gordi

"Greetings to all of our fans in Memphis! As we all know, there are two types of Elvis... there was fat Elvis... and really fat Elvis! But the sad thing is... none of us will ever get the chance to find how fat Elvis really would have been... because he ended up like this town... Dead!!!!" - Christian Before we begin this event, I just wanna say a few things to you foul people... This city is filthy! You Southerners live like pigs! So I'm going to teach you some lessons in hygiene... bring you out of your squalor... People, this is a bar of soap. Does it look familiar to you? If you wet it, it'll clean your hands. * crowd goes crazy with anger * And now, for your next lesson: This... ... ... is a roll of toilet paper! * Lawler storms in, knocks the mic out of Kaufman's hand *

The Rock doesn't care about the history of the WCW Title??? Well The Rock knows damn well the history of the WCW Title. The Rock knows that the title traces back to Frank Gotch, Lou Thesz, Ricky Steamboat, and WHOOOOOOOO Ric Flair! ... The Rock also knows damn well, what in recent years the WCW Title has come to...Diamond Dallas Page? Booker T? The guy from Scream 2, the dog from Married with Children, the maid from the Jeffersons! Shane McMahon, this title is just like your sister, everybody gets a turn! Intense pain is a wonderful thing, Gene Okerlund. Your life flashes before your eyes, things that are the most important to you become crystal clear. You start to begin to learn the meaning of life. Last week when they stuffed me in that ambulance and I looked across and I saw Flair, Sting, Woman, Bagwell and myself, I realized that we were people brought together not by philosophy, but by necessity. And I started to think, New World Order, New World Order, where have I heard that? And I remembered in the Good Book it says, 'When the new world order is put into place it signals the beginning of the end of time.' Well, WCW is our world, it's where we live and breathe. And if you want to destroy it, Hogan and The Outsiders, you've already made a mistake that jumps off the page. If you're gonna take a baseball bat to a Horseman, finish the job. Because there's one rule of gang fighting. See, we are the original gang and we're the most vicious in all of professional wrestling history. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send two of theirs to the morgue. - Double A

"And this is exactly what I was talking about last week. You two giant slugs have been out here for what, three, four minutes? And already you've forced these poor people to drift off into their own little worlds, completely oblivious to what you're saying, and completely oblivious to you. I mea, you two morons couldn't string together two intelligent words... and I was forced to come out here and save this segment! Personification of evil... HA! I say personification of BOREDOM! The only thing scary about you two is the amount of TV time you get which causes the people to pick up the remote and change the channel, looking for a hero. Well STOP changing the channel because your hero has ARRIVED! Chris Jericho has come to save the WWF... Finally, there's a man who's entertaining enough and exciting enough to bring this company back to prominence and make some money for this beleagured promotion... and I'm here to say that 'RAW is SNORE' is now dead and buried and long live 'RAW is JERICHO!" "Tazz... Raisin... would you please SHUT THE HELL UP! You know, for the last couple of weeks, I've had a table broken over my stomach, I've had a pair of nunchuks whack me over the head, I've been smashed in the face with a glass bottle, but none of those things were half as painful as sitting back there and listening to your brutally boring speeches! What *about* you? What *about* Raisin? I mean, you might as well ask 'What about the plight of the African anteater?' Or, 'what about the price of back bacon in Saskatoon?' Or how about 'what about the fact that nobody cares about any of those questions and nobody gives a damn about either one of you?' " What's the wrong thing to say when you're standing near Danny Hodge? ... "Ah. shoot!" - Billy Wicks [Terry Funk on why he refused to press charges against fans who tried to injure or kill him]: "I mean do I want to put someone in jail because I convinced him or her that I needed to die? That's how I look at it and that may be sick, but it's also beautiful." Sabu, near the end of his barbed wire match vs. Terry Funk: "My eye! My eye!" “Space Mountain may be the oldest ride in the park, but it has the longest line.”

I had roughly the same experience: ONS was my first WWE since WM, too... and my reaction was, "When did Orton become such a great heel?"

I don't think that the funeral will be anywhere near that tasteful.

It may not be what Phil comes up with, but I'd love to see Andre vs. Don Leo Jonathan again.

Unfortunately, that match didn't make tape. Jeff Bowdren saw it live in Philly. D'oh! Woo-hoo!

