JNLister
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Posts posted by JNLister
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In the US at least, the cover date of a monthly magazine doesn't usually refer to when it comes out, or the period it's meant to cover. Instead it's the last date newsstands are meant to take any remaining copies off the shelves.
The idea is that it makes life simpler for staff because they can just take off anything that's hit its cover date without having to worry about checking its publication schedule.
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Morrison was season 3. I think Dunn is here and there throughout all the seasons.
Yeah, I realize he's season 3, but there are a couple of guys who auditioned for earlier seasons, didn't get in, tried again in later seasons and got in then. I thought maybe Morrison was one of them.
He is. He's in the first/tryout episode of series 2 and somebody -- I think Dunn -- dismisses him with words to the effect of calling him a spot monkey.
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PS3 for watching. Never had any significant problem past day two, though WrestleMania and a couple of the NXT specials are the only things I've watched live.
I've used Chrome on PC, an iPhone and Android devices, but only for checking the schedule or browsing the archives to see if they have something.
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Actually, the original post on the Observer site doesn't say they can't create a separate feed, it says:
So unless WWE creates a separate U.K. feed without Main Event, they won't be able to put the show on the network, unless they strike a deal with Sky.Odd story either way, as if Sky have a UK exclusive on Main Event, how come they don't also have an exclusive on Superstars, and indeed on the PPVs?
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Yep, the Nitros are back up now with the new thumbnails plus the milestone/chapter points. So the official Twitter is not just wrong, but actually making the product look worse than it really is.
Either that or "new updated programming " was just a ridiculously badly worded way of saying they were adding the thumbnails.
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I wouldn't be at all shocked if that line in the Observer turns out to be either badly worded or a misprint and he meant to say he wouldn't have done it. Even leaving aside the ethics issue, I seriously doubt he would have been available to fly to Japan, particularly on the weekend of one of the biggest UFC shows of the year.
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The "taking stuff down is to make room for new stuff" comes directly from the official Ask wwenetwork Twitter. Which means it's completely unreliable.
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Somebody has already somehow downloaded 40 TNT episodes from the network and uploaded them to a torrent site.
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I may be misremembering but I believe it wasn't so much foreign talent as much as US guys working in Japan, with WWF saying "hey, you watch all the tapes, how's so and so looking these days?"
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Having already done Monday Night War episodes on the NWO and DX, they're now doing one on the Kliq. For fuck's sake.
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New YouTube channel with a lot of stuff updated in the past few weeks. Not sure if any of it is "new": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYRqU2G_RxGJDWBBVRaS-Ww?app=desktop
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May just be coincidence but the Prime Time is the first one with Monsoon and Heenan as hosts.
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There's now a link at the bottom of the page to select English language. You select it once and it's permanently set for your account. It's still Google translations, but does some extra stuff like the text on icons that Chrome doesn't do.
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Saw one theory that that episode was originally rated PG-14 so they skipped airing it on the live stream (BLAME CANADA!) and as a result it's not been automatically added to the VOD library.
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Which show has the wrong date? And what should it be?
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Trivia note: Mohammed Butt has worked alongside Johnny Kidd in their day job (car spraying) for 30+ years and it was Kidd who suggested Butt get into wrestling.
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I've found the recently launched TVersity ScreenServer (separate to the main Tversity Media Server software) a great solution. It streams the content of your computer screen to any DNLA-compatible device on your network, which is my case is the PS3.
It's not quite perfect as you get some very brief sound glitches/dropouts, but the picture is fine and the video stream uninterrupted. For best results set transcoding to "never" (NJPW World works fine without it) and make sure you've got nothing else running on your PC except your browser.
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Ring of Honor has had the equivalent of the network for a couple of years now. It's $7.99 a month (or less for longer-term signups), which gets you access to about 70 full archive shows from 2002-13, the full run of TV on HD Net, the new weekly TV shows on the Monday after they air (they then go free on the site on the Thursday) plus discounts on merchandise and early access to ticket sales.
The main difference is you don't get any access to the current iPPVs like you do with NJPW and WWE.
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Closes I came is when I stopped watching WWF after Hogan came back and stole the belt at WrestleMania IX.
That said, I did start watching again the following weekend after I heard Mr Fuji had filed a protest as I wanted to find out Jack Tunney's ruling.
