ButchReedMark

He was also supposedly really high on Joe Hennig. Touche. I just want to be optimistic for a change about them and their futures while the going is good.

Wasn't HHH really high on Ambrose or something?

I really liked Atherton. He wasn't going to score a mountain of runs, but his knock against South Africa to save a draw is one of the finest cricketing performances I'd ever seen. I was more concerned with cloggers in the England team like Hollioake. Never rated Adam Hollioake.

Well, Sir Garfield Sobers was a fine cricketer, but I don't think he compares to the majesty which was The Waltons, quite frankly. John Boy had great punches. And I'm having far too much fun doing this. That's bad.

Being Welsh I never rated Jef Prodyn, too typical of English 10 man style forward orientated rugby. Nothing like Quincy M.E. Klugman could really play well.

Graeme Hick is my favourite cricketer. Fantastic player from 1983 playing for Zimbabwe but when he qualified for England he was seen as the new Len Hutton and was on the front of the Radio Times. Came out to a standing ovation, and it was too much pressure for him. Also, when something went wrong he'd always be blamed. He'd be the first to be dropped. There was another two like him. Mark Ramprakash and John Crawley. Fantastic natural talents, but the coaching set up didn't think they had the mettle for it so after a bad innings they'd get dropped.

He loved the whole Seven thing, which really knocked me for six. Also really isn't a fan of pretty much anyone in the WWE not called Regal (who he loves, and with their chemistry I can't blame him), Cody, Sandow, Cena or people he used to work with. But on WCW's death throes, when I was 15 in 2000 I thought Russo's booking was the coolest shit ever. "Wow, there's something happening, wow there's a women in not much, SHIT A RUN IN! There's another woman! Fuck, a run in! INSIDER REFERENCE!" If everyone watching wrestling was a teenager with a stiffy and small attention span Russo would be the greatest booker of all time.

I was talking to him for 8 hours the other Sunday and he seemed cool enough. Made light of some of those issues in fact. Maybe it's because he's in his 40s now, I dunno.

No, admittedly it wasn't. I don't even remember a 1994 tour which is odd. Touche. Bit of a tone in that text written though. I don't come here to argue the toss.

WCW's TV in the UK was far better in 1993 than 1991 as well though, so I imagine that'd also be a factor. It was on Network TV other than a couple of regions, same old channel and time and day as World of Sport in fact. In 1991 it was far more fractured and always about 2am, if it was on that week in the same timeslot. Not saying Davey wasn't a draw, but WCW's better TV would certainly contribute to the higher attendance figures for what was seen as an inferior brand over here. I think we should get another handle on Davey as a UK draw, it's worth looking at how he drew on a smaller scale when he did small UK shows after leaving WCW or whenever it was. Give us a clue Lister buddy?

Anyone fancy a chat about Rugby?

Show's been legit great for the past few years now, IMHO. Definitely a WWE MVP.

I'm not clever enough to do the reviews and things, but I always thought he was great. Fantastic sleazy heel, and I always thought he could really go and watching him a lot recently I don't think he's talked about enough. A fantastic worker.

That documenary really turned me off him. I hated his style in ROH anyway with throwing Braden Walker amounts of clotheslines, but he acted like he was owed a living, like he was owed being a big drawing main eventer. And he didn't want to work for it. No sympathy.

Dean vs Jericho didn't get an awesome payoff at the end though. It just went on and on and on after the Ciclope incident, finally ending with Jericho beating Malenko on a Dusty (if I remember correctly, might have just been a normal DQ though) in a "FINAL MATCH EVER!!!!" on an episode of Nitro.

I like how the Daily Mail's wrestling photo is of Anti-Immigrant Jack Swagger putting down the Hispanic. Even in wrestling, they've got their ways.

I think it's great. It's looking like the tune's going to make the charts over here. WWE, the company who invented being a ten years behind pop culture and hot memes, may have actually started one here. Watch it go down the pan by the end of Raw.

First I've heard. In fact I'm very sceptical of that. It was WCW Worldwide, not Nitro. And it was from August or so of 1999. And it was terrible. They'd pretend it was live, even though it was just highlights of Nitro and Thunder and so pretend this through the commentary.

FSM is far better than PS now. PS is just a total joke. I'm not even sure Fin Martin even watches wrestling anymore. He just spends the whole mag sniping at Cena and Henry and going on about Christian should be the top guy and stuff. It's like someone gave Scott Keith a printing press. FSM's improved loads under Brian Elliot though.

He's got one of those rangy physiques as well which normally points to a hardman.

Oh, Wrexham aren't superior at all. In the 5th tier of the English league pyramid in fact. I just get annoyed when people only talk about heartless, dull, killing the game from the top down, top flight Pel Droed like it's all that exists. It's like when people act like England didn't even have a league system until Sky jumped in for 1992-93.

All I've seen is discussion about boring, faceless, soulless, passionless, fairweather top flight shite. C'mon Wrexham FC. Real Soccer for Real Men.

Just wondering if it's worth merging the UK TV talk from the Wrestlemania GOAT thread into here?

Yeah, I'm in Llangollen up by Wrexham, so I got HTV, Granada and Central making keeping up on the tapes my dad would record for me even harder to keep up with.

Holy shit, that's just absolutely surreal. I love the way it's presented as just "wrestling" regardless of the promotion. I'm guessing at some stage TBS must have bought that ITV slot. I don't want to derail this thread too much with this random talk of British TV schedules. Do you remember when they started showing Heat on Channel 4 though? Think Channel 4 even showed a couple of PPVs free-to-air. I really, really doubt TBS paid for ITV to show hacked to bits WCW Pro and Worldwide tapes after American Gladiators under the name of Superstars of Wrestling (although that is a very WCW style fuck up) at sparrows fart on a Tuesday morning in varying regions. Simon Garfield says in The Wrestling that TV paid for the tapes. I believe Sky was paying £500 or something a WWF tape according to the book. It was cheap tapes to fill time at about 3am on the fledgling 24 hour service, just like Prisoner: Cell Block H or America's Top Ten with Casey Casem. Almost Everyone in the UK was showing wrestling at that time, as it was just super cheap to buy tapes in. Even a satellite station aimed at women like Lifestyle was showing WCCW tapes from the David Von Erich days in 1990 or so. I could swear Reslo very very rarely showed some WCW, Germany and Japan on it when I was a babe in arms as well, although that's probably just be several Welsh child memories melding into one. Yeah, Channel 4 showed 8 PPVs, including InVasion as it happened. But Channel 4 already decided they were cancelling WWF 3 weeks into the contract when they showed Royal Rumble 2000 live and Mae Young got those prosthetic tits out.