[Mr. Dashbee]

Week 10 dominated again by AJ….Mr. Styles (if you’re nasty!) lapped the field. In a small bit of news, RAW no-showed the 12-Pack this week![/b]

Pun's House 12-Pack Week 10[/u]

I, again, apologize in advance, I finished traveling this week, and won’t be able to get the comments up yet again. I promise they will return, with an even bigger vengeance, next week. I can only beg for your forgiveness…

1. AJ Styles (15 votes / 11 first place votes / 83.5 points)

2. Samoa Joe (10/1/42)

3. Kurt Angle (11/0/39)

4. Christian Cage (7/0/23)

5. Kaz (7/2/19.5)

6. Awesome Kong (& Raesha Saeed) (7/0/19.5)

7. LAX of Homicide, Hernandez, Hector & Salinas (7/0/18)

8. Tyler Black (& The Age of the Fall of Jimmy Jacobs & The Necro Butcher) (3/0/15)

9. Petey Williams (4/0/11)

10. TIE - The Beautiful People of Angelina Love, Velvet Sky & Moose (5/0/9)

10. TIE - Batista (3/0/9)

12. TIE - CM Punk (2/1/

12. TIE - Booker T (2/1/


Others receiving votes: Shelton Benjamin, Vickie Guerrero (1 fpv), John Morrison & The Miz (1 fpv), Matt Sydal, Kevin Steen & El Generico, Trevor Murdoch, Kofi Kingston, Karen Angle, Roderick Strong, Erick Stevens, Chris Jericho, Jeff Hardy, John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge, Tomko, John Cena, George “The Animal Steele”

Notes:
- 17 voters…you bastards scared off OO’s jno!
- TNA dominated with 10 spots (of 13 due to ties). ROH makes a rare appearance in the 12-Pack. Not cracking the top 12???? Anyone from RAW!
- 30 talents in all included, including a near miss by a dead guy.

Watch out for some more great stuff from Sergei & Demko. Great for numbers geeks liky myself, anyway!

Discuss away!

[iamdoug]

That should tell you something about the stagnanant state of raw, where not even one person could stand out enough to make the 12 pack, yet two ties where able to occur.

[Byrntrigan]

Raw got Rick Rolled and noone even mentioned it. Because it's a crappy show. Even the people who do watch the WWE didn't mention it (the entire show)

[Batman]

Rank	1	2	3	4	5	5	7	8	9	10	10	12	12
Week 10 12-Pack	A. J. Styles	Samoa Joe	Kurt Angle	Christian Cage	Kong / Saeed	Kaz	LAX (Homicide & Hernandez & Salinas & Hector)	Age of the Fall (any member)	Petey Williams	The Beautiful People (Sky / Love / Moose)	Batista	Booker T	C. M. Punk
Brand	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	ROH	TNA	TNA	SD!	TNA	ECW
Points	83.5	42	39	23	19.5	19.5	18	15	11	9	9	8	8
Votes	15	10	11	7	7	7	7	3	4	5	3	2	2
FPVs	11	1				2							1
G-B		4						5
Lucky	5		3			6	1			1
bd	6		5	3			4			2
firewoman
TheDead	6	3	4	5		1			2
snelson66	6		5	3	1		4						2
metallikid
ultimatejobber	6	3				2		5
Attitude Adjuster	2.5	6	2.5		5						1	4
Tommy D420	6		3	5	2				4
needsmorecowbell
jetskid48											5		6
paddler
Sergei	6		5		4
wld	6	5		3	4		2
psmitty
dxb	6	5	4			2	3			1
iamdoug	6	5	3			2	1		4
DevilSoprano	6	4	0.5	2	0.5			5		3
blackdragon
TheDemko	6	5			3	0.5				2		4
Creepy	5			2			3
Produce	5	2	4			6			1		3
jno

[/tr][/table]

Wow, WWE only took 10th and 12th. I don't think they've ever performed that poorly before. It was a TNA PPV week, though.

