Bix

Jerome, that's really not it. There are all sorts of weird rules and intricacies not present in other promotions. Loss alerted me to the fact that the review at that one spyware site gives an actual number for Jericho's inital WM18 payoff ($95,000) before he complained that HHH got five times as much and was given an additional check to make up for it. Jericho's book just says "five figures." This is the same website that posted quotes from the Benoit chapter in August before quickly pulling the article. Be a little less obvious, dudes.

My review at Cageside. Ignoring HHH and Stephanie being SH00T!married felt like a political move somehow. What other reason could there be?

Best part of the commentary in the segment, better than answering that they don't know who he is: Finlay: "This man has been paying for 400 years of what he did to my country!" Dusty: "WHOA!" It always sounded to me like Dusty thought Finlay just outed Regal as being over 400 years old. That may just be my brain, though.

It was Willem Rhuska.

The issue of wrestlers being stalked at airports by psycho superfans is a lot worse than spoilers.

I'm talking about the Cornette 16mm JCP. The common 18 disc set. I was surprised when I pulled stuff for the Flair-Steamboat comp. to see that they had some extended matches. Lawler-Race was shot on tape and is around thanks to Cornette via RF. There's also a full Lawler-Dundee (Mickey Poole's hair vs Dundee leaves town) from a few months earlier, which is also excellent. That's via a tape from Steve F. The Gulas film stuff I mentioned is from PM Film, though there's more around that's not from them. There's also a decent amount of '79 Memphis TV available now, with plenty of competitive TV matches as well as the Dundee-Tony Charles match from Jackson, TN complete with Lance hyping how they had to show this wonderful technical match from a house show. It's very good, maybe a tad disappointing because the finish was in Dundee music videos for years and really cool, intricate stuff, while the rest of the match isn't as fancy.

Trish Stratus might be the most overrated wrestler ever, not just female wrestler. It is almost a parody at this point.How so? Of course people who just watch WWE will think she's the best female wrestler ever. I don't think other people place her any higher than best female wrestler in WWFE history, which in that context isn't a reach given the other options, as the better female workers who came through didn't really get to do nearly as much there as she did. Sure, Nakano was better, but all she did was wrestle Madusa a few times and not much came out of it other than a really good TV match to end the program. Jumping Bomb Angels had a better run that was basically the same thing, just more prolific. Sherri was a really good worker but didn't have the opportunities to do much. Ditto all of the better Moolah trainees except maybe for Kai and Martin, but even then, it was really just the one program with the Angels. From the last decade, Molly Holly and Mickie James were better fundamental workers, but Stratus wasn't incredibly far behind and was a much stronger personality. Victoria's post-Trish stuff proved her to be a lie created by Stratus and Finlay.

Some of the officially shot film collections (like JCP and Gulas) do have full or nearly full matches mixed in. JCP has an extended Flair-Steamboat or two for starters. The Fargo-Greene hair match on the '70s TN/KY films is pretty complete.

I think you can make an argument that Stratus made Vince et al think that Stratus was proof that you can train models to work, since the Diva Search and whatnot were after she developed into a solid worker and a strong personality. Granted, if they think this, they're wrong, since she was a fan who decided to become a wrestler on her own and had started training to some degree, but I can see McMahon and Dunn thinking this.

There are a ton off SMW handhelds shot by Tommy Noe and Regis Hildebrand that we don't have. Dave Prazak has Noe's at least if someone wants to try hitting him up again. I have no idea if Pam Clark is still selling the other stuff.

I have an idea on the process. If these are legit concerns that the DVDVR crew has (people blindly voting, etc) than the requirements of voting should be that a poster has to comment on each match in the set. It would make for more discussion, and the likelihood of someone chiming in on 150 different topics and not actually watching the footage is probably extremely low, if not impossible. If the DVDVR forums had the organizational methods that this forum does, it would be an easy way to set it up, and for archiving reasons as well. What I mean by that is, since Phil makes topics for every match, each set/territory should have their own sub-forum. I’ve never run a message board before, but I can’t envision that task being that difficult (is it?). It is organized then, and I wouldn’t have to use the lame search function that is very temperamental. It's not a bad idea, but I feel like there'd have to be some other way to do it. This would require making mookie or someone else have to track every person who got the set in every match thread. plus I get the feeling a lot of people hold back on posting because they're afraid they don't have enough constructive thoughts to post. 8-8-88 comes to mind.Forgot that one. It should've gotten the historical matches they weren't crazy about treatment. At any rate, there will be the errata set(s?) at the end, anyway.

