pantherwagner

It's awesome that you beat me by one day (higher up on the thread is my first show ever, a day after yours).

Blackjack Brawl has got to be up there. It's still amazing at how Abrams was such a scummy coked up two bit conman but still able to get so many home video deals, TV deals worldwide (UWF TV made it to Spain, Israel and other random countries) and PPV clearance. However, if you are talking about absolutely USELESS there's a clear winner to me. Bodyguards vs Bandits. At least the guys behind the LPWA, Heroes of Wrestling or random post-WCW indie PPV's thought that they would make money.

It's such a Super Fire Pro Wrestling name.

It has already been mentioned by others but for me the production change is what made this great. Hard camera + standard pro wrestling camerawork instead of the bouncy Kevin Dunn trademark editing that avoids showing any kind of impact. On the other hard, there were some camera mishaps that you rarely see on WWE and in some cases the moves missing or not being executed properly. I'm not saying that guys have to take DDT's right on their head and get concussed but at least cover it up using camera angles. At any case, I am looking forward to the day where Kevin Dunn retires to some paradise island with all the stupid amounts of money that he's made. I don't know if him or Nash are the most ridiculously overpaid person ever in wrestling. At least Dunn works very hard. The commentary was if anything refreshing. Cole talking about Best of the Super Juniors was quite the WTF moment. I still don't quite like Byron Saxton, he sounds too much like a video game announcer with pre-programmed lines, however both felt relaxed and like they were having fun. In fact almost everybody in the show looked like they were having a good time. I liked how this clearly felt like a WWE show in Japan, however if you see Raw in London you don't know it's in London except for the black cab at the entrance or the Union Jack on the video panels. It has been repeated a million times here and elsewhere but they need to start adding more local or national flavour to their shows. The Brock match brought me back to Superstars in 1990 (I'm saying that like it's a good thing) and I liked Jericho vs Neville. Everything else was at least entertaining. They should try to do one of this shows every few weeks as Network specials... my interest on the WWE network is quite low nowadays but this will make me stay.

WWF @ Barcelona, Spain - Palau Sant Jordi - October 5, 1991 (19,000) Televised on Tele5 Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty defeated Paul Roma & Hercules at 10:54 when Michaels pinned Roma with a roll up after Hercules accidentally hit his own partner with the steel chain The Mountie (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated the Big Bossman via count-out at 9:17 when the Bossman chased Hart up the aisle after hitting the sidewalk slam on the Mountie; after the bout, Bossman assaulted the Mountie with the nightstick Roddy Piper pinned the Barbarian with a sunset flip at 6:31 (World Tour 92) Davey Boy Smith (w/ Andre the Giant) pinned Earthquake with a powerslam at 8:15 after Andre hit Earthquake with one of his crutches (World Tour 92, "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith ) WWF Superstars (French & Italian versions): Typhoon (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Jim Duggan via disqualification at 8:43 when Duggan used his 2x4 as a weapon; late in the bout, Typhoon tried to use the weapon behind the referee's back but was stopped by Duggan WWF Superstars (Italian version): WWF Tag Team Champions the Legion of Doom defeated the Nasty Boys (w/ Jimmy Hart) at 11:40 when Road Warrior Hawk pinned Jerry Saggs with the clothesline off the top as Saggs attempted a piledriver to Road Warrior Animal Ric Flair pinned Kerry Von Erich at 15:15 after knocking Von Erich down with a shoulder through the ropes as he stood on the apron and then sliding in the ring and putting his feet on the ropes for leverage during the cover (WWF Wrestling World Tour) Tito Santana pinned the Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) at 13:53 after escaping from the bodybag, hitting three piledrivers, stealing the urn from Bearer, and hitting Taker with it; after the bout, Santana was interviewed at ringside Some notes... 17,000+ was the number announced at the arena and it was a legit European indoor attendance record at the time. If you had asked me to tell you every match on this card I'd have missed the first one. I forgot Shawn Michaels was on the first match I ever saw live. Match order is incorrect and it looks like somebody was taking a guess. LOD vs Nastys was the main (interesting enough, Summer Slam had not aired on TV yet so we did not know LOD were the champs), Santana vs Taker was the semi and Flair was third from the bottom (not from the top). Santana beating Undertaker is one of those things that could have never happened in the internet world. I have a clear memory of how fake the three piledrivers looked live. If I told you who the most over heel on this show was, you'd never guess it was Tugboat. People vividly remember him turning on Hogan. Maybe 10 people in the arena knew who Ric Flair was. This is because he had not debuted on WWF TV yet in Spain. I knew who he was because of the magazines, and because I had seen him several times on NWA Pro TV (which I could get on a station 100 miles south of Barcelona where I'd sometimes go camping). This was an easy crowd but he was getting a reaction that most heels today would kill for.

