Ship Canal

Not so much better, as more widely applicable to a broader range of scenarios, both in street terms and in within the parameters of a very young sport that prides integration of styles. Plenty of fighters from the more traditional arts backgrounds still compete, but as pointed out above, its rare these days that someone becomes a great MMA fighter by only having one set of tricks in their bag. You could look to someone like Lyoto Machida for how best more traditional styles can be integrated into the more "homogonized" world of modern MMA. In the MMA fan circles I move in these days, its mostly considered that the "BJJ Beats Everything" attitude is pretty outdated now. The general consensus seems to be that if you are going to have any base at all for your MMA game, wrestling is probably the one you'd choose. Not that that has stopped plenty of fighters who have never competed in an NCAA tournament or an Olympic tryout becoming successful, but its often posited as an advantage.

I haven't even been posting here that long but I don't care: you can beat it. One of my parents closest friends was given less than a year to live three years ago and has since made a full recovery. Its brave of you to be able to talk about something like this openly and I admire you for that. Stay strong and fight my friend. Love and hugs to you.

Cut to currently injured but soon to be returnin' babyface healing up at home. Possibly in an incredible "sports casual" Partridge-esque blazer or more leisurely sports name brand tracksuit: "I'd first of all like to thank each and every one of you fans who wrote to me tellin' me I was in your thoughts and your prayers"...

Mae Young literally giving birth to a human hand when she was expecting Mark Henry's baby... was that post Russo?

Still not too hot at what I need to do to embed Dailymotion here it seems... sorry.

Do you mean that you googled and checked out early (pre introduction of Unified Rules of MMA) no holds barred stuff from the UFC and other organizations? World Vale Tudo etc? If so, then that would really have been the last period in MMA history when you actually saw anything approaching "real life ninja squaring off against a real life karate master, or whatever." The introduction of weight classes and the Unified Rules pretty much meant that MMA had to become more homogenized in one sense, so after that period I have no huge knowledge of any bouts hugely touted as style vs style match ups in the sense that no holds barred stuff used to be. That homogenization you refer to is basically the reason MMA is a distinct entity these days. However, there were certainly some satisyingly pro-wrestlingesque freak show fights and moments in Pride. Bob Sapp vs Antonio Nogueira springs to mind immediately. Hell, Bob Sapp against anyone really, but that one in particular as it has a complete pro wrestling monster heel vs plucky noble babyface angle going on. Nogueira even has a full blown real life white meat babyface backstory in that he survived being hit by a car as a kid - so that damn hulking beast Bob Sapp ain't going to scare him one bit! http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxskc1_minotauro-nogueira-vs-bob-sapp-full-fight-hq-video-480p_sport Fedor vs Hong Man Choi is also along the same lines, although with less of a pronounced face/heel dynamic. I realize this isn't precisely what you aksed for, but its just following on from elliott's likening of Sak' wondersubmission to pro wrestling.

Did either Hardy boy change much up after going solo? I know Matt changed some very minor features but wasn't Jeff broadly the same until he started going budget Mutaface in TNA? I could be wrong there, I was taking a prolonged break from wrestling at the time the split and came back a few years later during Jeff's most sustained high level push.

Its fine, I was supposedly in a band between the ages of 16-18, but I can only go on photohraphic evidence to prove anything.

