SPS

Today I saw on reddit that Vader was the one who actually came up with the GHC names for NOAH during the Pacific Rim Pro Wrestling Podcast tribute to Vader, pretty cool tidbit i'd never heard before. Another one from the podcast was that besides Sid and Ultimate Warrior being considered for the Big Van Vader gimmick which was told a lot, Crush Brian Adams was also considered for the role. I never heard him be included before so that was neat to hear also.

MXC? Right you are Vic

Cool pic, his Mexico work is my biggest blind spot of his career, I've seen his all his his work elsewhere work but never his UWA run. Anything good there worth watching?

Really Sad to hear, I loved his work and he was such a traveled and decorated monster champion in his various Japan,WCW,Mexico, and Europe runs. His AJPW resurgence after his disastrous WWF run will always be some of my favorite stuff along with his UWFi run and Sting feud. Vader was awesome and it's sad to see him go and especially that he never got his WWE HOF moment. EDIT: Also wanted to add, the most kick ass fun character to play as in VPW 2.

For any Newborn UWF fans here is a link to a decent playlist of about a dozen of their events I came across, [-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz1XEssMMWQ&list=PLNSLkaxg38D9TA0DxmzijsHddICgIYT3L- ]

Thank you and Ken has always been short tempered and a bit erratic with his thoughts and choice of words so really to be fair if he suffered some brain issues then it might be hard to tell but I'm a big Ken fan none the less.

