Matt D

Maybe? I don't know. Would it have done anything but made the match better to give Bryan another 45 seconds to work on it like a bulldog smelling blood (mixed metaphor, sorry) though? This in a match where Brock tossed him around relentlessly for the first 2/5th. Would it have hurt anything to cut 45 seconds off of that and add it to the other end?

And that's ok. I get it. I just don't think I can go on this ride in a real comparative sense. I get sometimes you get something freak that happens, but it's not about there being a one-to-one ratio. I get it. It's wrestling. Sometimes one legdrop can mean more than ten minutes of a beatdown, but it all feels bankrupt. No, it feels like inflation. That's exactly what it feels like. They've devalued one impact/bump/move to such an extent in a Brock match, how can we really feel like one or two much, much smaller things can possibly mean anything in comparison? How does anything else in a match, let alone on a card matter when so many throws don't? I get that freak things happen, but a match with a lot more strategy would have been far more compelling to me in a Raw vs Smackdown champions' match, one with one of the best technicians ever. Brock can slip on a banana peel if he's wrestling The Miz. Let's see Bryan try to solve the puzzle, like in most of the best Hansen matches. This had a hell of a lot less thought put into it. They took the fans on the exact ride they intended but it pales to the sort of rides that wrestling can take you on. There's a cost to what makes Brock so seemingly special and everyone and everything pays for it.

It's all drowned out by the noise and the sfx. There are details. The story that they're trying to build relies on the details. There's a level of consistency to them on paper and even in the performance. They still don't matter because the noise drowns it all out. The sound mixing is all off and you can't hear the skill and precision on any of the other instruments because the drums are too damn loud.

Ronda seems like she can, in a match right before his, without the same shortcuts/shorthand, abridged-match nature?

The match felt somewhat uneven to me. Bryan takes all that damage early on. Brock takes a bunch of nasty knee shots, sure, but they should have focused a bit more on the leg since it was going to play a role in that stretch. One chop block and a slam into the post doesn't mean Brock's leg gives out on him when that's rarely ever happened and relative to the sheer amount of damage in the rest of the match. It wasn't earned when so much else was purchased and just tossed aside. They're creating a world and it's a wildly uneven one. Add in the context of the match before it and the amount of work Charlotte did on Ronda's leg only to basically have her shake it off once in the stretch, and it becomes even more uneven. It's almost impossible to show that sort of attention to detail in a Brock match because the details so rarely matter. That's probably why I get so frustrated; I'm a details guy. I was 100% into whether or not he'd tap at the end, but I can't imagine ever going back to watch this again now that I know whether he did or not.

I'm not sure this came close to the Styles match from last year, but that was a really compelling finishing stretch.

Look, if we hadn't ever seen this match then this would be super compelling. We've seen it. So far it's a chunk of the initial Cena match and the UT low blow, with a bit of chickenshit stalling to begin. Let's see where it goes from here, but I would have liked to see 5 minutes of Bryan trying to crack the Brock code before the throws started instead.

This is basically the match he wanted the most for years. I doubt we get any restraint.

In the stuff she tries to do, she's like the world's most athletic and flexible Mile Zrno or Virus. Some of the tricked out holds are so goofy and over the top but feel so legitimate and way cooler than if she just grabbed a hold. She gets the fireworks element of it and marries it to her athleticism and rep, with an execution and intensity that just ties it all together. She's relentless but seems to understand the selling aspect and the escalation, including and especially the emotional need for what is happening in the ring to matter to her, to express that. The pumped-up hyping before she ate the spear was maybe the other best part of the match, that quick jump because everyone watching was probably so into how pumped up she was and not at all expecting the spear.

This is literally all I've seen tonight since I just got the kids down and I'm a few minutes behind on it. Just finished and caught up. It's amazing how tricked out Ronda's stuff is. She's the promise of Angle fulfilled, mixed in with Hansen in how unrelenting she is, just purely and absolutely single minded. Charlotte firing back with the chops after the punch exchange was one of the best in-ring WWE moments of the year. That whole match/segment was something. And eventually Becky will be added back into the mix.

The best Tiger Jeet Singh match ever: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/11/new-footage-friday-billy-black-wahoo.html?m=1

They're just setting up Survivor Series, right? It's all fodder for that.

International atrocities aside, I'd have to lose a bet to willingly watch a Ziggler vs Rollins match.

Around once every six weeks or so, Cubsfan will update his database with old results. (Here's an example of one of those posts: http://www.thecubsfan.com/cmll/2018/06/18/1960s-coahuila-durango-lineups-added-to-the-luchadb/)

Coincidentally, I'm "making" Phil and Eric watch an unearthed Tiger Jeet Singh match for New Footage Fridays this week. Watch this space.

Anyone who has ever watched more than one Breaks match? More seriously, the problem I have with trying to figure out the UK guys for WON HOF inclusion is that the usual drawing/touring/loops metrics aren't at all 1 to 1. Our exposure is basically the TV show, but they were working up and down the country on a weekly basis and that's very opaque to us in both qualitative and quantitative terms in 2018.

Nick Bockwinkel. That did finish the second fall, btw, with them spending a few minutes tending to Jumbo's neck between falls. This isn't some modern wrestling where nothing has any weight or meaning to it.

So that Jake vs Sawyer match might be my favorite Jake performance ever.

For people who think I am entirely cold and analytic with this stuff, I fully admit having an ear to ear grin upon my face watching the crowd's reaction to Roop nailing Wrestling II with the cane for the transition.

A WWF match, boys and girls:

Thanks for the nudge. I think we're still aiming for post-thanksgiving for a truly yuletide feel but maybe I'll try to set us up in the week or two prior so we can hit the ground running.

Teaming with LeDuc too. Do we have LeDuc earlier than 74?

Are ALL of these new? I can't remember if I've seen that AWA footage. Khawk? Kelly(on the MSG match)? Texas Rasslin’ 06/17/1952 – Legendary Lou NWA World Heavyweight Champion Lou Thesz puts his title on the line against the dangerous Wild Bill Longson. WWWF @ MSG 01/31/1972 – The Great Gotch Karl Gotch makes his impact felt on U.S. soil when he teams with Rene Goulet to face The Rugged Russians at Madison Square Garden. Championship Wrestling from Florida 11/12/1974 – Oklahoma’s Favorite Son The highly revered Danny Hodge joins forces with wild man Jos Leduc to battle the dastardly duo of Pak Song and Toru Tanaka. Stampede Wrestling 08/12/1983 – Japanese Pride Before becoming one of Japan’s most controversial figures in MMA, Nobuhiko Takada traveled to Canada to face Athol Foley. AWA 10/18/1984 – To Catch a Model Billy Robinson, accompanied to the ring by WWE Hall of Famer Lord Alfred Hayes, takes on Rick Martel in this contest from Canada.

And does it even matter since it was about sports and not anything to do with whatever they were presenting? I don't think the crowd bought the attempts to turn it towards Cena. They were still booing, but they weren't booing that.

The fact of the matter is that he's the only guy in wrestling who is going to do stuff like this week in and week out. Maybe he can't hit as many spots as quickly as before, but you can go back or forward ten years and you'll probably have nothing like this on a regular basis: He pretends to steal the guy's phone. How great is that?