El-P

And Raven, of course.

Seconded. Hansen dropping a knee is the picture perfect joy of pro-wrestling. Matches that look like a real struggle.

Just watched this. As far as two brothers working a pure babyface struggle technical, rugged match, I thought it was actually excellent. The one thing I didn't like about Dory here was that he really didn't sold his arm after Terry worked on it for several minutes during the first third, but otherwise he was very good. I never thought it was boring. It was all about Dory the technical machine and older brother keeping his younger, more excentric brother down, and we're in 1980 working an old-school NWA style title match for 60 minutes, so of course it's gonna take its time. But everything looked like what it was supposed to, that is a struggle, they did a great use of their highspots culminating with some hot (for the time) sequences near the end, without having to resort to the expected cliché of Terry finally losing it. I loved the way Dory hold Terry to prevent him from falling through the rope head first to the floor, and took him back inside, and while he helped him, he maintained his grap right into an uppercut, which was quite neat. Dory on offense is perfectly fine.

Watched that Cesaro vs Rusev match from Smackdown. Excellent TV match, and looked like a big moment for Cesaro. Gotta love Vince's idiotic idea that this guy "doesn't connect". Yeah, right. Since I really haven't followed the product closely, I must say, after watching two Rusev matches this week, I don't get why he's settled with Summer Rae. She really brings nothing to the table apart from being a tall blonde. Wasn't she Fandango's dance partner a while back ? Displayed no personnality here. It's interesting to notice that the hottest workers in WWE right now are a French-canadian, a Bulgarian and a Swiss. And they're all legit.

I had seen the Blackhearts matche before, but I'm amazed by the Worldwide match. Even more striking, Heath really looks like Luna here.

Dixie always sounded like a mark playing pro-wrestling and was a godawful "actor". She and Russo deserve each other.

It's less about lazy booking than about Stephy being a glory whore and wanting all the attention and credit to herself. I liked the fact the girls showed up on RAW and were featured, but I hate the fact Stephy had to play Big Mama, especially since it doesn't register with the fact she's supposed to be a fucking heel. But that's the way it is. Stephy & Hunter are the only true stars of the show (and it's been ingrained in the mind of the audience so much that it's been reflected in the ratings too, now. Yay. Being pushed non-stop for 15 years will eventually submit what's left of your audience).

My list of WWECW matches for 2006 : 2006.06.11 FBI vs Tajiri & Super Crazy 2006.06.11 Rey Mysterio vs Sabu 2006.06.11 Mick Foley & Edge vs Terry Funk & Tommy Dreamer 2006.06.25 Edge vs RVD 2006.06.27 Kurt Angle vs RVD 2006.08.08 Sabu vs Kurt Angle 2006.08.15 Sabu vs RVD 2006.09.19 King Booker vs RVD 2006.09.26 Hardcore Holly vs RVD 2006.10.03 : RVD vs Test 2006.10.17 Matt Striker vs Sandman 2006.10.31 Sabu vs Kevin Thorne 2006.11.14 CM Punk vs Mike Knox 2006.11.21 RVD vs Bob Holly 2006.11.28 Sabu vs RVD 2006.12.03 : MNM vs Hardys Funny thing, when you look at this list, one could think RVD is clearly the MVP of the promotion and the best worker of the bunch. When really, he isn't, not even close. RVD's case as a worker is the most blatant exception to the "good matches theory", because he must be the crappiest worker to have so many good matches. Part of this is opportunity to work matches that get the time to ge good, part of it is the fact that despite his inherent crappiness, RVD brings some element of goodness, even some spectacular stuff (in term of spots), to his game that, if used at the right moment and in the right context (like with Holly), can negate somewhat the otherwise shittiness of his work when it comes to basics. Anyway, guys like Guido, Angle, Sabu, Holly, Striker and Punk are better then RVD (no idea how good Richards was at this point) but they didn't get the same opportunities. The Big Show was pretty horrible all year long. I was never high on Paul Wight, but this ECW stint made him drop like crazy in my eyes. This is also clearly Heyman's worst work, on all level. Mike Knox, Kelly Kelly and Ariel were the nice surprises with potential in term of work and/or characters. The announcing was decent, but Styles just isn't the same anymore (I liked it quite a bit in the mid-90's), I'd say Tazz was carrying the load here. That's all for now. It was just as bad as I was told it would be, and it felt pretty much like a mid-00's WWE TV show. Which is a pretty bad thing to me.

