Mad Dog

I liked the television show when I would watch it but I was never drawn to it. My problem with it is it takes itself too seriously. The fans are annoying and pimp guys that are not that talented. The fake epic comes to mind. I hate Davey Richards and the Briscoes. But I fucking hate the style that dominates the show. You have guys like Richards that will head drop someone the entire match and then slap on a Texas Cloverleaf to get the win. There's just no logical sense to the matches. But it's super serious stuff. You better dare not forget to show that you appreciate what's going on in the ring! But this is part of the problem too: Look at how convoluted that gimmick match is. IMO, if it takes more than 5 words to communicate a gimmick match to someone, it's too complicated. But for me, it really comes down to it takes itself too seriously. I love Chikara, for example, and they do all of the same dumb shit in the matches. But you don't take it seriously. It's usually a fun romp and you get a few laughs out of it. RoH is just tedious.

Hogan vs. Warrior is actually a very standard match when you break it down. Who was working heel then? Hogan was.

I liked how Sting always did the no sell. He'd beat the hell out of the guy for a few seconds but would go back to selling all the damage if the heel withstood his flurry of offense. I dislike how Shawn Michaels did it. He'd do the kip up and suddenly the whole match leading up to that never happened. Having watched a ton of Shawn, this isn't exactly true. If so, it's more in his 90's run than his comeback, where he'd always go back to selling (usually clutching his back, etc) I also think singling out Shawn is unfair, since that's practically main WWF/E babyface 101 to sell, kind of, if not totally blow it off, then go to the finish. See Hogan, Warrior, Bret, Cena, Austin, Rock, etc. That's their style. -Paul Jacobi- He was just the example I could come up with. I hated how the Rock did it too. I didn't mind Hogan though, when he missed the leg drop he always ran out of steam and usually lost. Granted, that seemed to happen in WCW more than the WWF.

Has anyone read that book about 1982 Memphis. I think about buying it on my Kindle all the time but always shy away.

Sting's had some solid work this year. This is probably the worst thing he's been involved in this year. At least with the Jeff Hardy match you got to watch Sting just manhandle him.

I always hated that spot where the face hits one comeback spot and the heel is selling like he's taken as much damage as the face that just took a 10 minute beating.

Hogan vs. Warrior is actually a very standard match when you break it down.

I liked how Sting always did the no sell. He'd beat the hell out of the guy for a few seconds but would go back to selling all the damage if the heel withstood his flurry of offense. I dislike how Shawn Michaels did it. He'd do the kip up and suddenly the whole match leading up to that never happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWeNedSoyuU This is the Duggan match I was talking about. It's not a classic or anything but I think it's a good example of Andre having his good days late in his career.

That's a byproduct of the WWF at the time though. Guys would get a big payday to work there and then immediately start dogging it in the ring.

Where can someone acquire the New Japan 80s TV seasons?

There's an Andre/Duggan match from 88 that was really good too. I was really surprised with the late career Andre. Sure, he has some absolutely horrible matches like the Roberts WM match but he had a lot of good matches with a variety of different workers.

It could be an STD. I would tend to think they wouldn't have pulled him from a match for a curable STD though. But then, I don't know if they'd pull him for staph so far in advance either. I just know he missed the first Bound For Glory due to staph infection.

Staph would be a good answer. Though, he might have had the injury awhile and failed the physical towards the end of it.

Am I a fool for thinking I wouldn't vote for the Masked Assassins?

This can go either way. This can be a guy you hated at one point and now like or a guy you loved but now dislike. It can also be for guys you liked as a mark, rebelled against when you started to become smart and then found your love of said worker again. I'll start it off. The Ultimate Warrior: I bought into the meme that he had very little merit as a worker for the longest time. I laughed at all of the jokes and made a lot of them. Then I started rewatching a lot of WWF stuff from 1989 into 1991. I was a little surprised by what I saw with the Warrior. During this time period he had two pretty good matches with Rick Rude, an all time classic with Randy Savage, a pretty good match with Hogan, a surprisingly solid series of matches with the Undertaker and a match with Sgt. Slaughter that I liked a lot better when I revisited it. I also changed my mind on his promos. Sure, they're out there but they make sense. He makes his point even if it's a little weird and convoluted. I'm not saying he was good but I've seen too many good Warrior matches now to just discount him as I used to. Bret Hart: I find him tedious now. He's so utterly predictable that it's almost painful to watch him at times. I think I could close my eyes and call his spots in a random match during the 90s. I also find him to be pretty boring on the mic, minus his heel 1997, and to not be terribly compelling more often than not. His matches are still pretty good, I just find myself more interested in lesser matches with more interesting wrestlers. Diesel: Not really as a worker. Just his WWF Title run. I tend to feel his failure as champion had more to do with his booking and challengers than Diesel. His reign seems to work when he has good challengers and started to fizzle when he started facing random fat guy of the month.

I hated Joe/Kobashi. I don't think it was a particularly great match and the crowd was beyond obnoxious during that match. I haven't seen that match since it initially came out though. I just remember not liking it.

They're no different than actors really. Hell, tons of actors are dead before 35. You don't see the same kind of outcry over that. It's just the nature of the beast so to speak.

He was awful. Decent as Malice in TNA though.

I think that's why my favorite shoots are the ones where they stick two wrestlers that know each other in a room and just let them go off.

I think Crash Holly was under their watch, no? No, he had been gone several months by that point. Plus, that was 2003 TNA and it was more like working an indy promotion then.

I think there was a lot of Verne being too stuck on the past. Based on ESPN: 1. The squash matches routinely went for 8-10 minutes when Crockett and WWF guys were running over jobbers in a few minutes. A small thing but it shows the mentality. 2. The product values to the show were ancient compared to the WWF and Crockett. The show is just brutally slow and has no life whatsoever. This was a huge problem. If they had a slicker, more modern feeling show, it would've competed better. 3. The announcers didn't "get it". This is the biggest problem right here with the product. The best announcer from the ESPN era was Lee Marshall. Lee Marshall fucking sucks and the only reason he was the best is he had a slight idea of what was going on. The announcers were a bunch of old men and they would constantly say things during matches that showed they were behind the times. Dig up some Midnight Rockers matches from 86 and you'll just cringe at what they're saying. Larry Nelson also hurt the product a lot as he could just take a great promo off the rails at any moment. 4. Verne didn't understand the talent as time wore on. The Rock N Roll Express came to town in 88 after a hot run in Crockett and you could just tell the AWA wasn't comfortable with how to use them. They essentially did nothing while they were there. They wouldn't have saved the AWA but I bet they would've put a few more butts in the seats if they were pushed harder. But you see this happen several times on television. 5. Routinely buried younger talent. I was watching a show from 88 several months ago and Ray Stevens wrestled in a match. Ray Stevens looked like a physical disaster and guys were having to sell for him like he was still a threat. This happened a ton over the course of the television. The angles to me always seemed fairly basic and down to earth. They never felt outdated to me either. I do feel like his fews on talent were outdated at the time.

Some for Batista. He gets zero for Orton because he buried Orton at several key moments plus the fact that Orton has never really been over enough to justify his push. Where he gets zero credit for is that fact that Batista and Orton both have pulled shit backstage that people have been fired for less over.

I know, it was more of a joke than anything.

As a small side note to this. I caught an advertisement on the radio for last night's Raw. HHH was getting the top billing and everyone else was just an afterthought to him on that commercial.