Mando

I'll take a look at that Dungeon of Doom article. I saw Beefcake at a low rent indy show at a skating rink a couple years back and he had 8x10 glossy prints of all of his various gimmicks so a kid could choose to get a Zodiac, Booty Man, The Butcher, or Disciple press shot autographed. LOL. I asked him how sore is back was having to carry David Samartino at WrestleMania but I don't think he got the joke.

This was his second consecutive match to end like that (his match at Bound for Glory against Roode also ended after he KO'd himself). He's booked against Austin Aries at the next tapings and I can only imagine how many convulsions he'll do after taking Aries' brainbuster.

New Jack and Terri Runnels. Now there's true love. In his book referee Jim Korderas discusses having been married for 20+ years even though he traveled all that time with the WWE.

Anyone hear of any updated info on a timeline for Mysterio to return? I'd love to see him on Team Yes! against the Wyatt Family/Shield at Survivor Series.

This may be the best and funniest line of the entire project to date.

No but I'd love to! I know he gets dinged a bit historically for his in-ring stuff but his personality, charisma, mic skills, etc. are just so off the chart. One of the best.

Offhand some strong stuff I've seen: The SAT v. Divine Storm/Brian XL - CZW 06/08/01 Masato Yoshino/Pac v. Naruki Doi/Ricochet - Dragon Gate USA "United: Philly" Michigan Militia vs. Grits N Gravy - Ladder Match - IWA Mid-South February Fury 2/06/09 (Some great bumps w/ Sami Callihan & Michael Elgin)

Fave Five as of right now: #1 - "Rowdy" Roddy Piper #2 - "Loose Canon" Brian Pillman #3 - Too Cold Scorpio #4 - Low Ki #5 - Viscera I'll be at the iMPACT! tapings on 11/7 and thought about making an "I'm A Viscera Guy" sign.

I got inspired yesterday morning and wrote a short essay titled I Love Wrestling. One of my very earliest memories at age 5 was of Sika and Hogan cutting opposing promos on SNME. As fans we probably all go through hot and cold periods but lately my lifelong love and admiration for the business has really deepened. Been watching a ton of footage. Listen to Dylan and Dave's podcasts on my commutes, etc.

Anyone see any of his run in FIP a few years back?

Got a ticket for the iMPACT! taping coming up in Cincinnati. Mainly because they're running the Cincinnati Gardens. A historic building that never gets used for wrestling anymore since WWE has long since moved on to bigger buildings in the area. It's where I saw one of my first live events back around '89-'90 an NWA show inc. Great Muta, the Samoan Swat Team, and local boy Brian Pillman vs. Michael P.S. Hayes.

