Matt D

I like the Usos as much as the next guy but it still feels like 2/3rds of their matches are finishing stretches.

I'd also take Bryan/AJ vs KO/SZ.

Am I the only one who thinks we're on borrowed time with Bryan and that every match is a gift? I mean I may look back three years from now and think how silly I was but... this is definitely a gift I'm glad we're getting sooner than later.

Counterpoint: Welcome to the age of long awkward Paige promos.

Ember fights the evil forces of the Negaverse?

I know C.S. for his avatar and recent insistence that Asuka isnt over.

I'm pretty sure we'll get a few more. I feel like Almas/Vega still need to let Gargano get his win back, and probably put over Black again, but they may still come up. Sanity's another possibility, and maybe the Iconic Duo. That's just idle speculation though.

If it helps, I thought the idea of a non-traditional, foreign crowd being more into Roman than the Mania crowd would be and them chasing that pop for his eventual win, was a pretty good theory I hadn't seen elsewhere.

I'm down to the bottom twenty in Dylan and Devon's GWWE podcast. I did want to mention now that while the podcast is very much the Dylan show (through no fault of Devon's as Dylan just has a more complete list), the most must-listen thing on there is Devon's awesome defense of the Miz. Excellent stuff and well worth seeking out. Someone should isolate that two minutes and toss it on youtube or something.

Booking matters. How he carries himself matters. I swear there was a moment last night where they quickly switched camera shots because it looked like the guy was pouting in the ring. That sort of thing has an effect on casuals (so much as they exist). If he went out last night and cut a promo saying that one F5 had taken out Braun, that one had taken out AJ, that he had survived 24 or whatever, that when Randy Orton was busted open, they stopped the match, but he kept going, etc,then they could have still built to the Saudi Arabia show. Instead, he cut a match puzzled about the booking and saying that he guesses if they keep giving him title matches, he'd eventually probably be bound to win? Whatever you want to say about it and why they're doing it, it's definitely weird.

That promo made it seem like the company was just exploiting him as a talent, to put him in a cage like some sort of animal against Brock, even after Brock almost killed him, so as to generate revenue in Saudi Arabia. His shrugging feeling about that was that he didn't know what was going on but if he was up against Brock eventually, he'd eventually win. Which was all pretty lame.

Giving everyone another day due to Mania weekend. AstroBoy's back on. Any other movement? In the meantime, here's my match from the week: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41577-rick-rude-terry-gordy-and-steve-williams-vs-mitsuharu-misawa-toshiki-kawada-and-tsuyoshi-kikuchi-all-japan-71491/ A little more of a traditional tag structure (with a finishing stretch that felt like something out of captain-driven lucha trios), with Rude being a very effective fish out of water adding a fun element to the proceedings.

I consistently enjoy early 90s AJPW, far more than I enjoy mid or late 90s AJPW. If I ever free up some time, I'll dive deeper through those first few years of the decade. Some of it is excess, as in the style hadn't eaten its own tail and force increasing levels of escalation upon itself. Some of it is that it can fly closer to the ground, closer to more traditional pro wrestling. That's not to say you have that with 80s AJPW tags, though, which are generally amorphous attempts at one-upmanship. There's a sweet spot of a few years where maybe the way the style was progressing allowed it a bit more. I don't know. I'd be curious to find out. Here is an example of that, though. The foreigners were undeniably working as heels. Some of that was because Rick Rude who is the heel of all heels was in there. I had no idea what he was doing in between the end of his WWF run and showing up at Halloween Havoc 1991. Apparently it was this. He's a weirdly natural fit with Gordy and Williams, undeniably triple-tough, but also cartoony in a way that helped bring out their natural over-the-top nature. He was something fresh and enjoyably out of place down to the announcer going nuts as he opened the robe. I really enjoyed the layout for two reasons. First, a huge chunk of this was heat on Kawada (Kikuchi, who you'd expect in that role, was barely a factor in the match, weirdly enough). The Americans cut off the ring, kept working Kawada back into their corner, built up the tension. It's a formula you don't see all the time in AJPW and you half think it wouldn't work, but here it did. Every time they did something underhanded or that frustrated the crowd somehow, booing would break out a chant would start for the native wrestler. Second, this ended like a lucha trios in a way that you don't often see outside of lucha. Despite everything else that was happening, Misawa and Gordy were treated like captains of their respective teams. The match was ultimately heading to the two of them facing off, presumably to set up a future match (one that I'd be happy to track down at some point). It was an environment where Gordy could get the pinfall without some of the same costs/implications of a big singles match. I really do need to see more 91 AJPW.

That show should have probably ended with Elias.

I do kind of hate his face.

Im curious about which fifty guys they bother to fly out.

I think the Figure-Eight is also kind of a tough sell as an instant submission. Yes, it's got more oomph than the Figure-Four but we've been conditioned for decades that a Figure Four only ever ends a match against jobbers (or maybe it could end a fall in a 2/3 falls match but not the match itself) and that it's there to be turned over to set up whatever the real finish is.

Theres a backstage YouTube video with Miz and the impractical jokers so you missed nothing.

She really needs to be working house shows. Pair her with someone like Mickie or Nattie and just do the loop.

This is actually a pretty great and accurate description of the match and how these two guys worked. Brock would be better if the cheat code giving him infinite finishers wasn't activated.

I'd be curious what people's definition of an Ace is. With the exception of the one long Cena run, WWE feels almost like a heel territory since Hunter's 2000.

Braun is now the World's Most Dangerous Hillbilly Jim

That kind of happens every year? Except for XXX.

All I know is that she pushed that kid in front of her to be Braun's partner because she was afraid of Sheamus' hair. Also, here's the counterpoint to the realism bit. This is the best conversation anyone's had with a statue this year:

Well, as always, you guys are the best. I'd say "Let's not do this again next year" but we're doomed for the rest of eternity for making that monkey's paw wish back at Wrestlemania XX. More the fools are we.