Dav'oh

Watching on delay, I can't be the only one rooting for a Power Uti cameo, in Apollo's corner, at WrestleMania. Checking Google, there's the slight matter of Uti indulging in a spot of wife-killing.... As you were.

Love or loathe him, when Will Ospreay is in Holy Shit Mode, you find yourself saying Holy Shit. That Pumping fucking Bomber sell...add the ever-captivating Shingo and I haven't taken my eyes off of this. The right man won, IMO.

"fancam footage without the sound" was confirmed, but that's all I know. I'd imagine one would film entire matches if one was going to film, but I don't know for sure.

NJ Cup semi-finals interrupted by 7.0 earthquake in the middle of Bullet Club vs Tana, Okada, Ibushi*. Everyone fine, I believe they're checking the building for structural damage before continuing. Don't see that everyday, thankfully. *Epicentre was Sendai, not the six-man...

WrestlingClassics poster Qaenos will be starting a GoFundMe or similar for this: "I've teamed up with Rocky Raymond to restore his entire WWF/WWWF film collection (1971 - 1982) to high definition. He has 40+ reels and I've restored one of them (from 1977) as a sample. The results are on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc_zAlOsGIw Here's what we know for sure are on the reels: 1971.01.18 - Madison Square Garden • Bruno Sammartino vs Ivan Koloff (Title Change) ... 1973.12.10 - Madison Square Garden • Bruno vs Stasiak (Title Change)" (http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=164898) has the full listing). "The catch: This project is VERY expensive and we need to raise funds to get it done. If we do not get the funding to do this, it won't happen."

That's fair. I don't think this is the stage for people at that level, is all. Plus I'm certain most of the female roster would destroy him... Pissed-off Big E shits all over Pancake Big E, that's for certain.

To me, Dom-Dom lacks fluidity in his movements and doesn't come across as an athlete. Certainly not as an asskicker, nor as a WWE Superstar. He looks and acts like it's Bring Your Kid To Work Day. He "wrestles" (read: remembers his spots) in a way which would not get him a look-in at PC try-outs. Hit the indies, hit the gym, ask yourself is this really for you.

The Dominik Misterio, The. (Sorry. Irrational hatred of a thoroughly underwhelming and undeserving cosplayer. Get thee to a dumbell, at least. And an outfitter. And stop just joining-the-dots.)

Thanks for everyone's input. There was an MSG house show on the 17th, so it wasn't a case of it falling into WWF's regular schedule. Tatsumi Fujinami worked Matt Borne on the next MSG card, on April 22, is something I also learned.

How unusual was that? I don't know the capacities of the various territories' "home" arenas, but if Lawler was pulling full houses weekly at MSC, Verne was doing well in St. Paul, Portland Mid-South Florida and MSG did well in a particular week, Toronto and Greensboro had loaded cards - or whatever, would there have been single weeks where wrestling did those numbers? What if we go back to the seventies where you had SF or Detroit added to the mix?

I love it. He can give hippopotamuses if he wants. Seems people (not here) struggle to recognise that it's not The Dave Meltzer Ratings (official, immutable, writ in stone), it's Dave Meltzer's ratings (just a guy having fun). Edit: forgot to mention, I put a dollar on Five Star in the 5th at Sandown Park at 19/1 just last night. I give the race four stars, as the crowd were really into it and it made sense, but our boy was pretty much a passenger in coming fifth. Another Edit! Took Gino Gambino at 51/1in the 12th at Geelong. No love. No surprise.

Why late March/early April for WrestleMania? Was March 31, 1985, just how the chips fell, storyline- and behind the scenes-wise, for the first one? Or was that time of year traditionally an "up" time, and Vince and co. planned a long way out to run it at that time of year? Do public or school holidays, other sports starting/ending, what other promoters were up to, etc, play into things? It's not that I think there's anything wrong with early Northern Spring or nuffink, just wondering if it was, not random, but planned or circumstantial?

I'm still wondering about the lower limit, the negative star matches, and why they don't seem to have made the scale useless, whereas an elastic upper limit has? Perfect! You're the man to tell me why a sliding limit at one end of the scale is offensive, but at the other end it isn't...I hope

In the 70s, his Cape Cod Buccaneers puck-slidey team folded after a year, the Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon jump bankrupted him and Linda, there was an investment in a concrete or construction company that also bankrupted the pair. He's about as good a businessman as his orange shyster pal. Why do all the shitcunts get all the money? (I probably answered my own question there.)

