clintthecrippler

The idea of Vince Russo becoming the Teddy Hart of "pay for content" wrestling sites seems incredibly appropriate to me. Though I admit, the idea of Teddy Hart and Vince Russo talking crazy person talk to each other might be worth a buck-forty-nine just to hear them misinterpret the other once each starts talking about how there should be more pussy in wrestling.

Oh man, thanks for sharing this with the rest of the class. It's almost like Kamala was working more of a "foreign heel dickhead" gimmick as opposed to an "African savage" gimmick. All of the above, along with trading off boxing stances with El Dandy and splashing dudes after they had already been pinned by his teammates, I definitely want to see more of THIS Kamala. Especially if any footage exists of him interacting with "Black Magic" Norman Smiley after seeing Smiley's promo at the beginning of this clip! EDIT: Okay, found this match also. If you've ever wanted to see Kamala mockingly hold the ropes open for his opponent to enter from the outside and do what can be best described as a "Home Alone" sell (you'll know it when you see it), go to https://youtu.be/JKhzaU2iHOE now! Great ending spot too!

Local video store in my hometown carrying the first Hulkamania tape and my seven year old self seeingand becoming fascinated with the bloodiest match I had ever seen up to that point, the Minneapolis Massacre match against Dr. D David Shultz. Ended up begging my parents to rent that tape over and over again, and then two years later visiting family in another town and on a trip to the video store there having my mind blown finding out there was a Hulkamania 2 tape, which at the time was a bigger deal to me than knowing there was a Wrestlemania 2.

Oh God, if thats true they really didnt learn anything from the "Vince Russo accidentally CC's PWInsider" debacle at all then.

Replace "Battlarts-style" with lucha and you basically have what Lucha Underground is doing right now. And it's frigging awesome.

Yeah, I think with Striker it was very much a combination of both his insider/smart fan persona wearing thin and him just having no chemistry with Cole and Lawler at all. Him making references to past wrestlers, and other backgrounds that wrestlers had felt fine, but when he cranked it up too much, going too insider and started shouting things like "I'm marking out!" it was cringeworthy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my favorite commentary moment this year is during the NJPW PPV. Striker starts giving backstory on Kenny Omega and eventually talks about how Omega "SWERVED the fans and the entire locker room of New Japan Pro Wrestling." JR's response to that: "He LIED to them! I don't know what 'swerved' means. No one's ever 'swerved' me. Kenny Omega LIED!" Second favorite moment: Striker trying to get JR to shout "LARIATOOO!" and JR completely no-selling it like he was Art Donovan at King of the Ring 94.

Good deal. What thread exactly? I love to read others perspective on Memphis. Would love to see it. I don't remember where I made the statement about them being the biggest ass kickers of "ladies men" tag teams. I did talk them up in their thread in the tag teams section of the GWE project. Maybe not the exact thread, but I know this discussion definitely came up during the DVDVR '80s Memphis set. I what triggered it most was that fancam cage match where the Fabulous Ones just destroy the hell out of the Sheepherders. Two of the most bloodthirsty wrestlers on the planet in the Sheepherders just getting decimated and left for dead by the local "ladies men". Didn't a referee get thrown over the top of the cage when he tried to stop the beating too?

Seconding the love for Murdoch vs Afa. Just a masterpiece in how stooge-selling schtick can make for some awesome pro wrestling. 20-minute draws in 80s WWF were generally pretty dreadful, but this may be the forefront of the best and most entertaining of the bunch.

I seriously dont understand how a match where a new wrestler gets to show off some signature moves, gets put over on commentary by JBL, and only doesnt pull off his finisher because of outside interference is a "squash match."

Never knew about Killer Tim Brooks doing a fake Mulligan gimmick, but I was aware of him doing "Buster Brody," Bruiser Brody's "brother" helping him in battles against Abdullah The Butcher circa 1986 in Montreal.

Woke up this morning to check the website of the newspaper I work at and there's an article about the horn samples in John Cena's entrance theme: http://www.laweekly.com/music/the-unlikely-origin-of-wwe-star-john-cenas-entrance-music-5442988

The other thing to remember with Prime Time is that it was always meant as supplemental watching to Superstars and Challenge. Their USA programming didn't become the #1 focus until the syndicated market started dying down in the early '90s and cable had really cemented itself from coast to coast. The two weekend syndicated shows were always going to be the main spot to witness angles go down and watch guys get built up through the jobber matches and Saturday Night's Main Event was always going to be the only place on TV to really watch Hogan wrestle, whereas Prime Time for the first few years was basically repurposing footage from the MSG, Spectrum, and Boston Garden regional cable shows they were already doing and catching people up on angles that launched over the previous weekend's syndicated shows.

