Bix

From prowrestlinghistory.com June 9, 1995 in Tokyo, Japan All Japan Budokan Hall drawing 16,300 ($1,000,000) 2. Satoru Asako pinned Mike Anthony (6:58). Why was Mike Lozansky of all people an exception to the "no foreigners who toured for smaller promotions" rule NJPW & AJPW had that kept Samoa Joe of out of NJPW years later? Unless it's a different Mike Anthony?

Starrcade '87 has to be out of the markets where it was available. Real number was 5 figures IIRC?

I haven't heard the interview yet but it all ties into what I said in the shoots thread about how for his own good, Cornette should be done with doing the angry ranting interviews and just stick to doing/talking about stuff he likes. Which makes me glad he's doing the book with Mark about gimmick table stuff, at least. Still... Gabe also tweeted this about the interview:

!!!!!!

Try to find some Worldwide, it still had an exclusive match or two each week after WCWSN went all recap.

Frog = Toad from OMEGA.

That searchable archive of TV/Radio Age issues is tremendous and I will waste way too much time on it. I should see if my library has added any good databases...

That TV/Radio Age blurb is a little weird. Why are they comparing a $4 movie with a $25 live event?

Everyone needs to get in the habit of asking Corny about stuff he actually likes. When he's just geeking out about old wrestling or theories of booking/ring psychology or whatever, it's like he's a completely different guy. Press him on people who he feels destroyed the livelihood of him and his friends, and, well...

I just wanna know where Mookie is getting back issues of Broadcasting & Cable.

That gimmicked ambulance is why corporate wrestling is great.

Welcome back.

He landed back first on the stairs, and slowed down pretty noticeably immediately after that match.

I've had two versions of the story: One is that Flair or someone else dragged him to the monitor that night, the other is that he happened to first see it on tape years later. But it absolutely happened.

I'm pretty sure they have a feed for the free show on iTunes. If not, there is a RSS feed of the free shows and Bryan should submit it to iTunes. Personally, while I'd subscribe just for the Observers, I do listen to most episodes of WOR. F4D...varies. Meanwhile, it only took a day:

No idea how I've never seen this photo before, but it's awesome:

The point is not really that he would have done well in WWE, anyway. This is a guy who was consensus top 5 to top 10 in the world for several years, and that was largely erased even before he took that bump on the stairs. You can't say the same thing about the workrate indy guys who didn't do well in WWE. Outside of winning the fan vote for NXT Season 2, Low-Ki completely bombed (for a number of reasons) and nobody really looks at him as a lesser worker than he was when he was hired. Colt Cabana is the same wrestler he was when he was signed, is in some ways ways a bigger star than he was doing jobs on WWE TV. Hell, look at Claudio/Cesaro: If he doesn't get a renewed push with Dutch as his manager (something hinted at on Raw this past Monday) and is instead jobbed out for months and then released, he'll be looked at as a considerably better worker than he was when he was signed. When he was signed, he was a great worker and one of the best in the indies. Now he's considered even better, a guy closer to Danielson's level who, by all rights, should be a WWE main eventer based on the quality and style of his in-ring work. EDIT: Oh, and as for the Chris Harris stuff: I know that post-Braden Walker the conventional wisdom online is that James Storm was really just carrying him for years. Was it a meme at all beforehand? I know that Storm was considered the worker of the team by other wrestlers back then.

Even if Joe had the Umaga gimmick (and my understanding is it had nothing to do with anything), that doesn't magically make everything that happened to Eddie Fatu happen to him.

Since I can't sleep and I think I'll forget this: If Joe doesn't become dissatisfied with Zero-One because they wanted him to be a garden variety pro wrestling Samoan, does he go to WWE since he's not dreading a retread of the frustrating experience he had gone through fairly recently? It was clearly something that was important to him. Also, since I feel like this cannot be stated enough: There was a that period last year where Raw was completely, undisputedly built around Punk and Daniel Bryanson, with both in at least 3 segments per show, and in Punk's case they were all pretty damn long. This after they feuded on and off for months in a program that took up a bunch of time on Raw each week.

