clintthecrippler

No one else found this funny? Come onwell played Johnny, well played! I think most people who were aware of DC Drake were trying to remember if HE was still alive, and were too lazy to Google it. DC Drake is still alive BTW. I cant remember, was it DC Drake or Johnny Hotbody that Winters won a Falls Count Anywhere match against by picking him up in a bodyslam and pinning his shoulders against a wall? Thats a finish I dont think has been attempted since.

Does anyone know where "patient zero" for this Marc Mero motivational video going viral is? When it went viral at first earlier in the week I just kind of brushed it off, but today I saw it get posted on Facebook by my aunt and an older cousin, and I know damn well those two haven't heard of any other wrestlers besides Hulk Hogan. Just curious how this thing spread beyond minor curiosity to being posted by soccer moms all over social media. It's a shame that Marc Mero is on the outs with WWE, both parties could be served well to capitalize by WWE handing over the "Be A Star" campaign to Mero, making him the face of it, and running with it.

Ah, thanks for the info. Did the Garvin/Orton faction have their own outlaw group or did they team up with Poffo's ICW after they split off from the Fullers? I knew about the crazy grandstand challenges and revealing wrestlers' real names that ICW did to the Memphis crew, I never realized a similar situation went down in Knokxville too.

Can you go into more detail on how it "exposed the business"? Also, which split are you talking about? My timelines are getting a little jumbled, not sure if you are talking about Jarrett/Gulas split or something else.

Judging by the lack of commentary, I'm guessing this is from the "After RAW Goes Off The Air" DVD set they put out this year of dark matches and other wacky stuff they did. The only people aware of it before that DVD came out would have been the people in the arena that night.

I loved how Striker talked about how Kenny Omega "swerved" the New Japan fans and locker room, and then J.R. crankily responded "I've never been swerved, I don't know what 'swerved' means. Kenny Omega LIED!"

Wasnt part of the heat in Kitao/Tenta that Kitao was pissy about jobbing to Tenta the night before at the higher profile Tokyo Dome show? Maybe he had been asked to job again and said "fuck this!"

Now I am just wondering what wacky footage exists on these supposed Christmas Party reels. Would love for those to get posted as Quick Hits on the WWE Network.

Dammit, now I'm picturing Mark Henry as the guy who gets the nod from Inoki to be Big Van Vader. Not that what we didn't end up with wasn't awesome, but picturing Mark Henry in the Vader gimmick against Fujinami and Muta in NJPW, and then Sting, Dustin, and Cactus Jack in WCW still could have been fun.

Viewing the Saturday Night Main Event from right before Wrestlemania III on WWE Network, two random observations: 1. It's stunning how much the opening segment, with brief 20-second promos from each wrestler highlighted on the show got me way more excited to watch this than the "last week on RAW/followed by 20-minute opening promo" gets me for RAW. I definitely think it would be worth experimenting with doing something like that at the start of RAW every now and then - or even an episode where they have one of these at the start of every hour. It just seems like the more I watch '80s WWF that little touches that were meant to draw the casual viewer back then and get them caught up on storylines quickly could be easily more effective even in 2014 than the current formula. 2. I know the touring cycles were different back then, but it also seems nuts in hindsight that they ran a major Saturday Night's Main Event taping in Detroit a mere five weeks before they were back in the area for Wrestlemania III. It's a good testament to how hot the WWF product was back then that they drew 20,000 people for this taping and then fairly immediately after filled the Silverdome.

Thanks everybody for all the Titanes info and links. Would still love to know what "traditional" wrestling promoters thought, especially the L.A. promotion that this was opposite on television at the same time, but I also recognize that info like that may be lost to the sands of time or wasn't really shared beyond a private conversation here and there.

Weren't the localized promos back in the day usually sent on a separate tape from the main show? I seem to remember reading that it was the job of the station to insert the correct promos when it came to that part of the show. If that is correct, it would seem that the local station may have plugged the wrong set of promos in.

I always got a kick out of the fact that they were very obviously lip syncing to If You Only Knew, but The Rougeau Brothers werent at the Slammys so they had to cut to a generic wide shot during the one line a Rougeau Brother has.

Did anyone outside of Argentina know about Titanes En El Ring before the Youtube era? Just curious if it was circulating much in tape trading circles or if its something Meltzer would have been made aware of and wrote about once or twice in passing. WWF was panned critically for how much of a "cartoon" their product was comparatively compared to most NWA promotions in the 80s. I can imagine if someone showed a tape of this to Verne Gagne in 1983 he would have lost his shit.

If my memory is correct, the PJ Walker win over IRS was to further the storyline of IRS/Dibiase making fun of Razor Ramon losing to the 123 Kid. Razor's distraction in the match caused IRS to lose and proved "it could happen to you too." I literally cannot think of any answer that wouldn't pale in comparison to Brock/Taker and Koloff/Sammartino.

The 87 Slammys are worth it alone for the giant smile Rick Rude has on his face during his routine. The man never looked happier than that moment. Also for Harley Race trying way too hard during a backstage comedy brawl with Duggan that was almost a prototype of the 24/7 rules hardcore matches that would come a decade later.

Dang, now that just has me bummed about the "what could have been" of a probably spectacular 1984 matchup of Kerry Von Erich vs. Nick Bockwinkel. A tag of Kerry and Kevin vs. Bockwinkel and Saito would have been pretty aces too.

