The Thread Killer

I have to admit I'm probably just being bitchy because I've been dealing with same damn flu for over a week and it won't go away. I have a wicked cough and recurring fever and it seems to be making me crabby. Well...crabbier than normal. Stuff I usually shrug off or ignore seems to be getting under my skin for some reason. I chewed out a clerk at Staples earlier today, which is not at all like me. (The kid totally deserved it, but I usually don't bother arguing in those types of situations.) No offense to anybody here if I was being abrasive. Especially the French!

I can try that. How many words was your post?

You would have to do that in order to make an all women's show work and be taken seriously. We all saw what happened when they gave the Cruiserweights their own show on the Network. It got treated as an afterthought. I don't know enough about the ratings breakdowns, but I think the men's and women's segments do pretty much the same ratings now, don't they? I don't see any good argument against giving the women their own show, provided it doesn't get treated the way 205 Live did/does.

I am well aware of the fact that entertainment has always made political statements, I watched Star Trek and read Comic Books. Also, I'm not an idiot. But thanks for the history lesson, all the same. If you don't think the amount of political rhetoric from the entertainment industry and media in general has increased over the past few years, and if you don't think it's reasonable for somebody to want to have a place where they don't have to hear about politics all the damn time, then I don't know what to tell you. I agreed with the original poster "WrestlingFan." In my opinion, it would be nice to come to place called ProWrestlingOnly, and read the thread which is supposed to be discussing WWE TV for that week, without having to ALSO hear about what some dumbass politician in a country I don't live in thinks about climate change. I like KawadaSmile, but I don't really care about the political situation in Brazil. Hell, I don't care about the political situation in America either, for that matter. I'm Canadian, we have our own problems, which I also don't care all that much about. But maybe for fun, next week I'll start the WWE thread, and title it: "WWE TV 12/3 - 12/10: JUSTIN TRUDEAU IS STILL NEGOTIATING REVISED TRADE AGREEMENT WITH TRUMP."

I'm starting to think there is nowhere you can go anymore to escape hearing about politics and people's opinions thereon. Can't go on Social Media, can't turn on the Television or watch a movie, and now you can't even go to PWO. Entertainment used to be escapism, but not so much anymore.

Did anybody else listen to Jericho's interview with Ricky Steamboat from last week's show? It was recorded on that cruise that Jericho hosted a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Nothing groundbreaking, but I had no idea Steamboat wasn't a fan of Dusty - or of how Dusty was booking him in JCP, at least - and that's why he left and went to the WWF. It was fun hearing Jericho gush about Steamboat and I always think it's nice when guys as big as Jericho don't mind admitting what big fans they were and who influenced them. I am curious to see if the live interview he did with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler on the cruise will end up being broadcast on his show at a later date as well.

Yeah, I agree with you. During the Regal episode when they previewed the SS98 show, Conrad was talking about what a great show it was and was praising the "storytelling." I almost fell off my couch. I can actually remember ordering Survivor Series 98, watching it and thinking the show was shit - especially the stupid "swerve" ending. When a show is so bad you can remember how much you hated it 20 years later, you know it sucked. This episode of STW is doubtless going to end up as the ultimate example of Prichard's tired old "We were telling a story!" line. I can live a long happy life without ever hearing that line again as an excuse for crappy matches. You and others who have mentioned this are right - STW seems to be permanently stuck in 1998 and are mining that year for every last pebble. It seems to me like they are running out of content.

That was also the night Vince told Bret he could no longer afford his contract and telling him he was free to negotiate with WCW, setting the wheels in motion for the Montreal Screwjob and the birth of the Mr. McMahon character. Didn't happen on screen I know, but it was that night, backstage at MSG.

