Loss

His period of acclaim seemed to be pretty short.

I think Dave's only point was that he should have said "career" instead of "life". But seriously, he celebrated his career highlight with his father in front of 100,000 in attendance. He doesn't have a wife or children yet. So come on.

How is this different from the Doug Gilbert suit that was dismissed?

Which Mistico was that vote for?

There are stories in 1997 of the WWF being interested in Kobashi, yes.

I feel like it will be good for me to get better at putting my take on lucha in words. So I hope this is mutually beneficial.

Let's try to work through this together. Are you able to isolate what you see as the five (or so) biggest differences between lucha libre and the American/Japanese style? Then maybe we can try to tackle them one at a time.

No, I don't feel like I have to make any adjustments. It probably helps that I see all wrestling as symbolic and focus more on the grand gestures anyway, though. Execution only matters if it's so good you take notice or so bad that it distracts from whatever else they are trying to achieve in the ring. It is a style that strikes me as even more character-driven than US wrestling, and I'm still working out how to explain what I mean by that.

I think Parv is looking for someone to explain lucha libre to him in a way that suddenly everything clicks and he sees its value and understands why the style differences are what they are, and it's something that makes sense. I feel like I understand lucha in my head, but getting the words out is tough, which is why I haven't made an attempt.

I don't think it will ever stop -- in part because people usually pop for stuff that reminds them of their childhoods, and in part because the old guys are still second to none at working a crowd. I think the onus is more on WWE to show some discipline. There is no hard indicator that says that this type of thing has a detrimental effect, but when you see that for the most part WWE has a roster full of midcard acts, little things like how they book Wrestlemania add up. It won't change until Vince decides to sacrifice a few Manias to build up the current guys, and he'll never do that so there we are.

It was always read between the lines, but it was implied both. There's the specific story of him meeting Takako Inoue and being wowed that she was in her 30s and supposedly having eyes for her.

I'll also add that as recently as a decade ago, John Laurinitis was hiring women to work in WWE by flipping through bikini catalogs, and the primary purpose was always sort of reported as a way to keep morale up among the guys who would apparently get cranky when there was no fresh meat. So it's in that context that I think I've undersold what Sasha, Becky, Charlotte and others have already accomplished. They've done it in a highly oppressive company and industry, so I have to give them huge credit.

Sasha Banks praising the Fabulous Moolah, who ran a prostitution ring for wrestlers and then had promoters use them as wrestlers to launder the money she made off of it, made me realize how much of this history has been forgotten or whitewashed. I don't feel like I even know the full extent of it, but I have read the stories about Sweet Georgia Brown becoming an addict after being drugged, raped and beaten so many times. She was under strict orders from Moolah to answer the hotel door ready to go when wrestlers knocked. There's also the stories of Mildred Burke pressuring her crew to have sex with promoters so they could get return dates for more money. It does make me wonder just how deep this story goes, since those are the only ones we know. It also makes me wonder about what it was about Moolah that kept her relationship with the McMahon family so good for so long.

I really enjoyed this show. I feel like I want to know Jimmy Redman's opinion on every single semi-forgotten act WWE has had in the last 15 years now. Do you mind if I bombard you with questions about The Bashams and Carlito?

Full disclosure: tomk originally made the comparisons to Rick Steiner and Sting when he was making a point about how it seemed like HHH was trying to redo all of his favorite Flair matches with guys he saw as similar opponents. So I'd love to take credit for that one, but he came up with that part. That time being the closest WWE ever would be to being JCP is all me though.

Roman Reigns setting fans on fire would make him the most beloved guy in the world!

Roman Reigns should have unleashed that thing on people booing him. The crowd would warm to him immediately if he started chasing boo-ers with a chainsaw. They could have even hired a plant to boo and have his fake arm sawed off. "Boo me now!"

How is post-Michinoku Pro Teoh?

Not so much a critique as a suggestion: I like how Evolve feels modern even in the ways that it's a throwback because the heavy focus on matwork hasn't been done in so long that it really feels contemporary and fresh. But I do wish that they'd accompany that with more focus on the rules. The six-man from Mercury Rising was awesome, but the referee was counting every single pin or submission attempt down the final stretch, no matter who did it, regardless of who the legal men were. That sounds like a limitation, but I think heavier focus on stuff like that would actually add to the drama more than it would restrict the wrestlers. Of course, I say that after watching one show that was more of a supershow, so that could be a misplaced point.

Just finished the six-man. Had they limited pin and submission attempts to the legal men down the final stretch, that could have been a work of art. The match built so well, and I liked how the escalation in balls-out action was established as the only place they could go if either team had any plans of winning. I don't put this on the match, but I didn't like that there was no camera following them out into the crowd, although they at least picked up the key spot. A super match, and I say that as someone who normally hates synchronized spots.

Congrats to you both! Can't wait to listen to this. Today!

Paul Jones has looked really good in the 70s Mid Atlantic film footage. It's been hard for me to view him as a wrestler and not a manager, which has probably made me underrate him. I also love Kakihara, and thought he did a good job making his style work in a post-shoot style landscape.

Akitoshi Saito strikes me as one of those guys who has been around forever and quietly racked up an impressive resume, but has never really gotten his due.

I say all this as I am watching and enjoying the hell out of Maxwell Chicago! His whole act is a tribute to the difficulties of being a pro wrestler, though.

To answer the above questions, the difference with Joey Ryan is that he works in a way that makes fun of wrestling. The key to me with comedy wrestling is doing something that serves the match first and the laugh second. Super Delphin calling for a timeout in a tag match and having the crowd rolling works because he was working the whole match like a Southern heel anyway. He's not pandering for the laugh, and breaking wrestling's customs to get it. As for knowing him personally, I don't need to know Joey Ryan personally to know that he has no desire to work in a way that thousands of guys have worked over a hundred years.