CarpetCrawler

Yeah, I think people are being far more kind to Alexa's run than they should be. I like her and think she's an incredible talent, especially on the mic, but at one point she was getting the overkill push and just kept winning and winning while also burying the talent on the mic and some of her feuds weren't helping (dear god that writing team somehow killed Bayley, BAYLEY, when we all thought it was impossible to screw up Bayley). Capped off by that Nia Jax feud where, like it or not, that WrestleMania match with how it was built up with Alexa being a bully and Nia standing up for herself, should've ended with Nia squashing her in a minute in a feel good moment of someone finally standing up to the bully.

You didn't read what I said. I said "flashes of his incredible hustle". I never said anything about his rebounding being "flashes". The dude's hustle and general agility was what got him attention in the first place while in Detroit. The dude was like a spark plug and a sign of life on a team that was frankly slowing down because Rick Mahorn is a slow down thumper and Laimbeer and Mahorn in the middle leads to good returns but everyone else was going to adapt. That's what made Rodman's coming out party so good. The dude was lightning quick and knew how to rile up a home crowd better than anyone past or present in the history of the NBA. The dude was skilled at rebounding, the absolute best for a long period of time, nowhere in my post did I say that his rebounding skills were over-exaggerated. sek had said that people were in awe of his presence, THAT'S what I was saying has been over-exaggerated with the benefit of historical hindsight. But I had some other things I wanted to talk about in your post that I'll get out of the way too: The Spurs were odds-on favorites in the West 1995, with an exception being the Suns. The Spurs pretty famously shat the bed in the Western Conference Finals after David Robinson disappeared during the middle of the series (Avery Johnson earned the entire team's respect for holding a team meeting and chewing out Robinson for dropping the ball. That kinda became The Admiral's problem for most of his career) The Rockets were nowhere near as good in 1995 and were kind of just wavering until the Drexler trade turned them around, and even then he didn't help them as much as they were expecting. They essentially captured lightning in a bottle by taking down a vulnerable and already Over It Suns team and a Spurs team that featured a missing Admiral and tons of in-fighting between coach Bob Hill and Rodman. The only person on your list that I believe had any sort of a chance against those 98-98 Bulls, with his problem being he struggled to deliver late in the game more than not. I know the Pippen "I guess the Mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays" story is cute, but it's also true to his actual reputation at the time!! He was considered a guy who couldn't get it done. The Lex Luger of the NBA? Or would that be Elgin Baylor. He had his only chance in 1993. He's mentioned in recent times on one of the TNT Inside the NBA shows that when he lost the title in 1993, he knew privately it was never going to happen again. By 1995 his body was beyond done and the dude was playing basketball in almost constant pain with a backing crew that was the same as they were in 1993, that being older and with more confidence than any reason to show it. They could've had the chance if Kevin Johnson could stay healthy but that was never going to happen. Ran out of gas to two Rocket teams. In 1994 that Rockets team was real good, in 1995 they were more an angry Rockets team and if the Suns could've kept their cool (they had a 3-1 lead in that series) they could've taken that series. Shawn Kemp was an athletic freak of nature and Gary Payton was the best defensive guard we had seen since Dennis Johnson. However, both their maturity levels (which they thankfully have admitted now) were nowhere near the level they needed to be to lead a team and win a title. Maybe the least surprising thing about the '96 Finals is Chicago taking a 3-0 lead. I will argue that Jordan's Western Conference competition for the first three titles was far more competitive than the last three. In the early 90s in the West you had a Blazers team that just needed to learn to keep its composure (picture an entire team of James Harden-level complainers and you have those Blazers) if they wanted to win, a Suns team that even pre-Barkley was super scary to deal with, an even younger and more athletic Jazz team with a strong 1-2 scoring punch in Jeff and Karl Malone, and a Spurs team that had Rod Strickland before he burnt out. Ya'll got hosed, especially after losing Brad Daugherty and Larry Nance. The 1992 Cavs were a pretty damn good threat and the peak of that squad. The 1992 Bulls were scary good and you got six games out of them!! Phil rules because he figured out what Chuck Daly and John Lucas figured out (Just Leave Rodman Alone and he'll do almost anything to win for you) but he also was smart enough to keep an eye on him without making it seem like he was keeping an eye on him. Phil's psychology is dearly missed in this league today, even in his later Lakers year when he was clearly burning out on egos he was still one of the smartest guys in the league. No one was going to get more out of Rodman than Phil. He even convinced Rodman he could come off the bench when he needed to!!

