C.S.

I just watched the first episode last night. Haven't seen it since it aired. Some random thoughts: - Brian Pillman vs. Brad Armstrong was the opener in a surprisingly bad, bland match that didn't really go anywhere until the final few minutes. - Pillman has the unique distinction of being in the first match ever on both WCW Saturday Night and WCW Monday Nitro. - Holy shit, Steve Austin did not look like a star at all. Stupid beach tights, a hook nose, stringy hair, and butt ugly in general. He looked like wrestling's version of the Wicked Witch of the West. It seemed fine at the time, but wow in retrospect. - Heyman hasn't changed much. He looked old even then. - As awesome as the Rude/Steamboat feud seemed on this show, how come I don't remember it at all? But man, Rick Rude really was on top of his game back then. - Even with Ron Simmons saying "you know" 100x in his promo, unscripted promos were still so much better than the canned, mechanical crap we get now. It felt real and had actual fire. - Ditto for the commentary. As much as it was obvious in retrospect that Jesse Ventura was "winging it," I'd still take that over the micro-managed corporate blandness we get today. J.R., of course, was pure perfection - smooth as silk. - But not all of the promos were good. Z-Man was laughably awful, and how in the hell did anyone fear Vader back then? Goofy-ass facial expression, mugging for the camera, everything he said and did was cheesy was fuck. He looked like a fat ham. Literally a thanksgiving ham. Harley Race oozed credibility and toughness in the two seconds he was given. - Austin vs. Z-Man was damn good and fun. As tempting as it is to credit Austin for a carry-job based on hindsight, that would be unfair and untrue - Z-Man worked his ass off too and had fans chanting his name. That would never happen today with some random midcard babyface (unless ironically).

For the record, *I* never said I wanted you banned. I don't. Truthfully, I'm not emotionally invested enough in the posters here to call for anyone's ban. I don't mean that in a bad or dismissive way - I just mean that I come here to have fun, read different viewpoints about wrestling, and post some of my own (which people either agree with or shit on, depending on what it is and/or how mature/rational the other party is). BTW, I've noticed that your typing has improved over the past few days. Whether that's because you're making more of an effort or because you've found that magical keyboard I suggested, I appreciate it.

I would've missed Heyman five years ago, but he's become dull, repetitive, and a shell of his former self.

This is exactly how I feel. If I don't care about the guys in the ring, I'm not going to rate it highly no matter what. Ditto if the match has no real storyline or stakes, or is a spot monkey fest. With that said, I am open to being wowed by a wrestler or wrestlers I've never seen before. NXT is a perfect example of that. The one ROH show I attended (Supercard of Honor II), same thing.

I've seen almost none of EC3, so I can't comment there, but I agree 100% with SomethingSavage when it comes to Adam Cole. "Bay Bay" is the very definition of a bland indy geek to me.

I think I've found a kindred spirit in SomethingSavage. What he posted above is exactly how I feel about wrestling. Edit: This post, not the Andre question.

Yep, but I don't post there nearly as much as here. That may be true, but it's definitely unconscious. People rarely namedrop Dynamite but they all namedrop Michaels. Granted, I'm sure part of that is being a WWE wrestler wanting to go along with the WWE narrative of Michaels as the "GOAT," but still.

