clintthecrippler

That is one heck of an afterlife for the Larry Z. AWA Remco mold. Obvious Plant is a company that specializes in spoofs of real-life action figures, I believe this is their first foray into using something wrestling-related as a launch point.

I don't know about being a lead actress on a major level, but there's a lot of actresses that have still made decent money and had plenty of acting roles being the lady version of being "Denzel's friend". I could see her also falling into a good niche as "lead tough lady" in straight-to-Blu Ray and straight-to-VOD action movies

I would also wager though that for many years the wrestling industry dodged multiple media bullets, as the mainstream news media's obsession with "is it fake?" and that more often than not being the slant whenever not covered by someone that "got it" (like George Michael in Baltimore), as long as that was the question the media was obsessed with, that would stop them from digging into the "real" meat that could have potentially destroyed individual territories and the industry in general (lack of pensions and medical protections, political wheelings and dealings promoters made with local government to keep their territories protected, tales of drugs and sex that would have been pretty sordid had anyone bothered to poke around even at a cursory level, etc.).

And Cain's release just makes the end of that first Smackdown on FOX even more of a letdown. Kofi losing to Lesnar in a mildly competitive six-minute squash would have been one thing, but the way everything played out afterwards just reinforced how much they did Kofi wrong that night. The biggest mainstream audience ratings in a few years and massive promotion from FOX heading into the big night, and Kofi was made to look like a giant geek losing in ten seconds, and then was kicked to the curb so they could end the show with their big signing of Cain Velasquez coming to be front-and-center at the end of the big night. And then Cain loses in three minutes one month later and is never seen again. I was in the crowd that night. The crowd was admittedly pumped for Lesnar to slaughter Kofi, but having that go down the way they did just deflated the fuck out of that arena, and you could tell a lot of folks in the live audience that night didn't know or give a fuck who Cain Velasquez was. That was very much not a crowd that left the building with "smiles on faces" that evening.

The first 90 minutes of this weeks Between The Sheets podcast covers the week of David Von Erich's death and it is one of the most depressing audio listens ever. I do think that if anyone ever greenlit an AMC or HBO series about wrestling, the tale of the Von Erichs would make for incredible television, but I have no idea how you dont make it so depressing that people feel just beat down by life at the end of every episode.

Cornette ripping on Omega and the Young Bucks has somehow become even more overused than the YB's Superkicks that he criticizes. Highspots put a bunch of the Kayfabe Commentaries library up on their streaming service. That includes Cornette's Back to the Territories series. I roll my eyes at Cornette's rants on modern wrestling but love to hear him discuss history and anything pre-1995, but he's at the point where he HAS to spam his barbs in during that stuff now. He was doing a Back to the Territories with Bill Eadie on Georgia Championship Wrestling and just had to squeeze in a shot at the Young Bucks there. Like seriously, the Young Bucks have nothing to do with early 80s GCW but Cornette couldn't go 90 minutes without shoving that in.

If it's like last year, the really high-profile Collective shows like Spring Break and Bloodsport will be pay-per-event in FITE TV, with other stuff like AIW, Effy's Brunch, ICW, etc. should be live on IWTV. The WrestleCon stuff all ended up on Highspots on a next-day VOD basis last year, and I expect the same this year. The Evolve/WWN stuff will stream live on WWN for the 14 wrestling bloggers and 3 actual fans that have WWN subs

Given the crowd reaction increasing for Hangman Page these last few weeks since they slightly tweaked this character...if the path was initially to end with Page turning heel on Omega, they are fools if they follow through with that in the immediate future. If anything, they would probably be better off turning Omega if they absolutely have to. It would give an edge back to Omega and they could call back to the feelings of doubt they played up during the early goings of AEW, and I think even workrate fans could be potentially swayed to boo Omega if they really committed to it. I think his aloof promo style wouldn't need much tweaking to adapt to being an American wrestling heel. And seriously, who would WANT to boo the guy that celebrates a title win by crowd-surfing and drinking a beer while doing it?

And that is why to me Gorilla and Jesse on the big PPV shows together and on the pre-86 Superstars/Challenge All-Star Wrestling and Prime Time Wrestling will remain my sentimental favorite team. To a child that was seven years old at the time he became a fan, they just had a likeable aura that said "hey kid, come watch some wrestling with us". And of course a close second, Gorilla and Bobby were like my drunk uncles jawing away at each other over a poker game. Even as a kid I could tell that underneath all the bickering and jabs, they werent as happy working with anyone else as they were with each other.

FWIW, Lagana should probably tell Dave Marquez to lay low and stop commenting on this also.

