Dylan Waco

I have no clue why that bothers people. I think it's a distinct, neat part of his act I don't buy it. It comes off as him trying to come up with a distinct, neat part for his act instead of actually being a distinct, neat part of his act. So sort of like how people here feel about Demolition

I have no clue why that bothers people. I think it's a distinct, neat part of his act

Biggest problem with Brock v. HHH is that HHH is a dogshit face

I can't find where I posted it now, but I did the work on 93 WCW not that long ago. I want to say the average attendance was below 2000 a show, but not by much. I haven't done the work with ECW, but I would be very skeptical of the notion that 97 ECW drew 2000 on average per show. 98-00 is possible in that regard. Also keep in mind the landscape was very different. WCW was national in 93, but wrestling was not hot, there was no internet, et.

You do have to consider the potentiality of the industry at that point. Relatively speaking, that ECW was even approaching WWF numbers is impressive on its own, even if those were 1995 numbers. They outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. They did all of this with no national television backing. Like with things in life in general - though I do maintain its booking model was totally unsustainable - the timing just wasn't there. I think what ECW did in terms of drawing people is more impressive than they are often given credit for, but it is not true at all to say they outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. In fact I'm not sure there was ever a year where they even came close to outdrawing WCW.

At their "artistic" height they weren't drawing near what they were in 98/00.

There were plenty of ECW shows that did over 2K.

Cool review Tim. A couple of quick things - on the podcast today we touched a bit on the "why didn't they cover the good wrestling/international talent" aspect. We also directly addressed the women in ECW issue which I think has been (by FAR) the most thoughtful criticism of the film so far.

That's exactly what it was. We ask Johnny about that outright and discuss some other criticisms of the movie on episode 40 of the Wrestling Culture Podcast which went up today.

I like Stixx and Haskins

Guys who have not been mentioned yet who I would have very high on such a list... El Hijo Del Santo - For your offensive "formula" type guys I don't know that there is anyone I liked better. He's a guy with a ton of pretty stuff, all of which looks both flashy and painful. All of his stock spots look really good, to the point where he can just roll out those spots and it feels like you aren't being cheated. In many ways I liken him to the offensive version of Flair. 2 Cold Scorpio - Possibly my absolute favorite offensive wrestler of all time. Scorp's highspots were more impressive than guys half his size in wrestling at the time. He was innovative in a good way as every time he busted out a new offensive move it was completely insane and done with incredible impact which is a part of "flying" offense that is often lacking. Very good striker too and had a wide variety of base offensive to set up for his bigger spots. Even now I'm not sure there is an active wrestler who is a more complete offensive wrestler. Virus - Excellent on the mat, excellent brawler, very strong highspots and really good about knowing how to mix things up and tailor stuff for certain opponents. Buddy Rose - Maybe the most underrated offensive wrestler ever because he's largely thought of as a bumping heel (which isn't untrue but is myopic). Probably the best I've ever seen at changing up his offense for individual opponents. When he was working Dynamite he could go sprint mode with him, when he was working body part work he had many solid ways to tear that body part apart, he would would surprise you with big spots you weren't expecting, his base offense was outstanding and his two or three "big" moves always looked good.

Best offensive wrestlers would probably make a good thread in and of itself

AFter you watched "If A Tree Falls" did you join Earth First! or go to work for a logging company?

That is absolutely not the goal of this. You can argue that it's hopeless for it to not to appeal to non-wrestling fans if you want, but the goal was to make something that non-wrestling fans would be open to

I don't know this to be true, but if it was me and I had a goal of getting some sort of non-wrestling fan traction there is no way in hell I would have had the actual incident in the doc.

I think peak Flair is a pretty good offensive wrestler, but not a great one. That is hardly a major criticism though. I sometimes think it's easy to pick on him for his offense because when he started to fade as a performer his offense hit the wall first and because he wasn't the dynamic offensive wrestler that his predecessor Race is often credited with being.