My first point was that those things aren't actually parts of the sport in this context. All of those things are clearly reasons both sports are more dangerous than they have to be, but you can do both activities and never participate in any of those things. So, sure they're not exclusive to either sport but neither sport exclusively employs drug addicts and steroid users. The day to day training for a fighter, especially one at the UFC level is pretty brutal, that is why so many fights get cancelled. I was listening to a podcast where a couple of MMA journalists were talking about some of the craziest things they seen at training camps, and one of them was how no one wears headgear while sparring. Another thing was how many places take pride in their "hard" practices where they basically spar at full power multiple times a week. There is a good chance that Cain Velasquez, who probably should be the best heavyweight of all time's, entire career has been destroyed the debilitating injuries he's suffered in practice. Daniel Cormier, who has suffered his share of practice injuries, has been an elite wrestler since he was a child, of course he gets beat up more doing pro wrestling than in Olympic wrestling or MMA. He's not an elite pro wrestler. Other than the aforementioned Cain Velasquez, who Cormier coach, there really isn't anyone who is going to be able to compete with him enough to beat him up in the gym. It isn't just Chuck's speech that was the problem, he was physically deteriorated in a way that he went from having one of the best chins in the sport to one of the worst over night. Sure, his lifestyle probably didn't help, but him blocking punches with his face didn't help either. Tito, for what it is worth, only really took major head trauma while fighting Chuck. Of his 5 KO/TKO losses, 2 were from body damage, one was essentially from exhaustion, and the two Liddell fights which he kind of turtled up and let the ref stop it once he was hurt. Don't get me wrong, he's taken his damage over the years, but he was always smart about not taking too much damage. Foley is not typical for pro wrestling though. It's amazing that he's still alive based on how he treated his body over the years. Let's say John Cena, who is clearly harder on his body than most pro wrestlers, is the typical pro wrestler. How long is realistic for him to wrestle a full career? 20-25 years? Do you think somoene like Max Holloway, who is a 26 year old champion can fight for 20-25 years? He won his belt from Jose Aldo, who is about as good of an MMA fighter who has ever lived, but is clearly past his prime at 31 years old. He's not a guy who took a lot of damage in fights, but he's clearly deteriorated in a way that is obvious to anyone who has watched his career. A 31 year old pro wrestler who isn't going out of their way to work a dangerous style is not someone you'd generally call past their prime. I think the real issue is how many punches to the face do you have to take, before you learn how to effectively defend punches to the face? How many times do you bang your head off of a mat, before you perfect your takedown defense? How much does a kick to the head actually scramble your brain? Learning pro wrestling means learning how to make it look like you got punched in the face, how to minimize the damage you take on slams and suplexes, and not getting legit knocked unconscious by getting kicked in the head. Training combat sports you actually take all the damage you are faking in pro wrestling. Alright I misunderstood your thoughts on the drug culture in MMA & Pro Wrestling and I absolutely agree with you that nether are directly necessary to participate in either of them or an inevitable cause of being a participant in them. As for MMA camps and training of course you can hear stories about some camps like AKA being notorious for their hard and often dangerous methods and they are roundly criticized for it more and more and camps just like Chute Box and Lions Den back in the day among others have been discussed by longtime fans now as having taken a lot of years off fighters prime due to their hard training style. As for headgear it is actually more dangerous to wear and lots of amateur combat sports are abandoning it due to it increasing risk of concussion due to the added weight and strain on the head and neck when sparring with it while trying to see and avoid blows and also it leads to a false sense of security and causes people to absorb more shots with it on. This article covers it well, https://www.wired.com/2016/08/olympic-boxers-arent-wearing-headgear-anymore/ As for Cain's career being ruined by injuries I'd say his work in the weight room doing incredibly foolish things with too much weight, poor form and absurd reps did as much if not more damage long term to his body than just hard sparring. Copy this link and see this awful kettlebell work, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWj_OevZY2k] As for DC the fact he is an elite level amateur wrestler turned fighter meaning he can take less damage than a less skilled MMA fighter is my point, in MMA the better these top guys get the less damage they take in the gym learning and in competition fighting just like Pro Wrestlers who are over and know all the shortcuts can do less in the ring and take less bumps and work less dates. So for DC bumping was something that was more more of a beating then he was willing to take and for CM Punk fighting was much more damage than he usually would take in a pro wrestling match but he only had 2 real camps and didn't train at a place(Rufus Sport) that was known to spar or train particularly hard so I doubt it was in the long run any worse for him than being on the WWE schedule for the same amount of time, probably a lot less. As for Chuck's chin deteriorating that happens to almost every fighter that eats a lot of shots. Guys like Wanderlei Silva, Shogun Rua, Andrei Arelovski, Overeem, Nogueria all of them became chinny and all got KO'd later on by shots that wouldn't have stopped them in their best years. Also all those guys besides Chuck Liddell all sound the same and aren't slurred or punch drunk after they all took some KO's. Also Tito may not have taken a ton of KO losses but he ate shots from some of the heaviest hitters of his day like Vitor, Wanderlei, Chuck and even Ken buckled him with a strong shot in their first encounter not to mention the years of training and sparring with guys like Chuck, Ricco and others in Team Punishment. Just because the man didn't get chinny doesn't mean he hasn't absorbed a ton of shots to the head. As for comparing Max Holloway and Aldo to Foley that's a but unfair as for fighters in the lighter weight classes they always end up past their prime in their early to mid 30's as they are more speed based and when they get slower they tend to start to fall off like Jens Pulver, BJ Penn, Rumina Sato etc. were all washed up by their mid 30's while guys like Chuck Liddell or Anderson Silva were still hitting their peak at the similar ages. John Cena being the typical pro wrestler is a bit unfair as he was fast tracked to WWE due to his look and his limited style was not going to be a strike against him in the WWE ring style so of course he isn't going to have as many head blows but he did take a few I'm sure. The reason I used Foley was because like Liddell they both went all out with reckless abandon in their work and didn't really take into consideration the consequences until the ramifications began to show in their lives and their work with Foley struggling mentally and having to retire early while Chuck started getting KO'd left and right by shots that years before he would've taken without flinching. And finally with the learning how to really fight vs learning how to perform in wrestling sure you're gonna take some blows to learn how to fight no doubt but same with learning how to bump. I've seen guys in training KO themselves KICKING OUT OF PINS by smashing their head off the mat when kicking their legs. Not to mention the botched flip or flat back bumps or getting rocked learning moves and banging their heads. So as much as you want to say the intent and nature of MMA makes it more dangerous than pro wrestling because the point is to hurt the other person vs protect them and perform, in execution and learning both are gonna have risks of concussions and brain damage like any contact endeavour where you aren't in control of the person across from you. MMA fighters can and have competed for long careers and many fights without suffering from cognitive issues(Randy Couture, Dan Severn, Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Dan henderson) just like many pro wrestlers have. Also some MMA fighters have had issues and had short careers and even died just like pro wrestlers have too. "Training combat sports you actually take all the damage you are faking in pro wrestling" is not plainly true, it's much more nuanced than that and like I keep coming back to it comes down to more the individual than a blanket statement of either field. The persons style, skills, physical attributes/genetics and their lifestyle and health have as much to do with it as the goal and nature of the sport. A fighter can catch you with something accidentally in sparring as much as a wrestler can stiff you with something in the gym and either of them can be catastrophic with the right factors coming in to play. A fighter can get rocked in round 1 and fight 3 or 5 rounds and absorb a ton of shots before reaching the final bell and a wrestler can get stunned on the first spot and bump around for 10-30 mins while rocked to finish the match without anyone realizing it. At the end of the day nobody is invincible and the reality is if you are going to participate in combat or contact with another person then there are inherent risks that are always going to be present.

