Matt D

I'd like to mention that the best MSG sellout statistic lying was from Frank Bonnema who repeatedly said that Stan Stasiak broke records and sold it out for a decade as a main eventer or something.

We live in awesome times and in a great community. I'm switching between unearthed 80s and 90s Japanese handhelds, 00-01 Monterrey lucha with Negro Casas, and on my queue are Kanemoto/Wagner, a Fujiwara match that shodate suggested, the Casas/Cavernario tag title challenge from last week, and whatever the heck Daniel Bryan is going to do this tuesday night in a TV match.

T-Bone Tazplex.

Oh, don't worry about Parv. He's just become a mustache-twirling, reactionary, arch-conservative villain in his middle age.

Week 16 Winged Eagle is out for another week. Laz is out for a bit. Rah is out for a bit. joeg's missed a couple of weeks, so he's off until he says otherwise. Edger is taking a week off. We've still got 10 people. oldbirds HeadCheese shodate jetlag DR Ackerman Tim Evans AstroBoy Nintendo Logic dawho5 Richeyedwards And I'm #11 this week. If joe pops back, I'll pair with him; otherwise I'm off. Enjoy.

1. I kind of feel like I took this one for the team. 2. That said, I'm glad HC is here because, as I said before, we're all specialists and this is a viable bit of pro wrestling. 3. Part of me wishes shodate saw this instead. That idea cracked me up more than anything in the match. 4. Wrestling is symbolic. This is a viable bit. It draws. It produces something that is a form of entertainment. It's a low form, certainly, but there are bits that can transfer over. Pro wrestling analysis is so underdeveloped that it feels novel to say that. NWA guy in blue who drink the bad chinese beer was selling his stomach in a way that some other heel might have sold a cast injury or in a comedy match, his lost hair by having a mask over it. There were miscommunication spots. There were the faces (presuming they're faces in this situation) capitalizing and humiliating the heel. Some of this stuff works in 1984 Mid South as well as it works here in 2017 DDT. It's just the details that are different. So long as the fans buy into the reality presented to them, that really doesn't matter. I mean there are people out there who looked at Dumb and Dumber and wrote academic papers on it, I'm sure. I care about commitment because it's an expression of selling, in as you're expressing to the crowd that what is currently happening has weight and value and meaning. Everyone in this match was committed. I don't have a lot of use for Danshoku Dino's act, but I didn't mind the other guys in there. Guy-in-blue-with-stomach-problems coming back out with the TP was sort of the symbolic equivalent of the beat up tecnico who had his masked ripped off coming back out to save his partners in a trios with a new mask. It all sort of fits together. It's just I think I saw that more than they did, and they didn't go far enough in committing to not just the joke but the match. I actually think it's doable and I think they could have done it if they were just a little more self aware. It's like how someone can work hard and work smart at once. I'm not convinced someone can't work high absurdist and smart at the same time. It's all just looping together spots and moments. Also the singing before the match really wasn't over. That bugged me. If you do something for that long, make sure it's over. I'm spinning the wheel tonight. Anyone else who needs a week off or wants to jump in, lemme know.

Oh I hope so I want 1998 Attitude extra segments. There won't be extras for Heat since those were usually taped before RAW. But there is a specific moment in a highlight package where you see Austin giving McMahon the stunner and the tshirt he wore he only wore once on TV which was on Heat so they deffinately have footage after broadcast. We can all be this at times, but I'm still posting it:

I also tend to hold Conrad to the standard I'd hold you guys to, and it bugs me when he fails that standard. Some times that's not mentioning why Terry Boy is named Terry Boy, even though Tony would appreciate it. Sometimes it's not mentioning a Bischoff sign in ECW without mentioning talent swiping (Tony figured it was just because Bischoff was a good heel on TV). It's stuff we'd never miss. It's probably not fair to judge him on that but if he's not able to add that and if he's detracting in other ways, well....

I'm not recommending it to anyone but him but it's casual but still about 60% Tony watching the show. The dick jokes go too far, like always (though Tony is pretty quick with them) but he's flabbergasted by a lot of it and some of the goofy stuff like them doing fake Taz voiceovers promos are kind of funny. It's just surreal. I'm seriously thinking of switching over to this Jameson interview now that we've hit the main even though.

Mooney having to go back to the main MLW feed after trying to go premium for four episodes was a fairly brutal listen.

Listen to Tony watch ECW from this week. I'm not saying EVERYONE should, but you should. A little goes a long way but it's appropriately surreal and ridiculous.

I think some of the issue is due to the multiple hats that Dave wears. He's a reporter, a historian, an entertainer, a critic, and, in this case, a friend. His comment is more than appropriate in some of those roles and probably on average, but Dave isn't just a reporter/historian clarifying a point.

If history is an indication, cue three pages of people wondering if he's on the spectrum.

My feelings exactly.

