MoS

Okay listen I find Flair kissing Becky weird and kind of creepy but people really need to calm down on this "sexually assaulting" part that everyone is using. Kissing a woman without her permission IS sexual assault. It cannot get more cut-and-dry than that. The fact that wrestling has had hundreds of those over the years does not mitigate that. Weird and creepy would be Flair telling the world how beautiful Steph's ass is. This is an outright criminal offence.

Already mentioned in the OP, but yeah, Steph literally says on Twitter that she plays a character on TV, and shows up in multiple charity events, despite being easily the most protected heel of the company. Hunter soaks up goodwill acting as the beloved benevolent father figure of nXt, and before that, used to break kayfabe just to get pics clicked with Justin Bieber. This company sometimes makes me hate myself for being a wrestling fan.

Quoted for motherfucking truth. All the while bragging about how much pie he gets in a night, of course. Because THAT is totally different.

This segment is Vince's wet dream. The Rock is how Republicans think racial minorities should behave. The New Day is how Republicans think black people actually behave.

It was always his appeal. I cannot remember a single backstage segment from his prime where he didn't behave like a huge dick.

"Hey, we are totally serious about the DIVAS REVOLUTION, but we can't give them more than 5 minutes. You see, we absolutely need to give Kane-Wyatt #1000 15 minutes. Maybe next time."

Sasha has Becky in a painful hold. JBL sells the intensity of it by saying "You have orange hair there, you have pink hair, it's like the friggin' muppets out there." Fuck you, JBL. Fuck you.

The biggest active PPV draw on the planet right now, with Ronda on the sidelines, is a man who fights at 145 and 155 pounds. This Vince-ism that casual fans only want to see huge men club each other is not only antiquated, it is also empirically false. Mayweather was 145, I think? Unfortunately, a lot of so called "expert" fans - not here, but on a lot of other sites - parrot that. It is really annoying.

If this were a "Which present wrestler excites you the most while watching a match?" list, then Asuka would be number one, closely followed by Sasha, but only because she has done nothing of note in the last few months. Unfortunately, it is not, and as such, I do not think both of them are in the running for Top 100 wrestlers of all time. Maybe next time.

Good thread. Dunno about $26 million though; hasn't Meltzer said that the most Hogan ever earned in a year was $6 million?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/287131780/1998-Hulk-Hogan-contract-with-WCW Not sure if this has been discussed here before, but I randomly did a google search for Hogan's WCW contract, and a DVDVR thread came up having this link. It really is incredible. The deal Paulie had with that restaurant dude whom Joe Pesci punked in Goodfellas, where the the terms were crystallised by Henry Hill into "Fuck you, pay me", was probably not as lop-sided as this one. On one hand, it is nice to see a wrestler getting one over on management; usually, promoters fleece wrestlers to the very last of their abilities and then simply drop them as if they are garbage. But still, wow. No wonder the finances spiralled totally out of control later. Also, does anyone have any details on Hulk's initial contract with WCW, and the creative concessions he had? I seem to remember something about WCW not being allowed to claim that Wrestler X had the best clothesline in the world, because that would mean that the fans would think that he clotheslined better than Hogan, and other such ridiculous arrangements. But I do not remember the details.

I am surprised that someone might think that DX were as important as the NWO in wrestling history. DX was over, no doubt, but they were essentially a fun midcard stable at their best, and while they did sell merchandise, I am not so sure it comes close to as much as the NWO did. I could be wrong, though, as I have no figures on hand. But, I mean, Zack Ryder also sold a lot of merchandise; I hardly think he is as important to wrestling as Cena or even someone like Orton. I am no fan of NWO; even at their peak, I think they were overrated. But there is no denying that they essentially changed the landscape of wrestling. From what I understand, the NWO were instrumental in making wrestling "cool" again.

I didn't go through the whole thread, but I did ctrl + F the last page, where Goc had compiled all of the comparisons, and I only found Rougeaou and Burke on the list, fwiw.

Also, Batista The Young Bucks

Bruno Sammartino JBL Hiroshi Tanahashi Sabu

Okay, so, if I am not wrong, you are commending her for participating in absolutely silly stuff one week, and yet having the credibility and the presence to do something serious and intense the next? Okay, that makes sense, and I apologise for misunderstanding you. I mean, I do not agree, but I can see where you are coming from. Sort of like, to compare the great with the mediocre, how Arn Anderson could go out and make an absolute fool of himself one day, and yet be completely believable when he would talk about murdering someone the very next day, right? I have no idea if Trish did that week-to-week, but I do understand where you are coming from. Please do not stop participating in the project, for what it is worth. The more diverse the views, the better in my view.

I now want Parv to rank actors based on this modified BIGLAV criteria.

Versatility means having a varied skillset that lends you to perform admirably in different situations. An actor in a Michael Bay movie, for example, might be judged on the basis of how badass their delivery of "cool" (read: cheesy) dialogues is, and how they acquit themselves in action scenes. Unless you consider looking good and being fit skills or talent in a wrestling context, I have no earthly idea how participation in lingerie matches and shit can be construed as a positive. I confess I find the argument baffling.

This is my favourite thread of all-time. If Dylan is still taking requests, I put forward: Del Rio Dolph Ziggler Sasha Banks The Ascension Road Warrior Hawk

I turn 23 on January 29.

Just curious about this: do you hate all runs of DX equally viscerally, or is it one particular run that has made you loathe the group as a whole? Because while I can certainly see early 1998 heel DX being hated by people, I do not think they deserve this level of hatred. Or maybe they do. Been some time since I have revisited that era.