Let's review: - CM Punk, who became Joe's best friend as their careers intertwined, chooses WWE over TNA, is over and selling merchandise from the start, and eventually ends up as a made guy and the best heel in the company in who knows how many years. Who made the company want him enough to shell out for a tour bus and Cult of Personality. - Bryan Danielson is still the best wrestler in the world, getting to have 20 minute matches on Raw that are put over on commentary and in the curated tweets as 5* classics, is currently the best character in WWE, sells a ton of T-shirts, is at worst the second most over WWE babyface with live crowds, and about to get an even bigger push to set up a babyface match PPV main event with John Cena that WWE wants to be an all-time classic match. And he pushed/motivated Kane to the best run of his career. - Tyler Black and Jon Moxley are, along with a Samoan named Joe who is a much better worker than Samoa Joe right now, collectively the super protected #2 heels in WWE who live crowds have latched onto and are having a ton of great long matches on TV each week. Also they all have titles that they elevated as soon as they won them and Moxley is, with 6 months on the main roster, considered one of the 3-5 best guys in WWE at putting a match together. - Matt Sydal got pushed about as much as a really short guy who isn't Rey Mysterio could be and then some. In spite of being kind of a fuck up, it looks like his old role is waiting for him when he returns from a very long injury layoff. - Chris Hero is still in developmental, but it's clear WWE has big plans for him. In a decade he went from the best indy guy nobody expected to go to WWE to being WWE's top prospect. - Claudio Castagnoli...well, it looks like he's getting a renewed push after tonight's Raw. Samoa Joe? He picked TNA over WWE, and TNA gave him a great push until a pilled up Kurt Angle (literally?) fell into their laps, sacrificing his undefeated streak to the one guy who would gain absolutely nothing by beating him. Then he lost to Angle twice, helping draw TNA's biggest PPV #s in the process, did nothing for a couple years, finally beat Angle, dropped the title to Sting a few months later, taking one of the stupidest bumps of all time during the match and permanently injuring himself in the process, and now...what the fuck is he even doing? He walks around aimlessly occasionally squashing undercard guys. He's been in limbo for years. Nobody has any desire to see him wrestle. I suppose he's probably well paid, but he'd probably be paid a lot better in WWE and he wouldn't have crippled himself by doing a dropkick onto the concrete stairs in an arena's seats.

I never really got this interpretation of the show. The "valued at" numbers are often pulled out of thin air, and some items they bought on the show have ended up on Mike's website sitting unsold for years. The people who actually have an emotional attachment to the items don't end up selling them anything. The widows selling stuff their husbands loved are also widows who clearly wanted their husbands to get rid of that shit. Yes, the show clearly changed a little in response to the early bad press from people that felt similarly, and I'm not sure they would've included certain scenes where they do act like asses and realize it afterwards otherwise. Still, these are people who have obviously signed releases in advance and know what they're getting into.

Somehow I missed that Lords of War ended up making it to series, I was looking forward to it when I heard they were doing a pilot with Sean Rich. Seems like NatGeo isn't airing any episodes right now, new or otherwise...is it coming back? I agree about American Pickers. Obviously there's some editing chicanery, but most of the time you can tell if they're actually making the deals on the spot. It can get a little fatiguing to watch, though, since it's longer than the others and sometimes they get into a run of episodes where too many of the picks are similar. The show is at its best when they're not always buying the same type of stuff. Never understood why they make it obvious that Mike and Frank actually have separate businesses but dance around it, though.

Anyone know what this is about? Didn't catch the reference and as a Bob fan would like to know. Bob Dylan's first appearance on American television in who knows how many years was as part of a Pawn Stars scripted B-story where Chumlee (the show's buffoon character) was sent to find him on the Las Vegas strip so he could autograph an album they bought.

Why had Mike Tenay dyed the remnants of his hair bright orange? I keep wondering about that every time I catch some of Impact.

Exactly. I understand wanting a way to introduce Rick Dale to the show without waiting for a new item to come in to get restored, but i don't know why they keep the episode in rotation. There was also at least one item sold to the shop on the show that the seller actually took back and sold on eBay thanks to the ensuing publicity. Maybe the early Mac a woman brought in? Also: Bob Dylan...what the hell? Even if he's a big fan, THAT was weird for a clearly bogus plot.