I never watched any of the Tough Enough seasons while they happened but I have seen some of them in the WWE network and quite enjoyed them for what they were (something to leave on in the background while I cook, fold clothes or do something else in the house) This was very uninteresting, nobody showed any personality and the happenings in the house, at the night club and training centre were all boring. I guess this may be a Kevin Dunn or Vince thing but they tried to make a heel out of a cocky smaller MMA guy who is winning all the challenges and doesn't stop talking about his MMA background. However the other guys are so unlikeable that they come off even worse so you end up hoping that the MMA guy keeps showing them up. Waste of time, I won't be watching this, and I'm not sure anybody else will be.

I have never heard that story. It sounds awesome, though. Where did you hear/read it?

Kudos to whoever handled music for AJPW for giving the robots the Alan Parsons Project's "I Robot" as their entrance song.

That's awesome, I did not know they ever were on TV. I'll watch that right now. The other guy is small time wrestler Barba Negra (Raul Rodriguez). In one of these interesting wrestling stories: the original Robots R2/C3 wrestled in Mexico City but they had a disagreement with the magazine that created the gimmick, so they basically became independent wrestlers all over the country. Eventually two new guys took the masks (Rebelde, a veteran by then, and Rodriguez), with support from the magazine. There was a nasty war of words, and a feud was teased, but eventually the two Robot R2 became a short lived tag team after the original C3 got injured. However the original R2 hit it off with the second C3 so they became a regular tag team all over the country where they could make money without having to give a percentage to the magazine. The second R2 kept working for EMLL and was eventually unmasked as Rebelde.

I was asking about him yesterday. There's a pretty big gap in his footage, but I've seen footage of him from I believe 83 or 84 and he looked world class already. Rob Viper brought up the great point that he was always protected early in his career, and put with guys like Lobo and Fuerza who were great talents themselves. I think though, that even with the protection he showed top notch talent really early on and that carried over throughout the rest of his career. You could say exactly the same thing about Atlantis. Santo has got footage of himself wrestling as Korak in some old wacky reel formats. He taped himself to study what was working and what wasn't. I doubt that footage will ever be seen but you never know.

I'm pretty sure that he rocked from day one but I didn't mention him as he had wrestled for two or three years before AAA as a mini and in small shows. Unlike Psicosis or Rey Jr., his earlier career isn't as well documented.

I'm in the dark on Psicosis, someone mentioned him for his AAA ork and I asked Zellner who said people spoke highly of his pre-AAA work as well. I guess you could argue that he was great right out of the gate in AAA since there isn't any Baja footage (at least not that I know of.) There is a 1992 Psicosis match on YouTube I might check out if I have time. If we're allowing for unseen footage, Jaguar Yokota was pretty great at an early age and Dynamite Kid was by far the best teenage wrestler I've seen in British wrestling. There's 1989 pre-Psicosis footage of him teaming with his brother at the WIN TV tapings in San Bernardino. I haven't watched those in ages but he wasn't great right out of the gate even though he showed more potential than the average Tijuana rookie. Rey Misterio Jr. was very good based on reports of people like Kurt Brown and the 3 or 4 pre-AAA matches we have of him. Perro Aguayo Jr. was great from day one and we have the footage. We obviously don't have any matches but Gran Hamada was headlining in Mexico with only a few months experience. Rene Guajardo, one of the great workers of his generation, thought he was one of the best talents he had ever seen and pushed him to the moon. Similarly, Yoshihiro Asai/Ultimo Dragon was also supposed to be really good during his rookie year in Mexico but there are only a couple of handheld matches around.

I finally had time to go through all of this (in several batches) and it was tremendous. Exile may already be the undisputed best podcast ever for geeks like us. And, yes, that Puerto Rico show must happen sooner than later. Also, without trying to sound like a prick, eating food while doing the podcast is very annoying if you are listening on your headphones.

Flair is 100 times better on the podcast that I could have ever imagined. I also like that unlike in the PodcastOne shows they go straight to the interview. The worst part of pretty much every other wrestling show is the podcast equivalent to the 20 minute Raw opening segment. Saying that Conrad is the best co-host around doesn't mean much because you are comparing him to MSL and Alice. However the guy does a fantastic job. It's obvious that Flair really likes him so he can easily keep the flow of the show from getting into staleness or rambling and he also knows that people aren't listening the show to get his two cents, so he does not go into long rants. He's as non intrusive as he can be so you can get shows like the one with Okerlund, which wasn't a great interview or ground breaking or anything like that, but it was an enjoyable 1 hour chat in between two long time friends.

I haven't seen this in four or five years but it was well known at the time that this was a work. Goodridge (unlike Coleman and others who lost to Takada) has always denied that it's a work and when the fight was brought up he always said that he got his ass kicked for real.

I agree completely with everything that you said... however the rewriting of scripts the day of the show and the giant "creative teams" filled with people who didn't make it in Hollywood by all accounts seem to be Vince trademarks. Has Hunter ever gone public with his thoughts on the entire process? I don't think so but I am curious. Who knows if one of his first moves in a post-Vince world will be to downsize the teams and to stick to longer term plans.

