Loss

The most positive thing I can say about the show is that they concluded with an angle that I might follow. Most people here should know that's pretty big for me. Punk as a heel with a 5-6 month build to a Rock match at the Rumble has lots of potential. I also think Punk's days as a second-tier world champ are over now. If the show accomplished nothing else, it accomplished that. I do agree that Daniel Bryan is not really being used in a way that maximizes his strengths. I think he has taken Jericho's old spot -- the guy who they see as someone who can do infinite jobs and be on the butt end of jokes in all the big segments but stay over. Punk is a step above that, but it is interesting that they are the top two heels at this point. (I guess Show is in the mix too and at the moment will be higher on the card than Bryan, but he floats around so much that I don't see him having much staying power as a top guy. He never really does.)

"Shocking" to me is Warrior, Chyna or Goldberg, not Sean Mooney.

People were talking about how Taker had aged a lot (which is true), but I thought Shawn's appearance made it pretty obvious he's never coming back. He's fat and happy. Good for him.

I don't think they would want those two guys out there. Austin is shooting a movie. They probably wouldn't, but Dave reported on it in advance that every single living wrestler not employed by TNA or in rehab would be on the show. And there weren't honestly that many cameo. I expected the wedding to be filled with them. A lot of the guys "confirmed" were nowhere to be found either. Not sure who the "shocking" person was either that MKJ was talking about.

How does that contradict anything I said?

Punk and Cena were building a great match before the angle cut them short. Those two work basic holds surprisingly (maybe not surprisingly) well.

Great ending to the show. By "fine", I mean nothing was offensive. Dave exaggerated how many people would be appearing in a huge way though. Lex Luger and Scott Hall are not employed by TNA, and I'm sure they have phones.

I've actually found this show to be perfectly fine. I don't tune into full shows often anymore, so what stands out to me is how impressive WWE's marketing machine is. Their use of social media is really smart, and they way they market their merchandise is pretty impressive as well.

No cameos? All the people they brought in and no cameos other than Slick? Slick was funny, though.

JIVE SOUL BRO

Was that Brian Gewirtz as the hand?

The song sucked, but the video package that opened the show was phenomenal. Vince looked more spry than he has in a while. Shawn is not in wrestling shape at all, but good for him. Ok that was fun, JR, get the hell outta here.

Discuss.

So what. Can they work or not? Are they good in their role or not? I'm gay, and all you straight guys care more about male body types than I do. Who gives a shit? Jesus. They're fat/no they're not fat for two pages?

By the way, do we need a new thread today on hungover wrestling?

He wasn't a wrestler. That's the issue. I can think of plenty of job guys that had way more matches than either Vince or Shane that never got any offense, and they were actually trained wrestlers. Wrestlers should be presented as far tougher than the guy on the street. If anything, Shane throwing a punch at Angle should be treated like Hawk reacted when JJ Dillon punched him in the first War Games. There is no reason for him to be booked stronger than a wrestling manager. Being a regular character has nothing to do with being presented as a credible opponent for a main eventer. They never put Austin or Undertaker in a position to sell for Shane, which is my point. As a former WWF champ at the time, as someone who had just had a grueling series with Benoit that he won in the end, as someone who had victories over Rock, HHH and Undertaker, as someone who held his own against Austin, Shane had no business getting any offense in on Angle. There's no way to justify it. Shane would have been most effective if presented to be about as threatening as Andy Kaufman. Shane was one of the guys who raised the bar in an unrealistic way, because he could take stupid bumps, then have weeks to recover. His overdone matches are one of the reasons it's hard to build and sustain heat in wrestling matches with no crazy bumps, blood or gimmicks attached. It can be done by people who know what they're doing, but wow, it's pulling teeth to get a crowd to respond to good wrestling even for good, experienced wrestlers much of the time. King of the Ring 2001 was a major turning point for the show when you had Austin, Benoit and Angle all injured. The style had become unsustainable. Chris Jericho, the healthiest of those in top positions on the show, had a concussion. Since then, every effort WWE has made to tone down the style has been met with selfish outcries from fans who have no respect for the toll wrestling such a heightened style takes on one's body. I'm rambling, but yeah, that's sort of my problem with Shane. I didn't even get into how counterproductive it is to present the in-ring as something that anyone can do with a little practice. (I didn't mention Vince and Stephanie within this conversation, because in the matches they have had, they have usually wrestled like people who don't know what they're doing, instead of like people who think they can hang. I'm not a fan of Stephanie on air at all, but I'd debate anyone who argued that Shane was a more effective character, or that he understood his role more.)

I usually watch wrestling alone when I'm at home. I never drink alone, and I'm usually not home when I do. So I'm sure it's fun, but I don't have anything that stands out to me, unfortunately. Maybe if a PWO regular lived in Chicago proper, I'd give it a shot.

LT was a famous professional athlete who in the storyline was trained extensively by Diesel.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility for the viewer to believe that Shane engaged in some training before stepping into the ring. Is it really expected he would have agreed to a match otherwise? Assumptions should never exist in good wrestling. A wrestler they were wanting to push taking Shane under his wing, with training vignettes and Shane using a few of that wrestler's moves to limited success wouldn't have been good, but it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. What they did was pretty much the worst thing in the world. It's a mixed analogy, since wrestling isn't fake fighting, it's fake athletic competition. The mind boggles that you think Shane McMahon is more credible than Rey Misterio.

I think I liked Shawn more prior to the yearbooks. When you see him in a similar role to Kenta Kobashi, then compare their output, it's a pretty striking difference. Shawn has at times been one of the best wrestlers in the country. Shawn has never really been one of the best in the world.

Of course it's worse. Rey is a trained athlete. Shane is a guy off the street. Untrained athletes should be tied in knots by Olympic gold medalists. I suspect most people don't know Kurt Angle still wrestles.

"Quite laughable to people on the outside" "Some tag match in Japan"

Ridiculously excessive. No wrestler should ever sell for Shane. Even slightly. At all. They're "athletes", Shane is a guy off the street. He also took bumps that raised the bar to the point that wrestlers who had to work the next night couldn't keep up. What is good about that match?

Just rewatched the MSG match. I was way off on it. It's a very good match, and I really liked it on a second viewing. They cut a good pace and Arn and Tully took some fun bumps and fed offense to Demolition really, really well. But the heel in peril stuff lasted a little too long, and when Ax starts repeating the axehandle spot, you kinda want them to just move to the next section of the match already. I thought Arn and Tully did a great job in working over Ax, but I really, really hated the way they distracted Smash right as he was about to get a hot tag, as it made him look stupid and didn't even get any heat. But I was too harsh on this match. I'm still not sold, but I am not ready to write Demolition off either. My takeaway was that Arn and Tully were infinitely better than probably every tag team in the U.S. that has followed them, and that Ax is smart in the ring, but his stuff doesn't look really good. Meanwhile, Smash is not smart in the ring, but is more physically capable of carrying a match. I also enjoyed the heels taking hard bumps for Ax's weak clotheslines, but it looked like he just kinda tapped him in the stomach to get his attention. I'll watch the Rockers match tomorrow.

Right or wrong, sometimes it seems like the things Demolition receives praise for are things every single tag team in the company was doing at the time.