The Thread Killer

I was excited at the prospect of watching Dynamite. Then I saw that the first match featured Jimmy Havoc, with Kenny Omega on commentary. At that point, I became much less excited. And for the record...Kenny Omega may very well be the blandest, least interesting person in all of Professional Wrestling when he has a microphone in front of his face.

Why did you skip WM9? That was the one in Vegas, right? I hear you, though. I was a 15 year old fan at the time of the first Wrestlemania, but had no way to watch it...I had to wait until it came out on video and rent it, although as I remember they did a great job of getting it into Video Stores quickly. I saw 2, 3, 4 and 5 on closed circuit and then since then I've seen every other one on PPV. Even at times my fandom had waned to the point of not watching WWF TV anymore, I still always watched Wrestlemania, for sentimental reasons if nothing else. I sometimes regretted it but I always made sure to catch Wrestlemania, no matter the circumstances. But this year, I dunno. I don't like the empty area stuff at all. I don't blame them for doing it, because they have no choice...but I am not at all excited about it. Then again, I'll probably be stuck in the house and will end up watching it out of boredom and a lack of anything better to do. If nothing else, the watch along threads here at PWO are sometimes as entertaining as the shows themselves.

I don't think that's in character, I think he's just a moron. I've also seen people on Twitter bitching about "willingly giving up their rights." I don't even know how you could argue with somebody that stupid. It's like trying to argue with one of those idiots who think the world is flat, or a 9-11 "truther" or that you shouldn't vaccinate your kids. If somebody is actually that dumb, you can't even use logic to convince them otherwise.

I saw it live. There really wasn't any such thing as "Pay Per View" at the time, and if there was very few people had it. You have to remember, a lot of people didn't even have cable at that time. The majority of people saw the show on "Closed Circuit Television" where you bought tickets to go to a local arena, and they broadcast the show on huge screens with crappy audio. At the time, I didn't mind Wrestlemania 2 all that much. I got kind of caught up in the spectacle and the experience. You have to consider that WWF shows really weren't all that great at that time when it came to the quality of the matches, either. At the time, I remember enjoying the Battle Royal and the Bulldogs match, and not minding the Hogan/Bundy match. But you're not wrong, it does not hold up well at all.

I marked out for that segment I freely admit that. :)

Poor JR. He just couldn’t stop himself from saying “medical facility.”

I love Jake Roberts but I don’t understand his new haircut. Why is only one side of it grey and shaved? On the plus side I’m really glad they didn’t drag this out for weeks before we found out who Jake’s new protégé was.

That explains why there are always Pro Wrestling references on Billions. (Which is an awesome show.)

I'm all for Matt Hardy coming in to AEW and going hog wild with his whole "Broken" gimmick. I just don't want to see him getting stuck working with The Dark Order, because they suck.

He frequently accuses Kenny Omega of having a Japanese schoolgirl fetish, too. (Which hey...where's there's smoke...) You're right though. I used to think that Kenny took too much shit for his mannerisms being effeminate and that some of the criticisms levied at him were borderline homophobic. Then I found out that he starred in an art film entitled: "Sissy Boy Slap Party." And I saw a couple of minutes of it on YouTube. I don't think he is gay, and even if he was I wouldn't care, nor would I support anybody criticizing his lifestyle choices. But after Sissy Boy Slap Party, I can see where the people that are taking shots at him for that are getting their ammunition.

