Matt D

Past having first hand knowledge from certain wrestlers on certain things, the only place I'd put Conrad's knowledge against anyone on this board, is about belts. The guy obviously has a lot of money and has purchased a lot of wrestling memorabilia and he legitimately knows more about belts than probably any of us. Everything else though?

I can't find a thread on this but it feels weird to me that there wouldn't be a thread on it, so I'm not making one as of now for the sake of not accidentally creating a duplicate. Given the time and place and Kawada, I have this gut feeling that I would have liked it more if I had gone back and rewatched the 91-93 matches between them since some things are definitely callbacks. Then, however, I think about it some more, and I start to wonder if I wouldn't feel the opposite. This felt a little like a greatest hits version of those matches, but without some of the sharp focus or the outright, over the top, slugfest feel. Case in point: Hansen hits the dropkick/tope combo from the 93 version. The camera angle feels a bit better, the speed of the tope a bit more intense. There's a DDT on the floor with the pad removed and an early transition comes with Kawada reversing a suplex on the floor. There's the sort of legwork you'd see in earlier matches but while it's good, it's blown off. This, to me, has a lot of Hansen being Hansen, and I am the lowest guy on the board on that. He's a force of nature. Nothing matters for long. Kawada really doesn't break the code on how to fight him in this match. He gives up on the legwork. He does about 16 jumping kicks to the head in the match. Hansen blocks the last one, which is nice. There are always touches like that in these matches. I half feel like Kawada's entire plan was to get to the point of the lariat and lock in the Fujiwara armbar. Hansen blocks it the second time which leads to the finish. I'm not sure if it's because of Kawada being a thread or Hansen selling his age more, but there were a few moments of Hansen actually having to hulk up a bit (utilizing the Crusher Blackwell dead-stare hulk up), which you don't always see him do, and in those moments I felt the "oh crap." sense that Kawada was about to die. I don't know. I think matches where Hansen's opponent cracks the code are more interesting than matches where the opponent tries for twenty minutes to crack it and never quite gets it. It's remarkable just how good Hansen's offense is, especially for his age and for 1994. He has so much stuff, some of it little (kicking the arm away so he can elbow drop Kawada), some of it bigger (doing the second rope bounce on the elbow drop). He accomplishes more visual damage with a stomp than almost anyone. His piledriver was almost a fall-down/fall-back piledriver plex. But in the midst of it, I was never really waiting for Kawada to comeback. I didn't feel like there was going to be a key moment where he found the fire within or capitalized on a mistake. Maybe Hansen would just have to take a breath. Speaking of that, they went all out at the beginning with the early tope/dropkick/ddt on floor and there was a Kawada chinlock early on which was 100% a resthold, right before the legwork. I don't think it really served any purpose in the match other than "Kawada contains Hansen for a minute as he gets his plans together," and it felt pretty out of place in the match and to me, felt like a direct cost of that dynamic, crazy opening. A pacing consequence. They could do what they did but there was a narrative price. Kawada throwing a lot of kicks, staggering Hansen, but ultimately being unable to crack the code is a pretty compelling story for 91 or early 92. I'm not sure that it's what I wanted in 94, especially not after their other matches. A lot of times, when I come out of a mid 90s AJPW match feeling this way, I think it's half their fault and half mine (just for missing a dozen points of nuance as I'm watching the match out of context). The dropkick/tope combo was sure breathtaking here though.

You're also morally obligated to watch every match with Ivory commentary.

I'm vaguely interested in the episodes with Raven on commentary but not a whole lot else.

He just have just punched Rollins in the face and left.

This is a ring of hell:

Re: Dusty: He was exceptionally good at keeping himself fresh through branding. He'd take a whole summer and say that it was part of the Stardust 83 Tour or whatever, or would find ways to liken himself to whatever was going on in pop culture. He had an ear to the ground and even though he was basically doing the same thing, he was trying to sell it to the fans as something different, each and every year. There was some element of that to Hogan too. One year he wore the the Fist Helmet. He went from being the Incredible Hulk Hogan to the Immortal Hulk Hogan. He went super patriot in 91, etc. With more modern guys, some of it ends up driven by merchandise. With Austin, you needed new shirts, so you'd get stuff like the bionic redneck, etc. Unless I'm mistaken, Reigns is pretty much exactly the same as he he was three years ago. I couldn't tell you one different bit of his act, in ring or out. Does he have a new nickname? There was maybe a hint of it when he beat Taker and said it was his yard now, but he didn't exactly run with that.

There was definitely a sense of Thesz "shooting" and Bock working in that one and while I always like what the latter does, there was a visceral drop in excitement when they made the first switch.

Sure, because an annoying crowd trying to get itself over is worse than a mostly dead crowd that was really into the Undertaker.

The trick to watching modern WWE is to do it on your terms, not theirs.

Ultimately, you're 100% right on a scale of degrees, but it's also an expectation gap. I don't hold WWE to any meaningful standards because it's forever disappointing. Now, someone who's otherwise earned some respect? That's different.

Pompeo's going to be there next week. It's a shame he couldn't sync it up and hang out with the guys in the front row all night.

I don't want to armchair this too much, but I think there are things he could have done other than demand to wear the new jacket out there, some of which I'd bet would have worked. EDIT: At the very least, he knew this show was coming. He could have debuted the new gear at Backlash and dodged a lot of this. It'd have slightly less of an effect but everything gets drowned out at Mania anyway.

Not every wrestler made himself a symbol. The Moolah stuff was comparable. What really rankled wasnt necessarily the company lionizing her as much as them having all of the current talent, who tend to stand for something very much the opposite, do it. But again, do you blame the girls for that, or do you blame the company for making them do it? Like, honestly I think regardless of what those individual women know or think about Moolah, those interviews are happening either way. They don't get to have opinions when they go against WWE. Same deal here. Any of those guys from Sami on down can have their own thoughts about Saudi Arabia and the political issues, and I'm sure they do. None of those opinions are ever going to make it to air or in public on the record. We get propaganda videos. We get company line. I certainly blame Bayley or Sasha more than I do a Liv Morgan, because the former represent something and have sort of made their career as doing as such and influence a relatively young fanbase as such. They also probably have a little more stroke. At some point you have to decide what you stand for and what you want to want to promote and to have your voice used to validate. I do too. You do too. We just have a lot less of a reach. No one HAS to be a hero, but you can't be one on day A and not on day B (especially when day B is undeniably harder) without it affecting your reputation and legacy. You can't have it both ways. That's not how life works.

Not every wrestler made himself a symbol. The Moolah stuff was comparable. What really rankled wasnt necessarily the company lionizing her as much as them having all of the current talent, who tend to stand for something very much the opposite, do it.

re: Finn: I don't know. If you're going to take a stand, stand up for what you believe in, even when it's hard. He got a ton of deserved credit for what he did at Mania. I don't know if the guy gets to keep it if he just rolls over the second it's no longer convenient and when it might actually cost him something. It's easy to be inclusive when there's no cost involved.

I really wanted Hunter of Arabia

The greatest Survivor Series?

Ok Im good. I found the gif of Titus slipping. https://twitter.com/peliquesadillas/status/989965256393969667?s=21

I have no idea whats happening but I do want to remind everyone of the random sumo guy 40 minutes ago.

Ok, Karl Anderson coming out is a great moment for me to go home. enjoy guys.

Oh man, the cut to the crowd looking bewildered as Big E went "OHHHHHH JEDDDAAAAHHH"

They need to clear the ring a bit. Wait, how long has Mojo been wearing the goofy ass Maryland gear?