Probably worse. For as bad as wrestling is for you, most wrestlers don't end up with pugilistic dementia. I remember when I was a kid, me and my cousin wanted to take up boxing, so we asked my uncle to take us to train and he looked at us and said, "no, everyone who boxes ends up with slurred speech." Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were just on the Dan LeBatard show and even though both of their bodies are broken they are still cutting promos like its 1985. How many former employees (sorry, independent contractors) of Vince McMahon did not reach the age of 60 or even 45? As much as he disgusts me, I highly doubt that number will ever be anything resembling like that for Dana White. Are we pretending that those were problems with the act of wrestling vs. the act of fighting in a cage? Drugs, steroids, suicide, etc. are problems with pro wrestling, but have much more to do with the culture around the sport than the sport itself. Everything about professional fighting from the practice to the actual fights is about trying to maximize the damage you do to your opponent. Wrestling on the other hand is about how to protect you and your opponent and minimizing damage. Neither are safe, but you are going to take a much bigger physical beating on the day to day fighting. Wrestling may be worse in the extreme long term, because wrestlers are able to wrestle for far longer than a professional fighter is able to fight. Honestly, go back and watch Chuck Liddel's fights, and note how quickly his prefight interviews go from sounding like an articulate dude who could do your taxes to almost unintelligible. If you start at the first Tito fight, he sounds like an English teacher, but by the second Tito fight he sound like a completely different human being. That is a two and a half year span. Unless there is a Steve Austin head drop or something, it can take a decade before a wrestler shows that kind of obvious trauma. I disagree with a few of your points, first MMA fighters have just as much steroids, drug, etc. culture as pro wrestling. There are tons of fighters from years past who admitted and have been caught with drugs and steroids to the point the UFC has had to shoot itself in the foot with USADA busting some of their top stars to quell the risk of scandal of their sport being revealed as "dirty". Second the day to day training for a fighter during fight camp is more damaging and intense but they also get a hell of a lot more time off and few fight more than 3/4 times a year on the major stage compared to all the dates pro wrestlers in the past worked hurt or not. Also even Daniel Cormier said when he tried out pro wrestling that it was way harder bumping all the time than training for Olympic Wrestling or MMA because you have to let your opponent beat you up whereas in fighting you can control a lot of the damage coming your way or stop guys dead without taking any shots. With Chuck Liddell sure he does have a significant change in his speech patterns and expressing his thoughts verbally but he was also a noted partier who was rumored to be a heavy cocaine user and drinker. Also since you mention Tito in your Chuck example he sounds the same from his UFC debut in 1997 to now and he took as many shots and trained harder than almost anyone of his era and came out fine. As for wrestlers not showing trauma look at Foley during his prime years in the mid nineties, the man went from ECW/IWA Japan doing hardcore style and cutting the best promos of his career to WWF in the Attitude era only 2 years later and admitted in his book and in Beyond The Mat as suffering horrible memory loss and getting lost trying to find his own house driving home or his room in hotels on many occasions due to the increased amount of dates week in and week out causing way more wear and tear than the sporadic ECW/Japan commitments. So it's not cut and dry and really comes down to the individual, their genetics, the damage they took and the way they took care of their bodies and health.

Another one is Jim Brunzell who I didn't remember sticking around in WWF after the Killer Bees but he was there until the Monday Night RAW era in 1993.

Plenty of wrestlers ended up being pretty punchy as well in later years just that with wrestling especially before the era of shoot interviews you didn't see them speak as much publicly in their later years. Also lots of older famous boxers have no slurred speech or are punchy like George Foreman,Evander Holyfield,Ray Leonard even old timers like Willie Pep had no slurred speech. It really comes down to the person as genetics and lifestyle would play as big a factor as damage.

