Jingus

One thing that I thought particularly hurt the Mania V match was how simplistic the finish was. Heel's finisher, kickout, Hulk Up, three punches, big boot, legdrop. As far as I remember, Hogan hadn't quite yet settled into his formula where he did that exact same finish in every match, like he would into the 90s. He'd never used that exact sequence at Mania before. So it might just annoy some folks that it was an early appearance of what would later become a hated cliche. One weird thing about Gary Hart. Did he often have issues with not wanting to sell? I admittedly haven't seen much of him, but I specifically remember one of the Flair/Funk matches where Ric hits Gary... who basically just acts pissed off and doesn't even attempt to sell that The World Champion's haymaker had hurt him at all. Odd thing for a manager to do.

Apparently Vince is in a charitable mood lately regarding some of the Legends. Also, Mick made some comments on the record defending Linda's senate campaign, so this might be some quid pro quo.

Haven't they been saying that one for years now? And more importantly, isn't it actually true? It seems like everyone in that company realizes that they run way too fucking many PPVs, but they never cut the schedule back and year after year their buyrates drop. Why the hell are they still doing retarded shit like right now, with three separate PPVs scheduled within a five-week period? And why don't they realize that Theme Shows don't draw? Every time they've tried to introduce some new gimmick show, it seems like it inevitably falls on its ass. Be it Taboo Tuesday or Cyber Sunday or Extreme Rules or Night Of Champions or TLC or Breaking Point or Money In The Bank or Hell In A Cell or Bragging Rights, the consensus seems to be that the gimmickry does not draw in the casual fans. Hell, One Night Stand seems like the only time they've done it well in the past decade, outside of the Royal Rumble or occasional flukes like InVasion. EDIT: or Fatal Fourway or Elimination Chamber or... christ, when I have to edit my post because I just now remembered more theme shows, that proves they run way too goddamn many of these things.

The WWF kept him under some sort of contract all the way until 97, and released him on the condition that he couldn't jump to WCW. Why the hell they cared at all about whether Aldo fucking Montoya showed up on Nitro, I have no idea.

Those could have been it. Or was it his stupid name? His lame catchphrase? His rodent-like teeth? His stealing of Sandman's cane gimmick? His gaggle of lame sidekicks and henchmen? His scrawny frame? His Cena-like ring gear? His well-known history of having been Aldo Fucking Montoya? His well-known Kliq Associate Member status? His winning the vast majority of his matches? Well, now that I write all that down in a row, I guess it seems more understandable. But still, the fans often acted like this guy was a shittier version of Tiger Ali Singh and disgraced the ECW belt when he won it, which still seems a bit over the top.

Yeah, but the hate train was already rolling long before that. To compare it to his Kliq overlords: he was booked like Triple H, but the fans treated him like X-Pac.

Come to think of it, didn't ECW draw a surprisingly decent series of house shows in 2000? I doubt Credible had much to do with it, it was probably caused by some new fans seeing the product for the first time on TNN. But it's still an interesting coincedence. Heck, there's a decent discussion all by itself: why did Credible suck so hard? Because, looking back, he really didn't suck at all. He was a perfectly competent worker in multiple styles, and he was always a heat magnet with the crowd. Heck, for my money he had the last good match of Shane Douglas's career and actually got the mutants to cheer for the Franchise one last time. Was he just booked so overwhelmingly strong, so protected for so long, that fans resented him being pushed down their throats? It seems like the moment he got the belt is still seen by many as the point of no return for ECW as a viable promotion.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Keep the contagion contained, move it all to an OAO WP Thread. This happens on a semi-regular basis, with him spouting off some weird theory and then getting gang-jumped by everyone else, and it's a thread derailer every time.

I've known murderers, sexual deviants, drug dealers, and psychopaths of all types; so I do have a feel for this sort of thing. I've only briefly met Lawler once or twice, but from everything I've ever heard about him, his worst sin is simply being addicted to teenage poontang. And he's hardly out of control even in that aspect; I remember a story a local guy told me about Lawler bitterly heckling a trailer trash mom who was openly trying to pimp out her teen daughters to the wrestlers. "Hey look, it's the mother of the year" he groaned, right before the girls started flashing everyone from the back of a pickup truck. I recall liking a match him and Ibushi had in ROH, in a "poor man's Tajiri vs Super Crazy" sort of way. Also caught a nice brawl between him and Necro in IWA. (Admittedly, Necro has almost a Flair-like ability to plug any warm body into his standard formula match and make it work.) But I could see how Davey's Rasslin Is Teh Serius Bizness style could turn someone off. Sometimes the 21st century American workrate kids look more like cosplayers having puro tribute matches, rather than tough dudes having a fight like the actual Japanese matches they idolize.

