The Thread Killer

If it wasn't for YouTube and Larry Csonka's recaps I'd have no idea what was happening on either Raw or Smackdown. I gave up on Raw ages ago and I was able to sit through exactly one episode of Smackdown on Fox before I gave up.

Thanks for letting me know, I am going to try and check that out today. I usually catch Cornette's Drive-Thru and Sean Oliver's podcast every week, then after that I try to find time for Grilling JR, then Arn and if I am interested in the topic that week, The Jim Cornette Experience. Unfortunately, most weeks I only have time for the Drive-Thru and Oliver's podcast, because they are usually only around an hour. Maybe I need to move Arn up in the rotation, considering the feedback in this thread. It sounds like I am missing some good stuff.

I am way behind on Arn's podcast. In which episode did he discuss his last 4-5 years in WWE? Is it the most recent one?

I might think Joey Janela sucks, but sounds like Big Cass dislikes him a lot more than even I do.

I checked out Eddie Kingston's Twitter page and over the past couple of days he has re-tweeted the announcement from the NWA hyping up the good pre-sales for Into the Fire and a hype video for the PPV originally posted by the NWA. That would seem to indicate that he's still involved, hopefully. Then I looked for Homicide's Twitter account and discovered he hadn't tweeted since 2017.

If I am being 100% honest and self-critical, I have discovered that I sometimes tend to overrate matches that end up surprising me. If I go into a match thinking it's going to be really good, at times I almost set my expectations too high and end up disappointed. Going into WALTER/Bate I really didn't much care for WALTER and though Bate was pretty good (I liked those matches he had with Dunne) but I certainly wasn't expecting all that much from the match. I felt it ended up over-delivering and I came out of that match almost surprised at how good it was. I pimped it to a number of people, and ended up watching it a second time to make sure that I wasn't just over-praising it because I had expected it to be average at best. I found it really held up and I enjoyed it as much the second time. As I mentioned at the time, I almost got a 90's AJPW vibe from the match, and since I am such a huge fan of that era that is probably why it really grabbed me. I have seen next to no NJPW from this year as I said, but I'd like to see that Ospreay/Okada match from the G1 that you and @Tenese Sarwieh mentioned.

I am actually going to try and check that show out. I think Nick Aldis (my close personal friend who liked my tweet) defends the World Championship against Marty Scrull on that show as well.

I haven't actually seen the entire Crockett Cup tournament from this past year, which is where The Wild Cards ended up forming. I've been meaning to check that show out for the longest time but haven't. I think the Briscoes actually fight the Rock and Roll Express on that show, if I'm not mistaken.

Damn, @Tenese Sarwieh that is a great list...very comprehensive. Thanks for posting that, there are a few recommendations on there I am definitely going to check out now. I hope to come up with a list of my own at some point over the next couple of weeks. Problem is, I don't really watch any stuff from Japan anymore so I know my list will have gaps. At least with the recommendations from this thread, I will know the best matches to seek out.

The Rock n' Roll Express are defending against The Wild Cards at the PPV. I can only assume (and hope and pray) that The Wild Cards are going to regain the titles. I have no issue with the NWA using the RnR's as a novelty for their name value, but not as the champs. Hell, they could have fought the Dawsons in the opener and beat them and I doubt anybody would have complained. I'm not as down on The Wild Cards as most seem to be (although I think Bram is by far the more talented of the two) and I'd have much rather seen them fight Kingston and Homicide. I agree that Homicide looked like the didn't want to be there. That's the problem with taping two months of TV in two days...if a guy is having one bad night, he ends up looking bad on an entire month's worth of television.

I have mixed feelings on that. I don't disagree with you that bumping is by far his best skill, but at the same time I don't want to see the guy seriously injure himself trying to get over on a big stage, which is what is likely to happen. That's why I've been harping on about his lack of basic skills. The career expectancy for somebody who is primarily known for doing nothing but insane spots and big bumps is not very long. As I said in my previous post, Mick Foley was actually an accomplished Pro Wrestler, and he cut his career drastically short and even endangered his life by taking stupid risks and insane bumps. I've seen Foley say on more than one occasion that he found it sadly ironic that by the end of his career he was getting just a big of a crowd reaction by pulling a sock out of his pants or saying the name of the town he was in and giving a cheesy grin and a thumbs up, as he did falling off stuff. Even though I don't enjoy his work at all, I wouldn't want to see Janela put his body at risk just to try and make himself a star on a national level. Another one of the things Foley has gone about is his body, he was heavier, had lots of padding and a wide back which was good for bumping and helped him absorb punishment. Joey Janela is so small, he looks like a serious injury waiting to happen.