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The 24 inch monitor would be for my PC for work (I'm a home-based writer), not as a TV replacement. I work on my desktop PC in my office. I do casual web browsing on my tablet or phone. I watch YouTube, Netflix, WWE Network and, erm, content available as video files, on a PS3 hooked up to my TV.
Literally the only thing I can't do with my current setup is watch Flash-based video streaming on my big screen TV, which is pretty much New Japan World and ICW On Demand. That doesn't justify getting a laptop and/or replacing my TV.
Getting a 24 inch monitor (and one with a higher resolution and an HDMI connection) for the office would be a nice and affordable way to make watching that streaming stuff a little more pleasurable, as well as having benefits for work (I already have a two monitor setup for productivity.)
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Despite being both tech-savvy and a tech news writer, I don't have (or need) a laptop and my desktop PC is on a different floor to my TV. Even if I did have a laptop, my TV (bought in 2006) doesn't have HDMI ports. And even if it did, there's not really a convenient place to put my laptop that would be easy to access (particularly as I usually skip through parts of shows) and hook up both HDMI and power cables.
There's enough streaming stuff I can do on my PS3 that it's not worth buying either a new laptop or new TV just for specific streaming websites. I am strongly considering getting a 24" monitor though.
Regarding translation, best bet with Chrome is to install the official Google Translate extension. It's two clicks to translate any page, but works everytime unlike the built-in browser translation which can be flaky.
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Something that I've not seen mentioned anywhere is that, at least from how I've heard recaps of the interview, Punk technically refused to take a urine test on the day he quit. While the circumstances might make that perfectly understandable in reality, I'm surprised WWE didn't have that as a major gotcha in legally arguing they could suspend/fire him and/or dock pay and royalties.
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Bert Royal vs. Steve Taylor (10/22/75)It’s easy to forget how long Royal had been around. He was already in his mid-40s here and had been wrestling on television for twenty years. Perhaps that’s why Dale Martin was struggling so badly in the early 70s. As much as I love this 70s stuff, and as decent a bout as this was, there were guys on top who appeared in the first television broadcast in 1955. That’s an extraordinarily long time to push the same wrestlers.
Funnily enough, the TV Times (think TV Guide) made exactly that point in a piece published that year:
For 20 years, wrestling has held an unrivalled place on television. With a hallowed 50 minute slot at the climax of Saturday's World Of Sport, and often a late night slot during the week, it has been one of ITV's hardy perennials, as durable and popular as Coronation Street. But the grapplers' grip on the big audience has slackened lately. Statistics show that, on average, 8,500,000 people watched the Saturday afternoon wrestling in November 1970, but only 7,500,000 tuned in last November. What happened to the missing million? This viewing figure is still high and healthy, but there is no doubt, especially as figures for the rest of World Of Sport have been steadily rising, that wrestling has lost a considerable number of TV fans. And, although most non-televised wrestling events are well attended, the public are getting choosy about the live wrestling bouts they go to see. At Waltham Town Hall in East London, for instance, the popular once-a-fortnight wrestling bill has now been dropped to make way for occasional big-name specials to sharpen the public's appetite for the sport. Figures like these are bound to be pounced upon by the critics who have always been eager to force wrestling into submission. Max Crabtree, managing director of Joint Promotions, who put on TV wrestling, says: "We've always been the whipping boy; people love to knock us. All I can say is that houses have been excellent at seaside promotions during the summer and we're confident the winter is going to be as good. Wrestling has grass roots support from working people - and it's going to survive, like bingo." Bearing out what Crabtree says, wrestling in the halls around the country is far from going under. There are between 60 and 80 promotions during the week, from the North of Scotland to the South Coast, each with a minimum of four matches, and costing fans from £1 for a ringside seat to 50p standing. At some of the most popular venues, especially in the Midlands and North, there is still standing room only.But nobody will contest that this number of promotions is down on the boom days of the Sixties, although it's still enough to keep the wrestlers busy. Of the 50 professional grapplers in the business, many wrestled three or four times a week.
People who only watch wrestling on television may be surprised to learn that there are so many contests every week, because many of the televised bouts look as is there is only a handful of spectators packed around the ring. Joint Promotions' reply to this is that they put on special evenings for the TV companies which aren't always convenient nights for fans.
On screen, these meetings come across with a lack of guts; there is a distinct feeling, not that a crows has gathered to watch two men fight, but that two men have gathered for the benefit of TV.
