Coffey

I've actually had fun watching this show. Not every match has been great, certainly, and it's been way too long... but I've enjoyed it. I'm extremely tired now, just from watching it from my home... so I can only imagine how exhausted the people in attendance are.

Yup.

This PPV is incredible so far. My god. The finish to the Walter/Dunne match!

Remember that video game segment from the Kickoff show for Worst Segment of the Year awards!

That's probably for the best. I guess it's still a wait-and-see thing right now, but I really feel like the new, fresh, not-WWE wresting promotion, which already is going to have Chris Jericho on top, should probably not have J.R. on commentary too. Don't want to get branded WWE-lite right out of the gate, like TNA did!

There's a fine line between hokey & fun... and WWE never exactly seems to get it right. Be it Papa Shango, Kamala or even The Demon. Finn's Demon could have been played up like an alter ego, of sorts. Where he was out of control, or whatever. Like an "oh shit" moment, sort of like what WWE did with Cactus Jack at one time. Problem is, Finn himself never played it that way. It was just Finn in body paint. Wrestled the same way & everything. He wasn't more dangerous, or using a different finish, or anything. It's just Finn in body paint. The entrance is cool but after that, there's nothing special. I always thought the Papa Shango character had legs. But then they started making Ultimate Warrior puke & shit & it was all she wrote. How big is that dude? 6'6", 330lbs according to Wiki. He was a giant, scary dude but they went too far in one direction & made him too over the top. It's amazing that The Undertaker lasted as long as he did, truth be told.

I've been doing the ketogenic gimmick for several months now. So I'm going to get me some BW3's hot wings & try to make Wrestlemania feel special. It's so long though, goodness. I can't imagine how exhausting it'll be to the fans that are attending live. I have company coming over to watch the show, otherwise I would most likely watch it in shifts over the course of a couple of days. Have to take a power nap to get through it. I'm not a spring chicken anymore. The card is intriguing, if nothing else. My biggest issue is that no one in WWE feels like a star, so none of the matches jump out at me as must-see.

I didn't even get the internet until 1999. One of the first things I remember looking up after getting a modem was pro-wrestling. I found my way to a message forum back then, wrestlinggames.com or something, and I remember being genuinely confused at all the people shitting on Kevin Nash. I thought he would be a lot more popular in the online wrestling world. Maybe that was me being naive. It was a learning curve. I watched Starcade 1998 with a group of friends when it aired live. Friends that were only wrestling fans at the time because of the popularity of the Monday Night Wars. They were all nWo fans. They all marked out for Nash winning. They all booed Goldberg. I didn't get it. I didn't see the need to end the Streak, I didn't like the cattle prod finish, it just seemed really lame. I also didn't like how it was basically good guy vs good guy. Those same fans/friends weren't watching at all a couple of months later. Meanwhile I watched WCW die while they all switched to MMA. When I was in high school, I was known as "the wrestling guy." So when people had questions about wrestling, they asked me. I graduated in 2000. Again, didn't get internet until 1999. So it's not like I had all the answers... They just knew that I had been watching wrestling forever & was watching before Stone Cold or the nWo. I never hid my fandom. So I had like VHS tapes of ECW shows & shit from where I used to record the PPVs or old WWF shoes & I would loan out tapes to other fans if they asked so they could see other things besides Monday Night wrestling. But when people would talk to me about wrestling, or ask me questions about wrestling, it was always like "yo, did you see Miss Hancock's ass last night dancing on that table?" They didn't care about wrestling as anything more than just a TV show. They wore the shirts simply because they sold them in JCPennys in the mall, not because they were big fans. I hated the Starcade '97 finish. I hated the Starcade '98 finish and by the time they got the Starcade '99 the finishes didn't even matter anymore. The problem with booking for the casuals is the casuals leave. They don't give a fuck. They're only there to watch it because it's popular, the same way they'll watch Seinfeld or The Sopranos or nowadays Game of Thrones when that's the only shit people at work are talking about. They're not sustainable. This "it was great in the moment" is revisionist history bullshit. It was fucking awful in the moment. And it's fucking awful with hindsight. Even before the Fingerpoke of Doom. Even acknowledging that Kevin Nash probably should not have even won World War 3 to begin with. Or ending Wrath's streak when he was catching fire. Or any of the other countless stupid decisions they did. Pete is right. You don't book for a moment. Look at current WWE. They're all about "making moments" and the product is awful. You book for the long term, you tell stories, you get fans invested in characters & stories. What did Kevin Nash beating Goldberg do for WCW? What does Charlotte beating Asuka do for WWE or Wrestlemania? It's all short-sighted nonsense.

Becky lost to Asuka by tapping clean in the middle at Royal Rumble. Becky then had to get into the Rumble in the first place by taking Lana's spot. To get #28 in the match, which she wasn't in, to go on & win. Asuka then never had another match. Wasn't on the Elimination Chamber PPV. Becky, a Smackdown wrestler, was the #1 contender to the RAW women's title. Then Charlotte, after losing every match in 2019, gets a title shot against Asuka because reasons & wins the Smackdown women's title. Even if you take out all of the Ronda shit it STILL doesn't make sense. Asuka is an afterthought. Charlotte was shoehorned in. Ronda is a star that is leaving. Becky caught fire with the crowd. And this is the best they could come up with.

