sek69

If anything, wrestling's more up front about it's general fucked up-ness than most real sports, which in a way makes it easier. Especially since wrestling already carries the "everyone knows its fake" stigma, it makes it easier to explain to a child that what they're watching is make believe. I know my mom actually took the time to explain to me that wrestling was like movies or TV, and the wrestlers were trained to do what they do. Ironically she ended up keeping kayfabe that way, because she never came out and flatly said "it's fake" since she thought that would mean I'd try to do wrestling moves on people since it wouldn't hurt if it was fake. I mentioned the 30 year old foam finger wavers because I think that's the real problem. Most kids know the deal with wrestling and a lot of them grow out of it when they either graduate high school or college. The emotionally stunted manchildren you see populating message boards (not here of course ) really scare me, especially with their views on women. It's not just WWE Diva types either, they routinely refer to women as sluts and whores to the point it really starts to come off as lashing out for their own stunted social lives. Their lack of real-life social skills ends up manifesting in internet arguments that end up coming off like someone with autism since they can't handle anyone challenging their views on their beloved promotion/wrestler/whatever. I don't know if it's because the Venn diagram of wrestling fans and social misfits has a large overlap or what, but it would make for an interesting study.

My thoughts except maybe CMLL. Why would you hope your kids hate wrestling? I could see not wanting them to like the post Attitude Era stuff, but a world where kids grow up hating 80s territory wrestling makes me a Sad Panda.

I was wondering something today, the kind of thought that only pops into your head while you are standing outside with your dog waiting for her to decide if she's going to answer nature's call or hit the snooze alarm. Most of us are about the same age, and as such, a lot of us either already have kids or are in a position in life where kids could become a possiblity. What are you going to tell them about wrestling? I'm assuming any kids that would have us as a parent would be around wrestling, even if it's DVDs of old 80s territory stuff. I remember back to when I was growing up in the 80s, watching wrestling with my grandfather. I don't think I was ever specifically told about fake and real, it was just one of those things I just started to notice on my own. That was a time where it was a lot more popular too, so being late on something like that would be akin to being the last kid in class to believe in the Tooth Fairy. There's a fine line, I would think. I'd kind of not want to spoil it since part of the fun is having that emotional investment you only get from believing what you're seeing is 100 unscripted (I really enjoyed the Taker-Batista cage match live since I had no idea what was going to happen). You also don't want your kid to be that 30-something guy you see at TV tapings who still has the HULK RULZ shirt and homemade John Cena chain.

In the interest of not starting another Meltzer-centric topic, anyone ever order any of the Observer 80s Yearbooks? They look interesting but that Canadian dude who sells them (and pre 90s back issues) was A) irritatingly vague when I asked about them and charges out the ass for shipping on them. If I'm expected to pay 50% shipping on a book, at least tell me something other than "I make 'em myself!!".

I'd say Hector for sure. You'd think WWE would jump all over the chance to embarrass Crockett by showing him as Lazer Tron. Do a whole "they had a member of a great wrestling family and this is all they could come up with" deal.

