NintendoLogic

If you want to know why people were resistant to the idea that Henry had genuinely improved as a worker for so long, the casket match is the primary reason along with the Angle match at that year's Rumble. I'm pretty sure that was his first real push as a serious main event heel, and it's hard to overcome a disastrous first impression.

Heenan was great at cutting serious menacing promos in GCW. From what I've seen, there was nothing comedic about his act there.

Like I said in the Taker Mania thread, the original plan for WM17 was for Shawn to interfere on HHH's behalf and possibly cost Taker the match, but he showed up on the go-home Raw in no condition to perform. That's apparently what led to the falling out between the two. It's amazing how close we came to The Streak never becoming a thing.

For what it's worth, Cornette said in one of his FSM pieces that the idea for the restarts came from Vince himself. https://www.jimcornette.com/fighting-spirit/memories-vader-fsm155 Also, Vader once said he was promised that if he did the job at Summerslam, he'd end up a two-time champ. According to him, he was supposed to win it from Shawn at some point, drop it to someone else, win it back, and then drop it to Shawn in San Antonio.

It's something I don't even have access to (I asked for the password and got denied), so it can't be that big a deal.

It's easy to chalk Cornette's success in OVW up to the raw talent he had to work with. But it still takes booking to accentuate their strengths, as WWE amply demonstrated when they seemingly went out of their way to sabotage most of their OVW call-ups. For example, Aaron Aguilera (Jesus) had a rep as a guy who was a strong talker but not much of a worker, so he was given a mute bodyguard gimmick when he got called up. Same deal with Matt Morgan, except he was given a stuttering gimmick. Doug Basham vs. Damaja was the top feud in OVW, so they got brought up as a brother tag team. With the Basham Brothers, Cornette actually did a pretty ingenious job of booking himself out of the corner WWE put him in. I'll just copy the Observer recap: Even Cena was dangerously close to being future endeavored before Stephanie heard him freestyle and he got the rapping gimmick that saved his career. It makes you wonder how many supposedly can't miss talents WWE ended up missing with.

Also, thanks in large part to the anti-vaxxers, measles has seen a major resurgence in recent years after it had been declared eliminated in the US in 2000.

How it started: How it's going:

This is the same line of argument employed by the stupidest of creationists. "Evolution? That's just a THEORY, man." There's an old saying that adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it. This past year has made it clear what pieces of shit some people really are. The people in charge of WWE obviously, but also clowns like Aries and Low Ki. Those two dorks have managed to make themselves completely unemployable on a major league level, and I couldn't be happier.

In Minneapolis at least, Hogan was clearly fading as a draw by early 1985. A March 17 title defense against Jesse Ventura only drew 5500.

As far as I can tell, the closest would be Marufuji. He won the GHC tile for the first time in 2006 and the second time in 2014.

This: Followed immediately by this: Was just...*kisses fingers chefly*

I distinctly remember Orton going full-blown heel during the buildup to Mania by RKOing Stacy Keibler (who was with him in storyline for reasons I don't recall). Something about how he saw doubt in her eyes when he asked her if she thought he could beat Taker. I also remember him RKOing Jake Roberts at some point.

The best part of the tournament so far has been all the Itoh stans seething because their waifu got bounced in the first round.

