pantherwagner

Not speaking spanish at all, that totally went over my head. However, I did learn what "tossing your salad" meant while listening to Konnan, and for that, I'm forever grateful. And peeling my potatoes... Funny how Konnan used to be able to get away with using prison/street/hip hop slang because nobody running the show was young or hip enough to know what was going on. I'm not even sure they had anybody aware of what was hip and cool other than Hall, Nash, Konnan, Rey, Jericho and a couple others. On the Spanish slang, to be fair to WCW, WWE is not censoring it either. I saw somebody (perhaps Alberto) using Spanish swear words fairly recently (2012 or after) that he would probably be fired over if they were in English on live TV.

I had forgotten how Konnan used to call people "homosexual man" in Spanish during his entrance (except that he wasn't saying those exact same words but I'm sure you can guess the equivalent in English).

Schiavone always comes off like a good guy and somebody you could sit down with and have a friendly chat. I guess wrestling really turns people into assholes. The Ross Report is a lot better when you skip the first 15 minutes and go straight to the interviews. Ross REALLY needs to stop doing those commercials using the voices of Terry Funk, Stu Hart, Jim Barnett, etc... mainly because he sucks as it.

There's one I haven't thought about in a about 15-17 years which is when I guess I had it. I was doing either some college entrance exam or already in college doing a computer engineering test. If it's the latter case it would likely be a physics or maths test, because I remember the room where it happened, and we only did those exams there. Anyway, I had a mental block and I looked to the side and El Hijo del Santo was there next to me and he slipped me the answers to the exam. I know he was Santo because he was weating the mask, of course. I took the cheat sheet, did my thing and then realised that on my other side Lioness Asuka was trying to peek at my exam to find the answers. Must have been a pretty good class.

Or the Apaches!

Was X-Pac ever considered cool? I thought that Road Dogg's intro was quite funny until it became old, and I was pissed off that the shitty Armstrong is the one that became a famous star.

To me Jake, DiBiase and Duggan have got to be in the top 5. Can't see an argument against any of them. Star power, name recognition and longevity. Names like Bundy or Orndorff have been forgotten over time by everybody except the most hardcore of fans. Snuka has got the benefit of fan recognition because he was involved in two of the best remembered and most repeated non-Hogan WWF moments of the 80s: the splash and the coconut, but those were pre-Wrestlemania. I'd say Iron Sheik or Ricky Steamboat if we have Hogan as part of the list.

I completely agree with your entire post but this point is often kind of negated by the WWE style camera angles.

Although getting all those names would be great, I think we'd also have to consider that if all those guys come in it's also likely someone has to go back out either due to a lack of spots, or out of McVengeance. Maybe part of the question is who does Vince go after in return? Looking at 1989 WCW my guess would have been Road Warriors, Sid, Mean Mark, Luger, the Steiners and maybe Spivey. It's exactly who he ended up poaching but he probably would have gone after them more agressively. WCW would have still come on top on the trade as all of those except one were busts in the WWE, and even if they had not been, the steroid scandal would have happened either way.

A common "what if" during the early days of internet message boards was "what if Art Barr had not died and him and Eddie had gone to ECW and New Japan as a team like they were supposed to".

Hey, I quite liked Bagwell at the time. He hadn't yet become unbearable and was a good hand during the Vicious & Delicious run. I just think that back then Smothers already had the jobber stigma that somebody like Brad Armstrong also had. I think that back then people had longer memories and he wasn't that far removed from the Young Pistols run. I will also be selfish and say that he'd have made a lot more money in the last 20 years but then we would have never had the FBI in ECW. Poor Greg. Of all the great tag team partners he could have had in the late 80s he was stuck with Bruti and Honky.

Don't worry about it. I didn't even think about it being a Japanese deal and on the first episode you guys made it clear that you'd not focus on foreign wrestling. The fun of the question/answer games is to see the process of thinking on your feet with a time limit and then seeing JT give his point of view, which is often refreshing because it's quite different than yours.

Good one. If anything, it's a reverse Fuyuki: who started as a can't miss prospect, built his way up to hot young star and future main eventer, got the big fat SWS contract and then his career kept slowly going down the indy sleaze world until he ended up doing all that porno bullshit in FMW. Of course he then ended up dying way too early.

The Stone Cold-Paige podcast was better than I expected but she's a fairly uninteresting character. After 30 minutes it just seemed to be story after story of her wacky father. She was also getting on my nerves touching her hair every 30 seconds. It's pretty clear that Legends of Wrestling, as a long, semi-shoot, zero budget program where guys are shooting the shit and sometimes not toeing the company line is never going to come back. That being said, I enjoyed Table For Three and I can see that program doing very well. I'd have done the show differently but it felt intimate and genuine. It's just a shame that the WWE seems to think that their audience has got no attention span because this program could have lasted an entire hour. Also, Whoo Nation needs to be a part of the network. Let Austin interview the top legends (Sting, Undertaker, Vince again, Steph... I know I know, that that's how they see it), Jericho can interview the current guys and Flair the old timers.

