WingedEagle

Any thoughts on Taker after last night? Certainly didn't feel like someone who's seen his last big show. Perhaps something coming out of the Raw vs. Smackdown tag?

I still don't see the issue here unless Styles had an ironclad contract with Evolve. Not my place to agree or disagree with Gabe & the company. Unless I'm missing something it was within their rights to fire him before, during or after this or any other show, a right he happened to exercise this past weekend.

Forget your thoughts on the comments for a moment. He disobeyed a direct order from his employer. The end. Its at will employment for for a reason, and one party was no longer willing to continue the arrangement.

They're private businesses that are free to decide who should represent their brand. Perhaps you don't think his comments merited termination, but that's absolutely a decision they're entitled to make.

Styles/Cena at Mania would be great. The only 2 I have confidence in are Rollins/Triple H and Brock/Shane. Things can always change but if they tease something for the family they'd like to deliver it.

What makes this show great for me is I grew up on WWF wrestling in the back end of the 80s so its an awesome return trip to a time when I truly lived and died with babyfaces & heels, as well as looking back at some things a bit earlier that I missed out on.

This was a tremendous match. They maintained an incredible pace while also selling just about everything along the way save for a couple spots where Yuji in particular would pop up for a no sell that absolutely popped the crowd. We're not there yet, but at this point Yuji will have to be pushed off my Most Outstanding ballot come WON award season. He gets major bonus points for bring out the best in Daisuke who can be prone to consistent no selling but falls in line when they tag together. Hell of a match that for my money was better than the more heralded finals that closed the show. By the way -- Shuji Ishikawa is incredible . ****

Really looking forward to this, but absolutely saving it until I rewatch the match. That may in fact happen today, but we shall see.

Five stars for this right here!

The statement this match is better due to having a great crowd is fine. The statement this WWE match in the Tokyo Dome is automatically better is stupid. One could say the same for analyzing Dave's tweets when he has gone out of his way to use Twitter to drive traffic by engaging with trolls.

Any reason this thread is still pinned? Seems like most of it is covered in the MDA.

This is correct. Because it was a top 3 WWE world (including NXT) MOTY, at worst, in this guy's eyes.

I'd really like to be on board, but Evolve is not a must-watch promotion for me at this point but rather something wholly dependent on the card. The other promotions aren't something I'd pay for at this point. PS4 app would help as well.

I really want to go back to an ROH show. But absolutely zero about their lineups and programs looks appealing these days. Very flat promotion overall. I don't even quite understand why. There's enough talent on the roster that things should be interesting, but it seems to be in a perpetual funk.

I'm watching Puerto Rico and 1995. Also trying to go through Danielson's ROH career (one match a week at my current rate). Starting Portland soon. Have a stack of Jack Brisco and Dusty Rhodes to work through, as well as some Terry Funk. Oh, and mixing in watching the Horsemen and 1980s New Japan. So yeah, I barely dent anything during a given week. But love it all. Variety and whatnot, to paraphrase the great George Wallace! The great one -- not the bad one. Always keeping it fresh is fun.

Its not all that farfetched. Reigns was incredible earlier in the year but I haven't loved the Rusev feud and he certainly doesn't deliver on the mic like Charlotte. Would still have her quite comfortably behind Styles, but she's been the best act on Raw for quite some time.

I don't make this show a priority because its not time sensitive so am always a bit late to the party, but its always a terrific listen. Insightful and refreshing look back at a lot that I remember vividly -- fondly or otherwise, and the WON recaps are great as this was the period I first started subscribing to the Observer.

I don't think there's much of a chance he's being serious. That's not how he deals with silly questions.

Awesome to hear you enjoyed it. Not to temper it, but I'm not sure a ton of credit is to be given for their thoughts putting this match together. Kobashi was, and bad been for quite a while, virtually of doing much else by this stage of career. Injuries and illness had taken away many of his physical tools and thus all of his matches at the end of his career were done in this fashion, built around the chop, because it was all that could be done.

That's like my dog needing put down and me not letting the vet do it though. Perhaps, but dude is still kicking. Even if he's shitting all over the house and himself.

So freaking cool. Love what I've seen of your uncle thus far!

This is EXACTLY the point! Most of the classics come before this time with the four corners, as you're only talking 3/1/03 as part of the GHC reign. But the diversity of opponents and range of performances during this run and then even afterwards, from the Tenryu & Sasaki tags to the return tag in '07, his post-prime run is what will swing how you look at his overall career. Much like Case, I've got the Misawa, Takayama and Akiyama matches as classics, and that's without even touching the Suzuki, Sasaki, Ogawa, KENTA and other singles matches making up this run. The comparison with Flair in '85-86 is interesting, although I'm not sure terribly fair to either because of where they were in their respective careers.

Devils advocate here. They're still around. Pretty amazing. Basically solely due to the willingness of a few folks of lose money. But alive.

Pretty much the only time I ever see it come up is when someone tries to discredit John Cena (who probably calls as much or more in the ring than anyone in WWE) by saying all his matches are laid out by Arn Anderson anyway so he's really not all that great. In the interest of fairness, do you think the women's NXT matches were criticized on that basis as they were happening? If so, that's some bullshit. My recollection was this became a talking point when they were called up and the matches on Raw & PPV didn't meet the high expectations set in NXT. If the latter is the case, hopefully that's leveled against all NXT call-ups where applicable. On the other hand, I find it silly to consider whether the match is intricately laid out, practiced once or a dozen times beforehand or called on the fly. I care about what happens on the show I'm watching. How they get there before the curtain goes up just isn't important.

Nice, so far it seems like a great balance of head & heart. Much respect for the dedication to go back and watch everything, even if you spaced it out. Did you find the list skewed heavily to any particular years(s)? Earlier/later in the decade?