Another reason for the dropping viewing figures, however, could be that with a greater choice of leisure activity available, large numbers of spectators are now taking part in sport themselves instead of watching. A detailed look at the wrestling viewing figures backs this up. Over the past five years, the proportion of men in an audience watching wrestling has from 47 to 42 per cent, with the figures for women and children rising slightly.
But the most likely reason for the general fall in viewers lies with the wrestling game itself. With the same squad of big names cropping up week after week, wrestling may have become too repetitious and predictable, lacking in that all-important element of surprise. Names like McManus, Pallo, Logan, Kellett and Kwango, great wrestlers who have provided hours of thrills, amy have been around just a little too long.
McManus and Co. were unknown in the early Fifties, except to the small audiences who followed professional wrestling then. But when television moved in with a promotion at West Ham Baths in November, 1955 - with a young and sprightly Bert Royal on the bill - a massive viewing audience latched on to the developing stars.
But wrestlers, unlike any others involved in a physical contact sport, have a long lifespan in the ring. They can wrestle, like Mick McManus, for more than 25 years, even if their style becomes less obviously energetic as the years go by.
The trouble is, they've all grown old together, and, unless some star names begin to emerge shortly, wrestling is going to be desperately short of the very commodity which keeps the sport alive - the men in the ring who deliver the goods, combining their fighting skills with colour and character.
"It takes a long time for a wrestler to develop," points out Mick McManus. "In boxing, you can knock a bloke out and you're in the headlines. Wrestlers have to win bouts and win the public consistently. There are a number of very capable blokes coming along now, but we'll have to be patient, let them develop properly."
McManus, like most of the elder statesmen of wrestling, won't say just how old he is, but the record books say that he, like Pallo, is getting on for 50, and Logan, Kwango, Kellett and Royal aren't far behind. McManus, with whom the wrestling public has had a fierce love-hate relationship for a quarter of a century, admits that his days are numbered.
"Inevitably, I've got to pack up sometime," he says. "It could be next year or the year after, but as long as I'm feeling fit and giving a good account of myself, I'll keep wrestling."
Apart from finding new stars to replace McManus and Co., how else can wrestling help itself. Kent Walton, a name synonymous with the sport, who has commentated at ringside ever since the first transmission in 1955, thinks the wrestling public have become tired of the endless gimmicks.
"In a sense it's TV's fault," says Walton. We used to screen two good freestyle bouts with a bit of gimmickry. Now it's the other way round: one freestyle bout and two full of comedy and tricks. Whenever the fans talk to me about they enjoyed, they always remember a pure wrestling bout, one full of skill, not laughs. I think they've had enough of masked men and wrestlers wearing crowns."
Walton recalls the days, a few years ago, when shops, particularly in the North, used to complain that at 10 to four on Saturdays, everybody would desert the city centres and go home to watch the wrestling. Those were the days of great wrestlers for whom the occasional wearing of a leotard was the nearest they'd get to a gimmick. Wrestlers like Jumping Jim Hussey, Roy "Bull" Davis, George Kidd, Tony Mancelli and Billy Robinson.
"Today," says Walton, "I believe some of the real wrestling fans are getting bored by all these gimmicks and are saying, well, let's go shopping, or let's go for a walk, A return to the true, fast, skilled wrestling would bring those fringe people back."
There are gimmicks and gimmicks, of course, and some new ideas have been of benefit to the sport. Ricki Starr, the ballet dancing wrestler, was a brilliant wrestler whose dainty act was a complement to his skill. And tag wrestling, an idea imported from America, gave the game another dimension when it was first screened in September, 1963, with a match between the famous Royal Brothers and Ivan Penzecoff partnering Alan Colbeck. Ironically, tag wrestling may have been the thin end of the gimmick wedge, because, in the past few years, the sport has become top heavy with "characters" and rather light on true fighters.
What wrestling needs is young, skilful men whose ability in the ring - like Muhammed Ali in boxing - is itself entertainment. These wrestlers are around..
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In what's likely not a coincidence, none of the new ECW uploads (other than the Heyman interview) are scheduled for the live stream.
Dave Meltzer stuff
in Megathread archive
Posted
Nash's booking spell stopped people watching. Russo's spell stopped the remaining viewers spending money on the product.