Didn't some of the NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat teams also work on Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game?

When we did the '90s polls, the tape trading community was too small and too focused on recent footage and big shows/home videos, as opposed to now where a ridiculous amount of footage easily available, so it's hard to compare the two types of polls in terms of effectiveness. The WCW list was something that people thought was surprisingly bad at the time and aged even worse. The Owen tribute at #2 is something that you can sort of understand for when the poll took place (recent, emotional, generally considered a fantastic match at the time, and felt like the last "real" WCW match with Russo taking over right after) but looks bizarre in hindsight, especially as the only match from a weekly TV show in the top 20 (which no Clash matches made it to). Horsemen-Raven/Saturn at #9 owed to being recent and a throwback. The rest of the list features the usual suspects of pimped PPV matches that everyone talked about back then. NJPW was big event juniors heavy and would be completely different now. Japan indy I have no idea with so much more footage but could at least see some of the top matches staying up there, but even then, it should've been divided more. AJPW was nothing shocking, just the usual suspects. A lot more early '90s would be on a newer list but I suspect there would be more similarities than most lists. US indy was discussed above. Japan women I have no idea. ECW I figure would be topped by Douglas-Scorpio now but I have no idea how the rest would go aside from the stuff you expect to keep aging badly. WWF would probably change the least since it would still be PPV-focused. Lucha would change a lot (no way would the Cibernetico be #1) and be split into CMLL, AAA, and maybe an "other" for some combination UWA, Promo Azteca, Tijuana, IWRG, WWA, WIN, SoCal indies etc. In terms of the changing the process, we all had a feeling that without distributing footage ourselves then a lot of matches wouldn't get votes they deserved, lots of people would vote of memories from many years ago without rewatching, and some people would blindly vote for matches based on their reputation. I'm pretty sure some of this was also based on experience from previous projects. Only voting for matches on the set and forcing a full, numbered list (which, given the increasing size of the set, has gotten more cumbersome) was a way of guaranteeing people were actually watching the matches. Maybe what should be done is that mookieghana can set up a spreadsheet where you assign each match a rating, the matches get sorted, and than you can tweak your final decisions after it sorts your matches by how you rated them on a 5 star or 100% scale or whatever. As far as leaving stuff off that deserved to go on, has not really been an issue post-WWF set IMO. Tastes will vary, yes, but in most cases, aside from the occasional brainfart (Flair-Reed was the only one...right?) I don't think anything was left off that should've gone on. Starting with Other Japan Men, outside of the Flair-Reed issue, have there been any real complaints about missing matches aside from the Tiger Mask stuff that was going to be contentious anyway? The Smarkschoice polls worked relatively well because of the small sample size, but too many matches were missing online and enough people don't like watching extended matches/shows/movies on their PCs that I don't think it works on a larger scale. The WWF set was a flawed proof of concept. It'll be redone in some form, but it was worth doing to weed out the problems and show that it was worth doing. "Other Japan Men" was a great second set/first set of the new official canon because it was relatively easy to collate.

John, I can't remember if I've seen the MSG match you're talking about, but the Toronto match OJ reviewed is a wild bloody brawl that goes all over ringside, onto the ramp, and behind the ramp. It first surfaced last year on Classics On Demand. Easily the best non-Slaughter WWF brawl of the '80s.

We have unrealistically high expectations since his government name is Windham Rotunda.

What he said.

He may not have registered at new forums just for that but he has gone to other forums to beg.

It's less "why do they like this?" than "why is it Brits and Irishmen who love it the most?"

I hope so.