[Batman]

Jun 12, 2008 10:29:10 GMT -5 Byrntrigan said:

Raw got Rick Rolled and noone even mentioned it. Because it's a crappy show. Even the people who do watch the WWE didn't mention it (the entire show)

That's the Week 11 Raw, dxb. And even if the show as a whole wasn't great, I'd be shocked if Jericho's awesome heel turn doesn't get him ranked next week.

[Batman]

Rank	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Change						1	-1	4		-2	-1	3
Week 10 12-Pack Cumulative	A. J. Styles	Samoa Joe	Shawn Michaels	LAX (Homicide / Hernandez / Salinas / Hector)	Kurt Angle	Steiner / Williams	William Regal	Christian Cage	C. M. Punk	Ric Flair	Edge	Awesome Kong
Brand	TNA	TNA	Raw	TNA / JAPW	TNA	TNA	Raw	TNA	ECW		SD!	TNA
Points	350	294	222.5	218	184	142.5	139.5	130	129	126.5	121	115.5
Votes	85	66	57	62	51	38	39	46	36	25	30	38
FPVs	30	25	11	15	3	5	8	2	8	17	11	4
G-B	13	16	7.5	7.5	7	5	10		7	6	6	5.5
Lucky	13.5	12.5	15.5	18	15	10.5	6.5	3	8	6	5.5	5.5
bd	26	12	5.5	14	14	7	6	4.5	16.5	7	5.5	5
firewoman	0.5	5	9		6			0.5	3	5
TheDead	36	29	2	12	10	7	1	16	13	6	9	7
snelson66	17	12	9.5	6	7			16.5	2	6	5	4.5
metallikid	5.5	6	13	6	5	5	6	1	10	6	10	1
ultimatejobber	12	9	14	8	5	5	25	0.5	5	6	7	5.5
Attitude Adjuster	24.5	15.5	5.5	8	9.5	9	5.5	2	3	12	9.5	16
Tommy D420	20.5	10.5	6	16	19	12	1	19		5.5		8
needsmorecowbell	4	11	6	6	5	2	4	3	3	6	2	5
jetskid48	0.5	6	20	5	4	2.5	13	0.5	8	6.5	9.5
paddler			5						3	6
Sergei	13.5	22	27	2	19.5	5	14		5	10	9.5	13
wld	26	16	10.5	10	5	10	20	8	5	6	9.5	12.5
psmitty	0.5	6	9.5		4	3	9		4.5	5	9
dxb	23.5	24	5	24	10	10		2	13	6	6	2
iamdoug	25	22	11	23	13	11		15	4	4	9	2
DevilSoprano	16	18	14	11.5	7	4.5	0.5	16.5	8	5		4.5
blackdragon	3		5							6		2
TheDemko	18.5	15	6.5	8	6	10	13	0.5	2	0.5		9.5
Creepy	25	7	11	25	1	10	3	7				7
Produce	26	19.5	2.5	8	12	14	2	14.5	6		3
jno			2								6

[/tr][/table]

Kong displaced Jericho from the bottom of the Cumulative top 12, changing the WWE/TNA proportion to 5/7.

Flair is going, going....