Or you know...revolutionary idea here...people could watch and enjoy BOTH. Radical thought, I know. But it's actually possible, because I do it pretty much every week. I don't even hate Omega, I just think he's wildly overrated. There are fans around who claim that Omega is the best Pro Wrestler in the world right now, and I don't see the evidence of that. Especially since Dynamite debuted. I think he's a talented Pro Wrestler who is capable of being involved in very good and even great matches. His recent Iron Man match with PAC and the Tag Team match at Revolution are both clearly proof of that fact. But I think his promos are shitty, his facials and mannerisms in the ring are comical, and his selling is inconsistent and unconvincing a lot of the time. Kenny Omega is very good, but there are plenty of guys around who are just as good as he is, and better in quite a few cases. Let me have that opinion...without the judgment. I don't know what information you've been getting, but Cornette criticizes WWE and NXT almost as much as he does AEW. There seems to be a misconception that Cornette blindly hates AEW and shits all over everything they do, so he must therefore prefer NXT and WWE. He's even had some wacked out AEW fans on Twitter accuse him of secretly working for WWE, which is laughable. On his podcast he and Brian Last reviewed both Dynamite and NXT every week for a few months, and he gave Dynamite a better review than NXT about half the time. Hell, he reviewed Raw for the past three weeks and he absolutely eviscerated it. He even shit on Seth Rollins, who used to be one of his favorites. (Which I was glad to see, because for my money Seth Rollins and Kenny Omega are cut from very similar cloth.) As recently as this past week, he said that he thought Dynamite was a very good show, the best they've done so far. (Which I totally don't get, but whatever.) He's even gone so far as to say that at least AEW is interesting when WWE is just boring overly scripted garbage. Cornette doesn't hate all "modern" Pro Wrestling, he gushes about Darby Allin all the time and they don't get much more current and modern than him. He always praises The Jurassic Express, he just hates Marko Stunt. Hell, he even gave the Tag Team Title match at Revolution a positive review, even though Omega and The Young Bucks were involved.

Good. They've been dragging this crap on for way too long. It would be one thing if this angle was advancing something good, but it's the Dark Order...so come on, already. Having said that, I'd mark out if The Exalted One turns out to be Kevin Sullivan. Or even Jim Mitchell, who recently left Impact.

That's the problem right there. I generally enjoy watching Pro Wrestling with friends rather than on my own. Problem is, I only have three friends who watch Pro Wrestling. One is an even bigger fan than I am and will watch pretty much anything, so if we can get together we will split costs for PPV's. The other two were devoted fans up until around the end of the Monday Night Wars. Once Vince pretty much became the main game in town and WWE went downhill creatively, they both stopped watching. I got them both into early Ring of Honor and 90's AJPW compilations, but neither will touch the modern product. I recently got them to watch an NXT Takeover with me, but anything modern is always a tough sell with those guys.If left to their own devices, neither guy will watch anything. I wish I did know more people who lived within reasonable distance of me that watched Pro Wrestling.

Based on their general skill level, I'm not terribly surprised neither had shown up on your radar yet.

I wouldn't actually hate Tim Storm vs. George South, but like I said...they really need to lay off all the old guys, in my opinion. George South's "I'd punch your Mother in the face" line did legit crack me up. @rovert you know quite a bit about Women's Wrestling and follow the scene pretty closely, had you ever heard about or seen either Freya or Dani Jordyn and what did you think of them potential wise? Was my assessment too harsh?

So they had a Crockett Cup event center segment with Sean Mooney on this week's show. They have now confirmed 4 of the 8 teams that will be entering the tournament. - The Rock & Roll Express (I loved it when the announced said this "might be their last year" to enter the tournament. They're in their late sixties for fucks sake. This might be their last year for a lot of things.) - Defending champs Villain Enterprises (Brody King and Flip Gordon, subbing for PCO who has an NWA World Title shot upcoming) - Ray Horus & Flamita - The Wild Cards They also announced that there will be another Wild Card slot this year, which will be determined the winners of a Battle Royal. Last year's Battle Royal was just for Tag Teams, but this year singles wrestlers can enter as well, and in that event the last two guys in the ring will be forced to team together. They announced Tim Storm, Zicky Dice and Ricky Starks for the Battle Royal, with more to come. As much as I'd like to see Tim Storm get into the tournament, I am kind of pulling for a Starks/Dice team based on the entrants so far. I am hoping maybe CW Anderson and Caleb Konley end up in this Battle Royal at least. They also announced that on the show, in addition to the Aldis/Scurll II, Aron Stevens will be defending the NWA National Championship against Trevor Murdoch. That means we can pretty much scratch Stevens/Question Mark as a team entering the Tournament, I guess? Thunder Rosa will be defending the NWA Women's Championship against an opponent to be named. So bottom line is, only three open spots left for the tournament. I am hoping two of those spots get taken by The Bouncers and Outlaw Inc., with maybe one more team from ROH? Crossing my fingers for the Briscoes.

