Coffey

Fun little tidbit: Chris Jericho blocked me on Twitter. His reasoning was because he said something & I replied with his defending of Hugh Morrus. After all the shit went down with the students at NXT where Morrus was abusing them & what not, Jericho was like "he's my friend, he'd never do that!" or some shit. I guess he didn't like that.

For me, the one consistent over the years has been never trying to force it. I just watch the stuff that I watch & if someone shows an interest, or asks any questions, I just try to answer in a kind & logical way so they can follow-up on any intrigue created there. Like, you don't want to be the know-it-all talking about backstage politics & shit. Just answer their questions & don't talk down to them or patronize them. It's a great thing to have someone express some interest in something that you enjoy & pro-wrestling is no different. If you can help to create a new fan, you might have someone new to share your hobby with. For example, my girlfriend became interested in Asuka after I was watching some NXT. We ended up watching a few TakeOver shows together & the consistent was her interest in Asuka. When Asuka was called-up to the main roster, my girlfriend lost a lot of interest in NXT & eventually stopped watching altogether. Now she enjoys watching the old stuff with me because I'm passionate about it. At the end of the day, it's always going to be about the characters & stories more so than the matches. At least that has been my experience.

Agreed & I am in the same boat. I have still been watching wrestling, I am just going back & watching stuff I had not seen before from yesteryear. I watched the Stone Cold Session with The Big Show. Dark Side of the Ring has been pretty entertaining thus far. Plus, count me in with the group that doesn't miss The Last Dance with Michael Jordan. For NBA fans similar in age to myself, that's can't miss television. I already didn't feel like I had a connection with modern WWE but without a crowd, it's just completely unwatchable. AEW has done a few cool things but I can just get caught up via clips posted on Twitter. There's zero reason to sit through entire crowdless shows. I have been watching some MLW because they had some shows in the can from AAA. There's also been at least one half hour of NWA I have watched when they did the feature on Kamille. There's enough out there to see. Hell, I still need to watch the NJPW PPV from Feb. with KENTA/Naito. Maybe I'll do that tonight.

Man, I miss breakfast cereals. So ridiculously unhealthy, but I grew up on those bowls of sugar. Honeycomb was always one of my favorites, up there with Lucky Charms. Which reminds me, remember when it was a big deal to be on the cover of Wheaties? There was even a WWF Superstars cereal. I bet those are hard to find nowadays! That would be a pretty cool shelf souvenir.

The main event from the last Super Series show with InJustice was awful. Just too sloppy for my liking. That being said, MLW lately has been mostly on fire & feature several of my favorites going right now in Hammerstone, Mancer & Fatu. Giving L.A. Park his own cooking show is also genius. Definitely more good than bad for me lately. Also Alicia Atout has been tremendous. Even without MJF, The Dynasty has been a ton of fun. Hammerstone & Holiday have great chemistry & comedic timing.

Was the Kobashi/Sasaki chop match the match that started the standing in the middle, exchanging blows endlessly tradition?

For as much as WWE is seemingly hellbent on having a brand split for their on-air product. Having a split for the actual roster, where they could give the talent rotating off seasons, would go a long way in keeping some guys fresh. One of my favorite things about wrestling is when a wrestler makes a comeback after being away for awhile. It always creates a big moment & makes a big pop. Plus then you can do more angles that write people off of TV right before their away time & you have something to work with when they return. Just like the territories did by sending guys to a different territory. If would also give the talent much needed time off to see their families & to heal/recover.

I would definitely nominate Randy Savage Vs. Ricky Steamboat from WWF Wrestlemania III. To this day people in wrestling still talk about how influential that match was to them. On the other end of the spectrum, The Undertaker Vs. Shawn Michaels, both of their Wrestlemania matches. I think a lot of the current false finish wrestling, having to hit your finish like four or five times to win, became super popular because of them. Even though The Rock & Steve Austin did it too. I don't think you have guys like Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens wrestling the way they do without those HBK matches. Which as a whole, I feel like Shawn Michaels & Rob Van Dam are two of the biggest influences to wrestlers that were getting into the Independent scene in the early 2000s. Probably Jeff Hardy too. Which the Wrestlemania X-Seven TLC match should probably be name-dropped as well. I know that Terry Funk hitting the Piledriver on Ric Flair in 1989 post-match was the first time I had seen or can remember a table spot. Which became huge in wrestling. ECW used tables all the time. WWF has some pretty big table spots with Foley, HBK, etc. even before The Dudleyz made it their entire gimmick. I know early Sabu pre-ECW was doing some table stuff too, usually to himself. William Regal, Bob Backlund & American Dragon Bryan Danielson all seem to have been pretty influential but I don't know which match from any of them I would exactly pinpoint. I think it was more about their style overall than any one match.

