NintendoLogic

Japanese Wikipedia does as well. If I'm reading it right, Yoshinosato gave him the ring name Akihisa Takachiho from the name of his (Mera's) hometown. He's actually from the nearby town of Nobeoka, but Takachiho is more famous due to its prominence in Japanese mythology.

How can anyone not be enthralled when the matches have such compelling builds like "Riddle steals Sheamus' hat" and "Asuka and Rhea are tag team partners who hate each other?"

Obviously not every vegan is an anti-vax kook, but they do seem to be unusually susceptible to pseudoscientific woo. Even Daniel Bryan, who's as level-headed as anyone in wrestling, sees a naturopathic doctor.

There are heel draws, but they tend to be situational and have a shorter shelf life. Take Superstar Graham, for example. A big part of why his title reign was so successful is that the WWWF had loads of over and protected babyfaces who had never received title shots while Bruno and Pedro were champions.

The graphic for Bart Gunn mentions that he's the guy who knocked out Steve Williams. As much as a disaster as the Brawl for All was, it gave Bart a new lease on life in Japan.

If there's we know for sure, it's that women who work dangerously stiff get nowhere in WWE.

I'm sure of it. In fact, The American Dream was originally a heel gimmick. The idea was that he was mocking the working-class fans in Florida by flaunting his wealth.

Odd couple tag teams were generally injury replacements. The 1993 RWTL began with Ted DiBiase as Hansen's partner, but Baba took Ted's place after the latter suffered the neck injury that ended his career. By the same token, Taue partnered with Hansen in the 1999 RWTL because his regular partner Kawada was injured. Jumbo and Yatsu were paired together because they had both wrestled in the Olympics (in fact, their team was called the Olympians).

I wouldn't point to 80s JCP as an example of factions done right. They mainly existed as vehicles for Dusty to drain the heat of other babyfaces by attaching himself to them like a lamprey or having them turn on him. I personally don't care for factions that aren't created for the purpose of achieving a specific goal like "destroy WCW" or "restore strong style."

It wouldn't surprise me if wrestlers in WWE and AEW were specifically instructed to stand down if some idiot tries to get in their face. These days, laying a finger on someone outside the ring is a lawsuit waiting to happen. That reminds me of something I've always wondered about. Are there any actual documented incidences of Bill Watts firing someone for losing a bar fight?

Aries in a nutshell:

I've always kind of wondered about how stadium shows worked out financially in the days before stadiums selling out for wrestling was a thing. Even if you draw 20,000 or more fans, the overhead from running in a 70,000 seat stadium has to be astronomical compared to a 15,000 seat arena.

There's no use in denying it. Dynamite's ratings have been in a free fall since Revolution. The 1-2 punch of hyping up a Christian signing and the exploding ring that wasn't may have done even more damage than we realized. Overpromising and underdelivering to that degree is just about the worst thing you can do when you're trying to present yourself as the anti-WWE.

Seemingly every Brazilian professional athlete is an outspoken Bolsonaro supporter, so I wouldn't be too hopeful.

They moved the event to a stadium (it was originally scheduled to be held at the Omni) so they would be able to claim they outdrew Mania. It didn't work out that way, of course.

She's in between DBS Jr. and JBL. I'm sorry, what?

I thought Joe Higuchi was the interpreter/babysitter for the foreign wrestlers.

It was actually done at the behest of the cable industry. Hogan/Savage was on track to shatter business records, so Vince tried to pull a power play and demand a bigger cut of PPV revenue. In response, the cable companies asked Turner to run a PPV to go head-to-head with Mania. Less than a quarter of the homes wired for PPV had the ability to order both shows, and most of the others were in Turner's corner. Vince eventually backed down, but it was too far along by that point to simply call the show off, so it became a free Clash.

The story I'd love more details on is how Baba managed to get Steve Williams allowed back in the country after he got busted for pot at the airport. There had to have been more to it than simply calling in a favor.

If Kip goes to WWE with Penelope, he'll end up in a million humiliating cuck angles designed to break them up. Can't have midcarders punching above their weight.

You're all forgetting about the millions of lapsed Attitude Era fans who are sure to tune in.

The pandemic has obviously put a damper on things, but both NOAH and Stardom just outdrew them at Budokan. If that isn't cause for alarm, I don't know what is. I'm kind of worried that the whole deal with Ospreay and Priestley was a harbinger of more wild angles to try to heat things up.

I think it's generally accepted that WWE has so many talented workers and produces so much content that some greatness is bound to break through. Being sentenced to watch every hour of WWE programming every week would be a fate worse than death, but it's quite tolerable if you cherry-pick.

There's nothing wrong with the new belt per se, but the original design was perfect and didn't need to be changed. It's the New Coke of belts. As for New Japan's struggles at the gate, I hate to say it, but could Ibushi be the problem? It could be a classic case of people being more into a guy chasing the championship than actually being champion. Then again, they've done a piss-poor job of setting up compelling challengers.

I don't know if you can pin that one on Scott. My understanding is that Turner execs had decreed that Sting was the new rising star and were scared to death that he might get booed on live TV, which is why they booked the angle where his team got locked in the dressing room. And the relationship had already become strained under Crockett due to him pulling Flair from several advertised tours.