Laz

As somebody whose diet is about 90% vegan due to having a vegan partner and "in-laws," as well as many vegan friends from my years in/out of the metal and punk scenes... Yeah. Whooooooole lotta nutjobs. There's a major overlap between "I don't eat animal products for health/moralistic reasons" and "GUBMINT SCIENTISTS BE LYING TO US" and you're not paying attention if you don't see it. Back on topic, Aries was always a guy that could be a part of something great but wasn't doing it often enough to where I'd consider him to be great.

This has nothing to do with PWO. This is just a really, really awful take.

Gotta say, but I didn't realize how little I really cared about overall match quality until I got into ICW (Scotland) 6 years ago. That period from 2012 until right around they cut the WWE deal is some of the best booking featuring some of the pound-for-pound lamest in-ring talents of the modern era, but fuck if I didn't mark out like mad when Grado won the gold or Chris Renfrew finally turned on Whiplash to reform the NAK.

As a lifelong metalhead who loves making comparisons between music and wrestling, this is fairly accurate, right down to the "insider" mentality that pervades the majority of the scenes. Trve kvlt types hate Deafheaven and other blackgaze acts for not ripping off Darkthrone like everybody else does; there's a devoted but small throwback scene for traditional heavy metal inspired by the likes of Saxon and Manowar and whatnot; the self-conscious epics even have direct comparisons with the progressive and technical death metal scenes; and then you have the 90s throwbacks, "when wrestling was good," from bands in their 20s/30s who are putting out OSDM releases. None of that means anything to most of you, but it should speak to a larger cultural thing in that EVERY audience, and not just pro wrestling, has splintered and become increasingly niche. As for how pro wrestling can adjust, as a medium? I think @SomethingSavage and @Memphis Mark are hitting a few nails perfectly on the head, at least in diagnosing some ills. Not enough attention is being paid to the long-term, the lack of canonical continuity is harming the week-to-week viewership, smaller markets with more dedicated fans are being ignored in favor of larger markets with higher upside but lower guarantee (an entirely different business argument of stability vs. potential can be made), the self-awareness of the "great match" formula being overdone and thus ignoring that a truly GREAT match can only happen organically, and there not being enough progression in the product itself so that tuning in once a year gives you everything you'll need...these are all majorly contributing factors that CAN be controlled by the promotions.

Oddly enough, this can entirely depend upon the actions taken prior to the bullied throwing the punch. "Fighting words," legally speaking, are not covered under the First Amendment (defined as any language intentionally designed to provoke physical action), and there've been cases where the provocation to the attack was so strong that the assault and battery charges were dropped.

Likely also to have a big, big show at the end of the fiscal year.

Too long, didn't read, fuck him

Most of the forced epics over the last decade or so.

That's potentially untrue, since there's a lot of people in the adult industry that actively avoided Extreme Associates for an assortment of reasons.

Boston has a history of taking retributive violence beyond what is expected. Push 'em far enough? Ya fucked, khed.

There was nothing passive aggressive about it, actually. I've just noticed an ongoing trend of people talking about what they don't like about [insert Elite member here] and you going off with various paragraphs that amount to "I like them and your criticism is wrong because I like them." We get it. You don't like Cornette and disagree with just about all of his takes, even the ones that are pretty accurate (like how the BUSINESS of pro wrestling was more fruitful pre-Vince). Then you make lousy jokes and get mad when people point out why the joke doesn't land.

So you don't find the irony in referencing something from 40+ years ago after making the accusation that somebody is stuck 20 years in the past? Good to know. Do you have any idea about how to have decent conversation without going into full on defensive tangents, by the way? Or do you just like to "stick to facts" and get really, really aggravated when people debate them?

Welcome to any one of his pro-Omega stanning tangents: filled with logical fallacies, strawmen, and presenting opinion as fact.

