Reel in Place

Vs The Natural Disasters (Superstars Taping 7/20/92) This is a title change. A team like Money Inc as champions, because of their act and the way they wrestle, will always have some buy-in when there's a possibility of them losing. I think the heat here is a bit lackluster, mostly because I don't think either IRS or Dibiase do enough real cheating to make them dominating Earthquake for any amount of time seem believable. The finish is typical slip-on-a-banana-peel heel stuff, but the crowd goes nuts seeing Money Inc lose. Vs El Matador & Virgil (Prime Time Wrestling 9/28/92) This was good. I think a lot of that is on Tito, who is certainly past his prime here, but was still a great seller and could still get sympathy from the crowd. Tito can build to the tag with Virgil, which has its own history in this match, and everything works. This is the sort of match that just works. Money Inc are very specific sorts of heels, against a face team that is purpose-made to be a great...

The Greatest Wrestler Ever Poll voting period is about to start. My ballot is pretty much done, and I'll probably write up my ballot here at some point. There was a 2016 Tag Team Poll, but not one for 2026, so here's my idea. Do one in 2031 in some form, so here's the first post, where I watch 5 matches from one of the teams nominated in 2016, and if there's time I'll cover the more recent teams after.  vs Christopher Daniels & Elix Skipper (TNA PPV #51) So, this isn't the one with the wild 'rana from the top of the cage, but I'd say this is the better match. There's some wierdness that comes from them attempting, especially early, to uphold a sort of traditional tag structure with wrestlers on the apron. Its a pretty good match given then those restraints, but when they sort of disregard that, and just get wind for the last five or so minutes, things get really interesting, especially with absolutely wild top-of-the-cage leg drop at the end.  vs...

GWE season is here, and I've been slacking, so with about one year to make a ballot, I'm starting to review wrestlers I've considered, but not fully formed an opinion on. So we begin with Buddy Rogers, a guy who has two of my favorite matches of the Golden Era, against Lou Thesz in 1950 and Pat O'Connor in 1961 .   Buddy Rogers/Magnificent Maurice/Johnny Barend vs Bobo Brazil/Art Thomas/Dory Dixon - Chicago 3/15/1963 There are 10 complete Buddy Rogers matches out there, and this is one of them. He's barely in this, it is mostly a showcase for the face team, Buddy spends a lot of time on the apron playing a chickenshit. In some ways that is Buddy Rogers' greatest contribution to modern wrestling, he sort of codified what it meant to be a heel, and you can see a glimpse of why he was so successful, but its only just a glimpse.  Buddy Rogers vs. Cyclone Ayana - Chicago 1/5/1951 From a modern perspective, so much of the Golden Age stuff just seems boring or stall-y,...

 There's some stuff that no one is watching. I don't mean that literally, of course someone, somewhere watches it, but they're not talking about it. They're not doing anything about it. There are a lot of wrestling companies like that, they exist, they put on shows, and people watch and attend them, but they have no impact. Heat-Up is kind of that way. I don't really understand it, the guy who runs it seems weird to me, I've never really seen a single person discuss it, but most of their events have results on Cagematch, so someone, somewhere cares, but only just enough so that the results aren't lost to history. White Moriyama is a guy from the FUTEN promotion, and he now only works occasionally on HEAT-UP shows. I care, because I like White Moriayma, but not enough to watch a show live, or seek it out if it doesn't go up on Youtube, but I care a little bit, so here we are, me writing about Heat-Up, which I don't think has happened, at least in Engl...

  We've chronicled most of this feud up to this point. Edge cashed in the Money in the Bank in January, and Cena reclaimed the title at Royal Rumble. We didn't see Edge winning the title on Raw in a triple threat with Cena and RVD in July, but Cena had RVD beat until Edge stole the pin. After that, our last installment, Edge got Disqualified at Saturday Night's Main Event. Since then, Edge had sex on TV and slapped Cena's dad, bringing us here, Cena challenging Edge in Boston and if Edge gets DQ'ed, he loses the title.  Cena comes out ultra-confident and Edge is not, he knows Cena has his number and that, in some ways, the deck is stacked against him due to the stipulation, on top of this match being in Cena's backyard. All Cena early until Edge throws him into the ring post and takes over. Edge seems to think his best chance of winning is to have Cena counted out, and he attempts that feat twice to no avail. On the second 9 count, the Anti-Cena crowd really sho...

There's this narrative, and it's not without merit, that WWE is some rudderless ship with no foresight or interest in the long-term. Certainly, there are times when things are dropped and forgotten, but watch any TV show, things like that happen there all the time too, but people choose to watch and enjoy TV shows, unlike wrestling where they watch it at gunpoint and rate it on some faux-objective scale and also follow the business metrics for 'fun'. It doesn't seem to be an enjoyable way to consume things, but that's just where we are. So when Becky Lynch beats Bianca Belair, the masses are up in arms, but when it comes time for Bianca to get revenge, the most obvious conclusion, there is this sense that somehow this wasn't always the intended direction, that somehow this match on this night was a matter of mostly coincidence. It wasn't. The bad guy showed up and beat the good guy. It took the good guy a while to another shot at the bad guy, but when th...