Jingus

Nash pusts everyone over in interviews. Of course, the problem comes when it's time for him to put someone over on a wrestling show. Was Jericho even booked on Starrcade '98? Why does Wade hate Y2J so much? I imagine it's partly being friendly with Kliqers who all seem to hate all Canadians, but it's hard to explain his consistent overwhelming hatred that seems based far more on biased emotion than any actual reported facts.

I think he's mostly a godawful wrestler who represents everything I think is wrong with the business today. Yeah, he's kind of a draw and many other people love him, great for them, but I can't stand the bastard. That's pretty much my whole reason, I just viscerally hate watching him wrestle. Personally, I find Cole to be absolutely worthless, Create An Announcer. At least Tenay knows the history of wrestling, does his homework on indy guys and foreigners, actually knows the names of all the moves, etc.

Personally, regardless of Dave's bizarro insistence that MMA = wrestling, I wouldn't include any shootfighty stuff. You're all off my christmas card list. Muthafucka say WHAT? As to the Worst Announcer award, as long as he's still working and has not improved 1004%, Todd Grisham should have a permanent lock on that one. Also, why the Tenay hate? Yeah, he ain't exactly a psychology-explaining machine, WCW will do that to ya, but imo he's still better than Cole.

Yeah, but they didn't say anything when he died, did they? Something about too many wrestlers having died recently, and they didn't wanna depress the fans or something? That's inexcusable. I wouldn't care at all about this angle, in fact I'd find it pretty entertaining, if they just stuck to having it done tongue-in-cheek style like when Crymetyme tried to auction off Vince's last half-eaten meal. But when they force their announcers to all treat it as a shoot complete with Owen voices, when they do a fake 10-bell salute (especially annoying to me since I've done those myself, i.e., actually been the guy ringing the bell for someone who really died), that's when I ignore stuff like Benoit-Punk matches and Foley returning and just quit watching the show altogether.

Even more northeastern-style southerners like the old NWA-Wildside crew often have a hard time breaking in up their. Note to Gabe: Jimmy Rave is NOT one of the most talented workers that came out of that old splintery schoolhouse in Cornelia GA.

Arguably, he could go by Rey Misterio Jr, if the kid really wanted to. Not like most of the Mexican traditionalists have all that much respect for Rey after letting the WWE alter his name and re-mask him.

Not that I trust Keller to report on high school amateur wrestling, but I gotta take the Torch's side on that one. I've never dealt with Mitchell, he comes off as a hand-wringing whiny moralist in his writing, but to the best of my knowledge he doesn't have a reputation as a congenital liar. If anything, he seems like one of those annoyingly self-righteous 100% Honest types. Meanwhile, I've been to Ryder's home (yeah, make the jokes, get it outta yer system already), and if that slimy bastard told me the world was round I'd have to seriously consider pre-Columbian theories of geographic geometry. ...and yes, Ryder's DVD collection is the most phlaming phaggy thing you could possibly imagine, complete with old Disney movies, various musicals, and a couple of Lindsey Lohan's kiddie flicks as I recal.

Point me in a Youtube-ish direction (cuz I'm too broke to buy tapes) towards Zybysssko stuff that (allegedly) doesn't suck, and we'll talk.

Whoa, let's not go TOO overboard here. Any time he wasn't wrestling Bruno, Larry bored me to death. (And I say that as someone who really likes Bob Backlund matches.) I got to play around when nobody important was looking and take a few pictures of me wearing the heavyweight and (more importantly) X-division belt, a few years back. Yes, it was as oddly fun as it sounds. Judging from all the various other old-skool markouts that ROH has committed in its time, I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly where they copied 'em from.

Keller's idea for the "new TNA concept" is utterly laughable and would be roundly condemned by most wrestling fans. Hey, Wade: remember all those worked boxing matches that have stunk up pro wrestling PPVs over the year? EVERYONE hated those, and what he's recommending here ain't too different. (Personally, I've had the idea of doing a "worked shoot" division within a company: assemble a bunch of guys who can believably work the UWFi style, give 'em a championship called the Tapout Title and let them do their own thing for two or three matches per night. I think it'd be interesting to see how fans responded to matches like that in between ordinary wrestling matches. But I sure as hell wouldn't try to promote an entire federation like that. Failed in Japan, would fail here too.) Huh. I remember reading that article, and it almost sounded plausible, kinda like seeing a new Michael Moore movie before you find out whatever he lied about this time. Truthfully, out of everyone involved in high levels of wrestling offices, Heyman is the one guy I think might do something like that. I don't think he DID, and to publish a whole article like that out of spite like Keller apparently did is just childish, but I wouldn't be shocked if years later it turns out that's what happened. Yep, God knows that "realistic" workers like, say, Sylvester Turkay are so much more over and draw so much more money than the Hardyz of the world. Big fucking "HUH"? Is he actually saying that ROH or some damn other indy company is on the same level as the WWE? I wouldn't put TNA on the same level as Vince, much less any of the non-TV-having li'l regional feds.

Ah yes, I'd almost forgotten about the ridiculous backstage criticism of Jericho's early WWF run. He's too loose, too stiff, flies too much, doesn't fly enough, "too WCW", so forth & so on. And yet he was the only person who ever made Chyna look good. Now THAT'S funny. Cool thread, but Loss, whenever possible, could you provide the date or at least the year he said this stuff, to put it into context?

TNA certainly has more "buzz" now than back in their weekly Nashville days. Maybe less people talk about it online, but it's seen by a lot more people on Spike than it ever was on PPV. ROH is tougher to call, because we really don't know exactly how well their business does month-to-month. But outside of boards that specifically discuss indy wrestling, I haven't heard a peep about their PPV in a while. One thing that might have an effect is that I think the wrestling community as a whole has finally gotten used to having a company like ROH around. It's been five years now, and there are plenty of Li'l Gabes who have blatantly copied their formula. Da Net is finally taking this once-unique company for granted.

