SPS

Man all these so far have been awesome and all are ones I thought of when thinking of a question like this. My personal pick to throw in would be actually from a company I don't care for and was fairly recent but CZW's video promo to plug Onita vs Tremont. As much as it was all was a bit of a clusterf**k in the end, this promo made me really go out of my way to watch a group I really never watch so I think that's what makes great promos. This captured who these guys were, what the purpose of the match was and why it was important to see.

Okay for laz I'll give him a match I just watched for myself yesterday after hearing Kris and Bix talk about it on Between The Sheets and I really enjoyed it, Takehiro Murahama vs. Minoru Tanaka (4/20/2001) from NJPW. I know little about both guys although I am familiar with Tanaka and they were both fantastic here and I'd love to see more from Murahama as he was really slick. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ozmrr

You still haven't answered my question, what is your criteria for a person being a piece of shit? Also are you free from ever falling into any of those criteria to give you such moral high ground? You're alluding to various things he's said and done but you're not providing any quotes or clear examples of exactly what Dave has done and how it makes him a piece of shit by your standards. My point is if you go through anyone's history they probably have said/done things that would make them seem less than moral but again without even saying what you consider the things that earn you a label of being a piece of shit then it's just mud slinging and griping for the sake of knocking Dave. Dave is a journalist and yes in some situations involving facts/data he should be held accountable for poor research but showing disdain(which calling someone a piece of shit would imply) for things he tweets or stuff he thinks out loud when processing things he's heard on podcasts is not something I think anyone would find fair if they were on the receiving end of it. Dave is a fallible a human as anyone but to act like he's an example of the worst the wrestling world and that he belongs as representing all the sleazy aspects of the business is just absurd to me.

Pro wrestling being filled with folks of ill repute who've done some horrible things is not really shocking to anyone especially most of the folks here who've heard and read the gambit of stories sleaze and scum. But calling Dave a piece of shit is interesting, what do you consider your criteria and examples of Dave meeting them for being a piece of shit? and to follow up you must be quite morally upstanding and free of wrong doings to say such a thing about someone I can't imagine you've personally met and interacted with. Of all the folks in wrestling you're gonna zero in on Dave as the example of being a piece of shit? Come on.

XD I'd love to see the supposed unruly talent they had to get Mike Graham of all people to sort out. Guys like Bob Roop must've felt privileged to be allowed to share in such an honor when the great Mike Graham could've easily been sorting guys out all on his own and left them without a job.

You can't honestly sit there and say Jeff Jarrett taking a lie detector on IMPACT with all of the "tricks" Eric Young was telling him his uncle had to pass lie detector tests covered in a bunch of cheesy props over his involvement in the TNA screw job Montreal rip off for the NWA title at Slammiversary wasn't LOLTNA material.

I have no idea what this is but the Bix part was the best. This situation at the end of the day had me thinking there are people who have some claim to the wrestling business who I don't know, that are followed by an even larger group of people I don't know, that have done things that make me glad I didn't know them. Bix's tweeting of this and whatever sites associated with these goofs and lowlifes trying to separate themselves from the mess has just been silly and goes to show how stupid social media and people can be in some aspects.

Alright for dawho5 since from a quick browse of his profile seems to have seen a bit of everything, I have chosen a match I really enjoyed just for the novelty of seeing it in their WWF years of Bret Hart vs Dynamite Kid from 09/14/85, it was on one of Bret's DVD releases a few years back. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31v8pq

Finallt got my review up a day late, http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41119-kazuo-yamazaki-vs-norman-smiley-uwf-061188/ here were my thoughts overall, "Overall a good but not great match from the early part of Newborn UWF. Norman was obviously not experienced in this style but made an effort to use his english pro wrestling style as realistically as possible and the crowd really seemed into him as they popped quite a bit for his offence. I'd give this match *** and it's a good match that's not too long by Newborn UWF standards so it's a solid way for a wrestling fan familiar with the likes of a Norman Smiley but not with UWF to get their feet wet and check out the style and work from that group." Thanks again to SirEdger and I look forward to the next one. Overall a good but not great match from the early part of Newborn UWF. Norman was obviously not experienced in this style but made an effort to use his english pro wrestling style as realistically as possible and the crowd really seemed into him as they popped quite a bit for his offence. I'd give this match *** and it's a good match that's not too long by Newborn UWF standards so it's a solid way for a wrestling fan familiar with the likes of a Norman Smiley but not with UWF to get their feet wet and check out the style and work form that group.