Rank	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	11
Change				1	2	-2	3	3	-1	9	9	-2
Week 10 12-Pack 6-Week Running	A. J. Styles	LAX (Homicide / Hernandez / Salinas / Hector)	Samoa Joe	Awesome Kong	Booker T	Edge	The Beautiful People (Sky / Love / Moose)	Steiner / Williams	Gail Kim	Kaz	Kurt Angle	The Undertaker
Brand	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	SD!	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	TNA	SD!
Points	266	176	137.5	113.5	90.5	83.5	82.5	80	71.5	68	67.5	67.5
Votes	51	46	36	37	24	17	30	22	19	20	22	16
FPVs	29	15	5	4	2	11		5	7	3	1	5
G-B	11	7	7	5.5		6	16		5.5	5		3
Lucky	11	12	4	5.5		5.5	11.5	6	6.5	8	7.5	5.5
bd	18	11	6	5		5.5	9	3	6.5	3	5	5.5
firewoman
TheDead	23	10	18	7	11	6	4	2	5	3	5	4
snelson66	12	4	6	4.5	5	5	4		3		5	2
metallikid	4	6		1	7	6	9			3		5
ultimatejobber	12	8	3	5.5	3	7			4.5	7		5
Attitude Adjuster	17.5	6	6	16	4	6	7	6	2	5	5.5
Tommy D420	17	10		8	5			10	2		9.5
needsmorecowbell		6	5	5	5		3	2	6	5
jetskid48		5			2	5.5		0.5				6.5
paddler
Sergei	13.5	2	12	13	4	5		4	5		10.5	6
wld	20	10	10	12.5	8	5.5		10	5.5			5.5
psmitty
dxb	22	17	16	2	7	6	2	5	6	7	4	3
iamdoug	18	15	10	2	5	6	2	6	6	7	3	5
DevilSoprano	13	11	10	4.5	10		13	4.5		0.5	3
blackdragon
TheDemko	16	8	10	9.5	4		2	7	5.5	2.5		4
Creepy	18	20	1	7				5	2		1
Produce	20	8	13.5		10.5	2.5		9	0.5	12	8.5	2.5
jno						6						5

[/tr][/table]

Kaz and Angle knocked Punk and Regal off the 6-Week top 12, eliminating the only presence of Raw and ECW. The proportion is now 10/2, TNA/SD!, and the SD! presence is based almost entirely on the TLC match last week....

[Batman]

Here's the brand rankings:

ROH beat both SD! and Raw!!!

Rank	1	2	3	4	5
Week 10 Brand	TNA	ECW	ROH	SD!	Raw
Points	277	30	25	16	9
Votes	78	10	7	5	6
FPVs	14	2		1
G-B	4		11	6
Lucky	16	5
bd	20	1
firewoman
TheDead	21
snelson66	19	2
metallikid
ultimatejobber	11		9	1
Attitude Adjuster	20			1
Tommy D420	20				1
needsmorecowbell
jetskid48		13		5	3
paddler
Sergei	18	2			1
wld	20	1
psmitty
dxb	21
iamdoug	21
DevilSoprano	16		5
blackdragon
TheDemko	21
Creepy	11	6			4
Produce	18			3
jno

[/tr][/table]

Rank	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	9
Week 10 Brand Ranks Cumulative	TNA	Raw	SD!	ECW	ROH	WWE	PWG	JAPW	SHIMMER	NWA
Points	2258	681	558	257.5	74	29	3	1.5	1	1
Votes	645	203	155	81	28	14	3	1	1	1
FPVs	110	32	35	16	2	2
G-B	108.5	47.5	40.5	7.5	12.5	0.5	2
Lucky	130.5	25.5	29	17.5	0.5	1.5		1.5
bd	125.5	25	35.5	23.5		2
firewoman	18	10	7	7
TheDead	186	3	15	13	4
snelson66	100.5	17	12	2
metallikid	59	56	49	16
ultimatejobber	80	71	55	6	9	1
Attitude Adjuster	142	30.5	23	14	8.5	6
TommyD420	143	13.5	17	5.5
needsmorecowbell	58	10	12	4
jetskid48	23	93	51.5	44.5		3.5
paddler		6	12	3
Sergei	90	62.5	41.5	7	0.5	7
wld	142	38	28.5	7		1
psmitty	27	34.5	29	6.5		6
dxb	182	5	12	14	1
iamdoug	167	19	19	7
DevilSoprano	128.5	20	12	8	38		1		1	1
blackdragon	9	5	6	1
TheDemko	103.5	41.5	22	6.5		0.5
Creepy	100	29		31
Produce	135	17.5	20.5	6
jno		1	9

[/tr][/table]

