@trunks3540   I got back into (contemporary) wrestling around the time of the Survivor Series with John Cena vs The Authority.   Ziggler was SO freaking over after that PPV, but like so many other times with so many other workers, the WWE didn’t run with it.

I must say, I'm a little impressed with Kingston. His match with Baretta was actually pretty good. Doesn't hurt that I really like Baretta, but it was probably one of Eddie's best so far. Even though someone fucked up and Trents nose got destroyed. But Trent was a trooper and kept going. I was entertained. He really needs to get some AEW gold somehow before he ends up not being able to go anymore. Cause his body is gonna give out with how much he takes.

Not feeling Sting's retirement match to be tag-team against the Young Bucks, as they implied last night.

I assumed we'd get to Sting vs Darby, maybe due to Flair getting in Darby's ear and turning on Sting, maybe due to Sting saying he wants to show Darby what it takes to be a singles champ in his last match, I don't know, but like Flair vs HBK, the best retirement matches have the guy retiring showing they can still fight, but not enough to win against a young guy that they respect. 

I'm excited to see what the former Ziggler does in NJPW. That's a good fit for him and I think he'll do really well there. Just actually finished watching Wrestle Kingdom a few days ago. Goddamn... Moxley just ruins every match he's in. Finlay v. Ospreay would have been amazing. But Moxley kept sludging up the match with his stupid 'hardcore' bullshit, his wobbly head injury drunk walk, and just generally being a garbage character.

@fac  From all accounts I've heard, pretty much everything Sting has done and is doing has been his choice, and that he has specifically chosen the Bucks as his last match. I think a tag match for his final match fits. I know it's not ideal from a fan perspective that wants to remember Sting 'the way he was,' as it were. But he's not that dude anymore. I don't think he wants to go out there and be winded and kind of boring for a longer match, or just go out and have a super short match where he punches someone a few times, hits a few signature moves, and calls it a career.
Sting has become kind of a 'spot' guy in the twilight of his career. He's not going to go in there and put on a match. He just goes in to no-sell some moves and do a few cool things and then take a rest. It works for him. But that kind of participation only really works in a tag match.

I'm wondering if having the Bucks as opponents might be pulling multiple strings together. I don't think Sting is going to lose his retirement match. I think more promoters/bookers now are getting wise to the fact that most fans don't want to see their heroes and idols lose on the way out just to 'make' someone else. Especially since that so rarely works out anyway. And I mean.. are the fans really impressed by a heel that beats up an aging retiree?
Sting also shouldn't go out by beating a young, popular team or someone where losing could hurt their career. The Bucks fit in a lot of ways. They're great at spots and 'entertainment-matches.' They can elevate the match. But it doesn't hurt them to lose since they're already very much 'made' guys.
I could be totally wrong, of course. But I do think having the Bucks go over Sting and Darby is -way- the wrong decision.

I WOULD have said that it would be interesting to have Darby turn on Sting and do Darby v. Sting for Sting's final match. But that only works if Darby goes over, and again - I don't think fans want Sting to lose his final match and that's not an anger that's only going to be taken out on Darby. People would be pissed at all of AEW for that one. Just like they were pissed at how Sting was handled in WWE.
However, even if the stars aligned on this and we could magically make it okay for Darby to go over Sting; what would Darby even do with that kind of heat? The guy has the personality of a dead squirrel under your front porch. I don't believe for a second he has any ability to capitalize on becoming one of AEW's number 1 bad guys.

@trunks3540  Not to belabor the point (I promise I'll stop after this), but I think you're conflating 'what I like' with 'what is good/important.' Right? Bret can definitely be a wrestler you personally don't care about, while still being on the 'Mt. Rushmore' of wrestlers. Like, I imagine you also don't care too much about Billy Graham, or Bruno. But a single person not caring about them doesn't erase how incredibly important they were to the industry - both in how they shaped it, and how they shaped future wrestlers.

Seeing how Bret and Shawn carried the torch as 'small guys' in a post-Hogan WWF is incredibly important. Bret and Shawn being able to draw money literally broke down barriers and changed the entire way the industry worked. And Bret is absolutely one of the best to ever do it - again, even coming from actual wrestlers that know a lot more than we do.

But look, I get it. I fucking hate Ric Flair. And I always have. Even before it was cool. I don't like him, his personality, his matches.. any of it. But I stop short of saying he's not one of the greats of all time, because I'm well aware that he is even if admitting it makes me want to vomit a little.

That being said, as you admitted, there's definitely an age thing here. Because you have have gotten into wrestling at a very specific time to ever even put HHH, of all people, in the list of all-time greats. HHH was a B+ player for his entire career that got where he was entirely through backstage politics. His 'greatness' is almost entirely predicated on him making sure he's the person you think of for a certain era of wrestling despite literally being outclassed by basically everyone he was wrestling at every stage in his career.

@theknightdamien I have read the same thing that Sting asked for this, so that's fine in my book.

