Ship Canal

Episode 3 is finally here! This one sees the hosts looking at Daniel's first Japanese wrestling match, as they review one of the hardest-hitting fights you're ever likely to see outside of a Friday night in Newcastle. On this episode we explore the answers to life's mysteries, such as: What is Dan's holy book and why does it have so many star ratings in its pages? Does the fact that George went to a school with a house cricket competition and an army cadet force explain his accent? Will the boys ever go more than one episode without reviewing a Kawada match? All this and more on the Puro Pourri Podcast! https://soundcloud.com/the-puro-pourri-podcast/episode-3-daniels-first-puro-match

So unbelievably sad. There are just no other words. R.I.P

Thanks for the kind words guys! SomethingSavage, did you get the download links on another platform? They should be working as far as I know, I'll change the settings if not. I should have mentioned also, we are now on Itunes too if that's easier for folks. Mick: the next episode is finished but we've got a delay in uploading as George and David are at the ICW show at the Hydro this weekend so it should be up in the next few days. Will post here when its up. If you are more of an NJPW/AJPW fan then you'll definitely enjoy our second volume Mick! Its covering the UWFi NJPW invasion. Our show will most likely always feature some kind of comment on the further reaches/less critically acclaimed styles of puro, we have a real mixture of tastes as hosts so we are hoping that we'll be able to attract different kinds of fans to the show. We really appreciate you giving the episode a chance even if it didn't cover the area you are specifically into though, when peoples time is so precious these days I can understand if we occasionally cover stuff that isn't to everyone's tastes and people skip a show or two. We are hoping to get better equipment sorted at some point too, but retain the D.I.Y feel of a bunch of mates just chatting shit about wrestling.

Awesome, thanks!

Oh man, I'd forgotten about half of these! Nice one Parv, really fun article.

Hi folks, I know you mentioned that you aren't looking to poach other podcasts, and that's all good, but we've currently only done two shows of our Puro Pourri podcast and are really just starting out... we've got several shows recorded and backed up ready to go, so I thought I'd run it by you guys anyway. Given how new we are I thought it'd be worth asking the question, but as I say, I acknowledge you've already mentioned you don't want pre existing ones so apologies if this comes across as me willfully ignoring that. Link to brand new thread I've just posted to give you a better idea of the show: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/36069-the-puro-pourri-podcast-a-thematic-often-irreverent-look-at-japanese-wrestling/

Hi folks, Long time no post for me here, but I thought I'd announce the recent launch of the Puro Pourri Podcast, in which myself and my friends George and David delve into a thematic look at pro wrestling in Japan. Our approach is a combination of serious discussion and complete irreverence and we are hoping that the show will be something of an alternative to the numerous podcasts out there that focus mainly on up to the minute reviews of modern puro in all its forms. We'll be tackling different themes in a series of episodes which will form what I suppose you could term volumes. So far we've recorded 7 episodes, three of which will be up on Soundcloud by the end of today. We've also submitted it for Itunes approval. The first three episodes act as an introduction to each of us as hosts and our fandom, with each of us going into detail about the first puro matches we ever saw and rewatching them afresh, The forthcoming volume will cover invasion angles in Japanese wrestling, with particular reference to the New Japan vs UWFi feud: what it symbolized, how it played out and how influential it has been. Expect obscure references to English lower division football and pop culture wherever necessary, alongside our more analytical discussions. Episode 1+2 are available now at Soundcloud, with episode 3 following later today: https://soundcloud.com/the-puro-pourri-podcast You can find us on Twitter @puropodcast and on facebook @puropourri. We'll be using this thread to publicize all future episodes. All feedback and support is of course more than welcome. Cheers! -Daniel

This is great and really helpful, thanks for posting it! Does the no punches or kicks for tecnico's still apply as a blanket thing in modern CMLL or is it more of a big match thing? I've watched a fair bit in the last few months and I'm now racking my brain to remember if the dynamic is still there, for some reason despite how recently I've viewed the matches I'm wondering if I've somehow never noticed this was a thing!

