Dylan Waco

Phil, 2.9 style really is an overused talking point at this point, though to be fair it is largely because the term is misunderstood and applied as in this thread. Also Morishima v. KENTA was pretty shitty.

I actually think TM/DK series is really overrated.

Would you say there is a difference between something like the average TNA X Division match structure and the Akiyama/Misawa v. Taue/Kawada match structure? I"m guessing you would say yes. Would you say there is a difference in match quality between the average AJPW tag match and the average TNA X Division match? I'm guessing you would say yes. Would you say Marufuji v. KENTA is closer to Misawa v. Kawada or Alex Shelley v. Jay Lethal? I think if you are being honest you are going to say it's closer to Shelley v. Lethal and not just in terms of match quality either, but in terms of match structure which is really the issue. 2.9 blah, blah is kind of a tired talking point and it is overused, but alot of Japanese "epic" matches are really caricatures of 90's AJPW that had alot more going on then just rabid fire nearfall exchanges and momentum twist at random. Both NOAH and TNA have their working origins in that style, but they are in no way the same thing.

Totally true, though I'm not sure if motivation or hardcore drug abuse or both is the real culprit.

Jeff isn't as good as Matt, but if both are at their best I'm of the opinion that the gap really isn't all that massive. Matts best matches are probably technically better, but Jeff seems to have more natural charisma, which helps out at times.

How about some SMW tv? I will say this..if they don't replace the losses with something I'll drop my subscription.

I will listen later on tonight hopefully Bix. When the Don West show is on the docket I expect a PM.

Not to be a dick,but really I'm not sure who you are arguing with. No one..myself included..argued that the failure for the WWE to treat cruiserweights seriously caused Chris Benoit to kill his family and himself. I was merely expanding on the point Cook made, by pointing out that smart fans demanded these guys we pushed up the card, but these guys knew it wasn't going to happen without hitting the roids hard. If cruiserweight wrestling was treated in a different manner it is possible that steroid abuse would have been far less substantial among that generation of wrestlers. You are right that it probably would have had no effect on Benoits wrestling style though.

Yeah and like Cook noted it was for the most part the "cruisers" who had the attitude that they needed to constantly bust their asses for the business and to climb to the top. The reality was however that while certain segments of the fan base were essentially demanding they be moved up the card because they were so exciting to watch, this wasn't going to happen as the body image expected at the top of the card really wasn't something either brand, but espcially the WWE was going to sacrifice.

Cook, this really is a tremendous post. I have drawn comparisions between the wrestling business and the porn industry many times, but as a student of history myself, your intelligence comparision is just as good if not better (though I do confess that my initial reaction was that Benoit was wrestllings John Holmes). Another prism to view things through would be Ted Shackley. As a rabid dentralizationist leftist (there are approximately five of us left on the planet) I am not a big fan of Ted or the agency at large, but it seems to me that Ted was right to essentially work as a front man, operating almost exclusively through proxies, with a veneer of plausible deniablilty that no one really bought, but was able to get him by. Even in cases where Ted was directly linked to rouge agents and international arms traffickers the Blonde Ghost usually skated the layers of cover and technicalities kept him out of the range of fire. Shackley was a no good rotten bastard, who used the most heinous tools in the arsenal, but at arms lenght..Shackley was the Vince McMahon of the CIA Another point..right after this happened my little brothers called very upset. They were both big Benoit fans and they asked me what I thought about all of this. One of the first things my brothers said was "do you think this had anything to do with the dissolution of weight classes in wrestling". I thought it was a pretty silly question to be honest, but really it's not. The reality is that hardcore fans forced "cruiserweights" to the top of the card with a kind of blind devotion that Vince and co. would have been foolish not to try and cash in on somehow. Would weight classes have prevented this? Probably not, but without the internet it is hard to imagine Benoit or Eddie evver becoming world champs..of course them getting the belts in and of itself would not have been a bad thing, but Vince isn't going to give anyone that run if they don't "look the part" and I think we all know what that means..so yes..in a sense hardcore fandom is responsible

Lots of interesting stuff there, but the perscription for Xanax is interesting to me as anti-depressants have been linked to Mania many times in the past, and it is espcially bad when you cycle on and off. It would be interesting to hear if that was the case with Benoit. Once again I had no clue how close Benoit was to Grunge and it definately sounds like Grunge may have been the primary force stopping this from occuring before. Also I want to add that is really incredible how far ahead the wrestlling media has been on this story than the MSM, even with crime scene details...which leads me to believe that there were people in the WWE who knew alot more than they were initially letting on.

Honestly, excluding Jericho and maybe Bret, what public wrestling figure that has spoken on this hasn't been?

Actually I thought Debra and Demott both looked pretty foolish, though I think Debras story is so sad that it almost doesn't matter.

Great read Loss..I have been directing other fans to this page as a good reference source, without a ton of random crap, ala the DVDVR thread..your post alone does the job now.

I've got to say that based on what we know about anti-depressants the idea of treating people with PCS with them strikes me as incredibly awful. That said I agree that this kind of thing has to be examined thoroughly and carefully..and there is far more danger in treating Benoit as "monster, aberration, exception to the rule" than there is in treating him as "possibly brain damaged, psychotic, maybe caused by certain practices involved with pro wrestling,which has an epedemic of young deaths littering it's landscape".

Espcially since most people agree that roids can and do cause paranoia and hallucinations. Really I think the liklihood that roid didn't play some role is very low, but I also agree that there is ALOT more to this and Loss is right that the coverage of this is totally unfocused and missing several key issues. Also CNN not revealing that Brian Christophers dad is a contracted employee of the WWE was pretty shitty reporting.

Yeah that was posted on DVDVR not long after the murders became public. It is quickly becoming harder to imagine a wierder case than this.

Yeah Ross is now so hilariously ridiculous that he's actually pretty fun again

I had no clue that Benoit was close with Johnny Grunge.

Not true at all. I agree that blaming this entirely on steroids seems less and less likely, but actually alot of the behavior is very consistent with known incidents of roid rage.

They just had a press conforence.. key points steroids found on the scene with a perscription nancy killed on friday, daniel sat, benoit sun nancy bound, blood present on her body bibles placed at the feet of both of the bodies benoit hung himself with the retractable weight wire on his weight bench Fox is heavy,heavy into speculation about roids and to be honest I can't blame them, as this really does sound like it was drug related if we go off the evidence of previous cases involving roid rage/drug induced home violence. Some speculation that the text message to Chavo including bible passages

DA says Nancy was bound at her feet and wrists and there was some blood on the scene. Bibles were found next to both bodies..this is unbelievably awful, cryptic and disturbing

Steroids were found at the scene

Not really the time to toot my own horn, but I've been saying this from the jump. I really think when you make a career out of shit like that, you break in with the Harts, your hero is the dynamite kid, you are a roidhead..I mean god it's really the "perfect storm" for something terrible like this. Jesus, DW, you make it sound like you're proud that this happened. I don't believe that's what you intended, but please ease up a bit. How the fuck is it possible that anyone could read that as a declaration of pride? Honestly I'm baffled that anyone could come to that conclusion by what I wrote, but if that is how people read it I apologize as that wasn't the intent. My point really is that people acting SHOCKED that Benoit would do something like this really ought to sit back and look at the big picture for a second. No one could have predicted THIS sort of tragedy, but he is a guy that had potential for tragedy written all over him. The horrifying nature of the events just makes the realization of that even worse.

Agreed. That is going to be the source of much mystery and controversy for wrestling fans from now until the end of time.