Matt D

Honestly, I thought that's what they should have done with the big Raw Anniversary Ep a month or two ago. They had so many guys debut or come back from injury in the month or two prior and they should have saved them all for that show just tossing out one return after another.

I remember when he came back in for a week to the WWE he immediately wanted to put together a Bischoff, Goldberg, Foley, and someone else faction, and compared to what was on TV at the time it would have shook everything up in a huge way that the program really needed at that point. I don't think he just needs another guy on top of him. I think he needs Vince specifically in charge.

Watched the 1/17 cage again. It takes all the elements of the first cage but they refined them and made them work in a narrative sense. They turned the gaping, painful weaknesses in the first match into strengths. Pretty cool. I'll go in depth when DVDVR comes back but it's endlessly stronger and I can't imagine why in the world anyone would put the St. Paul tag over the later one. Granted, it still pales when it comes to BotS.

FWIW the 1/17 Cage match is much better, but man. Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting to comment.

I don't even have words for how much I hate the Midnight Rockers vs Rose/Somers cage match from 12/25/86. What a terrible match. It's not my 150 just because there are a few things that are worse and because Sherri and Doug Somers both have some very good moments, but it's in my bottom 25 and I will bitch and moan freely about it when the DVDVR board comes up.

He's going off to climb a mountain on Friday.

What was Slaughter doing in 87 between his AWA runs? Mainly Gi Joe stuff and state fairs and what not?

Why are we not talking about that main event? I think we need to talk about that main event. I thought it was a super smart match and was blessed by having JBL there on commentary. Punk had Cena scouted to the nth but Cena isn't human, he's (as JBL put it) the prototypical sports entertainer. That means herculean strength and comebacks. Punk wasn't just walking into Cena's shit like every other wrestler in the world but at the same time, Cena was able to power out of every big movement Punk was able to get going. To me the key moments were the power out of the Crossface and then, when Cena finally realized that they were at a stalemate, cutting out the bullshit for the first time in a year of very self-aware John Cena bullshit and hitting the fistdrop without any pageantry. I didn't mind the multiple finishers given the scope of the match and the story of the match, though it's not my favorite thing in the world. It's not like they were no sold and the inability of either guy to put away the other in the end led to the finish. I thought the announcers did a great job believably explaining the moonsault too. As always, too many Punk head huddle called spots (What, it bugs me. I've been watching a shit ton of AWA where they don't need to do that to work long, intricate matches, so yeah, it bugs me), but in general, I thought it was a great match and while it didn't quite have the energy of MITB last year, I thought it more than made up for it in smarts. I had no problem with the finish. I'll take a double pin in the midst of a flash desperation move way outside of a guy's usual wheelhouse but that made sense in the context over the match over almost every other sort of bs dusty finish. It's really been a strong year for both Cena and Punk.

I have to admit I've found the AWA coverage frustrating.

Isn't the whole thing with the fancam that the rights were signed away in exchange for the actual filming and use of the footage. It was a cost saving device by Heyman. WWE may be able to ask to use any of the footage whenever they want (even that I don't know about) but they don't own the rights to it? i could be way off but you guys are going around in circles, so, I'm at least positing my undrestanding of the situation.

If we lost the board data then I would have made Dylan recreate my AWA Disc ratings for me.

I feel like Flair told a few interesting stories about Crockett and things he did do in his shoot but I'll be damned if I remember any of them.

re: Brock. I'm okay, at this point including MMA stuff in the WON HOF if only because Dave focuses on it so much and it's his thing, but Brock in MMA reminds me somewhere between Goldberg and Magnum TA in wrestling. Am I way off in that? I'm not the most knowledgeable guy in the world there.

I forget. Are we supposed to believe that Brock is just naturally jerky and misanthropic and just wants to ride on tractors all day and tell people to screw off or is this all supposed to be some sort of elaborate money making ruse to sell MMA PPVs that we should all be impressed with due to its pro-wrestlingesque savvy? I'm fine towing the company line here, but what is it?

So wait, the entirety of the argument is that if it's a combined wrestling/MMA HOF too due to the nature of Dave's coverage, he gets in as a given based on his 4 chopped up years of MMA combined with his wrestling?

I'm not listening to this thing right now. What's the pro-lesnar argument?

I second that. Ask him. Worst he can do is say no.

.. can't sleep. not yet at least. Can we belay the Bret/Vince/Show Going On stuff until tomorrow at least? Until we know stuff more definitively, for our own sakes. There's something to discuss there, I know, but especially with dvdvr down, just as a favor? If not, it's okay. I don't blame you guys for being stir crazy and having to talk about SOMETHING. I wouldn't hold that against you.

Oh god, I forgot Davey Richards won most outstanding last year.

Do we have any idea what sort of merch figures Sting has?

I feel like he wasn't even taking the HUGE LIVE ACTION BUMPS as a face in AWA.

I imagine Meltzer counts his WWF run. That's really one of those "sacrosanct wrestling opinions," no? I know people here feel otherwise, of course. It's actually funny to think that his IC title run, which really loomed as a key part of my youth was really only a few months after Mania 6 and then Jan-August of 91. People forget that Kerry had the thing for so long. I think he was a top WWF babyface from Survivor Series 92 to Mania IX, but I'm not sure how he drew in that spot. He sure as hell didn't draw against Hogan as a heel. His only WON award was most improved in 83. I think he was actually a very effective announcer and maybe Vince's best partner ever, but I'm not sure if that translated into buys at all. But yeah, TRAINED BROCK LESNAR. There you go.

Honestly, I might have pimped Hall vs DeBeers from the Sept 23, 1986 AWA TV. It's kind of a miracle match based around work on Hall's left hand and amazing Hall does a pretty good job with the selling. I doubt it would have broken the top 100, granted, but it's a great novelty and a pretty heated match.

Why the hell were so many of those 74-75 shows missing the AWA champ? Where the hell was Verne?

"Trained Brock Lesnar."