FLIK

Money & National TV are the 2 base things of course but shit, TNA has those. The missing ingrediants are advertising and marketing. With TNA, to this day only a small % of the overall wrestling audiance knows they exist and to those that do it doesn't come across like a big deal. The quality of the wrestling doesn't matter so much and who you push isn't that important either. Older stars, big names, indy guys, you could do it with any of them. The key is you HAVE to market them in such a way that they & your overall promotion feels important. The #1 thing i've learned over the past few years world wide is that wrestling fans will still very much show up for the big special shows if they're marketed right but if you treat your wrestlers or shows as average run of the mill things then you'll draw acordingly.

http://www.wweshop.com/category/Men/TShirts-Kayfabe Dolph Ziggler.....I don't like you.....

He said his 1st tour thear was in 82 and that Fujiwara was one of the first guys he wrestled. Told some stories about being on tour w the Funks and Dick Murdoch claiming to be Irish and trying to get Finlay to send him foreign dollars and coins because he was a collector.

On a similar note, watching Finlay's shoot and he mentions having a singles match vs Fujiwara in NJPW in the early 80's as one of his standout matches in Japan. Guessing no footage of that exist tho which kinda sucks. #1 match I wish footage existed of is still the Daisuke Ikeda & Takashi Sugiura vs Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda 60 min Iron Man from 03.

He's been wrestling full time for Taka Michinoku's K-Dojo promotion in Japan since 2003

Ideally I always thought they should give the streak ender to a young guy on the come up but yeah, if an established guy is going to get it, Cena is one of the few who could get away with it as far as actually being able to run with all the negative heat you'd get as a result.

Monsta Mack & the Maximo's still wrestle. After disapearing for a while Brian XL came back not long ago but i'm not sure if that was just a temp thing or if he retired again. Allison Danger's still around & wrestling as well. I know ROH only use him as a manager but does Nana still wrestle on the side anymore?

By being really damn awesome It's not the most famous match out thear but it has a rep and most ppl who have seen tend to think pretty highly of it Also ran Mexico too the day before their US show. The Russian shows were in 94 Not sure what you mean by this. I don't even remember him reviewing that. Which issue? What's weird about that is that as far as I know it only even exist via fan cam and didn't make tv. Maybe he was thear live? If should go on the list since he did 5 it, but there should be a major asterick added: based on highly edited TV version. My recollection is that it was cut down well under 10 minutes on TV for a match that went 20+, and it wasn't even a JIP version of editing: they seamlessly cut it down to the highspots. I highly doubt Dave would have given it 5 if he saw the full commercial version of it. Eh, I wouldn't give it 5 either but having seen the full version I can see the argument for it atleast, certainly not one for the "I can't believe it" pile.

Nothing against this match, I actually like it a lot but seriously, Dave went 5 stars on this? At best this is maybe the 3rd best Bull match in Jan 91 alone This I can sorta see a little more but don't agree with either. Not even the best Toyota/Yamada tag that month

Completely off topic, it took me forever to figure out that was Terry Funk & The Funkmaster's of Wrestling in Dylan's profile pic.

Yeah, 05 & 06 were the exceptions to the rule of TNA being the worst company to ever exist. Back then the company was like 50% ROH lite, 15% Abyss Hardcore matches, 25% Jeff Jarrett main events vs a revolving cast of Ex WCW/WWF/ECW guys like Raven, Christian, Rhino, DDP, etc... and the rest being misc other dudes like 3 Live Kru, Monty Brown & Lance Hoyt.

Hm weird, i'd always assumed Ohtani vs Tajiri was a pretty famous match and that most everyone had seen it by now.

Would anyone besides me be amused if Batista came back to feud with Daniel Bryan just so they could book the angle as "The Animal" vs "The Vegan"??? Batista was one of the first guys talking shit online that Danielson didn't deserve the World Title, they could tie it all together in a nice little bow.

And to top everything off with DDP, he gave up a massive amount of money to go to WWE as he was one of the dudes that had a guaranteed contract with Turner to keep paying him even after WCW closed but he took the buyout instead cause he wanted in on the Invasion angle.

Well, he was one of the names that poped up in rumors about that all Cruiserweight show the WWE might put on their network but i'm not putting much stock in that ever actually seeing the light of day. If I had to guess i'd bet on him just staying in Japan.

