Matt D

NXT built up the Ripley match big, including basically giving her a 2 vs 4 win in War Games.

Presumably Stunt is being used as a super-sympathetic face-in-peril with a lot of banana peel roll-up hope spots and rolling through legs to make hot tags, etc?

Arn: Ricky looked like he was 12 which was an advantage for his role, which was X because of reason Y. You: Ha, ha. Everyone says Marko looks like he's twelve like it's a big problem! Look, Arn just said Ricky did too. It's exactly the same!

The context of what he was actually saying matters unless you're just trolling people? But you were just making fun. So it doesn't really.

Which, in context, was specifically about men not being jealous that their girlfriends went nuts over him. So in that very specific way it was a positive and not a negative. Is Marko a draw with that same set (girls dragged to the arena by their boyfriends) in 2019? Honest question as I don't know a ton about any of this.

I'm still waging my war on GMT years after.

So in the last month we have Darsow giving Anderson crap about giving too much offense to the Young Stallions to make the matches good/exciting and Taker telling the story about Jake being criticized by Vince for giving babyfaces too much offense early in his run because he wasn't there to have good matches but instead to "get over."

Mr. Wrestling II as Most Overrated Wrestler of 1980 feels like a conventional wisdom knowledge gap to me.

I wasn't totally kidding. I honestly think it's slightly more likely that they have Chris Pratt or Vin Diesel do it than Finlay. I mean, shit, he was in a movie or two with Stallone. That's who they had induct Hogan. Finlay might get fired just on the idea that Batista would prefer him to HHH.

So Chris Pratt it is then?

I wonder if he had any luck because there's basically no Ray Stevens footage out there that's worth watching.

That made me look up Bam Bam Bigelow, who was another guy who shot himself in the foot early, and yep, he hated pro wrestling as a kid.

This is totally off topic, but I wonder now who the best wrestler of the 80s-today who did not grow up a wrestling fan is. Most of the problems with Kurt Angle, for instance, would have been solved if he grew up a fan.

That reminds me: for anyone with a young kid at picture book age, this is good stuff: https://www.amazon.com/Lucia-Luchadora-Cynthia-Leonor-Garza/dp/1576878279

I hope someone asks him about the Usos at some point, because they are guilty of the "If you're not going to follow the norms of tag team wrestling, just make it a tornado tag match in the first place" statement as much as anyone. Their matches tend to be a full half finishing stretches, great action but at a big cost. I'm curious if he was too close to see that or not.

Rumor is that they're going to cut back on the classic drops bigtime and focus even more on the modern product (be it WWE main or indy affiliates, etc.). NWA should capitalize on the small unrest this announcement has caused and launch a youtube show with the classic footage with Tim Storm and Aaron Stevens hosting or something. It'd cost them next to nothing.

Looks like nothing this week. Happy Thanksgiving anyway, guys.

Likewise, does anyone do the slide out of the ring punch to person hanging out in ropes that Goldust/Bossman did?

They should just do big builds to her punching the crap out of people. That'd probably work.

Or they can do nothing and just use this thing as a way to boost NXT ratings.

They've got all the pieces here to end this with a Horsewomen vs Horsewomen staredown.

I am baffled by Bayley's Cleopatra headdress thing. On the other hand, I haven't been paying attention but the Submission Magician thing is hokey but kind of great.

All things equal, running with Rey on top with all sorts of crossover appeal (lapsed fans, Hispanics, hot topic kids who find the mask cool, people who just are drawn in by his selling and the underdog story, etc) seems like one of the only moves that they have left. They really don't have many. It seems like he's at a different phase now though, even with the repaired knees.

The low blows as Lesnar's only weakness is a ridiculous trope.

I'm higher on this opening than usual because Lesnar's killing him without the suplexes. It gives a place for the match to escalate to later. EDIT: And it got there quickly after one hope spot. But at least it didn't start there.