FLIK

Heh, weird, Meltzer said it was because Bischoff got mad that he wasn't told first. Wonder if ROH would take him back?

As best I can tell the chain of creative command goes something like this Vince Russo = still main wrighter of the shows Prichard = in charge of editing the shows Russo writes Hogan & Bischoff = above both but don't care much about the day to day shit so only make creative calls ocasionally

Was there a phantom ep that got deleted or something? The latest one is listed as #6 but I don't recally there being a 5th

http://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/saintandbreaks.htm Awesomeness

Reading the bio on Walton, NEVER in a million years would have guessed he produced softcore porn in the 70's, my minds legit blown.

Can't beleive we haven't brought up Ted Tanabe yet, everyone aways loved him. I always kinda dug Pepe Casas too Yeah, Murayama Daichi & Bob Yazawa were really great. Never liked the older Matsunaga bro that would still ref ocasionally, Jimmy Kayama(?) though. Shiro Abe is right up thear with Tirantes as the greatest heel ref ever, maybe better. Eh, I never saw it as ignoring the rules so much as AJW/joshi in general just has a diffrent set of rules. Much more based on morality and stuff then any set of strict guideless.

He's been wrestling for 12 years now and been a main eventer in what's still considered the top Japanese company for atleast 6. Bios on all 3 are in the issue Happy Walton got in Fuck adding Lesnar just cause it opens the flood gates for Meltzer's "Wrestling and MMA are the same thing, anyone who disagrees is an idiot" BS. You take away Lesnar's MMA succes and he has no case, he's Goldberg with a better work rate.

Unless you needed her to blade you, yes On that note Nikkan Lee is really good too JOE JOE JOE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIKIKetVNI4

Wasn't there a bunch of confusion this year over whether it was Jr or Sr that was supposed to have fell off based on last years results?

Well to clarify most of the time they specify that they don't mean tweeting period is bad, only when you tweet dumb stuff, tweet while drunk/high, whine about crap, etc... that they think it ruins your aura.

Anyone besides me hate current indy darling ref Bryce Rymsberg for being the exact opposite of this? Dude draws way too much attention to himself most of the time and it's always annoying. I do dig him as a commentator so wish he'd just stick to that.

Like Edge, wouldn't vote for him if I had a vote but wouldn't have a prob if he got in either. Don't think he's getting in this year though. Docs a good safe pic though

Bah, how was the Finlay match from this show? Meltzer said it sucked but I demand a 2nd opinion

So Wrestler of the Year is only main event guys too? Man, I need a handbook or something. Is there a category that is like Most Outstanding Wrestler but includes non-drawing factors outside of the ring as well, such as playing their character, promo's, etc.? For the Observer awards? They do have best on the promo, most charasmatic and best gimmick as seperate catagories. Re being a big draw - I think for modern times in terms on mainstream US wrestling it's more valuable to look at who's selling the most merch and moving ratings/ppv buys because yeah, the brand does mean more these days as far as ticket sales in the traditional sense that "drawing" is applied to

Heh, no clue who would be the choice for WOTY this year. Wow, thinking about it this year i've watched less current wrestling then probably any other time in my life. For 2011 i've only seen 3 WWE shows Rumble, Elimination Chamber (live) and MITB. Nothing from TNA except a few random matches, nothing from the US indies except a hand full of local shows i've gone to, less then 5 lucha matches, 1 or 2 puro shows and 2 or 3 joshi shows. Think I may have watched more 1970's wrestling this year then I have 2011 stuff

Finally got around to watching this. Like Loss said, good match only hurt by the length, in full this is 22:30 but they cut it down to about 9:00 for tv. Any time Toyota/Yamada were opposite Aja or Bat in tags it was always gold though. Toyota & Bat especially always had surprisingly great chemistry. Bat was more of a mini Hotta then Aja lite. A little more energetic and with less annoying habits Oh, actualy date for this match is 2/10 btw, 2/16 is just the air date.

Andre? Steamboat? Morton? Hacksaw? Nope, Road Runner = Manami Toyota Also, i'm surprised this thread's gone so long with no mention of the ultimate tag showdown of Speedy/RR vs Sylvester/Will E

Kama & Mable for sure

Jim Breaks with 36 I get a kick out of a majority of the Saint talk always boiling down to "well, there's these other guys that deserve a spot too" which is true but in my mind wrestler X also being a good candidate doesn't = Saint not being a good one.

I emailed him asking what was up with that the other day but not holding my breath that i'll get a response. On a diffrent subject, here's a great site with lots of info on the British Wrestling sceen http://www.johnlisterwriting.com/itvwrestling/ Few things to highlight of interest due to some of the points that have come up in this thread Title history page http://www.johnlisterwriting.com/itvwrestling/titles.html Johnny Saint with 9 World Lightweight title reigns (essentially dominating it Flair style for a decade), 2 European Lightweight reigns and 1 British Lightweight title reign. TV ratings overview http://www.johnlisterwriting.com/itvwrestling/ratings.html "BEWARE: Too Much Showmanship Could Ruin Wrestling by Kent Walton" From 1979 http://www.johnlisterwriting.com/itvwrestl...article791.html

Wait what's that story? Nev heard that one before.

Like I mentioned on the 1st page, it wasn't about not wanting to lose in Canada. It was about refusing to lose to a guy who when Bret came to him months earlier and said "Shawn despite all our problems i'm still willing to do business and put you over" Shawn disrespected him by responding "thanks, but I want you to know i'll never put you over" and then walked out of the room. FOLLOWED by Bret going to Vince with the story, Vince acting outraged, 30 minutes later bringing them together and then the 1st thing Vince starts with is "Shawn, we're putting the title on you" completely ignoring Bret being pissed off at Shawn disrespecting him. Bret flat out says on the DVD he offered to put Shawn over the next night after SS which was ALSO in Canada, he just wanted Shawn to show him the respect of putting him over 1st. Interesting comment Bret also makes is that before everything spiraled out of controll and things got really bad between them and he was going to leave the company, Bret knew for a while that Shawn was going to be the guy in the top spot who things would be built around in the future and that he was fine with it. Bret's hope was that they could drag the thing out for a few more matches and make money off the feud 1st with the original plan being to build to a rematch from Mania that Bret would win, then have Shawn chase for a while before Bret would then put him over again in the end to pass the torch and take a back seat as far as the spotlight goes. They both admit they stupidly worked themselves into legit hating each other by taking things too personally when all they were doing at first was trying to build heat for the big rematch.

As weird as it sounds, even though it completely killed Punk's character over the past few months I think the way he's positioned the past few shows is a good sign for his standing in the company. The WWE WANTS their top babyfaces to be retarded goofy kiss assess, so that they're even bothering to rebuild him in their own image of what a top guy should be is a good thing...sorta. He's never gonna have Cena or Orton's spot, HHH is on another lvl and he'll be below Taker whenever he comes back but I see him being booked like this as meaning he's now got a pretty solid standing as the next most highest guy after those dudes which is the best anyone's gonna get. Also, Meltzer is claiming that JR legit didn't know he was going to be fired when it happened. I find that really hard to believe myself so i'm taking it with a grain of salt but if true that's one the shittiest things the companies ever done. No reason not to tell the guy except just to be assholes. Hard to feel sorry for JR since at this point he's like an addict who just keeps coming back for one more fix but still, it was a dick move to do.

Yeah that was an awesome piece, doesn't go in depth on any one time period but is great as a cliff notes time line of the major highlights of the company up until the 90's. Post 97 he just skiped from talking about the company having money issues that year to the company going out of business 8 years later with little talk of what happened during that span.