Ricky Jackson

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

I know trying to convert anyone to the cause is always an uphill battle, but I wouldn't write off Bruno so definitively without giving his matches and feuds a chance. At least try to find the feud with Larry Z and some of his biggest MSG matches vs Graham, Patera, Arion...

No doubt promoting in the Northeast provided Vince Sr with a better chance of success, but he still had to present a product that captured the public's attention. One could argue New York was a difficult place to draw, because the fans were fickle and hard to impress, plus high rent at MSG meant one needed consistent large crowds to keep going. Prior to Vince Sr promoting MSG in 1956 many others had tried and failed to have sustained success for several years. Top promoters like Fred Kohler and Jim Barnett, and stars like Gorgeous George, Lou Thesz, and Verne Gagne couldn't make a serious go of it. Vince Sr (helped by Toots Mondt, longtime wrestling promoter/booker) got on the air in New York with an exciting product and had great success for many, many years, with only a brief period in 59-60 where he lost promoting control. Vince Jr at his peak in the 80s couldn't match Vince Sr's track record at the Garden as far as consistent sellouts and large crowds go. I cant really comment on the pre-Vince Sr Philly and Boston wrestling scene, but they were definitely huge drawing cities under his promotion. Of course there is no way of knowing, and not to discount Rocca, Rogers, Bruno, Pedro, etc, but I think hypothetically Vince Sr would've been just as successful in say, Portland or Amarillo, due to being able to maximize his draws and present the public with an intriguing product

Vince Sr was a great promoter. Also a great booker. (info on his booking isnt easy to come by, but as far as I know he booked all the major programs and matches during his reign) Vince Jr was a great promoter, and for many years booked like his father, with a babyface superman on top and strong main events. At some point the game changed, mostly because of Vince Jr's success, but also because of changes in culture and technology, the death of WCW, etc, and he stopped booking like his father/like a traditional wrestling promoter

It was. Not sure if he was fired for it or not, but he was definitely raked over the coals Edit: he was released about 2 1/2 months later according to Wikipedia

Sad. Totally torpedoed by the pandemic, although no guarantee it was in for the long haul even in an alternate universe. Will be interesting to read the whole story about the last 10 months eventually Edit: I guess removing all videos isnt officially RIP, but it doesn't look good

I haven't seen the 08 match since the day of the PPV. For whatever reason, the Taker/Edge pairing didnt do it for me at the time. I mean, in general, as a feud. It went on for most of the year and I really began to hate it. (I was actually a weekly WWE viewer of BOTH Raw and Smackdown then, which seems like a million years ago) I remember despising the Hell in a Cell they eventually had, and even writing Meltzer an email basically arguing that he overrated it. (Lol, why the fuck did I care so much?) I'm sure this match was fine, but reading this reminded me of my strange hang up with the feud and basically the last time I was a devoted TV viewer of WWE

I think vs Batista is my all-time favorite Taker Mania match