Jingus

Did we ever get an official answer on either one of those? I remember a lot of arguing back and forth, but don't recall if we ever definitively found out if they knew Benoit killed them before they ran the tribute show (and if they did, why would they handle it that way, knowing they'd come out looking like shit mere hours later) or if Daniel had FXS (and if he didn't, why would they make something like that up?).

It's got the first one too, from the same user. Ringmistress probably provides half the Japanese women's footage on the Tube. I've always heard stuff about how great teh joshi was, but just never got around to ordering any of the tapes, so watching some of this stuff is a revelation for me. Like the Jaguar/Jumbo match, or Hokuto/Kandori, or Aja Kong/anyone, or the aforementioned Matsumoto/Chigusa. Dump seemed kinda "One Man Gang in his prime"-ish, not the best in the world, but just fine at her job. I'm judging that just based on the few matches available though, because aside from the Chigusa hair brawls, the only other singles match I found with her was against Sakura Hirota, and... yeah... nuff said. And oh yeah this thread rules, please continue ruling it.

Not saying he's all hungry and tearing at the bit like the WWE likes their employees to be, but I just don't see why we get the level of complaining about his laziness online that we do. I've seen people seriously claim that he was the crappier half of his tag team with Chris Masters, and, wow, hyperbole much? (Personally I think Masters could be wrestling a nonexistant invisible man and STILL be the worst worker in the ring.) Tonight I watched Carlito's match at Summerslam and his no-DQ bout with HHH, and while he wasn't exactly setting the world on fire, it's not like he was Sniskying it up out there either.

I've still never seen an actual description of exactly how and why Carlito is supposed to be such a lazy load. Like tomk pointed out, it didn't start until after he traded in his endless chinlocks and other lack of '04 offense. People weren't calling him lazy back then, when he really sucked. It wasn't until he started doing Sabu type springboard manuevers that the "lazy" slander came out, which always mystified me. You can say you don't like it, but to say he's sitting on his ass and not putting forth any effort, it's just factually wrong. It's like this one dude I knew who had this weird obsession with insisting that Mariah Carey was literally the worst singer on the radio. It's all right if you don't like the crazy bitch, but don't just make shit up. In fact, come to think of it, the whole trend started when the sheets published a couple of backstage reports about there supposedly being heat on the guy because of his poor performances. Suddenly every smark on the net was saying that Carly was a big pile of Nash who didn't have any "passion for the business".

Yeah, where did the massive Carlito backlash online come from, anyway? Admittedly, I barely ever watched Raw during the time when people started complaining about it, but from the little I've seen Carlito looked... well, about as good as anyone looks in the typical 4-minute undercard matches. And when he's given more time, like the Flair bouts, he seemed to do just fine. He's sure a hell of a lot better than when he started back on '04, when he was nothing but chinlocks and feet on the ropes. Where did the "Carlito's lazy" meme originate, specifically?

It's the WWE, since when has that stopped them? This is the same company which wanted viewers to pay to watch an apparently retarded midget "wrestle" a giant broomstick last night.

Yes, exactly. Like I was mentioning earlier, the different indy shows I worked: some of those crowds didn't have a single smark in the building. Others were half-full of internet college-boy "cheer the heels" types. You also had exceptions like NWA Wildside, where the majority of the crowd were smarkish. The different types of shows will draw different types of crowds. Plus it matters whether you're in the middle of a population center or not (i.e., downtown Nashville will draw more smarts than Bucksnort will). On the subject of Gorilla: I've always liked his commentary. Not the greatest of all time, but damn good in that "calling a big show with Ventura/Heenan next to him" kind of way. Hell, even his stuff with Johnny Polo was entertaining, Gorilla had great chemistry with a wide variety of partners. Sure, he could easily trail off subject around the tenth minute of an Outback Jack vs. Hercules match, but every announcer is guilty of that at times. One thing I'll give him extra credit for is being, to my knowledge, the only wrestler to ever successfully make the jump to play-by-play commentator. Plenty of ex-workers have become color guys, but Monsoon to my knowledge is the only former pro to flourish in the lead announcer spot. Gordon Solie: some people swear by him as the ultimate authority in dry low-key announcing; others just find him boring as hell for his repetitive calls and lack of enthusiasm. He certainly did influence an entire generation of wrestling announcers, you can hear traces of his style in everyone from Lance Russell to Jim Ross. One thing I've heard is that he tended to be a much better performer when he was calling prerecorded material in the studio and was prepared rather than calling the action live. ...what?! (Or should that be, "whatamaneuver!"?)

