Dylan Waco

Actually the injury problem may force Vince to stay on track with this.

Yeah I meant Jose

Greg Valentine - Was never high on him before, but he comes off as much less methodical and just flat out nasty and stiff at all times now. In some ways he seems like a precurser to Finlay in that he sort of eats bumps the same way, works with a nice tight array of strikes as his base offense though he is comfortable mixing it up on the ground, and is really good at pacing a match around solid exchanges and good transition "restholds". Also even post prime working shitty Ntiro era tv matches he shows flashes sometimes that your rarely saw from the old guys that were just trying to score easy money at that point. Mike Enos - Guy was awesome during the Nitro era as a big dude, with good offense, who played a fun dopey victim of smaller, younger, faster guys. Almost comes across as a "behind the times" tough guy, outside of his era in the land of the fast paced "new generation", not that I think that was the intention. Super Calo - I loved him at the time, but man I like him even more now mainly because the guy is batshit insane. Lots of guys were working crazy dives into their matches by this point, but his were really fucking crazy and in alot of ways he was the "fun" offensive wrestler to watch at the time. Checkmate - The star of the WCCW shows at this point. Is awesome at working the best traits of the Euro style into his game, without incorporating any of the traits that I find hard to relate to. Really "different" for his time, though I wouldn't really call him innovative or even cutting edge. I would like to see some singles stuff from the period, though the style he's working probably came off better in tags. Mr. Fuji - Just a really fun heel charactor that totally revolved around ethnic stereotypes in a way that is hard to really fathom at times. Best part really was that the joke was totally on the WASP marks, as the whole thing really comes off as a "strippers are exploiting stupid men who think these girls really want to fuck them and are dumb enough to pay their rent for showing there juggs for two hours" kinda way. Also Fuji moved arouund really well even years after he should have been a washed up cripple. Ron Bass - Fun charactor, punched hard, looked mean, was awesome. Ron Garvin - Man I never remembered this guy being so versatile. Not that Ronnie was really setting the world on fire as a multi-dimensional guy, but he was comfortable in alot of different settings and always seemed to be involved in matches that were better than they should have been. Jorge Estrada - Simply a good wrestler. Had he come around during the Monday Night Wars its likely he would have been remembered as one of the stars of the B Shows, but instead he's not remembered at all really. Was really good at working his schtick to the strength of other guys and getting over the "state of the art" nature of others, without really going beyond his capabilities

I actually think Vince as champion is something Paul would have done if he could have. At the height of the "fuck the WWF" angle, when an announcer and second rate manager came in and buried the companies stars, don't you think that Paul would have loved to get Vince? Vince as champ would have been awesome then and it's awesome now.

Wait, there are people seriously outraged over Vince McMahon "winning" the ECW title? Fuck Heyman damn sure would have done the same thing if he could have and the "original" ECW fans would have eaten it up.

The best part about this is that anarchist seriously claimed Randy Orton and Hulk Hogan were involved in a MOTY, but will not give Cena and Michaels a chance. Actually now that I think about he hasn't cited anything as proof that the match "sounds bad", despite repeaditly claiming that in a thread where the match is being praised. Drugs?

I read the hell out of some PWI as a kid and I don't recall Brody being protrayed as a star...of course I didn't start reading those mags till 87/88 so...

Joe v. Steiner was great up until the match. The hype and the promos for the match were awesome. Honestly they didn't work the right style of match and went too long. It wasn't abyssmal, but it wasn't good. On the other hand it was the ONE time in recent memory when TNA actually did a good job with the hype and they did a good job with promos and the match seemed special. Say what you want about Steiner, but he is one of the only guys on TNA's roster who "gets it" and though he is old, he's in better shape then you would think, is capable of being decent in the ring and would probably be a better "keep" for the roster than virtually everyone in the X-Divison and alot of other guys they have invested alot of time in (Team 3-D, Bobby Roode, James Gang, et.)

I think its great that Dave has chosen now to feature the highly relevant sport of Boxing.

