Matt D

There's a difference between a traditional superman babyface comeback after selling a whole match and skipping the apparent tedium of selling so you can get the next spot in to pop the crowd.

If you know what to look for, you notice certain things. I wish I could watch Flair matches, for instance, in blissful ignorance, like I could five years ago. Unfortunately, I can't. Tito matches too, though I kind of like his formula so I don't mind as much.

I'm not even sure what to do with that. Anyway, I think a hell of a lot less of Flair for the same sort of reasons, if it makes you feel better. If I differ in opinion with a wrestler when it comes to some very essential aspects of wrestling, it is very likely i will like their work less and rank them lower than I might otherwise? This seems like a reasonable tenet to me.

We can't talk about Shawn Michaels' attitude noted in a Shawn Michaels book about a Shawn Michaels match in the Shawn Michaels note? Ok, we can talk about it in the other note. EXCEPT it's a match with Shawn Michaels in it, and we have a note specifically about Shawn Michaels matches, so obviously we can't talk about it in the Demolition note, because we have a note specifically about Shawn Michaels. We are in Catch-22 land here. I get where you're coming from, John, but it's a little silly. Let's make this reply productive at least: Quote in question, which I think is pretty damn interesting as it pertains to Shawn and his understanding of wrestling in general. I retyped it off of books.google.com after a quick search. Also I get that wrestlers are carnies in books, but I tend to believe Shawn feels this way. Page 136, Heartbreak & Tragedy: The Shawn Michaels story. That mindset pretty much misses completely the idea of a role, that it'll take more to knock down Andre than Ray Rougeau, that the heel tag champs should be protected in a different way than the Conquistadors, and that them falling down matters to the match way more when the babyfaces have to earn it. That having an exciting match doesn't necessarily mean you have a GOOD match. So those are Shawn's thoughts and my problems with them. That I think Demos gave very well in that match and very smartly and that it was an exciting match with more meaning and resonance than a lot of other Rockers matches from the era is really beyond the point.

Despite Michaels being bitchy and saying that Demos didn't give them nearly enough, which is blatantly moronic and perfectly false. (He adds for the fourth time)

what they should have done was put Cena with a young guy and have them win the tag titles for a while. They used Kevin Nash to 1995 Diesel Punk!

He's the International Champion, thank you very much.

Or maybe Bret was just pissy that Flair does stuff "just because it works" without thinking it through more.

I need to rewatch it tomorrow but there was some really fun and innovative stuff I'd never seen Re: AJ in the Punk/Bryan match. (In other words, I loved the AJ bullshit spots). The SD MITB was pretty crazy. I felt like they didn't do as good as job as they needed to convince me that guys should be down for as long as they were however. i missed a lot of the rest.

Warlord is a great prop for certain guys, like Jannetty. He also has some pretty good matches with DBS but that's a bit of a cheat since they had a whole year to run with each other. And people (not Dylan) argued that there were no good Kane matches, no good Kane Performances, and certainly no Kane matches better than the Michaels one. That's why we're here. Obviously that's not the end all of what this note can be, but I was just keeping things in perspective.

I think about half the people on the board wouldn't admit to the first half of what you said. That's sort of the point of this note.

So the people who are REALLY anti-Kane, do you dispute the last three posts? If so, on what grounds? It's not saying he's a superworker or anything.

Oh man, the Drew Mcintyre = Underrated sign.

Welcome to PWO. We examine everyone and everything. Nothing is a given here. Nothing is untouchable. There are no sacred cows. You can back something up, anything up, more power to you. That said, I'm not watching a bunch of Nailz matches.

Yep, it's a lot more meaningful to break down what they do well and why. And what they don't do well over a series of matches. There are trends and patterns. They are worth examining and judging a wrestler way more than "Great matches"

All I will pimp is the Backlash 08 Kane vs Chavo match. You only have to watch one Kane match for my sake Will. Promise! Here's what I said about it: IF you do watch it, please keep those things in mind.

Sound the alarm! Will's generalizing and discounting stuff without watching specific matches again! And really, the argument isn't even ABOUT Kane. He's the control in this situation, the constant. The argument is about the other guys in the matches relative to Shawn and how the matches are put together, how well they can work with Kane and how well Kane can work with them. The match that the others are being compared to is a Kane match too! The argument, as best I understand it, is that Shawn vs Kane is a shitty match and a big reason for that is due to decisions Shawn made in his offense and how he decided to work Kane. While the matches were touted as good, that's independent of the prime argument, which is that they're better than a possibly terrible Shawn vs Kane match.

I'm disregarding your opinion completely for just tossing away the backlash 08 match like that. It's great. That you come off like a rude jerk for no reason doesn't help. Seriously read through this note from start to bottom and really take a look at why people are saying what they're saying. It could just be that you look at wrestling differently than a lot of us do. But you're just listing off matches or dismissing them with a few words. Wasn't one of the big arguments in this note that we SHOULD push Shawn with great matches, because if we break him down with things he does well and things he does poorly, it doesn't look nearly as good on paper as if you look at his "great matches?"

He will too.

Tim is a wise man.

Yeah, I was about to say.... Well I'm younger than YOU!

Fans went nuts for him. I always forget Taker, but he was more over than Bulldog. I don't know why. He just was before they gave him the accent. Savage, Warrior, Bret, and Taker, yes. Though Warrior was gone a week before Survivor Series. He had a dark match and again, was super over. Like Sid right before Royal Rumble 92 over. I think kids loved the head vice or something. He was the wrong guy for the Doink feud. I don't feel like going Superstars digging. Can we just trust that he was over enough to surprise me despite logic dictating otherwise?

Uh, considering the weird Vince/Steph dynamic, Chinatown comparisons for the WWE rather creep me out. I think Vic said Finkel and that would have made sense to me.

Do we have younger fans here?

Honestly, Crush was super over for his first couple of months, before they really played up the accent and everything. I think he was the third most over babyface on the roster right before the Perfect turn.