I hope this thread gets a lot of input - especially from other PWO members whose opinions I respect - so I can cherry-pick what to check out from 2018. Otherwise I may end up missing out on seeing the good stuff that actually happened during the past calendar year, because I don't have the time, patience or resources to wade through a ton of crap just to find the decent stuff. The aforementioned NXT matches stood out to me, as long as you mute the sound so you don't have to listen to Mauro Ranallo. But sadly, I can't make any recommendations of my own. I saw one or two of the "big" WWE shows in 2018, and most of the NXT shows. I watched a bit of Impact. Aside from that, 99.9% of my wrestling viewing over the past year has been matches from the 90's, in either All Japan or FMW. Having said that, I can't imagine much beating that Almas/Gargano match.

Yes, that is what he says he was yelling. "Youth." As I recall, he claimed at the time he started doing it, he was young and was doing it as a way of making a rebellious statement. Here is an excerpt from a review of the Stan Hansen episode of "Back to the Territories" with Jim Cornette. The review was done for 411 by PWO's own Mike Campbell.

That's right, Back to the Territories and if I'm not mistaken he also mentioned it when he did that episode of Legends with JBL.

I just hope we never see the narrative getting pushed anywhere that the reason Becky Lynch is so hot right now is because she's made some sort of improvement recently. She hasn't improved, she's pretty much been this good for ages now, they've just never gave her a damn chance until recently. They finally gave her the damn ball, and what do you know - she ran with it. I'd love to think this might make them take a second look at other people on the roster (men and women) who they've been sitting on, and help them decide to give other people a chance, but I doubt it. Hell, I keep waiting for them to yank the rug out from underneath poor Becky again...they've done it to her and so many others so many times in the past. You're not wrong about the quality of the card, but I can't look forward to this show. The card is a classic case of looks being deceiving. It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that AJ is getting fed to Lesnar - again. (You have to keep your part timer strong, after all.) I agree AoP/Bar should rule, but I have no confidence in WWE giving them the time they deserve. Raw this week amply illustrated how they view the Tag Division as an afterthought, when one guy took out the entire division for no real reason. Besides, you have to save lots of time on this show for the Shane vs. Steph angle that nobody gives a crap about. And I have no doubt Ali/Murphy gets shunted to the pre-show and pretty much ignored. In my humble opinion, the only match which has potential to steal the show is Becky and Ronda, but now rumor has it that might be scrapped. This company has burned me one too many times over the past few years for me to get interested in one of their Pay Per Views, regardless of how good the card looks on paper. I keep in mind the total shit-show that was the Main Event of Hell in the Cell. That's the kind of mess I expect from them now.

I am a big William Regal fan, so I listened to this past week's episode. I found it pretty bland and unremarkable, really. Maybe because most of the information that was presented is already out there from the interviews Regal himself has done on the Austin and Jericho podcasts, I don't know. Maybe this show has fallen off or maybe it has settled into a tired routine, but it really didn't seem to have any spark to it, it was like Conrad and Bruce were both just going through the motions. I used to listen to this show because it made me laugh and I'd occasionally learn something I didn't know. Aside from the details about Regal passing out during his first meeting with Vince McMahon (!?) like I said, this didn't really cover any new ground, and I think I laughed twice in the three hour show. It''s kind of sad that at this point, Eric Bischoff is doing Prichard's show better than Prichard.

I remember that guy! When I was a kid I saw an article in one of the Apter mags hyping "The Terminator" and acknowledging that he was Animal's brother - but then I never saw him wrestle anywhere after seeing the magazine article. I remember he was pretty muscular from the pictures with the article, his physique was not unlike Animal's. He wasn't super ripped and well defined, but you could tell he spent a lot of time in the gym, he was kind of wide and barrel-chested like Animal is. Years later, I heard Animal's brother was wrestling in WCW as part of a team with Shane Douglas, and I thought to myself "Hey, I wonder if that is that big Terminator guy I saw in the magazine, finally catching on someplace." Then I saw Johnny Ace, and I thought "Either that's a different brother - or that dude REALLY let himself go." EDIT: Just googled him and found this picture...it's sad that there are three brothers and freaking Animal has the best haircut.