Episode 27 and last of the year. I feel like I'm watching the same show every week. There's no effort put into it at all, and the WWE production and robotic promos gets more and more annoying with guys liek Lashley around. So yeah, we get Lashley semi-squashing Rene Dupree after he was paying hommage to the troops in the middle-east. Feel the xenophobic undertones here, although Styles didn't go all political, thankfully. Dupree has looked better since his debut, so maybe he was worth something, but the gimmick is nothing and he's a JTTS. Hell, most everyone feels like a JTTS on this show. More Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney, which was a fun little match and more cool argile tights by Striker. Mahoney is much more tolerable when he doesn't have a chair to swing around. More Dreamer vs Khali feud, after the monster squashed Shannon Moore. This time Khali dropped Dreamer on the steel steps, and Dreamer did the exact same "I'm very injured" routine he did at the PPV. Really Dreamer, was the office job so boring that you had to come back for this kind of stupid stuff ? Theresa must have been glad... More über short Hardcore Holly vs CM Punk match that was pretty good while it lasted, but Punk had to tap out Holly in three minutes, so that tells you how far this could go. A bad, WWE ™ promo by Mike Knox, with deliberate delivery and awkward timing before cutting to the following match. Kevin Dunn sucks. What's awful is that the production hasn't changed a bit, it's the same horrible stuff today, like it was a few years before. 15 years without one bit of evolution. As a main event, a fitting three-way between RVD, Sabu & Test, which wasn't good. The usual, same old same old stuff, really. Yep. Big Show being gone is good, but Lashley's time of being "fun" already overstayed its welcome to me, because let's be honest, he's a bad worker with zero charisma and looks like a robot. What a boring show.

I hope in comes out to the old Orient Express music. Now that would be almost cool in a ridiculous meta-self conscious way.

They don't even try anymore, as showed by Episode 26, which was a complete nothing. RVD vs Test was the best match on the match (gasp), rushed and obviously pre-planned, but they kept things moving so it never dragged. Spotty but for what it is and for a RVD TV match, that was fine. Of course CM Punk vs Hardcore Holly was better for the time it lasted, which was too short to amount into anything and had a stupid finish with Holly getting DQed because he wouldn't stop hitting Punk in the corner. Really ? The booking is lame as fuck most of the time. And then, a one minute match between Dreamer and Daivari, which is too long already. How many weeks has this stuff been going on ? A Matt Striker segment with him luring Balls Mahoney in and kicking him in the balls. And yes, Bobby Lashley vs …. Heyman's security. I have no idea who played the part, but like I say, I hate that kind of stuff. This show was about 100% filler. Maybe after firing Heyman they still didn't know where to go, but it felt formulaic and tired like never before.

Episode 25. Okay, I said Lashley was bad but rather fun to watch, but I really don't need to see a 15 minutes match against the Big Show. Of course, it was terrible. Like much of this show was BTW, with yet another Dreamer vs Daivari match. This is the useless feud that won't end. Hardcore Holly & Test vs RVD & CM Punk was pretty decent for the time it went, but it all ended with a shit finish, as Heyman's security jumped on the babyface. Do I need to say again how much I hate non-wrestlers/non characters like these getting so much importance on any wrestling show ? Hopefully we won't get a match with those guys…. hopefully… The best part of the show was the angle following Kelly Kelly vs Ariel, which Kelly won via flash pin. Mike Knox kneels down before Kelly with a bouquet of flowers and begs her to forgive him. I thought that was well done, until the cliché transition of "I'm sorry… I didn't do it sooner.", which was kinda lame, although Knox I thought was quite good here. Throwing the bouquet right in Kelly's face was terrific, and should have been enough, but of course we need some violence against women, so he puts his finisher on her. Remember when Jake Roberts simply slapping Liz got nuclear heat ? Anyway, apart from the rather cliché revelation that he was infact not apologizing, I thought this was pretty well done. Kelly is truly a likeable figure, and Knox is a good psycho boyfriend. (this is everything Brian Lawler and April was not)

Taker "getting his win back" ™ on Brock would be such a stupid idea anyway. There's absolutely no point in doing this.

