Matt D

Honestly, I think discussing Hennig's peak should wait a little bit. As for Eaton, if I ever did another project again I'd want to look at Eaton's singles run in 91. I've had that in my head for a while, but I'm not sure if I'll ever do it.

Really? I'm generally a big picture guy but part of that is internal coherency and moves and moments mattering to the greater whole. A structural underpinning. Things not dropped.

I have serious conceptual problems with Flair when it comes to his grasp of how wrestling works relative to my own, and Flair's a guy with great offense who can make a 20 minute arm hold interesting, both giving it and selling it. When I have the same sort of problems with a guy like Shawn whose strengths fall even more into the ACTION category it becomes a heck of a lot trickier to rank him.

Late Shawn's like a magic eye. Once you figure out the problems in his matches, you can't not see them.

I really like Magnum vs Wahoo and think it has a little more meat to it even if it doesn't have quite the same oomph.

1997 USWA seems like the most alien thing in the world to me. 1993 still very much felt like Memphis but I just can't imagine that reaching into 1997.

This is one thing I don't understand. It's as if WWE is willing to pay whatever royalties Jesse wants for a set where his commentary is absolutely essential, like the "Saturday Night's Main Event" set. But then, his commentary is included on the Starrcade set when he's only there for a small handful of matches. And then on this set, and dozens more, he's edited out? I also never understood why Jesse is the only announcer who sued for royalties? He had another career to fall back on.

This Raw was when Bartlett was pretending to be Vince, which was surprisingly awful the whole night (surprising only because lampooning Vince is the easiest thing in the world). BUT It allowed Heenan and Monsoon to sort of be on the same side for the first side ever, and it had the most hilarious exchange. Bartlett(as Vince): "Annnnd Backlund giving us the appearance of a younger, youthful Mickey Rooney." Gorilla: "WHAT! I'm gonna knock him out." Heenan: "Go ahead, I'll hold him!.. I've wanted to do that, and then I'll go through the pockets." Gorilla: "Do you think there's anything in his pockets?" Heenan: "Naaah. Let's just knock him out." Monsoon: "Vince?.... He's gone. Brain dead." Bartlett (as Vince): Heenan: "Didn't you make an appointment for him on Thursday morning?" Monsoon: "Absolutely." Heenan: "With Who?" Monsoon: "Dr. Kevorkian." Bartlett (as Vince): "I don't know about that, Gorilla Monsoon." Monsoon: "One visit will be sufficient." Heenan: "Do you have one of those stun guns on you?" Monsoon: "Oh, I wish I did." Heenan: "Hey, you know, the funny thing is, this is the best Vince's been!" And during this match, when they'd usually do the "Uncooked." "Uncut." "Uncensored." Heenan: "What is it Vince?" Bartlett (As Vince): "It's uncooked." Heenan: "Uncooked." Bartlett (As Vince): "and uncooked!" I cracked up.

I feel like HHH is, at this point, is a justified exception (if he's an exception, I agree that smarky gratuitous real name use is annoying) . HHH is the character on WWE TV, Paul Levesque is the real WWE executive. This seems fair since WWE uses his real name on the corporate site, they appear to be making this separation as well. At least it's more defined than WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and TV character Mr. McMahon which very often seem like one in the same. Also I agree with Loss, it's definitely one of those names that even when you know someone is pronouncing it correctly it still sounds like they aren't. I just wonder how long they can go with the "real executives get involved with storylines/wrestling" before they end up causing an issue. It's one thing for Vince to be doing it since to people out of the wrestling bubble Vince = WWE and that's just how it's always been. It might be different when HHH is the boss and going on TV solving lawsuits by calling people cowards and challenging them to PPV fights. At some point if they want to be taken seriously as a company to invest in, you can't have your CEO going out and rolling around in his undies anymore. I don't know. For the entirety of the 80s, they had Virgil Runnels listed as a producer and I don't think any of us are going to call Dusty that.

I've never seen that Samoans match. I need to do that.

And then there's "superstars."

Who would call Sting "Borden." He's Real Estate Steve

David Crockett worked both in small doses and in LARGE doses. It's just if you get a middling amount of him that you have a problem. He really cared about the product. He was enthusiastic. It was his life. He cared about these people and what happened to them. There's something to that. I'd take someone who cares a lot over someone who doesn't care at all any day.

I will agree with that. But only because "shine" has such a ring to it. It twinkles like a bunch of Ricky Steamboat armdrags.

I'm more than okay with us using terms wrestlers do not. We analyze from the outside. Obviously we're going to have different terminology.

I'm always torn on Bischoff. PART of me thinks that he was part of Nitro's success when he announced, since no matter how screwed up the stories were, he understood them and was able to get them across. He certainly didn't call matches for the sake of the matches but he definitely sold a big pictures, which, and let's be honest here, is endlessly more important than calling the actual matches when it comes to ratings and drawing and whatever else. I think part of the failure later on was because the announcers weren't clued in before hand. So when confusing bs was happening, they didn't know how to present it.

I thought Waltman as the Lightning kid was a staunch exception to that rule, but a lot of that was his size, look.

Also, there are ways to work a hold that are interesting and there are ways that are not interesting. Flair, to me, was amazing at working a hold.

I'd like them to run Cena vs Sheamus at Summerslam.

I can think of a lot of scenarios based around Flair's return where he turns face. I think either he or Ziggler need to and I think he'd benefit more from it. (with Ziggler benefiting more from ending up WITH Flair).

Slick could have always gotten him to bowl first.

I will also say this: If the biggest complaint you have about a match was that it's not the match that you would have rather seen, you're not doing a great job expressing anything meaningful about the match.

Maybe with the third hour of raw they can actually build an undercard again?

It would have been as a singles match. Still liked it. A lot.

Christian was also super over when the won the title last year. Which is why people were pissed off he didn't even get a chance for a face run. Also, I liked the three way a lot. I thought the "get the guy out of the ring" stuff was all done really well and Kane worked hard and bumped big.