Good episode of The Experience this week. Jim runs down the "Top Ten Draws of the 20th Century" and the list is very interesting, with some results that surprised me, to be honest. He also does an interesting piece on the history of Managers in Pro Wrestling. Best of all, he agreed to not rant about politics for the entire show. Instead, he announces that he will focus on wrestling for the main part of the episode, and then close the show with a political rant regarding the election results at the very end, so that listeners who don't want to hear it can turn the show off without having to hear it. Obviously, his fans have been complaining that they don't like their wrestling talk interspersed with insane rants about Donald Trump. Good stuff, for the content and the format change. Also, he announced his new YouTube channel is coming soon, which will include complete episodes not just clips.

They should go one step further and get rid of the whole third hour. That mess is so long it's practically unwatchable, as it is right now.

How the hell have I never seen this match until today? I am a big Hayabusa/FMW fan, and I love 90's AJPW. For some reason, I had a major gap in my viewing and never sought out this match. I guess it was never included on any compilation I purchased from Tabe back in the day, nor did I add it when asking Mr. JL to create custom AJPW comps for me later on. What a glaring oversight on my part. What a fun match. Not an all time classic, but worth seeing based on the novelty of seeing Hayabusa and Shinsake in AJPW alone. Not to mention, the two teams worked very well together. Very hot crowd, which is surprisingly amped for Team FMW. I loved the facial expressions of Taue and Kawada during the intros. Sometimes you don't need to speak Japanese to pick up on the message. Taue looks incredibly unimpressed and Kawada has an expression of mild distaste/disgust at the strangely costumed interlopers. I loved Taue heeling it up by refusing to allow Jinsei to do his shtick. The Holy Demon army did enough selling to make this a fair contest, and the FMW guys got their big spots in. Excellent selling by Kawada as always. The only thing about this match that was a downer...it made me realize how Hayabusa probably could have extended his career (and in doing so, his life) had he not had to wrestle such a high risk style and have all the pressure on his shoulders being the ace of FMW. Despite his flashy look and unorthodox style which didn't necessarily fit in with AJPW at that time, this match showed that FMW guys were not all "garbage wrestlers" and could hang with their contemporaries in the bigger organizations. If only Hayabusa had been in AJPW, maybe things would have worked out differently for him. Then again...the AJPW style was hardly low risk either, it was just a different type of risk, I guess. Hot crowd, very novel match-up, great work by all four and a really nicely paced home stretch. Very good match, bordering on great.