I wasn't thinking about a grueling 30 min match anyway, and don't care if he wins or loses per se (especially when it isn't booked as "If Sting loses he must retire/leave"), but I thought the most interesting story was master vs protégé. Darby could do the heavy lifting and pull off some crazy spots with Sting - as if ever there is a time for a spot fest, it is in a go out in a blaze of glory match. 

I am not 100% convinced that this will be the last match - I could see shenanigans with Flair, Darby etc., during or after the match that leads to a final one-on-one against Darby with Flair in Darby's corner where Sting needing to protect his honor or whatever. I find it a little odd they announced the retirement match so far in advance as part of the storyline.

Not likely to happen that way I know. 

It probably is the age thing honestly. I only know most of what Brett did when he came back as the bitter old guy that everyone said would never be in the WWE again. I never really got to see him in his prime.

And I can see that about HHH. Maybe its another nostalgia thing. He was always in the main scene for everything when I started watching. It was like his chemistry with The Rock and Stone Cold kind of made me put him in that tier. When they did stuff together, the 3 of them, or mixes of 2, it was always really good, to me personally anyway.

You're also right about Billy Graham and Bruno Sammartino. I never watched them, so I don't know or care much about them. But I do know that they were fantastic for their time. They are probably in the class of some of the GOATS.

I think Ric Flair is overrated. He did some really good things. And he could sell really well. He can talk fairly decent. But as an actual wrestler I would consider him a B+. Hot take, but Roddy Piper is in that caragory imo too. Lemme tell you, I liked Roddy Piper. He did some great things, and he could talk better then just about anyone. He had, as the kids would say, mad skillz, on the mic. And he was decent in the ring. And he was really good at being a villain, maybe one of the best villains of all time. But his in ring, at least that I saw, was B+. Maybe A-.

And these are mostly my opinions anyway. Other people will definitely not agree with them. If you're wondering, what I perceive as great in ring stuff, Danielson, Claudio, William Regal, Dustin Rhodes was fantastic in his prime, and he's still pretty good now. Orange Cassidy can go. AJ Styles is really good. Undertaker, Stone Cold, E and C in their primes, the Dudleys, Matt Cardona, the artist formerly known as Dolph Ziggler, Guerrero, Benoit, Saturn, Macho Man, Ultimate Warrior, Jericho... Alot of those guys that show up on AEW from NJPW are really good. I'm also smitten with Del Vikingo right now. Some of the shit he does I just can't believe. And I can't wait for Osprey to show up in AEW. If they do it right, he'll be a game changer. Put him up against Jay White and Bryan Danielson and watch the magic happen.

HHH is viewed as a guy - fairly or unfairly - who was pushed in large part due to his relationship with Steph, and he and the whole Cliq had some of the same energy that I get from the Bucks at times, a little "too cool for school", and in general most wrestlers should not be too tied into management as they tend to get protected too much. Even in the early 2000s there was speculation that HHH was going to take over at some point, so his constant position in the title scene created some eye-rolling - I think his eventual success with NXT and the frustration with Vince's booking (and being in charge at all) has led people to have a lot of goodwill towards HHH, and that has extended back to his years in the ring.

So when they were trying to make HHH "the guy" during what is not affectionately known as his Reign of Terror by some fans, I didn't feel it got to the level of pushback that Roman's first push generated, but it was getting there. I happen to like HHH's promo style but he tended to talk too long and never really developed a catchphrase the fans could latch onto. I think a modern comp to HHH would be a Lashley or a Drew McIntyre, great look, athletic, good at power moves, solid in the ring, a worthy one or two time champion, but not someone to build the company around for years.

Changing topics, but writing about Bret made me wonder - who here believes the Montreal Screwjob was a work that Bret and Vince were in on?  

I genuinely think there are compelling arguments for work or shoot...

Every interview I've watched about it makes it seem like a shoot. It's what made Brett so mad he actually punched Vince in the face backstage and walk out of the company. And when Brett talks about it you can see the anger and pain in his eyes and in how he talks. He even said he was warned it would happen backstage by someone. I doubt it was a work. And Vince is an actual cock munch irl, so I wouldn't put it past him to do that to someone he didn't like. 

Bret was already walking out to WCW.

There are a few things that make me wonder if Bret and Vince could have been in on it together:

1 - It is very coincidental that one of the first times Vince allowed a documentary team to peak behind the curtains happens to be when the star of the documentary is about to have an extremely theatrical/perfect ending for the documentary event occur which would definitely build interest in the doc, that is very sympathetic to the star of the doc. However, there is also evidence that Vince tried to hamper the documentary after that.

2 - It is very coincidental that it had only been 6 months earlier that Vince's role of head of WWE was acknowledged during WWE programming as the truth, and it had been brought up mainly to put forth the notion that Vince was a tough boss and a jerk. So if you want to give birth to the "Mr McMahon" character, you plant the seeds then have him be despicable to Bret, in a venue that is 100% sympathetic to the him. Granted, that was risky as you could have lost Montreal as a place that would support your product.

