dawho5

Fastest draft pick ever. Maybe cause I've been waiting all day for it and it actually happened exactly how I wanted it to.

Frank Valois steps to the podium with King Tonga following. "With the fifth pick in the 1983 draft Montreal selects Tonga John." (Later known as the Barbarian in WCW) The two Tongan wrestlers shake hands and begin talking quietly while Valois announces the promotion's next pick. "The International Wrestling Association of Montreal is happy to welcome Jumpin' Jim Brunzell." Brunzell walks to the podium and shakes Valois' hand. He goes to do the same with the two Tongans and gets a fist to the jaw from King Tonga. The two Tongans beat away at Brunzell as they are continually scolded by Valois. Finally security pulls the two away and order is restored. Frank Valois steps to the mic. "My apologies for that. Steps will be taken to ensure that doesn't happen again."

I don't disagree completely on Ryder. I just hate the gimmick and never really liked the Mojo gimmick or Mojo in general. So I can't see liking the team at all.

I just caught up to current on NXT so I thought I'd run down the current roster as of mid-June. Women Dana Brooke - She is a complete waste of resources at this point. Can barely work and is being pushed harder than women who can. She belongs on the main roster working two minute piss break matches. I hope she gets called up after her feud with Charlotte. Blue Pants - She's over in Florida and seems decent enough in the one match that goes longer than two minutes. She deserves a name and a shot at the very least. If it doesn't work out on tour keep her in the studio as a jobber. Carmella - Good enough at working submissions for where she is at. Decent dropkick and not much else. She seems to have settled on being a babyface so that's something. Alexa Bliss - She has some decent athletic spots and seems to be good at garnering sympathy. So make her a heel and run a program against an opponent that is only good at wrenching in submissions. Seems destined to fail but we'll see. Emma - I wasn't sure how well she would do as a heel and the jury is still out. She's working against Bayley which makes it way easier on her. But it seems good enough for now. Shes' got some good vicious submissions and seems to have changed things up well enough. Bayley - Bayley is not a great pro wrestler yet. She's very good and an incredible natural babyface. And she can make people less experienced look much better in the ring. As well as being one of my personal favorites in NXT. I'm a big Kikuchi fan, I love Kobashi in his early fiery babyface period and am a sucker for a good face-in-peril segment in a match. So Bayley is fucking awesome. Charlotte - I like Charlotte as the asskicker babyface. She's athletic enough to pull off a lot of cool stuff and big enough to seem naturally stronger than her opponents. She needs a lot of polish going forward. Her feud with Dana seems like a disaster before it starts because it depends on Charlotte for any kind of structure or guidance. Becky Lynch - Becky in the ring is flat-out awesome. Her character "change" to a more steampunk-themed gimmick is more of a direction but still seems to samey compared to what she was. I want her to do well because she's got the goods. Sasha Banks - #1 heel in the company and an incredible worker. She talks, acts and wrestles her gimmick. Absolutely one of my favorite wrestlers working right now. I said I loved a good face-in-peril and that has two sides to it. Good heel work is also necessary and Sasha brings that in spades. Men Jobbers - Jason Jordan needs a real push. Angelo Dawkins should get more than he does for sure. The rest need plenty more work. Mojo Rawley - He seems a little better than he was as far as execution after one match back. Goofier, but that has more to do with the booking change over the last month. Not sure if I care for Ryder as his new tag partner yet but it may work. Bull Dempsey - Yeah, this new booking is going to kill him dead while he's in NXT. What a waste of months of building a guy up only to job him out for almost as long then have him work the "fat fuck" comedy gimmick. He could have been a Fit Finlay in WCW character in time, but oh well. Enzo/Cass - Please make Enzo a manager before he gets to the main roster. I would beg to have him removed from TV altogether but that's not happening. Cass is the highlight of his group and should be pushed as a singles guy on the midcard. BAM - I thought they were going places when they won the tag titles, but their heel turn has killed the in-ring work. Both have some good spots to work into a match. It just doesn't happen much anymore. The heel turn has given them more in terms of character though, so it's a toss-up. They need lots of work and this current feud is pretty dreadful on all counts. Vaudevillains - THANK GOD they came back. I love this gimmick and how much it's improved English's in-ring work. Just cheesy midcard fun at it's best with some decent to good in-ring action to go with it. Rhyno - Please leave. Please. But he won't because they need him for main events. Baron Corbin - The fans are turning on him. He isn't good enough to work longer matches, but he's being put into them. At least he's being given time to grow. I don't know if he ever amounts to anything other than WWF midcard big guy. Tyler Breeze - He seems to have been downgraded recently. I love his work as he stays in character well in matches and interviews. He's not the most amazingly stiff or believable worker but he's believable enough and it actually fits his gimmick. I always like seeing him come out because I know it won't be bad. Finn Balor - The entrance I can do without forever. His work is not bad, but he's missing something in-ring for me that I can't describe. I like his finisher and his gimmick seems to be getting over. I don't see him as champ at all yet though. He usually puts on entertaining matches without a lot of the undercard hitches, so I'll take him over most. Kevin Owens - Great heel and dominant in every way. I don't want to see him go to the main show before we get a big Owens/Joe match and the Zayn revenge match. Loving Owens so far both as a character and in-ring. Injured Hideo Itami - He started getting some momentum and direction going before his injury. Not a huge fan of his finish. He's so much better in NXT than he was 95% of the time in NOAH due to the restraints. I want to see more of him in NXT for a while. Sami Zayn - Easily the best babyface in NXT, perhaps company-wide. I love everything about his last 5 or 6 months. He can't come back soon enough. Moved to Main Roster Neville - Sorely missed. Great worker by the time he left NXT. Kidd - Man, I loved his heel run in NXT. He is incredible. Kalisto - Great spot machine/good sympathy guy. He was fun. Sin Cara - Didn't seem overly interested while he was in NXT. Not at all missed. Titus - Stay away forever. Brodus Clay - See Titus.

