joeg

I think its got to be Terry Funk. First off he chose to drop the title rather than keep it because the road was fucking up his marriage and personal life, and he chose to drop it to Harley Race making Race a star in the process.... if we were to take a look at everybody he helped make a top guy or every territory he popped it would be a long list... Here's the list of guys who got the rub from Terry Funk after his NWA title reign- Harley Race, Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsuruta, Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody, Dusty Rhodes, Jerry Lawler, Carlos Colon, Hulk Hogan, The Road Warriors, The Invaders, Ric Flair, Atushi Onita, Mick Foley, Masato Tanaka, Hayabusa, Raven, Sandman, Sabu, Shane Douglas, Tommy Dreamer, Steve Corino. As a former world champ he spent 25 years putting anyone and everyone over. He's also responsible for All Japan's early success as well as giving some sort of credibility to FMW, ECW, IWA and MLW. There's a long list of wrestlers that never would have had careers without Terry Funk and quite a few promotions that never would have gotten off the ground without him. If you look at his career from when he loses the world championship in 1977 until 2003ish he does nothing but show up in a territory, spend a little bit of time there getting somebody over and improving their gate then take some time off. He does this over and over in multiple territories around the globe for 25 years. As for if Hogan should have traded wins with Piper- nope. Probably yes with Orndorff before Orndorff got hurt. I thought the feeling at the time was that Piper wasn't healthy enough to work the full schedule required of a WWF champ and there was no trusting Piper to return the favor. And Piper was so over he didn't need the belt.

Huh... never would have seen that coming... good for her.

Its been a loooong time since I watched a WWE PPV, but every match on this show was average to good. Were you guys expecting the second day of the Tokyo Dome or something? WWE doesn't do that. Never has, even at their peak. Best we can hope for from modern WWE is a show that's easily watchable. Which is exactly what we got tonight. So I don't understand the complaining. Don't order a Miller Lite and complain when its not a double IPA. Just enjoy the Miller Lite for the beer it is.

I thought it was a very good show brought down by a very stupid finish to the rumble match. I'll tolerate it as I've come to expect far worse.

well my typo was right, they went with somebody ice old lol

Yeah its crazy. I think the biggest problem with the booking is that their is no long term planning. I was just talking with a buddy about this today. They used to start building towards the main event of the major PPVs months to years in advance. The past 5 years everything has been fly by the seat of their pants. In that environment there's no getting anybody over or listening to the crowd to see who the crowd is responding to and making plans accordingly. Everything is just a knee jerk last minute reaction. Rumor on reddit/twitter is that they didn't even have a finish or a winner for the Royal Rumble as of three days ago. Wouldn't surprise me if they have go with an established star this year, wouldn't surprise me if they hot shot somebody who is ice old.

Heads up, my firewall detected some sort of virus or malware on cagematch, dvdr, and sherdog for anybody here who frequents those sites.

Yeah but that's not how things worked out , the only people in this who seem to be suffering any sort of real consequences are the ones who leveled accusations. Nobody accused of a crime really lost any bookings because of the accusations. Most indie guys hadn't worked since March anyways. And none of the major companies parted ways with their talent accused of misdeeds so their haven't been any real consequences. As evident by the last 3 election cycles, facebook and twitter are toxic environments only effective at spreading falsehoods not the truth, so why would somebody use it as a pIace to level true accusations of a crime? I would never be the victim of a crime and post about it. That would never enter my mind.... Pressing charges, yes. Filing a lawsuit, yes. Seeking vigilante justice, yes. All options I would consider, but going on social media to defame the perpetrator would never cross my mind. I feel like I derail on this soap box of the evils of social media every time speaking out comes up or every time the topic of the latest crazy thing Cornette tweeted comes up....

Another question that may make me seem even more ignorant.... I can understand a victim being weary of the legal system for all of the reasons that have been laid out about above. But then why go to twitter to level accusations and seek justice? The same sort of trauma, public humiliation, and victim shaming one would expect in the legal process would only be amplified through the medium of message boards and twitter. Social media only amplifies the worst parts of our society.