MID-ATLANTIC WRESTLING - 1/13/82 - BLACK JACK MULLIGAN & BLACK JACK MULLIGAN JR. VS. RICKY HARRIS & JIM NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING FROM FLORIDA 4/12/76 - BOB ORTON & BOB ORTON JR. VS. JEFF PORTS & ROCKY SMITH WORLD CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING STAR WARS 12/25/81 - KEVIN, DAVID & KERRY VON ERICH VS. WILD BILL IRWIN, CAPTAIN F. DUSEK & TEN GU NWA STARRCADE - 11/24/83 - GERRY & JACK BRISCO VS. RICKY STEAMBOAT & JAY YOUNGBLOOD AWA ALL STAR WRESTLING 5/15/88 - GREG GAGNE VS. CURT HENNIG AWA ALL STAR WRESTLING 9/4/88 - LOS GUERREROS VS. MIKE ENOS, KRUSHER KRUGNOFF & TOM BURTON NWA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING 3/18/89 - BARRY & KENDALL WINDHAM VS. MICHAEL HAYES & LEX LUGER SMACKDOWN! - 9/18/03 - EDDIE & CHAVO GUERRERO JR. VS. CHARLIE HAAS & SHELTON BANJAMIN RAW - 7/14/97 - BRIAN CHRISTOPHER & JERRY LAWLER VS. SCOTT & IVAN PUTSKI WRESTLEMANIA 13 - 3/23/97 - ROCKY MAIVIA VS. THE SULTAN ECW HOSTILE CITY SHOWDOWN - 6/24/94 - TERRY & DORY FUNK JR. VS. PUBLIC ENEMY SUMMERSLAM - 8/21/05 - THE UNDERTAKER VS. RANDY ORTON MSG - 2/20/89 - THE FABULOUS ROUGEAU BROTHERS VS. THE BUSHWHACKERS CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING - 9/27/77 - PETER MAIVIA & CHIEF JAY STRONGBOW VS. ALI BABA & BARON MIKEL SCICLUNA SURVIVOR SERIES - 11/24/93 - BRET, OWEN, BRUCE & KEITH HART VS. SHAWN MICHAELS & THREE MASKED KNIGHTS CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS - 8/28/94 - DUSTIN RHODES & DUSTY RHODES VS. TERRY FUNK & BUNKHOUSE BUCK Interesting lineup, but it makes me wonder are all the Guerrero Brothers matches they own just jobber matches from the AWA?

Wow, so much in this post is awesome it would be unfair to just simply reply with an "I agree" so I'll tackle it in sections: As someone who's been crucified at times for suggesting Flair may be a little overrated by the hardcores, Loss pretty much said everything I ever felt about Flair. Some people consider even a hypothetical debate over Flair being "BEST EVAR" to be sacrelige. There's no doubt that he worked probably the most insane schedule of anyone in pro wrestling history, and that he made a lot of local schlubs look like superstars (at least for one night), but it's also apparent as more footage becomes available that Flair had a style that became more repetitive as time went on. Now I don't blame him, as the wear and tear of his schedule and the mental stress of all the political BS he had to deal with would make it impossible to be on a five-star level every night. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that people who weren't into the WWF cartoon stuff in the 80s would naturally flock to Ric Flair. Unless you lived in an area that got a local territory on TV, the only other wrestling you saw was the NWA and the best worker they had was Flair. I'd wager that almost all the current "hardcores" were kids in the 80s who grew up watching Saturday Night on TBS and reading PWI, so there's no doubt who'd their favorite guy would have been. Again, it's not to say Flair isn't the best US worker of all time, and at least a top 5 in the world of all time, but perception plays a big part of how opinions are formed, and people have a habit of taking what they watched growing up and lionizing it into something bigger than it was. It's somewhat telling that it took him wrestling well into his 50s and having his body start to deteriorate before some people finally started to admit he's lost a step. Also, I've said it before and Loss nails it here, you simply just can't get the same effect watching individual matches that you do when you watched the angles build over time. Steamboat-Savage doesn't mean shit if you didn't see him get his throat crushed and see weekly updates on his physical therapy on WWF TV. Watching the Flair-Funk I Quit match loses a lot if you don't know about the stuff like the piledriver on the table, the plastic bag, etc. That's the one thing I think people who relive past matches just aren't getting. They'll watch the Magnum-Tully match and think "well that was OK, but not as good as people say". Well no, it's not, unless you understand the hatred that went into the build. The Ricky Morton stuff I chalk up to another case of Scott Keith bullshit. One of his go-to catchphrases in a tag match would be to describe the guy taking a beating as "playing Ricky Morton" which from the first time I saw it made me wonder if he ever watched a Rock n' Rolls match. I watched many a match on TBS and it was almost always Robert taking the beating and Ricky getting the hot tag. I considered the RnR's the greatest tag team of all time, if for no other reason they managed to get nuclear heat, be teenage heart throbs, and main event cards while being 180 pound rednecks with mullets and potbellies. Neither one really were all that great at promos, but they managed to work a crowd like no one else could (at the time). Everyone knows the matches with the Midnights, but they have great matches with the Andersons and the Russians for the tag titles that are just as good if not better. Flair vs Morton might be the match that solidified me being a fan. The angle was great, with Flair doing the one thing guaranteed to garner the most heat: splatter the face of the #1 pretty boy in the promotion. The match lived up to the build, as the smilin' babyface Morton going crazy and trying to rip the nose off Flair's face. Loss mentions the crowd wincing, but you haven't lived until you've heard teenage girl Rock n Roll fans having heart attacks every time Flair delivers a blow to Ricky's face.