So going off on a tangent here, why is it that there are so many people involved in this "respect for the business" cult of pro wrestling? I love pro wrestling, but I can say that if I was a young guy with the right physique I'd definitely look at it as a business deal on my end. That's not to say I wouldn't work hard at it, because I think if I'm getting paid to do something I damn well better work at it. But that's besides the point. Is this mindset there because of the harsh training meant to weed out those who were only in it for the money? Is it something that comes from certain old timers? Did it come from the old "kayfabe" code or something?

I loved the intensity in this match. For an extended squash designed to put Kawada/Taue over this was a brilliant wrestling match. Kobashi's punch to set up Kawada's punch was nice too. Kikuchi is looking less and less relevant based on the 5/13 singles with Kawada and this match. He's so far behind that he's not even seen as a threat anymore. I guess it's okay in the long run because him, Ogawa and Fuchi would have been gone from TV unless they were in a six man once late 93 hit anyway.

Didn't Luger get shit on in WCW booking-wise for that exact same reason?

I could use Saito for a single shot on Wed. September 21st.

He said he picked Bobby Bass in the other thread.

Fray get yourself over to the GWE stuff and talk about Michaels. We need more perspective from the positive side about Michaels than we have for sure. Thing about PWO is that if you back your opinions up there aren't many who will tell you they are invalid. They will argue until the end of time that you are wrong, but they won't look down on you for having those views. Welcome.

I'd like to see this done too, but it's a new thing for most of us. When the redrafts come around I think we will be better prepared for how it works and it will go more smoothly. For now we just gotta try to figure it out without blowing it up in the meantime.

Frank Valois is proud to announce that he is indeed partnering with Jack Tunney of Maple Leaf Wrestling to put on a joint show in the Maritimes on the second Monday of each month. He added that he hoped this would be only the first accord with his fellow Canadian promoters. Valois stated that he wanted to put on the best possible wrestling showcase for the Canadian fans and was happy that Jack Tunney had the same goal.

Yeah, I'm all about seeing what kind of things can be accomplished in a cooperative manner. A part of it is the nature of the draft and how thin talent is going to end up being as well. It's going to be hard to have a really big wrestling show with 4 or 5 big names.

Yeah, depending on how things flesh out I have ideas about using injuries to keep things fresh and cycle guys out from time to time.

My second round pick was over thirty removed from my 4th, which was two picks behind my forfeited third round pick. Honestly I think if you're going to draft a tag team that's the way to go. Take it on a round where you're picking high and you are close to dead last the next round. You're maybe sacrificing two or three picks in between where you would have picked and where you did for two guys you want right now. It just makes sense.

I don't se it being a huge problem, but it seems at odds with how we're trying to do this. Either way works fine though.

I'd say stick with already existing teams, whether it be from reality or teams we have put together in future drafts.