I've still not managed to make it through anything further than the first half of the first season of LU. I've actually thoroughly enjoyed a fair deal of the in-ring stuff, the concept, the booking... I'm not particularly bothered about any of the stuff that Phil has highlighted as being dumb either. But there is one thing about the show that I have found more jarring than any of the above things and that is the way in which the sound of the crowd is recorded/mixed... I am not someone who is even remotely an audiophile in the sense that "bad" or uneven mixing or production usually irritates me but for some reason I find the way its done on LU to really detract from the matches I'm watching. Even when I can see the crowd is super hot and into a match for some mildly inexplicable reason that I can't put my finger on, I feel like it effects the heat of the match. It feels a bit like I'm listening to piped in fan noise as opposed to anything more organic for some reason. It might seem like a minor thing but I just can't get over it. On top of this, I do find the sheer amount of episodes that constitute a seasons worth of American TV to be utterly punishing. I can handle 12/13 episodes per season of, say, an HBO show, but even when I watch series I adore like Seinfeld or Battlestar Galactica it just feels like a war of attrition. Bare in mind I'm English and for the most part, at least traditionally, most of our drama or comedy shows rarely extend beyond six episodes at a time and I think LU is something insane like 30 plus episodes a season... Before anyone makes the perfectly justified comment that this doesn't stop me watching one to three hours of RAW every week for the past 15-20 years, that's different. RAW is by definition a never ending soap opera, not a self contained series. Are these things barriers to anyone else's enjoyment of LU or is it just me? I still watch all the highly pimped matches and really enjoy them but I've never yet managed to get a good streak of back to back watching going with the product quite yet for the reasons outlined above.

I like Lio Rush, but that Spanish Fly he does is BAD. The first time I saw it I had to watch it three times before I figured out what it was meant to be and then watch it another five times before I figured out how it was supposed to hurt someone.

Yeah, agree with this. Some of the stuff in the GWE posts was absolutely representative of the kind of stuff we can discuss further here, so I see no reason not to bring it over. Clouds are definitely art if you've sat in a park wapped out on acid drinking cider all day, that's my considered ideological position on this.

YES! I'm a massive Springsteen fan and I think that's a really good shout. There's a definite air of Darkness on the Edge of Town about a lot of the saddest stories of post territories decline, albeit often mixed in with a load of self preserving sleaziness.

A rare critique of pro wrestling as an industry from a structural perspective. https://libcom.org/library/political-economy-professional-wrestling-capital-unions-spandex

The obvious and probably insufficient explanation would be Mcmahon as one of the foremost zealots for the new monetarism. My impression was always that there was a similarity between the post 1984 British mining communities of the UK after the defeat by Thatcherism and the industrial heartlands of the US, Detroit being the most discussed but there were many more besides. It was bullshit of course, but people were beginning to be spun a more pronounced individualism in a world of crumbling class solidarity.

Thanks for setting this up Charles, can't wait to get involved. But for now there is the pressing matter of my team playing a Champions League semi final and I must melt completely into the despair and anguish that is sure to constitute the next few hours.

He's spoken of having worked out with plenty of wrestlers in his lifetime and yeah, I've always wondered this too.

I'd be genuinely interested in seeing that tracklisting Parv, please do post that! As someone for whom the advent of dubstep and grime were lifechanging experiences Skrillex is about as far away as you could possibly imagine from the original dubstep movement that grew out of developments in 2-step garage in the early 2000's. Stuff like early Loefah, DMZ, Hatcha, Kode 9 etc etc are sonically nothing like Skrillex and I recognize none of the qualities that excited me so much in 2006 in what people reel out as dubstep today. In many ways its confusing to me because what I hear is a complete departure from the entire aesthetic atmosphere of what dubstep represented. Dubstep was the most thrilling, intoxicating rave culture I have ever been involved in when it was seeping out of London slowly up north circa 2004-2005, tracing a direct lineage through UK hardcore all the way back to Jamiacan soundsystem culture. It was minimal, streamlined, completely in tune with multicultural urban Britain at the time. The sounds were far more reminiscent of a post-rave take on King Tubby or something. Skrillex bares almost no relation to anything to do with any of that so I'd be interested to see what stuff she picked out for you and what kind of conception of dubstep it represents. Anyway, back to pro wrestling....

