Ricky Jackson

Yeah, I was definitely hooked by the Wizard preview and couldn't wait until the series started. I loved Kingdom Come as well and poured over the Wizard issue that explained the Easter eggs. Late 90s was a fun time, coming after the worst of the violent characters, hot artists, cover gimmicks, and speculation bubble, things were scaled back and story became important again. I have real fond memories of collecting then. I read a lot of cool stuff for the first time, hunting through the back issue bins for 80s runs every week. Between new stuff, old stuff and trades I spent an absolute ridiculous amount of $ on comics back then

Oh yeah, this was the review I've been waiting for since day one of this mission. Hilarious stuff here. I like to think nobody hates Shane more than me, so this was one of the best things I've read in ages. Fuck Shane. Fuck his inexplicable drawing power. Fuck his absolutely horrible looking work. Fuck this shitty ass Mania and all the equally shitty ass bloated terrible Mania's that followed this one, totally killing whatever interest I had left in main roster WWE. Yeah, fuck modern WWE too and its million hours of unwatchable dreck. Needed to get that off my chest. Felt good

I loved Earth X in real time. I've never read it again. I could see it being a slog, since it was like 14 total issues, and reading it all in a short period is different than spacing it out monthly one issue at a time. I was really taken by the epic scope of it all, and at the time I totally bought the "origin of everything" conclusion and how they tied the ending to the original Human Torch, the beginning of the MU. Busiek and Perez's Avengers from the late 90s may be worth a look OJ, even if just to contrast it with Busiek's Astro City as two different approaches to super hero comics. That was another series I loved at the time. Looks great if nothing else

So, the Brock match was a "draw"?

In retrospect, that sounds about right. Other than NXT, most of mid-2014 (beginning with Rollins turning on the Shield) to present has been a slow slide to the worst of WCW/TNA levels imo

It's actually conveniently organized at this very board Pre-30s https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/forum/389-pre-1930s/ 1930-47 https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/forum/1025-1930-1947/

DP

Clearly, the best medicine to get over your disappointment is to review Taker's turgid 2014-2018 stretch at Mania

I think he meant you could, if one were inclined to go through the extra steps to acquire footage, get everything you needed and more than what the Network provides

Was the explosion a botch? Was it supposed to look better, or did they actually think it was going to get over looking like that?

Yeah, I'm not buying the "it could've been shot better/it looked better live" arguments. I don't think you could turn the lame pyro and puff of smoke into anything satisfying

As someone who used to rely on the Network for classic footage to review on podcasts, I feel for a lot of US based folks in the classic wrestling podcast game. This must be a pain in the ass

In the moment, the finish/post-match of Austin vs Rock at Mania 17 pretty much made me forget that not only a great match just happened but also a great card

From what I've seen, David was a natural heel and would've excelled in the role. I've only seen Kerry and Kevin in a brief clip as heels, but I think the consensus was they weren't very convincing

Oh dear

Going to be interesting to see if there are any W's left. The rest of the decade is basically a write off, but I guess last year was a classic for what it was (didnt watch). El-P shines best when the wrestling stinks, so this should be fun

I dont doubt AEW would be able to do something interesting with him, but Christian just being in the Rumble kinda dulls any surprise or "wow, he hasn't wrestled in years, cool!" factor

Nothing I'm aware of unfortunately. Maybe some silent clips, but I dont think so. Next to nothing of early 70s Montreal available The MSG tag is here

Crazy he was so young when he took over the territory, became NWA president, promoted the first Starrcade, etc. And by the time he was my age (43) he had sold to Turner and was basically done in pro wrestling, as anybody relevant at least. RIP

This match from 4/29/74 MSG is what I was thinking about. There's footage of it out there Chief Jay Strongbow & Andre the Giant defeated Otto Von Heller & Don Leo Jonathan in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0 Their feud in Montreal was legendary, prior to Andre coming to New York

There was also Ernie Ladd and, briefly, Don Leo Jonathan (who I think they didn't even book a singles match with Andre, only tags). Hogan as a heel was basically treated like a giant. Blackjack Mulligan was pretty huge. Still, Andre was much more physically imposing

I guess because NXT lost so many weeks in total, with only a couple blips of competitiveness, you could argue that was worse, but I recall v2 being a totally embarrassing one sided bloodbath. Did it even last 2 months?

Officially still alive https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/nwa-returning-back-attack-ppv-new-power-episodes-334661

Here's a sampler to bookmark for the future https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV6RCTo_Cd0Apflf4zr70wIl6t2rKmVT8

I fantasy directed an HBO style 50s-70s McMahon family wrestling show in my head years ago. Basically like Mad Men morphing into Boogie Nights. In the right hands it would be freaking awesome. IIRC, Norman Lear once had a show about 70s New York wrestling in some stage of development about 10-12 years ago but nothing ever came of it