FLIK

Yeah, Dusty was one of my favorite announcers of all time.

Now that you're finished would you still rank it that highly? I kinda got the sense that you might have changed your opinion but maybe i'm reading too much into things.

No one really, he's had minor stints under other gimmicks but he's been around for atlest 20 years and has just been Pantera for most of his career. I have that reaction a lot too, in Mexico guys have these long careers that you never know about until you randomly stumble across a match one day that blows you away and you're like "who the fuck is this guy and why have I never heard of him before" but that's lucha for ya

KC's History of _ series has been really good but that's all i've been keeping up with of late that I could recomend. Forget who I first heard bring this up but the rise of podcast really has killed off a lot of the market for your standard sit down, ask a list of questions shoot. Unless you can get someone obscure or have an out of the box idea it's not even worth bothering with now.

Makes me wonder how popular a site like Manhatten Drop is in Japan http://www.m-drop.com/ that's basicaly a North East indy fan site in Japanese or a site like Black Eye http://beye2.com/ that seems to be dedicated to posting news & show reports from all the Japanese companies along with a bit of WWE stuff. I've known of a few Japanese forums dedicated to posting rips of every wrestling & mma show you can imagine (imagine a ramped up version of the matches forum on DVDVR) so it's def out thear but i'm not sure how big the regular user base is.

Agreed, I can't remember who, maybe one of the former WWE writers who's done a podcast actually mentioning Vince McMahn having a similar kind of "who'd find that hot???" reaction when someone brought up the idea of hiring Daffney once & not getting the idea that anyone would dig a girl like Shelly Martinez either when she was with the company. True tho they're still being aimed a male audiance. The strong/tough girls are the ones that tended to draw the young women in Japan not the cute pretty ones. If WWE wanted to go that route Beth Phoenix would be a great choice but yeah, doesn't seem to be much of an interest in that from them. I've actually heard that complaint before from a few female fans I knew that WWE doesn't do enough to cater to that part of the audiance. Not that women are a huge % of it but they're still missing out on a bit of opportunity thear.

Where is he coming from then? Short version, he doesn't condone or excuse what Benoit did at all but he was really good friends with him and Benoit helped him out a lot in his career, even before he signed with WWE so MVP sees him as a good person who did a horrible thing because he lost his mind in the end due to a # of factors. Long version, like I said he covered it in a lot of interviews you can listen to if you're curious, it's interesting stuff so i'd recomend tracking them down. Of note, he talked a lot about Benoit in his iwantwrestling.com interview w Dave Lagana tho that site isn't up anymore so that one might be hard to find, I think he touched on it in his Art of Wrestling interview with Cabana and for sure he talked a lot about it in his recent MLW radio interview from a couple weeks back http://mlwradio.libsyn.com/rss

Haven't seen. Was just curious & looking at it from the point of view of it telling the full story since the result led to Aja/Reggie, Toyota/Takako & Kyoko/Sakie all being tied for 10 points in the tag league and thus the 3 way final immediatly after. Kinda similar to the 93 final resulting in the 2 back to back matches.

So little confused, did footage of the first Toyota/Takako vs Aja/Reggie match make the set, the one from earlier in the night that set up the 3 way final? It's funny, for as long as they were in AJW together, they rarely ever teamed, atleast in matches that made tape. But AJW loved the heck out of whacky mix matched tag teams when it came tournament time so thear ya go

For all the talk of "Benoit Tributes" MVP is the only guy I know of who openly admits he does so in some of his matches. A touchy subject but I atleast understand his point of view and whear he's coming from since he's gone into a lot of detail on why in diffrent interviews in the past. For pretty much everyone else I highly doubt it's being done in a concious effort to remind the fans of him & more that yeah, they just kinda happen to do moves that Benoit also did. Even Davey Richards is more trying to ape Dynamite (which NJPW specifically told him they wanted him to do) then Benoit.

I was amused by Dave's theory he posed on one of the radio shows the other day that the most popular women in US wrestling tend to be the one's who are just hot enough that you find them attractive but not so hot that you'd think you wouldn't have a chance to bang them.

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He's always anounced as Spell Delfin in Japan but somehow among English speaking fans it got translated to Super. Used to bug me to no end that the 2nd part wasn't translated to Dolphin tho. Course then, a few years back, Delfin's cousin briefely used the name Super Dolphin (among the many gimmicks he's had) to confuse things even more.

Yeah, there's 3 main storys in 97 for AJW. 1) Kaoru Ito getting pushed to main event status. 2) LCO turning heel and feuding with Watanabe & friends. A feud that would last on & off another 6 years in various incarnations and is prob my favorite joshi feud of all time. The outer players change over time, Ito, Maekawa, Hotta, Toyota, Momoe, Nanae, etc... but at it's heart LCO vs Watanabe is the foundation. In 97 specifically it's just as much, maybe more about LCO vs Watanabe & Maekawa even though it's Ito/Watanabe in the Cage match. 3) The roster crubling with Yamada, Kyoko, Takako, Aja, Yoshida & LCO leaving by years end and taking several of the young stars with them AJW was counting on to carry the future like Genki, Tamura, Tanny, Tamada, Shiina & Fukawa

I prefer the Hayabusa series since it was more well rounded, you got all the big action & giant bumps like you did in the Tanaka matches but you also got better build & story telling in their bigger matches. Do love the Awesome/Tanaka series tho but yeah, they weren't either's best opponent imo.

