World's Worst Man

I don't buy that for a second. The ankle lock is a move that requires the guy to be damaged before they tap to it. Meaning it's not some killer move that can cripple the opponent and force him to tap immediately. At least, that's the way it's been presented with the HBK-Angle feud. And what would be the point of tapping early when Angle could just slap it right back on, or not even let go at all? Admittedly, that didn't happen, but that's just more faulty logic, so it doesn't really justify the early tap.

Was it actually good for RAW though? Shelton vs. Angle from a few weeks ago smoked the hell out of anything on the show tonight, but it was only ***-***1/4, which is what I'd call a good match. And I don't believe in giving extra praise to a simply "good" match just because it's a lot better than what we normally get.

Meanwhile, the pacing sucked, the whole ankle lock usage was completely ridiculous (so HBK can take the ankle lock for a minute after submitting to it earlier in the match, when his ankle wasn't in such bad condition?). The "story" you bring up is irrelevant, because it was told so poorly that the match still came off like crap. Angle and HBK are done together, unless they can smarten their work up and become creative.

The Ironman match was quite good. The ladder match was decent enough. I liked the Legends segment. If this was done on an ECW show or TNA show, people on this board would be raving. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No it wasn't quite good. In what world was the iron man match good? From a markish point of view? Well I didn't see any of the things that those fans equate with good wrestling (big spots and blood mainly). It certainly wasn't good from a workrate point of view, or else I would have seen some build or psychology going on there. It's comical to compare this huge, hyped up, PPV-level episode of RAW to a 1 hour Impact show, even if it was their Spike debut. As it stands, this RAW wasn't much better than Impact, which sucked, and that's sad.

Comparing this show to TNA's first show on Spike. Classic. What else will the apologists come up with to justify how terrible this show was?

I stopped religiously watching WWE in 1999, but that was mostly due to me growing up and as such, growing out of the product. I would imagine WWE actually lost their edge in 2001, after they turned Austin heel and made a mockery of the invasion.

Terrible show. Absolutely terrible. The Smackdown vs. RAW thing was the only good point of the show. Otherwise there weren't any good matches and weren't any good segments.

Angle-HBK = lame and (for the most part) uncreative. It's kind of Ric Flair syndrome, but even though he did the same match every time, at least it wasn't as masturbatory and contrived as HBK and Angle.

I think it's a given that the WWF live crowd is the most obnoxious by far

A lot of people like to trash Sony, but eh, my PSX from 1997 still works, and my PS2 from June 2000 is still going strong. Yet, my NES died after about 6-7 years, my SNES died after ~7 years and my gamecube crapped out on me in 18 months. So yea. If my PS2 crapped out on me now, I might just wait for the PS3 at this point, assuming it's backwards compatible, heh.

"Sports entertainment" isn't the focus of the show though, the wrestling is still #1. Plus, putting down "sports entertainment" is just a way to jab the E anyway

I don't see anything wrong with chants like "Thank you" or "Welcome back". The bottom line is, wrestling is predetermined and the storylines are fake. The ROH fans get into the matches and storylines regardless, but when all is said and done, they still appreciate the wrestlers themselves, whether they're supposed to be faces or heel. Chanting "thank you" to a heel CM Punk on his last night isn't a problem. The real problem is when the fans blatantly ignore the face/heel dynamics during the course of a storyline and cheer the heel anyway, ala Homicide. But really, that's not just restricted to ROH fans. I seem to recall Steve Austin and The Rock being cheered by WWE fans when they were trying to heel it up.

The thing that bothers me most are the "you fucked up" chants, as it reeks of smarkiness and really ruins the atmosphere of the match. With that being said, I give ROH a break because since April 2004, they've produced more high quality matches that any other promotion in the world. Even if I get greatly annoyed with some of the stuff on the undercard..

And John Nord was doing a Bruiser Brody tribute

Depth wise, WWE probably has the most. But depth is misleading and ultimately irrelevant, because then it becomes more about quantity than quality. If we're comparing say, the top 10 or best vs. best, WWE doesn't even touch some promotions.

I just saw KENTA/Marufuji vs. Hidaka/Fujita Differ Cup finals, and I have to say it smokes the hell out of everything else I've seen this year. It's also up there with Joe-Punk II and III as one of the top 3 matches I've seen since 1998. I'll have whip up a review of it sometime.

Styles is good, but TNA and the Styles fanatics all tout him as "the best", when they've obviously been overlooking his lack of long-term selling and his tendency to try to get all of his spots in a match, which keeps him from being as good as Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, etc. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ironically, HBK and Angle have the same flaws. But at least the anti-HBK/Angle people don't go crazy and start calling them "awful" or what have you. I guess it's natural to get into the mindset that overrated wrestlers are awful, even though they're actually good. It happens with certain matches too. Some people can stay objective, but a lot of people can't. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Seriously? That's all anti-Michaels people do, besides talking about 'teh politikz~!' <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've yet to see anyone call HBK "awful" or "not good at all", other than when talking about specific skills that he doesn't excel at. And if people do, it's certainly not as bad as some wrestlers get it.

No no, he's pretty much right about Benoit being the best in-ring wrestler in the WWE. Guerrero could be argued, but other than that, who else is there?

2004, Bob Sapp. That doesn't really count though, since he's only a mega star in Japan, and doesn't have much of a name in the US. The last somewhat well known US wrestler to have the title was Scott Norton, and he never drew a dime in the US. Brock might get some casual US wrestling fans to watch NJ tried to expand into this market, but other than that, they'd only be drawing the hardcores. That might get them an ECW level following, but nothing past that.

Styles is good, but TNA and the Styles fanatics all tout him as "the best", when they've obviously been overlooking his lack of long-term selling and his tendency to try to get all of his spots in a match, which keeps him from being as good as Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, etc. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ironically, HBK and Angle have the same flaws. But at least the anti-HBK/Angle people don't go crazy and start calling them "awful" or what have you. I guess it's natural to get into the mindset that overrated wrestlers are awful, even though they're actually good. It happens with certain matches too. Some people can stay objective, but a lot of people can't.

Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess.

It's bad relative to what they typically get. Obviously it's not bad in the grand scheme of cable ratings, but Nitro wasn't getting bad ratings by that standard either.

Not really funny, just kind of odd. In Fire Pro D, I was playing as Kobashi against Tamon Honda I think it was. I ended up hitting a burning hammer on the floor, which Honda just no sold like a king. The Fire Pro games have lots of moments like this, just due to the way the system works. If you hit a bunch of moves in a row, after 2 or 3, the guy just no-sells the last one. I guess it's for game balance so one guy can't completely dominate once he goes on a string of moves.

Knowing that it's going to be a one fall contest, I don't think Brock is going to win anymore.

When people say charisma, I'd wager to say that most think of it as charisma on the mic and charisma with non-wrestling mannerisms. Taking that definition, it has nothing to do with good in-ring wrestling. Taking a broader definition, which would include the ability to play a role, sell damage, etc, then yes, it does factor into good in-ring wrestling. I'd tend to not want to use the word charisma to define those aspects though. It's easier to just say roleplaying (which is what was being discussed above), then there's no confusion.