I'd like to see a Volk Han mat-based classic, a hard-hitting UWF-I battle and a post-modern BattleARTS masterpiece all one after another on one disc at some point. I think it might lead to interesting discussion about the variety of possible shoot style matches. I don't think I have Hansen & Gordy vs. Tenryu and Kawada 12/16/88 anywhere in my collection, so I'd be tickled if it showed up on one of these discs. Any of the Tupelo concession stand brawls... and I'm sure they're already in the mix for the future. The '89 Steamboat vs. Luger house show match is another I've never seen for myself. Some Stampede would be nice. Maybe Owen & Bassarab or Bad Company (Bruce & Pillman) vs. The Viet Cong Express Chiggy & Lioness vs the JBA two out of three falls from 1986 would be great to see, too. Sugar Sato or Oz vs. KAORU from Schneider comp # 11 (May 2000) would be great to see in better video quality (I only have a millionth-gen copy of that one). Bret & Owen vs. Rick & Scott (1994) would be fun to discuss here... ...as would Blue Panther vs. Atlantis... Williams & Gordy vs. The Steiners from '92... Hash vs. Takada '96.... Funk vs. Onita '92... Dos Caras vs. The Great Sasuke from that mask tournament... Baba vs. Kiniski from 1967... There are so many matches that would be fun to discuss here... this is a great idea, and I'm really looking forward to the day my DVD arrives. There are three matches on there that I've been dying to see for years.

Count me f'n inzies.

"Likable" is not an adjective I'd ever imagined I'd hear applied to West. Different strokes, I guess. I find him to be constantly over-enthusiastic in a way that makes me feel he's trying to compensate for the fact that what he's calling "isn't real." It genuinely draws me out of the moment far too often. I can easily believe that Taue vs. Marufuji stands up to repeat viewing. I've watched Misawa vs. Morishima a couple of times, and it doesn't lose anything to familiarity, either.

Yeah, that honestly does sound like the sort of thing that I would do. I've always been willing to give Hogan his props as a master of crowd manipulation. I love watching him work the crowd in the Hulkamania years. He was every bit as believable as a big American blond muscle-head who couldn't be kept down as Brody was as an out of control dangerous wild man. Oh NO! I don't want to be a mark! I take it all back! For the record, here's how Meltzer wrote it up in Brody's Tributes obit: Inoki was desperate for talent and looking for revenge on Baba as well. A contact was made, and Brody eventually signed a contract with Inoki. It was the most lucrative deal ever signed by a pro wrestler up to that point. What a mark he is! Eh. I'm not sold either of those guys were great workers. And that's from someone who's enjoyed several Andre matches over the years, even when he was shot. Speaking of not reading very carefully... Who was talking about Firpo and Andre being great workers? We were just talking about them having an impressive look. My take is that Brody combined frightening size with a wild visage. Your take, if I'm reading carefully enough, is that Brody looked like a clown. This would be an area where we do not agree, I'd say. It's hard to argue against that. The interesting thing for me is, even though we either misread or ignore each other about half the time, and eventually we'll end up repeating the same arguments without having changed our minds about any of the key ssues... I'm still enjoying this discussion. Ironically, it's actually making me into more of a Brody fan than I'd ever intended to be. I watched Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen vs. Shoehi "Giant" Baba & Dory Funk Jr. from '84 the other day, and I was all like, "YEAH! Brody is AWESOME in this!" when previously I might not have cared.