So last night was the premiere of episodes 2 and 3 of "The Circle Squared" and that was...not so good. They seem to have responded to feedback and scaled back on the amount of inserted videos with the fans, or made the clips shorter...which is good. They also added professional members of the NWA watching the show and giving feedback. Eli Drake and Allysin Kay watched along and added their feedback, and it was highly amusing to watch them both put on as positive a spin as they could and avoid burying the crap. Especially in Drake's case, I got the definite impression he was pretty much biting his tongue. Not for nothing as well...I like Allysin Kay but the shot they got of her watching these matches (on Skype I assume) was not exactly the most flattering look for her. She looked kind of ghoulish, like the Mother from the old Munsters TV show. The first tryout was Colby Corino vs. George South. Yes...that George South. The legendary enhancement guy from the glory days of JCP at the Techwood Drive studios. I'll give the guy full marks, his promo was chock full of old school heelish goodness. Problem is, the dude is almost 60 years old and his entire offensive strategy during his "match" with Corino consisted of repeatedly slapping on a clawhold. And as a sidenote, The Rock and Roll Express, Scott Steiner and now George South...somebody working backstage for the NWA has a serious fetish for watching senior citizens wrestle, and whoever it is (Lagana or Corgan) they need to see a counsellor about it, or something. George South was literally part of NWA studio wrestling 35 goddamn years ago. I thought the whole point of The Circle Squared was to present fresh new talent to the NWA. As funny as seeing him was, there is absolutely nothing fresh or new about George South. What are they going to do on the next episode, try to reanimate the corpse of George Hackenschmidt? As far as Cornio...well, he looks just like his Dad, to the point where it was almost eerie. Too bad the apple has fallen very, very far from the tree when it comes to promo skills. Steve Cornio promos were some of the highlights of the dying days of ECW. Colby cut a promo before his match that was really awkward and almost painful to watch, Colby kind of shit the bed if he was hoping to impress anybody with his promo skills. The "behind the scenes" segment they did with him where he talked about his drug problems was much better. The match went almost 5 minutes and it felt like it was 10 times that. I can't see either of these guys advancing in this competition, because quite frankly that was awful. And it wasn't even the worst match they showed last night, amazingly. The second tryout was "Freya The Slaya" vs. Dani Jordyn. (Why do all Pro Wrestlers have the need to insert the letter "y" in their names where it doesn't really need to be?) So here's my thing about this match. Billy Corgan recorded a video where he announced that any unsigned Pro Wrestlers out there were interested in earning a contract with the NWA could apply to be on The Circle Squared. They claimed the response was overwhelming. After seeing this episode, my thoughts are that I never want to see the quality of the applicants who couldn't make the cut to be on the show...if this was an example of people who applied and "earned" a shot. This match was fucking awful. "Freya" seems to be a very tall girl (although Dani seemed very small so it might just be that Freya looked big by comparison) but she is awkward as hell. She makes Marti Belle look like Manami Toyota. Her selling and overall presence was atrocious. Both girls looked good from a cosmetic standpoint, but work wise? Yikes. And their promos really weren't much better. I'm not going to recommend that people avoid this show, because it was absolutely entertaining from a car wreck perspective...so bad I couldn't look away. But so far, the only act that The Circle Squared has introduced that I think has any shot at becoming legitimate stars in the NWA are the team of Jeff Lewis Neal & Tyson Dean. Based on the poll numbers they showed this week, I get the impression that Luke and PJ Hawx are leading. I really think that the NWA wants to sign them because of that stupid viral video of PJ Hawx jumping off that balcony in the mall that ended up getting mainstream press. If anything, I hope the NWA signs both those teams from Episode 1, but this week? Hard pass.

I was the first person around here to go mental when I found out AEW was charging $50.00 for their Pay Per Views through traditional cable providers (and they still are, for the record.) However, my opinion of them mellowed tremendously when I bought Revolution for only $19.99 on Fite TV. (Not sure what BR Live charges, and I don't want to find out since I've heard a couple of complaints about crashing/freezing/lagging etc.) As I said over in the ROH thread, the fact that AEW is only charging twenty bucks to stream a PPV (with unlimited replays, no less) when companies like ROH are charging as much as $15.00 more boggles my mind. If you're going to order an AEW PPV then that seems the way to do it, and for my money it's a hell of a deal. I know a lot of people are saying traditional PPV is pretty much dead, and I'm not sure it is for events like boxing, but for Pro Wrestling I don't see myself ever ordering a traditional PPV again. I'm an old guy who still managed to figure out how to easily watch Fite TV on my television and have enjoyed several Pro Wrestling PPV's that way over the past couple of months. Hell, the last NWA PPV only cost me $15.00 and the Crockett Cup in only going to be $20.00 if you pre-order. From everything I have heard, the reason Pro Wrestling companies have to charge so much for a PPV on traditional cable is because of the split with the cable companies...apparently the Pro Wrestling companies don't make any significant money from a PPV unless they charge a higher price, otherwise the cable provider basically pockets all the profit. There really doesn't seem to be much excuse to pay $50.00 for a Pro Wrestling PPV on traditional cable anymore, honestly.

