Marty

I never saw Jericho's first interview, but I did see him on Larry King tonight, and while he did give praise to Benoit's work ethic, previous reputation, family love, you name it (which was simply answering Larry King's questions, to be fair) he did say, at the end of the program, that none of what he mentioned earlier excuses Chris Benoit for his actions. Maybe he said something different in the other interview, but I wouldn't say Jericho is "choosing" to remember Benoit only for his whole life excluding the last two days or so.

I'm just trying to picture Dusty Rhodes partying it up with Bette Midler (another one he mentioned). She would've been interesting in the Sapphire role.

I did some searching on WWE.com and if you check the title histories page, he's still on the lists, but they removed any links detailing how he won and began each reign, whether it's singles or tag team. Heehee, guess they forgot about this Benoit article: http://www.wwe.com/worldwide/mexico/wetandwild And, in the "oops" category: http://shopzone.wwe.com/Product_detail.asp...ductId=35-00399 (They kinda deleted the wrong guy.)

Only problem with that is they'd have to work on TV and eventually turn heel at some point as "evil abandoned children" or something like that.

As others have said, Loss, fantastic writing and analysis. Minor typo: "Nowinski is not the only wrestler that has had to require due to the effects of PCS." (I don't think I need to tell yo(u what you meant to type.) Can't wait to read the rest!

I don't remember exactly what happened. Can either you or Loss clarify? Everything else mentioned are great choices.

I'm guessing, much like the Hall Of Fame, he pretty much said something along the lines of, "No paycheque please."

My girlfriend's been slowly getting into watching wrestling (albeit only casually) thanks to the video collection that I have. A quote from her (again, she's a new fan) when she saw some Jerry Lawler footage: "Wow. Nice punches."

Sorry for the late reply, Sek. He pretty much has the same accent when hosting the show, and moreless so when talking about his family.

"OH, MY HAIR!" -- Mick Foley, after getting thrown head-first into a barbed wire board by Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer at One Night Stand 2006.

I picked this up yesterday (five days before the release date) and it's one of those "fun" DVD sets, much like the Greatest Wrestling Stars of the 80s set or the World's Greatest Wrestling Managers set. Not much in the way of negativity at all. They gloss over the Von Erichs tragedies a bit, but even Kevin says, "Even if it was for only 25 years, I feel lucky to be brothers with those guys for 25 years." They also gloss over things like the deaths in the Harts portion, but afterwards hammer home what the Harts meant to wrestling in Canada, as well as Eddie's passing, but end it with much Guerrero praise. One of those "feel good" DVDs, to be sure. Designed to bring back lots of good memories. Well planned, too, for if you have a father who was a wrestling fan in the past, it's a solid Father's Day gift.

Sid Vicious once crapped his pants over fear of facing the awesome Undertaker. Aside from the TV footage you've seen, the NWA, AWA, CWF, WCCW, and other promotions not named "WWWF", "WWE", etc. performed in many smokey bars during the '60s and '70s. Chris Jericho saw Shawn Michaels on TV for the first time when he was three years old and said, "I want to be just like him!" Vince McMahon tore two quads in 2005, but courageously continued his match. Diesel and Razor Ramon took a hiatus in the spring of 1996, but reappeared later in the year. Test was trained by Kevin Nash. Back in the late 1970s, a young Shawn Michaels met up with Stu Hart, and excitedly asked if Stu thought of involving ladders in wrestling. Thus was born the ladder match. Bret Hart refused to lay down for Steve Austin in any of their pay-per-view match-ups. Shawn Michaels was more than happy to pass the torch to Steve Austin at WrestleMania XIV.

Not to sound like a big defender of wrestling (specifically the bad parts of it) but it's not like the other things you mentioned don't have their share of bad sides to them. (Well, I got nothing on the "magic" part, but the music and sports things I can discuss.) You mentioned about people chanting obscenities at your kid at an indy show. It's not like music and sports don't have bad sides either, in crowds and such. Here in Ottawa, the big controversy right now is what happened at Game 4 of the Senators-Sabres playoff series. If you haven't heard the story yet, a couple from Buffalo made the trip here to see their team play, and when the Sabres' win was official (which prevented a four-game sweep for Ottawa), the woman of the couple turned to some Sens fans nearby and said "Put the broom away" in reference to a sweep. This resulted in one of those Sens fans (males, by the way) punching the woman four times. This also took place in the third deck of the arena, which means it's more affordable (well, as affordable as playoff hockey could be), which means more families would sit there. How would kids react to witnessing a situation like that? God knows there's been other cases in sports where crowd control is in question. Sports also deals with a lot of situations that wrestling deals with. The issue of steroids. The occasional (or moreso) fight during gameplay. The existence of cheerleaders (how do they represent a woman's role in society). Idiotic media types saying so-and-so is the first African American to do whatever, when most (if not all) black sports personalities could care less about that sort of thing, since our society is past (or should be past) all that. Athletes attacking reporters. Athletes being reported as being in trouble with the law, being involved in prostitution rings, drug rings, dog fighting rings (in Michael Vick's case), etc., etc., etc. Once a kid sees all this, and he/she will, they will, at the very least, ask question. On the music front, which I won't go nearly as long about, there's what's written in music. Children, for the most part, begin liking whatever music their parents are into, but eventually expand. What will happen if Little Johnny listens to Eazy E singing "Trust No Bitch"? How will he handle women after that? Or what about Little Jenny listening to Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know" for the first time. Would it affect her outlook on relationships with men in the future? That's just scratching the surface of some of the lyrics out there (sex, drugs, crime, amongst other things are all written these days, as well as the past). There's also going to concerts and the rowdiness of some, as well as the existence of drugs there. And God knows a lot of artists are in the news for the wrong reasons, like athletes I mentioned above. All stuff to keep in mind. Bottom line is everything does come down to parenthood. You're right: total preventation is not the answer, but talking to your kids about certain things is definitely the best way to go. I'm happy you're already thinking about these things, but remember, just because wrestling has its nasty points (which I think are more apparent to us because we discuss it more) doesn't mean that other areas of entertainment are angelic. Good luck to you in the future! No one said this parenthood thing was going to be easy, but thinking about it beforehand is always a good step, even if you wind up not having kids.