I did a write-up. I score on a ten-point system. Overall not a bad watch but nothing special save for the Rhodes' tag which was a lot of fun. WWE Battleground '13 1. Battleground Kickoff pre-show match: Dolph Ziggler vs. Damien Sandow - 3 2. World Heavyweight Championship Battleground Hardcore Rules match: Alberto Del Rio © vs. Rob Van Dam - 6 3. Santino Marella and The Great Khali vs. The Real Americans (Antonio Cesaro and Jack Swagger) - 4 4. Intercontinental Championship Match: Curtis Axel © vs. R-Truth - 3 5. Divas Championship Match: AJ Lee © vs. Brie Bella - 4 6. Cody Rhodes and Goldust vs. The Shield (Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins) - 7 7. Bray Wyatt vs. Kofi Kingston - 4 8. CM Punk vs. Ryback - 3 9. WWE Championship Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton - 6 Battleground is WWE's newest PPV show replacing Over the Limit which had a short run of three years, all featuring John Cena main events (surely you didn't forget that barnburner versus John Laurinaitis from 2012, right?). I have my own qualms and reservations, not so much in regard to its build, just the overall theme and package. Didn't seem like they put a lot of thought into the design or leitmotif. And I'm a broken record here but it also bums me out they create this new, identity-less PPV when they own the rights to Fall Brawl (and hence the most sorely missed match in wrestling War Games). Pre-show match was rather unlike your last dentist's visit: quick and painless. Opener was good, physical of course, you've got RVD, plus it was hardcore rules, so lots of ladders, chairs, etc. came into play. Plenty of nasty bumps to cringe at. Tag match was a late addition but earned an extra point for the fantastic finish as Antonio got the massive Khali up in the Giant Swing. Minor quibble but it seems weird to cover a guy after that to secure a pin and would seem cooler if the opponent actually tapped mid-swing. Axel's title defense fell fairly flat. He's been racking up some wins over lower-card talent but the crowd's not buying into him as a star yet. Women's match was pretty good. Some nice sequences they'd cleared practiced with mentor Finlay but most of it came off smoothly. Finish was flat (a reoccurring theme -- more on that later) as Lee's bodyguard Tamina attacked Brie's twin sister causing a distraction which led to a deflating roll-up finish. Tag match next had plenty of TV build leading up to it and while "7" may be just a touch high I needed to award it some recognition for the hot finish. They laid out a good sequence at the end, including Dusty busting out a Bionic Elbow on Dean Ambrose's skull, Goldust flying into the frame like Sky Lynx wiping out Reigns, then Cody hit the Cross Rhodes to a humungous crowd pop to get the win and as a result secure the Rhodes' jobs. Bray Wyatt and Koji had what felt largely like a SmackDown! snack break match where you're trying to get your sandwich and corn chips plated before the commercial break ends and rush back into the living room only to find that on. It had a few slick moments and wasn't bad. Wyatt's need some opposition to have more dramatic potential. Right now the acts is entering tedium. And am I the only one troubled by the parallels between Bray and Waylon Mercy? Right down to the white slacks and bad Hawaiian shirts. Punk match was pretty insipid. Kind of clunky and dull. For a feud with a lot of personal heat you'd think Punk would want to annihilate Ryback but you wouldn't guess that by what transpired. Really didn't like the finish. Ref got distracted after catching Paul Heyman at ringside with a kendo stick and Punk capitalized on the divertissement and did a weak low-blow for the win. After the match Punk just leaned against the ropes looking gassed. Main event went 25 min. and was uniformly solid. A bit more measured and less energetic than the earlier entries in their series. It had a few nice moments, nothing too surprising though, but went off the rails at the end before it could clear the gap and become truly compelling. Big Show came out, KO'd Daniel, had remorse, KO'd a 2nd referee who'd came out, then KO'd an upset Orton, and so on. Match ended in a no-contest essentially rendering this a commercial for the free Raw show the following night.

Outside of keeping up with weekly wrestling/MMA TV I've been working through a stack of discs watching a match or two off one then rotating to the next. Just finished this: Pondo & Rotten vs. Team Underground Man Man Pondo and Ian Rotten vs. Team Underground (Eric Priest and Chandlure McClure) - IWA-MS Hurt 3/24/06 - 2 Pondo has a physique that looks like he eats strictly fast food and sticks of butter. Backstory is that Ian and Pondo are usually rivals but due to an Axl Rotten "no show" the previous event (something about him being a missing person) they teamed together and won tag gold. Their opponents look like two guys that work at the local Planet Fitness but with their generic black trunks and bland personalities make about as a big a splash as the turd Scott Hall dropped in Sunny's pomegranate martini. Ian gets on the microphone pre-match and pleads to his opponents that they don't hit him in the head. So stupid. Why make a gentlemen's agreement with Ian fu*king Rotten? The guy that looks like every scumbag meth head hiding from the cold behind a Baja Fresh up I-75. And it makes Ian, the co. owner, look like an even bigger ego stroker, that he can compete while hurt yet simultaneously weak for asking for sympathy. Match itself is lousy shit. Some tepid exchanging of wristlocks and armbars early. Nobody looks particularly comfortable feigning faux-combat. Then they brawl in the crowd with some weak shots in the steel bleachers. Rotten also comes off even worse as he doesn't sell or register any of the forearms or other offense these guys are hitting him with. He's consistently got his return shot on standby doing weak body jabs or nut taps instead of acknowledging their attacks. The match that preceded this has a very young Ricochet with bad fluffy Prince hair busting out some top-shelf aerobatics that puts this to shame by a wide margin. Finish comes when Pondo gets disqualified for using his trademark stop sign. This was after like 6 min. of "work". I would say they didn't do enough to earn a paycheck that night but let's be honest Ian wasn't paying anybody cash after this, he may have returned Hardcore Craig's porn he borrowed, but no payouts.

