clintthecrippler

This tournament was my first exposure to Volador Jr. Does he always wrestle with the same exact emotionless expression on his face? Every match I watched from the tournament I swear I didn't see his facial expression change once whether he was on offense or defense. He's obviously very athletic but for the most part he looked like he was wrestling in a vacuum. For all his faults, at least Ospreay looks like his actual intent is to pop a crowd when he does his insane moves.

Just another reminder that if you see something awesome on YouTube, download it now if you think it's something you will want to go back to in the future. And if you are posting old school WWF, stay away from the Coliseum Video stuff. That's been the death knell for a few channels over the years. No idea why those are targeted so heavily since WWE ain't doing jack with most of the footage that was on those cassettes.

I feared Landy was flying too close to the sun when he started posting Coliseum Video stuff last week, that seems to be the death knell on all of the fun.

Trinity shattering her knee on that moonsault spot while in bra and panties just gives me "ick" vibes. That would be bad enough in a regular match but being a spot gone bad in a "T&A" match just makes it come off so much worse.

I am so looking forward to this, even if we don't get Bret Hart vs Tom Magee. I am not expecting much in the way of hidden classics since most of these are probably sub 10-minute TV taping dark matches but I am still thinking this is just gonna be a bunch of matches that are plain fun.

Wow. They are really trying to play off a black sky dark nighttime pretape as "right now" when the sun is still shining brightly in San Jose. Hey wrestling fans that remark on the Dungeon of Doom in WCW as being "fun" 20 years removed, this is what that shit felt like at the time.

I loved that Jesse kept that gimmick up long after the Rougeaus had turned heel.

I also think a better movie would be a caper/comedy based on the 1983 NWA convention where Jim Ross allegedly heard promoters that had a feeling that Vince was planning something hostile in 84 jokingly(?) talking about offing Vince McMahon

Act One: Vince breaks up the evil monopoly that the NWA had on wrestling in the rest of the country outside New York and his vision sells out the Silverdome. Act two: the evil federal government comes gunning for Vince and Vince wins, only to have the evil Time Warner organization attempt to put Vince out of business by raiding his talent. Act Three: Vince does what is "best for business" in Montreal and turns the tide back in his favor by placing himself in the center of the action as "Mr McMahon" and creating the Attitude Era. Prologue during end credits: Vince signs the paperwork buying WCW while having an orgy with Trish Stratus, Stacy Kiebler, and Torrie Wilson. "NO Chance In Hell" plays in the background.

Last night while in the arena live I did wonder about how things would have turned out for Severn if the indy landscape in 95 was as friendly to hard-nosed mat wrestling/MMA influence as it is today. Obviously he wouldn't have the charisma to be a phenom like Riddle is now but I could easily see him in a similar position to Timothy Thatcher.

EDIT: double post

I am doing the Janela show on Thursday night and MAYBE the Pancakes and Piledrivers show on Saturday afternoon, as well as Wrestlemania and Raw. Going to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the city and outer areas. As much as I love wrestling I just can't imagine traveling to a city and spending the entire weekend cooped up in armories and ballrooms.

I feel like in real life Josh wouldn't even be THAT clever, he'd probably just go "HIGH FIIIIIIVE" in the Borat voice.

I saw a couple other people thinking the same thing, but the way the main event played out last night, my mind immediately jumped to a scenario where Bayley wins at the next PPV, celebrates that she broke the PPV streak the next night on RAW, Sasha gets resentful that Bayley did what she couldn't do, and turns on Bayley, leading into a triple threat at Wrestlemania.

Isn't that cautionary tale also noted as a reason NJPW has been wary about even allowing individual match content to be licensed to WWE Network and more recent DVD/Blu Ray compilations?

I am normally not too keen on "finisher trade" matches but I ended up loving Omega vs Okada for the simple reason that out of all of the finishers they traded, there was still the subtext that Kenny lost because there was one finusher he kept being unable to hit despite multiple tries - the One Winged Angel. Also I sincerely hope he didn't Rick Rude himself on the platform during that table bump.

With LA getting a new stadium and a Super Bowl already announced, I would be stunned if WWE doesn't try to run Wrestlemania there the year before the Super Bowl so they can indulge their "we drew more people than the Super Bowl" fetish.

I was hoping that since they were trotting out another ECW special that we would finally get the ECW Home Video library up on the Network but alas it appears not meant to be. Also, I don't think ANYONE believes that Disney - or a subsidiary of - or a sketchy nephew of anyone named Disney - was going to even sniff buying ECW.

And a Nakamura hoodie.

None of the actual PPV-broadcasted events are missing, but what might be confusing is that under the ECW PPV's section there are three random ECW Home Video released events from 95 and 96 in there. The first actual broadcasted PPV event was Barely Legal 1997. If you go from there it's complete on the PPV front.

I love watching Roman Reigns and Rusev go at it, but damn I am thinking the ending sequence was a missed opportunity. For a second I talked myself into thinking they were going to have Roman pass out in the chain-assisted Accolade and then the final feud-settling battle would be a Russian Chain Match where Roman finally wins the feud definitively.

They have also been awful at pacing and laying out these 4-5 hour shows in the modern era. Summerslam essentially died for me after AJ and John Cena tore down the house, with TWO hours left in the show afterwards. Even just shuffling that to the final hour if not the main event would have made that show a little better. It was like if Steamboat vs Savage was the 4th match on Wrestlemania III.

If there was a cage match on the next WWE Network special where the only allowed moves were punches and ramming your opponent into the cage, that would probably be my most anticipated match of the year. Tommy and Buzz were bleeding like stuck pigs. Tommy managed to ram a woozy blood loss-stricken Buzz into the cage one more time than his opponent the other way around. And because of that, Tommy won. I have no complaints.

Now this just makes me want to know how many early 80s Omni main events WWE is sitting on in their library. I would kill for the next archive dump being in the "Old School" section with whatever Omni arena footage they have in the vault.

Over the last few years I would poke around EVOLVE and DG USA shows and always walked away not understanding the hype for Johnny Gargano and was always left a little cold. But between the Cruiserweight Classic match against Ciampa and the final stretch of tonight's match, I am all-in on "plucky underdog" Johnny Gargano.