Rodman's presence as a superstar people were in awe of has been incredibly exaggerated with the benefit of hindsight because the Bulls won three rings with him and everyone forgets the shitshow that was his runs with the Lakers and Mavericks (let alone the Spurs, which he blames literally everyone but himself for why they couldn't get it done in the two years he was there). Most players already started getting sick and tired of his shit when he threw a fit because Chuck Daly left the Pistons in 1992 and it just spiraled to them getting tired of the tabloids never shutting up about him for stuff he did outside of basketball. He wasn't very well-liked by most of the Bulls roster and they were just putting up with him because he showed flashes of his incredible hustle he had as a Piston. I'll make this argument until I'm blue in the face, but if the Bulls got the late 80s/early 90s Rodman before he let his ego take control of his talent they would've never lost a single game.

I'm still wondering why Asuka went to the second floor with the elevator rather than the top.

Conrad trying to poke the bear by quote tweeting Bryan Alvarez saying that he didn't like the Brother Love cameo in an effort to get the Prichard fanboys riled up was maybe the saddest thing I've seen tonight.

The match crawled into a hole and died immediately when they hit that rooftop. For all the talk from Becky Lynch about the spot that Vince showed them, it really didn't factor much at all in the match besides "oh, I guess they're just gone now".

Wait where did Daniel Bryan go

They wrote Dana Brooke out of the match by having her trip on a wet floor. Like, did she just decide to leave?

Why was Corbin trying to stop Asuka????????????????

I wasn't expecting them to give up on Titan Towers so quickly and am kinda disappointed over it.

YES!!!!!!! Perfect way to describe this. This is so goofy but I can't outright hate it.

Otis being a giant buffoon is carrying this entire thing on his back.

I'm just thankful they showed Brother Love getting ready to wash his hands before they moved away from him.

it feels like all three of them were on entirely different planets from each other this entire match. That ending sequence was terrible and I can't even blame it on just Tamina. OK so I haven't watched weekly TV so I'm cracking up at this Seth Rollins look. He looks like a dude who's about to film a video for YouTube explaining why women are the inferior gender.

yup, dude was a giant chode. The Vince McMahon comparison is way more accurate than people think.

In Krause's defense, which I hate saying out loud for a lot of the same reasons everyone else does, he spent the rest of his life arguing that he was quoted completely out of context. And knowing Krause, he 100% would own up to the stuff he'd say no matter how controversial it was (he LOVED the negative attention he would get because his massive Vince McMahon-like ego absolutely adored getting any sort of attention), so I'll cut him a little slack there and take his word in that he was quoted out of context. Also, he was 100% in the right that trading Charles Oakley for Bill Cartwright was what Chicago needed to win their first few rings and it took way, way too long for Michael to admit he had to take an L on that argument. It took the trade to New York for Oakley to realize he was never going to be the scoring jump shooter he desperately wanted to be in Chicago, and Cartwright gave the Bulls a legit elbow banger in the middle during the playoffs to combat the big stiffs in especially the Eastern Conference. Cartwright's elbows once knocked out Charles Barkley for pete's sake. Dude had a rep and owned up to it completely. I didn't like Jerry Krause as a person because he was just a giant ass, but I can't deny the dude was a genius at finding young talent, even though a lot of them blossomed after they left Chicago in the later years. And if anything, Michael Jordan for all of the shittalking he directed towards Krause while he was a Bull, proved he knew jack and shit about running or managing a team after he retired, which everyone has always been afraid to tell Michael to his face for decades now. Dick Barnett's shot was so ugly yet it somehow dropped in every single time!! Completely absurd. Yeah, You really do feel for Jerry West especially knowing that his body was breaking down at the end there, as was Elgin Baylor's. Even in that 69-70 season Wilt missed most all of the entire season. Both the Knicks and the Lakers were completely banged up that year and because of that it was the only competitive Finals series between the both of them. The Lakers stomped all over the Knicks in '72 (which the Knicks even GETTING to the Finals that year considering they lost Willis Reed for almost the entire season is wild in itself), and the Knicks did the same to the Lakers in '73!!