Which makes them both smarter than Sabu. Seriously though, I watched the clip Thread Killer posted and actually found myself agreeing with Sabu. One clip led to another, and I gotta ask, what the fuck is with Sean Oliver? He always looks like he's ready to fall asleep. KC usually shoots their stuff around conventions so they usually film a couple shoots in one weekend with the shooting being late at night or early in the morning when talent isn't busy so that's probably why he looks so tired in a bunch of them.

I think with the star system it has now broken apart to a point where you can't really utilize it anymore to compare a match rated before 2017 to matches now because the whole spectrum has changed. Dave has moved the goal posts, where before no matter what ***** was the max save for a very limited group of matches getting *****+ which now is being construed as ****** like the previous Okada/Omega match which I thought was a bit much for Dave but since there were other matches previously that got *****+ I felt it wasn't anything too outrageous as it was a great match. But now with more than ***** possible and it eclipsing even the most rare of the rare(Don't even get me started on the *****1/2 or 3/4 stuff we saw) it totally has skewed the rating of matches that before 2017 would've gotten in the ***+ range now getting up to ****+. I don't believe that anyone can believe that YB vs LIJ was on par with other ****1/2 matches from the past. So now with ******* being possible and a couple ***** or ******+, then what does a ***** really mean anymore? is it still a top of the line match? or is it now what ****+ used to be and the real top of the line is ****** and ******* is the elite? It's jumped the shark for me even just taking it for what it's worth as I always considered it more of a recommended match measurement from the tape trading days and a fun way to track the quality output over the years and decades. But it's now pretty much separated to before Okada/Omega and after.

McGregor wouldn't need to KO Alberto, he could leg kick the hell out of him and I doubt Alberto could stop them without opening himself up to more kicks to the body or head.

Well my mistake then haha I was not in the loop with this one.

He seemed to have blown out his knee again shortly before the beginning of the tour so he needed to have it scoped again. EDIT: YouTube link isn't working just search, Jim Cornette Looks At The 1987 Great American Bash Tour

Who said anything about money? I said career longevity. Yes, money (and the more important part here, security) is part of that, but not all of it. It sure as hell beats prostituting himself in high school gyms for $50 a shot like a weathered old gigolo, which is probably what he's doing now. "The Wrestler," anyone? Sabu made his choice, he cared more about something else than money and career longevity. Who are you to tell him he made the wrong choice? Do you know if he's happy or not happy right now with his life? In his KC Breaking Kayfabe interview from a year or so ago he seemed pretty despondent. When asked if he thought he stayed around too ling he said "probably" and in the interview he did in the UK about being offered the WWF role as Sultan he seemed to acknowledge he probably should've taken it in hindsight. I don't think Sabu thinks he can't survive the consequences of his choices but he does certainly seem to be more accepting to admit he shouldn't have made some of the choices he did.

There was actually a recorded fight where rounds were scored lower, UFC Fight Night 6 Aug 17, 2006 Welterweight Forrest Petz def. Sam Morgan Decision (unanimous) (30–27, 30–26, **30–23**) As for Punk's performance I have to say would Takada now be considered a better legitimate fighter? I mean Takada looked bad but at least looked like he had some ability out there where Punk literally looked as if he hadn't trained more than a few sessions after 4 YEARS at a top level MMA camp.

Did Colt ever confirm that? I hear it all the time when people comment about Punk but I never heard Punk or Colt come out and say they had problems because of Colt. I don't listen to AOW anymore so maybe he mentioned it there but I've not seen him ever comment about the whole thing.

That sounds pretty cool, I'd be up for it.

Exciting idea, wish you the best of luck and I look forward to the updates. " Those of you who worry about the impact this might have on the PWO that you know and love needn't be concerned, as there will be little to no changes to the message board itself. It might end up having /forum or /board at the end of the URL. That's to be determined." As for this part with the board here having recently launched the general chat topic open to view for members only, with a possible large influx of new members will there be any sort of extra restriction added for that? I only mention this because while I feel comfortable sharing personal details with the small circle here who I've come to be comfortable with in my couple years here, I don't feel comfortable with a large influx of new members reading all of that. If not I can always remove my posts there but it was just something I was wondering about.