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That was way, way, way better than the Cody-Guevara match that got "5 stars."

Ringside News, against all odds, has actually been breaking some legitimate stuff lately. They were the first outlet I know of to say that Shane and Bad Bunny would be in the Rumble.

I'm very much an old-school stick-in-the-mud on a lot of memey postmodern wrestling stuff but AEW would be absolute fools not to lock Danhausen up. Edit: One issue I have with AEW is they almost rely *too* much on wrestling as a shared universe and assume everybody knows everything. A very sizable chunk of the people watching on TV very likely don't know who Minoru Suzuki was or who Okada or Tanahashi are, and I think AEW needs to take steps to rectify that going forward. So that was my biggest skepticism regarding Danhausen--that they'd act like everybody watching already knows him, when that isn't really the case. But the way they debuted him and hopefully the way they use him for the next few weeks should actually work: he shows up, people go "WTF?", he disappears, and people are intrigued because the crowd pops as he got tonight should let the uninformed know that This Guy Is Somebody.

And for the same reason. Those were two years with no bye week before the Super Bowl (1990 was the first 17-week season, 1993 was an 18-week season with two byes, which only lasted that year.) It seems like Saturday "premium live events" are going to be more the norm than the exception going forward.

Nothing says "Beach Break" like Cleveland in January.

PAC vs. Black should be a strong addition to the Best Matches Involving Wrestlers With Rhyming Names thread in Pro Wrestling Mostly.

Moxley's coming back on Wednesday, as well.

Caster said he was a judge on Twitter. Caster is a notorious liar.

"We had professional differences and I'm sorry it didn't work out. Swole's opinions are highly valued and the door is open for her to return in the future. We remain committed to a diverse environment and are aware that we must be ever-vigilant and striving to improve in this regard." This really, really, REALLY wasn't that fucking hard. Either a response like the one above or no response at all wouldn't have created this kind of shit-show. That's 100% on Tony. Even WCW had the sense not to publicly proclaim, "Well, Bobby Walker sucked anyway!"

I could see moving in this direction if or when omicron cases hit a decline like they've seemingly done in South Africa--like it or not, that's the way things are going in terms of business requirements and mandates, and I think we could reach a point next year where asymptomatic wrestlers/players are allowed to go out there anyway. But fuck, can we at least get through January first and see where we're at?

Yes, that's definitely the tactic I would take if my top guy was a cancer survivor.

As Backlund tells it in his book, he was told straight-up that he was losing the title to the Sheik. He was allowed to come up with the finish but there is zero mention of him being insistent on jobbing to a guy with an amateur background--that kind of power play really wasn't Backlund's style. Also, looking at a few message board posts on this topic...Hogan signing with the WWF was supposedly done on Thanksgiving weekend in 1983. By that time, the Backlund-Superstar program was over. I think it really comes down to Sheik being the next scheduled challenger when it was time to make the switch--had Hogan been signed a month or two before, maybe Superstar wins the title. A month after, and the scheduled January challenger (Paul Orndorff) likely gets it.

That turned up on Hidden Gems back when that was a thing. Though the clips of the Russians' entrance appeared on The Biggest, the Smallest, the Strangest, & the Strongest Coliseum Video.

Incidentally the Backlund-Koloff match from the 4/83 show is "new." Nice to see even the Cock is still giving us a few drips and drabs of Hidden Gems...that didn't come out right, did it?

I don't recall that ever being the storyline with Skaaland, except in 1994 Backlund's deranged mind.

On the other hand, as Dave pointed out on WOR, they essentially signed rolling 90-day contracts, not "3-year" deals or however long it was.

Did Hook just win Rookie of the Year with 3 weeks to go?

That was really frustrating. The in-ring was mostly good to great but all the interview interruptions and beatdowns got tiresome, and most of them didn't hit as much as they could have because we'd seen it 3 times already on the same show.

Well, he did injure Bruno. He also roughed up one of the Blackhearts with the edge of a chair but that appeared to be quite deliberate. Still, two known injuries in 25 years working a rough style isn't a bad track record, even if there are more that we don't really know about.

I just know that NXT had me genuinely interested in seeing Baron Corbin vs. Bull Dempsey just on the basis of them being two tough guys who killed people. I'm not saying I was up all night in anticipation, and it's hard to imagine a time when Corbin in particular wasn't grossly overexposed yet. But the build to a mid-card Takeover hoss fight worked in 2014 or '15 based on "1989 thinking."

Also, we didn't have Excalibur giggling at half the lines, or Jerry Lawler repeating the last thing either guy said, or Mark Madden bellowing "WOW!" to signal that This Means Something to Smart Fans. The announcers were quiet the whole time.

ShowaPuroresu's move guide seems to credit it to Sakaguchi, though credit for introducing it to Japan should apparently go to either Karl Krupp or Dory Funk, Jr.

I think the PWF in '89 might have done a classic rewind match each week. I know there's footage of the Kiniski-Dory Funk NWA title change with Scott Levy antagonizing Solie with smartass commentary a la the Monsoon/Johnny Polo dynamic, and also something with Gordon & Luna Vachon, of all people.

When the hell did Danie Voges work for World Class?

TBF making sure to have short refs is a practice that goes way back in wrestling.