I've had that issue as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and it was not at all what I was expecting. I want to see a bunch more Kanemoto now, and am actually easier on the finish than a lot of other people were even if I think it didn't need to go QUITE so far. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/20204-el-samurai-vs-koji-kanemoto/ I'm still going to take a look at that DDT match from Head Cheese. Recent DDT is definitely a blind spot, and it's easier to be in the general conversation if I watch stuff out of my comfort zone sometimes so I'm ok doing it. We're a bunch of specialists here on PWO, as opposed to generalists, so I guess it's good HC has "modern comedy wrestling" covered. In general, I wonder if people think we should take a week off. I certainly haven't been keeping track of who's been keeping up with things and who hasn't. This is all for fun so while I'd hope people are being upfront when they might not be around and going out of their way to at least give their partner a match, I can also see how it could be frustrating both for people whose matches aren't being watched AND for people who have good intentions but find themselves 2-3 matches in a hole. Overall, I've really enjoyed doing this for the last few months though, both getting things I wouldn't normally see and getting to pick things I think specific people might find specifically interesting.

That Mr. X vs HTM match from Toronto was such a joy when I cant across it the first time.

Looking at Thursday morning to spin the wheel.

Let's not feud Bryan with the still-quasi-green guy with the big boot? I mean just saying.

One thing I can definitely say is that Bryan works the apron better than Nicholas.

Youre still stuck with Lesnar holding down the title though I'd say they can build Lashley to it at Summerslam, but he was definitely just another guy last night.

Glad to see the opinions on this one. In general, I fall in line with most people, in that the first 2/3rds were just wonderful and the last 1/3 was somewhat problematic. I'm probably the biggest critic of excess we have but there's a fine line between excess and escalation, and I think this managed to walk it pretty well until the very, very end. First, the good stuff. I don't know what I was expecting from this match, but it wasn't something so struggle-oriented, logical, and character driven. I guess, especially in a finals, I was expecting more spots. Kanemoto was a star bully here, filling time perfectly with kicks and grinding. Samurai was great from underneath. Both of them sold moments very well. There was a real feeling of exhilaration when Kanemoto locked on the Figure-Four for instance, or frustration when the ref was getting in his way later on. I loved how he missed so many top rope moves. That made him hitting the flipping senton off the second rope matter all the more when he does hit it. Even that was set up by how quickly he rushed up to the second rope the second time he missed it, and paid off even more fully when he misses it from the top to set up the finish. The leg focus was a joy. Kanemoto just went back to it and back to it and back to it and the fans popped in the back half of the match whenever he put on a leg submission. They bought it completely. So, let's talk about the finishing stretch. It was too much, absolutely, but some of that was mitigated by a few factors. First, Kanemoto did it to himself to a degree. I completely bought him refusing to pin Samurai at certain points, even given the stakes. He'd been in control for most of the match. He knew he could go back to the leg to cut him off if he had to. I think he had some sense of how explosive and dangerous Samurai could be. A lot of it was just that sheer bullying mentality he kept with him through the match. So I was fine when it backfired on him. I was less fine on the Tiger Suplex kickout. It's one thing to pick a guy up and pay for it, or to take your time and lose an easy pinfall, something like that. It's another to pick the guy up, hit an even bigger move, and then have him kick out. The logic isn't there. So while the reverse rana or the moonsault could have ended the match, it was due to Kanemoto's believable choices that it didn't. He paid for it, but it was just a bit too muddied. The flip side was Samurai's offense. I'm not saying wrestlers have health bars or anything but by the time Samurai was hitting the big stuff at the end, he'd taken way more offense than Kanemoto had. I buy some of those late kickouts from Kanemoto just because he hadn't taken as much. I also buy the late flurry from Samurai and the shaking off of the leg selling in the stretch. I don't always or even often buy that, but a guy's mask getting ripped off COMPLETELY, so that you can see his whole face, is so striking a moment, that I just bought the burst in the moment. I didn't really buy the cross-arm breaker and I'm glad that didn't end the match. I think it was ill-fitting within the match itself (though Samurai had done some arm stuff early on). Basically, he could have done one less reverse DDT type move at the end. He was still sort of riding the energy from the mask ripping though so it wasn't the world's worst sin or anything. It was just a bit too much. Like some of the AJPW matches from around this time (or shortly before), if this match was the end of history, as in there was nothing that ever followed it, the final bit of escalation might have worked and been worth it. As it was, it probably didn't quite pan out but it sure came close.

In another situation they could use Joe to cost him the match, thus heating up Backlash and moving things forward while at least protecting Reigns a little bit, but the cage stip makes that pretty much impossible (or at least implausible and overcomplicated).

If theyre going to keep Bray and Matt paired for the next x months, they could do worse than Broken Hardys vs Bray/Bo.

He got a bunch of guys Vince values. Kayfabe, he probably gets a raise.