pantherwagner

Apparently WWE have been sending out "beta test" emails to selected international customers offering free access until August 4th. It looks ike they are eager to get a bump in subscription numbers right after what most likely will be disappointing performance during the upcoming quarterly review.

That was Vitorino and he is my favourite of all time in any country. Perfect for CMLL at that time. I also really like the dude who did All Japan Women.

Full shows should be the way to go. Otherwise they'd end up editing anything with the Fantastics or WCW B show gems like Los Villanos vs Disorderly Conduct while leaving every Jim Duggan match ever. An interesting bit from the Observer: "The company sent out an e-mail blast to Canadian fans regarding the WWE network, asking them what is the level of interest they would have in seeing a variety of different Canadian promotions. What was listed was Stampede Wrestling from 1948 to 1989, Grand Prix Wrestling in Montreal from 1971 to 1975, Border City Wrestling from 1993 to the present, All Star Wrestling in Montreal from 1967 to 1975, Northern Championship Wrestling in Montreal (1986 to present), Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling (1960s to 1986), All-Star Wrestling out of Vancouver (1960s to 1989), ECCW from Vancouver (1996 to present) and Maximum Pro (an Ontario indie). [...] don’t believe they own any of the other libraries but obviously they wouldn’t have listed them if they didn’t believe they could get them. Grand Prix and All-Star Wrestling from Montreal were very much major league promotions in their day, and the war between the two groups is generally considered the hottest period ever for pro wrestling in Quebec. But my impression is very little footage still exists from that period. Atlantic Grand Prix is Emile Dupree’s promotion that ran Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, a season group that paid really well for its time. It was pretty much major league for its time with some good talent, as a lot of the Stampede regulars would work there during the summer because it paid so much better. They were always as I recall a seasonal promotion. All-Star Wrestling in Vancouver in the 60s was very successful with a strong circuit and a very impressive talent roster for the era, but the names like Gene Kiniski, Don Leo Jonathan, John Tolos or Dutch Savage really don’t mean anything today. It weakened greatly as the 70s wore on. I’ve never heard that any old footage of that promotion’s heyday still exists." Anybody knows anything about the supposed existence of these libraries?

God, I hope you have never listened to me on a podcast. We wouldn't be friends after that. I probably violate your luchador rule also. That reminds me that I never got to listen to your podcast with Lars and somebody else (I forgot who!). Maybe on Sunday as I have a Eurostar trip from Paris to London. If you have any particular podcasts you are proud of let me know and I will listen to them. I have even listened to a few of Dylan's eight hour podcasts if you can believe that!

I always thought it was really annoying when people used the word PURORESU in a radio show and pronounced it POO-RO-RE-SOO. Then again it’s even worse when people try to pronounce it in proper Japanese. Just call it Japanese wrestling and be done with it. I don't know if this still happens as I haven't listened to any radio shows where they'd say this in something like a decade. For whatever reason it doesn't bother me when somebody types "puroresu", though I think it looks dumb when somebody refers to it as PURO. The misspelling of "luchador" as "luchadore" used to bother me more than it should have. I'm also glad that John doesn't throw people or matches or entire promotions on to the woodpile anymore (or at least not on every third post).

As Charro needed a hip replacement so he came back to lose his mask. He was essentially semi-retired by then. He was never a big star at Arena Mexico or Coliseo but he was somebody that people would recognise because of the cool photos from Lucha Libre magazine with the charro outfit and sometimes with big dogs. Mogur was a big flop. No charisma or fire and people just didn't take to him.

Dave actually kind of defended Vitor when he wrote his defense for Sonnen. And I think that there should have been a plan by the athletic commissions to allow the fighters on TRT back to normal safely. But Dave (who I consider as fair and impartial as anyone is) sometimes tends to use "wink wink" jokes with Belfort or Overeem that he rarely if ever uses with Sonnen. I also hope this stops people pushing for Sonnen to go to the WWE... as if he'd mean anything there past the first couple of free TV appearances.

Not saying that I am a fan, but I disagree. He comes off as a funny, charismatic and likeable guy. Like somebody who you'd like to have a few beers with. That's why he's been able to get away with so much for so long. Even Dana White and Dave Meltzer completely bought into his previous spin, while they would have massacred Vitor, Bigfoot, Barnett or Overeem for exactly the same failure. He is so damn fake Jose.....you can't believe a word he says. Don't get me wrong... I agree with you 100%... I used to enjoy some of his schtick but I'm far from a Sonnen fanboy. I assume that for a lot of people he's like Mean Gene is to me. You know that he's a sleazebag carny who will sell his grandma's dignity for a buck. But damn if Mean Gene isn't awesome and you wouldn't love it if he was your grandpa or something.

Not saying that I am a fan, but I disagree. He comes off as a funny, charismatic and likeable guy. Like somebody who you'd like to have a few beers with. That's why he's been able to get away with so much for so long. Even Dana White and Dave Meltzer completely bought into his previous spin, while they would have massacred Vitor, Bigfoot, Barnett or Overeem for exactly the same failure.