I know I bring this up to the point where it seems I'm trolling, but Khali/Taker at JD was a solid match, certainly not significantly worse than say Orton/Hogan which you enjoyed alot (in fact, I'd say it's pretty easily better). Maybe the perverse entertainment of the one man show Taker playing Shawn Michaels clouds my judgment, but it's a match I've watched more than once. Also the Taker/Henry WM match, while not their best match, was in no way shape or form abyssmal or even below average.

While I really would like to see him opposite Mysterio, I don't know that I really want to see him work Benoit. Mysterio/Taker probably have at least one very good Hardy/Taker style match in them (and Taker was excellent in that role). It's hard to imagine how they would work a Taker/Benoit match. Taker has a very good formula for his matches, but Benoit has key things he likes to do, that don't neccesarily gel with a Taker formula. On top of this, and though I love Benoit and he is over, Benoit does not command the "respect" that Angle does which means the theoretical Taker/Angle model is kind of out the window. By that I mean I just can't see them running a "clash of the titans" match because Benoit, while a shitkicker, isn't a titan. Actually his best trait at this point is his selling, which he is better at than pretty much anyone on the planet excluding maybe Rey and Cena, but Benoit working a straight underdog mach v. Taker somehow seems silly given how Benoit is portrayed. Really Benoit is to the point now where I think he's best served doing what he's doing now. Working with a young guy, who the company wants to invest in for the future and helping him learn his craft/get him over. Benoit v. MVP, Kennedy, Elijah Burke, CM Punk, et. are all more interesting matches to me than Benoit/Taker. Also, I though Taker had some pretty good matches with Show, Henry and even Khali last year, so while I get what you are sayin, I think his size and gimmick are pretty much always going to guarantee him feuds like that and he's one of the few guys who can make them work.

I think the real issue is "variety of opponents". Generally speaking Taker gets stuffed into programs that last relatively long, even during periods of time when long running programs pretty much were the exception to the rule. Virtually every match he had with Orton was good, with a couple of them being very good, but after a while you start to wonder if the guys are just working a straight formula (and really who could blame them?). What's interesting about Taker to me is that he's a much more versatile wrestler than given credit for. While he is almost always booked as the "dominate" guy, he really can work from a variety of perspectives once the bell rings. His matches with Jeff Hardy, Brock, John Cena, Orton, Angle and even Khali have totally different heirachial elemants and aspects of vulnerability than you would expect out of matches involving a guy who's gimmick is that he's a zombie who watches MMA.

I enjoyed it. I do agree that the "tone" of the writing is probably going to be the trickiest aspect. I also think you should tie in some stuff with the podcast as much as possible, and would like to see you cover in interesting "IWC projects", just because I"m a geek.

Couple of quick thoughts. First of all MUGA rules and the Fujanami v. Nish match is even better. The matches are just really well developed in the sense that everything feels like it's building toward the logical end. Predictability is not ALWAYS desirable, but nowadays when everyone is working to be unpredictable or do "nifty" things, really basic, well thought out matches really stand out above the pack. It's part of the reason why I get more enjoyment watching World Class tv matches from 82, then I do watching most of what is commonly called "good" these days. I liked Taker v. Angle much more than you did actually for similar reasons. Taker is now in my view one of the more underrated wrestlers ever, if only because he is almost never given credit for being a ring general on par with the best of his generation, even though he so clearly is. Very few guys get better with age, but Taker seems to. Yes his match layout is a bit predictable, but it also virtually guarantees a solid bout if his opponent put in minimal effort. Taker did not get Angle to work a true Taker match, but he kept Angle from working a straight Angle match and that alone is a major task. Honestly the crowd heat in the match was incredible and both guys seemed to feed off of it. I know you didn't like the table spot, but I enjoyed it because it set up the countout spot which ruled. Also the strap drop/situp spot was really well done "superhero schtick" stuff that really woudln't work with anyone other than Taker. I enjoyed the finish run, but also heading to that run was good and not overbooked or out of control like the average Angle match. I think it was one of the five best matches of last year actually.

