Jingus

Link please? Part of it came from their scummy restructuring of the talent contracts so that the TNA office now controls all their indy bookings. TNA takes a cool 25% fee off the salary of every single indy payday that all of their workers ever make. Between that and finally running some house shows and selling some more DVDs and Spike continuously throwing in money for production costs, they just barely managed to break even. Of course, that was before the economy crash, who knows if they're still making a profit now.

Since the WWE had a million belts, there were plenty of guys who held all kinds of titles. Bradshaw, Jericho, RVD, Angle, Kane, Booker, Big Show, and both Hardys have all held at least half a dozen different belts. He mentions it in his shoot interview it was part of his Killing Dudes World Tour or something. Heh, Kory told me about that. He was in his first year, was scared senseless, and moved his head at an inopportune moment during the corner punches, thus getting knocked the fuck out. To my knowledge that was the only time Vader showed up there, which was more notable since the Undertaker was in the main event that night and it was incredibly rare to have a WWF guy and a WCW guy on the same show.

Depends on the type of comedy. Unfortunately, in most professional wrestling, the "jokes" often tend to be so purile and mean-spirited that it would turn off the majority of the population. Jokes about guys being gay, jokes about guys having small dicks, jokes about regular women allegedly being fatasses, jokes involving people dressed in either inappropriate clothing or no clothing at all, you know the drill.

Considering he was a former world champion, why did the WWF rename him "Hoss" for his tenure there? Where did he originally get the spinning toe hold and european uppercuts from? What did he think the role of a touring world champion should be? What did he think of the match in Japan where he wrestled Terry for the only time? He still wrestled as recently as 2008, which must've been hard on him considering his age. (The only other guys I can think of who are his contemporaries who are still active are Abdullah, Johnny Saint, and Gypsy Joe.) What was his reason for continuing to wrestle so long after most other wrestlers would've retired? This one's pure shit-stirring, so I don't blame you if you don't ask it, but I am curious. In his RFVideo shoot interview, Dusty Rhodes gently mocked Dory, calling him "slow" and sharing an anecdote where Dory supposedly walked into a closet one time, thinking it was the door leaving the room. What would his response to the egg-suckin' dog be?

Sullivan's also taken credit for everything from Hogan's heel turn to Goldberg's streak, so I don't know how much we can credit him with anything. In fact, that's the problem of any outsider trying to analyze most large wrestling companies with multiple writer/bookers, especially one as chaotic as WCW was. It's hard to really know for sure exactly who came up with what parts of the product.

In some ways it does make sense, though. One of the biggest problems with a Work The Leg story in a match is that, for it to succeed, the guy has to really sell hard on how much his leg hurts. This naturally means that he spends quite a lot of time down on the mat, and minimal time standing up or moving around. It's just plain difficult to have an entertaining wrestling match involving one party who is immobile for the entire time. If Flair went right after Sting's leg from the very beginning, Sting would either have to no-sell and blow off all that work to hit his signature spots, or just crumple up and lay on the mat while Flair wrestles around him the whole time. Hence, the wasting time with non-leg stuff for the first half of the match, cuz the wrestlers want to keep the action moving up til the point where the leg drama makes its appearance.

I'm personally most amused by the fact that the set is hosted by Miz and Morrison. Talk about your total lack of long-term planning.

Same here. Mid-decade IWAMS Prazak is probably my favorite indy commentator of all time, not counting whatever times that some money mark ponied up the cash for Joey Styles. But the more recent Solemnly Serious Prazak from ROH and Shimmer is much less fun.

Agreed on there never having been any definite NJ style. How did "strong style" become the American smark shorthand for King's Road style, anyway? The best explanation I ever heard for what Americans call "strong style" was from Dave Prazak on commentary during the 2004 IWA Midsouth strong style tournament. He explained the King's Road/Strong Style difference, how the term had been bastardized, and then ended it with "Strong style basically means: they hit each other really fucking hard and drop each other on their heads."

The damnable thing is that it's not hard to get a submission finish over. Remember King of the Ring last year, when Regal went 3 for 3 in one night and used his Regal Stretch finish in every match? You could literally hear the hold getting more over as the night went on. Way too many wrestling companies still have that obsolete mentality that it hurts a worker's credibility as a tough guy if he taps out.