My votes there: 1) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Bret Hart: Abstain. Have not seen enough/any Misawa. 2) Eddie Guerrero vs Kurt Angle: This one is too close to call, to the point where I don't even remember who I voted for an hour after the fact (and the dated WC board won't tell me). You could make a really strong case for both. 3) Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat: I went with Flair because he had that extra something Steamboat didn't, but it was close. 4) Jushin Liger vs Chris Benoit: Liger. He was the talk of wrestling the moment he stepped foot in the United States. Benoit never was. 5) Bryan Danielson vs Kenta Kobashi: Abstain. See previous post. Knowing my preferences though, I'd probably go with Bryan. He was and is a once-in-a-lifetime babyface performer who transcended his perceived limitations and built a main event career out of nothing. 6) Curt Hennig vs Chris Jericho: Hennig. Jericho has arguably had a longer, more successful career with many more memorable matches and feuds. Fine, he wins on paper. But Hennig was so smooth and cool. He was...well, perfect. 7) Jumbo Tsuruta vs Nick Bockwinkel: Abstain. Knowing my preferences though, I'd probably end up going with Bock. 8) KENTA/Hideo Itami vs Owen Hart: Owen. See previous post. 9) Samoa Joe vs Shinsuke Nakamura: Nakamura. Joe is one of the most overrated guys ever. 10) Dynamite Kid vs Shawn Michaels: Abstain. Knowing my preferences though, I'd probably end up going with HBK. Dynamite didn't have nearly the career or influence (the latter will be an arguable and debated point, but almost every wrestler cites HBK as an influence - only Benoit and a couple of others have ever said the same about Dynamite).

I don't care if he's Japanese or not, but if he wants to be Japanese, can he magically buy/find an English keyboard so he can fix the annoying formatting in his posts? Pretty, please.

Hulu sucks - or rather, the WWE intern who edits Raw for Hulu sucks. The Hulu version of Raw cut out an entire portion of the supposed MOTY candidate between Seth Rollins and Finn Balor. While I doubt I would have rated it as highly because I don't rate the mechanical, bland Balor very highly, I did like what I saw. On a side note, Miz's commentary - "Balor Club? I'm in the Dad Club" - was amazing.

What he said. It's absolutely fantastic. I don't know where it would rank in my all-time list, but it's easily one of the best wrestling books I've read in years. BTW, it's free with Kindle Unlimited if you subscribe to that. Otherwise, you can buy the paper book on Amazon and get the Kindle version for $1.99 afterward (through Kindle Matchbook - I suggested it on another board and was happy to see the author take me up on it).

My votes: Danielson/Kenta: I abstained because I've not seen enough/any of Kenta Kobashi's work. Bret Hart/Eddy Guerrero: Bret. This was a tough one, but Bret was ultimately on top longer and was in many more meaningful matches and feuds for me than Eddy. AJ Styles/Chris Benoit: AJ. Benoit was good in the ring but brought nothing else to the table. AJ is just as good in the ring + has charisma and the other intangible qualities that Benoit lacked. Weirdly, there's a similar poll on Wrestling Classics, but I think one of the options there is between Daniel Bryan and KENTA (Hideo Itami). Bryan wins that easily, as Itami has been a colossal bust in NXT/WWE and not only because of injuries. Edit: It was actually Owen Hart and Hideo Itami in that poll. Owen wins by a mile. Most everyone is going to beat Itami in any poll I vote in. Whatever he had in Japan disappeared the minute he stepped foot into NXT. Oddly, Daniel Bryan/Kobashi is in both polls. Same OP for both threads?

This is about how I feel. Easily worth $1.99 though.

Sinclair responds, and it's as bad as you'd expect.

I don't want to get political here, but this is news that indirectly pertains to ROH. Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns ROH, has been forcing "local" news anchors to read the same viewpoints from the same script, thereby missing the point of local news entirely and stripping viewers of a truly free and independent press. The video is pretty chilling to watch. Could this stink potentially affect ROH? They're mentioned in the second link. https://www.newsandguts.com/sinclair-broadcasting-clear-present-danger/ https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490

ROH COO Joe Koff says Supercard of Honor XII will be a 6,000-person sellout with Cody vs. Omega as the main event. If that's true and not corporate BS and fudging the numbers, it's impressive. I do think he and Cody are deluded about ROH being "cool" though. It's not IMO. That doesn't mean it isn't good, but "cool" isn't the word I'd use to describe it. https://www.cagesideseats.com/2018/3/30/17182230/ring-of-honor-coo-joe-koff-talks-supercard-sellout-new-japan-relationship-impact-daniel-bryan-more