Are there any lawyers here at PWO? I'd want to know how much it cost to defend a defamation suit. Is it like a bar fight which can go away with a couple grand or is like a messy divorce that can reach up to six figures?

I really look at Bryans ascension as happening 2 years before that, when he was working CM Punk in the spring of 2012 after getting squashed by Sheamus. After getting squashed at Wrestlemania he goes straight to working heel vs the champ and top guy. He develops the Yes Chant as a way to be annoying as fuck. When Bryan got over huge was after his babyface turn when he was teaming with Kane in that odd ball sort of team. It was really his first opportunity to show his personality in backstage skits and the Yes Chant caught on as a thing in fall of 2012. From the time he lost his feud with CM Punk in Spring/Summer of 2012 to the time he and Kane dropped the tag belts to The Sheild at Extreme Rules in May 2013, Bryan didn't lose on TV or PPV! Now that might have been an accident or it might have been planned. The only three people who didn't do jobs in that time were Bryan, Rollins, and Roman Reigns. That might be just be coincidence. Then Bryan went over Cena. Then he traded wins with Orton. Then he went over the Wyatts. A lot of things happened in the 18 months before the 2014 Royal Rumble to get Bryan over that it just doesn't seem like pure coincidence that he was the hottest going headed into the 2014 Rumble. It does seem like blind stupidity to put that much energy into getting somebody over and not have him win the Rumble though. Who knows though maybe that was the plan originally but everything changed with CM Punk walking out and Batista coming back.

He won by a default judgement. Now I'm no lawyer but my understanding is that only happens when somebody fails to show up for court or fails to file the paperwork for their case. It only means she didn't even bother with any of it which is totally understandable. Who wants to go spend a day at a court house dealing with lawyers and filling out paperwork? The disappointing part as a fan is that two of Joey Ryan's cases have gone to court and nothing has come to light to definitively prove his guilt (or innocence for that matter) as both have been default judgements. So its still just message board gossip and innuendo until that happens. I really would like to see one of these cases see trial and his lawyers attempt to explain how the man whose public wrestling persona is that of a sexual deviant is being slandered by accusations of sexual assault or harassment.

Correctly me if I'm wrong but you're a DC/Baltimore guy too? And you made it out to Cali for King of the Indies?!? That's awesome! And you were a regular at ECW, JAPW, and ECWA for decades I would love to hear what your list is like.

Ki vs Danielson is one of my favs too. And their feud happened at the height of my wrestling fandom. I was 9th grade 15 years old- right at that age and time where wrestling is cool and all my friends had yet to outgrow wrestling. I'd bet that between all the Mid Atlantic indies running at around that time, I probably saw them wrestle each other in singles 3 times, in 3 way dances or 4 ways 4 or 5 times and in tags or as tag partners another 2 or 3 times. Looking back it feels like from 2000 to 2003 every local indie show from Charlotte to NYC had some combination of Danielson, Christopher Daniels, Low Ki, Red, The Briscoes (who were still in high school!), Haas Brothers (who had just wrestled at Seaton Hall and were yoked to the gills), Scoot Andrews, Reckless Youth, Steve Corino, Paul London, York and Mathews, Brian Kendrick, or AJ Styles as the main event. Not all of those guys made it to a national promotion, but most did.

Ok, so not Miracle on Ice or Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson level shocking, but Argentina beating the US in basketball at the 2004 Olympics level of upset? Also has anybody here ever used Wrestletravel.org? Was looking at the package for next year's Tokyo Dome show and was wondering if anybody had any experience with them.

Not a cricket person by any means, but my understanding is it is the biggest upset in sports since the Miracle on Ice or Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson.