The plot thickens: Benoit's father's lawyer, Cary Ichter, is one of the five commissioners named on this new board.

Too bad the true old southern style style (Crockett NWA, Watts UWF, etc) is dead. I've worked hundreds of indy shows in the South, and in my experience when someone claims to work "southern style" or "old school" it tends to be code for "lazy sack of non-working crap". The aging veterans and mindless young copycats we have left claim to be "southern style", but they mostly tend to represent the worst of Memphs with endless stalling, overreliance on dumb gimmicks like the dog leash chain of death, and when they do finally actually get to the wrestling it tends to be a billion armdrags followed by a rollup for the finish.

Georgia certainly has a commission which oversees all the various legit athletics in that state, but I don't know if the same people will be involved with the wrestling commission. As for the WWE, don't know the answer to that one either, but with these ridiculous rules either they'll be exempt or simply never run shows in Georgia again. Will mess with a lot of promotions, but not actually a bad idea. A sliding scale of some sort would be better. Again will be a big expense, but there's nothing wrong with this rule.Maybe I spent too much time in zero-budget Tennessee promotions, but those are HUGE expenses for a wrestling show. The majority of them don't even turn a profit, and are funded by the promoter's day job salary. But still, $10K per show and paying for a full security and medical staff, I doubt even Deep South had the budget for that back when it was developmental. NWA Anarchy surely couldn't afford that, and every other fed in the state is even smaller. It would effectively make it impossible to run a show unless you had some high-rolling investor, and those are pretty rare. You'd also have to sell a massive number of tickets to begin to make up for the cost of it all, it would take an ROH-sized crowd just to break even. It would be nice to have a doctor at every show, sure, but it costs way too much to be feasible for anything smaller than a national promotion. And the ambulance?! I've been to a few shows way in the backwoods of cracker-ass Georgia which aren't anywhere near a hospital, so I'd like to know exactly how that's supposed to work. This is good.Firstly, shows could get around it by just not advertising specific matches, except for the main event or whatever. Secondly, lots of these substitutions are caused by no-shows, and so much of the time wrestlers are travelling long distances and don't even get to the building before the show starts, so in practice this one becomes kinda hard to obey. Seems more like common sense than anything.Read it again, man. These rules are literally taking wrestling back to the 1920s. If I understand this right, and I don't see much room for interpretation, wrestlers are only allowed to wear tights, and nothing else. Just tights and traditional wrestling boots, except for female wrestlers who are required by the rules to wear tops. I assume this means that anyone not wearing tights and boots will be barred from competing. So, on your show you booked Dusty Rhodes, the Hardy boyz, Homicide, Abdullah the Butcher, or any one of the several billion other guys who don't wear traditional wrestling gear? Fuck you, the GA State Athletic Commission says those amateurs must either put on the stretchy pants or go home! Also, I don't get the point of banning grease and lotion, this ain't a Hackenschmidt situation, practically every muscular type uses that stuff to show off/ They have this in NY. A one-time expense, not a gigantic deal.It's still unnecessary and impractical on smaller shows. Especially since the odd rules state that the barriers must be at least six feet from the ring, and the front row must be at least four feet from the barriers. In a smaller building, that destroys a lot of valuable seating space, plus I guarantee that you'll get a bunch of idiots standing up and leaning on the barriers anyway and there will be kids running around in the gap, and if security yells at them to stop it just makes the promotion seem like they're being assholes to the fans. I get requiring approval for weapon shots. But for fake blood?I literally don't think I've ever been to a single wrestling show which didn't feature at least one foreign object or weapon shot. It's dumb to have to notify the commission in advance every single time someone goes to grab a chair. That requires scripting out the matches to a ridiculous degree, and will actually hurt veterans in the long run, since they improvise so much more than the kids who call the whole match in the back. Especially since probably half the wrestlers in the country who are either stupid, rebellious, impulsive, or just plain forgetful enough to use a weapon anyway, and yet the promoter will get blamed for it. Stupid question: Could someone run shoots under these rules?In theory, yeah, you could. Except for the bizarre parts about FAKE BLOOD~! and asking permission for weapons shots, these rules seem like they're actually designed for a shoot contest anyway.