well this feels kinda like being complimented by a Klan member at an NAACP meeting

I still maintain that their earlier matches were damn good. The ones back when it was just "small unknown English kid vs smaller dude in a furry cat mask", before they became "PARAGONS OF AERIAL EXCELLENCE". Their first match together had perfectly decent psychology and didn't abuse the big spots and dives like their later matches did. Why the hell is the 2/3 falls match the one that got all the hype? That might have been the worst singles bout they had, especially with all three falls each somehow ending in a non-finish. Another mythical survey! Awesome!Even if I did understand the line of reasoning here, which I don't, I'd still take issue with the examples given. The Piper/David fight was ridiculous, an insanely long fight with a hundred blatant rassling moves, all over a pair of sunglasses. And Bruce Lee was an actor, regardless of his level of real-life MMA talent. His movie fights were just as phony as John Wayne's.

I know that bagging on Pegasus is practically a beer-league sport among this crowd, and I'm not defending his position. But you guys were awfully quick to dismiss the idea of anyone not liking the Memphis style. I'm one of them (Admittedly with me, it's just that I worked so many goddamn Tennessee shitty indy shows which so desperately ripped off every aspect of that old territory, and familiarity definitely bred contempt.) But it's perfectly understandable that some folks just might not like that stuff. Maybe they're not a fan of brawling, or maybe they hate walk-n-talk tactics, maybe they're Gabe Sapolsky. I knew plenty of younger wrestlers from all around the old territory's footprint who didn't think much of Memphis.

Jesus fucking christ. I wasn't aware I could possibly hate him even more than I already did. Every time I hear some prick expound on how women are inferior to men, especially with a religious motivation, my pimp hand must fight back a terrible urge to go on a bitch-slapping rampage.

Well, so has every other wrestler outside of Mexico, so that's not a surprise. But my point is that it's not so much the style of bumping which is the problem, as much as it's the sheer number of bumps. How many times in your average Edge match does Mr. Copeland violently fling himself backwards onto the canvas? I do believe I must insist on further details right here.

Seriously? You'd expect him, of all people, to know better. With his unique experience of being the only really successful wrestler-slash-dirtsheet writer, Alvarez should be the first person to realize some of this shit. Heck, how do you think Steve Austin fucked himself up so bad, aside from the occasional freak injury? He wasn't doing dumbass stunts or highspots out there. All he did was have a really snappy back bump. Seriously, just go watch any old Stone Cold match and you'll see him whipping himself to the mat with total abandon. He would even do that shit on the floor, which with the Attitude brawling style happened uncomfortably often.

Yeah, the "tens of thousands of bumps over the course of a career" thing is really the silent killer of wrestlers in the long term. I once heard a doctor describe every simple back-bump as the equivalent of being in a low-speed car wreck. Ever been in one of those 10-mile-per-hour wrecks? It won't kill you, but it will sure jar you and maybe whiplash your head a bit. Now imagine doing that possibly dozens of times in a row, against something a lot harder than your cushy car seat. This would also explain why they were so quick to cut Nigel, if they have some fancy neurological testing system in place for the new hires nowadays. That would probably disqualify lots of the more hard-hitting younger wrestlers who've racked up enough concussions. Note to self: never head-butt the ringpost.