At least the guys vanity searching just block you and move on with their day. I tagged the HeymanHustle account in a posting of an old wrestling magazine pic of Paul E. and I ended up with a couple hundred likes and retweets and notifications were still going off 12 hours later. At first I was like, huh, this is really popular for some reason, but then I started poking into the individual accounts and almost all of them were bot/ghost accounts with a couple hundred followers/following each, with 90 percent of the page content being the same Heyman-related retweets as the others. And of course it stopped the minute I posted about how you should never tag Heyman in any posts because, BOTS.

The original poster may have been thinking of some shows that Don Muraco promoted in Australia and New Zealand in 1990/1991. Technically, they werent WWF-produced shows, but they loaned some undercard talent to Muraco and I believe he was allowed to use the WWF logo in promo materials leading into the show. On one of the tours - this one shortly after Wrestlemania VI - the main event every night was The Bushwhackers vs The Bolsheviks, and Muraco vs Haku was a co-main. Norman Smiley vs Bob Orton Jr was also on the undercard and I am really curious how that match would have looked in 1990.

I agree for the most part, but one of those guys that disappears for a couple of weeks shouldnt be the guy that was positioned to have what was on the surface a "star-making performance" against the World Champion/mainstream name. EDIT: and I wasnt saying he had to have a match the very next week. But even a short pre-tape promo where he indicates that he isnt going to go away, or a short promo reel with J.R. putting over how much of a daredevil he is and that Jericho needed outside help to finally put him away could have done a lot of good.

To me this seemed like this was the most "WCW Nitro" that AEW has been yet, from the Cody limousine angle, to Shanna vs Shida essentially being the "throw them out there and let them work up the crowd" like the Lucha six-man tags were in WCW, to the Kenny/Bucks match being self-indulgent to the point of being their version of a 10-minute Hollywood Hogan promo during the Nitro era. I am enjoying AEW overall and I thought the first hour was great, but I still cant help but see a lot of missed opportunities that shouldnt be missed. I was actually disappointed in Moxley's first live prime-time promo essentially being "say a bunch of stuff", especially since his opponent for the PPV was literally out in the ring one segment before. I had been loving the slow burn for Orange Cassidy so far and think it's a shame they wasted his first actual in-ring match on the Rick & Morty promo. And its been two full episodes now since Darby hung with Jericho in the main event and there hasnt been a single peep about him on the main show, not even a token 30-second sizzle reel. That's the type of thing that WWE would get savaged for - and rightfully so.

Is there any update on Shil-Ka, the other luchador that ALSO got taken away on a stretcher on Sunday night after a dive gone wrong on a different show?

My new holy grail is the Minneapolis-specific local promos from WWF TV April 1985. Jesse Ventura challenged Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title on a big house show in Minneapolis, and had Prince's real-life celebrity bodyguard as a guest cornerman in his match. Jesse would always brag about his rock star friends on commentary and promos and it always came off as bullshit, but I can imagine Jesse's promos leading into a match where he actually does have a rock star bodyguard in his corner as being delightfully insufferable.

Is there anyone that is more of a "why did people like him and how did he get so close to being a main eventer?" in hindsight than Ken Anderson/Mr. Kennedy? I recall liking him in WWE, but I'll be damned if I can recall one memorable match, promo or "moment" that has stood the test of time. Maybe him getting brained with a chair by The Undertaker or giving his finisher to Hornswoggle off the ladder at Money in the Bank? The few times I revisited some WWE from that era my response to him though is always "why did we like that guy?" I do remember him having oddball crazy in-ring chemistry with Kurt Angle in TNA and recall that being a good blood feud, but other than that, his TNA run seemed like a big pile of nothing in real time and an even bigger pile of nothing a few years removed.

I loved the overall flow, format, and energy of the show. And there is nothing wrong with aiming for "retro", but that interview set straight up looked like it was from an SNL parody of a 70s game show to the point that I kept waiting for Bill Hader to walk in as the game show host. And while it was very nice to not hear "this is awesome" chants for an entire hour of televised wrestling, I couldn't help but also get the feeling a lot of the crowd reactions was coached by a floor director encouraging them to boo the heels and cheer the faces. I hope I am 100% wrong on that, but I got a "WCW Worldwide at Disney/MGM" vibe from the crowd responses after a while. It was still a very fun watch. And I am all in on checking this out every week, especially so if they ever start steering Eddie Kingston towards an NWA World Title shot.

In all honesty, if the combined rating between the two shows ends up being a 1.5 on Wednesday night, I think that will be something worth celebrating, especially if it ends up being each show in the 700,000-800,000 range. I wouldn't be surprised if the first two weeks of NXT ratings get siphoned off a little bit, but I also think there's a chance that we could be surprised and find out there's 500.000 people that want to watch wrestling but am waiting for something else besides WWE to get some real prime-time television.