On one of the episodes of ROH TV I watched recently, Joe Koff made a statement at the start of the show and said that ROH will be adding their entire archive to Honor Club at some point in 2020. But based on the history of this company and the apparent incompetence of the people involved, I am taking that with the world's largest grain of salt and will believe it when I see it. If they do add that stuff and it's confirmed, I might sign up...but I'd sure like to have the current PPV's as part of the package to sweeten the deal.

There was a time when if Dave Meltzer reported something, I automatically believed it for the most part and assumed it was true and factual. I have lost some respect for him, and there are a couple of reasons. Firstly, much of the time on Twitter he basically acts like a glorified troll. He's rude a lot of the time and makes provocative statements for reasons I can't even guess. I've seen Meltzer supporters actually refer to this as "Meltzer working his Twitter gimmick." Even some of his defenders have questioned why he acts like this, and what he's trying to accomplish. I don't know what the hell he's doing on Twitter, but it sure isn't reporting. In his defense, he absolutely does get provoked and antagonized by fans of Vince Russo or supporters of some of Conrad Thompson's podcasts. And now, even Cornette fans. But just because people are baiting him it doesn't mean he has to respond. But he seems more than happy to sink to their level and that makes him hard to take seriously. I don't think people who want to be accepted as legitimate journalists should act like that, I don't care if "it's just Twitter." If you make a living reporting facts and offering your editorial opinion, then I think you forfeit your right to compartmentalize your writing and assume people should think you're serious on your website and newsletter, but what you Tweet doesn't count. Secondly, I am sorry but I do believe that his reporting techniques have been exposed over the past few years. I am not saying that I agree with idiots like JBL or Bruce Prichard who claim that Meltzer makes stories up or invents lies to promote his newsletter. I do not believe that Dave Meltzer has ever deliberately fabricated a story. I don't think he has ever knowingly written something untrue. I think he believes what he reports, but I don't think he's anywhere near as infallible as I used to. When you're talking about the Conrad Thompson podcasts, you also can't lump them all together when it comes to their position on Dave Meltzer. On one end of the spectrum you have Bruce Prichard who is (and always has been) a lying carny and I don't believe a damn thing he says. On the other end, you have Jim Ross who frequently agrees with what Dave Meltzer reports and openly admits that he has talked with him in the past, and basically been one of Dave Meltzer's sources. Then you have Arn Anderson, who seems to have no axe to grind with Meltzer one way or the other. Let's throw out everything Bruce Prichard has ever said about Meltzer. On their podcasts, both Jim Ross and Arn Anderson have been quoted something Meltzer reported and they've calmly and rationally stated that he was incorrect. He got the story wrong. These are not guys who hate Meltzer, these are not guys who are trying to make him look bad. Both guys will freely admit when Meltzer is right about something, and even agree with his editorials and match reviews. For example, one the episode of Arn's podcast that dealt with Arn's career ending injury and retirement, Conrad was using the Observer as the basis for his research, which he frequently does. Conrad was listing off the dates that Arn was off work and the supposed surgeries he had, when Arn stopped him and pointed out that one of the injuries that Meltzer reported had never happened, and he had no idea what Dave was talking about. I suppose it's possible that Meltzer was right and Arn is forgetting one of his own injuries, but I doubt it. But at the time, if I had read that story in the Observer I wouldn't have questioned it for a second. In my opinion, Dave Meltzer incorrectly reports things at times because he doesn't always bother to confirm his facts. People love to blame the apparent end of the Dave Meltzer/Jim Cornette relationship on Cornette going insane over Meltzer's AEW fandom. And that is certainly part of it, but I don't think it is the whole story. Jim Cornette has said that he considered Dave Meltzer a personal friend, but when Cornette quit the NWA over his infamous "fried chicken" joke Meltzer made that one of his major stories in the Observer, and that was fair. It was news. Cornette had no issue with Meltzer reporting it, but the problem was that even though they were friends Meltzer never called Cornette to get his side of the story or even ask for a quote. How can you be friends with a person, report on something involving them but not bother to get their side of the story or check your facts? Cornette has also confirmed that some of the things Meltzer has reported about the goings on behind the scenes in the NWA were factually incorrect...especially when it came to the nature of the financial end of Cornette's agreement with the NWA. These are facts that Cornette would have been happy to share with Meltzer if Meltzer had actually bothered to ask him before reporting it in the Observer. (Especially since Cornette has since gone on to openly disclose the financial details of his agreement with the NWA on his podcast.) The deal with Eric Bischoff and Dave Meltzer is a whole other situation. Eric Bischoff absolutely does hate Dave Meltzer and will never let an opportunity pass to slag off Meltzer and the Observer. Bischoff has been totally upfront about the fact that at one point he had a relationship with Meltzer, that Bischoff himself initiated. Bischoff has claimed that one of the main problems when he took over WCW was that Turner executives were reading the Observer and making management decisions based on what they were reading, which was leading guys like Gary Juster