It is. Pretty iconic of that time period actually. Black Reign however, seems to be forgotten by everyone.

Rusev. (hey, he's better than a bunch of guys nominated already)

Agree on that point, I was actually thinking the exact same thing when I was typing my post. Then again, was Liz that interesting alongside Savage when they were both babyfaces ? To me, Liz's best work came in WCW when she was a heel with Flair, then with Savage in the nWo and mostly later on with Luger in 99/00. I guess Lana, who's hotter than Liz, can find a way to make her interesting as a babyface, although the WWE production and writing style probably would prevent that anyway.

Okay, after his performance on last RAW, can we all agree that if WWE were not complete dumbfucks, they would find a way to turn him babyface and reunite him with Lana and they'll have a superstar couple akin to Savage & Liz ?

This thread will probably seem pretty interesting in one year from now, one way or another.

Or maybe, just maybe, that was Rick Rubin in his hears.

I still enjoyed Windham as a New Blakcjack. Hell, I though he was still a really good worker in 99 in WCW when he was carrying those tag matches and working super well with Malenko & Benoit. That's how much I love WIndham. Hard to get an average placement for him though, but at his peak, he was better than Flair.

I'm a big Valentine fan, and I never understood the hype behind those WWF Garvin vs Valentine matches at all. Yeah, they hit each other really hard. No idea about Garvin, I've not seen nearly enough to have an educated opinion. Better than Jimmy.

Ah Meiko… Back in the late 90's-early 00's I thought she was quite overrated and clearly not as good as Sonoko Kato (pre-injury) and Chikayo Nagashima (for ever). Ah, those debates about *that* Akira Hokuto match (which was not great at all, people)... The good old times. Or not, depending on your point of view. Anyway, I've lost tracks with joshi puro about 12 years ago, so I'll never know how good she has been since, but I wasn't the biggest fan of flailing-arms-Meiko back then, she really beneficiated of being put in big matches with Aja. But like I said, I'm 12-13 years behind on things.

I guess they're dragging Taker's carcass up until Mania, since they won't have Austin.

Does anyone really cares at this point ? Taker has been glue factory material for at least two or three years now. Sting… well… This is some "dream match" from fifteen eighteen (edit : forgot we are in 2015) years ago. If SummerSlam gets the Mania treatment of nostalgia matches with old fucks who can't work anymore, this is no good. Yeah, I'm not grumpy at all, but really… It's like announcing Blackjack Muligan vs Bruno Sammartino for SummerSlam 91 or something.

