Matt D

Never in my life have I seen Vince so confused and flustered about something as an announcer as he was trying to explain just how Summerslam 92 was going to air in this UK version of the last Superstars before Summerslam. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvtdoGFdte0 I think they had the wrestlers say the air date (Monday in the UK) in the promos for some reason even though the actual date of the show was the Saturday this episode was shown. And it left Vince all sorts of flustered.

Did you see the match vs Cena?

It's not though. It doesn't matter if Ziggler beats Cena, even clearly, unless they follow up on that from a booking perspective. WWE's start-stop pushing strategy (to keep egos down or whatever) sort of makes following a match on those logical kayfabe guidelines maddening. At the end of the day it comes down to the pushes.

This is interesting. I know there was one point where a lot of us were more interested in the business side of things than the actual wrestling content. You even see that here. There are a lot of people who say they followed the sheets or a message board but didn't watch the product itself. You're saying consequence, but it's not a kayfabe sort of consequence (or if it is, it's only very very loosely, I think).

Someone asked me for recommendations and the first two matches that came to mind were the Eddy match and the UT MSG Cage match (but I'm biased because I was at that one live). How has WM XIX aged?

They were in Canada last night, for all intents and purposes. It was a bizarro crowd. Tonight will be more telling. And next Monday in DC will be the clincher. I'll say this. If I was in the crowd tonight, I would have realized how much fun the crowd seemed to have in Miami LAST night and I'd be all over YES!-ing anything and everything. Because that seemed like a blast. You could tell during the dark match post-show that even though they finally got to see Bryan wrestle, they were pretty burnt out from shouting all night, but even then, they still managed to tear the roof off of the place. I think more than DB the real winner might be Clay. That had to be a great moment for him.

Considering that painful looking suplex-to-the-floor he took flat on his back last night, I wonder how much of that was Punk selling and how much was "motherfuckin' ow, that's still tender..." He was selling. And it's all because we were bitching about the match so much on the board. Obviously. We made him do it through sheer force of will. I was into Punk-Jericho and that still annoyed me. As for the note above me, I think there's been a decent amount written lately about universal traits, but if you just see things like psychology and pacing as buzzwords, then that's the problem right there. They're not, not if you back them up and explain HOW the psychology was good and what worked with the pacing and what didn't.

I liked Punk-Jericho, a lot. I was into it, and I was actually into the REAL LIFE stuff too because to me it was them trying to do Liz-Savage-Flair from WM 8. That's what it felt like. Maybe it was a weird sort of nostalgia for me(I want them to do Megapowers Explode with Punk and DB too). And for me Jericho's corny execution on the titantron in the build worked. I can understand why it wouldn't for someone else, but I bought into it for some reason. I think it was the sheer amount of joy when he said.. "Buuuut your sister." and the fans sort of groaned. The things I didn't like was Punk's lack of direct back selling and the rana. (And Punk was selling the heck out of his back tonight against Henry so... good for him?). So even if the match didn't work for the crowd (And will says it did), it worked for me. I'm not sure what else to say: I bet that RnR/MX match was better and if you'd put it online I'd be appreciative of that? I don't think Punk/Jericho was better than RnR vs Russians title change? But I thought it was good and really enjoyed it. And I still have the sour taste of the 08 KOTR Jericho/Punk match in my mouth from watching it two months ago so I was not naturally inclined towards it or anything. I thought it was a good match for me and I'd put it against a lot of the 2012 WWE output I've seen certainly.

I've already explained why I liked Punk/Jericho. I've seen them put on shitty shitty matches and that was not one of them. That said, I was probably watching it in a vacuum. I'm really good at blocking out the crowd when watching a match these days for some reason. Crowd reaction is just about the last thing I look for since I care more about myself thant hem. I also don't have the slightest idea how the match worked as part of the show as a whole. I half watched HITC without sound, came back in during the entrances for the big tag, and left after Rocky/Cena's entrances-stare down. I DID think it worked great given the build the match had though. I think in a vacuum it's going to come off much better in a rewatch. I think it's also going to come off fine if you were to watch the build leading up to it and then watch the match. Granted, I do tend to watch most older things in context now, so I appreciate the argument. It might have been the wrong match in the wrong spot for the night, but I thought it was a really well put together and executed match in general, except for that I wish Punk specifically sold the back a little more and I didn't entirely buy the rana attempt. Am I really the only one who though the DQ stuff was both conceptually good and well executed?

