FLIK

Latest set of taping results look pretty decent. Appears to be some stupid booking decisions as usual like the TNA Title match for the next PPV not being announced until the last segment of the go home show. Lotta guys I like being bogged down working shitty guys I don't. Bubba Ray vs Anderson, Jarrett vs Hardy, Pope vs Crimson. Really crap looking Bischoff family feud and Jersey Shore crap. But the Roode vs Storm, Daniels vs AJ and Kid Kash vs Austin Aries vs Sorenson 3 way feuds + Gail Kim returning all look good so I might check it out if i'm home and awake when it's on.

Hmmm, so what Buddy Rose should I go out of my way to watch? I think i've seen maybe 5 matches of his in my life

Exploding Barbed Wire Cage Match and Atsushi Onita's original retirememnt match. The match itself is really good but more important historically as a definitive ending of an era. Hayabusa had only been in FMW as Hayabusa 1 time previously and that was 9 months earlier. He hadn't been a regular in FMW as Ezaki since 93 and he only got put into this match on 2 weeks notice after Tarzan Goto quit the company and a few other ppl turned down the slot. After that the only draw they had left was Megumi Kudo and on many of the early post Onita era shows a lot of the fans would just up and leave after her match not sticking around to watch Hayabusa or the others in the main. Dunno how well it'll come across on the yearbook but the big story of the year is them having to nearly start the company over from scratch and build it up again around Hayabusa as the new ace. That they actually managed to pull it off eventually (I wouldn't say until 97 that he was firmly established in the slot) is a big testimant to all involved.

M-Pro 7/30/94 Taka vs Jado with a little bit of a stretch this could be a good comparison to 4/30/92 Liger vs Samurai. Similar stories of one guy cheating until the other snaps and fires back followed by a finishing run. Jado's scummy heel work is off the charts great here, way better then Samurai's. Taka's controll segment wasn't as annoying or long as Liger's but got across the same point. Pissed off guy who's not going to take it anymore. Tossing ref down, trying to choke Jado out, using weapon shots of his own, etc... Minus 1 annoying chair spot, the finish in this awesome with a really hyped crowd. Won't say the highspots here were better then Liger/Samurai but they're atleast as impressive. Easy high recomendaionon this one.

Bah, overblown BS. The gist of everything i've always heard boils down to Rey at various points wanting to take time off, the WWE agreeing to let him take time off, the WWE begging him not to go last minute because they needed him, the WWE promising him this & that if he sticks around and then Rey actually wanting to hold them to their word and being labled "a headache" because of it. There was the example a year or 2 ago whear Rey was going to take a vacation but they promised him a long run with I think the IC title if he stuck around but then shortly into his run they tried to get him to drop the belt and he wouldn't do it.

Well, because they weren't a unit for 1. Just 3 guys who all worked for the same company and all 3 with very diffrent careers. Blassie's allready in anyways, 1st class in 96.

K, i'm going to have to play dumb on this one. I forced my way through that mind numbing column and couldn't make heads or tails of what Babinsack's point was about anything. Could someone translate what he said into something more easy to understand or atleast the bolded part above cause it went over my head.

What's the story on that?

Yeah, about 90% of their matches were face vs face.

How weren't they good ideas? Kong was getting over great before she had to take time off. From everything I hear Mistico is over huge with atleast a certain part of the audiance and is selling a crap ton of merch. At the very least both mild successes with the potential to be even bigger ones in the future.

12/29/1991 (LPWA Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls) Leilani Kai & Judy Martin © vs Rockin Robin & Wendi Richter - Not something that's gonna make Loss' top 100 but still a very good match, probably the best non Jumping Bomb Angel Glamor Girls tag i've seen.