A documentary using archive footage of somebody not available to speak is hardly reinventing the wheel now... it's a very, very basic and used practice. Anyway, really excited to watch this. I'll be ordering the DVD when it's available. Didn't mean to imply it was an innovation in the field of documentary film making. The DVD is available to order now

Okay I have been waiting to talk about this in great detail so now I am going to talk about this in great detail. In the interest of full disclosure Johnny is a friend of mine (which everyone here knows), we'll have him on the podcast again soon and I was a credited consultant on the film (which frankly I'm not sure I deserved, but it was a nice gesture). I largely agree with hammerva's review, albeit with some minor differences of opinion. On the Extreme Reunion stuff I was dreading it's inclusion in a way and I think it will be the most polarizing aspect of the film. My personal view is that while you can argue it wasn't necessary, the way it was used was extremely fair (i.e. it wasn't a commercial for the product, nor was it a complete "this fucking sucked" fest) and I think it added to the movie to have access to all these guys years after the fact who were still living to some degree off of the limited fame and reputations they achieved through the original ECW. Some of the stuff that came out of that added a lot to the film - namely the scene with Balls/Axl in the stands which I thought was incredibly sad, but really interesting - and other stuff like being in the car with Shane Douglas while they rushed to the scene of the Sabu hotel OD had a real urgency/dramatic effect that you really never see in wrestling documentaries (to this end I wish Johnny and Kevin had filmed the Balls/New Jack fight which they were present for, but that's hardly a real criticism). I don't think anything related to ER took away from the film, so while I can understand those who feel it was odd to include it, I can't consider it a meaningful criticism of the finished product. I thought the front end of the film was a tough balance because they had to get over the importance, uniqueness and cult appeal of ECW, without turning the documentary into a completely fawning fan diary. It's funny because I think they brushed right up against the edge of that, but avoided falling of the cliff and when the documentary really opens up with serious criticisms and attempts to understand/contextualize things like the violence in ECW and the problems with the "too big to be small, to small to be big" business model. I thought the use of newsletter headlines was an excellent touch and the inclusion of so many different wrestling journalist voices added a ton to the movie, to the degree that on that alone I would rank this ahead of the other ECW documentaries. The people who will really stand out in the movie in my view are Tony Lewis, Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney. I thought Frank Talent from the PA State Athletic Commission had a really interesting explanation for why ECW got away with so much (interesting as in "read between the lines"), but I think with Lewis, Axl and Balls you got the full spectrum of their experience. Lewis really showcases the relevance of hardcore fan involvement in the rise of ECW (this was covered well in general with a good segment that looked at the role of the internet and even tape trading, but not in a way that was super in depth or hyper-esoteric) and Balls and Axl really illustrate the damage that was done by the style, as well as the perverse commitment and hope these guys had in a project that was ultimately doomed to fail (the interview where Balls is hinting that he can't reveal how the bankruptcy restructing of ECW will turn out to Johnny is tough to watch). Axl in particular is fascinating as you see him in full carny mode from some of the RF cyberslam footage, as a pissed off guy with real criticisms of the way he was used in 2001, and then as a caricature of a beaten down wrestling relic at the Reunion in 2012. They did a good job getting into the intimacy of the ECW setting and how that mattered to the product. The scene with Tony Lewis in the Queens Elks Lodge during a church service was as close to a "Kevon Von Erich visits the Sportatorium" moment as you could hope for with a documentary like this. I also really liked the shots from outside at Barely Legal and some of the other RF provided fan shots. In general the editing was WAY better than I expected. I didn't think it would be a disaster, but I was surprised by how much I thought the mood music added to some of the scenes and the way images were bolded and things were strung together really enhanced the finished product. It came across as remarkably professional for a DIY project started by two kids when they were basically teenagers. I was also pleasantly surprised at how much the lack of narration didn't bother me - in fact I thought it was probably the right idea, which is something I was a bit conflicted about having heard pros and cons from many people on the subject for the last several months. I really enjoyed the way the Eddie Gilbert split was covered in this as I had not heard some of the stuff revealed in the documentary before. I also thought the Mass Transit incident was really well done, as was a segment they did which covered fan violence incidents primarily through the prism of the Dudleys (I would note here that as much as I hate to give Gabe