FLIK

In ROH they played up for a while that Samoa Joe was weak against flash cradles & roll up pins. Aja Kong loved to build her big matches around ppl trying to take out her arm to prevent the back fist. That's all i've got

Looking over at lucha wiki, if you include those that married into it, the Brazo family is atleast 18 deep which has to be a record i'd think.

Haven't watched South Park the past couple seasons but I used to be a big fan and I recall T & P being some of the most boring, uniteresting characters on the entire show and their stand alone ep as one of the worst in the history of the series and not just because of the April Fools debut of it.

Don't think this one was so bad myself. The stupid part of it was that they gave him the belt without securing an agreement for him to appear very often and to drop the belt when he left. Had they actually gotten him to stick around and not vacate the title on his way out then I think it would have paid off and been a smart move. Really in hindsight Sapp getting it isn't even top 5 stupidest thing they did involving the IWGP between 01 & Tanahashi getting it in 06.

The thing that's offensive about stuff like that to me is that there's no good reason for it. No one in their right mind could really look at that idea and think "yes, that will get Nattie over" or "that will make us money" or "that will entertain the fans" or "we can build a good feud around that". You just can't market a fuckin fart. Not only will it not make them money but it hurts Nattie's ability to make money for herself & the company. Other then as a way to humiliate the talent (male/female/good/bad it doesn't matter) and or just to amuse Vince & the other writers, there's zero point to it.

As a kid Papa Shango circa mid 92 scared me enough that I stoped watching WWF until a few months into 93 when my mom told me he'd disapeared a while ago so I assumed it was safe again but during that time I still watched WCW. A few months into the Invasion angle I was this _ close to quiting being a wrestling fan all together just because WWF was such shit at the time. Bad booking, endless short 2-3 min matches and the first era whear they really started hot shotting the belts. If I hadn't discovered FMW, joshi & all the other foreign & US indy wrestling out thear I probably would have ended up quiting. The Mark Henry incest angle was offense enough that I considered not watching WWF anymore but I went back the next week and got over it. Finally caved around 09 I think and just gave up WWF all together outside of watching a few times a year. The realisation that everything was worthless is what did it for me. The feuds & storylines? All worthless, 75% chance they'd be a tag team in a few months, there'd be no mention of their history and unless it involved a top guy there was a major chance they might drop the feud entirely before even blowing it off. The belts? All Worthless, even the world titles by this point. The Wrestlers? Worthless to the company as is the fans opinion of them. Doesn't matter how talented you are or aren't, they're just going to push who they want AND go out of their way to try and make sure those that they don't want to get over dont. It's a legit miracle Danielson got whear he is, now imagine how big of a star he could have been if for the past year they weren't constantly trying to beat ppl over the head that he was boring, charismaless, a dork, a massive loser who couldn't beat anyone of worth in a fair fight and a fucking virgin who never had a girl friend even though months earlier on their own stupid fucking god damn show they had an angle whear he was secretly dating/sleeping with Gail Kim. The ocasional good/great match isn't worth putting up with all that horse shit to me anymore because I can get much better wrestling from a million diffrent promotions without the headache. Can't see a point whear I ever quit being a fan now tho. There's 365 days in a year and I probably watch atleast 1 match a day on 350 of them.

Meh, i'm not a fan either but they have their audiance and Davey & his crew are still liked by a fair # of ppl. The bigger issue is that for those who don't like that style there just isn't a ton of other stuff going on in ROH to appeal to most others.

