Mad Dog

I'd take the 80s. I could easily sustain myself on WCCW, WWF arena shows, Mid-Atlantic and later JCP television for a long period of time.

How about Bob Orton Jr.'s arm. That damn thing just never seemed to heal in the WWF.

The Mongolian Stomper had that inner ear problem that he sold constantly. He would even sell pain if the crowd got too loud and they would cheer/stomp to try to give the face an advantage in the match.

He was pretty past his prime by the 1980s. I think the mid 70s were probably his peak as a worker. He's not an all time great but he's a really good promo and overall wasn't awful. His WWWF stuff and Crockett stuff isn't completely terrible. That Florida run is pretty bad though, he seemed really old and like he didn't give a fuck. Look for some of his tag work, you might like him better there.

To go with Warlord because the artwork is really good. Blackjack Mulligan got announced today for the 12th expansion of the Legends of Wrestling card game. Giant Bernard has also been announced. Here's Blackjack:

I know one or two of you play here. But the Warlord got announced for the 12th expansion of the Legends of Wrestling card game. Here's the art which looks good: I know he wasn't good or anything but I'm looking forward to his entry into the game.

It is when the company can't grow and can't make basic booking decisions because a certain part of their fanbase will freak out if there's a DQ, no contest or count out. It also doesn't help when you can't do those things, that will again piss off the fans, and then the same fans will get bored and walk away because you burn out all of your matches with your limited roster because again, you can't do those basic wrestling things or piss off your fanbase. RoH isn't profitable, never was profitable and is on it's death bed. There was a failure there, it was trying to change the basic principals of wrestling to cater to a very niche group of wrestling fans that only cared about snowflakes.

I think clean finishes are good but they become counter-productive after awhile. You can only mix and match your roster so much before you burn through them all if guys are getting pinned or submitted every time. You need DQs, count outs and interference to keep faces strong without putting them over at times. And it can also help heels build more heat against them. I think you run into problems when you're Ring of Honor though. You've catered to a fanbase that kind of doesn't understand how wrestling is supposed to work deep down. Then when you try to do the basic principals of booking, they get pissed off because... they don't understand how wrestling is supposed to work. I can think of a lot of instances where bad finishes have hurt the product but that's almost universally because it was being overdone.

The point about RD Evans is a great one. If you watch even a little Chikara you will immediately see how great he is. Yet RoH doesn't do a damned thing with him.

I watched Main Event yesterday. I liked all the hype they did for the Punk/Sheamus match. I thought the match itself was pretty good. Sheamus seems to really be coming along as a worker and I would dare to call him good at this point. Overall, I liked the show though I think that format could get old quickly but I would be down with a show that has a long match with main event talent every week.

Wouldn't Mildred Burke have probably been more popular at her peak?

One positive thing for Gorilla. He really sold the technical skills of certain guys well. He reserved "excellence of execution" for Bob Orton, Bret Hart and one or two other guys. I think it really put them over big time because he said that about so few guys. He also was great with Greg Valentine matches and talking about how it took Valentine 10-15 minutes to get warmed up and really going in the ring. That added a very realistic element to the commentary at times.

It was part of the house style at the time to only hook the leg on the pin that ended the match. Gorilla was criticizing guys for making a mistake that he knew they weren't allowed to correct. It only served to make him look good at the wrestlers' expense. I wasn't aware that it was the style. It's never been a huge tell to me because he usually did it on pinfalls that were clearly not going to end the match. Personally, I find that far less offensive than the guys like Vince, Cole, etc that scream about how the match is over, what an upset, new champion, etc, while the pinfall is at a 1 count. That seems worse than Gorilla saying "that guy didn't hook the leg and didn't execute properly." That seems like a logical thing to say during the course of a match. I've never sat through a WWF show from the 80s and thought Gorilla was trying to put himself over. Again, Gorilla isn't my favorite announcer but the hooking the leg thing seems super nitpicky when other announcers do far worse things.

Hearing Jim Ross commentate on NXT really reminds me of why I used to like his announcing. He calls moves, delves into strategy and doesn't scream. I would dare to say that he's actually good on NXT and has good chemistry with Regal.

This by 1000x. His logic makes no sense whatsoever. If we really want to get into this. By pinning your opponent, you're giving up your advantage briefly to try and win the match. If you listened to Heenan on commentary, he constantly talked about how you'd wait till 2 to kick out to get a chance to catch your breath. Also, seems like a smart wrestler would do just enough to get out out trouble. It doesn't make logical sense. I also fail to see how Gorilla Monsoon talking about how a guy not hooking the leg is a bad thing. Again, it's a sport and you criticize guys who aren't executing properly. The bitching about that type of announcing reeks of trying to find anything to bitch about. Gorilla isn't my favorite but he's nowhere near as bad as Meltzer and others love to portray him as. God, I get so sick of his constant whining about modern wrestling. He sounds like such a bitter fuck that he was at best a wrestling footnote more noted for being boring as shit over anything else.

I watched. He and Slater were fighting and Mahal/McIntyre ran in and they beat him down. The announcers really didn't sell that and they didn't really sell it on the next episode of Superstars. And the day before on Superstars they were selling McIntyre as a face as he got a win over Mahal while selling a wrist injury. It really came off as not having storyline behind it but I don't watch Raw and I've only been making a concentrated effort to watch weekly for about 5 weeks.

Despite my complaints. I'e really enjoyed Smackdown, Superstars and NXT thus far. I'm looking forward to the addition of Main Event to the lineup. I'm making a point of avoiding Raw because I think even the clipped version would remind me of why I quit watching.

Also, the Mahal/McIntyre/Slater stable makes no sense whatsoever. They have absolutely nothing in common and they were pushing McIntyre as a face against Mahal on the episode of Superstars right before they attacked Clay.

How does the WWE have such a huge roster and you feel like you're seeing the same matches over and over again?

Kingston sucks but he at least has a couple of okay looking moves. Nothing Otunga does looks even remotely painful.

I might skip it then. That's not how I want them to edit Raw down.

So? They edited out all the matches and left all the talking in?

It has it's moments, like on Smackdown Damian Sandow came out and called them a bunch of names and Daniel Bryan gave Kane a confused look and asked him off mic "Us?" And things like Sandow wrestling Kane and bumping into Bryan and he yells "I am the Tag Team Champions" was funny. It really has good moments and they have good chemistry. They're just watering it down with too many segments. Was the Hulu version of Raw worth the time? I like it being cut down to 90 minutes. Did it feel like a full show and were there matches present?

I really want to enjoy the Daniel Bryan/Kane dynamic. It's amusing most of the time and I like how they play off of each other but they really need to cut back on the airtime they get. I think a segment, maybe 2 a show would be more than enough to keep that storyline healthy. When they're getting 3 or 4 segments a show, it starts to get tedious. Also, David Otunga sucks, I mean really sucks. I'm having a hard time thinking of someone on the roster that's worse than him.

J.R. does some stunningly competent commentary when he's on NXT. I liked the Ohno/Steamboat match. I dug the show quite a bit, think I'll tune in every week.