NintendoLogic

Dave's scale bottoms out at -459.4 stars (i.e., absolute zero). He's only given out that rating once, for Bushwhackers vs. Sheik/Volkoff at Heroes of Wrestling. What if Lawler and Funk continued to have matches that were so far ahead of all other matches that it wouldn't be fair to only give them four stars? That's really where people's hang-up about Dave raising the ceiling on star ratings seems to come from. They're like "Is Dave really saying he thinks Kenny Omega's top matches are a full star or more better than Flair/Steamboat and Misawa/Kawada?" And the answer is "Yes, that's exactly what he's saying."

Female wrestlers beating up wimpy male managers has a long and storied tradition in pro wrestling. It's the only intergender wrestling I approve of. The only problem was all the flippy stuff Reginald did. Those matches work best when the manager is conspicuously unathletic.

The first Hogan/Flair house shows actually did great business. The first-ever advertised match between the two, at the Oakland Coliseum on October 25, was a near-sellout of 13,400 and did the best business the WWF had done in that building in a couple of years. It was only after Flair became regularly featured on WWF TV that the feud began to lose steam. I believe Kevin Nash once said that Vince would rather make a million dollars with his own idea than make ten million with someone else's idea, and we can see that in his treatment of WCW guys. He had to remake them so he could claim them as his own creations even if it meant compromising their drawing power. That's probably a big part of why the Mr. McMahon character was so effective. It was largely an extension of his shoot personality.

oh dear god

Update: AJ Styles vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW, 4/5/15) I haven't seen all of AJ's IWGP title matches, but I can't imagine any of them being better than this one. As the heel champion, he tries to grind it out while the plucky babyface challenger wants to pick up the pace. The latter is a role that fits Ibushi perfectly for obvious reasons. He's both athletically gifted and insane enough that when he goes for something like a springboard German suplex that sounds completely ridiculous on paper, you wait to see how he'll pull it off and don't automatically assume he'll get countered. AJ is no slouch in the athletic department himself, but trying to match Ibushi spot-for-spot only plays into the challenger's hands. He turns in a virtuoso rudo performance as he stooges in the opening minutes, talks trash, takes shortcuts like raking the eyes, and grinds Ibushi down with weardown holds. He's like a more acrobatic Rick Rude, which is probably the best possible style for a modern heel. It's certainly far preferable to the endless stalling and millions of run-ins we get in most current Bullet Club matches. Ibushi's selling during the heat section was impeccable for the most part-in particular, his crumple sell after a Styles elbow was Kawada-esque. There was some obligatory leg work that naturally didn't mean a thing down the stretch, but it was short enough that I can overlook it. There were plenty of sequences that were complex without feeling overly contrived (like Ibushi's first attempt at a golden triangle that ends with a German on the floor) as well as standard spots taken in unexpected directions (like AJ sliding under Ibushi's leapfrog attempt only for Ibushi to turn it into a diving double foot stomp). The match-ending spot has to be seen to be believed. Awesome post-match as well as Okada breaks up the Bullet Club's celebration and lays AJ out with a Rainmaker. ****1/2

I agree that Cornette can't simply be ignored because being targeted by him surely opens the floodgates of harassment from the worst of his followers. But you have to take the high road when engaging him. If you get down in the gutter with him, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

That still doesn't explain why the announcers were selling the explosions, but I suppose you can't have everything. By the way, count me among those who think wrestling works better when it tries to provide something for everybody rather than everything for somebody. Creating an overall package compelling enough that fans are willing to fill in the gaps in their heads is far more important than being internally consistent. Just look at the comments in this thread bending over backwards to give ECW and Nitro-era WCW the benefit of the doubt. Paul Heyman was the one who hit the lights when Jerry Lawler invaded to try to destroy his company? And think of the millions of times the nWo beat someone down and no one from WCW lifted a finger to help even back in 1996.

At least the people in charge of WWE are finally taking COVID seriousl-

Cornette tries to kiss David Crockett at the end of this promo. There were references to him being gay or at least effeminate well into the 90s. During the MX/R&R's match at Wrestlewar, JR says that "Cornette could probably tell us" if Stan Lane had sustained bruises from Ricky Morton kicking him in the backside. And when Arn Anderson debuted in SMW, he said that if Cornette tried to use his racket on him, he'd have to go to a gynecologist to have it removed.

