FLIK

WTF? Mike Bell as in the dude that Saturn freaked out on?

Also interesting Dave said he'd have no prob putting Howard Finkle on the ballot, maybe nxt year if he doesn't forget by then?

Well, Metal Master is Chad Collyer and he's been working ROH on and off since 02 so I wouldn't really count him. I saw they used Mondo a hand full of times too but that's about it. I didn't search through every result or anything but from a quick glance I couldn't see too many other instances of OVW guys getting used outside of when ROH was running in their area.

Best I could ever tell, Cornette was never sole booker for any period of time. They obviously value his opinion and he has some say and contributes but once Gabe left it went straight to Pearce and once they dumped him it went straight to Delerious as far as who's officially in charge. Don't recall them using OVW guys that much outside of the times when they ran the OVW arena or somewhear else close to OVW's base. 3 stages of hell or some variant has been around forever, I always thought it was a cool gimmick myself.

Yeah, he's been one of their trainers for years. I think he's also appeared on the FCW tv in the past as well

Love how they used promo pics of him wearing gear with the initials "CC" front and center Browsing the rest of the FCW site, also loving how everyone on the staff page is in normal, semi profesional appareal except Steamboat who they've got a pic of rockin the Karate Gi and headband. Quite the pic of Keirn they chose too http://www.fcwwrestling.info/class.html

I thought that too for a bit and he def does go into a routine later on in his career but i've seen enough now to know that he could switch things up and was a lot more versitile then some may give him credit for.

Haven't seen a lot but Los Brazos vs Hamada, Kendo & Blackman and Yoshihiro Asai & Kato Kung Lee vs Blue Panther & Black Power both from 11/17/1990 are 2 of my fav matches. Los Brazos vs Gran Hamada, Kendo & Yoshihiro Asai from the 11/14 AJW Show is really good too From my review of the show I'm hosting the 11/14 match on my site if anyone wants to see it

Re Shawn, i'll just say that watching in my early teens in 96-97 when I didn't have the internet or know any behind the sceens "well he's REALLY not a nice guy" type stuff I had no problem buying him as a face and was a big fan. I haven't really gone back and re-watched a ton of that stuff since it aired so not sure my opinion would change any today either.

A few times in AJW they'd build tag matches around 4 FIP segmens with each person involved taking a turn getting beat down and then going to the finish which I thought was a neat twist on the standard tag formula. By definition I don't think you can call it alternative since it happens on a fairly regular basis but I always found it interesting how tag matches in Japan often end up being one long 1 on 1 segment for the finishing stretch whear the other ppl involved get limited to just breaking up pins and stuff.

Also the same guy who proclaimed that Gordy slamming the cage door on Kerry's head (you know, the angle that set WCCW on fire) was a horrible booking idea. Who the heck is Charlie Reneke?

Context. Even though he started in Europe, any case for Regal is going to be made based almost entirely on his US work and judged against other US stars there's no way you can argue him as a serious HOF candidate. Judged against his contemporaries, Saint stands out a lot more then Regal. I 100% agree that there's others not on the ballot like Breaks who are just as deserving of a mention but that doesn't = Saint not still being in that upper tier. Heh, yeah, that was in the days before finding stuff online was so easy so most people voting in that poll hadn't seen any of their stuff. As a side note - I highly highly recomend everyone go track down the 2 Saint vs Breaks matches on youtube that were built around them trying to break each other's noses in nasty ways. Awesome stuff.

Not true, I mean, WoS in general was never the most talked about thing among the hardcore audiance but among those that did know, Saint always had a positive rep. Like years before he came out of retirement he was a guy being praised by online fans and indy dudes and having best of comps made and traded around. It's only in the past year or 2 that the British wrestlers have been included on the ballot and I remember a bit before then when Dave would talk about diffrent people lobying for their includion Saint's name would usually come up in that conversation as well.

Awww, come on, young Ito pull off some nice stuff. Back when she could still aim properly her footstomp was always cool looking. Yup, had a boy back in 07. She discovered she was pregnant soon after she learned she had ovarian cancer. Thankfully happy ending on both accounts

Don't doubt they may have encouraged her to bulk up but I doubt her being half black was the reason. If you've ever seen super young teenage Aja, she was naturally on the bigger side as is and she didn't have the babyface look anyways so things would have gone the way they did either way. Allready mentioned a bunch in this thread she's not wrestling. If she was, Zero chance she'd do the Chikara shows for a # of reasons, not the least of which is because they're taking place before her return show and because her return show is only taking place so that she could have an official retirement. Well, Kyoko trimed down a fair bit from when she was at her largest but she's still pretty huge. As for Ito, yeah forgot you don't follow the current sceen. Here's what she looks like now In both cases they're girls who if you look at them in their younger years, used to be really super skinny but then bulked up to be taken more seriously when they started getting pushed closer to the main events and then had it all spiral out of controll and kept getting bigger and bigger w/o ever losing the weight. With Kyoko it didn't really hinder her that much as a wrestler atleast as she still could put on great matches and even today when she wrestles is usually passable and ocasionally good. With Ito she doesn't have the frame to pull off being a fat girl wrestler so she's just an embarasment now. She was once one of the most graceful athletic stars around, these days she just kinda wabbles about, wearing too small shirts that leave her gut hanging out half the match, still doing diving footstomps only they're really ugly now and awkwardly crushing people. Depessing to watch.