Remember the stories about Georgia trying to create new athletic commission rules to oversee wrestling? Well, they're here. I understand how they feel the need to take action since Benoit lived there and all, but these rules show either a very shallow knowledge of pro graps, or it's a calculated attempt to put wrestling out of business forever in that state. Some of the highlights: -a "surety bond" of at least $10,000 must be filed before each and every show -the commission gets paid 5% of all ticket sales -a doctor, two EMTs, and an ambulance must be on hand at all times throughout the show; the promotion has to pay for it all -no blading or any other sort of cutting themselves, I assume this includes stuff like hardcore deathmatches -nobody under the age of 18 can work on the show, and everyone under 18 in the bulding must be accompanied by a guardian -the commission may send a representative to monitor the show, and the promotion must pay them $100 -all card changes and/or substitutions must be announced both in writing at the ticket window and by the ring announcer before the first match; anyone who wants a refund because of changes is entitled to one -the wrestlers can't verbally threaten the crowd -no brawling in the crowd, all wrestling must be in or around the ring -Dress codes! Every wrestler's gear must be "clean", wrestlers "may wear two pairs of trunks, one on top of the other", and there's some weird restrictions on boots. Wrestlers are forbidden to have grease or lotion on their bodies, and must trim their fingernails. The commission representative can disqualify a wrestler and stop the match if these conditions aren't perfect. -The promotion must provide professional heavy-duty barricades, at their own expense. -60 minute time limits for every match. Exceptions have to be cleared by the commission. -Every match winner will be determined by pinfalls, either one or 2/3. Submissions and other methods of winning are not addressed. According to the rules, to be pinned a wrestler must have his shoulders down for exactly three seconds, and the referee signals a pinfall by slapping the mat once like in amateur wrestling. -Heels rejoice: you now have a 10-count instead of a 5 to break illegal holds. -The rope break rules are now like MMA, where the clock is stopped while both contestants stand up and return to the middle of the ring. -Covering the nose and mouth simultaneously is banned. WTF? -Wrestlers are forbidden to use any "unsportsmanlike or physically dangerous conduct". Sorry heels, no rejoicing. -Blading is still illegal (yes, they mention this again), but they specifically say that FAKE BLOOD~! is okay. -Using any foreign object or prop of any kind requires getting approval from the commission ahead of time, including the dreaded FAKE BLOOD~!. -Double-teaming in tag matches is strictly forbidden and grounds for immediate DQ. Tag ropes are required. -Managers and valets are allowed... as long as they stay "outside the ring enclosure", that is, NOT AT RINGSIDE. -If anyone or anything gets fucked up, it's all the promoter's fault. The rules are precisely set down to define exactly what is allowed to happen, and it appears that straight-up singles or tag matches are the only kind allowed, with pinfalls or DQs being the only way to end a match, countouts and submissions aren't mentioned. It says nothing about three-ways, ladder matches, six-man-or-bigger tags, battle royals, or any kind of gimmick match at all, from a simple no-DQ on down. So, question: was this set up by some geriatric idiots who fondly look back upon the golden days of wrestling in the 50s, or is this a blatant attempt to keep any professional wrestling show to ever run in the state of Georgia again? EDIT: oh yeah, this hasn't officially passed yet, the final hearing is on December 18th. Any written correspondance about the subject must be received before December 11th.

Not the first time this has happened to them. Remember the Dateline where they played mix-n-match with Mick Foley's answers to questions regarding backyard wrestling.

On the WO site, there's a Raw house show report from Australia which says that Harcore Holly and Cody Rhodes wrestled three matches, the last two in a row. Any idea what the hell they'd do that for?

"Hey look honey, the baby is pretending she's one of us grownups, isn't it cute!" That's just intellectually lazy. Flashing Jericho's entrance music track number for a split-second, that's kind of clever. Putting together a glorified scavenger hunt which offers some really simplistic puzzles, but tries to make up for it by doing a lot of them in a row, not so much.