I just watched this match again for the first time in a few years, just because I felt like it. Having watched it again, it struck me that this might be first time I've actually seen the complete match - I think when I saw it the first couple of times it was back when only the JIP version was available. I'm so glad that this match is now widely available in it's complete form. It's funny...if you put a gun to my head (and why would you do that, I'm Canadian and no threat to any of you) and asked me to pick my favorite Tag Team matches of all time, I would probably list the usual suspects from the Four Pillars of AJPW: 06/01/93, 12/03/93, 01/24/95, 06/09/95, 10/15/95, or probably my personal favorite of the bunch...05/21/94. However, one thing that I sometimes find (depending on my mood) is that it can be hard to enjoy a match that is so damn LONG. I think this is one of the reasons I don't care for some of the so-called "Six Star" matches that Omega, Okada etc. have been having in New Japan the past few years. Some of those NJPW matches strike me as being long just for the sake of being long...you could trim 10-15 minutes off and nothing would be lost. I guess my point is, as I get older as a fan, I am less blown away by matches that strike me as manufactured epics. When I first got into AJPW, North America was in the death-grip of Vince Russo and "Crash TV." Matches were short, pointless, had no structure and sometimes didn't even end up happening at all, in order to advance some insipid "story." Discovering AJPW was like a breath of fresh air compared to that, those matches from the 90's took the sport seriously and were presented as dramatic athletic contests with real stakes. Obviously, I don't begrudge those Misawa & Kobashi vs. The Holy Demon Army matches their length, but one thing this match between Kobashi & Kikuchi and the Can-Ams proves is that the "King's Road" style could be done without the match stretching to 45-60 minutes. To me, this match proves you can still pack a punch and tell a story in 20-30 minutes...provided the talent is there. I don't think enough can be said about the effect the crowd has on the enjoyment factor of this match, either. I distinctly remember being surprised the first time I saw this match, because I had become used to the quiet and reserved Japanese fans who only made noise at certain points. This crowd was white-hot from the get go, there is literally no lull in crowd noise during this entire match and it really adds to the drama. I loved the spot where Kroffat and then Furnas would not release Kikuchi from that sadistic looking Boston Crab (if you can even call it that, it looked like a torture technique) even after Kobashi booted them in the head twice. It took Kobashi hauling off and smacking Furnas in the face as hard as he could in order to break the hold. Kobashi and Kikuchi were such a fun team...I even enjoyed them years later in NOAH when Kikuchi was 25 pounds heavier, could barely walk and was basically being held together with athletic tape. The whole vibe you get from the superstar Kobashi and his never-say-die friend who takes an ass kicking and gets bounced around like a rubber ball...so perfect a dynamic for a team. Some people have (justifiably) criticized Kobashi over the years for being a bit over-the-top, almost like he's too theatrical and showy. In my opinion, he hadn't gotten to that point in 1992, his performance during this match was perfectly restrained and appropriate. Not to mention, having a smaller partner who is getting his ass kicked and stretched is a perfect reason to act dramatic. And poor Kikuchi. I've heard that he patterned himself after Dynamite Kid, and I think the announcers even allude to that during this match. (DK's name gets tossed out a couple of times, for sure.) He sure busts out some DK classic moves, namely the snap suplexes and flying headbutts. He really is one of the best underdog babyfaces I've ever seen, honestly. A lot of credit for this match has to go to Kroffat and Furnas too, without a doubt. Their execution was on point and they played their roles to perfection. This is one of those matches where everybody seemed to be at the pinnacle of their game, in sync and firing on all cylinders simultaneously. Between the work of the wrestlers and the molten crowd, everything converged to create a near-perfect match. If there is a valid criticism for this match, I can't think of it. If you're naming the greatest Tag Team matches of all time, I can't see how this wouldn't be in the discussion. An all time classic.

I agree with you. I remember when Raven got released from WWE in 2003 and showed up in TNA two days later. (I never understood why he didn't have to do the 90 Day "No Compete" deal?) He was crazy over at that point, his feud with Jarrett over the NWA World Title was great. I always thought that at the time, they really dropped the ball by not having him win the title from Double J. He did some excellent work (especially on the microphone) for the next couple of years. Unfortunately, his body started to really break down. I remember he reportedly started having serious thyroid problems (allegedly due to years of drug abuse, according to him) and he gained quite a bit of weight. By 2006 or so and that whole "Serotonin" angle he was physically pretty much done. But for that period after he got released, he was doing some great work, I thought. Ditto Rhino. I remember in 2005 when he cut that promo talking about how he refused to go back to WWE for the ECW reboot, and threw the original ECW title in a trash barrel and burned it. (Supposedly.) At the time I remember being almost shocked because I had no idea he could actually cut a decent promo. In ECW he had been all grunting and cussing and drooling all over himself, letting Steve Corino do most of his talking. I thought Rhino really grew as a character in TNA.

I just read the results from SDL tonight. Hey, does anybody remember when Andrade Cien Almas and Zelina Vega were white-hot as an act, coming out of NXT? Remember all those awesome matches he was having? Seems like a long damn time ago. I'm not saying he shouldn't have lost to Rey, because Rey is Rey...but THAT is the best use they can come up with for Almas? I read Vega wasn't even there tonight? She's half the appeal of their act. Between stuff like this and the way they have booked Asuka since Wrestlemania (and several other examples) I feel like there is no point getting behind any so-called "can't miss" talent in NXT, because you know they're going to get shat upon once they get called up. Meanwhile, Baron Corbin is featured on Raw every damn week. WTF.