Rank	1	2	3	4	6	5	7	8	8
Week 10 Brand Ranks 6-Week Running	TNA	Raw	SD!	ECW	ROH	WWE	PWG	SHIMMER	NWA
Points	1328.5	230.5	194.5	96.5	29	8.5	3	1	1
Votes	368	78	56	27	9	5	3	1	1
FPVs	73	6	13	9
G-B	63	20	17		12		2
Lucky	79.5	6.5	9.5	5		0.5
bd	74	10	15.5	6		1
firewoman
TheDead	110		6
snelson66	49.5	12	5	2
metallikid	36	12	19	8
ultimatejobber	49	30	28	1	9
Attitude Adjuster	88	14	7	10
TommyD420	72	2
needsmorecowbell	37	5
jetskid48	8	40.5	24	35.5		3
paddler
Sergei	63.5	18	17	2		3
wld	88	14	7.5	1		1
psmitty
dxb	103		6
iamdoug	92	9	6
DevilSoprano	86.5	7			8		1	1	1
blackdragon
TheDemko	71	11	8
Creepy	62	9		26
Produce	96.5	9.5	10
jno		1	9

[/tr][/table]

[Byrntrigan]

Jun 12, 2008 10:37:01 GMT -5 Batman said:

Jun 12, 2008 10:29:10 GMT -5 Byrntrigan said:

Raw got Rick Rolled and noone even mentioned it. Because it's a crappy show. Even the people who do watch the WWE didn't mention it (the entire show)

That's the Week 11 Raw, dxb. And even if the show as a whole wasn't great, I'd be shocked if Jericho's awesome heel turn doesn't get him ranked next week.

Ahh, you are correct. Anyone have the youtube of that handy?

[bdbdbd]

[Byrntrigan]

Jun 12, 2008 12:03:34 GMT -5 bdbdbd said:

Sorry - I meant the Jericho turn.

[Lucky]

Yeah, Jericho will get ranked this week for sure. Beyond that nothing stood out this week on RAW to me but I basically skipped the main event so maybe HHH and Hardy. And the women could make it, I guess. I enjoyed Sydal/Kofi vs Shelton/Knox so that's in my head from ECW.

WWE's running real bad right now and even its biggest fans seem to agree. Since WM HBK has basically been at the centerpiece of the only interesting stuff with some small additions from the undercard. A match stands out here or there, especially on a PPV week, but I think its hard to feel bad that RAW no-showed the week. RAW sucked ass last week and doesn't seem likely to get much better until after the draft/Night of Champions at least.

Maybe only 2 spots of 13 was a bit of an exaggeration, but hey. We do have a clear TNA bias in this.

[bdbdbd]

Be more freakin' clear next time!

[Byrntrigan]

Jun 12, 2008 18:53:25 GMT -5 bdbdbd said:

Be more freakin' clear next time!

Thanks for the compliment?!?

BTW - thanks for the video of Jericho's turn. That's bad ass...

Who knew the Jeritron 3000 was a crappy prop from IKEA?

[Mr. Dashbee]

The 6-Week Rolling is a very telling list. 2 spots for SD! and the rest is TNA? I'm torn. I know we have a TNA bias here, and I also know that the WWE has reeked of suckiness. But is it THAT bad?

[DevSop]

Yes.

[Fire-Babe]

THANK YOU for the Jericho video.

Now that the play offs are over, as is the period of mourning thereafter, I get to play again!

[Batman]

Jun 13, 2008 14:14:39 GMT -5 Mr. Dashbee said:

The 6-Week Rolling is a very telling list. 2 spots for SD! and the rest is TNA?

And it should be kept in mind that those two are there on the strength of just one great match.

[Lucky]

Obviously its a little fair and a little unfair. We do have the bias so its going to be exaggerated. But I think even Skids has agreed of late that WWE has flat out sucked. Their ratings are at alarming lows, their brain trusts are clearly panicking. Most of the stories that had any interest were tied up or dragged out the last few weeks. Its clear that WWE itself is waiting for the Draft to really change much up. So it doesn't seem unreasonable at all that WWE has very little representation. 2 of 12 on the weight of one match? Yeah, that's probably a bit much. But its not like there's a standout performer that you can really make the case for as missing.

