Matt D

It's amazing watching Buddy Rose in front of the same crowd week to week against a variety of opponents. You would do yourself a massive disservice trying to cherry pick.

I mean, I'm fine personally with the place being quieter but most of the posters being of the generally high knowledge and quality that we have as opposed to having more people but a less pleasant experience.

If it's any help, I'm going to run (Secret) Santo in July for a month or two ~July 25.

Follow up question: It seems like they have a number of AWA matches, in full, that we'd only previously seen JIP, Outside of Bockwinkel vs Flair, are there any matches in the most likely period for which you've only seen a few minutes of, that you'd really want to see? I'm blanking a bit myself. Maybe one of the Super Destroyer Mark II vs Bockwinkel matches?

@khawk20 So, we have 10 minutes of an 11/16/82 handicap match, or do we think these are the same? I remember that being a lot of fun for what we have. We have ~6 of the Blackwell match (and I remember that being fun for what we have too).

And we don't even lose next week's gems for it?

How were they?

I've been reading a biography of Jack L Warner and the way he would use suspensions to extend contracts to prevent actors from going to other studios reminds me of WWE with the injury extensions.

Bryan stands out so much in his promos because it's obvious he cares. He portrays investment and belief and stands for something. He cares about whether he wins or loses. He cares about having the belt (or the tag belts) as a platform to be used to get his message across. His backstage promo this week was about how tag wrestling was undervalued and treated as a joke and how he was going to represent and elevate it. Yes, that's naval-gazing and inward-looking and about the "product" but there was so much conviction behind it that it works. There's something real underpinning it and he gets to channel it. That's the same reason why Becky's push last year generally worked. You can make it about the WWE but only if there's something genuine underpinning it.

They're trying to recreate the initial Brock debut, right?

What would the other choices even be? The Savage SNME match and the DK singles match from the Capitol Center? Also, were there hope spots during the heat? The absolute lack of them was the most striking thing from the Dibiase match.

I'm really hoping this is complete too. (I wouldn't mind that Martel vs Larry Z match from that card; I feel like the one from July 85 is unsatisfying). We don't have the Backlund vs Robinson match from the February 85 Meadowlands card, right? We have a lot of it but not that or the Valiant/Youngbloods vs Larry/Nick/Dory match.

Congrats on finishing this round. It's an interesting list. One thing that was striking with GWE was the difference between 2007 and 2017. Did you guys feel that here too or not? The top ten might not bear it out but I'm not sure that's true for the rest of the list.

Does being a compelling promo matter less in a tag setting, not necessary because of the ability to hide or lean on someone else but because the innate narrative structure inherent in tag matches that can be more easily tossed aside in singles matches?

I don't want to see Rollins wrestle anyone, but if I had to see Rollins wrestle someone on the roster, Roode is probably up there. He'd base and stooge for him and prevent him from doing too many stupid things. I'm not saying it'd be a great match but it'd probably be solid and not annoy me. I saw Rude have a pretty excellent house show style match with Cedric at an NXT show a few years back. Sometimes I wonder if he's just not a good TV wrestler or what.

Yeah, get back to that solo project. That thing was great.

Kelly is a scholar and a gentleman, though.

Is Amarillo the only major territory we basically have nothing of? I know the Funks sold it in the late 70s and I think the tapes were wiped.

Thanks for the heads up.

Ross loves to do stupid voices.

Remember too that this was more than two years after the Bret match.

Match is ok. Magee comes off like the world's biggest Brady Boone. There were athletic things he did (just backflips off the rope or whatever) which were like nothing anyone would see, especially with a guy that big, during that era, but a lot of the times they seemed completely detached from the match itself. Dibiase would shrug him off and he'd take three steps back and THEN back flip, that sort of thing. Some things looked great. Some (the superkick and the spin wheel kick) looked rough, but I doubt anyone cared in 1988. They'd just be amazed to see it. The match itself was weird and I wouldn't particularly say it was a miracle carry job or anything. Dibiase filled time well, bumped well, reacted, sold, with his own offense looking good, but there wasn't a single hope spot/cut off. It meant for a lazy sort of layout (and Dibiase's back elbow off the second ropes is really the worst transition spot). A lot of the stuff that stood out the most with Magee wasn't bumping or offense but the bells and whistles so it's not necessarily anything Dibiase was doing except for giving him space. All that said, Dibiase had a lot of heat and Magee got a really nice ovation after the match.

All I'll say to that is that it's pretty great to have that "opening a pack of trading cards" feeling every Wednesday as news of the weekly Hidden Gem waits to drop. It really helps a guy get through the middle of the work week.

Theoretically, the whole idea of the Bar is that they're the line that you have to cross to make it to legitimacy or whatever, so testing the new World champions kind of makes sense, but that's probably more thought than they put into it.