I have been slowly but surely working my way through this series. I am currently up to Volume 13. I am very interested in Volume 26, because it covers Hayabusa's injury - but I don't want to skip ahead that far. I'm on vacation for a week and have some free time, so I'll probably catch up pretty soon. Once again, I highly recommend this podcast. Watching it on YouTube with the visual component is very entertaining and compelling, in my opinion.

That was a good review, and yes...if anybody could pull a halfway watchable match out of Tiger Jeet Singh, it would be Tenryu. I do find it amusing that Eric notes that he "likes Singh more than most" yet even he has to admit that Singh "has maybe one bump in him per match." That's one of my (many) issues with Singh. It's like I said to sek earlier, I don't expect Abdullah The Butcher to bump, it's not in keeping with his entire esthetic but more importantly it's usually not physically feasible. From where I sit, the only reason Tiger Jeet Singh rarely bumped for anybody is because he was a selfish jerk who just didn't want to. It didn't seem to matter a tinker's cuss to him that the match quality would suffer as a result 99.9 times out of 100. For the record, although I love The Sheik, I have the same complaint about him. In fairness, many of the criticisms I have levied at Tiger Jeet Singh could equally apply to The Sheik. I just happen to find The Sheik more compelling and entertaining - but there really wasn't any excuse for him to rarely sell, bump or do a job either. You can make the "that was a different era" argument and there is some merit to it, but in the larger picture there were plenty of heels in that era who didn't mind showing ass when it was called for. Hell, The Sheik pretty much killed Toronto as a territory in the 70's by appearing in one main event after another at Maple Leaf Gardens where he refused to lose or even show any real weakness - ever. It was the same old formula every time, fight a babyface, stab him with a pencil, allow a brief comeback, get busted oepn, throw a fireball, hit the ref, the match gets thrown out - repeat X 1000. He was so bad that when Andre The Giant got a win over him by DQ it was big news. Eventually people just stopped showing up for it. It's selfish and stupid. I just always came away with the impression that Tiger Jeet Singh wanted to be considered a "monster heel" like The Sheik, Abdullah and Brody and like them he was never willing to let anybody get anything on him. But the aforementioned guys were a lot better at playing the part and looked a lot more convincing at it, too.

You must really hate those guys. Have you considered the fact that the reason the match had to be "unearthed" is because somebody probably watched it and buried it so nobody else would have to see it? If you dug it up, there could well be a curse involved, like this match is an ancient Egyptian artifact with a horrible past. I always thought you were a good guy Matt, but I'm starting to see a cruel side to you if you make people watch Tiger Jeet Singh matches.

You're not wrong, El-P. I have never seen a good Harris Brothers match, and Lord knows they got countless chances to have them, ECW, WWF, WCW, TNA...yet not a single good match. However, people all seem to agree that they suck. As I said, people (at least in my part of the world) have somehow deluded themselves into believing Tiger Jeet Singh is a "legend." I've yet to see anybody call the Harris Brothers legends. Maybe in the White Nationalist community they're considered legends. I wouldn't know.

To be fair, I re-read what I wrote and I should amend my statement. If my child was enrolled at Tiger Jeet Singh Public School, I would take him or her out of school and home school them. I'd rather he or she grow up illiterate before I'd make the child go to such a terrible place.  (It dawned on me, the child might be a girl. No child deserves to go to Tiger Jeet Singh Public School.) Can you imagine what that school must be like? Kids wandering aimlessly around the cafeteria, plastic butter knives clenched between their teeth, shouting gibberish, hitting each other in the forehead with weak, unconvincing looking jabs, refusing to follow instructions unless they're grossly over-paid? It's terrifying.