Matt D

Will there be other secondary shows that pop up that weekend?

Way, way too soon to put Ronda anywhere near the title picture. She could have done a tag with Nattie against Mickie/someone and then a singles match against Mickie, and then have Nattie turn on her, and done another 6 months of programs with gaps in between while she was training without losing any momentum or getting exposed. I'm hoping they just have Nattie turn on her here and don't put the belt on her already.

I'd be curious about the advertising. They had the TV but I'm not sure about other things they did. Or maybe about running the same stuff in different towns over different weeks. There had to be people who talked to one another, just over the phone, even in a pre-internet age.

I will say that my firewall does not love the other board when I've popped in.

I think we're veering slightly, but I heavily value writers over artists in comics too and screenwriting over cinematography, so at least I'm consistent? (I'd also argue about specific Demolition performances, and I think you're higher on their heel work in general layout/energy aside, but that's not for here). Some of this goes into "Calling in the ring" vs "Planning things out." too. Also the idea of intent. There's a lot to unpack here. I think one thing which really doesn't matter for this argument, however, is what other wrestlers feel unless we can make a connection between those feelings and the footage, positive or negative. Do we care whether Lance Storm was a light touch with a chair if the chair shot looked terrible and took away from the match? I don't blame him for not wanting to hurt someone but I do blame himself for letting himself be talked into doing a spot that he can't actually execute both safely and while looking good. Do we care if wrestlers liked working with Brody because he never got winded when the stuff he was doing with that wind was often crummy both in layout AND execution? On the other hand, if someone's a light touch but his stuff looks great or if he has amazing cardio and does amazing things with it, I think maybe those could be useful things to know. If someone's a heavy touch and his stuff looks good? Well, maybe that's good to know too. But it's how WE use it to judge; that's the point. As viewers, we don't inherently judge wrestling/value skills of wrestlers the same way other wrestlers do and nor should we. We are judging something very specific. It goes without saying. We're not judging "this is the best wrestler ever" so much as "this is the best wrestler ever based on footage and the elements we can discern and that we value." Does footwork matter? Only in as it leads to the final product. Now, maybe it does and you just need to watch five hundred matches with a specific wrestler to figure out exactly how (or some sort of comparative experiment). For instance: I've watched enough wrestling to know that Cass' wavy-armed selling of Daniel Bryan's kicks is probably ineffective and distracting relative to how other people might sell those. That's an out there example, and I couldn't tell you the first thing about Cass' foot positioning, but I know guys like Edge and Christian and Austin have talked about how it's the first thing they watch in a wrestler (Well, Austin watches lockups, and maybe because of that I've come to pay attention to the initial lock up in a match a lot more than I used to). There's a lot of stuff to unpack. There are inputs and there's an overall output and you can work out a lot of those inputs and the effect/output they generate/lead to, though absolutely not all, by watching enough wrestling closely. It's part of why wrestling is so great to analyze. To me, great matches were the starting point, not the ending point. You come out of a great match and then think "Ok, I felt like this was a great match. Why?" (Sorry for all the edits)

Working with Lawler as booker vs Dundee as booker would be great. And negotiating with Verne for years about potentially getting the AWA belt.

They would be making a colossal mistake not having Cody win.

Married. I've got a 16 year old stepson (he came along young. We're only 36), and a 5 (almost 6) year old daughter and a 7 and a half month old daughter. Factor in work and the long commute in and out of DC and life is fairly exhausting these days.

Short answer: I factor in everything we know at all times. But we work off of incomplete information. All we can do is look for patterns.

I project manage the creation of online courses for a big international organization to train government employees of developing countries around the world. It's pretty enjoyable work, as all my co-workers are experts from all around the world.

I'm kind of curious what everyone does for a living.

I like it when Jerome gets his comeuppance.

McGann (Primarily from the audios). 1990-92 WWF (give or take two years either way) and 1991-2 WCW. 1991 GWF. 1998 WCW. Those are my nostalgia sweet spots, and 09 WWECW. 79-80 Portland. The NWAonDemand run of Houston, 79-81 Memphis. 80s AWA. Those are probably my areas of specialty for older stuff before my time. The modern promotion I associate with the most now is probably CMLL, for good or ill.

1. Modern wrestling kind of stinks when you put it that way. 2. I feel like what I've always been missing in my rants is a white board for crazy conspiracy theories. We should be able to upgrade the message board to implement one.

There are no wrong answers here but this one.

You can't blame WWE for being conservative with him to a degree. They should really look at him as an attraction/bonus to cards/programs instead of someone to build around.

I give extra credit for his two PPV main events.

Is that Funk match readily available? I uploaded it to YT as I couldn't see it online; Thanks a lot for posting that. It's so interesting to watch that match vs the 1991 Dustin run and see how differently he was presented. For all the talk about Dustin being shoved down people's throats in 1991, he really wasn't. Funk did everything he could to help make Dustin there, bells and whistles (and plants with triple stacked signs) included. I like how Dustin's shine was basically just dropkicking Humperdink at the start of the match. That meant immediately as much if not more than a five minute in-and-out headlock exchange that he was on top of and it let Funk ambush him (babyfaces should always be punished for that sort of hubris) and start the heat right from the get go. Funk pulled out all the stops. When Dustin kicked out at two early on, Funk made sure to go flying out of the ring. Likewise on Dustin's whip reverse into the corner. Page, despite being the heel on commentary, made sure to put over Dustin's small package hope spot. And so on and so on. Dustin had SOMETHING, connecting to the crowd, showing some energy, selling, I think, quite well for his experience level, but this was the Terry Funk show, from mead ground-charge headbutts to strategically bumping himself through the ropes so that Dustin couldn't punch him to playing hide the tape with Dustin and Humperdink. Glad I got to see it. Thanks.

I may actually end up watching that thing.

Week 19. Alright, just from a cursory look, I'm not sure last week was all that successful, but hey, this is voluntary and life happens, and I enjoyed my match so it's all good with me. Anyone can always play catch up either in suggesting or watching a match. But we shall reroll and try again this week. SmartMark15 is on. fxnj is on. shodate is wished the best in his future endeavors. IpponDropkick oldbirds SirEdger fxnj Tim Evans SmartMark15 HeadCheese jetlag Grimmas Victator JoeG Nintendo Logic DR Ackerman dawho5 Matt D I'm the odd man out and will watch Jun Akiyama vs Masao Inoue from NOAH, 4/23/2006 as Microstatistics suggested. As always, watch your suggested match if you can, but make sure to give something to your partner as soon as you can.

Absolutely. Its not at all a small thing to be the legitimate number three babyface in 1989 WWF.

I enjoy the last year or so of them when Alfred was starting to become more subtly heelish

There's this tangible sense of danger with him wrestling, but there's also this idea that we're cheating something too, in watching, that we're getting something we're not supposed to have. It all feels like it's running on borrowed time and like any match you watch could be the last. Maybe in two years that feeling will be gone, but for now, he'll simply can't be just another guy because no one else on the roster feels anything like that. WWE's created a world where no match ever feels important. Every Daniel Bryan match feels important right now.

I bet Bryan could have a lot of fun working the ten stuff into a match.

Going to give everyone until the morning.