sek69

I respectfully disagree. Anyone who's been online longer than five minutes has run into someone who thinks the worst Japanese wrestling is far superior than the best North American wrestling. I can actually understand how people get led in this direction, watching tons of classic Puro can raise your internal expectation bar when it comes to wrestling, and sometimes you can't adjust it when you go back to WWE stuff. What raises my ire is when people get all passive-aggressive over bashing anything not puro in wrestling. They never come out and say it, but the sarcasm and condescending tone are unmistakeable. Neither is the faux-oppression they exclaim when someone calls them on their bullshit. *on edit* I know not all fans of non-American wrestling are elitists. In fact, it's probably a very low percentage that qualify as snobs. It's just that that minority tends to be the most vocal, especially online.

The same Samoa Joe who was on WO last night talking about his Puro and MMA background, and working with Kobashi and Liger....yeah that really proves me wrong. Not to mention Aries and Strong work for ROH, who book for the smart crowd, so it's no shock you like them as well. I'm not seeing how that makes me look foolish, but okay. Here's a question, have you ever seen any AJ matches beyond his recent TNA work or are you pulling a Batista and just dismissing the guy based on clips?

Well if you act like a puro snob, don't get your panties in a bunch when someone calls you on it. A lot of AJ's TNA matches have been spot fests because they put him in 3 ways that are booked for maximum spottage. I just happened to pick up a DVD set of AJ Styles from his NWA Wildside days, and while it was from 2003 or so, it showed to me the guy can work in a non-spotfest and do it well. It's already been mentioned that he's had a few good non-spotfest matches in TNA, but hey it must mean AJ and TNA are starting to make inroads to becoming popular when the smarts start turning on them.

It's your opinon, and you're entitled to it. There seems to be a fairly wide consensus among both smart and markish fans that AJ is one of the top ten (if not top five) US based workers. You seem to have a personal bias against him, and I'm going to go out on a limb here based on your username and assume you're a puro fan. It sounds like if someone doesn't go out there and structure a match like Misawa or Kobashi, then they're a spot monkey. Just my two cents.

I think Styles and Daniels would be having great matches without Joe. He makes them better, no doubt, but it's not like he's working with schlubs that need carried. I'm not really a huge Styles fan but to dismiss him as a mere "spot monkey" is just beyond stupid.

Covering Ahmed's ass at all times was a lot to ask from a pair of tights.

Finding out that Pro Wrestling Illustrated , the very nourishment of my formative mark years, now has a website is one of the most surreal experiences I've had in a while.

Anyone else think Joe sounded way to intellegent to be in wrestling? You just know that if he ever went to WWE, he'd get branded a mark for actually caring about his performances.

In a way, someone being a spot machine makes me like them more since everyone in WWE has to use the same boring style. TNA certainly needs to fine tune some aspects of their product to be fully on WWE's level, but WWE is so stagnant right now that even a flawed TNA show beats WWE on many levels besides talent. Another thing to consider is that you see WWE talent twice a week, and have so for years. TNA kinda has to stop and re-introduce the national audience to their roster so right now it's kind of a "look what everyone can do" phase before they can go in and start getting people invested in characters. I know when I first saw an AJ Styles match I was unimpressed. After getting a chance to get a handle on his character, it let me get into matches I probably wouldn't have before. I'd wager once everyone gets a chance to get some depth on who everyone is, you might enjoy the product a little more.

Heh, how ironic if it's true that Tom Zenk was silenced by WWF/E lawyers. It's probably the only thing their legal team was successful in.

He sounds a lot more southern-ish than I expected.

What I find funny is that with the return of the McMahons, Austin, and now minis, if any viewers who used to watch when they left USA came back they would think nothing has changed in 5 years.

They're devoting a whole division on Smackdown to what they're calling "Juniors", which is anyone under 5 feet tall.

There's a lot of things that could have been awesome if WWE didn't handcuff them, so I don't see why this would be any different.

While HHH got a more watchable match with Batista than JBL did, that hardly makes him the best in WWE. Getting Batista over was HHH's pet project last year so he put in the effort he usually reserves for matches with friends. I'm wondering how you think HHH made Shelton look like anything but a jobber by letting him get cheap wins but never a satisfying payoff. Angle and HBK went miles beyond HHH when it came to making Shelton look like a star. If you think HHH is going to do anything with Cena other than expose his weaknesses and get the title back, I have some prime swampland for sale.

