southofheavy

I would KILL to have the entire run of Worldwide on the Network.

NICE. PeteF3, your assignment is PG13 vs. The Smoking Gunns from the 10.16.95 RAW

@PeteF3 I'm down for whatever. I have the Network, NJPW World, RealHero and All Japan archives, and I'll go down whatever Youtube/Dailymotion rabbit hole ya wanna send me on.

I'd like to get in on this next round.

Jimmy Rave is a great pick. I remember buying into the whole "Jimmy Rave sucks" thing when I first got into RoH, but after a while, that shifted to "Uhhh, he's actually pretty good." Right now, I gotta go with Oney Lorcan. He's obviously talented and over, but he got over through sheer force of will in NXT. He's an absolute blast to watch. If they didn't have any plans on pushing him or giving him any sort of direction, he's taken what has been given to him and made the most out of it. I'm stoked on his upcoming tag team with Danny Burch. They're gonna give everyone hell.

*sigh*

Watching the 11/1/86 Boston Garden show and holy crap, Judy Martin just busted out a powerbomb. That was awesome. Leilani Kai kicks ass, too. Gonna hafta track down more matches of theirs.

Good call, and I HATE The Eagles. This is the only instance I can hang with them. (Maybe "I Can't Tell You Why," too. Maybe.) Demolition's theme was perfect, and it kinda sounds like Accept. Loved Doc coming down to "I Love It Loud" by Kiss when he was in All Japan. Someone needs to come down to "Going Down to Die" by Danzig for their retirement match. There needs to be far more Dio and Thin Lizzy going on, too.

Jake's HoF speech tore me the fuck up. That Dusty promo he gives to Dustin about partnerin' up at the Clash ("The view never changes, baby") gets me every time. My Dad and I's relationship ain't been the greatest, so any kind of father/son stuff like that cuts right through for me.

Thank you. Bob Orton is not a ding dong.

Currently throwing on random episodes of NJ TV from '88. There's this tag team, got red and white uniforms, one has a hood with a Jason mask on the front and the other one has some kinda Texas Hangmen vibe with his hood. Their manager is wearing a doctor's coat and looks like he hosts some cut-rate public access sci-fi/horror show. They've got a plethora of weapons, including a rapier, a megaphone and a whip. Who the hell are these ding dongs?

Nikki forever, too.

That was both Asuka's and Nikki's best match in NXT. I've seen a couple small complaints that Asuka took a little too much punishment, but the way she sold the nearfalls was perfect. She was using the ropes and barricades to prop herself up, just barely beating the counts, and hardly getting her legs under her. The pacing of the match was excellent; there really wasn't any down time, but the action was given time to breathe. The character work was played to a T. We've never really seen Asuka pushed to that level before, and she reacted as she should. Nikki has a Cactus Jack thing going on, but it's a little more subdued when she's selling, which I love. Just excellent stuff, all around. If there's one complaint I have, it's that I thought for damn sure that Asuka got a concussion from that bump onto the pile of chairs. That was straight up SCARY.

I was there live for this and I gotta say that ZSJ works a hell of a lot better for me in a live setting, working as a heel. I thought the Keith Lee/Fred Yehi match was a lot more entertaining, but I might chalk that up to to comedy and a little schtick. Still, I had a pretty low opinion of ZSJ walking into this show, but he made himself a case here.

Yeah, I was kinda not feeling it, either. I'm gonna give that match a rewatch, but it really seemed like Bate blew off the armwork for the most part. That armwork was pretty damn hurty looking, too.

Fuck Vince Russo. He sucks, he's been discussed ad nauseum, he's not worth it in any way, shape or form. The fact that he's a homophobe isn't surprising and it's just one more reason to not give that motherfucker one drop of attention. This. It's enthralling and, yet, completely repellent in a lot of ways.

That Manowar comment got a good chuckle outta me. I'ma check out that Bret match this weekend.

