fishbaugh

This was pretty damn fun, as I found the non-stop puns on commentary to be infectious. Could have made a better "backfield in motion" joke though.

I always thought that MVP was a direct TO ripoff. Too bad the steroids issue makes it a non-starter, but a Barry Bonds-like wrestler would be golden. In the real world, Lance Armstrong's career is over -- in wrestling he would just be beginning his hottest run ever! I remember watching the last Winter Olympics and NBC had these video packages for 2 male figure skaters -- one was handsome and was training in Hollywood or whatever. He had this huge and well-lit training facility, and every question they asked him made him out to be the ultimate smarmy fuck. There other guy was shown in these dark, underground training facilities throwing around a dirty medicine ball with like 7 foot ceilings. All the questions they asked him made him out to be the most hard-scrabble, underdog babyface you've ever seen. It was such a pro wrestling build that I mentioned it to my wife. She responded with "I doubt they were copying wrestling" and I remembered that not everyone reads that kind of shit into everything they watch!

The OGC sub-group Heltah Skeltah have an entire album (Magnum Force) where they riff on the NWO and drop wrestling lines constantly. It is a shitty album but worth a listen for that alone. Redman has a lyric on the Blackout album that goes "One arm slam you like Nikolai Volkoff" Andre on the first Outkast album "southernplayalisticadillacmuzik" has the line "then I drop 'bows like Dusty Rhodes" But my favorite has always been the Gza with the Ken Patera line!

This was such a weird time for me watching Nitro as I had stopped watching wrestling entirely from like late-93 - late-96, but had a guy I worked with bring me back into watching after hearing about the Misterio lawn dart angle. After that, I watched every week with him up until September of 1999 when I moved away. So when the Russo era started, and I thought it was terrible, it took me a while to figure out if that was because it was actually terrible or because I wasn't watching with my homies any more. Even at 19 I thought this shit was terrible, but I stuck around until the final Nitro before swearing off wrestling for another 2+ years!

Growing up, Stephan Edberg (his serve-and-volley style was so reckless it caused a ref to legit die!), Brett Butler (turned heel on my beloved San Francisco Giants by switching sides and joining the LA Dodgers during his prime), and John Stockton (known for his cheating ways when the refs weren't looking) got more heat from me than any heels pro wrestling was offering. Marty McSorely would have made a great douchebag heel too. Has ever been a more pure babyface than Hakeem 'The Dream' Olajuwon? When I'm reading through old Observers I keep expecting to read about how Conners and McEnroe are more pro wrestling than pro wrestling!

Nothing controversial at all. I'm a huge San Francisco Giants fan who was born in 1980 -- no matter what he does, there is a part of me that thinks "Pablo Sandoval is no Matt Williams!" Brandon Belt can have a breakout season, but he'll still be dog shit compared to Wil Clark (he might move up to being even with JT Snow if he's lucky). And when I was a kid, my dad used to always say that 'The Thrill' was no 'Baby Bull' or 'Stretch'. Previous experiences get in there deep and are hard to distance yourself from. My two best buds are serious wrestling fans (they have been watching it every week from childhood into their early-mid 30s), but getting them to look at wrestling outside of what they grew up watching is next to impossible. Whether it was showing them American Dragon matches 6-7 years ago, or making them a 3-disc comp of my favorite Southern matches from the 80s (which neither can be bothered to even put into the DVD player!), they just aren't interested in anything outside of their comfort zone. For the Flair vs. Bret argument, they are familiar with both and would probably vote along their favorite promotion's lines, but they would both put Bret and Flair over someone like Lawler and laugh in your face for even bringing him up. Neither would go online and get into a screaming match because you dared to question the greatness of Kurt Angle, but judging by what I see at most boards, many fans don't have those reservations. But I'd be guilty of the exact same reaction if you shift the form of entertainment being discussed. People can try and tell me that Bob Dylan is the greatest of all time, but from my perspective, he's just some tone-deaf old dude singing boring ass songs about hippie shit when compared to Wu-Tang or Mobb Deep. Hell, I'm not even willing to watch a movie made before the first Star Wars! And nothing anyone can say will ever change that, as Bone Thugs will always be the album playing the first time I saw snow falling, 2PAC will always be the first album I played when I got my first car, and Keith Sweat will always be the artist on the radio when I got my first handjob. Despite being a huge fan of wrestling, I can distance myself from those kinds of emotional connections when thinking about whether 80s WWF is the best ever, but I don't see why it would be weird to think that most people aren't able to.