Log

He also had a match from MSG against Mr. Wrestling II that was on a recent Schneider Comp. It's really fun.

Like Mike there ^, I love the newsletter recaps. Just helps to put where we are now in perspective. I can't really rank the choices. It really depends on what's most interesting at a given moment. When the Vince vs The World stuff was going on, that was my favorite thing. The Blackwell discussion has been fascinating. Some of JVK's threads have led to interesting places. Lately, the Flair stuff has been what I'm interested in. I also don't go many other places for wrestling stuff online. Just here, DVDVR and Segunda Caida (and Wrestling KO here and there). I think this place strikes a good balance of all the things mentioned by Loss in the original post.

I totally agree with El-P on Edge. Isn't weird to think, though, that Edge would, kayfabe-wise, be a strong candidate for best of all time. I mean just looking at how "successful" he was. I mean, looking at the titles, etc that Coffey listed, can anyone touch that?

Ditto. I can't tell who I'm supposed to root for here. HHH is a dick, but Punk is a whiny baby.

Doing a good interview is really an art. Like Loss said, most shoots are a dude with a list of questions. That doesn't lend itself to getting too deep into a subject. Also, the people who film these shoots need to learn how to frame an interview shot.

I think I used the term "cautiously optimistic" in regards to the whole Punk angle. Now I'd say the "cautiously" part was right. I guess it's just the fact that they're really the only game in town when it comes to wrestling, but I always want WWE to be great. They just let me down more often than not. Really, the things that made the angle interesting are dead to me. However, I wouldn't totally write off the idea that this could all make Punk a top guy. I think that all hinges on his match with HHH. I think the outcome of that match will speak volumes as to how he'll be considered from here on out.

Are you guys just trying to troll RE back here with all this Benoit and Dynamite Kid talk? What do you mean by this?

Speaking of Tito...I noticed he did some stuff in early-80's AWA. Any of it look like it could make the set?

Exactly. On top of that, from a kayfabe, storyline perspective, it was totally unnecessary. There was no storyline reason for it to happen. Stacey wasn't managing a rival of Austin's. She hadn't interfered in a match. This led to nothing. It's not only offensive, but also nonsensical.

There was a time that I thought I might sit out the AWA 80's set. Not after reading this stuff. Can't wait for it now.

DO IT!!!!

Hell, you could even throw in Chris Brown's face turn. The dude was a despised heel just a couple of years ago, now everyone's cheering him and loving his performance. He's kind of Randy Orton.

Why the hell did they even announce the Nash match then? Do some kind of angle or something to get him out of it. Instead, they just do a random thing at the end of the show? They didn't even pull that off right. They had Cena's music way too loud, and you could barely hear what Punk and HHH were saying. The whole thing was just very, very poorly done.

His head's too fat to spin.

Art moved firmly into "so-bad-it's-good" territory with his performance. He kept me thoroughly entertained.

If he wanted to be left alone, he'd stop posting stupid shit online constantly.

Someone needs to develop a promo style of talking super fast with no pauses to combat the "what?" chants.

That, and the fact that they really started to play up the stripper aspect of Shawn's gimmick really put him in a bad spot. Playgirl, the little strip-teases after matches, etc. They may have been trying to appeal to female fans or something, but in the process they totally alienated a lot of the male fans.

