Punk Cena on RAW was amazing IIRC

Their re-match (wasn't it on Nitro the next night?) is worse.

Lol at me for setting myself the target to watch every piece of material WWE has in order of date

Wading through those old house shows was tough

WCCW is currently making me sick, apart from the Kerry Von Erich vs Ric Flair world title match at the end of 1982

The Freebirds heel turn was well done and the match awesome

Maybe I was just jaded from watching all the previous crap and that match was gold in comparison

I cant wait till I get to 1985 onwards

I watched that Flair vs Von Erich match and had pretty high hopes. Hated it. Was boring as hell and I don't exactly remember the ending* but I didn't like that.

*I know Hayes slams a door but I forget why.

Lol it was Hayes' partner Terry Gordy who was the cage "gatekeeper" who slammed the door in Kerrys face

Hayes was the special ref and was getting all pedantic with rules

He cost Von Erich the title when Kerry had Flair out for the count using the "iron claw", Flair stuck a leg out and just grazed the rope as his leg dropped on to the mat

This was good enough, according to Hayes, for Von Erich to break the hold, which he made him do by ripping him off Flair

I have to say Mike Hayes stands out like a sore thumb charisma wise compared to any of these old wrestlers, save Flair of course

Since one of the themes of the evening was Bret abusing his role as official to make sure WCW won over NWO, I don't think he felt bad about that or how legit the match was. It being a normal count for him to overrule was probably part of the plan.

He officiated the match between Bischoff and Zbyszco earlier that night and knocked down Bischoff himself to give Zbyszco the victory.

The theory is that it was always supposed to be a fast count but Hogan and Bischoff told Nick Patrick to do just a normal count to keep Hogan looking strong. I don't know if I believe it though, I just think Nick Patrick screwed up.

Starrcade 97 was the best selling US wrestling PPV of all time at that point. Sting and Hogan was a feud a year and a half in the making. For once, a wrestling company patiently and slowly built it up and let it simmer instead of cooking it too fast. The Sting vs NWO feud was amazing. And then it came time for the big pay off and...the match was just horrible. Arguably the biggest letdown in wrestling history.

It really was awful. It may as well have been Undertaker vs. Sid from WM 13.

KENTA's making his debut at NXT Takeover II next week. I'm excited for this. He could be exactly what WWE wants. Some guy who uses the same moves in every match and hasn't evolved in 8 years. Unsure if it's going to be a match or not. He's being "presented" by Ric Flair.

Is he using the name KENTA and can he talk any english at all? It would be pretty funny if they let him use the GTS.

He is using KENTA, that was disclosed in the ceremony in Japan last month. I'm not sure if he can speak english. It's possible. He did scream "tap" at DB in their epic ROH match.

I don't like the chances of any non-english speaking wrestler without a manager. He will just end up being Japanese Sin Cara.

Miz needs a bodyguard to go with his stunt double.

What's Virgil up to? Still flogging autographs on New York subways probably. Get him in!

It would seem he can speak english:

Interesting development instead of sticking him with some ludacris manager.

I thought Abraham Washington burned his bridges with WWE?

Can't see KENTA using the GTS, despite it being his. It would only garner CM Punk chants which would be anti productive to him. Not to mention, if Punk comes back, it would be a bit daft. But then, they had Matt Morgan use the F5.

From the clips I've seen KENTA's GTS is so much better than Punk's (maybe it's just my random sample, but his looks like a struggle to me) that I'm all for him doing it and showing people how it's really done.

Pre WWE was real wrestling..The WWF will never be replaced. This new stuff is Broadway on the mat.

To be fair, some of the greatest work ever has been in the "WWE" post 2002 era.

Michaels vs Angle
Michaels vs Undertaker
CM Punk
Daniel Bryan
Shield
Brock Lesnar
John Cena!!
Evolution
Batista
Orton

There's plenty of classic, classic material.

I decided to watch some of the last PPV held in Seattle, 2009's No Way Out last night.

Three things

1- This will probably mean nothign to anybody but me, but there's a dude who anybody who lives or works in the U District knows as "Junior" who for like the last 15 or so years can be found bopping around wearing wrestling shirts and the occasional Rey mask. Kinda assume he's not all there (not because of wrestling stuff, he just seems like he's got some issues), but seems like a nice dude who really likes wrestling. He was prominently featured in a crowd shot, and it made me happy.

2- What did people think of the Orton/Shane match? I had the sound off and wasn't exactly sober, so I couldn't really tell. Looked pretty solid if not kinda goofy for letting Shane get in so much straight-forward offense at the start.

3- Man the elimination chamber match looked like hot, hot garbage. Taker cannot take a Pedigree for **** (there's something about the mechanics of selling/taking that move that I don't understand, because it seems like everybody takes it way safer than they need to be and just totally exposes the move).

I think we usually use this thread for NXT.

Takeover 2 starting now, pretty damn hyped for this one, main event should be incredible.