NintendoLogic

I think the argument's getting a little muddled. If someone's trying to argue that Lawler never no-sold at all, of course that's ridiculous. Arguing that he didn't no-sell everything that happened prior to his comeback sequence the way Warrior often did is much more accurate.

"15 minute Iron Man Match with Eddie Edwards and Roderick Strong" has disaster written all over it.

Yeah, he was an on-screen authority figure for a while.

http://www.fcwwrestling.info/cesaro1.html Well, it's not nearly as bad as most of the other names they've come up with.

It makes perfect sense in theory - heel teams working Southern tag style tend to make frequent tags anyway, and the guy playing Ricky Morton needs the tag because he's been getting his ass kicked and his partner is fresh. One guy is sticking to the game plan his team has been running the whole match - and is a especially vital now that he's in a slightly vulnerable position - and the other guy just plain needs to get out. Seems logical to me. Sure, except for two things. One, as Mad Dog pointed out, the spot is usually preceded by the FIP hitting a single big move that leaves the two in an equally vulnerable position. Two, it never works. The incoming heel always gets blasted by the incoming face.

A babyface who gets over based on his looks and appeals to female fans is hardly unprecedented. You can argue with the execution in Shawn's case, but the concept is fine.

If this was the standard, there would be no babyfaces in wrestling.

Tonight's Smackdown reminded me of an alternative match structure common in the WWE that I absolutely hate: the tag match built around the simultaneous hot tag. How the hell does this make sense even in theory?

Misawa was good at that too. There'd be times when he'd hulk up and elbow the fuck out of the other guy, but he'd go back to selling once the adrenaline rush passed.

I would distinguish between "selling" and "babyface selling." The former is intended to convincingly convey pain and vulnerability. The latter is intended to generate sympathy and build anticipation for the comeback. The two often overlap, but they don't have to. Kawada was great at the former, not so much at the latter. Not that he couldn't, it just wasn't what he was going for. Also, I would submit that Warrior and Goldberg had the best shines. It's just that most of their matches consisted entirely of the shine segment.

Doubtful. Bull's a big enough name that they'd be really hyping her if she was on board. And I don't see her having her first match in over a decade in front of a couple hundred gaijin.

Speaking of drugs, Dave has written about how the main reason there are fewer drug-related deaths in Japan is because the cultural taboos against recreational use are a lot stronger. There seems to be something to that, since a few guys have been blackballed from puro after being busted for pot. So why wasn't Bull blackballed from joshi after getting busted for cocaine? Oh, and I checked out Bull's blog, and this is apparently what she looks like now: Sad.

I kind of alluded to this in the other thread, but the big one for me is Chris Benoit. When I first got into serious match analysis in late 2004/early 2005, he was probably my favorite wrestler of all time. Then all the unpleasantness happened, and I shied away from his work for a while. The first time I tried to get back into his work, it still held up. But as my wrestling horizons expanded, his stuff did less and less for me. What it comes down to is that he was great at the little things but pretty weak from a big picture standpoint. Of course, there's also the fact that he made his mark in the NJ junior style and the WWE Main Event Workrate Style, both of which I've completely soured on. In fact, I'd argue that most of the stuff Kurt Angle gets bashed for can be traced back to Benoit. German overkill? Check. A supposed finisher used in every match as a nearfall spot? Check? Excessive application of submissions? Check. And on the "playing one's role effectively" front, there was the period where he was billed as the best technical wrestler in the WWF while his matches were 75% punches and chops.

That's really depressing. There was a bunch of stuff in the Japanese media a while back about her dramatic weight loss. She even wrote a weight loss book. If nothing else, the lengths they had to go to to make her look like a monster is pretty telling. That reminds me, didn't AJW force Aja Kong to bulk up because they didn't think someone who was half black could get over as a babyface? On a somewhat related note, I think it's interesting how most of the 90s joshi stars have aged really well. The one on the right in the picture above is Takako Inoue, and she's still a total fox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqRD3R5mBfU Never forget...

Disagree. NXT Season 3 was more perversely entertaining. Goldust/Aksana getting married with Dusty and Cody there + Dusty's big kiss on Aksana + Aksana walking out > Phil and Paul's yammering. Plus NXT Season 3 gave us odd stuff like Naomi wrestling in a Hamburger Helper Hand. Stuff like that at least drives a "WTF?!" out of you, as opposed to a "End this, please" like last night's segment did. And then there was Michael Cole's gong. Plus Punk's commentary that one episode (an excellent source of comparison right there). I meant in the sense of the only real reason to watch is to see how hilariously bad it can become. For all of WWE Creative's faults, they've generally had the good sense to steer clear of "everything you're watching is fake, but this is real" nonsense. Now, all bets are off. I also want to note that Ditch was right and I was wrong. The writers aren't mailing it in. You can't produce something this bad without a sustained effort.

This angle has officially entered NXT Season 3 territory.

But wasn't it true that WCW never had much penetration in Canada so to a significant portion of the Toronto audience, it was if Hogan had simply fallen off the face of the earth for nearly a decade?

I'm going to reiterate my belief that Wrestlemania being in Miami won't be a significant factor in how the match is received. If it were in American Airlines Arena, sure. But in a stadium, South Floridians aren't even going to be close to a majority of the fans in attendance. It's like the Super Bowl in that regard. Cena's definitely going to get booed out of the building, but that would happen anywhere in the country.

To an extent, yes. But like so many other indy chants, I felt like it went past sincere enjoyment of the action and entered the realm of "Hey everyone, look at us enjoying the match!" narcissism. Now that I think about it, though, it'd be awesome if kids at WWE events started "please don't tap" chants whenever someone put Cena in a submission, if only for the indy nerd rage it would invariably provoke.

Wasn't a fan of them chanting "AR RI GA TO" either or them anouncing him as "Kobashi Kenta". Little too over the top "look at us trying to be hip and act all Japanese when we're not" for me, though i'll fully admit the latter of those 2 things is more just me being nit picky. I felt the same way about the ring announcer weeabooing it up. It seemed less a gesture of respect than him cosplaying announcing a GHC match at the Budokan. I also thought the "please don't tap" chants when Joe had the STF locked in were a bit much. Because it was totally the chanting of 800 neckbeards that willed Kobashi to make the ropes. Good job, fans! With that said, I liked the match. I prefer it to just about anything Kobashi did in NOAH. It was good enough that the dipshit ROH fans didn't ruin it, which is quite a feat. And I don't remember there being too many head drops other than the half-nelson suplex.

You mean like the anonymous RAW GM? Sometimes I think the best option is to just end it and hope no one notices. That shit ruined at least a year of programming. Well, it's like I said earlier in this thread. The anonymous GM was stupid, but if you're going to keep it going for that long, you might as well get something out of it.

Didn't Raven and Al Snow do a few in that vein?

They don't dog it on purpose, with the exception of trying to save the best for the Rumble ---> Mania run. Sure they do. I've lost count of all the storylines they've simply dropped because they didn't feel like coming up with a conclusion.

Here's a crazy thought. You think maybe the WWE just stopped giving a crap because they figure no one will be watching with the NFL starting back up?