The Herb Abrams episode was fantastic. They spent just the right amount of time on each aspect of his career and run. The stories of his paranoia absolutely fit in this documentary. I know it seemed like a stretch, but I completely believe Herb was involved in a "rivalry" with Vince McMahon that was in all eyes except for his own, completely one-sided.

I'm assuming When the Garden Was Eden? The book version is fantastic as well. My Dad adored those Knick teams and to this day is more than happy to share stories of watching them. He's not wrong; watching highlights, they're such a stunningly fun team to watch.

Fucking word, dude. Being a Knicks fan is about pure suffering. I feel for modern Knick fans because most of them started in the Isiah Thomas era so they've seen all of like... two or three good years for the Knicks ever (that weird period from like 2010-2013 where the Knicks kept making the playoffs before everything shit the bed again). I'd go crazy if I didn't have memories of Ewing/Starks/Oakley/LJ/Houston/Spree to fall back on. Also shoutouts to Derek Harper. I've made this argument forever, but Michael Jordan wasn't winning six titles without Scottie Pippen.

Yup, countless cases of players who took it so far that they sunk their entire careers over it. Allen Iverson is the modern-day posterchild of this.

And in fact, it's been so honest of Michael that he was making the rounds on social media telling people that they hope they don't look at him differently now that all of this is coming out. Which is amusing because amongst anyone who has paid attention to pro basketball or the history of it, Michael's ALWAYS been known as kind of a jerk. It's part of why he is the way he is. Larry Bird too. There's been a neverending debate over if you need to be harsh and cruel to your teammates to win or if you don't really need to do that, with people arguing on both sides of the spectrum (Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson being very notable members of the "you don't have to be a dick to your teammates to succeed" camp).

Susan Lucci got death threats almost constantly when she played Erica Kane on All My Children. In fact as someone who considers myself more knowledgeable on retro television than pro wrestling, I will always argue that wrestling got NOTHING compared to the level of harassment, threats, and physical violence soap opera stars used to get from their fanbase. When confronted about it, fans of the shows absolutely realize it's not real--but like in wrestling they admit to getting lost in the illusion. To most people now-a-days it feels absurd to say it, but there was a period of the late 70s/early 80s were daytime soap operas absolutely dominated television, moreso than usual, which helped piggyback why nighttime soap operas dominated primetime as well. RE: The Schultz Dark Side episode. It was a good watch and Schultz is a very charismatic guy and by all accounts, is extremely likable when you talk to him outside of wrestling. He's also a hell of a talent for promos so I was glad to see the documentary emphasized that the dude really did have some talent as a performer. Getting John Stossel to appear was the real coup of the doc, and I was honestly surprised because I would've never thought he would've done anything for it. He definitely walked away the villain of the piece, but I have to give some credit to the guy for being so open and blatant about how much of a carny he was for the entire ordeal, right down to how all the pain magically went away right when he received the money. He outconned the conmen in such a showboat-y manner you'd think he was Vince McMahon himself. As someone who studied that entire Mr. T incident very thoroughly a few years back, I very much believe everyone in this documentary was working like bonkers. My gut: Schultz was trying to force an angle with T for at the least, after WrestleMania. Him being mad at Mr. T about being left off the card of WrestleMania doesn't pass the laugh test (neither does the "I was blackballed by Vince!!" talking point because what promoter is going to even give Vince a listen in 1985. Schultz realized there was more money to be made being a bounty hunter, that's why he disappeared from the scene) considering he was already so far down the card by that point that he was doing 20 minute matches with guys like SD Jones and Jose Luis Rivera at the house shows. The reason he lost to Inoki at the December 1984 MSG show was that he was a name for Inoki to beat that people could recognize that also wasn't going to have his status on the card affected by the loss since in Vince's eyes he was already on the way down anyway. I think it was more that he realized he wasn't on the card for WrestleMania and he was looking to find a way to get himself back into the upper card scene. Something that I never thought about until it was brought up by Jim Valley. Mansfield started up his own wrestling company later on, and for all the talk about regulating wrestling, did his workers ever get insurance and benefits?

Joel Deaton suffered a massive stroke and his family started a GoFundMe because they need help with his medical bills and recovery so I figured I'd drop the link in here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/joel-deaton

The best part of both nights has been the movie stuff. Also props for licensing Obsession.

did JBL seriously just say Naomi has a "home court advantage"? There's no home court audience for her to feed energy off of!! Are you kidding me?