Edit: stupid phone glitching out on mobile version of the site. This was what I meant to post: This is probably what WWE's reaction to those on the Internet decrying reupping the contracts of those three higher ups: BTW, isn't Barrios the person they were trying to make the scapegoat for the Network not meeting initial subscriber expectations?

The whole "When The Man Comes Around" deal legit has me wondering if he is coming to Mania as BikerTaker. Perhaps do a deal where Brock Lesnar killed "The Dead Man" but "The MAN" still has one or two more fights in him.

Dammit, now I am imagining an alternate reality where Bruiser and Crusher arrive in 1986 WWF as a "proto Bushwhackers" sort of tag team, and it sounds kind of awesome. Bulldogs and Harts/Valentine-Beefcake tearing it up as the main event tag team program while undercards and Midwest shows are populated with Bruiser and Crusher schticking it up against Sheik/Volkoff, Bundy/Studd, and The Moondogs.

A high-quality version of the 1st theme that Christian had after turning on Edge that was basically a ripoff of Bohemian Rhapsody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVQ1wKpx7lg

Voted for R-Truth, but seeing the subject title without reading the actual content and the first thing that came to mind was that couple of months on RAW in 2002 where Tommy Dreamer was doing a "guy that eats weird things" gimmick. Though from your actual post you were looking for feedback on those sorts of gimmicks that turned out successful.

Great wrestling I think for the most part can get by, but whoever said so-so wrestling can be greatly enhanced by good commentary is dead-on. I have been slowly working my way through the complete run on WWF Superstars 87. Most matches are jobber squashes and super predictable, but I have no desire to fast forward because Vince and Jesse were so great themselves at keeping me enthralled in the current storylines of the time.

I cant imagine him refusing to job for anyone. Hell, the standard Memphis formula was "new guy comes in, Lawler loses the Southern title to the new guy, new guy beats one or two other challengers, then Lawler overcomes the odds in the rematch."

I could have sworn Meltzer said the NXT show in Ohio next month already sold out. I am guessing its in a small ballroom though since its in conjunction with the Arnold Classic weightlifting weekend.

Digging through the Black History Month interviews and promos. It is obvious that the Ernie Ladd Georgia promo is ripped from Youtube, but now I am obsessed with what else is in the master tape for that Thunderbolt Patterson promo from Central States 1977. That one looked like it came from an actual master tape. I am also going nuts seeing all of the old filmed footage they show on the early TNT episodes. If at some point they had a Dory Funk Jr-Red Bastien Texas Death Match from Amarillo for a TNT episode 30 years ago and all the late 60s/early 70s Philadelphia Arena film they used for that and some of the early Coliseum Video tapes, I am going crazy wondering what other film is in the vault and probably just sitting untouched due to cost-benefit of converting all the old film.

I think it was just an attempt at a general rebranding with the new look for the TV shows. During the same time their other syndicated show was transitioned from WWF All-Star Wrestling to WWF Wrestling Challenge. I wouldnt be surprised also if it was part of their attempt to further distinguish themselves in TV affiliates' eyes as "just another wrestling show" as lots of other promotions were using phrases like "Championship Wrestling" (Crockett, AWA, World Class, etc) and "All-Star Wrestling" (AWA, other regional feds) at the time for their TV shows and live event branding.

Just skimming around the Black History Month stuff they uploaded to figure out prioritizing of later viewings, a few interesting curiosities: 1. I love the promo at the start of the studio episode of Worldwide Wrestling where Steamboat, Wahoo, and Jack Brisco surprise Jimmy Valiant with a new boombox after Jos LeDuc wrecked his old one the week before. Nice little feel-good moment to start the show. 2. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the GWF episode is definitely after their initial promising run to start the fed died down. The opening segment is a clip from last week where a match ended after a team was disqualified for spraying their opponents with a Super Soaker. Though I would love if all GWF got randomly uploaded at some point just for that first six months where Sean Waltman is just an awesome snotty brat as The Lightning Kid. 3. REALLY Random: the episode of WWF Championship Wrestling from 1983 doesn't have an actual Championship Wrestling intro, but the intro for "Global Wrestling" (repackaged Championship Wrestling From Florida) with clips of Dusty and Flair. I'm wondering if the source tape was maybe one they sent to a station where they took over the timeslot with WWF programming and the station sent them the "Global Wrestling" intro to transition the branding? I found that one really interesting.

Also, every time Mauro says "PUURR-oresu" feels like the smart mark version of Ed Ferrera's "Oklahoma" character shouting "PINATA! PINATA! PINATA!"

For the most part I am finding it refreshing to watch an English language wrestling show with a more "sports" style presentation, but 100 percent agree that Mauro needs to tone it down a little bit. He is excellent during closing stretches, but even the majority of real sports announcers aren't using "LOUD NOISES!"voices from start to finish. Its really jarring when dudes are doing feeling out spots at the beginning of a match.