Stephanie McMahon has definitely done some on-screen things that I've enjoyed. The start of her feud with Brie where she got slapped was good. I loved her & Vickie feuding which led to them both going in the mud. I really liked the love triangle with HHH & Kurt Angle but wish it would have ended with her choosing Kurt over Hunter just because it would have made for better soap opera TV. I also liked how her feud with Trish Stratus got intertwined with the feud between Stone Cold & Triple H. When Austin came out & gave her the Stunner & Triple H was under a no contact order against Austin. That was good shit. The problem with Steph is the same problem that continues to plague everyone in WWE: overexposure. If you're fun, new & interesting or doing cool stuff it only has a short shelf life because you're going to be on TV like thirty times a month. And no one can stay fresh or interesting with how often they're around. We can see a bright new star show up & climb the ladder & win a midcard belt. But then they either stay in the midcard and win the IC belt like 40 times like Jericho, or they get moved up & do the same thing with the World Title like they did with the IC title, like Edge or Seth Rollins. Eventually everyone just becomes another face in the crowd. Keith Lee was mentioned. He was on the main show & white hot. Now he's back in NXT doing weekly stuff & just won a belt. He's already lost a lot of his luster because WWE didn't capitalize on the moment when he was hot. He even had another moment to shine in the Rumble with Brock. They didn't capitalize then either.

I don't think overrated is the word. No one even talked about him outside of making jokes before the G1 in 2019. He was just "that tramp stamp guy" that used to drink with the marks from TNA after the shows. He did a good job reinventing himself in New Japan. His G1 performance rightfully turned heads because he exceeded expectations. Granted the expectations going in were low as most people had written him off, but he had good showings & rightfully was praised for it. He put in the work. He was a good signing for AEW. And although he might not be everyone's cup of tea, overrated is certainly not the word to use. Not when he is working in the same promotion as Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks.

It would be funny if it weren't so damn sad & predictable.

Nia Jax, at least on social media, seems to be fully embracing her being dangerous as if it is some sort of meme.

I think too much emphasis as a whole is put on ring work nowadays but especially in WWE. They need stronger characters & angles & not having that is why the show sucks shit - because no one stands out. It's also why something like the Boneyard Match at Wrestlemania stands out, because it felt different. NXT for a long time, pretty much ever since Triple H took over, and the main roster since they started pushing guys like Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins to the main event just feels like ROH back in like 2008. Every match trying to be match of the night & trying to get the crowd to chant "this is awesome" meanwhile no one remembers the match the next day because they're all interchangeable fluff that doesn't mean shit in the grand scheme of things. Good matches in a vacuum I think actually hurt wrestling more than help it. So I actually value someone like The Miz in WWE higher than most because to me, he's a wrestler that managed to get over without it all being because he's a great in-ring worker. It would be different if everyone trying to do the match of the night was a Daniel Bryan kind of guy... but you only have one Daniel Bryan. And an endless parade of Ciampa/Gargano matches trying to cosplay as peak insufferable HBK isn't going to miraculously make all the fans that left in droves return thinking "wow, I can't believe I was missing this level of talent!" If anything, you should only have one Daniel Bryan kind of guy because then he stands out a lot more & feels more special. I read it elsewhere, I don't remember if it was here, Reddit, Twitter or where, but someone said that wrestling would be better as a whole if the wrestlers were going out trying to get the loudest boo or loudest cheer of the night instead of trying to have the best match of the night. I agree with that. We need to get back to basics. And now with no fans in the building but WWE continuing to run shows anyway, would be a good time to try some new shit. If they just weren't so damn stubborn.

I don't understand why this shit takes so long in the first place. Is it because they have go back & rewatch everything so they can dub over old theme songs & logos and shit? It can't be because they're worried about putting up too much content at once that people will burn through. If they were worried about that, they would stop giving away free memberships. I'm tired of waiting for all of the episodes of WCW Saturday Night. I've never seen the majority of the Nitro-era Saturday Night shows, which is what I'm interested in, because back then I was never home on the weekend to see the shows. And I know I missed a lot of good stuff because of it. "Here's six months of one year" is frustrating.

I feel like that would be really disrespectful to like the forty other people that were fired. My bet is more along the lines of he agreed to do it to keep the door open for a return, instead of burning the bridge.

Balls. Thanks for the answer though, I appreciate it.

Are the 1987 Great American Bash Wargames matches on WWE Network? I Googled it & just found out there were more than one GAB events that year, and it was pre-PPV. But ever since WWE Network changed their layout, I can't find shit anymore. The search feature is worthless. Any help?

The half-hour show they did tonight, focusing solely on Kamille, was pretty good. Show started with recapping all of the history of Kamille with Nick Aldis. Then she won a squash match. Then the show closed with a promo/vignette hype video going over her career in sports & then joining pro-wrestling culminating with her saying she's coming for all the women in NWA. Pretty good stuff. I feel like Kamille was already pretty over but this will go a good way in making her feel more special, which is welcome. Plus, if she wins the NWA Women's Championship from Thunder Rosa, which is not a foregone conclusion, they have the ready-made feud with Allysin Kay after Kamille speared her a couple weeks back. The women's division, which at one point I thought was easily the weakest part about NWA, has gotten better fairly quickly with Thunder Rosa winning the title & Kamille switching from valet to in-ring performer. Sets up some new, interesting match-ups.