ROH COO Joe Koff says Supercard of Honor XII will be a 6,000-person sellout with Cody vs. Omega as the main event. If that's true and not corporate BS and fudging the numbers, then I can see All In getting 10 thou. https://www.cagesideseats.com/2018/3/30/17182230/ring-of-honor-coo-joe-koff-talks-supercard-sellout-new-japan-relationship-impact-daniel-bryan-more

Thanks. I see it's available through Kindle Unlimited, so I've borrowed it. Sounds like a lot of fun. BTW, speaking of KU, I just finished Jeanie Clarke's book. It's mostly about her massive drug problem, so it's quite depressing. The only difference between Jeanie Clarke and Melanie Pillman as parents is that Jeanie's kids still like her. The book's page count is padded with a lot of by-the-numbers recaps of Austin's career. Austin never physically abused Jeanie - or at least there's no mention of it in the book - but there are a lot of other tidbits about Austin and others. I'll spoiler tag them, in case people are interested in reading this. All in all, despite the depressing subject matter, there are some good tidbits.

Like Bob Backlund picking Maria Menounos. But then there's Jerry Lawler wanting Lance Russell but getting William Shatner instead. (Kind of obvious why, but still.) As for Backlund and Menounos, the WWE fans were in rare form that night - booing poor Maria off the stage and acting like savage embarrassments.

Even if they did "turn him heel," it would have the opposite effect and turn KO and SZ face instead.

Not sure, but he definitely did some time in the Plant too, as evidenced by this video, which shows how pathetic the whole operation was and how shockingly bad "Sarge" was at his job.

Is that account owned by Zayn? The official Sami Zayn account is still there. Meanwhile, KO changed his account from @FightOwensFight to @FightSteenFight. There is another @FightOwensFight account now that I hope is his. The difference is, the Steen account is the old Owens account, whereas this El Generico account is different from the Sami Zayn account.

Agreed that Heyman is a weird choice, but "Sarge" DeWayne Bruce is about as useless as it gets. A thousand Hindu squats and never drew a dime (Mike Graham™), ran one of the worst wrestling schools in history - The WCW Power Plant - with very few success stories and none that could work a full match before being reprogrammed (Big Show, Goldberg), and he ran future World Champion Batista out of the Power Plant. He makes Bill DeMott look competent. Batista wrote about it in his book: https://books.google.com/books?id=7kzVr6BJETsC&q=power+plant#v=snippet&q=power%20plant&f=false

I'm reading this now: Development Hell: The NXT Story This is about the history of the WWE developmental program in general (OVW, DSW, FCW, etc.), not just NXT. There probably won't be any new information if you've regularly followed "insider" wrestling news over the years, but it's fascinating to see it all researched and put into one place. The author really digs in though and includes commentary quotes from the obscure early NXT "reality show" seasons. One thing that struck out at me was CM Punk burying Layla on commentary by calling some nonsense on the show "the first good thing she's ever done" or words to that effect. I won't pretend I was ever a major Layla fan, but I thought LayCool was a pretty effective act, and this really exposes both Punk and WWE back then as misogynistic and bullying. For how heavy-handed the "Divas Revolution" and "Women's Evolution" are, it really is amazing to see compared to the way women were treated in the company only a few years ago. But seemingly everyone was buried on the reality show abortion those early NXT shows were - including, obviously, Daniel Bryan at the hands of Michael Cole. What a bizarre, counterproductive, and downright stupid concept and waste of money and airtime that was. It's no accident that almost no one from those seasons of NXT became a real star. Where I've reached in my reading: Triple H is about to take over the developmental program and establish the "real" NXT (Chapter 14). The book is "free" with Kindle Unlimited if you want to give it a try.

A legit neuroscientist casts doubt on the credibility of the doctors Bryan saw and the procedures he went through. http://slam.canoe.com/Slam/Wrestling/MatMatters/2018/03/20/22774755.html