How did organized crime come up in this in the first place? There's no comparison, the mafia/yakuza/triads/vory v zakone/South American druglords/street gangs/etcetera are all way, way worse than either wrestling or porn could ever hope to aspire to be.

"He" meaning Bradshaw. He had some funny lines, but also spent a lot of time ordering beers and doing stuff like making racist jokes about Tanaka. Another "joshi star on tv" sighting: I was watching a little Ninja Warrior last night, and saw the women's competition for the first time. I wasn't impressed, the obstacles were incredibly dumbed down from the male version, it seemed like most of the contestants were just there to get on television and there was a lack of serious athletes. The weird part though: in the fifteen minutes I watched, only one woman beat the first stage, and it was Momoe Nakanishi.

Obviously being there live is gonna make a huge difference. On tape, the crowd sounded subdued, like they only popped a couple of times. But I'm sure watching it in person there's an added electricity that just doesn't come across to someone watching at home. I do agree that Misawa needs to be doing the Baba/Tsuruta "graceful fade away into retirement via tag matches" at this point, if that match was typical of his outings now. I hope it was just a temporary injury, but he really looked terrible, way worse than in even the Morishima concussion match last year. Joebashi isn't an original from me, I've heard several people refer to that match that way.

So, Misawa vs. Joe is on youtube now. And no, it isn't even near half as good as Joebashi. Misawa looks terrible, like he caught mononucleosis in the middle of the tour. The match goes about twenty minutes, but literally more than half of it is spent sitting around in various holds. Misawa's entire offense consisted of elbows and rest holds at this point. I'm pretty sure I could count on my hands the number of bumps he took during the whole match, and still have enough fingers left over to make a bunny rabbit shadow puppet. Joe also looked nervous and tentative, like he was afraid to use half his usual high-end offense on the old guy; it was a far cry from his super-enthusiastic performance in the Kobashi matches. They also did that annoying thing where they went straight into the finishing sequence with no buildup at all. One second they're doing armbars, the next it's kicking out of musclebusters and emerald fusions, before the inevitable "Misawa pins someone younger than him with an elbow" finish. I'd heard about how broken-down Mitsuharu was now, but whoa Jesus I had no idea.

You'd think JBL doing Nazi shit at that show in Germany and getting fired from his TV gig over it would be a much easier and more obvious way of doing that. It just sounds like another one of those "demoted from Horsemen to Raw" moments you get when a journalist writes about wrestling with their only knowledge about the product coming from some intern who spent three minutes on JBL's wikipedia entry.

Porn certainly pays better on the low end. Your average camwhore makes more than a typical indy worker. But in America, sex is usually seen as being more offensive and harmful to depict in entertainment media, so wrestling is considered to be less sleazy by the general public by default.

Somewhere in my tape stack I've got an hour broadway between Bruno and Baba, from around 1970-ish. Let's just say that I've never felt courageous enough to tackle that bad boy. (To be fair, the crappy VQ has a lot to do with that too.) Yes, Bruno is basically proto-Hogan, a guy who gets beaten on for eternity by the evil (usually foreign) heel, before finally deciding he's mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore with a fiery punchkick comeback. I've seen him buck the formula a few times, but the majority of his matches tend to look an awful lot alike. He's one of those guys who makes me wonder how he stayed so amazingly popular for so long; compared to contemporaries like Thesz, Carpentier, Rocca, Brisco, Dory Jr, and so on, his style looked awfully simplistic and phony.

Yes. Yes they did. I would imagine it was Vince and his fear of sounding rural, since most people in the US associate "Birmingham" with Alabama rather than England.But... doesn't the WWE run shows in Birmingham, AL? They always identify the city at the beginning of every Raw taped in America.

Haha yeah like EVIL VINCE picks what goes on DVDs. CHRIST. It's a lot easier to type and a lot more of a cheap shot which amuses me than "Who are you, what have you done with the variety of unknown faceless office executives, television writers, and technical workers whom the WWE happens to employ at Titan Towers in order to put their DVDs together, and can you leave them there?"