Balor v. Breeze Perfectly fine for an opener. Lots of highspots without a ton of structure. I have grown to hate Balor's entrance, especially the demon one. His finish is ridiculous kinds of hurty though. It's a perfect WWE finish in it's simplicity + painful looking. Women's Tag Okay, note to whoever is changing up all the booking. Dana has a 3-5 minute match in her at best. And half of that is going to be bad timing and awkwardness. So keep her out of the matches with people who can work. Bayley is all kinds of awesome as the little engine that could babyface. Emma is not as bad as a heel as I would have guessed. Only problem is she's in the same division as Sasha which makes her seem like a bargain basement variation. There was good stuff here for sure but I think Dana needs to be moved to the main roster as she fits that match style perfectly. Corbin v. Rhyno When Titus was in NXT I kept hoping they'd put him with Baron in a "This is what you become if you don't learn to work" feud. But instead they bogged down the main events with him for too long. At least if they are going to have Rhyno around and spouting off they gave him the right target. Corbin desperately needs some real offense to work with if he's going to work longer matches. Rhyno's bump off the top was incredible. Tag Championship I hate Enzo/Cass' entrance with a passion. Enzo busting out actual wrestling moves was shocking as Hell. Up until that point he had been completely and utterly worthless in any kind of in-ring capacity. Saying that Enzo's performance here is miles ahead of everything he's done on NXT TV is both true and incredibly sad. Make him a manager and focus on Cass, who needs more big spots but is at least passable. BAM have flashes of being good, but the heel turn really killed them. I thought they were better as up-and-coming babyfaces with actual offense. The Carmella/Alexa feud is going to be interesting in a "let's see if it works" way. Both are lost when it comes to working, Carmella is good when working submissions and Alexa can hit a few of her highspots with consistency. If both improve it might help elevate them, but if they continue to have awful timing and inconsistent execution it's gonna be rough to watch. Also I'm not sure I buy Alexa as a heel. Sasha v. Becky Okay, you know how I didn't particularly like the rest of the show? I no longer care. Yeah they got a little cute with the roll-ups at the beginning but they didn't go into Dean Malenko-style pushing the opponent out of the pin into their cover levels of bad. And everything after was incredible. Sasha is the best heel in the company with Owens right behind. One of the reasons I say that is because Becky was a heel right up to 2 weeks short of the show. And somehow by the end of the match she's a babyface despite getting in by putting one over on Charlotte. That's some god damn heel work by Sasha there. I would call that the best match of the year over Zayn v. Owens 1 and Zayn v. Neville. Zayn v. Owens I loved Zayn's extended shine. That was some incredible shit right there. The ending takes a lot away from it, but I understand why they did what they did. They wanted to put Owens' apron PB over as the killer and not the shoulder injury. It just detracts a lot from the match. And when you think about it, I would guess that the tag championship and Rhyno/Corbin were meant to be shorter. It's just that Zayn was injured and couldn't work the match they wanted to do for this slot. So they cut it down from 25 minutes and tacked that ending on as well as putting some more time into a couple of other matches. Still, the Zayn shine was massive amounts of incredible and I want more! Owens forcing the crowd to hate him despite their willingness to love him is some kind of holy shit awesome revelation within the WWE.

I'm feeling your pain Parv. I've been either really low or really high in every round so it's been a long time in between. Just means more time to plot things out. The double pick at the end of a round is nice though.

If by variant you mean, "I spelled it wrong." then you are certainly on the right track. Doing some digging for ideas on a house show loop and trying to find KrisZ's champions list. Putting things off is always a great idea I tell you. If you ever get the chance to do something, wait until later and struggle to find the thing you glossed over four or five times before. It's so much more fun.

Owner: Frank Valois Announcers: Jacues Rougeau, Sr. (French), Milt Arvuskin (English, dubbed for videotape sales outside of Quebec) Referees: Adrian Desbois Andre Roy Eugene Brie Luigi Marcera Omer Marchessault Roster: The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers (Jacques & Raymond Rougeau) The Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Randy Rose) with Eddie Creatchman The Tongan Terrors (King Tonga & Tonga John) with Captain Lou Albano The Can Am Express (Phil LaFon & Jim Brunzell) Armand Rougeau/Rene Goulet Pierre Lefebvre/Gille Poisson Gino Brito/Tony Parisi Louis Laurence/Tony Ricco Alex & Tim Gerrard Bobby & Rudy Kay Dave Kochen Richard Charland/Dan Johnson Steve Regal Schedule: TV Tapings: Wednesdays at Paul Suave Arena (cap. 3000) with the show being aired on Friday night in Quebec. House Shows: Tuesdays in smaller towns around Quebec and Saturdays in Montreal at the Paul Suave Arena. Montreal Forum (cap. 18000) shows every three months on the last Saturday of the month replaces the house show in Paul Suave Arena. More specific details on the content of upcoming events will be released before the last week of June.

I am fully willing to work with whoever as long as it's give and take. If your TV is not the same day as mine and travel time seems legitimately doable I am willing to trade guys for shots whenever. Also, I think different draft strategies make this a bit more interesting. You have to balance out how much you NEED your need guys and how much you want your want guys. If it isn't an absolute need maybe you take the guy who is available that you want, but if it's something you see as being a problem not having it's not worth it to pass up in my opinion.

With their 4th pick in the draft Montreal selects King Tonga (also known as Haku or Meng).

Frank Valois of Montreal requests that his promotion be a part of the NWA. If it is felt that he belongs on the Board of Directors that would be fine, but membership is all that is requested.

I work an 8 hour shift, sometimes 9. I'm either home at 3 or 4 CST. Once I'm home I'm keeping track so I don't slow it down.