I've nearly finished reading this entire (fascinating) thread and I apologise in advance for dredging up what seemed a touchy subject. Meltzer "broke the scale" and many wrestling fans' heads by going over 5 stars for Kenny and Okada's series. The outrage was real. The protestations were puzzling. Ignoring what I'll call the "phantom" 6 star matches (Flair/Steamer and an AJPW match, from memory?) where was the indignation when he broke the scale at the other end? I don't see how minus 4 stars for Hogan/Andre is any less egregious on a 0-5 scale than a 9. (Actually, the earliest negative rating I can find is minus 3 for Dr. Shultz v The Rock's Dad at MSG in 1984.) Seems like apples to apples, to me. I kept waiting for someone to bring it up but alas. That's really just my belated response to a discussion I wasn't around for: "the 0-5 star scale is broken!" bus left the depot 35 years before the debate started. No point trying to catch it now. (No point me bringing it up now, either, I know...)

Charles is undeniably a draw. More threads, more comments, from the moment he came back.

I've really enjoyed your Undertaker series so it's nice to give a little back. Jim really has hitched his wagon to AEW while side-trading in history. Smart move. When people think AEW and more specifically Omega and the Bucks, a lot of them immediately think Cornette. I think he sees himself as the yin to their yang, rather than the Wile E. to their Accelaratii Incredibus, and a lot of his fans probably do, too. One of many problems is, those fans don't call him out on that homophobic, sexist and racist bullshit, they just repeat it on Facebook and Twanker. So yeah, smart move leeching onto the people who leeched onto the Bullet Club in the first place, but instead of refreshing his beyond-stale gimmick he says increasingly dickheaded things like an indy wrestler having to add degrees to a five-forty double-footstomp (now, there's a comparison he'd hate.) But I'm not telling youse anything youse don't know, just rambling at 3am...

In Cornette vs Omega, Cornette will always be the malfunctioning ACME products to Omega's meep-meep. You ain't catching him, Jim - not with that arsenal.

There's a 25 minute Stecher/Caddock title match in there (links are provided). That's the first one I'll be checking out because I've read so highly of Joe Stecher. (I knew the thread existed but never read it, always telling myself I'd come back to it.)

Over 200 matches, going by the thread, "Comprehensive List: Viewable Pre-1945 Wrestling Footage" from WrestlingClassics. http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=004411. *Edit: over 200 videos.

To this day I don't know how the flying hammerlock was "worked". I'm sure Shawn Michaels would've lasted five minutes in it (Cheapshot! High-five!), but there didn't seem to be a lot you could do to support your own weight. Then again, I don't understand why the Indian Deathlock is mocked. I had Gene LeBell's Great Book of Carny Holds and it was a perfectly cromulent move.

That's true. It was that Steele barely touched him and Savage propelled himself awkwardly, with the commentators having to tell us he'd clonked his head on the ringbell (iirc, it's been a long time). It was that a run-in finish on Randy's behalf would've been shitty, and a run-in is a run-in, to me. It was that I didn't like the Steele/Elizabeth storyline. It was that they needed to add Savage-Steele to Savage-Steamboat. It was that Steamboat couldn't beat Savage on his own. It's that something so great had an interference finish, even though it made sense. It was a lot of things, but if I gave out stars or scores or elephant stamps, the match only loses a tenth of an elephant stamp, so like 4.9 elephant stamps out of five.

George Steele's interference in the hallowed Steamboat vs Savage match gets a free pass, but it detracted slightly from the match for me and keeps it away from any notions of "perfection" or "greatest ever". It was a run-in finish to a straight-wrestling classic.

Here's one of Johnny Gargano slapping his thigh when throwing a chop. I'm unsure of the context, maybe he was taking the piss, maybe it's so ingrained it's reflexive. https://preview.redd.it/cjf4dsjc31i21.gif?format=mp4&s=439963fb0c6349e529bb6f5af35e7ee1ca6ff94b

Cue: WWE tragics on using that final whoopee-cushion explosion as a victory on the "social" media. We'll never hear the end of it.... My own thought on the final christmas cracker explosion was merely, "That's a shame....on several levels". Could've been a fondly-remembered match, for one.