C.S.

There's no way Shane is beating Taker...come on now, LOL. But it will be a fun trainwreck (again, if it happens).

Shane is an awesome surprise and return IMO - totally unexpected - and you know he'll bump his ass off for Taker (if that match actually happens), so it's probably one of the safest options Taker has. Cena is injured, Braun Strowman would not have been good, Taker/Brock vs. Wyatts would have been a foregone conclusion. You can argue - and rightfully so - that they should have built up more stars worthy of Taker. But they didn't. This will be a fun trainwreck (again, if it happens), and Shane returning in any capacity is good news to me.

Yeah, I agree and think Jericho has been subtly building up a heel character for months - the insecure lame dad veteran who downplays AJ's accomplishments, has a beef with other "young'uns" like Ambrose, etc. Where is this Cena/Brock argument?

So now I'm supposed to be psychic and automatically know what you meant when you mentioned Koko? Please... Give me a break! And yeah, Koko is mentioned as a low point for candidates and rightfully so, because he absolutely is. Hot run? I'm not so sure about that. At his height, he was a lower midcarder in the WWF; at his lowest, he was a legitimate jobber. Godfather had a much hotter run by miles as that character and actually won the I-C Title. As forgettable as that reign was, it's more than Koko ever got. Granted, different eras - it's unlikely Godfather would've won gold in the '80s either. I was also going to say it's unlikely he would've had that gimmick, but Slick was around back then, so... You refuse to see that he was super-over. You've constructed a false narrative that suggests otherwise, because it's what you believe so it can't possibly be wrong. No one is saying he was Austin or Rock, but he was legitimately popular. Honest question: Did you have a problem with Rikishi's induction last year? Because, to me, their careers parallel in a lot of ways, and they more or less had similar spots on the card (Rikishi was a bit higher up on the chain briefly).

*I* agree and said as much, but these guys don't seem too sure: http://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2016/2/22/11095350/chris-jericho-shinsuke-nakamura-wwe

Jericho is obviously (I hope) in working mode, but his latest tweet about Nakamura: https://twitter.com/IAmJericho/status/701885228516831232

Absurd statement and not even remotely true. The girls were generally barely hot stripper types. They added to the act, sure, but the character was over. Your argument that competing in a bunch of clusterfuck multi-man tag matches should have awoken the workrate giant in him is even sillier. As for Koko, his Memphis work had nothing to do with his WWE HOF induction - do not kid yourself about that. Look, I'm not saying he was a great in-ring technician - of course not - but that was never the point. None of his characters needed to be that.

He was a gimmick wrestler who was never put in a situation where could he have decent matches, and his two big runs came in eras where that never mattered less (end of Hulkamania era and Attitude Era). Workrate snobs will hold it against him, but he was over like rover regardless of his in-ring ability.

Not his fault he was given a pimp gimmick. He made the most of it and was easily one of the 5 or 10 most over acts in the Attitude Era. Plus, the "corporate feminist" was around then too. He was also also memorable as Papa Shango and had minor success during both versions of the Kama gimmick. I'd put this induction firmly in the Rikishi category. Both are deserved IMO.

Godfather now official: https://twitter.com/WWE/status/701853438758547456

The reason Dolph isn't going anywhere - if I had to guess - is probably because he's a spoiled, pouty toddler. I do understand his frustrations, and he is not entirely wrong, but he acts like a whiny baby about them IMO. Look at this vid, where he made Daniel Bryan's retirement all about his own grievances: Someone pointed out that he was wearing his "jobbing frown" during the Owens match (I can't remember if I read that here or elsewhere). I didn't notice that because I'm no expert on Dolph's facial expressions, but it wouldn't surprise me. Also, HBK hit the nail right on the head during the Stone Cold Podcast when he said Dolph tries to be like him (and others) but has never evolved past that. While I'm not sure that Dolph is an HBK clone necessarily, I do agree that he's the "greatest hits" of several of his favorites, but much lesser versions of all of them. Edit: No problems with the feed here (Roku 3), but I started the show ten minutes late because I was cooking dinner.

Felt like a Raw. Not understanding why people are gushing over the decidedly average spotfest main event. It was over too quickly and ended too abruptly. Then again, maybe everyone was sighing in relief that Bray Wyatt didn't do anything to Brock Lesnar. I don't think anyone wanted to see that feud. I'll take an abrupt ending any day over that shitfest. Potential WM card: H vs. Reigns, Owens vs. Styles (?), New Day vs. League of Nations (?) - yuck, Charlotte vs. Sasha (?) or some sort of tag match with Becky? Not sure where Wyatt and Ambrose go from here. Maybe Brock faces Ambrose? Not really nuts about that match, to be honest - unless they pull the trigger and put Ambrose over strong. Not sure where Taker figures in, unless Cena makes another miraculous comeback.

My (wacky and probably wrong but possible) predictions: U.S. Title - Kalisto vs. Alberto Del Rio: Sin Cara turns on Kalisto. Alberto regains the championship. Divas Title - Charlotte vs. Brie Bella: New champion, unless this is Brie's retirement match (but I can't see her taking off before Mania). Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks vs. Team B.A.D. (Naomi and Tamina): Team B.A.D. after Sasha and Becky turn on each other. The internet explodes in fury. IC Title - Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler: Ziggler is a jabroni. Owens retains. Ryback, Big Show and Kane vs. The Wyatt Family (Luke Harper, Erick Rowan and Braun Strowman): Ryback turns on his partners to set up a hoss feud for WM. Wyatts win. A.J. Styles vs. Chris Jericho: Jericho after someone costs AJ the match to set up a Mania feud. Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar: They're staying the course. Roman wins, Wyatts set up something with Brock (yawn), and who knows where Ambrose goes from here.