A story which is more complex than usual, by wrestling's standards. The vast majority of matches tend to boil down to "guy #1 hit his finisher first, so he won". I treasure those uncommon matches which dare to do something with more depth.

I don't have anything actually substantial to add at this point which has not been already covered. I just want to mention how that phrase somehow struck me as being bizarrely hilarious.

Sadly, some fans won't. Hence all the fatass jokes about Samoa Joe. Never mind that he's a perfectly decent athlete who can work hour-long matches, he doesn't have shredded muscles, therefore he's a couch potato to some people. Years and years of the WWE and everyone who copied them constantly giving us roided-up monsters as "real athletes" and "looking great" have conditioned plenty of people into that exact mindset.

Or Jill, for that matter. Who knows why he wasn't there, it's damn near the very definition of "none of our business".

An old-school example would be the Sheik in Detroit. According to every old timer: the crowds packed the building for years hoping to see him lose, but since he never did, eventually the territory floundered and died. EDIT: No, he didn't have a title chase per se. I meant more along the lines of how ratings were higher during the early days of The Streak, and were steadily dropping once he got the belt itself.

I dunno about that, iirc the fans were still booing Cena at the PPVs. Even worse was an example I clearly remember, where Orton was wrestling Cena Sr. while the champ was handcuffed to the ropes outside. Randy beat the shit out of Dad and Cena swore furious revenge, and the response of the crowd was... a loud, prolonged "YOU CAN'T WRESTLE!" chant. And no, this wasn't in some Northeastern smark hipster stronghold, this was in Nashville. SLL's name has been in italics for a while now, he's brewing up a Bible of commentary somewhere.

The myth theory is that chases work in of themselves. The examples here clearly show that you've got to have characters who are already over in order to make the chase really successful. Like, the 6 months between when Austin was screwed out of the title in '98 and when he finally got it back at Wrestlemania XV. Russo swervy booking aside, that was a well-done chase, since it had all kind of subplots along the way and involved a variety of people who the crowd already really loved or truly hated. Another thing fueling the popularity of the myth is how often a well-executed chase is followed up by pure botchery. Sting/Hogan is the one big example, Goldberg is another, where the exciting chase to the title was utterly sabotaged after the victory, leading to fan apathy on a large scale. Along similar lines, Flair did his damndest to make every babyface challenger look like a world-beater in the 80s, but in the end none of those guys ever seemed great enough to carry the promotion as a top guy for one reason or another.

Contradicting sources are saying that TNA fucked up some travel information, as Lance Cade and Amazing Red were supposed to be there too and were not. Also: watch this and try not to get a contact high.

I don't think this is fair, considering that Cornette is probably the single biggest source that Metlzer had inside the office in the WWF/E, so most of the common stories about the dumb television writers probably originated from Cornette in the first place. If Cornette thought TNA was better, he would've come right out and said that TNA was better. Remember his on-air rants in 1997? While ripping WCW a new asshole, he wasn't afraid to say why he thought that WWF was the superior product. So the distinct and utter lack of any mention of TNA whatsoever tells me that Cornette knows damn well what a moronic circus his current employer is, and he's just keeping his mouth shut and collecting a paycheck.

To an extent, yeah. But these argument tend to run into the brick wall that is how different people view semantics. To a fan, a "great worker" is simply a guy who puts out great matches. To a wrestler, that term has a totally different meaning. It denotes a guy who is reliable and safe in a manner you can depend on, and also puts out good matches (for a variable level of "good" depending on the guy making the statement and what sort of wrestling he likes best). That's how a lot of these silly debates between smarks and workers tend to start, simply with different people who assign different meanings to the same words. And nobody had any comments or disagreements with my other points? Absolutely. Go back and look at the results pages for WWF television from 2000. X-Pac dodged a rather amazing number of jobs, rarely ever getting pinned. Even his feud with Kane was often terribly lopsided, with 170-pound X-Pac repeatedly beating the shit out of the 300-pound monster. Combine this with his crappy "New Age Outlaws" team with Road Dogg, with whom he had absolutely zero chemistry, and you see a shitty un-over heel team who's constantly winning way too many matches. Strange as it may seem now, Pac was seen as an unworthy replacement for Billy Gunn, and Roadie was firmly entering the "I just don't give a fuck" stage of his career. Especially since this was 2000, one of the few times in recent memory when there were plenty of competent and heavily cheered teams in the company, and yet the tag titles were often stuck on this duo whom the fans simply didn't want to see. IIRC, didn't these guys beat the Dudleys at two PPVs in a row, both tables matches? The final straw for the casual marks was their being part of the McMahon-Helmsley Factieme, so that they were often portrayed as being unworthy chumps who were incapable of winning their matches without outside help. From what I've seen, they did often tend to make a lot more noise during the big main events than they did during the undercard matches. Not always, but the tendency was there. About a zillion sold-out houses in many of the biggest arenas in the world would tend to cast aspersions upon this claim.

