Matt D

Everyone has to go watch that Flame shooting Bob Armstrong thing. And maybe even cooler are clips of Heel Bob.

I will say something in general about face vs face matches though. If something tells a good enough story and a compelling enough story, I don't think you need nastiness. There are narratives that don't necessarily involve wrestlers being nasty. They can be good and compelling, so long as the wrestlers are trying to win. I think the idea that a match innately needs hate to be good is very dismissive. This goes back to my argument about violence or blood or whatever else. Hate is a tool in telling a good story, not an end in and of itself.

Man, that was a MUCH better shout out than last time. I don't even think I'm going to weigh in on Brad vs Martel then. That bought my neutrality. Wow. Will really detests Canadians huh? He's the Zeb Coulter of podcasts. I'm going to picture him with Dutch Mantell's giant mustache from now on. Also, while I agree that neutered heel Mr. Perfect is a shade of what we see here, Hennig has some pretty solid heel matches in AWA and his 93 face run in WWF is actually pretty great as a face. The Doink series of three matches, the Hart tag vs Luger/Ramon, the Bret match at KOTR, the fun six elimination man with Jannety/Tatanka vs Michaels/Diesel/Bam Bam. Granted, he had pretty lackluster matches vs Michaels.

I think I like the Russians way more than the Warriors, but I hate Nikita and Ivan squashes because they last forever. I suppose that makes me a nuanced commie. Anyway, Brody sucks and the Warriors match pretty much sucks (The High Flyers vs Warriors match is actually pretty good). I like that first tag a lot because it has lots of faces trying to cheat and fail and when they succeed it's a big deal. Larry Hennig pretty much sucks in 1984 too.

Tatsu is learning to play the guitar.

Are they turning Jericho on Ryback tonight?

ha I love the idea that Henry wrestles Khali at mania just to see Dylan explode.

Oh man, that was hilarious.

if they're just a "tad" then that's pretty good for them.

Heeeeey, It's a PPV. Obviously, everything's coming up Johnny.

Never before has a chinlock based match been more necessary.

I am so impressed with how they lay out Shield matches. I'm not sure I've ever seen this level of detail with WWE in packaging character through in-ring work. They really play up, through the ringwork, how the Shield is able to outnumber and isolate. The way that they won that match because Sheamus was out, SOLELY because Sheamus was taken out, was brilliant. It's such a little thing but because they do it consistently, it creates a branded overarching theme that is super effective.

I think there's an alternate reality where Cena grew into being an amazing Southern Tag FIP.

They should be able to have a pretty good match though. I mean it's just the opener. Not like it matters. That's your Santana vs The Executioner match. You could do worse.

I would have been vaguely interested in Rhodes Scholars vs Bookdust.

Man, why didn't they have him kill Booker T

The way this is structured, they're setting it up to have Henry just plow through guys.

I typed that right before the finish. I amended my opinion. I love the Lawler match too, but if that thing had a finish that was even halfway decent, it would have been better.

That was shaping up to be pretty much the best Miz match ever, right?

I loved that opening section in Cesaro/Miz, all the way to the world's most definitive shoulder breaker ever that ended it.

If they're not going to do anything huge they should just do Punk vs Sheamus. At least that feels fresh.

A tag with Punk/Lesnar vs HHH/Someone would help Punk.

I wish the six man tag was in the chamber

Has any of us seen prime Putski?

Dylan's pick. Also one of his favorite matches ever. Context is king here and he might write up a paragraph for us to help prime for the match. For now though, all I've got is that Hansen dominated the first match and left Colon laying in the second, so this is the big revenge blowoff. It's also probably the best strap/bullrope match I've ever seen. Colon dominates, easily. There's one point in the middle where it becomes a little tedious but just one and it's right before he really tries to win the thing. With a bullrope match, like a last man standing match, you can sort of buy that since you really need to incapacitate your opponent. I know Will is going to really highlight the violence and all the wound targeting and the hate, but to me, the most interesting stuff are the transitions and the struggles over the rope. Hansen is never on offense for long. He's in full survival mode and I think every time he takes back over it's really smartly done. It's some great use of the bell/rope/match gimmick, such as him getting it up at the last second to counter the corner charge, or an ambush while Colon is going for the corners, or him just yanking Colon down while he's going for the win. That said the absolute best transition is when Hansen has Colon in the bell-assisted chinlock and gets clobbered huge for his effort. I think it's a great performance by Hansen. Almost everything he does, from attacking right at the beginning, desperately putting on an early choke to try to contain Colon, to showing a massive amount of bloody-faced frustration when he can't end the match, is very well done. Colon holds up his end too, for the most part. The selling throughout the match is top notch. A bell shot early on will stagger. A headbutt late in the match floors both guys. There's a huge sense of escalation. Again, the key thing you have to remember with this is that it's a blowoff. That's why the blood comes so quickly. That's why Colon takes so much of the match. I definitely wish I had seen the first two matches first. On its own it was well-executed but not quite as satisfying as a match where the heel gets a bit more of the offense and the face has to fight back. Hansen does vulnerable and frustrated and desperate extremely well. He did so on the AWA set vs Bock too, but it wasn't what I expected coming in. Anyway, this has one of the best, most exciting finishes you'll ever see in this sort of match, and you get the sense that Hansen was just glad it was done and over with and he could leave with what was left of his scalp. Very good match for what it was.