Either it cost way too much compared to what it actually covered, or it never really existed.

Well, the WWE definitely has a "what have you done for me lately?" policy when it comes to deaths in wrestling. I think someone already mentioned that they never even acknowledged Crash's death. Part of the reason JR and Lawler talked about her (very briefly) might've been that they'd both known her for a long time. One could also make the argument that it was their version of very subtly burying the Vince angle, but that'd just be speculation.

Didn't know the fellow myself, but that's like a morbid thought I've had before: who knows how many random people I've met on the internet might be dead now, and I'd never have any idea they weren't even on this planet anymore? We've all known a shitload of folks that we don't keep in regular contact with, or that sometimes just vanish and you never see 'em again. Pretty much. It may have been another show booked through TNA, but still... It was at an indy show, indeed. But it was booked through TNA's informal talent agency, which basically exists just to steal 25% of their wrestler's income from working on the indies. And then they only LOANED him the money for surgery, insisting that he pay them back asap. And remember, because of the "independent contracter" bullshit, he couldn't have paid for it on his own because he doesn't qualify for medical insurance. So, for the millionth time, Fuck TNA.

Corrente has a rep as being an idiotic money mark who buys his way into "working" on shows. So I hope this gets thrown out, cuz every untrained working mark should be beaten thoroughly and regularly, in my opinion. Also... it's someone getting punched twice... and nothing else... at a SOUTHERN wrestling show. I've seen shit way worse than that happen on many occasions, and nobody ever got sued or convicted over it (and any one of the boys who calls the cops because of a backstage dispute instantly gets regarded as a total pussy by the rest of the locker room).

And why trust a completely anonymous source? Watching the match, I think it's pretty clear that Rock gets way out of control with the chair shots, I don't see any discrepencies with the way Mick said it went down in his book. (Why on earth would anyone agree to take a dozen unprotected chairshots, swung at full speed/strength by a guy like Rocky, while they're handcuffed?) Also, in that scene in BtM, they edited the events in question; compare the movie's version of the match to the actual match, they don't "match" up. So the producers of that movie don't have a real great track record for truthfulness anyway (also considering Jake Roberts' claim of multiple blatant lies that they supposedly told).

Completely agree with you there, speaking from experience. While we certainly have our share of psychopathic conservatives little problems at The Pit, I still like it way better than TSM's hordes of raving n00bs. Hell, the best board I'd ever seen for wrestling discussion was Coey's old Spidertwist forum, and it was never heavily-trafficked. As for Killings and Konnan quitting? Good for Killings, this company pointlessly buried and ignored him time and again, plus weren't exactly caring employers after his on-the-job injury. As for Konnan... meh... does anyone really care? (Yeah, it's sad that the dude's health has been so terrible and yet TNA still insists on him working, wheelchair and all, but still... it's Konnan.)

According to Foley is Good, that was part of the match that got scrapped at the last minute. Rock was supposed to hit Foley only four or five times with the chair, while his wife Colette would be ringside, begging him to give up. Then USA threw a monkey wrench into that; the company was having some sort of internal argument over the WWF's controversial content, and one executive took it upon himself to bring his whole family and sit in the first row as a demonstration that he felt safe with his children watching a WWF show. So the company pulled the plug on showing Foley's family and went with the "mysterious recording" gimmick instead. But that happened at the last second, like the night before the show, so Foley's kids were already in town and were apparently begging to watch the show. So that's why they were in the crowd. Huh? Mick had no idea how his kids were reacting. I doubt he could even hear anything past the ringing in his own ears. And Beyond the Mat clearly shows that the kids had pulled it together and were acting pretty normal by the time they saw him backstage, so if Colette never told him what happened (or played down how bad it was), I'd believe him having no idea what went on until Blaustein showed him the footage.

Odd how Sting eventually developed the wrestling skills to go with the body... but now has neither. (And oh yeah, Insert Smarky Comment About Insane Warrior Here.)

Dusty made sure to actually say on the air that he didn't agree with Vince's view of "sports entertainment", complete with verbal quote marks that let you really feel his old-school contempt for the term. I'd say he was probably against it. (Although he did start these shoot angles in the first place with all the Horsemen backstage beatdowns, still, a fatal car bombing is a wee bit different.) Ah, good ol' Klique. You can always count on them to cause havoc and disrupt long-made plans just for their own personal bitchiness. Hey, has Nash done that job for Chris Sabin yet? It's weird how out of all of them, HHH seems to have grown up the most, what with putting over Benoit, Batista, and Cena over and over again. Couldn't have said it better myself. It would be nice if it DID change, but don't hold your breath.

Yeah, especially since Sting would've had a bunch of new guys to kill time with too. Flair fights off Savage & Piper while Sting feuds with Dibiase and Hennig, or something similar. That's an entire year's worth of angles and matches right there.

I could tell it was Mitchell from his aggressive self-righteousness and random jumping from topic to topic, but the overall quality of his work definitely seems to have gone downhill since the 90s. Yes, wrestling is incredibly racist, we knew that already, what's your point? The only interesting part was where he microanalyzed the announcers' comments.

On TNA's last night in Nashville, the crowd was damn near ready to riot (again) when Jarrett beat (again) Jeff Hardy to retain the belt.

Easily. I can't think of any other team which has moved the ridiculous levels of merchandise they have. Plus, they started working for the company about a decade ago. Yeah, Jeff had his "time off", but still, they've stayed together (and stayed over) longer than any other team in modern history.