Heh, i've long since had the theory that any joshi wrestler who sticks around long enough will have atleast 1 of 3 things happen as they get older. 1) they get hotter. 2) they get fatter. 3) they get crazier and many times it's all the above Bull should have learned from Kyoko & Ito that bulking up for wrestling can backfire badly though. Post match on the show with Hokuto vs Aja in 93 they show you footage of Hokuto getting shot up as soon as she gets in the back. So yeah, i'm sure a lot of them were reg taking something back then. That would know the backstage shit? Hmmm, dunno. Trocar Slush Weasle still pops up from time to time on DVDVR, he might know.

Got to watch the Debbie/Hokuto match I mentioned above the other day, only 6-7 mins aired but it's real good stuff, especially down the stretch when it becomes all about Debbie going after Hokuto's arm which plays to both girls strengths.

Gotta disagree, even a half assed youtube search can bring up a fairly good chunk of footage on him. Quite a lot from the 70's & 80's with the earliest match i've personally seen of his being 72 or 73. You add in a few scattered 90's matches up until his first retirement in Michinoku in late 96 and his return matches the past few years and count the fact that there's a ton of WoS footage in genral out thear and it's not hard to make a fair judgement both on how good he was individually and how good he was compared to his peers. From what i've seen calling him THEY best would be a stretch but "one of them" isn't pushing things at all.

Didn't get that vibe from the show myself. Seemed more like Meltzer was saying that it wasn't a given at all but spent a lot of time fantasy booking how it could work if done right then Alvarez jumped in with his usual "don't trust em not to fuck it up" spieal and brought up how if they got him for SS they'd probably have him do Rumble and a bunch of other stuff too. Dave did say for sure that Rock was open to doing more shows after Mania later in the year as well.

Talked about before in other threads but just to reiterate, the hair match wasn't built on hate to begin with, they were always friends.

............dagnabbit, when I click a link that has the words "misty" "skin" & "videos" in the url and the first thing I see is a "must be 18 to view content" disclaimer on the webpage, this was not what I was exspecting at all.....so disapointed now, so so disapointed now.....

Wasn't the hugest fan myself. Ki/Lethal had a lot of metings in ROH that year between singles and tags and it was a really hit & miss feud. The hits were awesome, yes, but those were usually the more brawling/hate filled matches which this wasn't going to be with Kobashi in thear. When they just straight up wrestled it was still good but didn't usually reach the full potential I was hoping for. If I had to drop 1 of the 2 i'd have taken out Low Ki over Homicide but really, almost anyone on the ROH roster at the time would have been a step down as far as match qualiy in this specific situation (gotta stress that part) except for like Jamie Noble who was leaving the promotion that night and Danielson who was off on a foreign tour. That ones not so bad I don't think. Really no diff then any other variation of wrestler A puts wrestler B in a hold and the fans cheer him on to escape which has been happening for like the entire history of pro wrestling.

It wasn't a majority of the crowd or anything so entirely possible you might not have heard it if you weren't sitting near them but it was def noticable on the DVD, they chanted it during atleast 1 or 2 undercard matches as well. Wasn't a fan of them chanting "AR RI GA TO" either or them anouncing him as "Kobashi Kenta". Little too over the top "look at us trying to be hip and act all Japanese when we're not" for me, though i'll fully admit the latter of those 2 things is more just me being nit picky. I think I remember that one in the match too but not sure. That's an old one though, I first heard it in mid 90's ECW and I wouldn't be surprised if it predates that. No prob with that one myself since i'd be pissed too if people in the first few rows were standing up and blocking the view or whatever Well, the feud had just started and they wrestled 3 shows earlier so Gabe was trying to hold off on having them wrestle again so soon after. Kobashi/Homicide made a really cool team anyways, got a big kick out of them double teaming Ki behind the refs back and shit. Also, for as much as it would have made more sense and for as good as Lethal was at the time, he still just wasn't on that lvl and it would have been a step down match quality wise to have him in thear I think.

"We love head drops clap clap clap clap clap" chant for a start It's one thing to enjoy them as an exciting part of a match but chanting about it takes things to an entirely diffrent level of "ugh whear's the mute button"

I have no memory of that even though I was watching at the time but on paper not really. And now Meltzer in his live TNA report ..........SERIOUSLY?????????? Also *SIGH* Shoulda just let it slide kids. Shoulda just let it slide This is what Meltzer wanted them to do though so he has no room to bitch.