Matt D

Justin Credible might be a better choice then.

Honestly, I think the issue is that they gave Goldberg the belt in 98 at all. He had only gotten the US title a little while before and he could have held that for a year as sort of a special attraction. Wait a sec, this isn't in the fantasy booking section. EDIT: Or I guess it is.

Reading Bix' Divas recap makes me frustrated that the Bellas didn't have Jimmy Hart as their manager at the fake movie meeting.

Real life struck, but I'm back watching Buddy matches. Unfortunately I don't have time for the April Martel vs Buddy match tonight. I do have time for Rose vs Steve Pardee - 2/3 Falls - March 22, 1980 They're really building to the Piper vs Rose blow off match. Piper's gone through the Sheepherders and taken Luke Williams' hair. Etc. This might be JIP as Pardee starts with a headlock and already looks blown up. Rose does a big suplex out of it and starts to really pick apart Pardee. Knee. Stomp. Choke on the top rope. A really nice open hand strike or two and a crazy back body drop where Pardee got twisted in midair. Robinson backbreaker and that's the fall. Buddy does a Rockers' flip over the rope between falls. Not much to this but all well executed and certainly builds him up for the big match. Second fall is just Buddy grinding down. Eventually he grinds enough that Pardee gets really opened up. He bites the wound and Pardee bleeds all over the place. He's really brutal on the wound-working here. Will would approve. Sandy Barr, however, does not and he awards the fall to Pardee. When Buddy pulls back, pissed off, he has blood over his face from biting the wound. Ghastly. Pardee is just a bloody mess. This was all pretty sudden. They were trying to decide whether to award just the fall to Pardee or the match and Buddy rushes back out to destroy Pardee even more. The crowd is livid. Barr throws out the match and Buddy is beyond pleased. Eventually Piper comes out for a go home interview for the big match. This was pretty effective stuff and it's sort of amazing how much damage Buddy was able to do in such a small amount of time.

Ok, Piper doing a dropkick vandaminator in 1980 in a hair match with Luke Williams is one of the most surreal things I've seen in forever.

It's really interesting to me how Portland tried to get Martel over as lead babyface in early 80. Instant series of matches with Race for the big belt. Trading the Portland belt almost immediately with Buddy over a week. But they also did little things like making an announcement that kids would get in free to the next show because he went to Don Owen and insisted or having a match where the Sheepherders are afraid of Martel but not of Piper.

I really like Harts vs Demos at Summerslam but yeah, that's me. I really don't like that Brainbusters vs Stallions match.

I'm stuck home from work today due to my own idiocy and this is when i learned, suddenly, that apparently I do not have a package with this channel. Ah well.

It's tricky with Scorpio since he was both so dynamic and so over with the studio crowds. I don't know when he started to be over but in 93 he was basically the most over guy on the entire roster if you just watched TV.

The match wasn't built up much, if at all, though it was pretty surreal to hear Vince talking about the RnRs on Raw. There was no angle behind it. RnRs weren't national since, what, early 90? A lot of the kids watching in 93 had gotten in after that. I was in that crowd and was vaguely excited to see York Foundation member Richard Morton. It was Boston. I think it's not that WWF crowds hated wrestling but maybe that they needed more than wrestling for wrestling's sake. They needed context and for it to matter to them.

I feel like it's tricky because crowds varied, much as they do now, geographically. I'm sure some things would come out on average, but it'd be more interesting to me to look at the Center Stage audience vs the 93 Raw audience, for instance.

1-42 are just Dylan talking about Confederate Railroad, whatever the heck that is.

I think Survivor Series can matter, but it's harder in a day and age where you have more big tag matches on the weekly shows, to the point where it's basically it's own Teddy Long meme. Traditionally, it was always a great way to build a feud without giving away another singles match (when such things, televised, were rare) and to transition one feud into another while protecting a lot of guys and their finishes. I think it'd probably work best now if they had feuds dovetail into each other and highlighted the personalities on the various teams and how they interact with one another, but that'd probably involve some semblance of build I'm not sure WWE is capable of anymore.

It's eerie how it's mimicked the DVDVR one. Also eerie, timingwise? http://www.wwe.com/classics/inside-ribera-...house-26137247/

Someone ran a bunch on justin.tv a few years ago but it was pretty spotty. I was excited though because it was a pretty big part of my childhood. I remember being really frustrated coming home from school and finding it preempted by the MLB expansion draft one day.

I could honestly make a list that would look like Eaton & Condrey Eaton & Lane Eaton & Regal Eaton & Arn I think i'd have a hard time putting Eaton & Koko or Eaton & Keirn on it though. Do we have any footage of Eaton and Gulas?

One show can move the mark that much?

What the heck happened in 2007?

edit: double post, sorry

I wonder if we have more or less longer matches now than then. It feels like we have more longer main events and what not but looking at the numbers, I'm not sure if that can be right. As always, well done.

So in the build up to Summerslam, Christian has gone over ADR twice. I know WWE loves putting guys over in non-title matches to build to contending for a title (where they usually lose) but I can't remember a guy ever going over twice in the build. I actually think looking at his build to the title is kind of interesting, especially contrasting it to what they did with, let's say Swagger who got built up very quickly as well earlier in the year. I don't have time now but I want to break it down later.

Didn't he look like he was juiced to the gills when he was the Prototype?

Were these not already out there or something?