Yep. He pretty much comes across as an obnoxious, uncontrollable alcoholic in his third book. It's sad to see and rather pathetic.

I may be in the minority, but I never thought Kevin Nash was a good promo. Probably the most overrated promo guy of all time. You can't deny his charisma though.

I could see New Day/Edge and Christian going 15-20 minutes. You know the main event will be a "WWE-style epic," so at least 30 minutes there.

I went through the new Collections feature on the Network and watched two Daniel Bryan matches and re-watched Mark Henry's legendary salmon coat fake retirement speech: - Daniel Bryan vs. William Regal: Not the masterpiece you'd expect from these two, but very good given the constrictions of a short TV match on Superstars. It started out slowly but built up nicely and told a good story. Regal was apparently ribbed before the match, because the old "Man's Man" music played during his entrance, which had both Regal and Bryan laughing. - Daniel Bryan's WWE Tryout (Shooter Schultz and American Dragon vs. Lance Cade and Brian Kendrick): Holy shit, this was a ton of fun, It was honestly better than most matches you see on Raw, Smackdown, and regular NXT TV tapings. That's pretty amazing when all of the wrestlers in the match had only a few months of experience. Of course, it helps to know that Shawn Michaels gave them permission to go as long as they wanted - and they took advantage of that for sure. The crowd was really into it by the end too, which would be almost impossible to achieve with today's audience if you threw four unknown wrestlers out there cold. - Mark Henry's "Salmon Coat" speech: Still a classic. In retrospect, the commentary was a bit clumsy and Cena being in the ring should have given the whole thing away, but Henry's overflowing bucket of tears were enough to convince most people. The fans were massively into all of this and kept chanting "Thank you, Henry!" and "one more match!" Would Henry get the same reaction today? Probably not, as he's been criminally misused ever since this feud ended. On a side note: Henry was losing his hair badly by this point, which I hadn't noticed at the time, but it explains why he eventually shaved his head.

Without the gimmick, I'm not so sure Mark Calaway would have lasted any length of time. He certainly wasn't ever going to draw a cent as Mean Mark or any other variation of "himself." If the WWF had never come calling, I can easily imagine an alternate history where he's a lower-midcard big man in places like the GWF and ECW. His "blank" stares and pale skin were a major deficit that the character of The Undertaker turned into a strength.

Yeah, he didn't say it in a frustrated tone or anything like that, but it definitely felt like he was a bit wistful about "what could have been." In contrast, check out this video: Dolph Ziggler comes across as an unprofessional, whiny, bitter little douchebag bitch when he's supposedly "paying tribute" to Daniel Bryan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZyDPSuk6kw

What is everyone's opinion of the 1-Hour Iron Man Match with Rock?

True, but let's not pretend that Bryan is some master-level mic worker - he's far from it - but he connects to the audience anyway, even though he's very plainspoken and not particularly quotable (outside of "YES!" and so on). He also doesn't have what would be considered the most marketable look. Obviously, the hair and beard helped with that, but strip those away and he looks like any generic ROH indy worker.

I'm not saying Barrett is necessarily wrong to be frustrated, but at the same time, I don't think he's underachieving if he never makes it past IC/US. That seems to be his ceiling, and nothing about him tells me that he has been unfairly overlooked for a World Title reign. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sheamus has possibly overachieved, if anything. Yeah, Sheamus is fine and I like him a lot, but I'm not sure anyone would be saying he should be a future World Champ if he had never won the belt.

Just a difference in philosophy, but a lot of folks on this board have a very narrow and rigid view of wrestling IMO because they place 100% importance on "being a worker" and zero importance on all of the other factors that go into creating a complete wrestler. It's a viewpoint I can't imagine anyone in the wrestling business subscribing to, because someone who is a "great worker" and has nothing else going for him will be a jobber, period. Look at Brad Armstrong (who I loved, BTW, but let's not pretend he was able to display any kind of charisma or compelling character work). The fact that people are posting about Jake ("Not a great worker but an awesome promo, good character & good look.") and Piper ("He wasn’t the best worker in the world but in reality he didn’t need to cause he had charisma and could cut awesome promos that made his feuds matter.") in the same light backs up what I'm saying. Not sure how those posts are any different than what I said about Bryan. Obviously, I'm almost saying the opposite - that Bryan's tremendous work was enough to overcome some of his other (minor) flaws - so I realize it looks like I'm contradicting myself in a way. But not really, because the basic point remains the same - Bryan, Jake, Piper, etc. had certain (different) attributes in spades, while other attributes may have been lacking, but it didn't matter because the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. If Bryan didn't have that plainspoken regular guy charisma of his, if he didn't improve on the mic, if he didn't have that amazing connection with the audience, etc., it wouldn't have mattered how good he was "as a worker."

This is just mind boggling to me. I really don't think Danielson has a major weakness. He's good at striking, matwork, structuring matches, character work etc. Yikes, quoting other people is a pain in the ass on this board, even when you turn off HTML. Anyway, unless I'm misunderstanding the intent of this thread, Danielson more than fits the bill. He does not initially look like a star. He's not someone you'd see and immediately expect big things from. Divorce yourself from a decade of knowing him, his matches, his reputation, and his Meltzer rating. Now imagine you're seeing him for the first time. Do you expect him to be a future WrestleMania main eventer? His mic work, in particular, was not always strong - and some would argue that he's still not among the elite all-time great talkers. Yet, he made that simple, humble, plainspoken speaking style work for him. He also made his simple, humble look work for him. He is far greater than the sum of his parts. I'd also nominate Bret Hart for this category.