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Beast I saw on the first you said you haven't watched a ton of modern new japan, so I thought I would through this NJPW/RevPro match your way and see if you have seen it. Its Keith Lee vs Tomohiro Ishii Global Wars UK last year. I think there are mixed feelings about it out there, but I really liked it. It was pretty easily my favorite Lee performance from 2017, probably ever. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68q34a If you have seen this before let me know and I will get something else for you.

Yeah, I love the idea of Rusev winning, but as a serious prediction I can't buy it. I agree with the general sentiment that Rusev is great and I would love to see him get bumped up to the main, but nothing in what the WWE has done makes me think it will happen. I also think they have been really safe in their Royal Rumble booking for a bit now. Even though I anticipate them using Brock vs Reigns as the main (which in theory could give them some room to play on the SD side with a winner), I'd be a bit surprised if they dug to even the middle of the roster for a winner.

The whole thing about people on wrestling twitter being upset about Nick Gage proves beyond down that Nick Gage is great at being a wrestler. Maybe it is just Gage being Gage, but no one attacks the lines between what is real and what is part of the gimmick like he does. I loved his promos and tweets about how Style Battle messed up by booking him because he doesn't care about their promotion and he isn't going to play by their rules. That put such a bee in the bonnet of smarky fans who think they are part of the business but really aren't. For all his physical limitations (which I think are overblown sometimes) he makes up for it by being the most Nick Gage he can be.

I am watching ASW this morning and so hyped for Walter vs ZSJ. I’m also giving pretty serious thought to buying the Style Battle gimmick this afternoon to see Walter vs Nick Gage. Man... i really want to check that Walter vs Gage match out. I honestly can't even picture it in my brain. I am a huge fan of both, but they feel like they belong in different worlds. I'm really hoping they are both in that Matt Riddle Bloodsport thing in NOLA. That would be awesome. I don't get into town until Thursday evening, so I have to miss that one, but the show should be great.

Someone linked this to me in the Beginners Guide to British Wrestling thread. This is super helpful.

The full tape of the broadcast exists -- the people behind one of the wrestler-only reunions paid for ITV to find it in their film archives and digitise it. That only covered showing it at the reunion and not making any copies. So to put it vaguely, anyone who does now have a copy will likely be under strict instructions not to pass it on, and if they do, it will be on the same basis. ITV having digitised it meant it was available to licence for the BBC Timeshift documentary on wrestling a few years back which used clips from it. Ahhh. Understood. Well maybe one day I will luck into seeing it. Thanks for the info.

Not my call... it isn't REALLY a spoiler, but I guess some people might want to avoid even much speculation since that is part of the Rumble's charm. I sort of wish I hadn't clicked it honestly, but oh well.

hahaha.... its true. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I watched a Breaks vs Saint (3/14/73) match this morning that I was also quite fond of. I feel like I have seen three very distinct types of 70s/80s British wrestling matches that were all really really good so far. I have quite a few pulled up on my browser that I want to get to when I have more than a second to post. I always really love when I finally bring myself to jump into something new and kinda swim around aimlessly for a while. Everything is so fresh and exciting. Its kinda like being a kid again, or at least as close as I can be as a somewhat cynical 33 year old.

Imagine how I feel knowing I'm paying to see Brock live at MSG in March...one on one against Kane. Ugh... my sincere condolences.

They should have Jordan do something kinda cheep to eliminate Reigns and a few people the fans really love. Then let whoever is going to challenge for the title on the smackdown side (I still presume Nak) win the rumble. Next night on Raw Angle announces elimination chamber will be for the a spot at Mania and Jordan is the first one in the match because of his performance in the rumble. Make Reigns and jordan the last two in the chamber and have Reigns put him down. That should give Reigns some positive momentum going into Mania. Unless of course everyone decides they want Jordan all the sudden. Not sure how long he could keep it once they started squaring him off against Brock, but if they kept his promos short and sweet and gave us one or two out of control brawls (maybe a little special occasion blood). I think people would be red hot for the match by mania and they could mitigate some of the boos. Maybe this was the whole point of Jordan the whole time... take that heat off Reigns right before Mania.