Not listed in the above breakdown but I would put WWF Timeline 1994 with Sean Waltman in the Highly Recommended grouping. Lots of good stories and it's from around the time when Waltman was coming out of the fog so he is alert and engaged the entire time.

I got to watch Prime Time and All-American on USA in the 80s through local cable, and I got Wrestling Challenge through an over the air station, but I managed to grow up in a market that somehow didnt have anyone airing Superstars. But back then WWF was so good at making sure the major angles from Superstars were at least covered or recapped on their other shows that I never felt like I missed anything. And in more recent years as I acquired TV footage from the 80s, I appreciate how brilliant of a move it really was to only really have the name of the specific show you are watching mentioned in the intro and outro, with the in-match commentary generically referring to "stay tuned for more action from The World Wrestling Federation" to make it easier and cleaner to repurpose footage for other programs and home videos. My understanding with the Maple Leaf Gardens shows is that they never aired start-to-finish on any providers, but Canadian broadcasting laws required a specific percentage of "produced in Canada" content so matches would be inserted into the weekly TV and replace one of the regular squash matches up that way, as well as provided for All-American and Prime Time in the U.S., and to pad out Coliseum Video releases as well. I am also fascinated with some of the short-lived experiments from this era, such as: -those random Atlantic City PRISM broadcasts from 1979, Cappetta expanded on these a little more on Twitter this week. -Wrestling at the Chase from when they took over St. Louis, like does anyone know how much longer the local St. Louis TV branding after they stopped running St. Louis-specific TV tapings at the Chase and/or The Kiel? -the couple random Montreal tapings in 84 where it looks like the original plan for Maple Leaf Wrestling was to be a strictly Canadian show until they decided to double it up as All-Star in the U.S. -the TBS run where it was basically the same type of content as All-American, arena matches and second-round squashes but with Freddie Miller doing wrap-arounds from the Techwood studios and that random Brutus Beefcake in the strip club thing that apparently aired nowhere else, until that final month where they did the matches in the TBS studio. -Houston Wrestling after Boesch briefly switched promoter affliations to the WWF, so the weekly 90-minute show became a mix of WWF matches from Sam Houston Coliseum, second-round squashes, AND UWF-era Houston footage featuring guys that were now in WWF. -the one Winnipeg Arena show that was apparently taped after WWF took over the town from the AWA but only one match between the Killer Bees and Hart Foundation aired in full on TSN.

This wasnt exactly a set of shows where GCW just came over, ran the two shows using only their talent and then went back home. Considering that they were using a FREEDOMS ring and talent as part of the GCW shows, I would be shocked if there wasnt some help from those guys, at least in terms of securing venues and other non-travel logistics. Most of the GCW guys also stuck around and worked on the BJW show at Korakuen and are working a Jun Kasai Produce Show tonight so it's possible there was a little help from those folks with in-country transportation/lodging/talent pay as well. And if you book far enough in advance, flights from U.S. to Tokyo can be reasonable depending on where you fly out of, a cursory Google search for Philadelphia to Tokyo flights in October are running around $600 each, so even with an estimate of 15 flights including staff, they are still coming in under $10k on total flight costs. While 1st Ring is a fairly small venue, both nights were filled to max capacity and it sounded like merch sales were strong. Japan is also still heavily into DVD's so if GCW brought a bunch to sell they probably unloaded a few of those as well. And if Twitter activity is any indicator, it sounds like GCW does fairly well on FITE.TV sales, as they still sell their streaming on a per event basis. And again, because its Japan, there may have been a sponsor to help defray costs. Its definitely an undertaking but not exactly impossible.

They definitely seem to be reorganizing how some of the previously posted Hidden Gem stuff is classified. I tried using the search function and some things came up, some things didnt come up, though it's possible I wasnt searching for the exactly worded title, as the new search function seems incredibly unforgiving. For example, i searched for "Crockett Cup" and it was listed under the heading "Tournaments", but searching for the Tazmaniac dark match from a couple weeks back, "AWA Team Challenge Series", and "Mid-South Wrestlefest" was listed under an "Originals" header. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that having a dedicated section for this is just an oversight that will be corrected shortly, or given more clarity.

At the very least, the post-match promo is an all-time great Terry Funk moment to me, and a personal all-time Top 10 ECW moments to me.

Is this the first time pro-shot footage of the Sabu/Benoit aftermath with 2 Cold Scorpio and others has been shown anywhere? I definitely dont recall seeing that ever.