LOL! In regards to Santo, simply put, there wasn't a BIGGER Mexican star, ever. I doubt there ever will be. He crossed barriers no other wrestler has been able to cross. I visited Mexico City about two years ago and I saw four pieces of street art of Santo, I'll try and upload later. He was a cultural icon, and still is. As said elsewhere, his films are on circulation on TV still. Blue Demon is a distant second, but still VERY popular. Not a knock on Blue Demon, just a statement of how big Santo was. This comment is spot on. It's not a knock on Demon. On terms of street recognition probably Demon and Mil Mascaras are almost as recognisable as Santo. They are names that everybody knows. I can't imagine anybody in Mexico would Santo but wouldn't know who Demon is, it does not make sense. But as far as being a beloved "idolo del pueblo" (the common man's hero) Santo is up there with Pancho Villa, Pedro Infante, Zapata and Tin Tan. He's a step above Frida, Benito Juarez, Vicente Fernandez, Cantinflas or Comandante Marcos. Somebody like Demon is several steps below, maybe Chespirito or Luis Miguel level.

It's truly amazing that Ryder and Scherer are still somehow making money from pro-wrestling.

By "unindexed" Old School shows I didn't mean not on the list, rather that there's little to make you watch them unless you know what's there. I think that if you watch on your laptop you have stops at the start of each match but on most devices you don't. Example: "Old School WWE card from the Boston Garden features Macho Man Randy Savage defending the Intercontinental Title in a Lumberjack Match." This must be one of those shows whose description they pulled straight from Classics of Demand before they made up with Bruno because they don't even mention his name.

As big a star Mascaras was they are not even in the same universe as far as popularity (in their own country) goes. Rikidozan was as big or perhaps bigger as a cultural star for a period of time but nowadays he's a semi-forgotten figure. One of them has got to be the biggest wrestling star ever in their own country (internationally must be Hogan). Hard to compare them. When Meltzer does he dismisses Santo's enduring popularity as "well, they keep showing his movie replays on TV" which completely misses the point. Blue Demon was always second. Other than Inoki I can't think anybody else who deserves being on a serious discussion. Mil Mascaras was a bigger international star and one of the few (if not the only one?) that was a regular headliner in the three biggest wrestling countries of its time. As workers Hijo del Santo, Rey Misterio Jr. and Blue Panther for their longevity and constant quality of work. Greatest gimmick: Tiger Mask probably. One of the most beautiful masks and a great name. To get some American names in the mix too, I really enjoyed Masked Superstar and the Destroyer. I was shocked when I first saw NJPW footage of Superstar. I thought there was no way this dude could be the one from Demolition.

I have found porn maybe a dozen times at the end of Japanese women wrestling tapes. Not a surprise. Someone once told me that the possible biggest AJW collector in Japan is a fairly prolific Japanese fetish tape trader too, whatever that was supposed to be. That also explains all of those unwatchable AJW handhelds from the 80s and 90s where the camera was focused 90% of the time on the crotch or ass of the wrestlers, even if they were Devil Masami, Lioness Asuka or somebody that wasn't necessarily attractive.

What? And link please.

Yes, that and the fact that searching for content is a pain in the ass. There's a very large collection of stuff there but unless you know what you are looking for it's hard to find it. I'd not be shocked if some network exec with no wrestling background assumed "well, there's no demand AT ALL for old content on the Network" because viewership numbers for unindexed Old School or semi-random World Class episodes is very low.

For me the best part of watching on VHS was hoping that commercials would be there. Especially if it was Japanese wrestling.

I'd think that one of the goals of this network would be to release enough stuff during the week that they'd keep you glued in. But that's not the case. I usually watch the documentaries on Sunday morning while doing household chores or while cooking but there's no other day of the week that makes me go "man I have to watch the Network today because they are releasing a new episode of (whatever)". I don't watch a lot of wrestling hours every week so I still have enough content there to get by but I can't imagine the hardest of the hardcores (essentially, the majority of the people who are buying your network now) can be too happy about it. I guess they figure out (and they are probably right) that no matter how pissed off those fans are they will keep subscribing every six months. I have no idea what's the problem here as I'd have imagined that they have a large number of hours of several shows both digitised and censored. It looks as if nobody's really in charge of the network and before the last guy was let go somebody set up a script to release a few raws and some other crap every week and that's about it.

Maybe I misunderstood him - he's all over the place and it's not completely clear if the first story and the story about the Bulldogs are two different stories or not.

Tommy mentioned that in their second or third match the RNR's had an incident with a tag team roughing them up, they didn't stand up for themselves and left the tour right away. The second part may have been his memory failing (he seemed to be fairly honest), but that's how the Fantastics got the call. Fantastics had the same incident with the same team (I assume Footloose) but they stood up for themselves and had a long run out of that.

Other than their style not being a good fit for AJPW I always thought that it was odd that the RNR never worked Japan all that much but I never knew it was out of choice.

The Vickie and Stephanie segment was embarrassing. I may be in the minority here but still think that Steph is terrible. Also weird to see her playing smart calculating woman for months and in the last two weeks she’s become Damian Sandow. I wish you guys understood Spanish because Rush from CMLL is a fantastic dickhead (re: the best heels discussion).

I had the show as background noise while cooking so didn't see the match or the confrontation but I got a kick of Cameron calling Paige a rookie, like she's Harley Race or something.