Yeah, but Shane had a better match with AJ at Mania than Shinsuke Nakamura. You have to give him that.

Cena was injured, so that wasn't a possibility for 32.

Actually, ticket sales had been sluggish for Mania that year and picked up significantly after Taker/Shane was announced. As inexplicable as it may seem, Vince's large adult failson was a genuine draw.

Gonna be honest, I find PWG Cena completely unwatchable. The match against AJ at Summerslam 2016 might be my literal least favorite match of all time. It's a large part of the reason I can't consider Cena a great worker despite being involved in quite a few matches I consider great.

Someone once told me that Kurt Angle wasn't a good wrestler because he cheated to win so often. Never make the mistake of overestimating the intellect of the typical wrestling fan.

Stephanie actually said during the build to the first Rock/Cena match that they were trying to get fans to take sides and face off against each other like Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.

Bryan's second reign certainly qualifies. He went straight from winning the title to a godawful feud with Kane and was being set up to be the sacrificial lamb for Brock at Summerslam before being forced to vacate. There's a theory I'm increasingly partial to that WM30 was WWE's series finale and everything afterward has been unauthorized fanfiction. In addition to the culmination of Bryan's chase (the last WWE storyline with a satisfying payoff), you have the Hogan/Austin/Rock segment, the ending of the streak, and the prodigal sons Jake and Warrior returning to the fold. Everything WWE has done since then has felt like anticlimax.

He left WWE the first time because he hated the travel. He "held up" the IWGP title the same way Jeff Jarrett "held up" the WWF in 1999. He walked out when they tried to carny him out of the belt without paying him the money he was owed. And really, it makes no sense to sign a guy to a multimullion-dollar deal if you're that afraid of him doing business, at least if you have any interest in getting your money's worth. Not to mention the apparent double-cross after the match.

He defended it against Tiger Mask Misawa in Japan.

You know what, I think we can close the book on this thread and Aries in general. There's no chance in hell of him being involved with any wrestling promotions people actually watch any time in the foreseeable future, and his plea-for-attention tweets almost never reach double digits in replies. He's not even relevant enough to ratio. He's Val Venis tier.

The saga continues. Not gonna lie, this had me dying. If only watching WWE were half as entertaining as listening to Soulja Boy describe it. In other news, John Laurinaitis is back as head of talent relations. Because of all the problems WWE faces, not enough bodybuilders and bikini models in developmental is right at the top.

Here's Londos vs. Bronko Nagurski from 1938.

I went back and checked the Observers from that period, and they said that the original plan was for Vader to beat Sid in the number one contender's match at Buried Alive and then beat Shawn for the title at Survivor Series. They said that plans changed but didn't give a reason why. It's well-known that Vader had a ton of backstage heat by that point, so it wouldn't surprise me if blowing the finish at Mind Games was the final straw. I agree that Cena overcoming the odds the way he did made for a better self-contained match. But from a booking standpoint, having the invading monster shooter lose clean in his very first match was an insane decision any way you slice it.

By the way, remember the contretemps a few months ago over JR being publicly critical of certain aspects of AEW when a few of you were insisting that the announcers always have to put the product over no matter what? Well, last night the announcers tried their best to put the explosions over only for Tony to hang them out to dry. That's the problem with automatically putting everything over. It eventually kills your credibility.

It looked to me like Vader was supposed to run in to break up the pin after the chair-assisted Sweet Chin Music but missed his cue. Watching the ending, you can see Shawn taking forever to make the pin and Hebner counting slower than normal in order to give Vader enough time to make it to the ring, but to no avail. Now that I think about it, that probably played a part in Sid winning the title at Survivor Series instead.

I'm a big fan of Christian as a worker and think he'll be a tremendous asset for AEW. If he'd shown up unannounced on an episode of Dynamite, it would've been tremendous (although perhaps not so soon after Big Show). But he's not the level of star where his signing can be a selling point for a PPV. As has been noted, Maki Itoh got a bigger pop. By the way, not only was the ending a dud, every single match on the card had either outside interference or a post-match beatdown. Cornette's going to have a field day with this show.