The chairshot thing was indeed overstated. What so many people seem to either be ignorant of, or just ignoring, is that the vast majority of concussions tend to happen on simple things like spots gone awry. There's plenty of ways to bounce your brain around in your skull. It was much more likely that doing the fuckin' diving headbutt every night is what pounded Benoit's cerebrum into silly putty, not the one or two unprotected chairshots per year he took. Most of the biggest pain pill addicts tend to be guys who were big bumpers or otherwise put wear and tear on their whole body, not just the brain. We certainly don't have much conclusive evidence that the rare occasional headshot does much measurable lasting damage, as long as it's not like an "aw shit, Goldberg just called superkick" level of force involved. Sure, Mick Foley and other 90s hardcore guys often appear to be a senile old men nowadays, but that's inevitable when they were out there soaking up chairshots every single night for years on end; and they were doing plenty of other dangerous shit like constant big bumps which doubtlessly took its toll. And don't mistake this as apologizing for godforsaken TNA. I'm not saying that headshots are a good thing, and in today's nightmarish atmosphere of ever-increasing premature mortality among the boys we need to be taking every precaution possible. We probably shouldn't be doing those anymore, except perhaps outside of something the level of a Wrestlemania main event or something else where there's a sizable reward for taking such a risk. But focusing exclusively on the chairshots as the main threat to wrestlers' health seems like having a burglar inside of a house which is burning down, and sending cops but no firefighters. Also: Paul Heyman thinks chairshots are "unconscionable". PAUL HEYMAN. What balls, man. He's the one guy who was most singlehandedly responsible of starting the trend where guys don't put their hands up. However, the stuff about the pay scale is hideous. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was THAT bad. Their women's champion literally had to keep a job at the local shopping mall just to make a living. I can understand if they think that a fairly young and inexperienced rookie isn't worth a six-figure salary, but to not even offer a living wage to full-time employees is beyond ridiculous. And if they charge that much for indy bookings, suddenly all that money which Ian Rotten owed them makes a lot more sense. I thought TNA just grabbed their 25% of whatever, but according to the info here it seems like they might be demanding an obscenely high price for their talent. Which would be great if the talent got their fair share, but I doubt they do, since their booking fees was supposedly one of the big reasons they finally pulled out of the red and into the black a couple years ago. At the same time, I wonder if some of their workers might simply not be reporting some of their indy bookings. When I was announcing for Tony Falk's little Nashville promotion, we brought in Jerry Lynn on a regular basis. I sure as hell know that Tony's cheap ass wasn't paying any booking fee, Jerry only took such a low-paying gig because it was twenty minutes away from his house and Tony is an old friend of his. Then again, considering that Tony is also close with guys like Jeff and Dutch and probably knows Dixie too from working the gorilla position at the old Asylum shows, they might have just known Tony has no money to pay them and quietly gave him a mercy pass on the fees. Finally, we've all covered how Dickensian it is to force someone to pay for their own medical care when they suffer an injury on your god-damned national television show. But that's something which merits mentioning as often as possible. Christ, that's evil. Even WCW and ECW didn't do that shit.

Weird choice for a writer/director. Scott's never made a narrative movie before, he's a documentary guy.

It seemed like he was angry because McCool pulled a Bob Holly on a rookie, not because of specifically which rookie it was. That's consistent for him, since Chico has always been a loud proponent of working light and frequently goes on a bitchy rant when he thinks someone is being unnecessarily stiff.

Is he full-time in Mexico now? It's a shame I haven't kept up, because I used to be friends with that goofy little kid. We commiserated over stupid little shit like how the Final Fantasy games had gotten worse and worse over the years. But I haven't talked to him in a few years now, when you don't ever see people you just gradually lose contact with them. Doing a wee bit of research, I see that I was half right: he was scheduled to wrestle for Evolve, which I heard about, but cancelled on the show at some point. But still, the larger point remains: there's some kind of weird semi-ban of talent working for both ROH and Evolve, but it certainly hasn't been explained.

That's the thing I'd be interested in knowing. There's been enough ROH guys who worked for Evolve to cast doubt on that theory: Homicide, Hero, Claudio, and Jack Evans have all shown up in Evolve. And Davey Richards was one of the original founders of the company. But then he supposedly signed a new contract with ROH or something, and never worked for Evolve again. So there's something going on there, but I don't know exactly what.

On the ROH/Evolve difference: has there been any talk about why Gabe is booking the crew he's got now? He seems to be either unwilling or unable to book most of his old favorite hands from the previous company, many of whom still work for ROH. There have been a few cases so it doesn't seem like there's a cross-promotional ban, but it is weird to see Evolve working with cards full of guys who Gabe wouldn't book on his shows just a couple years ago.

Back on the age limit topic, I have a question. Do any legitimate sport halls-of-fame induct people who are still active players? I know it's a different dynamic since you can wrestle long after you would have retired in any real sport, but it still seems odd to induct a guy who is still wrestling on television every week. The age limit at 45 is indeed arbitrary, since you could in theory get a guy like DDP or Batista who started really late and then got into the HOF long before they have decades-plural in the business. Or, as mentioned, a fellow like Rey who started really early and would have to wait a pointlessly long time to get into the Hall. If the point is to just keep another Angle from happening, why not lay down a simple 10 or 15 years-in-the-ring qualification? That keeps any flash in the pan from being prematurely inducted, and also doesn't seem needlessly long for anyone who might have already done plenty enough to be worthy of getting in.

Are you really gonna defend the morality of TSM? I've posted there for, shit, eight or nine years now, and was a moderator a couple of times, so I know of what I speak. But still, that's a sick sick board full of total perverts*. *And that's how we LIKE it.

It's been long years since I saw it, so my memories are rather fuzzy. Severn was obviously the weaker link; if anyone but Goto ever had a decent match with him, I haven't seen it. But the thing that sticks out in my mind was him endlessly hitting belly-to-back suplexes over and over again. The most ginger suplexes in the world, the sort of thing where you pick up your girlfriend and playfully set her down on the bed, that kind of shit. Fujiwara looked like a rather fragile old man who needed to be treated that gently. I might be remembering it wrong, but that's the impression that stuck with me.