Very bleak speculation of course, certainly during a pandemic - and I probably don't need to say it but no one is clamoring for anyone to be losing their jobs or their ability to provide for their families. That being said, if I were the Grim Reaper of employment for WWE, I could easily fire 20 people from the Smackdown side. Even after firing like 40 people WWE is still ridiculously bloated. In example, you could kill NXT UK & 205 Live entirely - just keep Walter. Smackdown has people like The B-Team, Tamina, Lucha House Party, Dana, Lars, The Forgotten Sons or whatever that stable is called. Maybe Kane since he's doing the political thing & is up there in age - he's a hall of famer anyway.

That Jimmy Redman post is tremendous. There are some exceptionally well written people here on PWO. Thank you for that post.

There's a lot of places in the USA, especially here in the Midwest, where many aren't taking it as seriously as they should. Many people can't afford to miss work & if the company they work for hasn't closed themselves, they're still going to work everyday. Walmart is always busy. Fucking Starbucks is busy. That's the scariest thing about this pandemic to me. Human stupidity makes it worse & the average person is really stupid. Especially in the bible belt where people are congregating in large groups at church still... trying to pray away the virus. You can't make this shit up. Meanwhile our president, which most agree is an absolute fucking idiot, keeps trying to blame-shift to everyone else & only cares about "opening the country back up" because he's worried about the economy. All he's really doing is getting more people sick/killed. And he's doing a daily press conference, which he's now basically using as tax-funded campaign re-election air time. We're getting one-time $1,200 stimulus checks which right now, for those that don't have direct deposit, are being held-up because President Trump wanted his name, his signature, literally on the check... because he thinks it'll help him come re-election. Our postal service is also on the verge of collapse & Trump & the Republicans are trying to make it so people can't vote via mail, like they just did in Wisconsin. It's almost like they want more poor people to get sick & die... Guess what all those poor, broke people are going to do as soon as they get those stimulus checks? Yeah. Sorry, I know this isn't pro-wrestling only, but it's not all sunshine in the United States, believe me.

The irony of Jim Cornette getting fired from NWA for making a racist comment on commentary defending Jerry Lawler for making a racist "joke" on commentary is not lost on me. Maybe that's the point? At this point, honestly, Cornette is no better than Russo & might even be worse. Like, I get that Russo is shit as it pertains to pro-wrestling but Cornette is now approaching just being a shit human all around every time he opens his mouth. Regardless of if he's doing it for clicks, says he's just working or whatever, it's a bad look. And that includes every time Brian Last tries to defend him as well. Also because new stories like this keep popping up about Cornette like every week where as I only hear anything about Russo... when someone brings up Cornette. People getting upset at racist jokes is not them being snowflakes, or soft, or whatever-in-the-fuck, it's them wanting people to get called out on shit instead of everyone smiling, acting like it's OK & encouraging that shit to continue. If people gave Lawler a free pass in 2020 for a commentary remark like that, guess what he'll do the next week? He'll have another one. So yeah, call people out when they do inappropriate shit & make them face the consequences of their actions. I was watching an old NBA dunk contest on ESPN Classic. It was the Jordan/Dominique showdown, I think 1989? Michael Jordan does his infamous "kiss the rim" dunk from the side of the basket. The commentator says "he calls that that Chinese Superman... because it's slanted!" My first thought was 1. that was super inappropriate and 2. if he was on the air today, he would be fired before the dunk contest finished. Just like the newspaper writer that titled his story "A Chink in the Armor" when writing about Jeremy Lin. In both circumstances I 100% believe Jim Cornette would have tried to defend those people. Both cases, just like with the Lawler defense, he would come off as out of touch & inappropriate in the world we live in. He's just not relevant anymore & he's gathering an army of imbeciles that "defend his honor" no matter how ridiculous his hate speech rhetoric gets. Like, it's OK to admit that you were wrong & change with the times. Become a better person. Eddie Murphy isn't going around making his anti-gay jokes like he told in his 1980's stand-ups anymore. So why is Cornette still trying to defend this crap?

I don't even think it's the scummiest thing they've done THIS WEEK. They just announced that during said pandemic they're going to continue carrying on with three live shows a week - that the talent has to work & risk their health, more so than usual. You lump all the shit together that WWE has done, including the deal with Saudi Arabia & I can't see anyone feeling sorry for the brand, the company or the McMahon family. The people they employ, especially those losing their jobs today, for sure. That's without even getting into the hair of the damn Super PAC headed by Linda McMahon & Florida deeming WWE an "essential business" while money gets funneled into the state.

I have been pining & clamoring for a return to the American Bad Ass for The Undertaker since probably a year after he returned to the deadman. That match last night with A.J. Styles was so much more fun & entertaining than I was expecting it to be. It was a real highlight of the night & I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was just campy, cheesy fun which helped me escape reality for awhile & as a fan, that's all you can ask for. Looking forward to the show tonight too but the bar was set pretty high!

They're not. Guaranteed. It's hard as hell to even get a test in most places right now. Unless you're an NBA team.