Goodhelmet's Best of 2006: Disc 5 - Part 2 KENTA v. Matt Sydal (ROH 11/4/06) Who would have thought that out of Satomura, Marufuji, and Sydal, that it would be Sydal who turned in the best underdog performance on this disc so far? The crowd chants loudly for KENTA (and politely for Sydal) as the fighters are introduced, but it doesn't take long for Sydal to win the crowd over completely to his side, as he just eats sick kicks and suplexes from KENTA and keeps coming back for more. It's almost as if, if Sydal grew a mullet and wore some do-rags on his boots... but, nah... But... yeah... Sydal has a way, in this match, of looking like he's finished just before he comes back to life with yet another counter. This reaches it's apogee when KENTA has him up for the Go To Sleep, and Sydal is limp across KENTA's shoulders... but the moment KENTA drops him, Sydal springs into action, catching KENTA with a Dragon-Kid-like snap rana that brings the crowd to their feet. The outcome is never in doubt, but that doesn't mean that the match lacks for drama. The post-match angle is very entertaining, as well. Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle (Turning Point 12/10/06) So, the build-up to this match was tremendous, and Joe and Angle just lay into each other (The match doesn't look all that super-stiff after watching NOAH and Aja and so forth... but I'd guess this is about as tight a bout as TNA had in '06). The crowd is molten... but I'm having trouble getting into it. Here's my problem: If I understand correctly, Tenay is the play by play guy and West is the colour man. One of them, I assume Tenay, actaully talks about what's going on in the ring and the feud and he seems to have a decent grip on what his role is. The other one, I'm assuming West, yells and spits and froths and over-exaggerates everything all the time. So it goes like this: TNA wrestler A hits a suplex. Tenay (?) says: That was a really good suplex, he landed right on his head. That's got to hurt (or something along those lines). I'm wacthing on DVD, and I'm starting to thin, "Yeah, that must have hurt..." but then West (?) Starts screaming and drooling: THAT WAS THE SICKEST SUPLEX THAT"S EVER BEEN THROWN!!!! I'VE NEVER EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THAT EVER BEFORE!!!! and instead of thinking "That must have hurt!" I'm thinking "I've seen sicker suplexes than that," and the moment is all ruined for me. I can't tune the guy out, and I don't want to watch the match with the sound off because I like to hear the ring shake and the chops echo off the walls. This keeps happening throughout the Angle vs. Joe match. It's a good match, but every time that West (?) bellows that it's the greatest match he's ever seen, or that we've never seen anything like this before, I mentally react against it. He takes me right out of the match, and so the match has no natural ebb and flow for me. Unlike a lot of people, I very much enjoy the idiotic "Look at me!" TNA crowd. They seem to be having fun, and for whatever reason I can tune them out far more easily than I can the screaming colour commentator. They're really hot for this match, and that's helping to keep me into it. Then... in the most egregious recent example of dumb TNA booking that I can think of: There is a pointless and unnecessary ref bump. The crowd actually starts booing. Good for you, TNA crowd! I take back what I said earlier about you being idiots. You know your stuff, to a certain extent. The crowd is totally deflated, and the win that would have blown the roof off of the place ends up getting only a decent response. It sincerely makes no sense at all, particularly considering that the ref bump didn't actually figure into the finish. Were they trying to swerve their fans? Their fans apparently don't like being swerved! This might have been a damn good match, but all I'm left with is a sense of bad announcing and worse booking. The million reversals spot might be getting kind of played out now, as well. Maybe Angle needs to come up with another way to end a big match once in a while.

I skipped ahead to disc 5 yesterday, mostly so that I could write my own opinions without at the same time responding to Loss' opinions of the matches on the set: Goodhelmet's Best of 2006: Disc 5 - Part 1 Naomichi Marufuji v. Akira Taue (NOAH 3/5/06) This is a great match-up because each guy's weaknesses get turned into strengths when they face each other... because "Big awkward old guy who hits hard and throws people around by their throats vs. Spry and bouncy smaller guy who tries to do too much all of the time" lends itself to being a good story to base a match on... So, when they face each other, it's good that Taue is old and awkward and it's good that Maufuji is bouncy and prone to doing too many fancy-Dan moves. They fight this exactly the way they should: Taue is all big and plodding and at one point he just grabs Marufuji by the throat and hurls him into the ring post. Maru is all young and quick and literally flipping out of trouble. They lose the thread very briefly during their shoot style interlude, as Taue very slowly applies a loose-looking version of a triangle choke... but mercifully they stop trying to be MMA fighters and get back to being pro wrestlers pretty quickly. The highlight of Marufuji's many little flurries of come-back offense is a brutal-looking cross-arm German suplex. The finish plays beautifully into all the pro wrestling fun that built up to it. Will it be Taue's brute strength or Marufuji's explosive quickness that wins the day? That's the question they need to answer... and they do! I loved all three of the old guard vs. young lions single matches on the 3/5/06 NOAH card. Misawa vs. Morishima was my personal favourite, but I'm a total Misawa mark. KENTA vs. Kenta may have been the most exciting, and Taue vs. Marufuji probably told the best story, I could see how any one of the three could be considered the best on a given day. Meiko Satomura v. Aja Kong (Sendai Pro Wrestling 7/9/06) Not unlike La Mascara & El Hijo Del Santo vs. Blue Panther & Tarzan Boy this is a match that deserved to make the set on nostalgia value alone. They may not be two of the ten greatest matches on the set, but they are two of the matches that I most wanted to see, and two of the reasons that goodhelmet is living high off of my money these days. Not unlike Taue vs. Morishima, this is a big, awkward, hard-hitting old star vs. a fast-moving, flippity younger star. It also reminded me somewhat of a Vader vs. Sting match, in part because Kong's thighs are at least as big as Vader's here, and in part because Satomura, while much smaller than Kong, looks explosive enough that it's believable when she knocks Kong down. The excellent in this: Kong still hits hard enough that I was legit worried for Satomura, and Kong sells so well that at times I was legit worried for Kong. The good in this: Satomura does the Arn-style "constantly going back to the arm" stuff and Kong's selling of it more than makes up for the fact that it ultimately leads nowhere. The less than excellent in this: They kind of meander through their big moves in the middle of the match. I'm not sure if three Death Valley Drivers in one match is always two too many. I kind of thought it worked, here. This is probably the worst Aja Kong match in my collection... but that's kind of like saying that Symphony # 4 is Beethoven's worst symphony.