Well, ROH was founded by a bunch of ECW cronies and they were all about the same kind of us vs them mentality so thear you go. And hey, it did work for a time so I won't knock it. ROH is a victim of it's own success. In the days of pre ROH indy wrestling, hardcore fans were much more likely to buy tapes from & follow a # of diffrent promotions but really it was only for a small handful of guys on each show. Like everyone would buzz about Dragon/Low Ki stuff on an ECWA show but no one really gave a fuck about Abunai, Japanese Pool Boy & The Cheeta Master. Then ROH started up with the idea of cherry picking all the best guys from the various indies ppl were buying tapes to see to create a super fed and little by little other indies started getting less & less atention from fans so there became less & less guys getting enough buzz to make ROH want to bring them in. Flash forward 10 years later most of ROH's bigger names have gone on to WWE or TNA & they no longer bring in talent from Japan so now all they're left with is a handfull of core guys & the "let's make every show blow away great so ppl will buy the DVDs" business model isn't working anymore for various reasons. Now the company is stuck in this weird place whear the fans still want the super high quality action they've had in the past and ROH still sorta wants to cater to that crowd while at the same time trying to de-evolve from being a super indy and trying to build a tv product to appeal to a broader audiance. ROH only has a few high quality guys on the roster, no longer wants everyone on the card to try and put on great matches anyways and if you don't like who they do push on top like Davey & Edwards you're a bit SOL as the rest of the shows are now filled out with lesser talent, local guys & whoever Cornette can scrounge up from OVW.

Didn't watch the show but i've seen this spot a couple of times from a few ppl and yeah it's always dumb.

How long was he with the WWF? I think he also reffed Marty Jannetty's IC Title win. I don't remember when he left, but I remember on a shoot interview he said he came in with Giant Gonzalez because he had been his handler in WCW and Vince hired him to do the same in the WWF. I was always amused at Heyman on comentary bringing up that he used to be a WWF ref and mentioning that ECW adopted Fonzie from the Betty Ford clinic on the 97 RAW whear ECW invaded and McMahn just dead pan responding that it's a fine institue and Alfonso should be proud.

K so am I the only guy here who's actually a Dory Jr fan? I get the criticism and his style isn't something I can watch on a regular basis either but when i'm in a certain mood I really enjoy the old school, slower mat style and i'd put his best matches up against almost anyone elses.

I like Hunter well enough myself but atleast 75% of those guys i'd say are easily better then HHH too

That part I knew, just not that he went back that far. Everything i'd heard up until seeing that match said he started in pro wrestling in the early 90's.

Watched disc 1 of the Season 1 Stardom Comm that covers their Feb & March 2011 shows and was pretty happy with it. Nothing blow away great but a few good matches with Natsuki*Taiyo & Yoshiko vs Yoko Bito & Iris from 2/12 being the stand out. Of the first class, Yoshiko is def the one who shows the most potential and really seems to "get it". Early on the rest, including Aikawa are a lot more hit & miss, sometimes doing well & other times showing their inexperience and looking completely lost in thear. Yoshiko & Taiyo are a fun pair and i'm stoked to see more of their matches. Still hate Yoshiko's gimmick & gear tho. Also gotta mention that they did a really great job on the editing. A lot of promotions these days are doing these giant compilation dvds whear they stick highlights of multiple shows on 1 disc which can really suck when they're pressed for time and start choping things up. On this one there was minimal editing, all the really important stuff aired in full or near full and the few things that did get shreded were matches I had no interest in anyways. AJW Hand-Held 4/16/1993 1. (Handicap Match) Kaoru Ito vs Saemi Numata & Masami Watanabe 2. (Midgets) Mr. Buddha Man vs Tomezo Tsunokake 3. Bat Yoshinaga & Tomoko Watanabe vs Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita Takako Inoue Concert 4. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue vs Takako Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa 5. Manami Toyota vs Suzuka Minami 6. Akira Hokuto & Yumiko Hotta vs Bull Nakano & Aja Kong Undercard is your standard low lvl house show stuff, opener is one of the worst matches of the year. Toyota vs Suzuka is a nice little hidden gem tho & worth tracking down. They don't go as heavy on the near falls/big moves down the stretch as normal but other then that they bust just as much ass as they would on a bigger show. Like this better then their 91 match. Hokuto/Hotta vs Bull/Aja is damn good too as it's about 85% Hokuto taking a shit kicking and then making a fired up comeback and getting a surprise (she was still fairly protected) clean pin on Bull. A nice compliment for the "Hokuto best in the world in 93" argument. For her part Hotta was good too, took her share of the beating when she was in and played the clean up role well.

