bradhindsight

"Making sense of New Japan Pro Wrestling from days of yore" The Usual Suspects from the Strong Style Story Podcast turn their critical eyes to a period of New Japan Pro Wrestling from days gone by. In this pilot episode, we take a look at the circumstances surrounding the Do Judge!! show from 10/9/2000 at the Tokyo Dome, review the matches, and drive the point home that this was a very, very strange time for puroresu. Geoffrey Wessel (@StrongStylStory on Twitter) and Steve Cash (@stevecash) take themselves down memory lane, and hope you come along too. Production work: Chris Damasceno (@Brazilian_Fury). https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/pilot-season-strong-style-history

Well I think it's certainly a better podcast name as a play off the news show than the name of a sub-forum!

The idea has some legs (and a good name), but you would need to find guests that had different opinions on the topics for it to be any interesting. So like "is the WWE's mindset towards smaller wrestlers changing?" is not a great topic, but the monopoly one could have some good conversation. I would ditch the idea about you making the final decision based on the arguments. Your job would be to move the conversation and ask insightful follow up questions.

And now to somewhat contradict myself, I thought Marty was fantastic against Ospreay in London. And this was not him being carried by any means.

They also had a WWE PPV listed on the site in the same manner. FloSlam claimed it was for coverage - like they were going to be writing pieces/covering results from across wrestling.

Our friend Chris Harrington had a poll up on Twitter Wednesday asking how much people thought Evolve stood to earn in this 5 year contract which stipulated 60 shows a year. Dylan tweeted him that the figure was 3.4 million. Now I'd imagine parts of this amount are tied to site growth so each side has a stake. It could be something like a revenue share schedule where as the # of subscribers grows, the payout incrementally goes up - perhaps across the board to all the groups signed on (obv each has their own contract). Chris noted that 3.4 million figure meant they were paying WWN about $11,000 per show - noting it could be more or less depending on if it was Evolve vs. FIP, etc. That, in addition to their own in-house expenses, is quite the barrier to reaching a return on investment.

I've told this to Pete before, but I love that this has been broken off and expanded into its own show. It's a great length right around an hour. I don't even subscribe to the service and I enjoy listening.

Danny Kuchler takes you on a journey through the careers of the greatest wrestlers of all-time as he incorporates comments made on the Pro Wrestling Only Board as well as his own commentary from the Greatest Wrestlers Ever project. In the pilot episode, Danny takes a look at the careers of Dick Togo and AJ Styles. https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/pilot-season-verdict-of-the-all-time-greats

I don't think I had seen a Scurll match until this past weekend. I had been meaning to go through BOLA before his ROH debut. So I saw him in: Triple threat at Final Battle ROH TV taping two nights later against Jonathan Gresham Watched his ROH debut against Dalton Castle from the UK tour I feel like, and I know it's a small sample, I've seen every Marty Scurll match after just watching those. Guys have movesets that they repeat, but I'm talking more about the performance around setting those moves up (most are thigh slapping like Childs noted), the transitions, the stooging. It's the same in every match. And look - they were all to different audiences, many seeing him for the first time so I'm not outright dismissing him. I just came away with: this guy definitely knows his shtick - but there wasn't anything work-wise where I was like "oh I can't wait to see this again".

^ I love that quote.

Tommy Dreamer posted on his FB, in advance of HoH on FloSlam this past weekend, that he spent something like $65,000 from his own savings for this FloSlam broadcast because (direct quote from the post) "the deal w/ Flo Slam is life changing if it hits. Potential millions on the table." I just don't see it. I can't get my head around these numbers and how they expect to profit like this. Venture capitalist money is great, until it's time for the return on those investments. What type of subscriber base do you think is likely here? How many people bought individual Evolve iPPVs - 2,000? The WWE has such a huge piece of this market - and they themselves, with a gigantic unquantifiable leg up on FloSlam based on brand alone, have struggled to grow their base. And that's after three years of having the network.

It is like a chicken/egg thing with the money piece. Truly can't measure until he's up against those guys and then you check the effects of this, like return attendance, etc. I think he has the potential to, but its hard (for me) to say they should build the entire thing around him right this minute. One point I forgot was the pinfall he got on Cole this fall in the Champions vs. All-Stars match - and in ROH wins and loses count and are used in storylines to elevate guys (a couple years back they did this with Hansen and Lethal). And sure enough - last night at the tapings, Castle is out to interrupt O'Reilly and Adam Cole with just that. AND at the taping (not spoiling results, just talking points) - the only guy who got over crowd-wise on the Bullet Club was Castle, so maybe we see him elevated and going over Cole if/when Cole departs. Migs - agree, although I actually think it was pretty smart to go to them third as kind of a semi-main after the first two matches. The crowd was buzzing and the atmosphere was great but by the end of the Liger/Silas match they needed Castle.