It's from 4/19/78 in Croydon (originally aired 5/6/78). There were three Breaks/Grey matches that aired on TWC (original air dates for the three are 5/6/78, 7/7/79 and 5/16/81). The following website will help you out http://itvwrestling.co.uk/ Just after I worked out which Grey/Breaks match it was, I referenced to get the date it was taped and found that they've now added a ton of youtube links. Fantastic. Thanks a ton. This is super helpful.

It's on youtube. The match is dated 2/2/80 on there though because that was the date it aired, although was taped in Reading on 1/28. much appreciated

Man... how good is Kane at bringing the hype for a match down. Braun is one of the hottest things going in WWE right now. I know people have mixed feelings about Brock, but I generally like him and he has some momentum going right now. I still can't bring myself to care at all about their match.

Also, to follow up on maybe bringing this in GME. I think we need a little more time to get those nominations rolling in, maybe see how the project plays out here. I would like to bring something like this over to GME where we take groupings of matches form Lucha, British Wrestling, PR, or any other place/time that might be a blind spot for people and do some mini projects to help people get antiquated a bit. If anyone is well versed, has access to a good amount of footage or knows where to find stuff, and would potentially like to help walk some others through some match groupings and/or provide some context in a similar project in GME... pm me.

That is fair. For me, right now I am sort of exploring strictly WOS proper, but that is really only by happenstance. I am interested in British Wrestling more generally from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I am very much guilty of sort of lumping it under the "WOS" banner. Sincerely, thanks for drawing attention to the distinction. It's helpful.

dawho5 gave me another dope, high end WOS match. This is the second WOS match I have been given, which has finally propelled me into diving into stuff myself. I did my review here... http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/34339-jon-cortez-vs-steve-grey-joint-promotions-072781/&do=findComment&comment=5828472 Long story short, I really liked this. As someone getting to know the style a bit, this felt like the brawl version of WOS, a lot of grittiness and teeth to this. The ending is a bit wonky. I really like the little detail with the corner pad being put back up after falling only to save Cortez by a few seconds, just to have lady luck turn around and bite Grey.

Big supporter of this. I think its a great idea to help get people into new styles. I am currently sort of diving into WOS after getting two matches in the match trade project. Depending on what is chosen, timing, and all that I could be in. I do hope it gets off the ground though.

Does anyone know the date for this match by looking at/watching it? Anyone know where I can find Johnny Saint vs Steve Grey from 01/28/1980? I found a few between them on youtube but I couldn't easily sort the date. Also, anyone know where I can find Mick McManus vs. Jackie Pallo... or can I? I am - obviously - sort of diving in the deep end here and I am fuzzy on if and how much of this mach is available. I thought it was all of it, but it didn't come up on some quick searches. Many apologies if any of this is super easy and I just missed it.

Sort of at the beginning of a dive into WOS (at least high end stuff) right now and was given this match in the Match Exchange project going on right now. i really enjoyed this a lot. This had a lot of grit and teeth to it. Everything was a struggle and the match got a little more chippy with every single exchange. I thought the head/neck work early was good by Cortez and I really liked how Grey came back with a frustrating combination of limb work and strikes. The between the bell stuff was great and I loved the touch of Cortez getting fired into the corner where the pad was down just seconds earlier (narrowly avoiding disaster) only to turn around to get Grey's ankle stuck in the ropes following a scuffle. It was sort of a strangely poetic ending to the match. It gets called because one man couldn't continue in sort of a fluke accident, but the other man was just seconds away from his own accident right before. I thought the elevation of violence was good, but patient. I thought both men did well to communicate the urgency of the match (with the title shot on the line). Really, this is great stuff.