Dump truck of recomendations AJW 3/3/1994 Toshiyo Yamada vs Sakie Hasegawa - Don't know if it'll hold up to that lvl upon a re-watch but at one time I thought this was one of the best AJW matches ever. 3/27/1994 (IWA Title) Manami Toyota © vs Plum Mariko 3/27/1994 (JWP Tag Titles) Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki © vs Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda 3/27/1994 Sakie Hasegawa vs Dynamite Kansai 3/27/1994 (All Pacific Title) Toshiyo Yamada © vs Kyoko Inoue 8/24/1994 Takako Inoue & Cuty Suzuki vs Devil Masami & Candy Okutsu 8/24/1994 Chigusa Nagayo & Toshiyo Yamada vs Sakie Hasegawa & Mariko Yoshida 10/9/1994 (JWP Tag Titles) Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda © vs Hikari Fukuoka & Commando Bolshoi 11/20/1994 Jaguar Yokota & Bison Kimura vs Lioness Asuka & Yumi Ogura - overlooked amongst all the hype for the V-top, this is the best non tournament match on the show and really good. FMW 6/19/1994 (WWA Independent Womens Title) Megumi Kudo © vs Combat Toyota 6/19/1994 (Street Fight) Atsushi Onita, Matsunaga & Fumiharu Asako vs Mr. Pogo, The Gladiator & Hideki Hosaka - not that i've seen a lot of 94 FMW but this is my fave match of the bunch. 12/1/1994 (Exploding Barbed Wire) Great Nita & Tarzan Goto vs Mr. Pogo & Hisakatsu Oya 12/20/1994 (Lumberjack Match) Great Nita vs Mr. Pogo JWP 1/15/1994 (2 count match) Dynamite Kansai, Devil Misami & Chigusa Nagayo vs Mayumi Ozaki, Cuty Suzuki & Plum Mariko 2/19/1994 Plum Mariko vs Chigusa Nagayo - Chigusa is 100% back by this point after returning in 93 and just tearing shit up and making up for lost time. This is one of Plum's best matches ever too which says a lot. 5/28/1994 Chigusa Nagayo vs Mayumi Ozaki - Ridiculously great brawl. OZ vs Chiggy never fails and this is one of their better matches. 6/4/1994 Kyoko Inoue vs Candy Okutsu 6/4/1994 Takako Inoue vs Cutie Suzuki 6/4/1994 (3WA Title Match) Aja Kong vs Dynamite Kansai - On the one hand, it's not as good as their other 3 singles from 93 - 95, on the other it's still really damn good and an important part of their story. 6/25/1994 Mayumi Ozaki vs Hikari Fukuoka 6/25/1994 Devil Masami & Cuty Suzuki vs Dynamite Kansai & Candy Okutsu LLPW 7/14/1994 (Chain Match) Bull Nakano vs Shinobu Kandori - Legendary match, surprised this thread has gone this long and no one has mentioned it. ECW 1/18/1994 (ECW Title) Terry Funk © vs Shane Douglas - 45 min draw, smokes the 1st 3 way with Sabu West Japan Pro Wrestling sometime in 1994 (Street Fight) Mr. Pogo & Poison Sawada Julie vs Mitsuteru Tokuda & Masashi Aoyagi - These yearbooks need more indy sleaze and this was pretty good as far as that goes. Michinoku Pro 7/30/1994 Ultimo Dragon & Great Sasuke vs Jinsei Shinzaki & Gedo 12/14/1994 Taka vs Great Sasuke WAR 3/2/1994 Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto - Won the Tokyo Sports match of the year award

Aside from the big dives and hot near falls at the end I thought this was a really well put together match from start to finish. It's mask vs mask and they di a great job of giving it that big match feel. Loved watching everyone at ringside too, especially down the line when it looked like Sato this _ close to pulling out the win so Sasuke & crew made sure to grab hold of Delphin's cronies and prevent any outside interferance. In such a stacked year this isn't a MOTYC but it's just a notch below that lvl, something that would be in my own top 100 for 93. Hard to believe Togo had only been wrestling for 2 & 1/2 years at this point

Liked this but not near as much as you did. Something just felt off about it, too much start & stop maybe. They'd do all these really impressive high spot sequnces and then when they were done there'd be 30 seconds or more of dead time. Just a screwy flow to the whole thing, like they had a lot of really great ideas but didn't quite know how to put them together. Random fun fact, Onita was one of Delphin's trainers. That aside, except for the post match celebration with the fans rushing the ring I didn't get much of an FMW vibe off of this myself

Observer poll results from the Friday update

Almost all the talk from Meltzer on the radio show was about his amature wrestling/football college days too. Dunno, he did say he specifically he held back on wrighting his obit since he figured he'd get into the hof eventually anyways and he could just write about him then so maybe that's why.

What's funny about that is that a few seconds earlier Alvarez also pointed out that the guys in WWE developmental are still told to watch R&R matches when they want to learn how to work a good tag match. Re Brock - given there's a fairly big chance he's going to come back to wrestling once his MMA career is over anyways, if only for a limited time, he's a perfect guy to use the "too soon to put on the ballot" argument with.

Lots of interesting stuff on the recent Observer show w Bruce Mitchell From Bruce - admitted that he wasn't that familiar with Kent Walton but voted for him anyways due to how long he was around - doesn't think the R&R express belong in - does think Brock belongs in and is going to count his MMA career in his favor From Alvarez - He used to vote for R&R Express and Murdoch but over time started thinking they weren't as influential as he first thought and now he no longer votes either. From Meltzer - Was really surprised Iakea got in, for some reason didn't think that many people read the bio he did after his passing - William's got in largely thanks to support from Japan, said over 90% of the Japanese voters voted for him - Isn't sure if he's going to count Brock's MMA stuff or not, said ppl will have to make up their own minds. Doesn't think Brock has a strong case without it though. He brought up that Brock does still draw a lot of wrestling fans only it's to see him in UFC instead. - Doesn't think Buddy Rose will get much support next year - Think's if any non WWE guy from this generation will ever get in it'll be Tanahashi but thinks now is too soon. - Moolah was going to be in the original class of the HOF but he got talked out of putting her in - He voted Edge and will every year

Re Royal Rumble - am I alone in thinking the 2003 one was the best in terms of the pure in ring action? It was coming off the heels of the Smackdown 6 era so you had those guys (minus Benoit) plus a bunch of others like Jericho, Christian, RVD, Tajiri, WGTT, Hardys, etc... all going out thear and decinding instead of your standard punch/kick/choke/rope tease shit they were going to do a bunch of fast paced high spots and cool sequences and shit and it ruled.

OK, so i'm trusting it's going to be all smooth sailing for Johnny Saint next year now that he won't be the very first Euro guy to get in.

I've been around forever and I have no clue whear to even find streams for UFC/Wrestling PPVs and i'm guessing a lot of other ppl are in the same boat. Pirating in general cost every business if we're being honest but yeah I wouldn't put streams at the top of that list.

He might not have on that particular show but Meltzer's been using the "too many shows is costing them business" talking point for a long ass time now in regards to UFC.