Seems I'm in the minority and plumped for Sheik/Sarge. Now don't get me wrong, I ADORE all three of those matches and I'd have no issue with anyone telling me the other two smoke the Bootcamp match. But for me, rewatching Tully vs Magnum recently,, I felt like as a match I can go back to repeatedly, that never loses any of its compact, channeled intensity and hot as fuck crowd connection in that especially intense MSG atmosphere, the Boot Camp match is the one I'd take to a desert island with me if someone put a gun to my head. I actually think Tully vs Magnum is a better match, and I acknowledge that both the points I've just made about Sheik/Sarge could easily be made about DiBiase/Duggan too, but the multiple stips in that match sometimes make it feel like too much of a novelty, more of a ridiculously fun spectacle than an all out hatefest. But that's a 29 year old bloke from northern England watching in 2015 who wasn't there growing up in the Mid South territory glued to the screen for TV every week, so I maybe read too much into that. But yeah, the Bootcamp match just keeps this huge level of meaningful action and focused brawling and the heat just seems to escalate until the finish. As much as I love Magnum/Tully, there are parts of the match that operate on an entirely different sort of attritional level there, its very much this unflinching, grim spectacle that is framed (brilliantly) as a step beyond anything that's come before. Its completely singular, but I wouldn't revisit it as much I would the Bootcamp match. I suppose its similar to the way in which I listen to music or watch films: some of my favourite records or movies are actually not ones I visit an awful lot. I pull them out when I'm in a certain mood. It helps them maintain their mystique or some pretentious shit I guess. But yeah, I voted for Sheik/Sarge because I just think its this glorious, streamlined thing I can return to regardless of mood, all the time. All belters though.

That was REALLY jarring to me when I was rewatching November To Remember '97 the other day.

Great idea, I've been looking for something like this for a while, many thanks. A great network of podcasts but often so many slip through the cracks when it comes to listening to them when they first appear as I've only got so much time these days. Really handy to have a list going here.

Listening to the talk of Savage's pre WWF work on this podcast reminded me that one of my all time favourite "match where nothing much actually happens apart from two charismatic blokes being massively charimsatic coz its all they need to do to get over" type situations was the match I caught between Adrian Street and Savage a while back on Youtube. Fairly sure it was Memphis as my memory has Lance Russell commentating but that could just be my memory making shit up. There's a wonderful bit where Savage gets bored of Streets preening and ritual and goes and sits in the audience and sticks some guys hat on his head as if to say "ready when you are, pal". Its great.

Would this be the right place on the forum for posting my thoughts on ICW Fear and Loathing? Biggest pro wrestling show here for decades as mentioned previously but not sure it warrants its own thread if this thread is sort of the de facto place we are talking UK based wrestling?

Ahhh OK, thanks. Well I've seen Dandy vs Azteca and having a bit more knowledge about the specific style they were working there has helped me better understand some of the psychology in that one. I think I'll rewatch that with this new knowledge fresh in my head. As is probably obvious from the above, I'm very much the kind of fan who believes that these kinds of contexts are key. That's a much discussed topic on these boards, I know, but if anything I feel knowing that will improve my enjoyment of the match, which I did find very arresting on a purely perforamtive level anyway, so that's cool.

Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. Lucha was a blindspot for many years for me and I've only really begun to explore things fully in the past 6 months, mainly using the DVDVR set match listings, this forum and various podcasts for my primers. Consequently, I may have seen some traditional title matches but I probably wouldn't recognize one of it smacked me across the face. Is there a particularly quintessential lucha title match, of the type you refer to, Zenjo, that I may have seen/should seek out?

I'm not sure if you would say she was ever positioned in a management role as such, but Debra being involved so prominently in angles featuring Stone Cold seemed utterly jarring at the time. Sure, they were a couple in real life, but that doesn't mean shit.

As a relatively new poster on these boards can I just say that I'm delighted that I'm not the only person of those political persuasions on here. Not that this board is in any way a cesspit of right wing politics, its clearly not, but I thought maybe I was to the far left of many on here so its cool to know I'm not the only one.

I've always thought there was a great deal of Les Dawson in there too, especially when it comes to his gurns.

No doubt, this was the quintessential PWG match in many ways but I did think it was an absolute blast. Eurotrash had a fantastic feel about the makeup of their trio: the slightly campy workhorse rulebreaker in Scurll, the ultimate clean cut babyface in Zack and the crazy PCP huffing ball breaking biker bastard in End. This was a parade of sometimes quite inventive spots and was just the right side of all over the place for me. 3 3/4 Pitchers Of Warm Lager out of 5.