Ken Shamrock in All Japan in 1989 is another one to file in the WTF aperance catagory.

Watching early 92 WCW they mentioned on some show that they had Gordon Solie & Lance Russle backstage doing the hotline report. Weirded me out cause I never knew Lance ever worked WCW, have to imagine him & Solie made quite the awesome pair. On a similar note, still weirds me out that Tony Schiavone was in the WWF for a year or so. Just seemed wrong. In a Rip Rogers related note, there's a match of his online whear he's wrestling Owen Hart in WCW which is also quite bizare to think about. Always was amused by Kamala showing up in World of Sport early in his career pre gimmick working as the Missisipi Mauler. Ricky Morton showed up in FMW for a few tours in 96 & 97. Produced some good matches including a barbwire tag involving him, Jinsei Shinzaki & Leatherface.

This is from some NY Indy called UCW from date is 1/26/01. Low Ki did have a bunch of matches in another indy called ICW around this time so I get the confusion. Ki had allready been around a few years by this point and was just starting to become one of the mega indy darlings around this time so he was getting booked vs a lot of bigger names. A mild dream match for some atleast when it happened. He wrestled Sabu, Kidman, Eddie Guerrero, Minoru Fujita & a bunch of others that year. Anyways, yeah this is really disapointing. I remember seeing it years & years ago on a "best" of Ki comp that RF video put out and had the exact same thoughts you did and couldn't stand the announcing either.

Randomly thinking about this, Bryan Alavarez having a wife who's business is called I TAP BOYS should forever disqualify him from making fun of TNA's name for the rest of his life.

Fuck it, sold. Can't watch that clip and not smile, Hacksaw was gettin down. Had to watch 3 times before I noticed Patterson in the back not doing shit and Okerlund trying to chat up some chick.

Oh, no no no, for that ep i'm surprised you guys didn't bring up King Mable.

Surprised you guys didn't cover the Samoans on the Family ep, Rock kinda trumps Orton as the most famous/succesful 3rd gen guy of all time Dunno if it's something you have enough knowledge to cover but the multitude of lucha families would be cool to bring up if you ever do a part two as well. Oh and no, Debbie wasn't a real Malenko, she was just trained by them and took the name similar to Carl & Chad.

Couple more request AJPW 2006 Tajiri vs Great Muta - on youtube AJPW 10/2006 Tajiri & Great Muta vs Kaz Hayashi & Satoshi Kojima - not sure if this is still online

Fuck, the Finlay shoot was so...I don't want to say crappy but disapointing for sure. Not because of Fit but because RF was at his worst with the 8 million "what are your thoughts on _ " questions deal with no follow up or insight and on atleast 4 or 5 ocasions Fit ask him for clarification or more details on a question and RF just responds with "uhhh...I dunno, that's just what it says on my sheet". The worst example being when he ask Finlay about HHH having a bad rep among internet fans, Finlay wants to know what exactly the fans are saying about HHH and all RF can respond is "oh, I guess just some ppl don't like him for whatever reason". WTF? Also hated how in a 2 hour shoot they rushed through the first 20 or so years of his career in about 30 mins. Not even 1 mention of Princess Paula Random interesting note from the interview is Finlay mention's he was preparing to send his 18 yr old son to get trained in the NJPW dojo soon and that his younger son would also probably get into the business too in a few years.

Pretty good interview with him here http://www.kayfabememories.com/Interviews/dcdrake.htm http://www.kayfabememories.com/Interviews/dcdrake-2.htm

He's been a long time associate of Meltzer's. Back in the day he was one of the guys who has his picture in the banner of the Observer website back before the F4W merger.