I looked around (not too hard admittedly, but I did look) and I don't see a 2019 MOTY thread anywhere here at PWO? If there isn't one, perhaps we could discuss it here? I need to review all the shows I've watched thus far this year, but I am leaning toward WALTER vs. Tyler Bate from NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff on 08/31/19. That is in close contention with Cody vs. Dustin Rhodes from AEW Double or Nothing. Also let's not forget The Undertaker vs. Goldberg from WWE Super Showdown. Anybody else have any picks, a Top 10 list, recommendations...anything?

That will never happen. They're nowhere near old enough.

The Ascension are the exact kind of act that AEW should stay away from, at least for now. Unfortunately for them, they have the stink of WWE failure all over them. If they intend to stay working in Pro Wrestling then they'd probably be best either breaking up and going their separate ways, or totally rebooting themselves and working the Indies for a while trying to get a new buzz going before somebody else signs them. Whenever somebody leaves WWE, they usually seem to go one of three ways. Either they just give up and vanish from the scene altogether, they buckle down and try and generate positive word of mouth (like Cody or Drew Galloway) or they try and come up with a gimmick that is as close as possible to their WWE gimmick without infringing on the copyright (eg: Enzo becoming nZo, Big Cass becoming CazzXL). If I was The Ascension, I'd wipe off the paint, get a whole new look and start going by a different name. If they show up at your local Indy in 90 Days in the exact same gear and going as "The Azcenzion" then we'll know what route they're planning to take.

Either that, or it's just that Joey Janela sucks.

Way back when, I remember reading a story by Meltzer (or maybe I heard it on his audio show) about how during the "Attitude Era" some of the veterans in the WWF locker room like The Undertaker and JBL were getting annoyed by the newer generations of guys coming up - specifically guys like Edge & Christian and The Hardys because they were "marks" before they became Pro Wrestlers. The gist was that guys who grew up as hardcore fans took too many risks and made the job harder for everybody - and also that they were too nice to the fans.

During his "Supercard" shoot interview with Kayfabe Commentaries, King Kong Bundy talked about how he had never been a fan of Pro Wrestling at all before getting into it as a career, and how he wished he had known more about the business in general before he got involved, and maybe his career would have gone differently. It sounded like he'd barely even seen any wrestling before he got involved. It seems like a really weird career to get into without knowing much about it beforehand, but I guess if you're a 400 pound guy it makes sense as a potential career move.

Firstly, who cares if Joey Janela is a "successful" promoter? That's totally irrelevant and has literally nothing to do with his ability as a Professional Wrestler. Sam Muchnick might have been the greatest Pro Wrestling promoter of all time...I wouldn't have wanted to see him wrestle either. Talking about the fact that Janela is a promoter is just a straw man argument which has nothing to do with his skill (or glaring lack thereof) inside the ring. My point regarding Foley's athletic background (which you're either ignoring or can't seem to comprehend) is that he had an athletic background. Most successful Pro Wrestlers do, before they go on to get trained as Pro Wrestlers. You can't compare Foley to Janela because Foley was a person who had an athletic background and became a Pro Wrestler. Janela was a fan and started Pro Wrestling when he was a teenager by lying about his age. He was never properly trained, and it shows. Lots of people have criticized him for that and he claims he has been trained since, but I don't see any evidence of that. If you come from an athletic background and then get proper training, you're a lot more likely to be a success than you are if you can't even be bothered to learn the basics. The guys who went on to become a success in Pro Wrestling that didn't have any sort of athletic background at all are probably outnumbered 4 to 1, at least. I never denied that Foley got famous by bumping, but if that is all he could do we wouldn't be talking about him right now. He knew how to wrestle and he also knew how to talk, two other things Joey Janela can't do. You talk about Hulk Hogan and The Rock...agreed their punches didn't look great (although they were both better than Janela.) The day Joey Janela visibly demonstrates 1/100 of the personal charisma, athletic and/or promo ability of either of those guys, I'll never say a bad word about him again. As far as Joey Janela's punching ability...I'd say it is pretty damn important. It wouldn't matter if he was Dean Malenko, but Joey Janela is a guy who by his own admission got into Pro Wrestling because he loved death matches and hardcore wrestling. You don't wrestle in death matches, you brawl. Call me picky, but if you're going to try and make a career out of brawling then you should maybe...just maybe...learn how to throw a convincing looking punch. He can bump, and take a beating. That's literally all he brings to the table.

I have absolutely no idea how and why WWE managed to so completely miss the boat and not understand what they had in Luke Harper. I really hope he is allowed to sign with AEW, and if he is AEW are nuts if they don't grab him up, right away. I know they have said repeatedly they don't want to just sign up every WWE reject but you have to believe Brodie Lee would be an exception. I still think that guy has a huge amount of upside. Rowan has improved by leaps and bounds, but it amazes me that WWE has stuck with Rowan and did squat with Harper. That's just crazy.