Regarding all that spoiler stuff

I am watching ASW this morning and so hyped for Walter vs ZSJ. I’m also giving pretty serious thought to buying the Style Battle gimmick this afternoon to see Walter vs Nick Gage. Man... i really want to check that Walter vs Gage match out. I honestly can't even picture it in my brain. I am a huge fan of both, but they feel like they belong in different worlds.

Regarding the tone, as I said in my original post on it, I think it deserves criticism, but there was no other way to do it. Ultimately, that is the tough spot journalists are in sometimes. We needed the article. It was the best we could hope for (probably better), but it remains flawed. It is ultimately ok as long as we understand the flaws. I actually found the "Stutts being Stutts" thing the epitome of this. Sure it is "accurate", but it doesnt make it right. It sweeps under the rug the fact that some of that stuff we brush off is part of the problem. If you took it outside the context of this circumstance people would laughing about it and say he is harmless (I have seen this personally). The issue is that sometimes those same people aren't harmless. Its easy to say we shouldn't tolerate sexual abuse, assault, or whatever it is that happened here. It is harder (more awkward) to challenge people not to adapt behaviors that seem harmless but are also problematic... esp when its just "boys being boys". That said... again... I think BM did what had to be done and deserves credit for it. It would, however, be shortsighted to not understand the rightful critiques of the situations and systems that put us here.

I didn't find this excessive, not really. It didn't seem worse to me than a lot of matches that get high praise and have buckets of blood. That is just me though. I actually felt like parts of this match were incredible. I loved the brutal cutoffs of Ilja's comebacks. I thought that added a crossup to my expectations that kept me interested. It also kept Dragunov doing what he does best, selling and firing up. Bad Bones top heel work is really next level brutal here. The chair shots were cringe-worthy. Dagunov throws his body into everything and Bones uses that against him here. He stays one step ahead of of Dragunov and uses the challenger's strengths to defeat him. The results are an undeniable and visceral dynamic. I feel like someone could come in cold to this and would be invested in Ilja by the end of it. That is good wrestling. I am ultimately sort of torn on the match. On one hand, this feels like a it is part of a bigger story that we haven't seen the end of yet. It could really be an interesting turning point in the evolution of Ilja, a place where he must learn to evolve to hit the next level. I can see this coming back in hindsight as a really important piece of a larger puzzle for a guy wXw is investing heavily in. On the other hand, this left me flat. The beating in this match drew me into really wanting to see Ilja's comeback and his crowning here. I wanted to see Bones get what was coming to him. We got none of that. There was no payoff to the brutality. They did nothing with it in this moment. It is sort of the double edge sword of looking at things on the match level. Obviously matches are just one way of looking at and thinking about wrestling. As a snippet of the bigger story, I sort of love what they did, not quite giving me what I want and making me want more. As a match though this felt incomplete. It told only part of the story. As such, it doesn't get the marks it COULD have if it were the blow off or if they closed the narrative at the end, but it gets a pretty high rating for the nuance they achieve in the brutality and how they keep me wanting more. ****1/4

I just started watching some Mid-Atlantic from the network. I just started with the first episode. Mike Rotunda's promo is epic-level bland. Not that this is surprising, but GAAAAWWWWWWD. I just had to express this somewhere. I love me some ZSJ. I don't really find his selling off putting to be honest. I think its sort of part of his shtick, especially when he is playing heel. I honestly didn't get to see a TON of Sabre this year, but what I saw stood out. I just finished BOLA and I thought his match with Rock was probably my favorite match of the whole tournament. His match with Walter from PWG ASW was one of my top 5 matches of the year (#4). I also really loved his Evolve title win over Thatcher and the No DQ rematch this year. He was good it SSS16, his first round match with Starr was excellent and the injury angle/match with Sexsmith was one of the most memorable parts of the whole thing. I want to be a money mark... that would be so much fun.

I honestly don't see "PWG Cena" in this one if they do have a Mania match. I expect something that is a little more strait forward and built around selling and storytelling. We will probably get quite a few kick outs, but more in the WWE main event way than in the PWG way.