3 - At almost no other point in WWE history have they ever allowed their champion to keep a belt right up to their last day with company. WWE also rarely puts stuff on TV they don't have to, so the fact they let Vince be shown at ringside at the end is interesting, and that they openly addressed it on Raw the next night. Maybe they felt they had to? Maybe just leaning into it?

Of course the above could all be true without Bret's involvement - but I think it is greater than a 0% chance he was in on it.

The main reason however I would say it was not a work with Bret's involvement is that it did reverberate through the locker room negatively, and I think if it really was a work they would have admitted it to the wrestlers at that point. 

So back to thinking it was a shoot on Bret.

@fac  I think if you look hard enough you can shoot yourself into a work, to reverse the common phrase. Like, it's so important and 'worked out' so well, and became SUCH a 'thing' in the industry that it's almost hard to imagine it could have happened mostly by accident.

The reality here, in my opinion, is just that it was one of those rare cases that makes the history books where every decision was made along the way to force this conclusion. If Shawn and Bret didn't have such a problem with each other, Bret would have dropped on his way out. If Vince weren't so arrogant and stupid, he wouldn't have been blindsided by Bret wanting to leave. If Vince had trusted Bret (which he should have and was given every reason to), Bret would have dropped on RAW. If Shawn and HHH (through Shawn) hadn't had so much pull, maybe Vince would have ignored them and trusted Bret, or changed the card, or who knows.
It was just a lot of people behaving badly.
All that and the simple fact that Bret's animosity toward Vince was always extremely clear, and still is to this day. Also, I don't know a whole lot of 25-year works. Someone always breaks. Someone always needs to sell their book, or bump their podcast by 'knowing stuff' other people don't know. Having the receipts that the biggest shoot in wrestling history was actually a work would be huge. By now, someone would have capitalized on that.

In terms of great wrestlers - impact definitely matters and someone like Hogan is incredibly important because of his impact, not because of his skill. But there's also plenty of guys that are just 'right place, right time' to be considered major players even though they didn't really.. DO... anything. Triple H is definitely one of those guys. And I think, in time, what he's done for wrestling as management will vastly overshadow what he did in the ring. I think Trips really does love wrestling, and it shows in how he handles things backstage, especially when Vince isn't involved.
Black and Gold NXT was some of the best wrestling television in my lifetime. That was under Triple H, and he deserves LOTS of credit for that. I say that just so it's clear that I don't hate HHH when I say that he was a mid-level wrestler unfairly boosted to the top of the card via nepotism and 'friends in high places.' And having cool music. That never hurts.

@theknightdamien Yeah, I don't really believe it was a work as much as I think it could have been - but in the scenario where it was, it was just between Brett and Vince that Brett knew - and they worked everyone that Brett didn't know about it - in order to keep it a secret ahead of time and keep people talking about it afterwards. Because if Brett was in on it, it is not a legendary story but an instance of a great angle that would have gotten out in a few weeks if others knew Brett wasn't screwed, let alone by now. I could see Vince and Brett keeping that a secret so no one else has the receipts. 

The only reason Brett would agree? Maybe that was part of the deal for Vince to let him keep the title almost to the end (I think it was the case once Brett got the offer from WCW is that Vince told Brett he couldn't match the offer and was fine with him leaving, as WWE was struggling a bit to keep up with WCW in terms of contracts) and let him leave WWE as a hero and not someone who just left for the money. Don't think any superstar has been accused less of "selling out" than Hart was for "selling out" when it got out that Brett was getting like $3 million or whatever it was.

It just intrigues me a bit still to this day as it worked out so well (ultimately) and really set the stage for the next 10 years or more. But if I had to vote, I would say Brett was not in on it...

I don't really watch Ring of Honor (nothing against it, I just cannot devote any more regular viewing time to wrestling), but goddamn is the storyline between Johnny TV and Dalton Castle hilarious and perfect and I want to hug it.

Too bad one of ROH's biggest stars was given the green light to basically throw his ROH title in the garbage on TV, just to really drive home how utterly beneath us ROH should be perceived to be.

So stupid.

Another fun storyline that I'm really enjoying is how R-Truth thinks he is part of Judgement Day. This is the type of stupid I like and only works in wrestling.

I'll try to catchup on the Johnny TV v Dalton Castle storyline.

Interesting news about Raw going to Netflix. I assume that the PLEs will follow from Peacock at some point as it sounds like they are getting them for most of the rest of the world. Also wonder when Netflix, after hooking folks, adds a WWE tier...

So NXT will be on the CW (over the air), Smackdown on USA (basic cable), and Raw on streaming, with Peacock having the PLEs and library. I will be very curious as to how much talent overlap happens going forward across the brands. 

I never have had Netflix, even back when they were in the mailing you rental DVDs business.