His furry boots were swank~! On that, we fully agree! I'm not usually the kind of guy who just throws an accusation like that out for no good reason, or because I want to find an easy way out of the argument. We've both been involved in a couple discussions of other wrestlers elsewhere, and I've always enjoyed the back and forth exchange of ideas... but with Brody discussion in particular, I've generally felt that you tend to immediately dismiss anything positive that anyone has to say about him on any level. That honestly strikes me as more of a personal deal, and I do wonder why you seem to dislike him as a wrestler to that extent. As have I. He was wildly inconsistent and seemed to only really go when he was in the mood to. Kind of like Randy Moss, in a sense... I've never been a Moss fan at all, for precisely that reason. I don't know why it bugs me less that Brody has those tendencies. Maybe because pro wrestling is supposed to be about showmanship and self-promotion more than pro football is.

Nobody is arguing that Brody was the biggest star of the 1980s or that he was on more magazine covers than Lawler (or Hogan or The Road Warriors). I was responding to Al's claim that, as a reader of PWI, he had no idea that Brody was any kind of star. I don't need to prove that Brody was a bigger Apter darling than Lex Luger in order to refute that, so I find it a little odd that you are kind of suggesting that I do so. Why is it so hard for you to admit anything positive at all about Brody, John? It seems like you have a personal vendetta against the man and his legend. I don't get it. If someone claims that Brody was overrated. It's hard to disagree. If someone says that he didn't sell enough... well, he was a monster, but even for a monster he sometimes gave too little in the ring (Though he'd flop around in pain for the Step Over Toe Hold)... If someone wants to claim that he never held up his end of a great match, that's easy enough to dispute. Brody was never in anyone's very best match ever... but he was in a handful of matches that I certainly consider great, and he wasn't dragged kicking and screaming to them, and it wasn't as if the matches were great despite him being involved. It's true that Brody only rarely wrestled to anything approaching his full potential, and it's true that he often went into business for himself... but that doesn't erase the fact that he did have some great matches in his career. He wasn't the greatest brawler or greatest big man ever... but that doesn't mean that Brody flat out sucked in the ring. I think even you can admit that, so I think that there's no need for us to continue arguing about Brody's in-ring abilities. I didn't think that there was any need to argue about Brody's star power, since I'd always believed it was self-evident. You have, however, argued convincingly elsewhere that Brody never truly set a territory's business on fire. I'd still argue that he was a draw... not on Hogan or Road Warrior levels, but a guy who could put some extra asses in the seats. I'm not going to do the needed research to prove it, though... I'm pretty much just taking Meltzer's word for it... so go ahead and tell me I'm wrong about this. I don't see how it's possible to argue that Brody had an awesome look and presence. I don't see how anyone can claim that he didn't know how to get himself over with the crowd. You can argue that Andre was physically larger... or that Pampero Firpo looked like more of a wild man... but Brody still somehow got over as a big, out of control, violent wild man. I guess you can argue that Brody's look and gimmick do nothing for you personally. It's hard to counter that... but it still worked for a lot of people. I'm not the only person who ever enjoyed watching him charge through the crowd swinging his chain. This, however: Trying to argue that he was an unknown quantity? Trying to argue that he was never made out to be a big deal by the mark mags? That's just silly. Again, PWI ranked him #14 on their list of the top 500 wrestlers of the PWI era, and he and Hansen were ranked #7 on the list of Tag Teams. It makes no sense to try and dispute that he was a star in their eyes. What's next? Did Meltzer only put him in the Hall of Fame because he died? Did WWE only make a Brody figure because they felt sorry for Barbara Goodish? Is Blues Bloody from the Exciting Hour video game actually based on Nord the Barbarian? Did Inoki never outbid Baba for Brody's services? I fully agree that Brody was at one time wildly overrated. I don't think that means it's necessary to deny that he was ever anything at all.

This is just a guess, but maybe in one issue they did a top 100 list , then followed up with an on-depth look at the top 20? I'm going to hunt this down on eBay, I think.

Thank you. Mike. I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers that! I think this might be the one.

Are you calling me a liar, John? I wish I still had all those old mags. It would be a gas to read them now.