Between the Boogeyman and the new midget divison, it's clear Vince hates Smackdown.

Someone needs to get a screen cap of the guest book in that funeral segment. In the quick glance I noticed Kevin Dunn, Paul H., and "Pat & Sylvain".

Some tidbits from an interview that can be read here: He got heat for his comments about Smackdown guys being lazy when he was still on RAW, but he still thinks there's some people who aren't completely motivated. He thinks the hardest working guys in the company are HHH and Taker. When asked about him going over HHH three times "there were no politics involved". He buries JBL by not offering any comment on their matches beyond "We had zero chemistry". He buries OVW again while saying Bobby Lashley isn't ready to be in WWE yet. Obviously DAVE~! doesn't watch OVW TV, as he'd see what a good booker can do with someone like Lashley. He repeated the new mantra that the Hassan disaster was all the worker's fault. Someone else could have made it work, but Copani's heart just wasn't in it. His views on TNA (after admitting he's never watched): "I've also seen clips of their car wreck matches with AJ Styles doing his stunts. That's not wrestling. Wrestling is storytelling." It's funny, you can practically see Vince's hand up his ass puppeteering the whole interview.

Ref bumps absolutely expose the business the most. Not only do refs play dead for 10 minutes because they got lightly shoved into the ropes, but the booking is so lazy it happens in almost every RAW main event. It's like when fans at Nitros started looking toward the ramp for the run-in every week, you know its coming. The Hemme thing was just a funny screw up, she was wearing assless chaps with panties underneath that were the same color and Melina probably thought she was grabbing the chaps but pulled the panties by mistake. It reminded me of how fat guys in wrestling will adjust their trunks when they're laying on the mat supposedly selling. on edit, this discussion reminded me of the time Brian Pillman wrestled almost an entire match with one ass cheek exposed since he didn't stop the match to deal with his wedgie. That's dedication to your craft right there.

You know, I always thought American and Japanese wrestling fans had more in common than they realized. American fans always popped for the babyface comeback, the hot tag, the scrappy underdog. So do the Japanese, only they had a term for it: "fighting spirit". Whether it's Hogan "Hulking up", Ricky Morton enduring a pounding to finally make the tag, or someone like Rey Mysterio taking on guys literally twice his size; American fans love nothing more than to rally behind the guy who looks like he's got no chance. Sometimes people who appear to be looking for something entirely different end up rooting for the same basic concept.

All of us have seen SS97 ad nauseum, but that's us. 10-15 years from now, it won't be as well known to the current fanbase.

Bret had more input in his set than anyone else, so his DVD set should have higher quality matches. I mean, I don't have a problem with most of the matches on the set, but they really should have put all the famous/historic matches on considering it's not certain if WWE and Bret will work together like that again. It just seems like they were so cautious to not do anything to piss Bret off.

It just keeps getting worse for JR.

The XFL got coverage in WO because it was started by the owner of a wrestling company. Vince started a football league because it's always been his obession to broaden his reach beyond wrestling. Same reason he's gotten into bodybuilding, supplements, movies, music, and ice cream bars. It failed because after the first week, football fans didn't want to see "sports-entertainment" in their football and wrestling fans didn't want to see football in their wrestling. Monday Night Football takes a chunk out of everyone's ratings, since football is argueably the #1 sport in the US. What I said was the reason I can't get into MMA is that mentally I'm always thinking that someone could get seriously f'ed up and it keeps me from getting fully into the match. Maybe that just makes me a pussy, but whatever. I don't have to worry about that when I watch wrestling, unless Nash drops someone on their head again. Not really. In the world of legit sports, baseball doesn't compete with football, basketball doesn't compete with hockey. The TV stations they air on compete in terms of ratings each sport gets, but I doubt Bud Selig gives a shit what the NFL playoffs garner in the ratings. He might care from a business standpoint when it comes to negotiating with the networks, but I don't think MLB is brainstorming ways to beat the NFL.

Why did I think he was in that 10 man? Brain cramp on my part I guess. Either way, I don't think there's a reason to have a Killer Bees match and both Bulldog matches included when there's several more important matches (historically and/or work wise) that could have been included.