Loss

Shawn Michaels really feels like the biggest example. The praise is way over the top, but some of the criticism (not all of it) is too.

Yeah, Raw has suffered some, but it's still the better show thus far. Considering that they don't have to go three hours and they have a stacked roster, they should blow Raw away.

The Rock had so much work done, though. He actually looked better before all that noise.

Another horrible Iconics interview.

This topic is hilarious to me because my type is not at all the typical type that's pushed as a ladies' man in wrestling.

Going long for the sake of it or because "that's what you do" is silly, of course. But I still think having a great long match requires a higher skill level, especially one that builds slowly and keeps the people.

And untelevised WCW!

The best thing about 80s NWA is that high value was placed on both match quality and great promos and angles. It's really the only time that has been done successfully with a national audience, as since then, we've had companies who generally value one heavily over the other, which is an unnecessary binary in my view. Mid South was better booked and probably had better in-ring up and down the card, but Flair and Cornette in particular were such all time-level promo guys that they were pretty much a guarantee of at least something great on every show. JCP crashed and burned because the talent got stale and Dusty Rhodes became burned out as a booker. Mid South just didn't have any talkers at quite that level, even though guys like Hayes and Watts were awesome. I agree 90s AJPW was better, but the booking was often frustrating for being so slow-paced and repeating the same matchups, even if they were freshened up many times until the style sort of fell over a cliff. 2000s ROH isn't even in this discussion for me. It was more cool for being something underground and watching a lot of young wrestlers overachieve, but I don't think the work matched the work in JCP, Mid South, or AJPW. I don't have an opinion on 2010s NJPW since I haven't watched enough to produce a fair judgment. Late 80s/early 90s CMLL should be thrown into this conversation too.

It's the hypocrisy more than it is the decision to promote the show itself. If they want to do this, fine, but doing it while also doing videos about Black History Month, promoting breast cancer awareness, marketing a "women's revolution", and working with GLAAD is problematic. Jerry Jarrett doing this show wouldn't hit that nerve in the least because Memphis wrestling never even pretended to be run by good people. Fritz Von Erich ran shows named after his drug-overdosed kids and even used their deaths to get angles over and draw houses. Him doing it ... whatever. WWE has been perpetuating the cleaned-up-image con for years now, and then the truth comes out about who they really are -- whether it's Stephanie saying philanthropy is the new marketing, Bill DeMott and JBL taking the fall for bullying they were put up to by management, Brock's drug test failures being ignored because of his contract, or this. They don't care about taking a genuine stand on anything. So be it. I just wish they'd stop pretending.

Seriously? I had no idea they were making that much money from this thing. If I am not mistaken, isn't Wrestlemania pretty much the financial cornerstone of their entire fiscal year? If this show made more than that...I guess we'd better get used to shows in Saudi Arabia. It may not mean THAT much, only because Wrestlemania has transitioned to loss leader status the last few years. It's more important to their bottom line not to scare away their shareholders with low network subscriber numbers, which is why they gave away WM for free this year. Still, I'm sure they are making off like bandits here.

I remember when he would be one of those people in pull-apart angles in early 90s WWF, and he had the shiniest white sneakers I've ever seen on a human being in my life.

All I know is that Dave said based on just the big show itself, this is more profitable for WWE than Wrestlemania.

The interesting thing about your last point, TTK, is that Roman has a rep for being quick-witted, funny, and really likable in one-on-one interactions. The locker room loves him.

It seems to me like wrestling did well for a long time without character evolution. Ric Flair never changed. Dusty Rhodes never changed. Randy Savage changed his ring attire and look, but not really his madman persona. Roddy Piper never changed. The Road Warriors never changed. I don't want to write off the point because I think there's something to it. It's how Chris Jericho has stayed relevant. It played a role in Daniel Bryan getting over. It revitalized Matt Hardy. But why didn't it matter in the past? I think the bigger creative issues are wins and losses, who gets pushed and who doesn't, and the obsession with size. Whether everyone on both sides fully realizes it, this is a battle between a fanbase that wants full control over creative decisions and a promoter who still feels, rightfully so in some ways, that it's up to him to manipulate his audience into wanting to see what he plans to present. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Clinton raised taxes on everyone. So did Reagan and Bush the elder. Obama didn't raise taxes on the wealthy. He just let the Bush tax cuts expire, and even that was pretty tough to pull off while holding Congress. Wall Street was pretty supportive of Obama and Hillary and plenty of other candidates to have turned on the party with the vengeance. That simply didn't happen. Dodd-Frank was written by lobbyists to ensure that "Too Big To Fail" remained a thing. There are indeed differences between the two parties. But again, I'll say it for the third time -- they both support free trade. They both support broad military intervention. They both support deregulation. And I covered the tax stuff. When Medicare For All ends up in the party platform, then I'll believe the party supports it.

Ooh, it's here that I remember how underrated REGGIE BENNETT is.

Ideas of pushes and burials in WWE are often humorous to me. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are supposedly in the doghouse and spend the next several months as the top heels on Smackdown, with Zayn getting the biggest push of his career. Reigns is the one that Vince supposedly loves and sees as The Guy and he's constantly booked horribly. What gives?

I think a cover of the Perfect Strangers theme song with modernized production would probably be played on WWE TV all the time.

He used to always use the phrase "Bob.con" as a figure of speech, and I still have no clue what it means.

I say, if you can have an amazing match in five minutes where it doesn't feel shortchanged, have at it! If you need more time to have an amazing match, have at it! I don't really have a personal fixed rule on match length. Sometimes short matches feel too long and long matches feel too short. It's all relative.

The Iconics promo was so poorly acted and didn't sound the least bit natural. Just felt like someone reciting lines. I'm surprised people liked it. I thought it was cringeworthy.

He's done. But hey, John Cena was booed too I guess, and apparently they see the lesson from that as that this means it's working. We actually hear arguments that cheered wrestlers like Daniel Bryan and Rusev aren't over. The world is an interesting place.

I halfway expect yet another try at WM35, which is just asinine.

This thread walks a fine line, and its entire premise is admittedly a very unusual circumstance. In some ways, it's very difficult to separate WWE's decision to do the show from discussion of the show itself. That said, I kindly ask everyone to think about their posts ahead of time to make sure that they are directly relevant to WWE and their decisions as a company, or something about the venue and setting itself, instead of just making posts to provide political commentary.