Update: Aja Kong vs. Manami Toyota (AJW, 8/20/97) This is actually the highest-rated AJW match on Cagematch as of this writing, and I checked it out on a whim after the AEW women's title tournament had me in the mood for some classic Aja Kong. I had always avoided this because significant clipping doesn't sit well with me (this is officially a 30-minute draw with a little less than 20 minutes shown), but this greatly exceeded my expectations. It helps that editing was so seamless that it's nearly impossible to tell what got clipped. However, I suspect there was some funny business going on with the timekeeping. For example, the five-minute call came three and a half minutes after the opening bell, and there was no clipping at that point that I could detect. In any event, Kong vs. Toyota was very much an established commodity at this point, so of course they deliver the greatest hits (Aja stretching Toyota in the opening minutes, Aja dragging Toyota into the crowd and whipping her into some chairs, Toyota trying to put Aja through a table, etc.), but they also provide enough interesting twists that it doesn't feel like an exhibition. Toyota crashing and burning on a springboard plancha followed by Aja hitting a dive of her own may be my all-time favorite sequence involving these two. As a Toyota skeptic, I have to say this was a pretty great performance from her in terms of keeping her worst tendencies in check. Like selling, for example. I was pleasantly surprised when after she blocked a splash by putting her knees up, she took a few moments to regain her bearings and didn't just go back on offense right away. She also seemed to have toned down the screaming somewhat. Or maybe I've just become so inured to it that I was able to block it out. Perhaps more than anything, what sets this apart for me is the ending. I'm a big fan of "I've got nothing left but you'll have to kill me to pin me" finishes, and this has one of the best. Toyota is getting murdered by urakens and her defense is completely gone, but she refuses to stay down for the three-count, even bridging out of one pin attempt. So Aja literally takes the gloves off and lands a bare-fisted uraken, but time expires before she can make the cover. Big Egg Universe is still the definitive Kong/Toyota match, but this is head and shoulders above any of their WWWA title matches. ****1/2 As should hopefully be clear by now, the process of rewatching and reevaluating is an ongoing one. None of my previous takes in this thread should be taken as definitive. In fact, there's been a significant amount of shuffling on my list over the past year. Suffice it to say that my current top 100 would be roughly 20% different from the one from last March in terms of matches included.

It was able to work for Cornette mainly because he had Paul E. as a heel foil. As a general rule, the babyface manager is a dead-end role. How many people have been able to make it work for any length of time? Paul Bearer? Arnold Skaaland? Who else? I can't find the exact quote, but I distinctly remember Nash himself saying that Shawn went out of his way to sandbag him during their Mania match.

Also, isn't Matt Jackson supposed to have an injured back? That's the sort of thing that should hinder him from hitting power moves like suplexes. The spot from the Revolution tag match that annoyed me the most was when his back gave out when he went for a double Northern Lights suplex on Omega and Page but then he just popped up and hit it anyway.

@The Thread Killer is correct. It was originally supposed to be a tag match, but it became increasingly obvious as the show drew near that Jones was nowhere near ready. So they booked an angle on Heat where Show and Albert laid him out and it turned into a handicap match. As far as stadium shows go, WM19 did a shockingly low buyrate (which WWE of course blamed on the show taking place in Seattle), so the next three Manias were at arenas. They didn't return to stadiums until WM23 in 2007 (which, incidentally, I attended with my brother).

The people who participated in this project evaluated wrestlers and teams by watching footage of them in action and not just going off reputations. I'm not aware of any surviving footage of those teams (if there is, it's minuscule), so they can't really be evaluated.

The latest Observer says he "has a farm living with Morgan," which possibly means they're living together. Or maybe Dave meant to type "has a farm with Liv Morgan" and people jumped to conclusions based on the typo. I'd say both are equally likely.

As far as I knew, Bo was married to a Swedish chick who used to be in NXT. I guess they got divorced. In any event, dude clearly knows how to punch above his weight.

There's always been comedy and wackiness in wrestling (Cornette certainly participated in his fair share), but there's a smirking meta element to a lot of modern wrestling comedy where wrestling itself is the butt of the joke rather than a particular heel. It's the same instinct behind kitsch. It's for people who want to appreciate low culture but have to maintain a sense of ironic detachment so no one mistakes them for the rubes who sincerely enjoy it.

What's some must-see 1988 Hokuto? I liked her March 1989 match against Chigusa Nagayo quite a bit, so it comes as no surprise that she would be delivering the goods before then.

Alvarez on the F4W board: So if it is a work, they're working the boys as well. And that always works out so well.

Maybe they'll pull a Fritz Von Erich and tie updates on his condition to NXT's ratings.