I can't decide which is the best story of the books so far, it's between: 1: The WWF going to the Illinois commission to get Kerry barred from facing Lawler by stating an ancient statute against wrestlers competing with amputated limbs. Meltzer stated there was no reason to do this business-wise, they were just being dicks and trying to ruin the show. or 2. Hogan trying to get WCW to sign practically the whole Anoa'i family just so he could get his win back from Yokozuna. A Samoan Invasion on WCW TV would have been tremendous. Also, the WWF kept it from happening by promising big pushes for Yoko and Fatu, which according to the timeline would suggest the reason behind the "Makin' A Difference Fatu" gimmick.

Is there any footage of Bruno vs Koloff? All I've ever seen is the photo of Ivan in mid-air delivering the winning kneedrop.

The only guy you can say was elevated by it so far is Kennedy, and that's not 100% yet. RVD and Edge were pretty much already at their maximum levels when they won.

They should have stopped the Money in the Bank gimmick after two, because no one will ever live up to Edge's perfect cash-in after an Elimination Chamber match. That might have been the best timed angle in years. Just when the crowd was starting to grumble that Cena defended the belt again, the place came unglued for Edge's theme because EVERYONE knew what was coming and ate it up. No one's going to top that and it's almost unfair to keep doing MITB because you're going to get diminishing returns.

Finished reading both books, excellent reads. The first book seemed to be more of a direct copy of the usual WON style obits and didn't seem to be edited like the second book where it feels like the story was cut off midway. It's also funny to see how he lifts from his own work, since the Road Warrior Hawk story had some parts lifted pretty much verbatim for the story in the latest WON about the formation of the Horsemen. Did Meltzer ever mention why there's repeats between the two books? I thought the Owen and Andre stories were done better in the first book (despite Dave again mentioning the "Andre shit on Bad News" story that was left out in the second book), I don't see why they needed to be reprinted. Having said all that, I can see why folks like Keller get bent out of shape and call Dave ghoulish for making money off dead wrestlers. On one hand, you figure Meltzer wants to write everything he can about a guy in an obituary since it would probably be the last time he'd go in such depth about a person, but after reading two books full of stories of steroid abuse and drug overdoses it kind of gets creepy. It's not his fault, it's just reading story after story of how guys from the 60s and 70s seem to live long lives and guys from the 80s and 90s all die in their 40s from enlarged hearts makes you want to suck on a tailpipe after a while.

Vince winning the ECW title gave us Gangsta Mack Vince as seen on RAW, which makes it A+ in my book. I think people are finally accepting that the current ECW is not going to be the old ECW on a bigger budget. Hell, the promos of the ECW Originals going on about Vince killing the old company and rebuilding it the way he wants it pretty much drive that point home.

Didn't MTV hold back on the last episode because that would start the clock on the contracts of the guys on the show? Since it seems that the show's gone, why didn't they air the last episode? It would seem that it doesn't matter now if the contracts start ticking or not.