The most extreme case I can think of was the progression of Antonio Pena: from failed local wrestler to retirement, eventually becoming an office secretary/assistance hanging around, EMLL booker and then Mexico's Vince McMahon, a man who revolutionised the entire concept of wrestling in the country and by extension impacted the way US wrestling was during the Monday Night Wars. It does not compare at all but the first one I thought about was Panico: a journeyman wrestler with a long but unremarkable career eventually turns into one of the country's power brokers. At least somebody like Tony Salazar was a solid midcard and upper midcard star at different points in his life. I doubt Panico ever wrestled higher than third from the top at Arena Coliseo. But as far as rags to riches stories goes, Pena and Ace are the top ones I can think of. Ace made some pretty good cash when he was a top exec. I don't know anything about his personal finances but unless he's a Flair, Dusty or Batista type of guy who burns through money, he's got to be there working because he truly enjoys his job.

Here's one that Will is going to enjoy: rebook the Adorable Adrian character from 1987 (match/feud with Piper at WM III still happens) until a send off in 1989. Only it's Adorable Buddy Rose. Another one: Stan Hansen is devastated after the Brody loss and retires in 1988, Dr. Death fucks up and is banned from the entire country of Japan in 1990, the Gordy debacle still happens, The Trooper character gets on fire and the AWA doesn't die and Johnny Ace somehow gives Motoko herpes and is fired. Rebook the AJPW 90s gaijin roster. You can use anyone from the era but you can't steal talent from New Japan (Vader or Steiners).

Mr. Donnie and/or Tommy Rich stories never get old, just like the Lawler pedo jokes never get old. Kris, at one point you were showing some impressive porn historian knowledge there.

Somebody remind me about that time that the WWE tried to get Justin Bieber to wrestle a match? Pretty sure I read about it some time ago. I like the idea but the problem is that, unlike the Lauper or Mr. T or Tyson deals, this doesn't get anyone in the company over. Rousey will sometime or another wrestle in the WWE for sure. I know Stephanie has got to get first dibs on her, but if things are done right, I could see them getting a second headline match out of her against Charlotte. The story why these two would have to square off has already written itself. I think they could also get some mileage out of the "Can Ronda beat up a guy?" controversy with Mayweather, but not sure who could you put in there with her. It would have to be The Miz or somebody even lower in the totem pole.

Also a "only Flair can pull off this shit" moment was him trying to quietly ask Conrad "what was the mattress company's name?" before trying to plug it with a joke comment during the phone call with (I believe) Knobbs.

I guess "songs you'd listen to in your car" was the wrong approach, at least for Will considering his musical taste. I love the All Japan Women theme (Beautiful Challengers) but no way I'm going to listen to that in the car. Real music in wrestling is always better than wrestling music because most of it sounds so corny, That's why whether it was AAA in the 90s, and even PRIDE or the UFC, promotions with real music always had better entrances. I'm not sold at all on Smothers as a member of the New World Order - and I like him a lot. I like the idea of Scorpio there and Scorpio/Waltman as a tag team would have been great. Also disagree on Valentine being a good fit on the WWF stable... by then he already had the boring midcarder stink on him. Nevertheless his team with Pillman could have been fantastic to watch. Fun show as always.

They probably did. Colon did a few main event shots at El Toreo and Palacio de los Deportes.

I believe the promotional name was Houston Wrestling. Gulf Athletic Club was the corporation name like Foothills Athletic Club was for Stampede or Southwest Sports was for World Class.

On some of those WWE produced wrestlecrap/countdown shows I have seen quick 3-4 second clips of a promo with the Iron Sheik and Mean Gene where Sheik has got a live chicken and is talking about how Hogan is a chicken. By the looks of it, it may be one of those wacky Sheiky classics. I have never seen the entire promo... is this available anywhere?

When I was 12 I was a HUGE Spivey fan. It's a shame that his body broke down early and that he aged so badly. In a better world he could have been (a much better) Kane for a few years and then retired the wrestler and the gimmick.

Halfway through the show and it's great, and an idea that was long overdue. Glad that you guys are doing it. I have never understood the Todd Martin hate either. He seems like a decent dude and always seemed to have his own opinions so it's not like he was Ben Miller. He was pretty bad when he started but he gradually got much better. I stopped listening to most Observer audio years ago but here he seemed to be relaxed and sounded like a very different person. One small criticism is that sometimes you comment on things but don't full explain them. For instance, I recall comments along the lines of "the finish for that match was very creative" or "they followed up perfectly the angle that happened in the previous PPV" without going into the details because all of you on the line already know what happened. I haven't watched the GAB in ages, and even so I have the memory of a goldfish, so I found myself lost or not understanding some parts of it.