Aye to this. Taz literally built his gimmick off of being a street tough who could pop off a suplex from any angle, and he was 5'9"; similarly, Perry Saturn is 5'10" and largely worked the same schtick. The size isn't as important as the moveset matching the gimmick, and either Buck being some super strong suplex machine goes in direct contrast of the gimmick they've worked for over a decade (of being quick and agile, replacing strength with speed). To put it in RPG terms, you don't act like your rogue is the tank unless that's how they're built, and the Bucks aren't built like that. Synergy is important. 1. Irony, because... 2. If pro wrestling were punk rock, it would be relishing in the older guard calling it an "outlaw carnie mud show." Captain Sensible's nickname was ironic as he would cause as big a ruckus as he could at all times, Jello Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco just so he could mock Dianne Feinstein to her face, Glenn Danzig and Henry Rollins would chase glam rockers down the street, the Sex Pistols infamously followed the Queen's barge on her birthday playing a song critical of her, etc. Punk was about embracing the filthier side of civilization and accepting it. If there is a "punk rock" side to modern pro wrestling, it's found in companies like GCW and talents like G-Raver, who try all they can to upset the status quo, and not in a company with two hours of prime time television a week on a major cable channel. 3. I'd liken it more to the tech/prog bands that are capable of insane speed and precision while playing intricate rhythms and scales, but suffer when it comes to actual songwriting or even playing basic music. There's an episode of the show Metalocalypse where the band tries to learn how to play the blues (so that they could summon a demon at a crossroads and become even more famous), but they can't strum a simple chord and burst into sweep arpeggios whenever they try. THAT is modern wrestling. 4. Double irony: saying Corny is stuck on things that happened 15-20 years ago...and then literally referencing something from 43 years ago. And not even a particularly great year for punk, at that.

I will argue that WM14 is one of Taker's good matches on the grounds that, as @Loss said, the match hit the big points it needed to and ended in a manner that felt true to the angle up to that point. It was also surreal as shit to see somebody kick out of multiple Tombstones, and only BARELY stay down for a third. Not great, by any means, but better than any of the previous WM matches besides Diesel, and better than a lot of the ones that followed.

With all due respect, this is the sentiment that was applied to 80s WWF/JCP, 90s ECW/WCW/Attitude Era, etc. Even if I tend to agree with the assessment of talents that people who hold this kind of opinion offer, this particular angle screams "I can't take that I'm aging" to me. Foley even made reference in his first book about how Ricky Morton would make fun of old timers back in the late 80s/early 90s with their "back in our day we knew how to wrestle" lines. I don't care for Omega, Maki, or most of the comedic talents that permeate the industry today and I'm greatly looking forward to when the pendulum swings back to something more serious, but the beauty of the modern age is that you probably can find something that satiates you.

He was involved in Austin/Rock?

Kevin Owens is a good pick for fun/spotfest palate cleansers, especially if you focus on his PWG work from 2010-2013. His run as PWG World champ during that period was filled with highly entertaining, but not technically great, brawls and bombfests. Love his tag w/ Super Dragon vs. the Young Bucks, love the title defenses against Willie Mack and Brian Cage (the latter featuring a legitimate psychological reason for biting as a primary attack strategy), and any time he's been paired off with Generico is, of course, worth every second of your time.

I feel really bad speaking ill of the dead, especially those who succumbed to mental health issues, but fuck Mike Graham.

**shrugs** I don't post here enough anymore, so I had no idea @MoS is from India, so the two of you trying to figure out if Arquette's father told him stories of Gorgeous George when the recap specifies that Arquette saw reruns of 50s wrestling matches as a kid struck me as odd. Maybe it's too much of a Western phrase?

TTK's recap makes it clear that Arquette watched reruns of classic LA wrestling on TV as a child, before the WWF made the big expansion. A rerun is older footage being shown again.

Holy shit, TTK, that is the motherload of recaps. Thank you! One thing I'll point out about this line of yours, though... ...is that producing an ex-spouse's work is very common in Hollywood. James Cameron still does work with Gale Anne Hurd, Kathryn Bigelow, and Linda Hamilton, and all three are ex-wives. It was likely an exaggeration on his wife's part, but producers will hitch their name to anything they think can make them some money, even if the work is being done by an ex.

Awesome recap, TTK. Like everyone else, I've come away with a greater appreciation for Herd and the headaches he must have had.

From what I remember, there was a Cornette mailbag episode forever ago and this was one of them. It's fair to say that if Flair did it, it probably came from Buddy Rogers, Ray Stevens, or Jackie Fargo. That's not even a knock. I

From what I've also gathered, he is known as a guy with a lot of burnt bridges in his past. He's talented, sure, but he's not "let's ignore the ego" talented.