Story I recall hearing was Douglas actually wanted to jump over as part of the deal with the Radicalz but Vince just didn't want him. It's funny to think back on Raven and remember that during his original run in the WWF in 93-94 he was good buddies with Shane McMahn and was being groomed for a high paying role backstage as a producer or something like that but he gave it up to remain a wrestler. Not that I blame him or think he made a bad choice, just interesting to think how things could have turned out so much more diffrently. Well, he was still only 35 or so when WCW closed so not that old. But yeah def was banged up. On the most recent Lance Storm show on the Observer site whear he does his big speach on how to properly do dives Lance talks about how Awesome blew out his knees doing them resulting in 2 major surgeries and sitll kept on. Basically because since he was often doing them to much smaller men he had to try and break his own fall a lot & because his opponents weren't ideal bases.

He was one of the guys who got a developmental deal and then washed out & did the indy circuit for a bit until he retired in 03 or 04.

If you're open to taking request i'd love to see a reviews for these 2 BJW 6/3/97 (5 Way Tag to crown the 1st BJW tag champs) Kengo Kimura & Takashi Ishikawa vs Shoji Nakamaki & Takashi Okano vs Kendo Nagasaki & Satoru Shiga vs Yoshihiro Tajiri & Yuichi Taniguchi vs Jado & Gedo Tajiri is one of the guys who really stands out in this one with a good performance http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=53842 and SMASH 4/23/2010 Tajiri vs Eugene No clue if it's online still or i'd post a link I enjoyed this one as a really good mix of mat work, comedy & serious wrestling and thought it was maybe the best Eugene (working under that gimmick) match i've seen.

Disagree on Helms, Awesome & Corino. Always was a big fan of Helms but not once did I ever see him as a main event lvl guy. Wrestling is littered with guys who were really good workers but had little going for them beyond that who've been forgotten in the pages of history. Getting to be the Huricane is easily the best thing to happen to him. I don't think anyone who ever saw it will forget it, most who saw it enjoyed it and it's something you can milk for years and years and years on the indy sceen for easy money. I think Awesome had a lot of steam left had he stayed in ECW but like Jingus said he's the type of guy who couldn't fit in well in WCW/WWF and was most suited for Japan. Actually he was pretty reg over thear post WWF. Had about a 6 month run in All Japan then another 4-5 month run in NOAH which he probably could have continued but he ended up retiring about a year or so later. With Corino, while he was never pushed as THE guy, he's had a good enough career working Z1 & ROH that I can't say he's much worse off then he would have been had ECW not died. There's a bunch of ppl that fit in this catagory tho. For me the first 2 names off the top of my head who were much worse off when their companies died are Buff Bagwell who I do think would have gotten to main event/world title status & DDP who went from being main event in WCW to treated as a mid card joke in WWF. Ah yes, that glorious 2 month or so period whear WCW got really great again and tried to re-invent themselves right before they went out of business. Yeah really sucked for guys like him, Kwi Wii, Mike Sanders, all the other Natural Born Thrillers and the rest of the new crop of young guys WCW were bringing up that were SOS (and you know what that means) afterwards. For ECW I always kinda liked Chris Chetti so guys like him, Roadkill, Doring, hell Whipwreck.....shit, I always felt a little sorry for the Musketeer even thinking "boy, there's no whear for you to go now buddy".

They've been doing it for so long that I legit don't think ppl in charge realise you can do "story" based wrestling without having an authority figure as a central character. Not even a WWE problem either as it's spread industry wide at this point, Indies, Japan, Mexico, all over. It can make for a great angle when done right but year after year of this crap is just too much.

it's funny how those types always seem to try and pull the new identity thing off. Coey & Modest always used to do the same among others

Or in other words Dynamite Kid won't place 14th again I've actually never felt too strongly one way or the other but I think the hate for the DK/TM series and just those two in general has swung so far in that direction that they're now kinda under rated but that's a subject for another day & another thread.

I THINK the storyline goes "the board of directors" let HHH stay in charge of WWE as a whole but made Ace the temporary guy in charge of RAW and Vince is still an agent for the board and has partial ownership but not the authority to make major changes anymore......aaannnnddddd now i've confused myself

Yeah I was pretty bumed when that happened. I never wanted to own/run SC as being an admin for a while was headache enough but at the time I would have actually paid the bill myself just to keep the archive around had I known things were that far gone. Well, I know my list would atleast be a lot diffrent. Not so much the top part as my top 20 or so hasn't changed much since then but the rest of my top 100 would be way diffrent as there were a giant amount of ppl I hadn't heard of or seen back then. Like I remember that was the first time I ever even heard the name MS1 or for example I hadn't seen Johnny Saint, Jim Breaks, WOS, etc back then either. Hm, can't remember if Prazak did or not but i'm leaning no. But yeah, it was a who's who for a while. Always amused that Kharma/Amazing/Awesome Kong even posted thear for a little bit.

Did this ever lead to any Crusher vs Freebird matches, singles or tags? I'd dig seeing Crusher vs Gordy atleast.