NintendoLogic

The (significantly less vulgar) English term is "clickbait."

What consequences should he face? Should he be fired for having shitty opinions hardly anybody would be aware of if someone hadn't taken the time to scour his posting history? Or does he just need to be "called out"? If the New Day or whatever want to do something like that, then fine. But what purpose does "calling out" a complete stranger serve beyond virtue signaling?

Why should we care if Lars Sullivan is a bigot? It's not like he's a politician with the ability to shape policy or a business executive with power over personnel decisions. He's just a wrestler. And the smart move is to assume that all wrestlers are moral reprobates until proven otherwise.

The tag match was pretty fantastic. Finish aside, that was the match they should have had at Starrcade. Jerry suplexing Youngblood onto the ropes looked brutal. I'm surprised that wasn't done more often.

The guys this year I've felt compelled to go out of my way to see and consistently enjoyed are Hiroshi Tanahashi, Minoru Suzuki, WALTER, LA Park, and ZSJ, in roughly that order. Shayna Baszler is probably my favorite worker who has yet to have a truly great match. I'm kind of torn on Ronda. One the one hand, she's overdelivered every time she's been in the ring, and even if she practices her big matches beforehand, nothing she does feels choreographed or cooperative. On the other hand, she's barely into double digits in matches worked. I want to see how she does when she has to work week-in and week-out.

I checked out the cruiserweight match on a whim. Junior spot-fu will never be my cup of tea, but Ali bumping like he was trying to cash in on a Lloyd's of London insurance policy made it quite the car-crash spectacle. A lot of the reports said they managed to wake up a dead crowd, but I didn't really see it that way. There was a "this is awesome" chant, but it came across to me like the crowd was doing it out of obligation rather than genuine excitement. Like they felt they had to give Ali and Murphy something since they were out there killing themselves.

If I was feeling charitable, I would say that Mauro is a mixed bag overall but a net positive because he seems genuinely enthusiastic and doesn't sound like an overproduced WWE automaton. I mean, as grating as his shtick may be, at least it's authentically his. So I was pretty baffled to see people on Dave's Twitter feed talking about him like he's Lance Russell.

I was on the road when the show happened, so when I got a chance to watch, I decided to skip straight to the good stuff. The women's match was fantastic. Ronda has a Regal/Kandori-esque knack for forcing opponents out of their comfort zone and getting them to work her match while remaining true to themselves. And she has an instinctive grasp of selling, which is probably the most important trait for an inexperienced wrestler to possess. As for the main event, it's probably the best possible Bryan/Lesnar match we can expect at this point. But there was far too much dead time for it to be a truly great match, let alone on the level of the Styles match from last year. I suspect that WWE didn't want the match to be too good for fear of the fans getting behind Bryan too much.

Dream can work and has boatloads of charisma. He'll be fine as long as he doesn't get the Zayn/Bayley treatment.

Christ, Wargames felt like it would never fucking end. The hilarious thing to me was that even the crowd barely gave a shit. They'd pop huge for the big spots and then go back to being completely silent.

The latest Observer discusses Brazo de Plata/Super Porky's current condition. His hips are dislocated, his knees are shot, and he doesn't have the money for surgery. Given how many luchadores from the 70s and 80s ended up in rough shape in their later years, I think we need to reconsider whether not taking flat back bumps is really that much better for you in the long run. It reminds me of when people would argue that hard-hitting matches in Japan weren't really that bad because they had time to recuperate between tours. I guess what it boils down to is that there really is no way to safely do professional wrestling. One way or another, you're going to have to pay the piper.

My top two at the moment are Okada/Tanahashi from Dontaku and the Tanahashi/Ibushi G1 final. I'd give the nod to the former, but I can see myself changing my mind after a rewatch. Also, I still need to see the Okada/Tanahashi matches from the G1 and Destruction. Other than that, I loved WALTER's matches against Tyler Bate in Progress and Will Ospreay in OTT. Aja Kong vs. Hikaru Shida was a MOTYC that came pretty much out of nowhere. WWE this year has been a dumpster fire for the most part, but I really liked Rollins/Ambrose vs. Ziggler/McIntyre at Hell in a Cell. Park/Rush mask vs. hair was shaping up to be the greatest thing ever, but it was not to be. And of course there's Okada/Omega (aka The Greatest Match of All Time).

I can take some solace in being vindicated when I said that Nia was a stupid clumsy oaf who can't do anything right. Also, I love it when people imagine the "b-but [actual good wrestler] injured people too" argument to be an epic gotcha when it actually reinforces the point it's supposed to be arguing against. If you can't have good matches, you at least need to be able to protect whoever you're in the ring with. Ideally you want someone to do both, but you have to do at least one. If they absolutely have to keep Nia around, make her an 80s WWF monster heel and have her do nothing but bearhugs and nerve holds. As for the Bryan heel turn, it doesn't bother me because he's an awesome heel and nothing matters anyway. Still, imagine what the reaction would have been if eight months ago you predicted that WWE would manage to cool him off to the point where they'd have to turn him before the end of the year to keep him in the mix as a top guy.

You know what, just make everybody a heel at this point. It seems to be the only way to get over and/or pushed.

I'd say the obvious way to salvage this is to have Nia replace Becky at Survivor Series and have Ronda destroy her in less than a minute. Ronda looks like even more of a killer without running the risk of the crowd turning on her. Becky burnishes her anti-establishment cred and gets even more over. NIa hopefully gets future endeavored immediately afterward. Everybody wins. Of course, WWE will probably find some way to fuck it up regardless, but hope springs eternal.

I finally sat down and watched this, and I agree that it was pretty fantastic. Dueling limbwork is one of my favorite things in wrestling, especially when it comes into play in unorthodox ways. Aja escaping a cross armbreaker by headbutting Shida's injured leg could very well be the best spot of 2018. They do start to move away from it toward the end, but they never abandon it completely. I really want to see Aja in next year's Mae Young Classic. She looks pretty much the same as she did two decades ago, she can clearly still go in the ring, and I'm sure she'd get over huge with the Full Sail audience.

Believe it or not, the Observer reported at the time that both of Cornette's Mushnick rants were his own idea and Vince had no involvement with either beyond running the first one by his lawyers beforehand. But yeah, they haven't exactly aged well, to put it mildly.

The Team Challenge Series was everything I hoped it would be and more. I mean, say what you want about the Broken Matt stuff in TNA, but that was at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek. This was completely in earnest. Words fail me.

Random question: what are the Mexican commission rules regarding wrestlers who voluntarily unmask to assume a different persona? Like, could Alberto Del Rio go back to being Dos Caras Jr. if he wanted to?

Boyd Pierce?

This is like saying that WCW died because of Jamie Kellner and the decisions by those in charge had nothing to do with it. Fame is not one of the criteria for induction.

One of the true revelations from the NWA Houston footage. He was 83.

Well, I think some people would dispute the notion that Dave is any less into theatricality today, as well as the idea that New Japan main event style is closer to Bret's style than Shawn's.

Have you seen Joe vs. Daniels from Final Resolution 2006? It's my second-favorite TNA match. Roode/Aries at Destination X 2012 is worth a look as well. I don't know how well it holds up, but it was a great moment at the time because it felt like TNA had actually turned a corner.

Really interesting tweet from Dave on Bret vs. Shawn. There's a number of directions I'd like to go, but I need some more time to formulate my thoughts, so I'll let the board take a crack at it first.