credit for anything, he is dead right in noting that the height of the Dudley fan trolling was also the height of the promotion in terms of live attendance). The portion of the doc that outlined the collapse of the promotion in late 2000/early 2001 had some really great quotes and personal comments from Angel, Balls Mahoney, New Jack, Dave Meltzer, Jason Powell and others. The comments about Heyman in particular really stand out from that segment and I think were about as fair as you could reasonably expect. On the subject of Heyman, I think it was genius how quotes of his were used from the cyberslam shows and Queens in ring "shoots." Really a smart way to get his voice in the doc, without having to use a sock puppet or stooge for the Heyman position. I'm sure Paul himself would have to admire the way it was done as in a way it's almost Heymanesque. I think the criticism about a lack of coverage of the women in ECW and how they were used is entirely fair and while it's not something I had thought about, it is about as intelligent a critique as I expect to hear. On the comparison to the previously two ECW documentaries I think it destroys Forever Hardcore, which I don't hate, but which is basically a collection of shoots with no real connection from one to the other. I also feel it is better than Rise and Fall as a movie. If someone wanted to argue Rise and Fall was a better linear history of ECW and the details of what it produces as a wrestling product, that would be impossible to dispute. But it's a timeline, that is designed to cater to fans who wanted a sort of glorified view of ECW's product, while touching on some of the reasons for it's failures in a very surface level, WWE approved way. I really like Rise and Fall a ton, but I couldn't possibly call it a better documentary, even if I do think you could argue it was a better product for primarily wrestling interested fans if that makes sense. I am biased of course, but to me Barbed Wire City is pretty lateral with Heroes of World Class and that is my favorite wrestling documentary. It's fair, presents multiple perspectives, has a unique quality to it, covers the entire spectrum of the promotions history, is well put together and lacks any of the fatal agenda pushing flaws of the WWE produced documentaries many of which I do like (Pillman's, Jake's, et.). I want to watch it more than once before I proclaim it the best wrestling related documentary ever made, but I don't think it's silly to put it in that discussion on first viewing. Perhaps more importantly I do think it is the sort of movie that could be of interest to non-wrestling audiences, though I think an honest assessment has to grant that it won't be easy to do so. As an addendum I think the journalists represented will be picked apart and viewed certain ways by viewers of the film who come from different perspectives regarding ECW. For that reason I will give a quick breakdown on each of them and how I think they came across. Dave Scherer - Real life lowlife and piece of shit, so it almost pains me to say this, but he comes across as a sort of kind old man with an almost endearing attachment to ECW. He's not alienating at all and while you can tell he's a "Rah Rah Team ECW" guy, he isn't so over the top that he makes you cringe. Mike Johnson - Sort of comes across as the ECW house historian. There are times when he will be somewhat critical, but tries to reign it in by playing devil's advocate to his own point or at least that's the best way I can describe it. Still he doesn't come across as annoying, even if he does come across as a bit fanboyish. He also comes across as the person who knows the most about the particulars of ECW, which is almost certainly true. Wade Keller - I was subscribing to The Torch at the height of ECWmania, so I hardly consider myself anti-Keller, but he comes across as a bit of a know-it-all dick. I don't think this was a trick of editing, as his points were often dead on and more reasonable than the alternative points of view offered by others. Still it almost feels like he sees himself as "above" even discussing the obvious flaws of ECW at times. It's weird and I wonder if this isn't a preconceived perception I had coming in that is clouding my judgment. Bruce Mitchell - Comes across as a thoughtful jerk if that makes sense. With Wade you get the feeling he saw some value in ECW. With Bruce you get the feeling he sees the whole thing as a waste of talent and careers. I'm not even sure he really feels that way, it's just how he comes across to me. Jason Powell - Comes across better than any other journalist in the entire movie, which shocked me. Powell is as critical as Bruce and Wade, but does it in a way where you get the feeling that he is sympathetic to the players involved. He's almost like a dad disappointed in the poor behavior of his children who he still loves. I thought his comments on the reasons certain guys did so much damage to themselves and on Heyman, were among the best comments in the whole documentary. Dave Meltzer - If you can set aside his comical choice of attire (if I am criticizing your fashion, you know it's bad), Dave has some great summary lines and added more to the movie than I expected. He comes across as more detached than others, though it's also obvious from the documentary that he is a friend/fan of Heyman. His line about the only guy making money from ECW being Vince was a funny way of summing up the collapse pretty well.

