MikeCampbell

I always thought it was a bit strange that during the Legend ceremony at Night of Legends Doug Furnas got honored. He'd only had seven or so years under his belt at the time. I've only ever heard of couple of his matches pimped (the usual suspects), but they were all tags w/ Kroffat. I remember him having a fun match with Lafon during the '95 Carnival. I've seen a bit of his work in Continental in '88, and vaguely recall him from WCW in '90. Did he have a very notable career? Or was it just case of him being a sort of hometown boy in Knoxville?

Projects and lists, please.

You know if he'd stuck to his guns about levying fines for swearing, Homicide would have been paying Gabe to wrestle for ROH.

It's sad, but true. A lot of people don't seem to be able to grasp the notion that you can criticise something, while still liking it.

I'm recalling Mike Tenay saying that Fit Finlay actually retired Wright. Does anyone have an idea where one could find their matches together?

I came out of that tag match feeling the same way. And now I've got a trios match, and singles match (probably the same one Loss saw) to look forward to.

Loss, which match of his were you referring to? The one I'd seen was actually a tag match. It was TM and Kengo Kimura against Wright and Blackman, from the Tiger Mask "1st Dimension" commercial tape. It was clipped up, but most of what was shown were TM/Wright exchanges which were fabulous. I just ordered the six volume set from IVP, which has another tag match, and a singles between them for the WWF Jr. Title.

I got banned because I didn't think that bringing in Misawa was a good idea. My own personal theory about Gabe is that he sees himself as being a modern Paul Heyman. And thus, doesn't think fans should be questioning his booking or direction of the company. Because back in the days of the old ECW, fans never would have done that to Paul.

I'm guessing it was a combo of his speed and athleticism, and because the Tiger Mask character was popular with the kids. Did Sayama ever do any jobs as Tiger Mask? All of his title losses were him vacating due to injury and/or retirement.

36 buys. Holy shit, that's gotta be tough on the ego. Bix, has there been any word on why it's that low? Poor distribution? Something with the exchange rate?

I was watching a Tiger Mask comp not long ago and came across some clips of Stephen Wright, who looked really good. Was he Alex's father? Was he always really good?

His initial WCW run was November '89 until June '90. He returned in September '91. I'd imagine he worked UWF during the in between run, when he was also working for Global.

No weekly update on Fritz' condition, I guess that means Fritz is finally OK.

Loss, Thanks so much for continuing these, they're an absolute blast to read, even more so with 20 years of hindsight. A couple of things: - I'm assuming the Nikita Koloff bit Dave brought up was about his wife? - When did Doc go back to the NWA? - I guess it's safe to say that Akira Taue wound up doing OK for himself. - I've actually seen the Furnas/Humongous weightlifting angle, it's not bad actually, but it's pretty clear the weights are gimmicked.

He's already been outed as being from NYC.

Most of Puder's name value stems from the fact that Angle couldn't shut up about him. I stopped listening to Kurt long ago, so maybe he's finally gotten off the topic.

I'm actually thinking the opposite, they need to scale themselves back a bit. They're getting to be like SMW. Too small to be big, too big to be small. Being on TV would mean probably paying for a timeslot. And either running more shows, or doing what ECW and the territories did, and tape like a month of TV shows at regular shows. But by doing that, what incentive does the average fan have to spend the $$$ on DVDs when he can see everything on TV?

So the WON is reporting that ROH is starting to scale back on the spending. Puder is already done with them for now, they'll be cutting down on the amount of wrestlers they fly in, and the amount of guys they're booking. I'm honestly not surprised at all, between the trips to England, Japan, and the two shows on the West Coast, there's no way they could have hoped to break even. Nto to mention that while the PPV venture was low risk, it was also very low reward. Especially given ROH's tendency to completely rely on word of mouth.

OK, what exactly is Dave's criteria for a rookie? Unless Eric Stevens is different from Erick Stevens in ROH, FIP, etc. Then the 2007 Rookie of the year has been wrestling since 2004.

Shelton won underrated, and Sapolsky won best booker. Who are you going to hurt, Bix?

Funny, I was just watching the WWE World Class DVD, and when this subject comes up, pretty much everyone interviewed (except Kevin) talk about this as a big sign of the promotion's downfall, and lay the blame on Ken Mantell. Kevin claims that it wasn't supposed to be a heart attack angle, but that the fans came up with that themselves and it just started spreading.

I got the three-disc Best of RAW 15th Anniversary DVD set for my birthday along with the World Class DVD. The match lists for the RAW set look great. But does anyone know if the matches/angles are shown in full? I'm swimming in DVDs at the moment, and with work, wedding stuff, and all the family stuff over the holidays, who knows when I'll get to sit down with them.

Someone, I'm thinking Bix, said it best: One thing a lot of people online don't get is that you can criticise something, a lot, and still like it.

I sort of get what RE is trying to say, although Loss, tomk, and FH all have good counterpoints. You certainly can't limit *all* pro wrestling to being an exhibition form of MMA, but stuff like UWFi could certainly fit that bill.

'You don't need music to wrestle. You need balls, big ones!' - From the movie Bodyslam