Hmmm... 07/06/97: Bret & Owen Hart, Jim Niedhart, Davey Smith, & Brian Pillman beat Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock, Goldust, & The Legion of Doom (24:31) when Owen pinned Austin. Sort of the obvious one. John I think the combination of the Canadian Stampede 10-man being on the Pillman DVD, as well as the SurSer 93 match being a neat way to showcase the Hart brothers (rather than a Hart family extension) is the reason this made the grade. Honestly, I'm glad to see it's there, since I hope they include the early stages of Owen's heel turn.

From the Observer, via WrestlingClassics: Heh.

Along with the title matches, I also thought the MITB and U.S. title matches were between decent to very good. The MITB match had a chunkload of different stories to it. The big story was the Jeff Hardy-Edge spot, but watch that match, and you'll see how neat it develops. Whenever Jeff does big spots, such as this one, there's always some hesitation on his part, but then he thinks, "What the heck?" and does it. This one was different. Jeff gets to the top of the ladder, hesitates, but this time Matt Hardy demands Jeff to hit the swanton, because it was Edge that he was going to take out, and it's a nice bit of continuity to the old Edge-Matt feud. Matt was on a very nice quasi-heel run during the whole match, as he threatened to hit Sharmell when King Booker climbed the ladder alone, seemingly for an easy win. Instead, Booker had a heart and protected Sharmell. Matt was possibly the best heel in the match, and it's a shame that on RAW the following night that the Hardyz won the tag titles like nothing happened the night before. Finlay also showed heart when consoling Hornswoggle. Punk looked good as the scrappy rookie coming close to winning and extending the match when he had to. Very good stuff all around. Many people were disappointed in Benoit-MVP, but I think it was good for what it was. Many people said that MVP got zero reaction, but it's hard for a big reaction to happen to a new guy when his match got thrown onto the card relatively at the last minute. Really liked MVP working on Benoit's shoulder, though, as the story was MVP trying to take away Benoit's grappling abilities, including that of applying the Crossface. It made the finish make a lot of sense with Benoit winning with the Swandive, one of the few times I recall him doing that. Solid stuff.

God, Phil, that was an awesome review of both matches, particularly the WWE title match. Absolutely 100% agreed about Shawn Michaels, especially the entrance. I was at a party for WrestleMania and our group had pointed out the same thing about Michaels' outfit - stripper outfit with crosses. Shawn's like a Green Day song - a Walking Contradiction.

Because a frightening amount of people who post on basically every other wrestling board but this one base their opinions on his rants. The bullshit he makes up ends up being accepted as fact by people who just assume he's an expert because he's reviewed like every US PPV of the last 20 years. These people tend to be the ones you end up bashing your head into a brick wall over because they fight you to the death and it's obvious they have no opinions of their own. I think that's really faded away the last couple of years, as Keith has been doing just his own blog for the most part, and whatever webpage he writes for (insidepulse, right?) isn't exactly roaring in popularity right now. The last Keith review I ever saw discussed and debated heavily was WrestleMania XX (for a show) and Eddy-JBL JD '04 (for a match). That feels like ancient history now. Even TSM hardly brings the guy up. The guy's moreless a thing of the past.

I have to agree with the others: The Chi-Town match is probably my favourite, and the most fun of the series. Clash VI may actually be a slightly better match, but it's like the WM12 Iron Man in that I need to be in the right setting to really enjoy the match. WrestleWar definitely hasn't aged well, but I do enjoy it still, but not as much if I see the other two matches first.

I agree with Loss. Eddie's contrasting body language and facials between face and heel were great. Babyface: Always smiling, having a good time, high-fiving the fans, dancing, very wide-eyed. Heel: Slow-moving, sneering, looking angry, much more closed-eyed.

Too bad about Tatanka being released. He had a nice little comeback going. If I can be somewhat positive, at least this time, they didn't fire anyone BEFORE Christmas.