to leak info to Meltzer in order to further their own political agenda. Bischoff openly admits that he hoped by working with Meltzer he'd be able to promote WCW in a positive light (and himself as well, I would assume) while at the same time stop the leaks. Bischoff claims that he wanted Meltzer to come to him directly before printing unflattering stories about WCW, so he could get Bischoff's side of the story. (I have no doubt that Bischoff was also hoping to exert some influence over Meltzer to get him to kill stories which made him and/or WCW look bad as well.) Either way, Bischoff claims that despite the fact that he made himself available to Meltzer, Meltzer continued to run stories about WCW without bothering to check with Bischoff and get his side of the story first. You can like Eric Bischoff, or you can hate him. He absolutely does have a problem with Dave Meltzer. But that doesn't change the fact that history has proven that a lot of the things Dave Meltzer reported about the inner workings of WCW were absolutely untrue. A lot of the facts Meltzer reported at the time about WCW were accepted as gospel at the time, and are still believed to this day. One glaring example is Dave Meltzer's claim that one of the the main reasons Eric Bischoff was able to turn a profit in WCW and get them out of the red, is because Hulk Hogan was not being paid by WCW so that money never came out of their budget. Meltzer has claimed (and still does as far as I know) that Hulk Hogan had a separate contract with Turner Home Entertainment which wasn't part of the WCW operating budget. Bischoff, Hogan and even some people who worked for Turner have since claimed that is absolutely not true...that if somebody worked for WCW their contract was part of the WCW budget...but that didn't stop Meltzer from reporting it. And from arguing with anybody who claimed it wasn't true. It's apparently true that after the merger, all major talents were signed to contracts with AOL/Time Warner that were separate from WCW, but that still doesn't mean the funds didn't come out of WCW's operating budget. I'm not going to bother to bring up stupid stuff like "Mabel being the third man in the NWO" and crap like that, but there have been many examples of Meltzer reporting stuff that happened behind the scenes in WCW - especially when it comes to reports about certain talents coming in, going out, or the details of contracts - which have since been proven to be wrong. Bischoff claims (and I believe this) that guys like Terry Taylor and Kevin Sullivan would frequently tell Meltzer things that were either partially or totally untrue, and Meltzer would turn around and print it as a fact. The book "The Death of WCW" by RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez was considered by many to be the source of information behind the collapse of WCW. I thought it was. I own a copy of that book. And Dave Meltzer's reporting was one of the main sources of information for that book (which isn't surprising when you consider Alvarez is one of the authors) and Meltzer even wrote the foreword. When I read that book, I assumed that it was pretty much accurate. The problem is...a lot of that book is speculation and a great deal of it is factually untrue. And that has been proven. That's why Bischoff is constantly promoting the book "Nitro - The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans. Trust me, that book does not always paint Eric Bischoff in a flattering light but at least Guy Evans bothered to speak to Bischoff and more importantly he talked to high ranking executives at Time Warner to get the complete story about the real death of WCW. There are a lot of people who will believe what Dave Meltzer reports, or agree with his editorial opinion, just because it's Meltzer that said it. For as many people there are out there that disagree with everything he says and jump all over him when he reports things, there are an equal number of people who blindly believe everything he says. Maybe it's unfair of me to expect the guy to not have an opinion. I can see that. But because he has long been considered the leading source of information when it comes to Professional Wrestling, when he says something people will listen to him and give his opinion a lot of weight. So when he offers up an opinion about something stupid, I just find it annoying. I find that his opinions and his editorializing seem to intermingle a lot of the time. I've had disagreements with people about AEW, (not here at PWO, granted) who have turned around and quoted Meltzer. That annoys me, because Meltzer doesn't always report just facts about AEW. I don't think he's objective. He likes those guys, he's friends with a lot of them and he clearly has a bias when it comes to promoting them. Conversely, I think when he doesn't like somebody, he can be equally as guilty of using his newsletter as a platform to bury them. He's allowed to have friends and he's allowed to have a bias (both positive and negative) but when your voice carries as much weight as his does, I think you should take some consideration when passing your opinion. In the end, I really don't buy the argument that Dave Meltzer and his newsletter are popular, so that some how validates him or his opinion. I'm sure he's more popular now than he ever has been. So what? Jim Cornette has one of one of the most popular Pro Wrestling podcasts around right now, and his audience is growing every week. That doesn't make his editorial opinions any more valid. Fox News is the #1 news channel on cable, that doesn't make everything they report true or justify every opinion they express. My main point was that I don't believe Dave Meltzer as much as I used to, and I know there are other people who feel the same. I was speculating that maybe the fact that people are now questioning his factual validity was the motivation behind some of his more proactive editorializing, and I stand behind that. I respect the reasoning of those who don't agree with my position on this issue, but it doesn't change my opinion.