Well here we are again for the Secret Santo, this week's match was given to me by SirEdger and it's from possibly my favorite company ever UWF(Newborn). It's from their second show and it's the debut of Norman Smiley! Norman gives a nice little prematch promo giving us his Black Magic nickname, his trainers like The Malenkos and Gotch and telling everyone he's well conditioned and going to try his best. So the two square off and my god was Smiley well built here, it's funny how so many guys associated with the Malenkos school had such fantastic physiques, must be all those squats and bridges with Karl Gotch they were doing there in Florida. Kazuo Yamazaki looks like his bulked up junior physique but is missing his later trademark goatee so he looks extra young and babyfaced. They start out with come cautious back and forth grappling which surprised me as Yamazaki was known later on for setting up his devastating arsenal of kicks with that hook kick feint being his opening move in 90% of his later work. Norman nails an impressive dragon screw leg whip that the crowd pops big for highlighting the opening portion which focused mostly on Smiley working some pro wrestling style legwork. Yamazaki starts opening up with some kicks but Norman smartly steers clear and keeps the grappling gameplan, he looks a bit lost at times on the mat and you can see Yamazaki feeding him an arm to set up a counter exchange that allows Yamazaki to counter into a leglock that sends Smiley scrambling to the ropes for a break. The Norman decides to mix it up on the feet and throws a body punch and some knees to the abdomen in the corner before hitting a gorgeous belly to belly that the crowd pops again for and causes Yamazaki to take a ropebreak of his own with a nice downward arm crank while trapping the head. Yamazaki sells this attempt big and takes a count as well, getting back to his feet at the count of 7. Norman does his best to stay on Yamazaki and avoids the majority of Yamazaki's kicks and takes him back to the mat with a leg lock attempt that Yamazaki reverses into a half crab which the crowd pops big for, Norman scrambles out and slaps on the Dean Malenko specail Texas Cloverleaf that Yamazaki sells huge and makes a mad crawl to a ropebreak. There's a lull and Norman looks winded and Yamazaki pounces and finally lands some significant strikes with a nice kick and a brutal knee and looks to have Norman in trouble and tries to tie up a cross face chickenwing but Norman shows his resilience and counters all of Yamazaki's attempts at various submissions and suplexes and hits a leg scissor of his own taking Kazuo to the mat and attempts another leglock which initiates a scramble that leads to Kazuo slapping on a Fujiwars armbar that Norman headstands over and out of and slaps on a Grovit facelock which brings both men back to their feet and the camera cuts to the audience and some Japanese teen scratching his face and we miss what I assume was a suplex which had me scratching my head on why they cut it? Norman slaps on a crooked head scissor and gets Yamazaki to take another ropebreak to escape. Kazuo unleashes another torrent of kicks that Norman catches a few more of than before but again Norman takes it to the match it ends up with him gaining a half crab that causes Yamazaki to go to the ropes again. Norman takes a lackluster shot on the feet and Yamazaki looks to take advantage but they take a tumble into the ropes and end up having to break before Kazuo can capitalize. Back on the feet Yamazaki finally lands a hard flush body kick that crumples Norman, Kazuo hits him with a throw then catches Norman during his attempt to escape in a reverse fujiwara armbar for the submission victory. Overall a good but not great match from the early part of Newborn UWF. Norman was obviously not experienced in this style but made an effort to use his english pro wrestling style as realistically as possible and the crowd really seemed into him as they popped quite a bit for his offence. I'd give this match *** and it's a good match that's not too long by Newborn UWF standards so it's a solid way for a wrestling fan familiar with the likes of a Norman Smiley but not with UWF to get their feet wet and check out the style and work from that group.