Bix knows how I feel about this but for the record I agree with everything he says. I thought the documentary was a piece of shit. I went in sympathetic to Nigel. Came out thinking he was an entitled prick, who took no responsibility for the fact that his juicehead habits are the real reason he wasn't hired by the WWE (to say nothing of the manipulative shit he pulled over the Hepatitis, which I think is about as low as you can go)

Stuff like Christian v. Swagger or Christian v. Regal from ppv should count

I watched a shit ton of 08 WWECW a few years back on Hulu. No clue if the episodes are still up or not, but I came away thinking it was every bit as good as 09. I've been following Eric's reviews at Segunda Caida and this thread will make a great resource

He had opportunities in ECW and spent a lot of his time putting in about a tenth of the effort other guys on the roster were putting in. He did some good stuff there to be sure, but after seeing all of his stuff there his stock will never come back up in my eyes

Deleted what comment? Was it a troll of some sort? If not I have no problem with it

Is that really surprising?

4/7 New Japan iPPV KUSHIDA/Alex Shelley v Prince Devitt/Ryusuke Taguchi First half of this was nothing special but fairly inoffensive. The second half of this had a couple of spots I thought looked good (big Shelley bump, Shelley tope and one of the Shelley/Kushida double teams), but I hated the way it was worked. On the one hand they largely isolated Taguchi which fit with the post-match angle they were going to run and kept Devitt out of the ring which is a huge plus. Devitt is just terrible. I don't know if there is anyone in wrestling I would rather watch less than him. The guy is a good athlete, but everything he does looks choreographed and his selling is so bad I would actually prefer him to not sell at all. Anyhow despite keeping Taguchi in I thought a lot of the offense during this run looked really low impact for a style that lives and dies on high impact offense. Also the reversal fests were just insane and there was really no heat segment at all despite the fact that Taguchi was basically being booked in a go it alone position. There are plenty of matches worse than this, but I would never want to watch this again and in no way did I feel I had watched a good match. I did think he post-match angle with Devitt turning heel was mildly amusing, though largely not for the reasons others enjoyed it. Hiroyoshi Tenzan/Manabu Nakanishi/Super Strong Machine/Akebono vs. Takashi Iizuka/Tomohiro Ishii/YOSHI-HASHI/Bob Sapp This was actually a pretty good match all things considered. Yeah you have Bob Sapp breaking out some sub-Zeus level strikes and Iizuka straddles the line between charmingly goofy and annoyingly goofy, but there was a lot to like here. I have no clue what the post-match attack on guest commentator was about, but it at least let me know who the heels were and the heels worked like heels in this match. They were using weapons, taking cheapshots, cut off the ring on Super Strong Machine for a while and were using every trick they could to try and take down Akebono. Ishii was a fun little spark plug and probably the best guy on his team, but I thought the best guy in this was clearly Akebono. Having to carry a segment with Bob Sapp isn't easy but he did as well as he could. He was a real fun brick wall and he has a way of closing space that is so in line with his sumo background that it feels more threatening than it otherwise would. I loved his little shove off of Sapp as they built toward the finish and it was cool to watch him in their directing traffic before the fall. This isn't anything that I would tell people to go out of their way to see, but I did like it. El Terrible/Tama Tonga v. Valiente/La Mascara Decent enough spotfest that probably suffered some in my eyes because I watch a lot of lucha. If I was coming at this from a perspective of non-lucha watching, NJPW fan I could see really enjoying the novelty of some of the offense, especially since it was packaged in a format very similar to the way a lot of NJPW matches are formatted. Valiente's big dive always looks great and Tonga is slowly getting better (I like his big elbow and the way he sold the Mascara dive was cool), but this did not have the trappings I look for in a good lucha match. I wouldn't say this was bad or even close to it, but this is not what I want out of these guys, especially Terrible and Valiente. Togi Makabe/Tomoaki Honma vs. Masato Tanaka/Yujiro Takahashi There was a lot of hard hitting in this, but I could live without ever seeing one of those minute long chop fest ever again. I absolutely hate that shit and it is a good way to immediately take my interest out of the match. They won back some goodwill with me pretty quickly because they actually segmented this match fairly well with a decent, but short heat section on Honma and Makabe being pushed as the unstoppable lariat machine. Really did like the Honma slow-mo deadlift suplex spot and I have to give credit to Tanaka for trying really hard and looking solid for a guy his age with the amount of miles he has logged. Still this felt like a sped up version of a really good match, more than a really good match. I liked this fine for what it was, but there are tons of matches every year worked similarly, with longer face in peril sections and as a rule I’m going to like those better than something like this in almost every instance. Perfectly watchable, solid match, with a finish I enjoyed, but another match that I wouldn’t really say was worth going out of your way to see. Minoru Suzuki v. Toru Yano I wish I hadn’t heard anything about this in advance because I had built this up as a potential show stealer in my mind and while I thought it was pretty fun and perhaps better than it looked on paper I was ultimately disappointed. They did a good job establishing the dichotomy between the