You're continuing to bash a match that you haven't even watched yet, putting it down to people who have seen it and thus are more qualified to speak on the subject than you are. Also, "I don't ever plan to watch it, but I know 'X' sucks" is the worst form of argument because it's obvious the person maintaining that point of view is talking out of their ass. It's a go nowhere debate since you can't point out things that may change their mind since they stubornly refuse to watch the very topic of the conversation.

Right, because Russo's booking has been so stellar that someone would have to bury him to make him look bad. Ironically, Dave's been reporting that Russo wasn't responsible for everything he's getting blamed for and has been hammering TNA on missing the point of the "Fire Russo" chants. Instead of a "wow, our fans are hating this" reaction it's more of a "wow our fans are idiots because they don't know the booking hierarchy" reaction.

I got the second book tonight, and I noticed something. Now I've only been a WON subscriber for a less than a year but when he does an obit in the newsletter it seems like he always ends with a paragraph on the time leading up to the person's death. In the book, it seems like there's a paragraph missing where it just ends well before the person being talked about dies. Like for the Andre story, it basically ends with his last WWF run in 1992 and a brief mention of returning to All Japan. No mention of his final appearance on WCW TV, or him being in Paris for his father's funeral when he died (which I always thought seemed a poetic way for the big guy to go out). Hell, there wasn't even a mention of the famous shitting-on-Bad-News story which Dave *always* finds a way to work in when talking about either guy.

I don't know, I thought Meltzer was pretty fair in his treatment of Cornette when he got fired for slapping the Artist Currently Known As Santonio Morella. He flat out said Cornette was in the wrong and he should have known better than to do that when he was already on thin ice from his other adventures. However, you are right about Flair. I'm sure when he dies, Dave will mention how he carried the casket to a ****1/4 match.

I don't even know how someone could get this in their head, even as a preconcieved notion. I'm far from the biggest HBK fan but I do give the guy his due as the closest thing we've got to a mid 80s Ric Flair type who can have a long match with just about anyone and have it range from very good to excellent. Maybe if the WON started pushing "John Cena really is a pretty good worker" as a Lesson Of 2007 people would stop the irrational hate.

Anyone ever read the two Meltzer books? I scored them both off eBay for like $24 total including shipping and I was wondering if anyone here has ever read them. Specifically, are these just collections of Observer bits (which would be fine by me) or does he add new information?

Wasn't that meltdown triggered by someone basically saying the Torch VIP wasn't worth the money, which caused Keller to do an entire life inventory? Also, I wonder if he's mad that Meltzer wore the same outfit as him that one time too.

A few things crossed my mind watching this match: 1. Anyone else get the impression that match was the result of some pants-shitting after Orton got sent home? You can almost hear the writers "WTF are we going to do for RAW now? Why not just let HBK and Cena go the whole second hour? 2. How come Chris Masters and anyone else with a receeding hairline gets hairplugs, but the guy in his 40s with a heartthrob gimmick inches closer and closer to looking like Dory Funk, Jr? 3. Smartassery aside, can anyone really make a case against Cena at this point that doesn't amount to "I hate him because he's popular"? It's only April and the guy's already had 3 MOTYC in my book (vs Umaga, Mania, and tonight). He may not have MOOVZ~! but he *gets* professional wrestling like no one else of his era has.

It would be interesting to get the perspective of someone who just subscribed to the Observer and their first issue was this week's which is about 80% MMA with WWE getting barely two pages at the end.

He's almost Vince-like in how he seems embarrassed to be associated with wrestling at times.

Somehow I don't think that the person who sat by while her husband (allegedly, but who are we kidding?) nailed pretty much every female who worked for his company is going to have the inner strength to keep Shane and Steph apart. Just something about the way they act gives me the impression that they're only getting along to avoid getting Vince's foot up their asses. Especially how Shane seems to try too hard to convince people he and HHH are bros. I just don't see the two of them hanging out after a show. The fact that Steph seems to be the embodiment of her father in female form would suggest once she gets full control of the company Shane might as well find another job because he'll never get anything approved ever again.