive aggressive version of Sid coming down and destroying a crusierweight match or Macho Man sitting in the middle of the ring in a chair.

Alright, I've made it through. First off, you guys did a great job going through the career and sort of giving it all a definitive chronological look. I think that's important and this will be a good historical relic. Scott did a pretty good job explaining his fandom and obviously Dylan's job was a lot easier. I think everyone involved was fair in listening to the other person's opinion and it was a highly civil affair. It was probably the podcast that it was supposed to be and that it should have been. That said, I was really disappointed that there wasn't more breaking down of his ringwork. There was a bit about what he did well or what he did poorly, but it was really minimal. Extremely so. I think that was the crux of Dylan's initial argument years ago and while there were mentions tossed out here and there, there really wasn't much in depth discussion of these matches and what made them work or didn't. There were a few specifics (disingenuous showing of ass, etc), but even those really needed to be broken down into specifics of how and why he does or doesn't do this. Basically, while I think it was a good review and overview, it didn't cover much new ground in a back and forth setting when it very much could have and frankly, I came in expecting it to given the argument leading up to it and the argument from years ago. I think, ultimately, it will be a worthwhile historical record, but in the grand scheme of the argument, it feels a bit like wasted motion.

This might be one of the most optimistic posts ever It's actually the Seattle thing that's put me over the top on this. I find it all incredibly surreal though.