From what I've seen, they did often tend to make a lot more noise during the big main events than they did during the undercard matches. Not always, but the tendency was there. About a zillion sold-out houses in many of the biggest arenas in the world would tend to cast aspersions upon this claim.

It's been talked around, but it's worth mentioning again that wrestlers and fans often do not look at matches the same way. Maybe David was a lighter worker than his brothers and therefore more safe. Maybe he retained more of his mental faculties in the ring, so he wasn't spaced out like a Kerry and could actually remember the planned spots. All kinds of little things can go into a worker rating their match quite differently than the fans would. This is sort of what Lance Storm was getting at in his infamous rant on the DVDVR 500 a while back, but he stated it poorly and didn't seem to realize that workers and smarks often don't have the exact same definitions for various insider jargon words. (Like, in any locker room I've ever been in, "blade" is rarely if ever used in the verb tense, while smarks utilize the word as a verb all the time.) Who would you guys say are the major smark tastemakers nowadays? If it's not Meltzer, who would it be? I can't think of anyone else who even approaches the amount that he's seen as the wise sage on the mountaintop by many smarks out there. I mean, look at a guy like Scott Keith, who was pretty popular before his semi-retirement, and I'd argue that he had nowhere near the overall influence that Dave did (partly because Scott swiped plenty of Dave's talking points, but that's another issue). Absolutely. Go back and look at the results pages for WWF television from 2000. X-Pac dodged a rather amazing number of jobs, rarely ever getting pinned. Even his feud with Kane was often terribly lopsided, with 170-pound X-Pac repeatedly beating the shit out of the 300-pound monster. Combine this with his crappy "New Age Outlaws" team with Road Dogg, with whom he had absolutely zero chemistry, and you see a shitty un-over heel team who's constantly winning way too many matches. Strange as it may seem now, Pac was seen as an unworthy replacement for Billy Gunn, and Roadie was firmly entering the "I just don't give a fuck" stage of his career. Especially since this was 2000, one of the few times in recent memory when there were plenty of competent and heavily cheered teams in the company, and yet the tag titles were often stuck on this duo whom the fans simply didn't want to see. IIRC, didn't these guys beat the Dudleys at two PPVs in a row, both tables matches? The final straw for the casual marks was their being part of the McMahon-Helmsley Factieme, so that they were often portrayed as being unworthy chumps who were incapable of winning their matches without outside help.

Is there ever a reason? They've done this shit for years, never for any apparent reason. It seems like any time there's any talk about what they plan on doing with any team in the future, it's always some variant on "we're gonna break them up and then push the larger guy in singles". Oh god, please tell me we're not using word filters like that over here. Testing: the product EDIT: aw, apparently poor tlk23 has spent so much time at DVDVR that it's permanently altered his vocabulary.

You missed the most important part: the guy's name. It was DAVE O'NEILL, wrestling journalist! Anyone who remembers this putz from the old days will not be surprised. (Then again, I suppose Dave O'Neill probably isn't a terribly uncommon name in Ireland, but still, I larfed.)

I remember getting into an epic-length dumbass argument with Coey a long time back just because I said I thought Taue's chokeslam looked like shit. He kept coming back with the "ESTABLISHED CREDIBLE FINISHER~!" line and just could not understand that I understood that, and was merely criticizing the aesthetics. Much like how Rock often barely even made contact on the people's elbow.