I actually really enjoyed this and for me it would have been a MOTN contender if it hadn't gone about five minutes too long. One thing I think Sydal is fantastic at is the way he transitions logically between his crazy spots and links them together... whereas I feel a lot of guys who work this style are just engaging in acrobatics contests I really believe Sydal's character is upping the ante through a mixture of arrogance, insecurity and recklessness that I feel his transitions between spots justify. This went back and forth and they had me believing the result was a genuinely close run thing. One too many near falls took me out of it, but proper solid. 3 Pitchers Of Warm Lager out of 5

I liked both guys getting in each others face pre bell, bit of heat to start things off had me pretty excited, especially considering their previous experience of working together. These two, at least for the first half of the match, had what a lot of the rest of the guys were lacking tonight: letting themselves and the audience breathe between high spots. THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT! However, I felt this became very aimless indeed very quickly... I'd have loved to have seen Pentagon mercilessly working over a body part some more to give this some extra heat and establish more of a story throughout the match. Disappointing. 2 Pitchers Of Warm Lager out of 5

Trent is like the Goto of the Indy scene. He's not the Goto of Japan when he works there though, because they actually have a Goto. What I mean by that is I watch a load of his matches every year and think "that was a pretty good match" and then immediately forget everything about it. I liked Trevor Lee better when he was more obviously cosplaying Daniel Bryan. Solid match but nothing too special. These guys are using the release German suplex into backflip back into offence spot so much that the only thing that could make it more irritating is if they decide to do another reverse 'rana spot too. AND BOOM THERE IT IS, REVERSE RANA SPOT. *facepalm* Tell you what mind - Lee's Small Package Driver is one hell of a great finish. He'll make a very good worker one day, he's still young after all. He shows a lot of great babyface fire. I like him. 2 3/4 Pitchers Of Warm Lager out of 5

So here's the weird thing - I was fine with Ospreay/Andrews but I hated this match. I have no real logical explanation as to why one was perfectly passable to me while the other one got right on my tits but there you go. Maybe I can handle breathless illogical spotfests when its a singles contest but don't respond as well to them in tag contexts, that might be a thing because this did nothing for me whatsoever despite being incredibly similar in execution to the previous match: a gazillion moves tacked onto already far too busy clusters of other moves, no room to breathe whatsoever, completely numbing. The best thing about this by FAR was Jack Evans running his mouth and coming on like a cocky little shithouse. 1 1/2 Pitchers Of Warm Lager if you are a miserable git like me, 3 1/2 PWL if you are someone who enjoys life.

As a Brit who regularly attends Rev Pro shows it was great to hear the "OOSSS-SPRAAAYYY, OSSS-SPRRAAAAYY OSSPRAAAAY OOOOOHHH SPRRAAAAYYYY" chant has crossed the pond. I thought this was a neat little high spot fest here that was perfect for the audience. Insane reversal mid air into a DDT from Andrews. STOP TELLING THE AUDIENCE TO "COMMEEE ONNN!" ANDREWS. This isn't my favourite style of match but its a ton of fun. Two reverse 'rana's just after that spot was used in the previous match meant they lost a lot of impact for me. Oh, and Ospreay completely shitcans selling his legs. He ALWAYS does this. I like him, but its so distracting. I can well understand the criticisms of those above: this isn't really a pro wrestling match to me, its acrobatics, but I can appreciate that too so long as I don't overdose on it. I found this far less egregious than the Inner City Machine Guns vs Evans/Angelico match on the same night, but perhaps that's because I have more invested in these guys as I watch one of them regularly in two different home based promotions and was sort of willing them to do well despite neither performing in a style that is my favourite. 3 PWL out of 5

I wasn't as into this as Phil, largely because of the aimlessness/formlessness of a lot of it as you've both mentioned. I'm a bit of a Biff mark, so I was hyped for this. I've never been able to get into Andrew Everett much when I've seen him. I felt like Everett dropping the crazy shooting star press to the outside had zero build and meant they had very little opportunity to build to big spots again the in the middle of the match which let it down, but then I guess that's PWG for you. Speaking of which, Everett must be the least convincing high flyer ever - he looks like he's about to be sick every time he climbs the second turnbuckle and takes an AGE to compose himself for any of his big aerial moves, which means his opponents spend ages looking dumb as fuck lying around. Picked up when Biff was in control, great stiff stretch run at the end with some crazy stuff being thrown about by both guys. 2 3/4 Pitchers of Warm Lager out of 5.