Mad Dog

Some notables:

I see a bunch of Cavs from the late 80s and early 90s:

Wrestlers. I've already posted Lawler and Race before:

I've made brief mention on it here but one of my hobbies is writing to athletes and wrestlers through the mail and trying to get them to sign trading cards. I have a lot of fun with it and it's always fun to see what arrives back in the mail. I thought some of you would get a kick out of seeing some of the guys that I've successfully written to. I guess I'll go big for the first post with some of the names:

It happened a long time ago though. Barely anyone remembers how painfully unover he was until those Foley matches happened.

I thought you guys would get a huge kick out of this one:

Looking at his record, Leben was 10-1 at that point in his career. So not a novice by an stretch. Koscheck was 2-0 so yeah, he was really raw in comparison. But he was an elite level wrestler in his weight class in college.

Josh Koschek vs. Chris Leben is an excellent example. I wouldn't call Leben a boxer but his primary attribute was punching. Koschek had zero offensive skill at that point in his career. Koshcheck took Leben down at will and then laid on him until the referee stood them back up and then he'd just take him back down. I don't think Leben even hurt Koscheck at all during that fight.

When it's come up in MMA, the wrestler usually wins. Even wrestlers with no offensive game whatsoever have won fights against boxers with relative ease. Couture/Toney is a bad example but an example.

According to him he got looks from ECW/WCW as a hanger on to Reckless Youth. They decided against ECW because of the drug culture and his offer from WCW disappeared when Reckless Yuth suffered an injury. That's according to Mike though.

I will give Sabu some credit. As bad as he can be in the ring, I've seen few guys in wrestling with the aura he has. And I think it's incredible that he managed to keep his mystique mostly intact for his entire career.

If I had to choose, I would go with RVD because his matches aren't as likely to come off the rails. Sabu commits the biggest sin to me in wrestling by redoing blown spots.

RoH decided it was a good idea to show Mike Bennett dropping BJ Whitmer on his head weeks after the incident happened. Bennett did an unprotected piledriver that put Whitmer in the hospital on August 4th, the tv is that far behind, and no one thought it was a good idea to edit it off of television.

Oh, I forgot to mention just in case. Make sure you send a self addressed stamped envelope with that stuff.

I watched the free IVP download which was a Dusty Rhodes in New Japan comp. As I mentioned in another thread, good brawl with Abdullah the Butcher in there. Another oddball match up as Antonio Inoki and Dusty team up to take on Hulk Hogan and Stan Hansen. On a more humorous note, Bobby Duncam and Sgt. Slaughter came down to the ring to an instrumental version of "Under the Rainbow". Also been slowly making my way through the 2010 G-1 Glimax. Been digging that. This was my first exposure to Mr. Strong and he's really fun for a roid freak. I'm really digging the IVP download service. I love that I don't have to dump $30-50 on an order. I can just get shows when I want to watch them. It's really changed my viewing habits.

I got the free Dusty comp off IVP this week. I might have been delirious at the time but I dug the shit out of the Dusty/Abby match on there. It was a great brawl and it was amazing when Dusty finally made his big comeback in the match. It was probably the best Abby match I've seen.

I'll second Sasaki/Tenryu from 1/4/00 as being a really good Dome main event. I don't like Sasaki but that match is really good. If you want a hilariously bad match from that same show look up Randy Savage vs. Rick Steiner.

Mutoh vs. Hashimoto - 95 G-1 Climax Final Mutoh/Flair from that same tournament isn't an all time classic but it's a really good match. Chono/Rude - 92 G-1 Climax Final Again, not an all time classic but I remember really liking Norton/Nagata from 9/23/98 when I saw it.

Check your PMs. I sent you Harley's mailing address.

Ring of Honor is notorious for jobbing their guys in title matches one or two too many times before pulling the trigger. They did it to Nigel McGuinness and Tyler Black and it ultimately hurt them within RoH. They're also getting ready to do the exact same thing to Michael Elgin. Goldberg got double fucked when you think about it. The Nash loss cut his balls off and then he turns around and briefly recaptures his magic in the Elimination Chamber only to job to HHH in the end.

I'm a big context guy with lucha and puro. I watch full shows and in chronological order. I think my preference for full shows is why I've always been a bigger New Japan fan than NOAH or All Japan. I like to know why guys are fighting. I like to see guys like Wataru Inoue start out as lower card guys that do a lot of jobs and watch them slowly fight their way up the card over a long period of time. I also feel it made things like Yuji Nagata winning the IWGP Title in 2007 mean so much more when I had the context of his previous reign in my viewing history.

I would think Tenzan before Chono.

I'm going to give you the really hack answer here. Watch the 94 and 95 J Cup Tournaments and then watch the J Crown Tournament. You'll know a lot of the guys in the tournament. It's a national co-promotional tournament and you don't need context for what's going on. The J Crown Tournament will take a lot of the guys you saw in the previous tournaments and this one does provide context. You won't understand what's being said but they all toss their championships in the ring so you'll get an idea of what's going on. These 3 shows will have a variety of quality. That's how most people I know really dove into the Japanese scene. As far as the language barrier. You figure it out quickly. You'll start seeing the booking develop and you'll learn the body language and other things to help you fill in the blanks.

RoH just ended the SCUM angle a few weeks ago. They had Eddie Kingston and Homicide form a team last weekend and vow to destroy the company exactly like SCUM was. Way to be original there guys.

You know, the WWE finally won me back after probably a decade of having no faith in them. The product wasn't perfect but it was at a point where I watched the shows on Hulu and enjoyed myself. I knew Orton was going to walk out the champion, whatever... but the HHH shit, come on... Why does HHH have to get involved any time someone starts building some serious momentum in the company?