NintendoLogic

Didn't Total Bellas make John Cena look like a self-centered OCD weirdo?

I've long contended that KENTA is one of the most influential wrestlers of the 21st century. Just about every junior-sized wrestler in kick pads draws from him to a degree.

The only pro wrestling storytelling that interests me is a match's internal narrative. I prefer matches that stand on their own and don't require an extensive knowledge of backstory to appreciate. In particular, loading matches with Easter eggs for dedicated fans to pick up on doesn't appeal to me at all. Here's an example of what I'm talking about: How exactly does Okada scoring a pin the same way in two matches that took place on the same date "make sense"? Did something happen to him on June 9 that makes him extraordinarily skilled at pinfall reversals on that particular date? I can recognize the thought and effort it takes to construct matches that way, but it does nothing for my personal enjoyment. By the way, I'm increasingly convinced that much of the supposed long-term storytelling in 90s All Japan was simply tape traders reading too much into things and matches like 6/3/94 are perfectly accessible to first-time viewers. Ricky Steamboat was another master of turning around crowds. At Chi-Town Rumble, he had a crowd that started out heavily divided (there was even a "Steamboat sucks" chant at one point) losing their minds for him by the end. And at Starrcade 1992, his tag title match woke up a crowd that up to that point had been dead as a doornail.

I thought Greg Valentine used a different name early on because Johnny thought he would be seen as too old to headline if people knew he had an adult son.

The 1998 Kobashi/Akiyama Triple Crown match is relevant to a few of the points raised in this discussion. After working Kobashi's leg for most of the match, Akiyama slaps on a figure-four late. That's good psychology in a vacuum, but it kills the crowd because a late 90s All Japan audience doesn't buy a submission as a finisher. However, Kobashi sells so dramatically that he manages to get the crowd back into it. I bring it up because it shows that the right move in one context is the wrong one for a different audience. It also shows that the true greats can manipulate crowds into producing the desired reaction. For a more recent example, look at Brock Lesnar. In his WWE return match, he managed to get a Chicago crowd completely behind John Cena. There's obviously something to be said for giving the audience what it wants, and Omega and the Bucks are tops at that. But have they (or Bryan, for that matter) ever turned around a crowd that was indifferent or hostile to what they were trying to sell? I'm not saying they haven't, I'd just like to be pointed to some examples.

Have you seen his match with Jungle Boy on Dynamite? That's likely his best singles match.

Sounds like I'm not missing much.

Here's a direct quote from a post on the F4W board: "The vast majority of old school wrestling sucks anyway compared to today." I'm sure that sentiment is far more common than the notion that Omega and the Young Bucks don't know how to work. But the latter seem more prevalent than they are because they get signal boosted by Meltzer when he argues with them on Twitter. I should note that Bret Hart seems universally respected by fans on both sides of the fence, which truly warms the cockles of my heart.

At least they didn't call it a trashcan-like structure.

I remain puzzled by how anyone who loves Danielson can be left cold by Omega. I can see it if you're only familiar with his work as Daniel Bryan, but indy Danielson is the exact same shit in terms of match length, big moves, and near falls. The main difference is that a Danielson match is more likely to feature limb work that ends up meaning nothing. I like Omega best when he's destroying ex-WWE guys in their 40s with suplexes and V-Triggers, so bring on Omega/Punk.

Scott is on extremely bad terms with WWE, so we'll likely never see Bron use the Steiner name in the company. That's also why I expect him to get kneecapped politically at some point. Like I said before, though, it's a blessing in disguise because that means he can use the Steiner name without restrictions once he leaves the company. By the way, when Joe Hennig was in FCW, he wanted to be his own man, but they had him look and work exactly like his father. But then they brought him onto NXT as Michael McGillicutty and it was all downhill from there. I guess they learned their lesson from that debacle because they've cut out the middleman and gone straight to horrible gimmicked names for second-generation wrestlers ever since.

VanZant was never much of a fighter, but she was a ratings draw. Getting into pro wrestling would be a much better career move for her than risking facial disfigurement in bare knuckle fights.

I think it'd be pretty cool if they subverted expectations by having a Rhodes turn on an Anderson.

Before Wednesday night, I would have said that the best match of Danielson's career was against Morishima at Manhattan Mayhem. I don't know if I'd rate the Omega match above it, but it's not out of the question at all. By the way, nobody is "bitching" about star ratings. I and plenty of other people simply found it amusing that the likes of Sid and EC3 had a match given five stars in the Observer while someone universally recognized as one of the all-time greats didn't.

Dave gave Bryan/Omega five stars in the Observer. Omega really is the GOAT if he can carry a scrub like Danielson to a fiveboy. Bryan now has as many five-star matches as Lars Sullivan.

When Cody was in a match with the stipulation that he could never challenge for the AEW title again if he lost, we all figured they'd find a way to invalidate it at some point. But maybe he's had an eye on the exit the whole time and the stip was his way of limiting the storylines he could be involved in to make a clean break easier. By the way, Brandi came out of the heel tunnel last night.

Omega/Danielson isn't my favorite AEW match, but I did like it more than any match at All Out. It was 30 minutes that just flew by, which is all you can ask for. I don't even remember Omega doing anything particularly goofy. At least, nothing egregious enough to take me out of the match. The rest of the show was solid as well. One thing that does bother me about AEW is so many heels using submissions as their primary finisher. One of the key elements of the art of the heel is putting the opponent over in victory by making it seem like they escaped by the skin of their teeth, and I can't view a win by submission as anything but a decisive victory. There's a reason Flair almost never won with the figure-four in his prime.

I'd rather Danielson not go back to elbowing people in the head. That dumb shit can stay retired.

I was aware Bryan got it from Diego Sanchez. Just about everything in pro wrestling is appropriated from another form of sport or entertainment. My main point is about WWE claiming ownership of something they had no hand in creating and tried to stifle when they couldn't co-opt it (trying to transfer the chant to Big Show was some hilarious shit).

WWE did what they had to do. They removed Flair from their intro video and replaced him with someone of unimpeachable moral character.

The name Paul E. Dangerously came from the movie Johnny Dangerously and was inspired by a young Heyman's resemblance to Michael Keaton. It tickles me to no end that he was billed as Paul E. Dangerly in Memphis because they thought the name Dangerously was too cartoonish and over-the-top. All the horseshit that went on down there and his ring name is where they had to draw the line.

There's a joke about Bron Breakker having a 141 2/3% chance of making it, but I'm too lazy to write it. By the way, I have to admit it was probably decades before I realized that the name Razor Ramon was a reference to razor blades being used to cut lines of cocaine.

On the most recent edition of Dark, Taz said he should have had Wardlow in Team Taz instead of Brian Cage, which makes sense since they're feuding. But then Excalibur said "A lot of buyer's remorse on Brian Cage." That seems to suggest that Cage is in the doghouse at the moment.

WWE trying to claim the Yes chant as their IP is rich when Bryan came up with it on his own and they went out of their way to acknowledge crowds doing it at major sporting events (they even no-sold Bryan being part of the World Series parade). Danielson is entirely too nice. I'd like to imagine how CM Punk would react to a similar request.

Chico said on WOL that during Raw, someone in WWE who was in the building texted him to say that 700 people left during the Alexa segment. That source would later say that 1500 was questionable but stood by the 700 number. Keep in mind that WWE uses seat fillers, so photos that don't show significant numbers of empty seats don't mean much.