Gertner thinking he could sneak those best matches by me.

The world needs to know what a carry job is. Two perfect examples of Bret being carried by better workers.

Whether you’re leaning toward historical impact or just match quality, Austin vs Bret has to be there. After that, I’d go Taker vs HBK and then Savage vs Steamboat.

Kind of a shit list overall.

I would remove half of those matches

I just realized Bret vs Owen is the SummerSlam cage match and NOT the WrestleMania X match. Weird. Makes those options even more questionable.

Joaquin Wilde was DJ Z/ Zema Ion

From the UK. Lol so good.

If they had replaced Taker vs. HBK from Mania 25 with Taker vs. HBK II from Mania 26, that would have been my third pick. Liked the streak vs. career match more than their first Maina bout. Also no clue why the Taker photo has him with the World title since he wasn't the champ at Mania 25.

If it was my list, the only post-Attitude Era match from that list I'd keep would be Taker vs. HBK. Maybe Sasha vs. Bayley as well since that arguably was the best ever women's match in WWE history and one of the best ever in NXT history.

I didn't notice that either

I like the Cena vs Punk Raw match to see who goes on to Wrestlemania better than their MITB match

HBK and Taker is probably the best match I’ve ever seen. The other ones are all great but that’s the only one I can definitively say is on my list.

Also, there’s a certain triple threat from a certain Wrestlemania that involves a certain murderer that would probably be on this list if not for said certain murder.

Hogan vs Rock at WM18 is the best match in WWE history

This. But I was at that Wrasslemania too, so idk.

I know.

I caught that and was :wtf: the SummerSlam match was the Cage Match right?

Yeah, it is regarded as a classic, but it's more polarizing than some of their other matches. Personally, I really liked it.

I think they cage match is a 5 star match and I rate the WM match just over 4. The Mania match is awesome but it's not the greatest match of all time. The story of that match evolved into the cage match at Summerslam for the blow off it's a lot more of a match to digest than the Mania match. I think you can literally see Bret editing himself in the Mania match where as at Summerslam they both really let loose on each other.

All are classic matches but I could've picked better options. Hell in a Cell Taker/Shawn should be an option. Also I'd put up Bret/Bulldog at Summerslam.

Punk/Cena is also probably a top 3 match all time for me, BUT since the idea is to only keep three and erase the rest....they pretty much butchered Punk's storyline with a month of that match so it wouldn't have the historical ramifcations.

Also I was at Takeover NY so Cole/Gargano will always have a soft spot for me because my god was that crowd electric.......but it's not even close to being as historically relevant to most of the matches on that list.

As for what I'd keep:

Getting rid of Savage/Steamboat would almost feel like getting rid of The Beatles. Every competent worker that came in in the 90s/2000s cited that match as a major influence growing up.

Bret/Austin is considered to be a major foundation layer for what was to come in the Attitude Era, was such a good hard hitting match and the image of a bloody Austin is iconic.

And then you get HBK/Taker. Protecting three Mania matches feels appropriate, especially a Streak match. Some of the best drama I've seen in a match, by this point I went into every Taker match assuming a win but by the end of it I was biting on every false finish. Shit I almost bit on Taker getting counted out when he fell back on his ass at 9 seconds. Not many matches in the last 15 years captured my attention like that one did.

For anyone that doesn't look at AEW section

https://i.imgur.com/JTGJQ4H.jpg

That's the sort of thing you can expect from a man who's entire audience is attracted by outrage.
Pretending to be a moron will make you richer than your wildest dreams.

This is what I keep saying. People viewing anything other than WWE as minor league

What not being aware of a 2nd rate company that's only popular to internet nerds?

It doesn’t need to be that way, but these “alternatives” make it so.

Feels like there is no good way to do it TBH.


Do stuff that isn't like WWE - you aren't good enough


Do stuff like WWE - get off their nuts.




What would make it NOT that?

Nothing. That's why I've maintained that AEW hit its ceiling in week 1. It's a niche audience of a niche audience.

So what makes it that then? Strictly the talent?

Brand recognition.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/TheLapsedFan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheLapsedFan</a> I finally found one of the most elusive titles from the Coliseum Video collection! The Best of the WWF’s Stanky ‘Staches! Can’t wait to throw this bad boy into the VCR. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/lapsed?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#lapsed</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/lustinyourmoustache?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#lustinyourmoustache</a> <a href="https://t.co/HZgYWte9Sm">pic.twitter.com/HZgYWte9Sm</a></p>&mdash; Chromaslam (@Chromaslam) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chromaslam/status/1271536500434485255?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

OMFG Smeat what a find lol

As far as AEW goes...

It's been a yr. They have a solid base, but Gertner is mostly right. They've peaked for now with their audience.

They could potentially grow but it's going to take years and they need something different to gain a bigger audience or take War's loyalists away. I have no idea how they do that.

Honestly, I thought Covid 19 was going to be a boon to AEW's and NXT's ratings, but it really hasn't done anything

The lack of crowd did them no favors. The energy just isn't the same and because AEW was limited on talent, the amount of storytelling they could do was limited. I don't recall the tag or women's titles being used at all.

I also think covid took a lot of eyes away and moved them to getting news via tv and social media.

I figured the lack of sports alone would have drawn more eyes

Pretty much this.

AEW and NXT being more action oriented meant they had the most to lose with the loss of crowds. AEW tried to mitigate that with wrestlers as the crowd but that was more of a stop gap than a real solution.

Combine that with news saturation on a level not seen in a long while and you end up with the perfect condition for people being pre-occupied or in no mood for wrestling even with the lack of sports. It did seem like things were starting to turn around a bit but then another major wave of news saturation hit with the police brutality protests and riots.

That was the big assumption from the Observer and others but outside of the first week or two, that ended up not being the case at least in terms of live viewers. DVR numbers held up better for a while before crashing down.

Didn't help WWE resisted adapting to the situation until it was way too late which just made everything worse. That's the one downside of WWE having an iron grip over US wrestling and the mainstream equating them with wrestling.

Lol didn't the Korean Baseball League on ESPN draw something like 175,000 viewers on a 2am spot on a Tuesday last month

I mean, that's baseball. Teams are getting 100s of millions of dollars annually plus ad revenue on regional sport networks. The average baseball attendance live gate is like 20k I think. You can't compare wrestling to that.

I also think there was a thirst for the sports deprived fan from not having anything to watch. I'm too lazy to see if I heldupbut I wonder if the KBO ratings moved at all one way or the other.

Probably not at least in regards of viewership gains since ESPN stopped revealing their ratings numbers for KBO games after the first night or so.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jk6T74T-0xg" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A few thoughts.

1. Chris Champion looks like he'd fit right in with the AEW crowd.
2. I get this feeling that, after this match, Kevin told Rick to do that nasty looking clothesline more often. And the Steiner-line was born.