Yeah, Kane is quite bad. Memorable character though. Which counts for a lot. That's why a lot of those old school 80's wrestlers are so fondly remembered, because people remember the gimmicks. People will never forget Hacksaw, Macho Man, Jake the Snake... or apparently Kane.

This is how I feel about 90% of the main roster. WWE as a whole feels cold. They don't feel like they have any stars. They have some people that I enjoy watching, like Daniel Bryan, but they don't have any larger-than-life guys. Even Brock doesn't really feel special anymore. He should. Batista came back & he should, but he doesn't. Roman just came back & it's like he never left. It's a weird timeline.

Well, to be fair, Kofi was quite bad for a long time & was "just there" a lot, just like Seth. Kofi is on fire now, and was on fire during the Orton feud at one time, but other than that, he's basically just been a dude that showed up once a year for a Rumble stunt & was forgettable otherwise. I was a pretty big negative naysayer against him for a long time, and even I have really come around on him lately. Strike when the iron is hot because the heat can flame out quickly. It's part of the reason why I've not liked the Kofi booking last night or when they removed him from the title match. Like, I get they're saving it for Wrestlemania, but like the Becky feud, I feel the way they're doing it is just cooling things off.

Not my first rodeo.

I actually thought there might be a chance that Shane turns on Miz just for the "swerve!"

Hey, I found the old thread instead of having to make a new one. Pre-Fastlane Fav Five: 1. Tyler Bate 2. Pete Dunne 3. Jack Gallagher 4. Jacob Fatu 5. Drew Gulak

Eh. My favorite part of wrestling is usually when someone does a run-in to do a finisher fest. Kevin Nash doing a walk-in to Lazy Bomb a Luchadore, The Giant Chokeslamming an nWo B-Team member in a match he wasn't in, Austin stunning everyone in sight or what have you. I thought the coolest part of the debut of The Nexus was when Justin Gabriel hit the 450 on Cena.

Sherri, Moolah, Mae Young, Wendi Richter, Sunny, Trish, Lita, Alundra Blaze, Jackie, Mildred Burke, Beth Phoenix, June Byers, Judy Grable, Ivory & Cora Combs are the only women in the WWE Hall of Fame, unless I missed one. Elizabeth isn't in there & she was huge for WWE. So was Cyndi Lauper for the Celebrity Wing. There's still women like Victoria or Molly Holly that could go in, or Rockin' Robin. WWE probably isn't chomping at the bit to put in Sable but she's not there yet & she was a bigger deal than Torrie. What about Bull Nakano or The Jumping Bomb Angels? Especially now that WWE just re-added Women's Tag Titles? Hell, I would argue Melina, Michelle McCool & Jazz are more worthy than Torrie Wilson. If they're going specifically for non-working women, that played a valet role, Terri Runnels/Alexandra York/Marlena had a bigger wrestling history. We sure this isn't just because Torrie did Playboy, still looks good & dated A-Rod? Because I'm really struggling to find a reason why, even if she's well-liked, WWE made this decision.

THE BEER'S ON ICE!

Does anyone know how old Jacob Fatu/The Samoan Werewolf is? I can't find a lot of information on him but he's pretty damn good already. I found that he was trained by Rikishi/Fatu & that his debut was in 2012.

I finished the year & boy, when Yoko shows up, business picks up. That dude was a squash match master. Everything he did looks like death. What a beast! Bam Bam Bigelow & Doink the Clown show up too. And if you check out the other shows during the timeline from the year, like Saturday Night's Main Event & the Pay-Per-Views, Lex Luger as The Narcissist shows up at Rumble '93. I think the last '92 SuperStars had The Steiners on it as well. Plus you start getting Headshrinker squashes at the end. It's pretty fun! I want them to upload more though.

Well, I mean, we have to get all the members of the Wrestlemania Playboy Pillow Fight into the WWE Hall of Fame, obviously! Torrie Wilson this year, Candice Michelle next! And who can forget the LEGENDARY feud with Dawn Marie over Torrie Wilson's father??? Long time coming, that one. Torrie Wilson changed the professional wrestling industry, lemme tell ya. Surefire first ballot hall of famer right there.

The fucking social media in-and-out of kayfabe "shooty" bullshit has GOT to stop. It's just dumb. Not just Ronda but ALL of them.

Here's my question: Is Triple H Vs. Batista going to go on last now at Wrestlemania over the women's match?

"The Samoan Slaughterhouse"

"The Dutch Destroyer" "The Scottish Psychopath" WWE seems to have a bad habit lately of using PLACE - ALLITERATION WORD nicknames for dudes nowadays. It's really hard to not notice.