NintendoLogic

The thing is, the Cena experience taught Vince McMahon not to listen to crowds. And seeing as how he has finally achieved his dream of creating a product where the brand rather than any individual wrestler is the draw, he has no incentive to change course. As long as Reigns doesn't completely tank business or do anything to embarrass the company, he's The Guy for the foreseeable future. As a side note, I rather dislike the use of the term "ace" to refer to the top guy in WWE. It's too much of a Japanism for my tastes. I blame jdw for popularizing it.

See, neoliberalism as described in this thread is essentially indistinguishable from conservatism (other than the diversity part, which historically has not been Vince McMahon's strong suit to say the least). The term has become basically meaningless. It's little more than an epithet used by leftists to describe anyone to their right.

For Matt D: Rick Rude in All Japan. You can't not watch. Note that this link contains two matches. Your assignment is the first one.

Funny you should say that. I would argue that virtually every modern wrestler is influenced by Dynamite Kid to a degree considering that he basically invented what we think of as workrate. The thing is, his influence is so pervasive that people don't even think about it in the same way a fish doesn't think about the water that surrounds it.

What exactly is the point of all these comparison threads? When you're comparing one elite worker to another, it's pretty much entirely a matter of personal taste.

Cena should spend the entire show in a skybox like the WCW guys at X7.

This has to be the first time Vince McMahon has ever been described as a neoliberal.

I searched for 伊達太郎 on Facebook, and it turned up a fellow named Shotaro Date who lives in Shibuya. He has a picture of the Kurdistan Communities Union flag as his profile picture, and the last post on his timeline (which predates him joining this board) is a link to a Reslo match between William Regal and Dave Taylor with a few comments in his distinctive writing style. I say his story checks out. I can't imagine anyone being this committed to a con with no conceivable payoff. I am curious as to why his timeline is filled with Ulster loyalist song lyrics, though.

Reviewed Nielsen/Yamada. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41463-don-nakaya-nielsen-vs-keiichi-yamada-njpw-super-fight-series-5888/

Let me begin by saying that I'm not certain of the proper spelling of Nielsen's last name. I've seen it spelled both Nielsen and Neilsen. His Japanese Wikipedia page has it as Nielsen, so I'll go with that. This is a Different Style Fight fought under a series of three-minute rounds. Nielsen has the size and reach advantage, and any clean hit from him is a potential knockout blow. But Yamada has the edge on the mat, even more so because of Nielsen's boxing gloves. Nielsen gets a few knockout teases, but for the most part, the first three rounds consist of Yamada taking him down virtually at will and forcing him to make the ropes. If this match were scored under a UWF/RINGS-style point system, Yamada would have won sometime in the middle of the third round. A clearly frustrated Nielsen cheap-shots Yamada toward the end of the third, leading to a pull-apart after the bell. The crowd senses that things are about to pick up, and sure enough, Yamada scores a half crab at the beginning of the fourth. But then Nielsen kicks Yamada's leg out of his leg and follows it up with a roundhouse kick to the head, and it's only a matter of time before the referee calls the match off. Fascinating match overall. I'm guessing the goal was to put over pro wrestling as the strongest fighting style while still respecting the differences in size and stardom between the two. In that, they succeeded with flying colors. They took perhaps a bit too long to set the table, but once they got going, it was incredibly riveting stuff. Good pick from shodate.

I didn't have much expectation of shodate liking Lawler/Snowman. I picked it for him because he always talks about how important realism is to him and that match has been praised in some circles as incredibly realistic and even UWFi-esque (which I actually don't agree with, but that's neither here nor there). I was kind of hoping for more than a single sentence worth of thoughts.

I think the idea of Benoit as someone who didn't connect with crowds comes from the term having a different meaning at that time. He got good reactions from the fans in attendance, but he wasn't someone whose presence or absence had much of an impact on attendance, ratings, or PPV buys. Eric Bischoff had a term for guys who got pops that didn't translate to business: the Duggan effect. He would've been a better fit for the WWE Network era where no individual act is really capable of moving the needle much in either direction.

For shodate:

I don't know if that's necessarily true. Dr. Wagner's son turning on him at Guerra de Titanes got over pretty well even without Wagner getting pinned.

Interestingly, this has always been Vince McMahon's greatest weakness.

Even I would put Misawa comfortably ahead of Bret.

She refused to put over Su Yung.

I thought the story behind that was that Quack's wife co-owned the promotion and the shutdown was due to her filing for divorce after he got caught fooling around.

The last straw for me was Seth Rollins cashing in at Wrestlemania. I'm pretty sure I haven't watched a single episode of Raw since.

Reviewed the CZW six-man and Nomura/Abe.

Jmare007 picked this match for me for Secret Santo. Abe is invading BJW from Pro Wrestling BASARA (which is apparently a DDT spinoff), and his work is appropriately heelish. He takes cheap shots, refuses to observe rope breaks, even throws punches with a closed fist. The bulk of the match is a bit too mat-based for my tastes, although Abe keeps things interesting with his dickishness. His double foot stomp onto Nomura's face is a genuine holy-shit spot that unfortunately is pretty much no-sold. Things pick up for me once they start focusing on stand-up strike exchanges. Both guys have no problem really laying it in, and they do a fine job of selling damage and exhaustion. Abe gets the win with a combination octopus hold/kimura that I expect Zack Sabre Jr. to bust out at some point in the future if he hasn't already. Fun match overall. Someone whose tolerance for shoot-style matwork is greater than my own would probably get more out of it.

CZW has never been on my radar screen as something worth checking out, but Jetlag picked this match for me as part of the Secret Santo project. From a presentation standpoint, pretty much everything about this screams "poor man's ECW." Even the play-by-play guy is a dollar store version of Joey Styles. I will say that the venue is appropriately seedy. There's a chain-link fence in the background that makes it seem like they're competing in the Andore cage fight level in Final Fight. The match itself can be broken up into three sections. The opening minutes consist of lucha-esque exchanges where the goal is flashy oneupmanship rather than seriously working for a pin or submission. From there, we get a couple minutes of SAT working over XL and Storm. Even Fuchi would have cringed at some of the triple-team offense they busted out. The combination surfboard/springboard double foot stomp looked especially brutal. About seven minutes in, any semblance of psychology is thrown out the window and the match becomes a deluge of flips, dives, and head drops with a few chair shots thrown in. You as the viewer barely have time to catch your breath, let alone process what's happening. This is pretty much the epitome of Michael Bay wrestling. Deep and nuanced storytelling this is not, but I can't help but be impressed by their willingness to go all out. If you're going to have a spotfest, have a spotfest.

Wasn't Loss the Boss the original guitarist for Manowar?

The latest Observer contains a rather bizarre assertion. Dave claims that ALS is so closely identified with Lou Gehrig that virtually nobody knows the disease's technical name. I find that rather unlikely. After all, it's not called the Lou Gehrig's Disease Ice Bucket Challenge. It can't even be attributed to Dave being too deep in the wrestling bubble to be aware of it because he participated in it.

Sorry for the delay in my review of the match Jetlag gave me. I'm in one of my "don't really give a shit about wrestling" moods and it's hard for me to find get motivated. But I'll get to it soon, I promise. In the meantime, here's my match for Jmare007. It's Ricky Steamboat vs. Lord Steven Regal from a WCW house show.