gordi

And the sad news just keeps pouring in. Rayo de Jalisco is an absolute legend of lucha libre. He was a contemporary of El Santo and Blue Demon, and like them he also transitioned into making movies in the 1970s. He was 85 years old.

You have those all-important little heel mannerisms down to a fine art in your write-ups, from Rock Riddle's "Davey Baby!" to Professor Brad's insufferable arrogance to Paul Jones taking a slow bump off the apron... and then you have guys who could easily work as heels like Bad News and Orndorff serving among your top baby faces with just a slight twist of their attitude and who,it's directed at. That is the fine art of pro wrestling booking, right there.

Anyone interested in doing a PWO NFL fantasy league this year? We'd need 6, 8, or 10 people. Free league, standard scoring, snake draft, just for fun and bragging rights. Most likely on ESPN unless anyone violently objects. I think the biggest difficulty will be setting a draft time that suits everyone. You can use the queue system on ESPN to set up a pretty good auto-draft, though.

Piper and Orton as tag champs! Tanaka and Hamada going 30! Rotunda sacrificing himself! A lot of great stuff going on here.

It's great to see Tatsutoshi Goto doing so well overseas. He's a good wrestler and character who was stuck in a limited role in JWA. The change of scenery has done him a world of good. Matt Borne is another guy who will maybe get more opportunities in this project that he got "in real life." I enjoyed seeing him in a big main event match here.

Excellent heel segment with the Million Dollar Man. JYD vs Dibiase should be great, and so should Doc & partner vs Abby & Haku.

Irish Jungle

One more: Monk Turn Racer

I'll throw it out again: worst yelling porn it's "something" wrestling "something" not a wrestler's name, but definitely on topic

Looks like we are headed for The Rougeaus vs Andre, Garvin, & Embry. That should be hot!

Ebonics Junior

One Man Gang beat King Kong Bundy! I need more info about that match. I'm assuming Creatchman had something to do with the outcome. Does this mean OMG might get nvolved in the Bundy/Bad News feud? Probably not... but that would be awesome. I hope Garvin and Embry carried a lot of the load in that Andre match. I hate to think of the guy going almost 40 minutes in his condition and with his schedule.

I got a kick out of seeing my boys provide a little light comedy and T&A on this card. I have to say, you could do a lot worse for your first champion than Jaguar Yokota - one of the greatest of all time. And you could do a lot worse for her first challenger then Jackie f'n Sato. You are really coming out of the gate hot, and I love it.

My impression of him has always been that he's best as the surly, no-nonsense tough guy half of a tag team. Kind of the Neidhardt or Arn type of role, I guess. That impression was formed when I was about ten years old, when he teamed up with Gene Kiniski (the biggest star on the local Vancouver NWA show) to win the tag belts. He really was a great tag team wrestler: Looking it up, he won the Vancouver version of the tag titles twice, held the WWF titles twice with Mr. Fuj, had multiple reigns with Kenji Shibuya in California (and one with Hiro Matsuda), held tag straps in Florida multiple times (including three reigns while teamed with Ivan Koloff), and he won the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Choshu and with Hashimoto. The other things that stand out in my memory are the Island Death Match vs Inoki and the incident in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Lex Luger and The Fabulous Ones is quite a stable!

Oh baby! Dump vs Chiggy coming up on the second show! You are not holding anything back. JBA vs the Glamour Girls is so 1980s heels vs faces style that it is almost parodic. What a blast it was to watch that again.

That was tremendous. Just totally enjoyable, and nuts in a good way. AAA is a huge blind spot for me. I've seen so little of it, though most of what little I have seen I have enjoyed. There is a great moment when Park is staggering around outside the ring, mask torn, bleeding... and he turns around and just gets absolutely flattened by a running somersault plancha off of the apron. That moment is exactly what I imagine when I think of AAA. This was a masterclass in crowd work. I love how Wagner, Hogan-like, checks for the crowd's approval before pulling his "turn about is fair play" stuff on Park. Super hot crowd, and these guys play to them perfectly. I don't know if maybe the heel ref stuff might wear on me a little if I watched a lot of this... but I definitely got a huge kick out of it here. Nakamura should study the nut shot that Park deals out here. Good Lord!

I don't know how you guys did it, but these shows actually manged to exceed my sky-high expectations. What an embarrassment of riches. I don't have time right now to lay out all the details, but all of the GAB cards in this project have been well-booked, well built, and superbly well executed. Hats off to everyone involved.

I've been enjoying seeing my boys go after Pat Tanaka. Hopefully we'll get to read about the Winnipeg show sooner or later... Hope you are having (had?) a great vacation!

Good job with your first show. Bret & Bart and Coco & Tama are great teams for that place and time. They give you a good foundation to build on.

Holy cow! Magnum, Lawler & Kerry vs. The Russians and turncoat Ole... that is going to be hawt! I agree with everyone else about The Fabs joining with Ernie Ladd. Great surprise. Can't wait to see what's next.

I totally agree with Gene: You do an amazing job of capturing a specific feel and atmosphere. It really makes the WWC stuff stand out in this project. I love the use of video, too. I'm being entertained and educated all at once.

The Showdown at Shea was an epic spectacle. People will be talking about that for years in this world. I love the way you debuted Muta! I believe the Blade Runners would have been over like Grover in the WWF in '86.

You are doing a great job of giving everyone, up and down the card, a role to play and someone to fight. Getting Kernodle over as a top heel in '86 is pretty impressive. That's some quality booking. Like kevinmcfl says, it's gratifying to see overlooked or underused guys get the push they deserved.