Hell, I'm a lifelong Manchester City fan, season ticket holder for decades at the old Maine Road and CoMS/Etihad while I still lived in my hometown and even I was saying to people last week: if you gave me the option right now of Leicester winning the league or us winning the Champions League, I'd happily choose Leicester winning the league.

NXT pretty much kills that theory Parv. Feminism is one of the most over babyfaces on that show. Not to mention that there were "WOMENS WRESTLING" chants at Mania and any time they push the Divas Revolution stuff on the main roster it gets cheered. I don't see this. Agreed. In something like 2006 ROH you would probably have a point Parv. But some (not all) crowds are different now. The last few years have seen a significant sea change, especially in relation to NXT. They went out of their way to promote the rise of Sasha/Becky etc as a markedly progressive moment, drawing parallels with Ronda Rousey in particular. So many of the hype packages, promo's, commentary and build up angles were centered around explicitly acknowledging that these women were breaking new ground. Both Sasha and Bayley got over through tried and tested babyface/heel characterization and in-ring work, but there was always a metanarrative going on about breaking through a glass ceiling and existing as a direct counterpoint to the Divas Division. The "womens wrestling" chant was being heard at the Cauliflower Alley Club this year during the Stardom tag match, and that blew my mind. Its heard here in the UK even at small shows. Fans are still a long way from perfect and I routinely hear and see things at wrestling shows that I find problematic, but in some pockets of fandom, and significant ones at that, its simply not the case any more that feminism can only get over as a heel act. If someone is booked in a gross stereotype of a certain kind of feminism, then yeah, that'll probably only be able to get heel heat. But I don't think your assertion matches up with some of what we are witnessing in terms of developments in modern fandom. I mean, can anyone imagine 2006 ROH fans reacting as overwhelmingly positively to someone like Dalton Castle who plays with gender expectations in such an interesting and overtly non binary way? I'm not sure I can. Maybe I'm being overly positive here, and as I say, its important to remember that a lot of wrestling crowds can still be pretty shitty environments for a lot of people - Dylan posted a photo on his Twitter from an NXT house show of a bloke who was hurling ethnic slurs at La Sombra, so the battle is hardly won - but there has been progress and I don't think I'm as defeatist as you when it comes to the possibilities.

Yeah, I was waiting for that. I'm fine with being cast as a prime candidate for Pseuds Corner given the position in British culture that Private Eye now occupies. I think it can be a bit of a derailing tactic sometimes, the Pseuds Corner thing. Its not like any of the words I've used in the previous posts aren't in common useage when it comes to current discussions of the subject. I've merely mentioned some prominent types of feminism and highlighted the fact that they don't necessarily all pull in the same direction, that's all. It would seem odd to me to not to use some of those expressions given the context of the post. Its not like I'm using them to obfuscate a discussion about Tamura's limbwork or whatever. Anyway, that's the last I'll say on it, need to take in Jimmy Redman's excellent post.

Are the weekly Friday CMLL shows known as Grabacion by any chance? Asking because I stumbled across this youtube channel as I find Cubsfans uploads a bit overwhelming and I'm trying to keep up with Lucha closer to real time this year as opposed to just checking out pimped matches after the fact as I always have done. For some reason having the whole show in one whole video makes it feel less like a struggle to me, not really sure why. These Grabacion shows seem to be weekly and are around 2/2.5 hours long usually... sound right? Anyway, this is the channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChAG8I8adk5m7_zIjyQq2RQ

What is Discussed in this Folder is Making Verne Gagne Turn in his Grave I certainly hope it does, or else I think we'll be doing it wrong

Ranieri ascending to the Mount Rushmore of babyface managers alongside Cloughie. An absolutely astounding achievement in today's game.

I don't think I buy that. This is a simulated fight. I don't think anybody is pushing for intergender fights in UFC. Guessing you weren't paying attention back when the UFC was selling Ronda as a once in a lifetime athlete and everyone was fantasy booking her against male bantamweight? Fantasy booking and terrible bros on Sherdog forums relishing the idea of her getting beaten up by TJ Dillashaw is one thing. There weren't a slew of considered think pieces or serious debates about the legitimacy of intergender competition though, at least as far as I recall (happy to stand corrected though)

Love this!!!