NintendoLogic

Nikki/Rousey according to WOR.

How much of that is a reflection of crowds being educated that only big spots matter?

Oh boy, another "Rollins getting his leg worked over for ten minutes which will have nothing to do with the finish" match.

I just think that when Dave is really excited about a company's product, he inflates ratings for them across the board and gives matches bonus points they wouldn't receive in a lean period. He did the same for All Japan in the 90s. Look at all the random six-mans he gave five stars to that were largely forgotten by the end of the decade. Hell, jdw once bemoaned the fact that seemingly any MOTYC-level match automatically got five stars. I can only imagine what he'd say today.

Baszler really is a fantastic worker in the classic sense of the term. She gets more of a reaction for stomping on limbs and manipulating joints than most of the roster does for killing themselves with car-crash spots. Other wrestlers should take notes. Count me among those who has no real desire to see Gargano wrestle Ciampa again. But if the feud must continue, I'd like to see a rehash of Savage/Steamboat. Have Gargano realize that the way to truly hurt Ciampa is to take his title and the best way to do that is to beat him in a straight wrestling match.

No, fuck them. If they can take collective action to try to earn brownie points from their boss, then they deserve to be called out when they stand idly by while their boss does shitty things. Anyway, I think Alvarez deserves more criticism for his role as the host of the show. Once Dave started talking about Royce's transformation, he should have realized that the conversation had the potential to go in an unfortunate direction and shut it down. Instead, he fanned the flames.

Just to be clear, it wasn't a tweet that got him in hot water. It was something he said on Observer Radio. Making an ill-advised throwaway comment while speaking extemporaneously should not be a hanging offense, especially when so much of the expressed outrage is clearly in bad faith. Also, I thought Aja Kong not working out in the WWF was more due to her having no one to feud with after Madusa jumped to WCW.

Dave also posted the following on the F4W board: Of course, none of this will placate the Twitter outrage mob, but what can you do.

Can we all move along now?

In terms of accessibility, no question. In terms of match quality, it's more of a mixed bag. Truly atrocious matches are almost certainly rarer than they've ever been, at least in main events, and if you're a fan of the workrate style, this truly is a golden age. As with others in this thread, my biggest issue with the current scene is the increasing move toward a stylistic monoculture. Back in the 90s, you could be certain that regardless of quality, a Misawa match, a Hashimoto match, and a Bret Hart match would all provide a completely different experience. Traditional strong style may have been more hit-or-miss quality-wise than King's Road, but when it worked, it was great in a way that All Japan never could be. These days, it seems like all the top guys are drawing from the same crop of influences and have the same general idea of what a "great" match should look like. Maybe there's no way to put the toothpaste back in the tube and get 10-minute matches that are 90% punches over to modern fans. But nobody seems to want to try.

He'd been battling Alzheimer's for a while, so it might be related to that.

Added Tanahashi/Ibushi to the 2018 list. I'm counting on Park/Rush to live up to its potential, because it's shaping up to be the only thing standing between New Japan and a clean sweep of the top three.

Now there's this: Naturally, people are up in arms over CMLL bringing in Okada (even billing him as the best wrestler in the world) and sticking him in a throwaway semifinal trios match while Bestia del Ring is in the main event. CMLL gonna CMLL, I guess.

Sure, but plenty of guys with more power than Vince have faced their reckoning over the past couple of years. The thing that gets me is that he's managed to have it both ways. He's brought wrestling to a peak of mainstream respectability, with billion-dollar TV deals and sponsorships and the like, while being beneath the notice of the legitimate media when it suits him.

I'm always surprised when stuff like this gets traction while Vince McMahon, who has been credibly accused of far worse, gets off scot-free.

I'd say this is at least as much a reflection of how terrible the men have been this year.

I keep hearing about what a great heel Carmella is and how much heat she gets. But whenever I watch her matches, she might as well be wrestling in a library.

Wagner made a little over $250k for losing his mask off a $625k gate for Triplemania. It should be noted that AAA was banking on a $1 million gate, but all the false advertising they had done during the year ended up biting them in the ass. Regardless, it's pretty much impossible for CMLL to go out of business, so they can pay whatever it takes to seal the deal within reason, especially if it means cockblocking AAA. I guess there's concerns about upsetting the salary structure, but the recent Park-driven business upswing has meant more money in everyone's pockets, so I don't think that'll be an issue. As for Rush, his hair is probably the most valuable prize in lucha other than the masks of Santo, Park, and Atlantis, so his asking price would be way more than $30k.

Rick Steiner squashes from the last couple years of WCW are my current guilty pleasure. There's something I find perversely entertaining about a legit shooter being given carte blanche to just maul his opponents and them just taking it because they probably figure he'll fuck them up even worse if they try to fight back. I honestly think that current wrestlers would benefit from studying them as a guide to making matches look more like an actual fight.

I've finally made selections for 2018. I also updated my top three for 1973 and 2016.

I don't think it's fucked up at all. We can debate how this era's best matches compare to those of the past, but baseline match quality has unquestionably increased. It's like how home run totals that would have been earth-shattering in the 1910s were nothing special ten years later. We're in a workrate live ball era, and people's expectations have shifted accordingly. Also, a show in the 80s and 90s with four ***+ matches most likely would have had strong or at least competent booking leading into and going out of it. It takes a lot more in the ring these days to overcome the crappy booking. I think it'd be more accurate to say that he views modern epics as having the acting of The Godfather and the special effects of Infinity War. Say what you want about Omega, but he clearly puts a great deal of thought into his matches. On a possibly related note, here's a Dave stylistic quirk I noticed recently. The only finisher whose name he capitalizes is the One Winged Angel. I don't know if it means anything.

The only purpose is putting out content. Nothing else matters. Have you ever had to write a paper with a minimum page/word requirement and you just threw out whatever bullshit popped in your head to hit the mark? That's WWE's booking right now.

Like a couple of others, I was shocked to see Hansen continue to take shots at Vader's head even after the injury. It actually caused me to lose a lot of respect for Hansen. It makes me wonder if Vader blowing off the lariat was intended as a not-so-subtle fuck-you for being so reckless.

I'm generally no shrinking violet when it comes to blood in wrestling, but this match made me queasy when I watched it recently. The visual of Hase's chest covered in blood while gnawing on Muta's forehead is what did it for me. I can't help but think of how much blood he must have accidentally ingested.

The only man who could make capris seem badass. RIP.