This was pretty good and the time keeping kept both of you guys in check. My main criticism of these type of wrestling podcasts, which I have mentioned once or twice before on this board, is that often there's a lot of rambling. Sometimes that rambling is good and sometimes it's not (this is not a comment to you specifically Will, as you tend to actively control yourself and your co-hosts very well). Here it helped in keeping things moving. My favourite part, by far, was the rebooking of Savage. I hope that it becomes a challenge on every episode. I have seen the mailbag thread but do you take rebooking requests? In case that you do, here's mine... if you think it's cool use it, otherwise it's no big deal. Book the world title picture (and if you wish, one or two supporting act feuds) of WWF 1984, 1985 and up to Wrestlemania III, but you can't use Hogan. Somebody still beats the Iron Sheik at MSG in January, Mr. T still main events WM 1 and you still have to do WM 3 vs. Andre. You can turn anybody from the heel side to be your lead babyface at any point, and you can turn any faces to be a heel during this period. You can hire anybody that you want on the face side, but you can't hire new heels. Other than that, it's an open world : if you want to use the Von Erich boys, Flair or Brody as your main face then so be it. Snuka and the Von Erichs are drug free good boys. Brody agrees to do jobs on demand. Orndorff does not fuck up his arm. Whatever, it's your parallel universe, but it's one where Hogan does not even exist.

Yeah I know that it's not your list. DJ Spectro often has got... interesting opinions on stuff, but he's got a massive magazine collection so he's a true asset to the community. Most Mexicans aren't willing to put in the work that somebody like you does, and those who could won't do it for free because they are used to being paid by the magazines.

Finally got to listen to this (and part 1) and it was a great podcast. I broke it down in several chunks so it never dragged down (dawho5 explains exactly why two posts above mine). As somebody who years ago read a bunch about the rise and fall of Yugoslavia I got a kick of the Tito comparison. I had no idea where this was going until the "not Tito Santana, but the Yugoslavian dictator" line had me laughing. This had me really wishing that we had the TV of that era on the WWE Network so I could follow it chronologically.

Well there was that DVDVR poster who faked his own death somewhere in the mountains of China or Nepal, just so he could drop his wrestling baggage and start with a clean slate as a reviewer of Korean TV dramas aimed at women. Or all the creepy pedo jokes being allowed at certain early 00's classic wrestling message boards (well, allowed if you were part of the circle that was allowed to do that), including some posters ALLEGEDLY making advances to underage women. Other than this place I do not frequent any wrestling message boards. I imagine that today's message boards have a lot more trolls, insults and flame wars, but the underbelly of some of the boards 15 years ago was quite an ugly place.

No Pirata Morgan vs Masakre or Pirata Morgan vs El Dandy???

I agree with that statement 100% but you guys don't realise how lucky you were in the US. Living in Spain, in between postage, blanks and what not, 20 bucks a tape was pretty much the minimum I'd have to pay if I was trading. The positive is that we'd trade 4 hr tapes (we had those in PAL without having to record at double speed and what not). It was a few dollars more if I was buying something out of the UK, and a ridiculous amount of money if I was buying something from Silver Vision (WWF distributor in the UK) and they would take a minumum of 3 months to actually arrive. The day that I had to throw away hundreds of VHS tapes (they were obsolete, I had moved out and my mother needed the space) I almost cried thinking about how many hours doing odd weekend jobs as a teenager it took me to gather that collection.

Wrestling records channel: anything from Crush Girls, Memphis, Titanes, random US stuff... tremendous. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZCzVeidYnFshsihtS9RXsQ

I can read and write some very basic Japanese (+ google translate helps a lot) so a decade ago I bought a lot of stuff from Yahoo Japan via a seller service called Auction House Hirosaki. Yahoo Japan only used to sell to Japanese addresses so you had to use an intermediary. You'd pre-pay and he used to charge a % of the cost and then ship the items back to you. That's your best bet for Japan. Not sure if this service still exists but I'm sure that nowadays there are dozens of anime fan services that will buy those things for you. I got CD's, VHS tapes, magazines, trading cards, action figures and tons of other stuff that back then was impossible to find unless you were in Japan.

Teri Funku and Dori Funku Junia. OJ is that legit? If so awesome. Well, GOTNW is right about the vowel lengthening at the end of Dorii and Terii. The extended katakana for Fa is just a way to cater for a foreign sound not present in Japanese. I was trying to make it easier for you to pronounce as fan-ku would be odd. In Japanese, the tag team is called Za Fankusu. Dory's twitter (and the email handle he has used for decades) is https://twitter.com/fuanku as he's taking the katakana extension literally, but your explanation and GOTNW's are correct. Your Japanese is better than mine...