Joke Answer: Maunakea Mossman. I read his name in All Japan results for two years in PWI. Then I finally got my hands on a tape and was disappointed that it was just some dude and not a guy doing a "Moss Man" gimmick. Real answer: Tazz in WWE. To this day I am still a big fan of his ECW run and still ponder what if the Radicalz never came over from WCW immediately. It seemed like once a year after 2001 they would tease something badass from him in a promo, the fans would get amped, and the someone like Stone Cold would squash him in under two minutes. Though long-term money and health wise the commentary gig probably ended up being a better outcome for him.

I would also say that a bullet may have gotten dodged by WWE by Droz getting paralyzed on a taped program. Wasnt that a few months after the Owen Hart fall also? EDIT: finally got a moment to look up, this was on a Smackdown taping five months after the Owen Hart incident.

Wasnt the deal with the proposed WCW TV show that a taping had been scheduled but then Spike TV didnt want a WCW-branded show? And that the two hour Saturday night slot that went to the Excess recap/interview/call in show later that summer was where WWE were planning to put a WCW branded show? If all of that was indeed correct, I do wonder if Vince would have given more credibility to the WCW crew if ratings for a separately branded TV show would have done well in early showings.

My favorite wrestler appearance on Politically Incorrect is still Macho Man Randy Savage's appearance on there. Bill Maher asked the "is it fake?" question. Macho's response: "When I win, it's for real...when I lose, I'm taking a dive!" with a giant grin on his face.

Honestly, after the 1-2 punch of the Benoit and Misawa tragedies, I became way more appreciative of what I (lovingly) refer to as "bullshit" in my professional wrestling. Less headdrops, table stunts, balcony dives, and more phantom foreign objects, Dusty juking and jiving for five minutes before locking up with Tully, and whatever the fuck you call what Sid does. That's not to say I don't like me a good spotfest every now and then still. I still love watching old FMW from the glory years of Onita and Hayabusa, and watching Great Sasuke taking modern deathmatch wrestling to an ultra-absurdist level with the "Great Space War" series. I love Chikara almost as much as I do classic Memphis. And I am a solid defender of modern WWE, perhaps to a fault. And my mouth continues to drop in awe of the amazing athleticism on display in Ricochet matches. But I am also much more appreciative of watching Mr. Wrestling II and Les Thornton work headlocks to a 15-minute draw on WWF World Championship Wrestling on TBS than I may have been when I first saw it years ago on a random tape, as well as matches where someone may take three bumps the entire match, but does a shitload of stooging and riling up the crowd to the point where all three of those bumps really mean something. But the absolute biggest turnaround I have probably made in my modern wrestling viewing has been David Crockett on '80s JCP commentary. I used to be of the general smark opinion of the late '90s/early '00s that he was terrible because he wasn't great at calling actual moves and action. But the last five years or so I have made a complete turnaround on him. I now love that he is basically the voice of "the average Crockett wrestling fan if he got a commentary gig." His enthusiasm for the majority of matches and angles more than makes up for lack of calling holds as far as I'm concerned. I think I turned the corner on David Crockett with: 1. repeated viewings of Match 7 of the Nikita-Magnum series where the final call is David Crockett talking about how "the Nightmare has come true." 2. A "Dusty and Friends" vs Horsemen six-man tag on the Dusty Rhodes DVD set where the first 30 seconds is Dusty and Flair taunting each other while the crowd goes wild and the first moment of commentary is simply David Crockett giddily saying "Isn't this GREAT Tony!" in reference to the match Dusty and Ric being in the ring together. I apologize for that becoming a bit of a ramble. EDIT: and for the record since the original poster mentioned it, I am 35 going on 36. Grew up as a kid watching WWF, Crockett NWA, and post-86 AWA and World Class. Watched WWF/WCW/GWF on ESPN in early '90s but kept up with Smoky Mountain and ECW through the Apter mags 92-96. Was in college during the tape trading/Internet explosion/Monday Night Wars-era of the late 90s and got huge into FMW, New Japan Juniors and Michinoku Pro for a while, and a huge booster of ROH/CZW/IWA Mid-South/Dragon Gate from 02-08. Modern viewing habits are RAW every week, Smackdown sometimes, PWG, and sometimes NJPW along with DVDVR '80s sets I am catching up on - though I keep meaning to get back onboard with Chikara since the relaunch.

It looked like one of the Uso's was bleeding from his hand, I think there's been a couple instances of refs putting the gloves on after hardway blood.

Yeah, thats another side effect of there being only one major company left that I believe Sean (or maybe even RF himself) has commented on. In 20 years theres a strong chance there will be no convention or shoot circuit left, because the only wrestlers remaining will all be WWE castoffs and for the most part will only have the same stories about being in WWE that everyone else has.

What are smark communities in Japan and Mexico like? Are there message boards in the Japanese wrestling community like DVDVR that get into heated discussions over the merits of Kota Ibushi's flippiness vs. Tenryu's grumpiness? Or complaining about Joe Doering's push to the Triple Crown? Do they also think it's bullshit that Meltzer is calling this year's G1 "the greatest wrestling tournament ever"? Same with Mexico. Is there a smark community excited about the potential of Alberto Del Rio returning to AAA? Just curious if anyone has any knowledge on that and what the vibe towards current product is like compared to America, some of the similar and different views they may have towards "da bizness" as us.