If WWE and the MNW series are to be believed, DX single-handedly changed the course of wrestling, and destroyed WCW. While that is revisionism so blatantly misleading it would have been hilarious if it were not so sad and infuriating, DX was actually quite popular during Attitude. Going back, however, the only period of time where I actually liked DX was between January and March 1998, when they were feuding with Austin. It seems to me that even someone as fucked-up as Shawn had realised by then that Austin was hotter than volcanic lava and was going to be the next company ace no matter how much politicking he did, so he just decided to go with it and become a full-fledged, actual heel and he played his part quite well in the build-up to WM 14. The subsequent babyface iteration of the group, which is by far their most remembered, actually annoyed me quite a lot. In real time, I was too young to understand all the dick jokes, so I used to just get annoyed at these idiots who were taking valuable screen time when it could have been Austin on my TV. Now, as someone in their 20s, they are ridiculously juvenile and flat-out unfunny, to the point where I wonder how anyone could have liked them. The 2000 heel run was okay, I guess, but at that point, the other DX members were basically the minions of HHH and Steph, so it doesn't really count. I did like Austin destroying their bus though. I hate, loathe, absolutely despise the 2006 reunion of DX, where they were pushed far too much, were way too visible, and did not do anything of note at all. I still remember how Shawn and Hunter basically single-handedly eliminated all 5 members of Edge and orton's team at Survivor Series, and it was intensely annoying. As was what Shawn called "comedy", which was basically acting like he was spastic, contorting in the most hammy way possible, and then stealing old Friends jokes and doing skit after skit of horrible quality. Not to mention, there was this time when Shawn and Trips on one leg basically destroyed Edge and Orton; on the next night, Shawn actually beat both of them in a handicap match, which has to be the most pointless burial ever. These two were supposed to carry WWE's heel division for the next decade, and here a run-down past-his-prime old dude made them look like chumps. I wish I could give an opinion on the 2009 and beyond reunions of DX, but I have blocked them from my memory. Fuck HBK and his cowboy hat. DX got 2 segments on Raw's 1000th episode, which was 2 more than they shold have got. As an aside, the "invasion" of Nitro has to be the most pointless segment ever pushed as an epic and game-changing moment by the WWE machine. Did it even lead to any ratings increase or even louder pops? Thoughts?

This has absolutly nothing to do with pro-wrestling, but I am part of the Potter generation. I read the first one as a wide-eyed 8 year old, and I have been completely, utterly hooked ever since. As such, his death comes as a huge shock and brings immense sadness to me; I grew up with him and Harry Potter; they are like Star Wars for me. Not to mention, his turn as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, and in so many other films like Robin Hood and Sense and Sensibility makes him an all-time great actor. He might just be the greatest actor to have never received an Oscar nomination. If I had to make a wrestling analogy, I guess he would be William Regal. Someone who never had the opportunity to be a huge star or a great box office draw, but who would churn out ridiculously amazing performances every time he was on stage or in front of the camera. RIP. RIP.

Sorry for continuing the off-topic train, but I find this analysis of pop-culture seeping through generations very interesting. I am an Indian who will turn 23 at the end of this month. Until I was 7, I actually thought India was the only country that had TV shows; I thought America just made movies. Yeah, I was stupid. The first foreigb TV show I watched was Friends, in 2007 I believe, because it was on TV and had subtitles, so someone not used to the American accent could understand it. I was hooked. Completely. Even now, if you ask me to bame my favourite TV show, I will say Friends without a moment of hesitation. However, that did lead me to wanting to ecplore more foreign shows. Sometime in 2010, when I figured out how torrents worked, I started devouring old shows with a passion. And I would have never been able to do that had it not been for the internet. However, my interest was initially piqued only because I saw Friends on TV while surfing channels. So I do understand Parv's point; if you take India to be 4-5 years behind America in terms of trends, then the practice of watching TV if you had nothing to do was still alive. So, I really think there is no right answer to the debate. Watching TV randomly does help, but ultimately it depends on how you are as a person. Also, my tastes are weird. I love all the classic British shows from the 60s - 80s. Absolutely love Monty Python, Fools and Horses, and really like stuff like Fawlty Towers, the fourth season of Blackadder, Yes Minister, and so on. However, my interest in British shows made since the 90s has been much lower. I do not like....Coupling, was it? And I think The Office is overrated; I actually prefer the American version. It is the opposite with American shows. I really, really tried to enjoy Happy Days and MASH, but they bored the crap out of me. I think Cheers is okay, but not too great, which is weird, given my love for Friends. Same with Cosby Show. In contrast, I like many 90s American shows: Seinfeld; Frasier; Sopranos, etc. Big fan of recent dramas like Breaking Bad and The Wire. I don't really know why. Cultural differences is not a good excuse, because it is not as if the British culture is remarkably like ours. Oddly, most of the mainstream modern comedies I don't like. Modern Family is okay, while The Big Bang Theory and 2.5 Men make me want to kill people. Oddly, and this might come as a huge surprise to Americans, but in India, by popular opinion, Friends beats Seinfeld every day of the week. Almost all urban youngsters love Friends, while most haven't heard of Seinfeld, while those eho have seen it do not like it in general. I guess it is because Friends had a much more easily translatable humour, while Seinfeld was more American. Also, Parv, I watched Godfather when I was 17, and Goodfellas when 18, so I would say your students suck. Wow, really long, really off-topic post. Apologies.

I started watching Raw in 1999, and although I have gone back and watched the 1997 and 1998 shows, it's been a while, and I was looking for some e-book that would have comprehensive reviews of Raw. I looked it up, and there are 2 series of books for that, basically: Dixon's and Arnold Furious's Raw Files and Thomas Hall's Monday Night Reviews. Now, I am the opposite of filthy rich, and cannot afford to buy both series for what is essentially the same thing. So, I was hoping to get an opinion on which one is better. Maybe Bix or someone who reviews such books can help me out please? Thanks.