While I agree that the term should not be something that enters into discussions here, I also agree that there is a such thing as a "self-conscious epic". Herodes mentions two that came to mind for me immediately: HBK/Taker (mostly the second one) and HHH/Taker. To me, it's more to do with guys that say beforehand, "We're gonna go out there and have a great match!", instead of "I'm gonna beat you!" I kind of see this as a fairly new thing, and more worried with impressing "Dave" and Internet fans, etc. I can remember Michaels, at some point leading up to the second Taker match, saying in a promo that he wanted to "tear the house down" (or something similar) and have another great match at Wrestlemania. That bothers me as just like when Angle or whoever does it. HHH and Taker did basically the same thing this last year. I'm not a big HHH-hater or anything, but it just felt like he had seen his buddy have these big, well-recieved matches the years before and wanted one of his own. I'm just saying that whether or not you like the term "self-conscious epic", it does describe something that some wrestlers do. Like I said, it seems to have developed over the last few years. I don't think Warrior/Savage and some of the old broadways by Flair and others really fall into this category. I don't think Punk/Cena from MITB does, either (haven't seen Summerslam, yet). In the case of the former, it was more of a matter of putting on a "main event". It's Savage's retirement, it's a Flair defense in your territory, etc. It needs to be big. I've never watched a Flair draw and thought it was all, "Hey! Look at how good I am." It's more, "I can't put this guy away, but I'm not giving up my title" (or something like that). I don't know. It's hard for me to explain, but some big "epics" just seem more organic. HHH/Taker (the most glaring example) seems to just have been put on for no other reason than to have a "big" match, thus making it a little more "self-conscious".

I agree that the problem was with Rikio. But, some of the blame has to fall on whoever booked the long reign. Kobashi beat every challenger thrown his way for two years. It reaches a point where the fans are going to need to see someone who has been built-up as being on a roll or built as a viable threat to the title. NOAH never did that. Rikio might have got some wins in some six-mans, etc., but it wasn't a thing where everyone was like, "Oh shit! When is he finally going to get his title shot? This could be the dude who does it." I guess, to me, the success of a long title reign really lies in how it's ended. When your champ is tearing through challenger after challenger, there needs to be someone rising through the ranks who can be seen as the main threat to champ. That's one of the things they really did right in WCW. When the NWO started and Hogan ran with the title for a year or so (I'm not classifying this as a "long reign"), they built Luger up really well as the guy that could take it from him. By the time the match between them came, there was a vibe around it that it could be something big happening. Now, I know they fucked up a number of other things around it, not the least of which was giving it away on Nitro, but it was still a pretty great moment.

We've mostly been discussing short reigns or "hot-shot" changes here, but could an overly-long reign hurt a title just as much? Take Kobashi's GHC reign, for example. Kobashi held onto the title for so long and ran through so many challengers, it was hard to buy anyone beating him. They basically painted themselves into a corner. Then when Rikio won, it was just kind of, "huh"? I guess the idea was that whoever finally ended te reign would be a made guy. I just don't remember Rikio getting that reaction. Now, Aries ending Joe's ROH reign handled this better. It got a huge crowd reaction, and Aries got a rub for it. It just seems to me that it's easier to book short reigns than the big, epic ones.

Am I crazy, or was Kofi sporting some U.N.-themed gear on Raw?

A couple of years ago, I was in a bar in Louisville and a bunch of WWE guys came in. I can't remember who all was there, but I think Shad Gaspar (sp?) was one of them, maybe the Tolands and some other guys that have since been cut. Anyway, what struck me was that Chioda was one of the bigger dudes in the group. I think that sometimes just being around all these juiced-up guys every day, day-in and day-out, would make someone want to fit in and get bigger. Also, as artDDP pointed out, he's probably taken some knocks in his career and may need some pain help.

I thought the Punk stuff was ok last night. Nash seemed a little out of it to start his promo. Maybe the "What?" shit just got to him. Nash did seem pretty legit pissed at some of the stuff Punk was saying. I did not like Cena's promo to end the show at all. MITB has been put over as a star-making vehicle for years now. Cena comes out and gets all pissed that Del Rio used it. Really? Cena's just been soooo whiny lately. Either he's going through yet another period of shitty writing for him, or this has to be leading somewhere.

While I don't think this angle has been as good as it could have been, I still don't see how it's outright bad. Let me put it this way...Previous to Punk's "Greatest Promo Ever", I would watch Raw on dvr every week. Really more out of habit than anything else. Just checking to see if they'd actually done anything interesting. Now, I actively look forward to Raw. After last nights events, I'm really curious as to where this is all going. I said it myself earlier in this thread. I have every expectation that they will fuck this up. I just don't think they've done it yet. Yes, it's not up to it's full potential. But it's too soon to write it off completely.