I'm always two months behind on ROH TV. Was watching an episode the other day and was surprised to see Chikara mainstays 3.0 on a show. Reminded me I still haven't worked through the 2012 King of Trios in its entirety so am about to pop one of its six discs in. 3.0 and Akuma vs. The Batiri - Chikara King of Trios 2012 - Night One - 5 Batiri pre-match promo more frightening than any horror movie I've seen in ages. Akuma is as wanted as a case of herpes the week of school photos. Batiri get the toilet paper treatment like Jimmy Rave circa '06. Massive "3.0" chant -- haven't heard that since outside the offices of AOL in '95. Akuma is no replacement for El Generico but when life hands you lymons make Sprite, am I right? Some nice double-teams early in the opening stanza by 3.0. Kobald doing an Earthquake-style sitdown splash doesn't have the same visual pop considering he's maybe 140lbs. Kodama did a sloppy slingshot 'rana. Hard to buy Akuma's kick strength when we just saw Meiko Satomura in the opener dropping axe kicks on people's necks. Obariyon did this unreal leaping DDT off the top. Really digging Obariyon's knee-based offense, his reverse Go 2 Sleep where his knee blasted Akuma in the back of the head was a real highlight. Shane Matthews gets dropped faster than new sitcom The Goldbergs will from ABC's line-up. What's your dream trio? Offhand mine would be Pillman, 2 Cold Scorpio, and 2 Tuff Tony. Kobald wins with the "Demon's Toilet" a move, pun intended, that was truly shitty.

After Vince bought WCW a lot of their undercard guys especially the NBT got shipped to then training grounds HWA outside of Cincinnati. They had weekly shows on Tue. nights and we got to see a lot of guys come through like David Taylor, Meng, Kaz Hayashi, Brian Adams, etc. I worked at a mall at the time that was right near the apartments most of the wrestlers were staying at so ran into them frequently. I worked at Suncoast Video and recall Shannon Moore asking me for horror film recomendations and OG Ekimo (Umaga) asking me if we carried the WWE tape where Rikishi went off the top of the Hell in the Cell. Somewhere I still have a picture I got taken in the food court with Mike Sanders and Jindrak. Lance Cade (future WWF talent now deceased) was around a lot too. Always found it humorous saw Jimmy Wang Yang once eating food court Chinese and carrying a Sex in the City box-set he'd just purchased.

I've got a 1 & 3 year old. Usually around 11PM after everyone else is asleep I'll watch whatever new is on the DVR w/ WWE, TNA, and MMA (UFC, Bellator, WSoF, etc.) and I'm usually 8-9 weeks behind on ROH. That's also when I fit in watching movies (I keep an ongoing list of that here -- was aiming for 300 but consciously slowing down). I work half the week and am home with the babies the other half. When I'm with them in the mornings when they're eating breakfast, watching TV, etc. I have 1-2 hr. where I can use the laptop pretty carefree so I'll sometimes squeeze in some wrestling then too.

I wrote up my thoughts on it a few min. ago here. Pretty tame show with a lot of filler like recaps to stretch the run-time. Aces and 8's had one of the better matches of the show so that's a good barometer of quality (or in this case lack thereof).

That was my list, Loss. Glad you got some use out of it. We're working on a WCW WorldWide '97 project currently.

I was never into or crafty enough to make custom action figures but I do recall having an ECW Candido figure lying around and thinking it looked bland so I broke out the red, white, and black paint and made Funk's trademark stripped pants on the Candido toy. Also, great psychology by the horse.

Any chance you're going to watch/review last week's TNA One Night Only: Hardcore Justice 2 show? It's got a small hint of ECW flavor but it really just a hodgepodge of different gimmick matches with no rhyme or reason.

1. Public Enemy 2. Men On A Mission 3. Owen Hart & Yokozuna 4. Damián 666 & Ciclope 5. Paul London & Brian Kendrick

Going to read the article now. Only take on it I'd ever heard was reading Snuka's book earlier this year and the whole thing kind of baffled me and I wondered how I'd never heard word of it previously.

Here's video of their match turning into a shoot in 2010.

Jim Duggan painted him out to be a real scumbag in his book. For what it's worth I loved his Big Josh stuff. Him versus Steve Austin from WCW Main Event 9/29/91 was a TV MotYC.

A few years back when some friends and I watched a ton of Nitro and put together a Top 200 list and video discussion series that match actually got some decent support and ended up ranked #114 overall with its highest vote being #17 (and I had it at #96). Terrificly fun "match". The bump into the sea is cemented into my memory.