I'm not trying to argue that those are the four greatest matches ever, nor am trying to argue that Brody is the greatest anything of his era. All I'm saying is that Brody is nowhere near as bad as the backlash makes him out to be. He's a damn good old school big man with a great look and persona for his era who has participated in several very good matches and a handful of excellent ones. Maybe that doesn't make him better in your eyes because you already know that. Some people posting here have apparently been fighting the "Brody is the Greatest Brawler Ever" line of nonsense so hard for so long that they can't even acknowledge that much about him.

No... but he started it. jdw and I have already had our Brody argument during the Smarkschoice GWE poll, but here's the crux of what I believe: Yes, Brody has been wildly overrated by a number of commentators over the years. That doesn't, however, mean that he sucks. The backlash against him has gone too far. Matches like the 12/83 RWTL with Stan Hansen vs. Tenryu and Jumbo, and the 12/81 RWTL with Snuka vs. The Funks, and 1/85 vs. Flair, and 3/88 vs. Jumbo don't just happen by accident. Brody wasn't dragged kicking and screaming to a few decent matches in his career, when he was motivated and working with someone he respected, he could hold up his end of a great match.

Yeah, they tended to write more about him while he was alive. You started reading the mag around the time I stopped... That Best of the PWI Years Issue was an interesting one, though. I still enjoy the odd special issue, and the PWI 500 can be a fun read. You're right. I was in a pissy mood about something unrelated to anything going on here... There was no real reason to take it out on you. Apologies all around.

I've been ignoring this thread so far because I've just come to accept that jdw's hatred of Brody is a bizarre point of pride for him and I already know there's no way he'll listen to anything positive I have to say about the man, his matches, his career, or his legacy. So, why waste my time? This, though... you just don't have your facts straight here, Al. If you were getting your "knowledge" from PWI, you would certainly have been aware that Brody was a star. Before the PWI 500 was an annual huge issue, they used to run a more reasonable top 50. Brody got the number one spot in either '84 or '85. In 1988, he was given the Stan Weston award, which is PWI's highest honour. They ranked him #14 overall in their list of the top singles wrestlers of the PWI years, and his tag team with Stan Hansen was ranked as the #7 team of the PWI years. The editors of PWI flat out love Bruiser Brody. If you're going to hate, fine, go ahead and hate. If you're going to use "I've read a lot of PWI" as the basis for claiming to know a lot about wrestling... well, good luck with that. If you're going to use "I've read a lot of PWI" as a basis for claiming Brody wasn't a star... well, you've just proven yourself an idiot or a liar... possibly both.

Have you seen Joe vs. Steiner? What did you think of it? I enjoyed it quite a bit, it's not too often that I really care who wins and who loses and how it happens any more. I did with this match.

I agree that he once had a ton of passion, but it has always seemed to me that his ego took over before his back gave out.

Masao Inoue is big and strong-looking, but he doesn't seem to have very good cardiovascular conditioning, and neither his agility nor his technique in the ring impress me all that much. Still, he more than pulls his weight here in what turns out to be a very entertaining character-based match. Inoue is the cowardly bad guy, and Akiyama is the cocky bad guy. They establish those roles right away, and keep going back to them throughout the match. The crowd sides with the coward, I guess because he's the underdog, and they play off of that to fine effect. There are some fine "turn about is fair play" spots, and two of the better "beating the count" spots that I can remember seeing in any recent match. As Loss points out, the spot where Inoue takes a knee to the chin in mid-air is spectacular. The repeated running knees are a nice touch as well. In the end, the coward redeems himself, not by winning, but by refusing to give up. A nice story, well told. There are too few matches like this these days. Another match where the interest is based on character... but not on kayfabed in-ring characters, rather on what we (as serious fans) perceive to be Steiner and Joe's "real life" characters. Steiner represents everything bad about pro wrestling: A guy with a great look, tremendous athletic ability, and all kinds of gifts... a guy who once put on groundbreaking matches... but a guy who now is obviously more interested in abusing bodybuilding drugs and living the life of a celebrity than in being a great or even a very good pro wrestler. A guy who puts himself "above the business." Joe represents everything great about pro wrestling: An ugly guy with a bad body who came up the hard way and worked hard to earn everything he's got. A guy who puts his body on the line, night after night, to entertain the fans. He is always willing to make someone else look great in the ring, even if it means that he has to look bad. And so on. I've never met Steiner or Joe. I feel comfortable making assumptions about them, though. For example: I bet I'm not alone in assuming that if I approached Steiner in public he'd be likely to snub me or maybe humiliate me in some way, whereas Joe would probably shake my hand and maybe be willing to tell me a wrestling story or two if he wasn't too busy. There may not even be the tiniest thread of truth to any of that, but it totally affected the way I watched this match. I really wanted Joe to look good. I was genuinely worried that Steiner would sandbag him. In the end, I was happy with how things turned out.