TheDuke

I like to think of the second brand split as the start of the current Era. Probably mainly because I prefer Smackdown to Raw, and before the brand split it just felt like a B show. I understand though that roster wise and booking wise, a lot of the key elements of this current era started before the brand split. However, if somebody who wasn't watching the current product wanted to go back and start watching this current period from the beginning, I would tell them to start with the second brand split.

If anybody is looking to watch this match on the WWE Network, it's annoying as there are no "bookmarks" or whatever they are called for Batle at The Royal Albert Hall. Anyway, the pre match Mean Gene interview is at 22:24, entrances start at 23:30, bell rings at 25:58. It's under the Home Video Classics section. I thought it was funny during the Figure 4 spot when the ropes were shaking because Flair had just let go so the ref wouldn't catch him, and Heenan tried to tell Gorilla that one of the camera men had bumped into the ropes causing them to shake. Also I liked the pulling the tights finish, but I guess booking wise it does make Flair look weak to use that trick to beat Santana. I am sure that Vince at this point really saw Flair in the long term as a cowardly mid card heel not a main eventer he could use.

Man, Hogan looks so cool with the camo and the face mask. I think I liked this masked version of Hogan better than either Hulk Machine or Mr America. The toy company should release a 3 pack of all three of these masked versions of Hogan. The yellow and red was getting a little tired at this point, so I feel like they should have just dumped the yellow and red and had him keep the desert storm gear he wears here. It's a shame we had to wait until 1996 for Hogan to finally get a makeover, as he had been wearing yellow and read since the mid 80's. And The finish of this was so cool, instead of the leg drop and pin, we have Hogan using Slaughter's own move against him, and General Adnan running from the back with a white towel to throw in. The corner man literally throwing the towel in is a finish that is used very rarely in wrestling, so when I see it happen I always think it's cool.

My thought is that instead of having Wrestlemania be so long. have maybe 5 matches on the show, and all the other matches, push to Raw and Smackdown. Have special "Wrestlemania" edition episodes of Raw and Smackdown, and thats were they can put the Battle Royals and Tag Team Championship and IC/US/Cruiserweight matches, and treat them like they are special episodes, like season finales or something.

Oh. Well, I look forward to Tim's next review then

Until I read this, I was thinking it was Turkey. And since I had been watching the Network this week, I assumed it was the Gobbledy Gooker. I know, I know, but in my head it made sense because it was coming out of a cardboard box. Which immediately made me think of the Box of Gimmicks they always would talk about on Bruce Prichard's podcast, because he is back in WWE now. Basically I thought it was a vignette for a second season of Something Else to Wrestle.

Michael Elgin was wresling at my local indy show on Friday night, and then last night he was wrestling in Halifax. I was surprised when I heard that as that meant he wasn't in the New York area this weekend, but if he is considered toxic in the US indy scene that makes more sense now.

It's probably going to be like the crappy weekly studio show they have in Canada on our Sportsnet channel. It's got like former referree Jimmy Korderas, Santino Marella, and a couple other people I don't recognizing just talking about the top storylines on Raw this week, similar to the talking heads on the PPV preshows when there isn't a kickoff match going on.

I noticed a nice new Match Review up on the main site Devil Masami vs Chigusa Nagayo -- AJW, 08-22-85. I am assuming this is from you Loss? Thank you for posting it if it is. The match reviews were my favorite part of the relaunch of the main site last summer.

I just realized I haven't watched SNL in a loooong time as I don't recognize either of these guys and Weekend Update used to be one of my favorite parts of the show

Hey, I was just wondering if anybody here has played any tabletop wrestling-themed RPG's? Even the official WWF/WWE ones? Just curious if any of them were any good, or were awful, or if anybody just has any interesting stories about playing them. Thanks

I should check that video out. That sounds like it would be interesting to watch. I should also check to see if there is a wrestling-themed table top RPG thread in the PWO archives.

I recently saw Eli Drake at a local indy show a few weeks ago and really enjoyed him. He won the title and then lost it in a nearby city the next night, but it was a fun match

I wonder if he will do ROH or Impact? those might be interesting to listen to, and shorter.

Is Hogan going to be in Puerto Rico the night Bruiser Brody died?

woohoo I can't wait to listen to this. Right now im on the Worldcast of Champions 1 episode. I'm a bit behind because i don't have the network anymore but i am considering jumping straight to this episode.

I would like to see Shane turn heel on Miz. I mean i would rather see Shane not even have a match at Wrestlemania and give that time to an actual wrestler, but if he is going to wrestle at Mania, I think I would like to see him as the heel getting beaten up by a face Miz. And then maybe Bryan and Miz could have another match, but this time with the heel/face roles reversed. That might make some fun promos.

well they did a great job shitting on EC3 in the main roster in like 5 seconds right off the bat by having him be a joke character that Elias walked by on the way to the ring. I hope he comes back out later tonight.

I saw that CMLL seems to post full episodes of their show on their YouTube channel, and was interested after watching the Andrade/Mysterio match in watching some 2014-2015 CMLL episodes during the time La Sombra was in Los Ingobernables. This would be during the early days of that stable. I don't really know much about the original version of Los Ingobernables and thought it might be enjoyable to see how it started since CMLL seems to upload everything to YouTube anyway. However, I'm not entirely sure how to navigate to the episodes I want to see without scrolling through 4-5 years worth of YouTube uploads as searching "Abril 2014" in their video section doesn't seem to help.

Yeah, I thought that match was awesome. I was surprised to see it on television as it felt like a PPV match up until the finish. I think it is a really great idea that they don't use these crazy moves in every match, because when they do use them in a match like this they feel more special. I remember really liking the Andrade/Gargano match in NXT and had given most of the credit for that to Gargano, but now I am rethinking that and wondering if Andrade is actually a much better wrestler than I had previously believed.

Wow I didn't remember the name change being that late.

I watched the most recent episode Being the Elite that rovert posted above and enjoyed it. It was a fun bit of silliness, not exactly what I was expecting. It reminds me a bit of the little skits wwf used to do on Primetime or Coliseum Home Video. The ones with Heenan and Monsoon or whoever. Not as good as what The Brain used to do, but I think it is a lot better than what they do on Raw with the neverending promos about nothing. I do think the audio quality needs to be improved but maybe AEW will use more expensive microphones. I went back and watched the first episode but its quite different. It seems more like a video blog where they talk about where they have been flying to recently and it is just the 2 Bucks. It really didn't seem too interesting or relevant so I don't think I'll be watching it from the beginning. I went back instead and watched last weeks episode and that was fun. I don't think it's something I would want to sit and binge watch though, but watching a half hour once a week would be okay. I do agree that moving forward for other promotions to stand out they need to break away from the stale Raw formula, and doing an internet show that looks like it's shot with cell phone cameras does give it a sense of immediacy that Raw lacks. I think I prefer the format of Lucha Undergound as far as that goes. I do think having some short matches or maybe some clips of match highlights would help break it up.

I hope if it goes on TBS they also show it on Peachtree, as we don't get TBS here but do get Peachtree when it split off from TBS due to Canadian regulations

Awesome man. Thanks

Do you have this podcast in an audio format so I can listen to it on my ipod shuffle?