NintendoLogic

I wouldn't mind them stretching out the Punk/Bryan feud if they were using the time to build up someone like Cody Rhodes as the next challenger. As it is, they'll probably just have him cost Punk a match on Raw with interference, which will somehow earn him a title shot.

Now that campaign season is in full swing, it's time to fire this bad boy up again. The story of the moment is the WWE's attempts to intimidate its critics in the media into silence, which naturally has backfired hilariously. From today's Observer update:

Would it be too cynical to wonder if the Orton suspension is a preemptive strike against any criticism the Wellness Program might come under during the Senate campaign? They wanted to cast him in The Marine 3, so they obviously don't think taking him off the road for a while is that big a deal.

See, I don't get this. Additions to a match should enhance it, not serve as obstacles to be overcome.

4.30 TV rating.

I asked because your first paragraph said "Kawada shouldn't have gone over" and your second paragraph said "storytelling-wise, this is when Kawada should have gone over." They seemed disconnected from each other. Plus, the stuff about Misawa being hurt and Kawada being on a roll would apply just as much to the 7/95 match.

Are you talking about the 7/95 match here?

The problem is that triple threat matches and matches with Kane both tend to suck. Additions to a match shouldn't be things you have to creatively work around.

I view Bryan and Punk as this era's Bret and Shawn. They're the consistently brightest spots in a product that is overall rather lackluster.

Not Ivan Koloff?

I find it striking how much of the Gordy List ends up unintentionally damning Sting with faint praise. He was the biggest draw...in early 90s WCW. He was one of the best workers...among musclebound babyfaces. I'm also dumbfounded by the claim that Sting was a bigger influence on Chris Jericho than Shawn Michaels. More generally, you'd be hard-pressed to find a current American wrestler below 220 pounds who doesn't regard Shawn as an influence. Sting's influence is pretty much limited to Shelton Benjamin doing Stinger Splashes.

If one or two years as a hot act is enough to get you into the HOF, then Goldberg and Kerry Von Erich are no-brainers. On a somewhat related note, what does Sting have over Batista as a HOF candidate other than longevity? The gap between the two as workers wasn't that large, and Batista blows Sting completely out of the water as a draw.

You have to understand that HOF qualifications are determined on a sliding scale. The worse you were as a worker, the better you have to be as a draw, and vice versa. Sting wasn't really exceptional at either.

Sure. I feel like people are acting like being a Hall of Famer is the default position and not inducting someone is a huge slight. In fact, the opposite is true. You have to make an affirmative case for someone.

He was a piece of the puzzle in 1997, but he was nowhere near the biggest piece. Episodes of Nitro he wasn't advertised on did just as well as ones he was. And he didn't draw on any house shows because he wasn't on any of them.

Hey, I'm not your mom. If you think that what Dave had for breakfast this morning is a topic of great interest, knock yourself out. I just think that the current Dave/Dana brouhaha is too petty to warrant discussing in great detail.

OK, this thread sucks now. Just a bunch of bullshit navel-gazing about Dave and Dana. Seriously, who gives a fuck?

Of course size matters. Wrestling may be fake, but it's not an action film or a comic book. It's a pseudo-sport, which means that there are limits to suspension of disbelief. If basketball were worked, you wouldn't buy Chris Paul posting up Dwight Howard no matter how good his drop step was. It's not the end-all be-all, but it's not something that you can just sweep under the rug with "smart work."

And Rey beating Brock with gymnastics wouldn't?

Considerably?

Brock also lost to Kurt Angle. By submission, in fact.

Actually, the height of petty is Vince in his Congressional testimony saying that a piece by Frank Deford about deaths in wrestling was due to Deford holding a grudge over Vince having stolen his shoes at a party 16 years previous.

I suppose you could argue that they couldn't do a long-term build because the writers would have screwed it up. But it's difficult to imagine them coming up with anything worse than what actually happened.

I have the opposite view. A submission master is much more credible against a larger opponent than an acrobat.

I don't see how Bryan vs. Lesnar is less plausible than Rey Mysterio vs. every single heavyweight. EDIT: Bryan is being pushed as a legit asskicker and submission master, so there's not that much of a disparity between the two.