Ok, I have to see this. Here you go That chain of comments is a perfect example of giving someone a bit of knowledge and suddenly they are an expert. That's one of the things that is a big negative of Reddit with a commenter contributing something incorrectly or completely irrelevant to the topic, a bunch of people who know even less upvoting it because it sounds smart and downvoting someone providing the correct information because they were not the first to comment. Then once the person getting downvoted proves their comment with some evidence the people proven wrong nitpick their comment for any small opening to say one part of the comment(that's irrelevant to the point)can be construed as wrong so therefore everything you've said is wrong.

Ahh okay, makes sense then. Thanks for all the info.

I was thinking about this after hearing Kris and Bix talk about how ECW on the WWE Network is almost unwatchable due to the understandable edits done to remove the copyrighted music. Also with ROH starting up it's new streaming service it will probably remove a lot of the entrances of the 2002-2008 pre-HD Net era with the copyrighted music as most of their DVD releases have in the past few years. So with stuff like this I was wondering other peoples thoughts on this strictly from personal preference as a viewer? Obviously this is necessary as they would not be feasibly able to pay for all the copyrighted music, but when you watch stuff back do you prefer the newer edited footage with the higher quality picture or is it more about seeing it as it originally aired? I personally don't mind to an extent when it comes to just match footage but when watching a PPV or show I really prefer to see it as it originally was, especially ECW and ROH as the music and everything added so much to the atmosphere and setting the mood for the matches. But on the other hand as someone who didn't see an era like say AJPW in the 80's, I prefer watching the G+ airings of matches (which cut off most entrances and such)due to the higher quality footage vs the old taped copies I've seen from traders which have all of that but is of a lower quality. So I guess it really comes down to what your relationship to the product is, I imagine those fans who didn't see ECW before the Network might not be put off as much by the edits since they have no comparison? What are some other folks thoughts?

Wow, I was late to get internet but have been online for over a decade and haven't ever heard of this site. What was it's big appeal? just free internet wrestling news?

Still my go to site for mindless speculation and general wrestling headlines. I've never heard of this site, how long has it been around?

Awesome! I love Newborn UWF and have all their shows but haven't watched any of them in almost 2 years now so this will be fun to rewatch. I loved Norman Smiley here and Yamazaki is always been a treat. For SirEdger I'll give you Fit Finlay vs Masaharu Funaki from Reslo, although I've never found out the date of this match I really enjoyed these two together here and wish I had more of Funaki in Europe.

Speaking of indie shoot style, I remember back in the day in the Observers there was a groups Dan Severn and Al Snow worked for called GAME that ran shoot wrestling like matches and was where Art Davie the co owner of the UFC first saw Dan and interviewed him to participate in UFC 4 after being invited there by Severn. Did any of those shows ever make it to tape? I'd love to see it.

There’s a lot of copyrighted music on those shows, so I’d bet that would be one of the roadblocks. Exactly, for their DVD releases in recent years with matches from any events of that era have the entrances cut due to this. So to go back and re-edit the whole show will take some time so that's probably why they haven't gotten around to it.

Agreed I love them as well, Francine and Lynn have a great chemistry and their reactions to Sandman were funny as hell.

Liam, with the positive feedback from this book are you planning on writing any other wrestling books in the future?

Alright dkookypunk43 for you seeing as you have NJPW World, I've chosen for you Genichiro Tenryu vs Keiji Mutoh from 05.03.1999. This match I don't see talked about as much as their 2001 Triple Crown match but I rewatched it recently and enjoyed it just as much. Hope you like it.

So I have watched the match and posted my review over in the match discussion archive and my overall feeling was it was a good fun match but had some glaring flaws for me that kept it from being anything I'd call must see, mostly due to Quack's limited ability outside his enormous technical/lucha skills. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/22018-bryan-danielson-claudio-castagnoli-vs-mike-quackenbush-jigsaw-chikara-hiding-in-plain-sight-091309/ I go more in depth in the review but thanks to Matt Franklin for the recommendation, it did not feel like a waste of my time and I really enjoyed Bryan and Claudio here as well as Jigsaw who I remember being a big fan of in his ROH run as part of the Vulture Squad so it was nice to see him in something again.

