Matt D

He should do a straight up splash from the top rope and they can play it up that he's hitting guys with his beard. It would pop the crowd like crazy.

This is easily the coolest thing ever:

Am I wildly overdramatic for wishing he'd stop doing the diving headbutt?

That's fair. It's also a little bit misleading since Rey-Christian, giving the performance that they gave that year, might actually be 1-2 in a number of other years. I guess a bigger question, since I haven't seen as much of it, is how good Matt Hardy was in that role in 2008?

If ROH counts, then probably something in 04. If not, it's probably either a NECW show from 02-03 or a random MA indy during Eddy Guerrero's indy run. Once college ended, that was pretty much it for that sort of thing.

Tossing in the congrats. From what I've seen every experience is a little bit different. There were some things really easy about the birth-4 months period when it came to,let's say, watching wrestling, before the baby was too mobile.

I suppose I should say something less flippant. Mainly it's that I probably was thinking primarily about a "working babyface," though certainly, he had a special kind of momentum in 2011, to the point where it was kind of funny to see Jim Ross in his blog trying to deal with the backlash that happened when he lost the belt so quickly and how thoroughly WWE didn't realize that people wanted to cheer him. To me, though, it's really about the 2009 run, and really about his in-ring work from April 09 to April 10 or what not and the way he was able to engage and draw in the crowd when he was really given so little to work with, being on what was presented, more or less, as a throw-away show often bumped from the PPVs and PPV time, working a variety of opponents, faces, heels, green, experienced, and a variety of styles, and being able to build from one match to the next. I honestly think he connected well with the audience too, the audience at that point being a lot of kids that would get behind him and a lot of older fans who a) had seen him develop and B> who shared his "fan" background. What he did that I was always most impressed by out of the ring was the little hand over the eyes sign-spotting and pointing thing which rewarded fans for bringing signs of his and seemed pretty well received. So part of it is that I think he was really good in his role and his role was basically a TV show Ace for something that was left alone by the rest of the company and really in its own self-contained universe give or take recap packages. Part of it is that I don't think there were a heck of a lot of guys in WWE history that have been put in that role, at least not in the modern era. There's a lot of talk about what opportunities he didn't have and what we don't know, but as a performer and on a subjective level, he performed exceptionally well in this one opportunity which very few people have had in the history of the company.

When and where was Ox Baker on top the most?

How did the PYTs come about? I missed a show in there. Austin was part of the First Family and turned on the Bruise Brothers to help out Stagger Lee(Koko). the team up for a few weeks and seem set to feud with Hart's repackaged Bruise Brothers (the New Fabs). And the next thing I know, they're heels and with Hart again feuding with the "real" New Fabs.

This is pretty much it. I'm going to try to tackle exactly what WWECW was in its last year and why it was so unique in the WWECW note later. No reason to bog this down here.

Has a TV champ ever really anchored a TV show before? The closest I can think of is Austin who would have defenses pretty much every week for the second half of 91, usually on multiple of the WCW shows. I really see Christian on ECW as the ace of one of the smaller territories in 1980 or whatever.

Regal makes an interesting Bill Dundee

I am so glad Bix watches the divas show so I don't have to.

WWECW had about the same talent pool, relative to what was out there nationally as, oh, let's say early-mid 80s Memphis.

He was the Ace for a TV show for a year.

Has wrestling really changed in the last five years? The brand split basically ended. We have a bunch of new B-C shows. There's much more of a web/digital/app presence. We sort of hit the nadir of WWE PG and came back out somewhat.

I've never seen a week-to-week babyface in WWE better than Christian in 09. I will admit to having missed some of Rey's mid 00s runs. He was putting on a TV performance in ring each and every week like no one, ever.

This gave me a genuine lol in real life. "All of youse are pussies. No i'm kidding."

I don't think Bryan has been built properly though. He was in a tag team role for a year and boom... #1 contender. I agree Christian was there in 2011 but as we have seen with Mark Henry, a guy can be repackaged and voila, championship material. Christians look has zero to do with if he is championship material. Hornswaggle could be built to be championship material. It would take some genius booking but I think it's doable. Wrestling is fiction. You can tell just about any story if you do it well enough. Also, Christian was the best babyface in the company in 2009 and is one of the best babyfaces in the history of the company. He was so good at putting together matches, building on the previous matches, working heat segments and getting the crowd behind him. Jimmy Redman is nuts.

I don't fit it all in. That is why I am always behind on my projects Seriously, I just Take out blocks of time and work out a schedule with the wife. Plus, we don't watch the same tv shows so if she is watching Lifetime or some shit, I sneak away and watch wrestling. With the baby, half the time he is sitting on my lap while I am working on sets anyway. Oh I'd definitely never be able to get away with it if my wife didn't watch NCIS and Criminal Minds and Covert Affairs and whatever.

To me, the issue with Christian is that he hasn't been properly built to the role where Punk and Bryan were. That said, Christian WAS built much better for it in 2011 and then they blew that, which again is part of the problem. THAT said, a lot of people seem to argue it on other lines. They're wrong.

Matchwise was limited due to Ladd being limited in what he could do as a worker but they traded great promos and the deal where Ladd turned on Dusty in Florida was fantastic. You think Ladd was limited? Really? I've see stuff with him from the early 80s where I wouldn't call him limited at all. The guy was really good in making the most out of what he had in the ring, much better at it than, let's say Dusty from the same era.

Were Ladd vs Dusty matches awesome?

Part of me seriously wishes that they ran Winner of Hogan v Slaughter v Winner of Warrior v Savage as the real main event of WMVII. I think the innate promise of Warrior vs Hogan II would have helped to sell tickets and that card could easily lose the horrible Bravo vs Texas Tornado match and probably a few others. On some level it bugged me that Slaughter promised Savage a title shot and the poor bastard never got it.

Not to derail immediately, but I just don't know this. Who was Dusty's main heel opponent in Florida before Sullivan? He went face in what, 74? Sullivan's not the guy until 80/81 right? Can we break this up by region pretty easily? Andersons; Flair and Valentine; Heenan, Bockwinkel and Stevens; Graham; Mongolian Stomper; Rose and Wiskowski Patterson turned face in the early 70s right? Lawler was a face from 74-79? Farhat wasn't really a big draw once you hit the mid 70s? I've got more questions than answers I guess.