AWESOME. I'll be keeping tabs on this. John Nord could've been a way bigger deal than what he was. Maybe it was the gimmick and the promos that held him back, but damn, that dude could GO in the ring.

Not a surprise, but...eww.

I'm glad someone said Dean Ambrose. I've thought that for a long time. He's totally in the wrong era. He should either be in ECW or the territories, bleeding and punching and being a complete, utter maniac. Instead, he's gotta actually wrestle and do moves beyond piledrivers and throwing fireballs. They've got him doing that dive that takes him a month to run across the ring for and it's long enough to realize that there isn't really much about WWE or modern wrestling in general that plays to his strengths.

I done opened up a firestorm on that other board. "I refuse to hear any dissenting opinion on that match, ever." Oooookay.

There's another board I post on which is centered around music, but contains a wrestling thread. To a man, everyone in that thread loves current New Japan and is flipping out about this match. They were absolutely bewildered that I didn't like Kenny Omega. I watched the match and walked through what I liked and didn't like, and they literally would not address any criticism with an actual defense. They don't see any flaws with it at all. They even think the selling is great. One of the posters said "I implore anyone to find something 'better' recently or in the past." I took him up on it and dropped a list of about 25 matches off the dome, including Bret vs Austin at Mania 13. I included Rey vs. Eddie from Havoc '97, thinking that it would be the closest analogue I could come up with that is unequivocally a great match, and so far, it's been met with "I don't think so, but whatever, different strokes." I don't post much at all here and pretty much never get into match discussion or critiques here. I mostly read and learn. But, damn, the only criticism I really see there is against Roman Reigns, John Cena and the like. There is a pretty wide variety of stuff being pimped and people there are generally pretty positive about most everything, which is cool. But as far as actual, substantive match discussion, that's just not where their heads are at.

Benbeeach, that was a great post, and you hit the nail on the head. I went into watching it despising what I've seen of Kenny Omega, and it was good to see him drop the goofy bullshit. All I've seen out of Okada is a tag match on RoH tv recently that he pretty much sleptwalked through. I didn't come out of this a fan of either guy, and this match is not my bag at all. But, it is a spectacle, that's for damn sure. And if one is a follower and fan of New Japan, there's an emotional investment there that I just don't have. It's a polarizing match, and a pretty flawed one, but I get why so many people love it.

1. Get my ass to a live show. It's been five or six years, at least. Raw is coming through Detroit, but I'd rather hit Smackdown or a house show. Hopefully, NXT rolls through. RoH comes through pretty often, and depending on who's on the card, I'll hit that up. I've heard good things about one of the local indies around here, so maybe that. 2. Watch the rest of the Portland set.

There's another board that I post on where I get this feeling. My tastes in general just don't jive with the rest of the posters in the thread. Damn near to a man, they're freaking out about the Omega/Okada match. I can't stand Kenny Omega, and I'll have bricks dropped on my head before I watch a 45 minute match of his. They're all really into PWG, too. I dig that promotion, because it's really a venue for wrestlers to come to and freak the fuck out, and that's cool. I've seen some really good stuff that I dug out of that promotion over the last couple years, but I've also seen a lot of stuff that just leaves me cold. It's really, really excessive and numbing. There was stuff like that in RoH back in the day, too. I remember getting an RoH DVD in the mail and some 70s All Japan Classics tape from Lynch with Jumbo, Mil, and Terry about three days later. It struck me how much easier it was to follow the AJ stuff. Also, I've been singing the praises of current Negro Casas and the Brian Kendrick miracle run and it's just kinda falling on deaf ears there. When it comes down to it, though, it's okay and I really don't care. I follow my whims and enjoy wrestling for myself. What I've realized is that what I really like is being able to get caught up in one promotion or TV show that's well-booked and gets me invested emotionally. Ring of Honor did that in the mid-00's, WWE can do it now and then, NXT with Ryan Ward at the helm, etc. Smackdown is currently kicking ass, so I make it a point to watch that. Sprinkle in some stuff from the 80s and 90s and I'm pretty much set.