No...wrestlers are qualified to be wrestlers. I think he's wildly overrated, but I still think Kenny Omega is an exceptional athlete, in addition to being properly trained. Triple H was a bodybuilder (which absolutely helped qualify him to be a Pro Wrestler) but then he trained with Kowalski. Mick Foley was also a collegiate athlete, who had proper training from Dominic Denucci. Dynamite Kid underwent some of the most intensive training a guy could go through in order to become a Professional Wrestler. Hulk Hogan was also an athlete who was scouted for a potential Pro Baseball career before being trained by Hiro Matsuda. All of those guys you named have nothing in common with Joey Janela for three reasons: 1) They had athletic backgrounds prior to becoming Professional Wrestlers 2) They had in depth training to become Professional Wrestlers and 3) They don't suck. Joey Janela is not a good Professional Wrestler, period...end of story. He doesn't even have a noticeable grasp of some of the most basic skills Pro Wrestlers are taught during training, like how to throw a convincing looking punch, or how to cut an even remotely convincing promo. If you don't believe me, look no further than the promo he cut prior to his match with Moxley on Dynamite this past week. He spent the entire promo mugging to the camera and making bizarre faces. I literally don't know what emotion he was even trying to convey, unless he was in the process of having a seizure or he had been stricken with a sudden bout of Bell's Palsy. The only guy you mentioned who has anything even remotely in common with Joey Janela would be CM Punk, in that he got directly into Pro Wrestling as a backyarder with no other previous athletic background. But even Punk then went on to spend years training with Ace Steel before reaching any level of fame. By the time he got to Ring of Honor he had already more than mastered the basics. That's the big difference between Punk and Janela, right there. You call Janela a "poor man's Mick Foley?" Yeah, real poor. Poor as in, all Janela can do is bump...and that's it. Foley himself has said that he wished he didn't get famous for jumping off his roof, because he accidentally inspired a generation of idiots who thought that all it takes to become a Pro Wrestler is falling off of something. Foley has complained on several occasions that the backyarders and "hardcore" wrestlers who emulated him totally ignore that Foley went on to train extensively with DeNucci and then paid his dues in the territories. Not to mention that Foley (arguably) went on to become one of the great promo guys of all time. Foley didn't have to bump in order to get over, he chose to do it to bring attention to himself, because he knew that he didn't have the look of a Pro Wrestler, but he did have the skill. Look at his famous match with Shawn Michaels. Do you think Joey Janela will ever be capable of being part of an actual Pro Wrestling match like that? It's hilarious that you bring up the Road Warriors, because that's exactly the problem with Joey Janela. Ole Anderson knew that if you didn't know how to wrestle (which they didn't) then you sure as hell better bring something to the table like looking impressive and intimidating. Joey Janela doesn't look impressive like The Road Warriors. He can't wrestle like Mick Foley. He can't talk like CM Punk. But hey...he does have nice hair.

Oh...your friend likes his hair and thinks he's cute? Well, that changes everything. I'm officially changing my position on Joey Janela. He MUST be good, because your friend likes his hair and thinks he's cute. Plus, I had no idea there was a documentary on YouTube. That clearly means he doesn't suck.

One thing that bugs me a bit and I find it a little strange, is that either Eddie Kingston and Homicide aren't working the PPV, or the NWA is not hyping their match in advance. Either way, it's odd. If they can find room for the fucking Question Mark on the card, there should be something they could have done with Kingston and Homicide. Maybe those guys were only working the first set of tapings and now they're done with the NWA, I don't know. You'd also have thought they'd have found a match for Caleb Konley as well. Oh well, at least I'm not paying to see the Dawsons, so that's something.

According to the NWA, the pre-sales for Into The Fire have already quadrupled those of NWA70. They seem pretty pleased by the amount of sales so far, based on their reaction on Twitter. They keep tweeting thanks to all the fans who have already ordered. By the way, when I pre-ordered on Fite, it gave me the option to share the news, so I shared it on Twitter and Nick Aldis liked my tweet. I think this means he and I personal friends now. That's him AND Sabu! And the difference is, when Nick Aldis tweets, I can actually understand what he's saying!

YES! Another Lorcan & Burch fan, I thought I was the only one! Okay @SirEdger, it's you and me...the Quebec/Ontario connection. All we have to do now is convince all other Pro Wrestling fans in the world and then WWE management to get behind Lorcan & Burch and give them a huge push, culminating in their winning the Raw, Smackdown and NXT Tag Team titles simultaneously in the Main Event of Wrestlemania. I believe we can do this.

I decided to give this show a chance, and the price was right so I preordered today. Thankfully I didn't have the issues you did, @C.S. and my order went through okay. This is the NWA's chance to prove to me that watching Power for 8 weeks is going to have a satisfying payoff, I hope they can do it.