Among people who actually had an idea of what the Lucha style actually entails. The "talentless tumblers" crowd are usually older guys who think that Nitro matches or CZW Jrs. matches = Lucha Libre. Toryumon/Dragon Gate fans would get irrationally angry if you recommended that they check out Lucha Libre or even suggest that the DG style was heavily influenced by Lucha.

The otaku/Japanese culture aspect was plenty prevalent 3, 5 or 7 years ago when Dragon Gate and Toryumon got way less play. I don't think that's a factor. For reference: Dragon Gate's top finishing matches in the Purotopia 2009 vote were 48th and 50th place. That doesn't include DGUSA, but still, that's essentially no support. And heck, the top DG match on Alan's ballot was 7th place. I meant the '90s, not earlier in the aughts. Earlier in the aughts you had the weird period where the biggest western Japanese wrestling fan sites were WAY worse than the current crop of fans. The NJPW superfans would desperately make fun of Noah, referring to it as "NOWAAAAAAA" because they said its fans were crybabies for some reason. The guy who ran the Toryumon site had a legitimate emotional crisis when the split happened that gave us Dragon Gate. He also made bizarre statements about how he was completely straight, but would have sex with Taiji Ishimori if he had the chance. I believe that the guy who ran the NJPW site made similar comments about Hiroshi Tanahashi. Then the guy who ran the Toryumon/DG site tried to claim he was a girl and started writing everything like a "Japanese girl" in a way that makes Japanese girls seem like mentally disabled valley girls who wrote badly translated Japanese to English love letters. Those were the days and let's not forget the joshi fans. GUREDI Selling is an antiquated concept! It's the 2000s! You have to keep moving and be fast like Momoe Nakanishi, not be SLOW like TEH PHAT WERK with Ian Rotten!

The otaku/Japanese culture aspect was plenty prevalent 3, 5 or 7 years ago when Dragon Gate and Toryumon got way less play. I don't think that's a factor. For reference: Dragon Gate's top finishing matches in the Purotopia 2009 vote were 48th and 50th place. That doesn't include DGUSA, but still, that's essentially no support. And heck, the top DG match on Alan's ballot was 7th place. I meant the '90s, not earlier in the aughts. Earlier in the aughts you had the weird period where the biggest western Japanese wrestling fan sites were WAY worse than the current crop of fans. The NJPW superfans would desperately make fun of Noah, referring to it as "NOWAAAAAAA" because they said its fans were crybabies for some reason. The guy who ran the Toryumon site had a legitimate emotional crisis when the split happened that gave us Dragon Gate. He also made bizarre statements about how he was completely straight, but would have sex with Taiji Ishimori if he had the chance. I believe that the guy who ran the NJPW site made similar comments about Hiroshi Tanahashi. Then the guy who ran the Toryumon/DG site tried to claim he was a girl and started writing everything like a "Japanese girl" in a way that makes Japanese girls seem like mentally disabled valley girls who wrote badly translated Japanese to English love letters.

Yes, but generally I've found that people online who were heavily into Dragon Gate (which has a big Lucha influence, especially for the guys who started in the T2P era, but really for anyone from the Dragon Gym days since they were trained extensively in Lucha style and worked extensively in Mexico) were actually the most vitriolic about disliking Lucha.

Well, I wouldn't say that, but Japan being idealized in geek culture in general probably contributes in a way now that it didn't with people who were following Japanese wrestling before that. Mexico doesn't have that, is the subject of more racial issues in the US, has way too many people bashing the wrestling style for being "wrong," etc.

In the US, we never really "officially" got Japanese wrestling like you guys did on TWC for a few years. It was ALWAYS bootlegs, and the most popular stuff here was inevitably converted to PAL and made its way to Europe. Bob Barnett was regularly making Japan TV comps and had a conversion VCR as long as I've known him. IIRC, Rob Butcher was the main trader with a conversion VCR in the UK and he got plenty. Plus, I'm not sure when it started, but PAL VCRs were able to play back NTSC tapes pretty well by the late '90s. Even if it was a matter of downloads, YouTube, etc since it's free and even if someone wanted to buy tapes or DVDs, there was extra shipping, why is it only the last few years? The HQ downloads go back at least a few years before the rise of the current group.