Alright so this is my 3'rd week of Secret Santo and this match was given to me by Matt Franklin. I haven't see a ton of Chikara outside the Johnny Saint appearances and 1-2-3 Kid there so it's all new to me. So for this one I didn't do a blow by blow review but here's my overall thoughts which I'll follow with my pro/cons and rating at the end. The opening shine gave opportunity for everyone to establish who they were and what their roles were with some nod to past interactions with Bryan and Claudio being part of Team Uppercut and Quack and his prized student turned partner Jigsaw. Also we got the announce team(ugh more on them later) giving us some additional backstory and blowing Bryan as an indie god. The shine part was dominated by Bryan and Quack going at it in a technical wrestling battle with Claudio and Jigsaw sprinkled in and out with Jigsaw showing his role as the underdog student teaming with his teacher and Claudio doing his Swiss Superman deal. Then Bryan and Claudio take over on Jigsaw and work his leg over(the announcers reference Jigsaw injuring it on an show a few weeks prior and limping, Bryan was also on the same show so he obviously took note of it for his upcoming match here with Jigsaw and Quack so good story telling and nod to Bryan's skill as a tactician) with vicious and cruel leg work and really heeling it up while still showcasing some of their athletic talents mixed in but not overshadowing that their mean bastards who wanna hurt Quack's student turned partner. The whole time Bryan and Claudio are wrenching and twisting poor Jigsaw, Quack is on the apron looking on like it's no big deal and little reaction or emotion outside of limited spurts which really hurt the work I felt Team Uppercut was doing as if Quack doesn't give a shit about his student's well being during this onslaught then why would anyone else? Finally after getting knocked off the apron again and again during the heat as well (which Quack also didn't get too upset about which made no sense) Quack seemingly had enough and barges in with no tag and slaps Bryan who has Jigsaw in a half crab with an awesome slap(unfortunately was probably the only good strike Quack throws in this match). He and Bryan start exchanging blows and Quack(who is now somehow the legal man) and Jigsaw launch a lucha style offensive comeback which takes us into a sprint to the finish which after a few nearfalls and a cattle mutilation by Danielson had Quack counter Danielson's sunset flip with a clutch pin to score the win. Pros - Great heel work by Danielson and Claudio looking mean and vicious in their offense. - Hot crowd for Bryan being there - Some cool spots like Claudio doing a swing with holding Jigsaw by one leg - Quack and Danielson's back and forth technical wrestling battle in the start was very crisp and well done. Cons - As I referenced above I found the announcers awful, they had some bright spots dropping some good backstory and getting over the participants but it for me was overshadowed by their voice cracking, mile a minute talking, screeching calls that made want to turn the sound off. - The crowd early on watching this is a predecessor to the kinds of shit and chants I dislike at modern NXT shows like the "this is awesome" chant and calling out stupid comments about things that don't have any relevance to the match at hand other than to hear themselves. - Quack's strikes looks like trash outside the one slap he hit Danielson with, they looked flailing and weak. - Jigsaw's strikes weren't much better but he also didn't throw them as much or big burst of offense and stuck to what he could do well. - Quack's lack of facial expression and overall poor conveying of emotion knocked the whole thing down for me as here is his prized student and partner teaming with him to take on 2 of the top guys in the world who are dangerous as all hell and wrenching the shit out of your student's already injured knee and knocking you off the apron over and over again and you have little to no expression of concern,frustration or anger. Total horseshit and defeats the storytelling part of wrestling, without that drama it just comes off as a tumbling routine. Quack outside of his fantastic technical and lucha skills is not very good at all and it showed glaringly in this match in my opinion. Outside of athletic exhibitions, technical/flying contests or dream matches he just doesn't seem to be able to do a dramatic story that projects his emotion to the viewer which is what makes great talent so great to me. So due to this but also giving credit to how great the work was aside from some of the glaring flaws, I give it ***1/2. Good match worth a watch and fun but not a must see or an all time classic.

Nice, I have seen only the Johnny Saint and 1-2-3 Kid stuff from Chikara and not much else so I look forward to this. I'll watch and write up my review this weekend.

I'd love to see the preshow or dark matches from a lot of these PPV's, I'd imagine they'd have to have been taped so I don't know why they don't get added to the network or a DVD release.