It's insane, when you think about it. Look at the names who worked in Ring of Honor those first 5-6 years. Danielson, Joe, Styles, Punk, etc. And ROH is literally sitting on a ton of stuff that if they'd just make it available, they'd most likely make a decent profit from it and reintroduce their product and brand to a new group of fans who are interested in those guys. I really don't care to see any of the crap since Sinclair bought the company, but I sure would like easy access to seeing a lot of that classic era ROH stuff. If ROH isn't going to make that stuff available, I half wish they'd sell it to WWE to put on the Network.

My pleasure! I am glad you're watching this stuff with some sort of context. When I first went online we weren't all that far removed from the Misawa/Kawada rivalry (in fact, I was already posting at Pro Wrestling messageboards in 1998, before Misawa and Kawada had their big match at the Tokyo Dome in 1998 which pretty much signified the end of their rivalry for all intents and purposes.) But even then, a ton of people were calling the Misawa/Kawada match from 06/03/94 "The Greatest Match of All Time" so of course I checked it out. I thought it was great - the physical style in All Japan at that time was unlike anything I'd seen up to that point - but I didn't really "get" why it was supposed to be the Greatest Match of All Time. It was only after I saw the entire rivalry play out over time in chronological order that I appreciated a lot of the smaller nuances of the match and the Misawa/Kawada rivalry in general. Especially the Tag Matches featuring all four guys. Having said that, there are plenty of All Japan matches from that era which really don't require any knowledge of any backstory. As much as I love the Misawa/Kawada matches, in a lot of ways I find the Misawa/Kobashi matches more compelling. In fact, I probably think the Misawa/Kobashi match from 10/31/98 might be my favorite match of all time...moreso than the Misawa/Kawada matches. I haven't gone back and watched any of this stuff in a long time. Once in a while I'll rewatch my favorite Tag Team Match (Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue from 05/21/94) or something like that on YouTube. There are two things I think that would make watching this stuff different for me today. Firstly, at that time seeing the "Kings Road Style" was so unique and brand new to me...I'd never seen anything like it before. The problem is now, we have a whole generation of guys who studied that stuff religiously and (respectfully in most cases) blatantly rip off a lot of those moves or that Pro Wrestling style, whereas at that time, nobody in North America was doing anything like that at all. At the exact same time that Misawa and Kawada were having the "greatest match of all time" in Japan, Vince McMahon was bringing us TL Hopper and The Goon. But now...seeing that style of Pro Wrestling is no longer new. I liken it to going back and watching an old action movie from the 70's or 80's. Great for it's time, but now with CGI everybody does that stuff, so it seems less special to a degree. Also, at that time (aside from very rare exceptions like Flair/Steamboat) I had never seen a Pro Wrestling match that lasted over 20 minutes or had more than one or two near-falls. So some of those matches seemed so much more dramatic to me because of the tension created by the length of the match and the amount of close calls. Now? We're habitually seeing matches go over 30 minutes on PPV, and near-falls seem to have become mandatory to the point we've almost become desensitized. Secondly (and worse) is the fact that the AJPW style slowly evolved from a more psychology based type of Pro Wrestling into (by around 1997) a very reckless high impact style which in many cases forwent psychology altogether and devolved into repeatedly dumping guys on the tops of their heads. It's hard for me to watch that now sometimes, because that style of Pro Wrestling literally killed Misawa, who for my money was the greatest Pro Wrestler of all time. It's hard to watch his matches sometimes now, knowing that he's basically killing himself by repeatedly getting dumped on his head and neck. But still overall, I love that stuff.