Yeah living in the D.C suburbs with family in Virginia, Jersey, Philly, Delaware, DC and Baltimore, I got to see a lot of good wrestling as a kid. I've talked about it here before, but I was wild as fuck as a teenage. So from like 7th grade to like 11th grade my mom was always more than willing to drive me and my friends to any wrestling show in driving distance. As a crazy teenage kid I couldn't get in trouble at the ECWA Super 8 or the Shane Shamrock Memorial Cup with my mom the way I could at the 9:30 Club or running around Woodmont Triangle or M Street with my degenerate pothead friends. The best story was our first trip to the ECW Arena, my friends and I were 13 and had convinced our parents that an ECW show would be just like a family friendly Maryland Championship Wrestling shows we went to every month. We get to South Philly, and detour for some cheesesteaks. We are waiting in line outside the ECW Arena with our cheesesteaks and in line there is a guy selling acid. There is a group of college kids in front of us who have been tailgating for hours it seemed like. One offers us a beer and says to my mom "Ma'am no offense but this is no place to bring children".

Yeah. He fleeced Big Japan in 1999ish. He had rented out the ECW Arena a few times for CZW shows and thus convinced Big Japan that CZW was on the same level as ECW. He got them to agree to a working partnership where they paid him and flew in a bunch of CZW guys regularly. Some guys are just born workers with their hand in somebody else's pocket.

My favorite story about Zandig was an interaction he had with Dennis Carluzzo. Zandig had a WWF tryout at some point in like 1997 and Carluzzo called him congratulate him. Carluzzo said something like "hey congrats! I hear New York is going to offer you a job!" Zandig was very excited to hear this. Carluzzo followed it up with something like "Yeah Cornette keeps saying they need a new janitor at Titan Tower. I'm sure you'll be great at it"

If you don't give a fuck about employee's or customer's safety it seems like a safe bet to me. Florida would be the safe bet to allow the most people inside a stadium during a pandemic. They just had 15,000 people in The Hard Rock Stadium for the National Championship game last week! So why wouldn't WWE expect to be allowed 30,000+ at Raymond James Stadium for Wrestlemania 3 months from now?

Rock is a good example. He lost more than he won from 96 to mid 98 or so. Then he started winning more than he lost but still lost way more than any top guy should. At the same time, none of the main event finishes in the Attitude Era were clean so losses didn't really hurt him and he never lost to anybody that wasn't a top guy. And none of his losses were ever clean. And like Mick Foley he was always a promo away from being right back in the main event after a month working with Val Venis or Billy Gunn or the Hollys. Attitude Era is weird as the top 5 guys all traded wins and none of the finishes were clean and the title changed hands every month. Those three things devalued wins.

Dreamer was more the sentimental favorite than the top babyface. I don't think he ever would have gotten as popular had he actually been positioned as a threat to win the title rather than as a lovable loser. Raven vs Sandman was a far more interesting feud even if it didn't have the satisfying conclusion. And even in the Raven vs Dreamer feud, Dreamer was like the 4th biggest draw behind Terry Funk, Mick Foley and Raven, which is kind of my point as why he wasn't THE top babyface. He was A key player for them, he wasn't THE key player for them. The show would have gone on without him. It didn't go on for much longer without the other babyfaces ECW lost in 99-00. I literally lol'd at this. "The heart and soul of ECW" is exactly what Joey Styles started calling Tommy Dreamer on air in late 99 when the ship was starting to go down. Which is exactly my point.

Not really. He wasn't the top babyface until like 2000/2001. After Taz, RVD, Sabu, Mike Awesome, Sandman, Shane Douglas, Terry Funk etc had all left. Yeah in the dying days he was the top babyface with Corino, Rhino and Justin Credible as the top heels, but I don't know if you really can count being the top babyface in the last 8 months of ECW being a legit main event babyface or just being the last guy off a sinking ship.

Was in a wrestling discussion on facebook with some friends from work... did Stan Hansen ever tag with Ric Flair either in Georgia or the Carolinas most likely? And if so is there video of it?

I really like Darby Allin. I think his psychology and his ability to tell a story in the ring is light years ahead of most of the AEW roster. I tend not to like smaller modern wrestlers simply because they tend not to work from underneath properly. Not Darby. He presents himself as the consummate under dog as he out maneuvers and out thinks taller, larger, stronger challengers on TV every week. Its such a much better approach then so many other small guys in AEW who just go out do a bunch of cool shit with little rhyme or reason and call it a match.