If you stretched that to cover about late 03 through 06/07 I think Joe is a perfect candidate for a discussion like this. For a guy who was once considered one of the best wrestlers in the world and has been around 13 or 14 years, he really only has that comparatively short 3-4 year window of greatness on his resume. By that standard, I think Bull Nakano peaked in 1991 during their height of her 3WA title run.

Wait, 6 year olds these days know who Voltron is?

Yup, him & Bryan both complain about not liking to watch stuff on their computers regularly so they've been told how to do this countless times. Bryan's excuse is that unless he can use his roku box he doesn't care, he wants to be able to use his laptop at the same time he's watching a show and doesn't want to have to bother with wires. Aparently, for someone who makes as much money as hey does, getting a 2nd computer is out of the question. I forget what Dave's excuse is but yeah, he doesn't want to do the tv/pc hookup either.

Little before the time frame but fits the theme U- Japan MMA 11/17/1996 http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go...0e-9a3e1a131c0b Matches of note Dan Severn vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (just watched this on youtube, weird match, Matsunaga holds on for dear life as Dan smashes him into the mat 5 or 6 times then taps him out with an armbar a minute in. Matsunaga came into the octagon with a barb wire bat & barb wire crown but sadly did not use them. Ichiro Mother Fucking Yaguchi was his corner man) Sean Alvarez vs Yoji Anjo Kimo vs Bam Bam Bigelow (if you believe his wiki page, Bam Bam got $75 to 100k for this match)

No it was Dave 1) Dave has his e-mail right thear at the top of the report 2) they just put up a radio show talking about the ppv earlier today 3) Dave's watched plenty of IPPv's in the past tho he has said he doesn't enjoy having to sit in front of his computer that long to watch wrestling and would prefer to watch on tv if he had a choice

Battlarts 11/9/99 Alexander Otsuka vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga Final part of the saga. As I mentioned in the 1st review, Matsunaga vs Ishikawa was very much good vs evil with Ishikawa refusing to stoop to Matsunaga's lvl and out to prove that his was is best. This match is the opposite, Matsunaga has been terrorising the Bat Bat crew on & off for over a year now and Otsuka goes into this match on some eye for an eye type shit. Otsuka has no issues getting down & dirty, attacking before the bell, taking the fight into the crowd, swinging chairs, busting Matsunaga open, riping off Matsunaga's belt and trying to choke him out with it. Overwhelmed, Matsunaga is finally reduced to begging for a clean fight and offering Otsuka the hand of friendship. Reluctantly, Otsuka agrees and we get a minute or two of nice gentlemanly combat. The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist so i've heard. Coming out on the losing end of a fair fight as well, Matsunaga rewards Otsuka's kind trusting nature with a fireball to the face. Follows that up with a spike to the head and oh dear god but Otsuka bleeds...and bleeds...and BLEEDS...EVERYWHEAR. The mat gets soaked, the ref gets soaked and Otsuka is a crimson mess. Matsunaga continues the punishment, stabing him more and more and more, in the head, in the arm, in the hand. Valiantly Otsuka refuses to die and fights back, he's able to fire up enough offense to knock Matsunaga outside and in an awesome visual hits a great bloody tope con hilo to wipe him out. The rest of the match is them going back & forth for a bit. Otsuka finally gains the upper hand again after a series of head butts and the crowd goes ape shit when that allows him to gain controll of the spike and go for revenge. Matsunaga gets saved by the ref and makes one last desperate attempt to win by throwing a 2nd fireball but Otsuka foils him before he can even light up. Otsuka nails him with a few more strikes and a suplex then locks him in a modified scorpion death lock. Knowing he has nothing left Matsunaga instantly taps and as soon as the seconds drag Otsuka off, Matsunaga limps away as fast as he can, a bloodied & beaten man, swinging his sword and cursing the name Alexander. Best match of the 3. I love wrestling

Yeah it was Dave. I'm the wrong person to gauge this sort of thing since I don't read too many boards or news sites any more but has this whole "Benoit tribute" thing been brought up anywhere else?

Except for it being brought up here & mentioned in the Observer daily update I actually didn't even know today was the anniversary of the Benoit incident.

I only half agree. The fan reaction is pretty cringe worthy but there are countless wrestlers that have done diving head butts, throat slashes & cross faces before & besides Benoit. Automaticly assuming they MUST be in tribute to him or thinking just because Benoit did a move no one should ever do it again is something I don't get.