I think Vader was hurt pretty badly by the infamous Hogan powerbomb no sell, but also by the Orndorff backstage incident, which is one of the first "shoot" events I remember seeping into non-smark circles with regularity (I believe PWI covered it actually). Not the same thing as jobbing on the way out really, but it still seems somewhat relevant.

Compare the clusterfuck gimmick "concept" matches. "Extreme Elimination Chamber" sucked ass, failed to promise on any of the gimmicks, and sent the fans home totally unsatsisfied. Still though, at least you could follow what the fuck was going on. Try following the logic or "story" in anyone of the King Of The Mountain matches. Good luck.

Damn, I have had that match on my comp for a while and have been too lazy to watch it.

TNA tv is FAAAAAAAAAARRRR worse than current ECW tv and they have never run a ppv as good as either of the ONS shows.

I'm actually glad we aren't gonna see that rematch. It goes against the current grain of storylines to run it, Londrick would probably end up jobbing this time, and I don't want to see a big match like that thrown away yet again. I think it's stupid to break up the Hardyz and MNM though. That's a case where you maximize everyone by keeping them together.

There really wasn't anything redeeming about Russo era WCW... at all. He turned anything worthwhile in that company into an unwatchabe mess.... much like TNA now. Ok, and TNA without Russo was a perfectly acceptable company where everything wasn't complete shit. They had the occasional hot angle, the occasional hot match (maybe not by your standards) and some decent feuds. To say they have done nothing right is really over-generalizing. If you want to say that 2007 TNA is starting off so bad that it could be considered one of the worst wrestling runs by any company, I am inclined to agree with you... and again it leads back to Russo. Russo's early run was absolute shit as well. As for Bix enjoying XPW, knock yourself out. I would take the crappiest overbooked Jeff Jarrett match and watch it until my eyes bled before I ever watched XPW. Two things. While I agree that Russo era WCW pretty much universially sucked, there was at least one interesting facet about from the "smark" perspective, namely the fact that it was interesting to see this much touted "succesful" WWF writer in a WCW setting. For that reason the behind the scenes aspect of the business was arguably more interesting and perversely entertaining than most other periods have been in recent memory. Of course that has virtually NOTHING to do with the quality of the shows, but it's the single reason I can think of why WCW from that era may seem less offensively shitty than TNA now. And on XPW...I don't really have anything positive to say about the company..BUT one key difference is that they didn't seem to destroy their stars. TNA has pretty much sunk LAX, The entire X-Division, Joe,Christian, Abyss, and even Angle. It's almost lilke they create stars to destroy them. XPW never created any stars really, so the results of their shittiness was less horrifying.

Orndorff worked there too and I seem to remember him being pretty good there.

Uh, I actually kind of liked Abrams shows. Not that they were good, but they were unoffensive and an interesting place to see some of the "stars" work in. I haven't watched any of the stuff I have on tape in a long time (I have a couple of commercial releases IIRC), but I seem to remember thinking they were solid. TNA has managed to kill Joe, turn their "serious wrestling" division into an extended comedy angle with a washed up star who can't get into a ring without coming up broken, and destroy LAX which was maybe the only culturally relevant, interesting gimmick in mainstream wrestling. My wife watched Impact with me last night and we couldn't decipher what the hell was intended as a comedy segment and what wasn't. Bad.

Yeah I haven't gotten around to it. It didn't really get the pub of most of the other major books because it came out after the market had been flooded to all hell. i may try and get it this week.

JJ should be an interesting show. There's an awful lot of ground you can cover there. Have you read his book?

Awesome. Totally random suggestion on my part, and he may not be interested, but I'd like to hear you do on with Mike Mooneyham, who I THINK has the longest running weekly wrestling column in the country (Charleston Post and Courier), is a very close friend of Ric Flair and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Mid-Atlantic.