I was perfectly okay with HHH/Taker right up until the moment where they started walking out and I realized that the Brock/Batista Power Warriors tandem weren't about to run out and destroy all three of them.

WCW did a year long build for Sting vs Hogan. Granted, part of that was using Sting in ways that weren't necessarily in ring, but it's doable. Hell, there was a good 5 month build for Austin vs Rock at XV. What was really telling for me was that in the initial graphics, Punk vs Jerciho wasn't involved at all. It was just HITC and Cena/Rock.

Agreed. When Jericho went into "Your father, your sister" early on, I was like "oh, no, they're ruining this match", but he really didn't do anymore of this and went straight into wrestling. Didn't feel like a self-conscious epic either, just a hard-thought title match. The lack of kicking out of finisher left and right surely helped. It fit PERFECTLY with the build, playing on Orton/Christian from last year, giving a call back to Johnny Ace/Punk feud and a look forward to what's coming, and it made total sense within the confines of the match. Jericho spent a month doing the Flair-With-Liz mind game thing on Punk just to get him off his game. Then at the last moment he gets a gift from Ace (or maybe it was their secret plan all along; who knows?). and it kept punk way off his game and helped allowed Jericho to get the first transition, at which point he decided he has a better chance of winning the match by working over Punk's back than keep trying to get the DQ. BUT in the process he absorbed a ton of damage which might have had a cumulative effect later in the match. The early match stuff was great.

The real issue with Danielson is that the act was hot and it was working and it was a shame Mania showed up when it did since it had the legs to go another few months as it was. The last thing I care about with Punk/Jericho is the crowd, given the circumstances. A hot crowd would have helped, but it was a smart, well structured, well executed match. My biggest problem with it was that Punk didn't specifically sell the back more, though he was definitely selling plenty in general. The only other thing that bugged me was Punk going for the top rope rana, which I don't remember having seen him do in years, but it's Mania so there's the "pulling out all stops" counter.

I've never really thought of it that way. But it's pretty much true, isn't it? Dusty did a lot of that stuff (AND did a lot of developmental work) but bigger.

Hunter was part of the booking team in 97. Also, just looking at OMG's WWF work is STILL enough to put him over Hunter, thank you very much. As for Jarrett, I Don't think HHH was ever as compelling a heel as Jarrett was during his first heel turn at the end of 93 in memphis. That said, it was desperately needed at that point.

there is a little twitter bird with a lucha mask.

It should have booked itself. Easiest thing in the world.

The 5/2 Ottawa Bret vs Shawn match is really good but I'm not sure how it compares to, let's say, the 4/29 Syracuse match on the Bret vs Shawn dvd

Everyone knows that Dustin made Sheamus

I think it'd only matter relative to someone else doing it better. For instance, Rock's Sharpshooter is only a problem if someone is around doing it better or if people can REMEMBER someone doing it better.. Past that, it's all in how the audience is trained and that has more to do with selling (both from opponents and announcers) not execution. Considering that Nattie does a positively brutal sharpshooter (given the flexibility of a lot of the divas), maybe it's a problem.

Now, if we were in the territory days. Is there a coherent moment where the shift happened? Piper at Wrestlemania I? Orndorff turned shortly thereafter so he didn't need to be protected as a heel.

I'd totally get into Lucha right now (I'm sure there's an internal logic that matches follow and things work or don't work relative to that), but I'm trying to learn French for work, not Spanish, so it's just L'Ange Blanc matches for me for now (not that I can find any of those).

I think the reason that Teddy vs Johnny is so over is that it's getting twice the time as anything else. Almost any mid-card match is involved somehow. Then on smackdown they even had the Bellas randomly talking about it.

On paper, it bugs me. Actually watching the matches, Rey really DOES center a lot of his offense around getting his opponent in that position. It's rarely haphazard and even when it is, Rey somehow makes it seem like it was all part of some master plan of his.