efrim

Anyone peddling the idea that there wasn't a divide or wasn't side taking is totally wrong. Going up around Chicago, I took sides hard with WWF as a kid. Not for any good reason mind you - but simply because WCW was southern and their merchandising/presentation was second rate. "Any company that can't get ice cream sandwich going right must be minor league next to a company that can" went my 8 year old logic. Took a surprisingly long time to get over that.

sweet jesus

I love Chikara, but this nonsense is getting out of hand. You can only pretend to be out of business for so long before you actually go out of business. Talent and staff aren't just going to chill indefinitely while you run an alternate reality game for the benefit of say me and 12 other people. Would hate to see the headstone on this promotion read "worked themselves into a shoot bankruptcy"

When you guys do the podcast, I'd be interested in hearing about Bret's role in expanding the euro/worldwide presence of the WWF. His international appeal is something he talks up a lot about in his book (as I recall) - I would be interested in a discussion of how much of that is earned and how much is a convenient narrative.

This is an interesting subject that I haven't really seen addressed before. The point about Survivor Series is a good one, it had the appeal of a Justice League comic book or something along those lines -I guess thats something I enjoy about that style of booking: if you hold to it, when you present an event as causing a crossover, it instantly seems important or cool even if its really a frivolous exhibition.

LOL. Love how at all times during his career, Ahmed looked like a guy with 750lbs of internal fat trying to burst through his muscles. Super weird.

Had successfully repressed this memory until I was watching a comp over the weekend and it caught me off guard. I think I know what Vietnam flashbacks are like now.

I've lived around Chicago my whole life, and I'll be honest, we have a little brother syndrome next to New York and LA that makes us pretty rabid about supporting guys that rep us. I've seen Cabana wrestle a few times locally now, and the love for him here is pretty off the charts. Its the kind of crowd reaction you want to get swept up in - but I've been unable to. I can't speak very much to his ROH or IWA-MS days, but in the last couple years he strikes me as a fairly jaded, lazy performer. I'm a Chikara fan and I dig good comedy wrestling, but I've never found Colt's shtick to be all that funny or inventive. He bugs me, because seeing him up close he really looks like a guy who isn't even close to giving it his all. I really enjoy guys like Archibald Peck that wrestle comedy but stay inventive and work hard either in the ring or at completely inhabiting a character. My opinion is that Colt uses comedy wrestling as an excuse to do as little as possible. And his "character" is basically just himself smirking at the proceedings constantly. He's been very open about reigning in his work rate for health reasons, but there's a big difference between reigning it in and half-assing it.