If ROH knows he is a money draw then they are fucking insanely stupid. It's been obvious for atleast 18 months and he's on the undercard of their biggest show of the year facing Colt Cabana. Wow, he may move up to the TV Title level? Dude should be the focus of the company. He's not a money draw. He's one of the more popular acts and is very over, and has been featured on their TV for two years now. But if you look a card like SOTF weekend, with the Bucks, Cole and Lethal in Japan, the attendance was way way down. Those guys are the draws. I know you don't follow the product, but the Cabana match had a story and as a tag team they were headlining major shows (Glory by Honor weekend). Cabana has been a draw in his return so I actually think that match was a step in the right direction for Castle. The early 2017 posters have him prominently featured, the company isn't stupid to his popularity. I don't know if they have the top heel where the base would get so invested in his feud that it would actually boost business. Cody is a possibility. A TV title feud with Scurll isn't anything to scoff at. That belt is nearly as strong as the main title.

I thought Death Before Dishonor had better depth quality wise but I thought the last three matches all delivered. Cody lethal exceeded expectations . First half was standard Cody on the indies stuff and then it ramped up and had a great angle. Shockingly good.

Real happy to see they've raised $34,000 in ten days. Nice piece recorded by Johnny: http://placetobenation.com/adam/

The FloSlam money must be pretty darn good for Gabe to extend himself to booking three promotions concurrently. And while I can see FloSlam wanting to beef up their content to keep existing subscribers, I don't see FIP or Style Battle tipping the scales for new money. The people that like Evolve have already signed up. All these additional FIP and SB shows do is add more production costs with very limited upside.

Watched the latest TV and man did Team CMLL look like they were having a blast. Two really solid matches over the same night for the tapings. I thought Dalton Castle was really good, Cabana's logic was sound (and is a better story than usual when it comes to tag partners getting together only to then feud). I've been wishy-washy on O'Reilly of late, but I really liked this Silas match. Selling issues late aside for both, this was prob my favorite singles O'Reilly match in a while.

We were hoping they'd set up something to help support the boys (or we would have - we brainstormed on it). Thanks for sharing.

It's funny, because this prove your points on Page in a roundabout way, but he DID beat Jay Briscoe (at DBD - and Timothy was there!). I liked the build to that Fish/Page match and do think there was more a chance than usual to see a change there given the past TV and the running angle of Fish being beat up and continually worn down. Now, despite of that, the crowd probably still wasn't buying it, which goes back to Page overall. I liked him best as the second to Whitmer as a jerky midcard heel in the Decade. I've long stumped that he hasn't connected at all in any capacity since the face turn earlier this year. I really liked the CMLL/Addiction match. Kamaitachi came off so happy to be in the ring with those guys, he just bumped like crazy for them. Good send-off for him also. Agree on the teammates feuding storyline for castle/cabana. I actually think anyone opposing Castle could likely be booed - even Cabana - but the show is in less than two weeks, which makes it tough. We'll see. The re-programming on Lee/Taylor will take a couple matches, but ROH using them in traditional tags and as part of the division is a good thing. I like that they started so different and came in absolutely crazy.

Really good recap TPC. I would say regarding the finishes - yes, they are typically always clean. Unless its something advancing a very big angle - like the Global Wars PPV no contest , or maybe a short tv match/angle, its always clean.

Good recap in advance of Survivor Series tonight

Two young boys, one just a baby, it's just impossible to put into words. I know this board gave him a much needed distraction, and even nearing hospice he still checked in earlier this week. Tough f'n guy for fighting this like he did.

SS - you have to click the More button and download is in the dropdown. Not sure why SoundCloud changed that .

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Today we debuted a second MOTW club piece - the "Deep Cut", a fairly obscure offering where the regular piece will be a bit more known. Mike Bailey vs. Kazusada Higuchi (deep cut) - http://placetobenation.com/match-of-the-week-club-deep-cut-mike-bailey-vs-kazusada-higuchi-ddt-10-21-16/ Kurt Angle vs. Cody Rhodes (WCPW match) - http://placetobenation.com/match-of-the-week-club-kurt-angle-vs-cody-rhodes-what-culture-pro-wrestling-10-8-16/