And a lot of it is timing. I mean the 6 week is interesting for its timing. This particular cycle covers 2 TNA PPVs. Which means Kaz is on because of Terror Dome, KotM, and a nice PPV match with Petey. But as soon as those Terror Dome votes fall off the cycle he probably falls off the rankings. Kaz is up there (I think) on the strength of 2 weeks in the 6. But a guy like Punk who more consistently has a good showing is going to spend more time on the 6 week list than Kaz is.

WWE's big problem seems that it lacks more guys like Punk who put out really good weeks regularly even when they aren't the stars or did something special or had a great match. Which again, probably goes back to WWE's lack of a midcard and lack of any real stories at the moment. I mean their IC and US champs don't even consistently do anything of note. Those are the guys who are gonna stick around like LAX, the Beautiful People, or AJ (I think) and then get pushes from big weeks and great matches. Matt Hardy might have a big week next week but it won't change the fact that he was absent for the last few weeks.

[jetskid48]

Jun 14, 2008 0:45:32 GMT -5 Lucky said:

Obviously its a little fair and a little unfair. We do have the bias so its going to be exaggerated. But I think even Skids has agreed of late that WWE has flat out sucked.

Stagnant. I said stagnant.

Btw, I have no real idea how to take the results each week anymore. If I had to put out a number for how to start looking at this stuff, I'd say at least 60% of the people that actually do this are pro-TNA and generally vote 95-100% that way. Then there's about 30% that are the "enlightened people" in the middle that try to find the quality anywhere, but at this moment are more into the TNA product, and thus, lean towards them a bit more, then there's the one or two pro-WWE fans left, like me, that are going to give them the benefit of the doubt all the time.

So when I see 10-2 or whatever the voting is this week, I don't really find it to be amazing or whatever comes out. Sure, there have been weeks when WWE has "won", but the chances are that a PPV and an above average week have to happen so that enough of there guys can get through with those who wouldn't normally vote WWE. I actually see myself wrong a few weeks ago when I said that because WWE has many more shows, odds are that they will win some weeks; it's more that things should go by the people who are proTNA:proWWE percentage more often than not and deviate by the 25% of people that are in the middle. So when I see 10-2, its a good week for TNA, probably in the same way I'd see 7-5 or 6-6 as a good week for WWE. I guess widening the voting pool would have been the only way to make it a little more representative, which is why I'm a little disappointed it didn't catch on over at OO to add the results.

Either way, I don't expect many "good" WWE weeks for a while...at least until they stop with the million dollar crap that puts off so many of the smarks here, including me.

[Lucky]

You're 60% doesn't look true at all from the awesome tables and graphs Serg and Demko have been giving us. At least if you think those "60%" are "95-100%" TNA. I mean I vote TNA hard but clearly not that much. Your numbers are pretty bad exaggerations or are destroyed by the numbers present.

I think simply chalking a "10-2" week up to "a good week for TNA" is silly. Obviously there are enough voters who at least consider WWE performers that WWE needs to have a bad week as well. Its hard to argue that all things even TNA's not getting the clear edge from most here. But 10-2 WAS a noticeable thrashing because it hasn't happened before. In the week of Lockdown WWE did better than they did this past week. And on the average week WWE can easily take a top spot or 3-5 spots. The big difference thus far has been TNA rounding out rankings, not dominating them. I'm sure Jericho will find himself a very respectable spot on the rankings this week and could challenge for #1, I think (and that's without wrestling a match). But its other guys getting on that's going to be the problem. With not standout performances liked by many WWE's going to have a hard time getting guys with multiple votes.