Sounds like (as a lot of people expected) they are going to do The Elite vs. The Inner Circle when AEW does their version of War Games on March 25. Makes sense when you consider that these are the top two factions in AEW, although really neither group really has any major issues with the other right now that would (for storyline purproses) necessitate a grudge match of this magnitude. I would have thought it would be better to have The Inner Circle vs. Moxley, Darby, Dustin and some Tag Team. You couldn't really come up with a team to go against The Elite, since their biggest story right now is against each other. But I can see why they wouldn't run this match without The Elite in it, for obvious reasons. If they are planning on having The Elite fracture with the whole Kenny/Hangman vs. The Bucks rivalry, this might be the time to do it. Lord knows if Adam Page comes into the cage chugging beers and not listening to his teammates, there might finally be the big split we've all been expecting. Either way, it should be a hell of a show and it is a lot more compelling to watch than anything WWE has done since...I don't even remember when. I can't believe they're giving this away on free TV.

Oh man, I'm actually jealous of you if you're planning on going back and seeing some of that stuff for the first time. I remember when I first started watching the King's Road era stuff before Misawa had even left All Japan and started NOAH. It was 98-99 when I first started watching that stuff. We were in the heart of the "Attitude Era" at the time and comparing the All Japan stuff I was seeing for the first time to WWE and WCW was like night and day. It was mind-blowing. If you want some advice, don't just jump straight into the Misawa/Kawada matches. If you have the time and resources, I'd go back and check out some of the stuff from the late 80's featuring Jumbo's rivalry with Tenryu. (Especially their match from 06/05/89.) A lot of people see similarities between the Jumbo/Tenryu matches and the eventual Misawa/Kawada rivalry. Not to mention, the stuff when Misawa challenged Jumbo, which led into a great series of 6 Man Tags featuring Jumbo and Friends against Misawa and Friends. So many of those are must-see. But anyhow...if you want pretty much THE comprehensive list of all the best All Japan matches from the 90's, all you need to do is check out this: http://www.otherarena.com/z_jdw/ajpwlist.htm That list is incredibly helpful, it has all the 90's All Japan matches listed by date and even Meltzer's ratings. I used that list to help me put together a bunch of custom comps. (Of course, they were on VHS and now I don't even own a VCR, but it's a lot easier to find those matches online now.) If you're looking for more of a "greatest hits" type deal, there is another option. I don't know if you know the gentleman who posted here as "jdw" but his infamous "All Japan Pimping Post" and subsequent ballot for the DVDVR Best All Japan Matches of the 90's has also become a great resource: jdw's All Japan Pimping Post jdw's All Japan Ballot

Meltzer drives me nuts when he makes statements like this. He pretty much gave Jim Cornette an aneurysm a while back when he said that The Young Bucks were a modern version of The Midnight Express. Even if Meltzer honestly thinks the modern New Japan guys are as good as the "Four Pillars" it's pointless to make those kind of comparisons because it's just going to aggravate people. I remember when Meltzer used to try and report facts about the Pro Wrestling business. Now it seems like he spends half his time trolling people on Twitter, kissing AEW's butt and making odd comparisons in what almost seems like a deliberate attempt to provoke an argument. I don't know if Meltzer is losing his shit because the Pro Wrestling podcast business has exposed how many times he got worked by his sources over the years and eroded his reputation, or what his deal is. But it's equal parts sad and annoying. Oh and for the record...nobody is better than Misawa.