two wrestlers, and I will never tire of Suzuki’s facial expressions and forearms, but this was not the match I expected. Suzuki was surprisingly not all that vicious and what was sold to me as an “out of control brawl” really wasn’t all that out of control, nor was it much of a brawl. I did think Suzuki did an admirable job making Yano’s little flurries look credible, but I wanted more violence out of this. This is something that I might like more in five years than I do now. Yuji Nagata/Hirooki Goto v. Kazushi Sakuraba/Katsuyori Shibata Man it sucks to see Sakuraba go down. I hope he’s not out long because he’s easily my favorite guy in New Japan at this point. I thought the Shibata/Goto stuff was hit or miss, with some over the top silly stuff and some good looking stuff, but I really did like the Nagata/Sakuraba exchanges a lot. Sakuraba just carries an intensity and aura of violence with him that very few people in modern wrestling can match. I liked the feeling out matwork early and even though I could give a fuck about Nagata I thought when they went to war the second time they did a good job mixing in his spots out of the Sakuraba attacks. The suplex that dislocated Sak’s arm looked brutal as fuck. This was on the road toward being a really good match and instead was more of an appetizer. Rob Conway v. Satoshi Kojima This is not really my kind of match but I have to give them credit for succeeding in making a match that easily could have felt like meaningless filler come across as a big deal. I also kind of dug the outside interference and NWA rep cheering along for Rob, as the Conman as a poor man’s Ric Flair, with poor man’s Arn Anderson and poor man’s JJ Dillon seconding him was sort of novel. Lots of near falls and big spots and thinks of that ilk and again that’s not my thing. But for matches of that sort this was a perfectly decent match. I can’t imagine ever wanting to watch it again, but it wasn’t painful. Shinsuke Nakamura v. Davey Boy Smith Jr. I thought this was a very strong clash of the titans style match. I’m not sure this works as well if you don’t buy Smith or Nakamura as titans, but to one degree or another I see them both that way so I really liked it. I would have liked to see more Smith grappling stuff because he’s really good at it and I think it would have added depth to the match, but instead they heavily played him up as a monster for Nak to have chop down and it worked well. I will never like Nakamura’s whacky hulk up routine and I thought his comebacks were a bit to abrupt, but the selling was better than I could have hoped for in the body of this. Really enjoyed the consistency of Nakamura coming back with strikes, first targeting the ribs which Smith sold well for the most part and then later going for the kill shots to the head when he got in deep shit. For his part Smith has a variety of good offense and very capable of controlling a match on top. I really liked his flurry of escalating near falls toward the finish, as one spot seemed to lead to the other and they were milked well. I also liked his big bump on the airballing of the top rope legdrop. Nak’s flurry to win at the end looked good and protected Smith in loss, though again that fucking running in place, “he’s a maniac!” freak out thing he does is the shits. By no means was this a perfect match, but even with its flaws I thought it was very good. Hiroshi Tanahashi v. Kazuchika Okada This was both better than I had feared and nowhere near as good as NJPW fans have been saying. I’m going to try and be diplomatic here because there were things about this that I did think were done well. I thought Okada’s selling was very consistent for example. I also have to give them credit for the pacing as usually these long NJPW matches are either hyperactive as fuck or bore me to hell or both and while I didn’t really like this match I wouldn’t call it boring or hyperactive. On the other hand there was a lot I really didn’t like about this. For example I fucking hated how Okada kept coming back with shots from his hurt arm. Yes he was selling after every shot but I swear 90% of his offense in this match directly involved the use of that arm and it just made him look like a dumb fuck. I guess the idea was to make the arm damage the focus of the match but it was extremely gratuitous to the point of being absurd how often he was throwing elbows in this. I also thought Tanahashi’s arm attack offense was incredibly poor. In general I don’t like Tanahashi’s offense, but I can forgive things like shitty punches to the body in a match like this. What I have trouble forgiving is the fact that he never really worked compelling holds on the arm and instead did some strike attacks that didn’t look particularly vicious or impactful and various whips of the arm into the mat. I am sure people will accuse me of nitpicking here but this drove me crazy as a couple of holds would not have been hard to do and even if poorly applied would have been a far stronger base of attack. I also really hated the middle of the match big spot run, though I give them credit for selling more on the back end of it and not letting the match turn into a Tanahashi/Anderson-like spot running stretch run of doom. I could criticize other things I didn’t like but the general point is that I didn’t think the match was any good. It wasn’t a disaster and it was a lot easier for me to get through than the Dome show match, but this was probably my least favorite match on the entire show. Overall Thoughts: I actually liked this show better than I thought I would and prefer it to the Dome show. There is only one match that really connected with me completely and that admittedly may be because I’m becoming a bit of a mark for Harry Smith. Still the majority of the matches were decent, and while there was nothing close to as good as Sak v. Nak from Jan 4, there were enough thinks I liked to not make it feel like a waste of time.