Which is the big thing. If every ballot includes 2 WWE wrestlers it wouldn't matter if they were all different WWE wrestlers. If you loved Batista and Miz/Morrisson this week and I loved Sydal and Benjamin and Dev loved MVP and Punk and Serg loved HHH and Hardy and GB loved Finlay and Matt Hardy... They'd be lucky for any of them to make the showdown if everyone else was voting the same core of Jericho, MCMG, Speed Muscle, etc. THAT's where the TNA bias has shown through because the same supporting players in TNA have consistently gotten votes from multiple people (LAX, Steiner/Petey, Beautiful People, etc) while WWE's only consistent has been Punk.

I also think there's a MVP, M. Hardy, and Finlay fanbase here but they haven't been used much of this run. Just like Punk really could have 1st and 2nd place rankings if he hasn't been totally directionless this entire time. Or how Regal and Jeff Hardy would probably be ranking very highly if they didn't get suspended. There's a lot of factors here. Just dismissing "60%" of the voters as "95%" pro-TNA seems ridiculous simplistic and unfair.

[Byrntrigan]

Also, as someone who admittedly doesn't watch WWE unless other's I respect point me to some cool match or whatnot then it really boils down to one thing for me....

WWE burned off almost 100% of my loyalty with all their stupidity and bullshit. That's not to say that TNA hasn't done some boneheaded shit, but they consistently have had good wrestling and kept the stupid to a minimum.

I respect your opinions and all, but if you want to drum up more support for WWE then get more people in OO to participate, or somehow make Vince and co. get better wrestling consistently on their 5+ hours of TV.

Cause when the thing that most people talk about is that Vince McMahon is an out-of touch doddering old man and get's "Rickrolled", that's a bad thing...

I really REALLY want WWE to be good and to make me take them back, but they have burned me so many times. I don't want to keep telling people I fell into a doorknob anymore...

[Mr. Dashbee]

Jun 16, 2008 1:26:13 GMT -5 Byrntrigan said:

"Rickrolled"

Okay, what the fuck does this mean? I've seen it too many times now.

[Lucky]

Its an internet meme. For some reason a tradition popped up on the web to tell someone you have some awesome video and instead link them to a video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." You click it expecting the new trailer for the Dark Knight or leaked footage of the Cloverfield monster and you get Rick. It became very popular and was dubbed "RickRolled." As in "You got rickrolled." It got so popular it moved off of the web. One notable example is that the Mets held a vote online for the fans to pick a theme song to play during every game and a website got Astley's song to win, thus rickrolling the Mets.

The first dude Vince called had Astley as his callback. He rickrolled Vince. And to all of our amusement Vince was so befuddled by it he hung up on the guy thus truly being tricked.

[jetskid48]

Jun 16, 2008 1:26:13 GMT -5 Byrntrigan said:

Also, as someone who admittedly doesn't watch WWE unless other's I respect point me to some cool match or whatnot then it really boils down to one thing for me....

WWE burned off almost 100% of my loyalty with all their stupidity and bullshit. That's not to say that TNA hasn't done some boneheaded shit, but they consistently have had good wrestling and kept the stupid to a minimum.

I respect your opinions and all, but if you want to drum up more support for WWE then get more people in OO to participate, or somehow make Vince and co. get better wrestling consistently on their 5+ hours of TV.

Cause when the thing that most people talk about is that Vince McMahon is an out-of touch doddering old man and get's "Rickrolled", that's a bad thing...

I really REALLY want WWE to be good and to make me take them back, but they have burned me so many times. I don't want to keep telling people I fell into a doorknob anymore...

I wasn't trying to drum up any support to the WWE side with my argument, I was just saying that if there's people like you that have burned out on WWE programming and basically do what you do, watch TNA every week, and then only wait to see if anyone says anything great about a match on WWEtv, then the natural inclination is always going to be towards TNA, especially if your not watching the whole WWE product to see if you find anything yourself that you would enjoy.

That by far does not mean you should watch Raw or anything like that, I'm just saying that if there are more people here that enjoy TNA first, than enjoy WWE first, then things have a better chance of being pushed towards the TNA side, or that it would take more than the usual to get a "WWE win" in a given week. It's like if you were testing a new medicine and your test group beat out the sugar pill group, except you had 10 people testing the medicine and only 5 still on the sugar pills and you counted up how many of each side got better.