December to Dismember 2006 I knew going in that this PPV has all awful reputation, so let's see. MNM vs Hardys was a really good match. When they got to the second heat segment, I thought it was going long for the purpose of going long, but it built to an exciting finishing stretch. I'm not a big fan of the Hadys, hate the Side Effect by Matt, but they are solid in their own way. MNM is a great act, the entrance, the look, the music, Melina. Everything is a success. As far as workers, well, Nitro is much better as a heel and he's not as insanely spotty as he is on LU, and Mercury is pretty good. I can't believe that Joey Mercury from late ECW fame actually became this WWE lifer (or so it seems). Anyway, the work is not the crispest or the most compelling during heat segments, but still, good tag match dynamic. Melina is terrific, working like Sherri used to, acknownledging the crowd and flipping them off after a "crack whore" chant (classy), screaming her lungs off, booting guys outside and talking a great bump, in heels and boots too. So yep, liked this quite a bit. Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney Contested under extreme observation of the rule. Ah ah. Striker is actually very solid, I like his work on the arm there. Mahoney, deprived of his gimmick chairshot, is much better too, and he actually sells well. So this is a fun little transitionnal match. Striker's odd and awesome tights get an hilarious comment from Joey (or Tazz, don't remember) about "Sitting on his own face". Hey, this PPV is perfectly fine… oh wait. Sabu is down backstage. No Elimination Chamber for him. "Bullshit" chants. Ok. Now we get the FBI withe Trinity, who's not gonna do any moonsault in *this* attire, vs Burke & Terkay. Ok, Guido still looks like old Guido, and some parts are okay, but this isn't good. And Terkay looks totally out of place in 2006 WWE (not that it should necesseraly be a bad thing, but in his case, it is), and just isn't very good. So, there's that. And then… oh shit. Tommy Dreamer vs Daivari. You know, Daivari might be one of the worst worker I came across in a long time. He absolutely sucks the life out of LU when he's on, and I see he was just as bad back in 2006. Khali throws Dreamer on the steel platform after the match. Ok, that's a feud I really want to see more of… Back to business. Twilight Fanboy & Ariel vs Mike Knox & Kelly Kelly. I guess because they kinda hint at a feud on TV, but it's the fourth un-built and un-announced match on this card. Knox vs Thorne just isn't very good. I like Knox, but he's not having a good match with the metrosexual vampire. Ariel on the other hand, beats the shit out of Kelly, who's clearly not a worker, but whose facial expressions do a terrific job of creating sympathy. I mean, the poor girl is litteraly crying, to the point I was wondering if she was not terrified for real. I love Ariel. She shows some ass, and I don't mean she's selling for Kelly. And then, Knox refuses to tag back, letting Kelly suffer the torture. And you know, the execution was really good, Knox came off cold, calculating and quite dirtbaggy. After the pin (and Ariel litteraly sit on Kelly's face, in a creepy way), the Sandman beat up Vampire Boy. All in all, not a good match, but a decent, well executed angle. Elimination Chamber match. So, Holly is replacing Sabu. I'm not overly familiar with the gimmick, nor have I any attachment to it, being away from the WWE for ever in the 00's. This is right RVD's alley, since the structure allows him to do some crazy spots like that Spiderman jump on the fences, or a rolling thunder jumping above the top rope to the steel floor. So it was pretty good, if gimmicky, but that's the point anyway, during the first part of Holly vs RVD and then CM Punk. Then Test gets in and works hard, I must admit. CM Punk gets eliminated, then Holly (with a big fuck up from the ref who doesn't count to three but still eliminates him), then RVD in no time (Test's elbow from the top of the pod was quite the spot). Then it gets stupid, with Heyman's guys preventing Lashley's pod to open. Bullshit chants again. Lashley vs Test was bad, of course. Then to the last part, and I'll admit I enjoyed it more than pretty much any Big Show match since the beginning. As far as giant vs green big hoss, it was pretty decent. Or maybe I just enjoy watching Lashley despite, or because, he's kinda "bad but fun". I have no idea if busting up the plastic stuff from the pod is a cliché spot by now or if it was unique to that match, but it sure looked cool (for a while, after the fourth time, it kinda made the pod look like a joke). Anyway, Lashley wins after a soft spear. New WWECW champ. Goodbye Show, you were a godawful champion. Really, I thought it was pretty much a mixed bag, but nowhere near as awful as I've heard it to be. The opener was really good, the Striker match was fun, the mixed match worked as an angle and the Elimination Chamber, bullshit booking aside (replacing Sabu during the PPV, eliminating both RVD and CM Punk, the two favourites of the audience, to let Lashley vs Show work the final) had its moments and oscillated from "blah" to "fun", with some memorable spots. So yeah, a 2 hours PPV with basically two announced match and a bad middle undercard is not what I'd call a good PPV. But I wouldn't call it horrible by any means either. Of course I understand it rightfully collapsed with the buyrates, which makes sense since they didn't announce the card. It was like an old IYH, really. 2006.12.03 : MNM vs Hardys (okay, I'm still saving only one good match out of this PPV, so… maybe super low expectations helped)