It's not to say anyone is wrong or right, its just looking at where the data comes from and figuring out how to take the data and make it work for my own head. I never said it wasn't a win for TNA, I just figure that in some way, with the amount of people watching TNA exclusively, or watching the WWE programming only when they hear something, maybe a 7-5 outcome is what should happen each week if all things are even.



But then again, I look at Lucky's argument, that there are certain fans of certain guys in WWE it becomes a problem of getting enough support for certain guys when only few votes go per person to WWE and they're not going to the same people, while TNA knows its getting votes for the Beautiful People and Kong by a bigger spectrum.


Either way, its stuff like this that shows that the 12-pack works because we can look at this data in so many ways and everyone looks at it a bit differently, spurring discussion, which is good. I dunno, maybe the negativity of the week got to me...eh...one good thing...there's always next week. And its here now.

[Lucky]

Interesting observation (at least to me) I made today as it relates to this thread.

I've visited another wrestling board over the years besides OO, thesmarkmarks, largely because 4 or 5 years ago it was the only place I could find for decent TNA conversation or coverage. Over the years its ironically become a VERY anti-TNA board while it generally is very supportive for WWE. I mean like "This million dollar giveaway might be genius" and "The Era of Orton was one of the best things to happen to the WWE Title in a long time." So when OO went down I started to read and post more there and my opinions just got reinforced. In fact, there was a bit of a board renaissance at that time and they tried to "fix" the wrestling boards which had gone stagnate, but 2 weeks in the TNA board was abandoned because all it managed to do was draw in piles of critics who were filling every thread with rants and completely killing the interest of the TNA fans as it had in the past. Meanwhile the WWE board has "prospered" under these changes as the interest level is much higher and when there are unabashed critics they are usually taken to task if they are unfair or repetitive. And sometimes even if they're not (there are a couple of prominent posters who feel there has never been anything wrong with Cena).

So anyway, I was under the impression that they were actually enjoying WWE at the moment just from reading threads about the shows and whatever. Posting was down a bit but its the summer and WWE isn't terribly inspired, but there were very few negative comments I was reading and enough positive on a wide range. But yesterday someone started a thread title "What in WWE is NOT stale?" and much to my surprise there was no backlash. In fact, they all listed the exact same things we've listed as interest in the company. And they all seem to be struggling to enjoy or watch WWE at the moment. Dibiase, Sydal, Miz/Morrison, Edge, the Divas, Jericho/HBK/Batista. Same stuff we've all said. I was shocked because there were quite a few posters I expected to make the argument that WWE was fine and compelling and really attack the critics. But some of them were actually saying WWE is hard/impossible to watch right now.

For the most part. There was one poster who loves everything in WWE, thinks Miz/Morrison is the greatest tag team in the world, The Smackdown Divas Championship is awesome, and Mark Henry and Chuck Palumbo are awesome. But that was to be expected as he also believes that JBL and Umaga are better than Samoa Joe, who along with Kurt Angle and Christian Cage is quite shitty and forgettable.

But my long rambling point is that even this board that I consider to be pro-WWE and to constantly choose WWE over TNA (one comment clearly said "At least its not TNA") felt WWE was really sucking at the moment. And while I don't think they'd ever admit it I think the limited negativity in the TNA section the last couple of months and the silly arguments being made (the aforementioned "Joe sucks") is kind of a good sign that even if TNA isn't being praised (noone felt the need to say anything about MCMG/Speed Muscle) its not giving them much to criticize at the moment.

Obviously it probably means little to any of you, but this is going a long way for me to supporting the idea that WWE really IS just bottoming out at the moment and while our inherent bias might exaggerate it the actual WWE vs TNA battle is leaning this way at the moment. Although not on that board. WWE is still better than TNA even if its unwatchable. TNA is the worst wrestling ever.