S.L.L.

I disagree. Thinking too much about anything doesn't make it serious, it makes it absurd most of the time. Demonstrably false. Putting aside that you're doing it right now (albeit in a roundabout way...overthinking other forms of entertainment so that they sound as silly as wrestling is on a surface level...and idea that requires some degree of overthinking to conceive of), it's hardly an isolated incident in wrestling discussion, and it's hardly unique to fans of weird, fringe forms of entertainment like wrestling. Do it for me, TV Tropes.... Excerpts from the list of real life examples.... And before you go thinking "these people are obviously dummies who didn't think this through enough, otherwise they'd realize the silliness of it all", I remind you that the whole point of the trope is that people of baseline intelligence and cultural knowhow are going to look at this behavior over these things and consider it silly, and that these people are putting a lot of thought into making it not silly. If you're preparing a 5,000 word document on how to properly make tea, I think it's pretty fair to say that you're taking it way too seriously, and you're thinking way too hard about it to get there. Or for a more direct analogy, are we going to say that Chris Coey underthought pro wrestling? It just doesn't take. I read what you said. You said Demolition's gimmick was laughable to anyone over 12. Then you said Demolition were roughly as laughable as Brutus Beefcake. Ergo, you're saying that Brutus Beefcake is as laughable as Demolition. I don't know that I necessarily disagree with the idea that they were equally laughable acts, but again, I consider wrestling as a whole laughable (and again, I consider that a positive trait for wrestling), and again, I don't consider "big tough guy brawler in face paint" or "overly excitable guy with tassles and a prop" to be particularly outlandish acts not only by the standards of 80's WWF, but by the standards of wrestling, period. If you don't think super-highly of Demolition, that's fine. If you don't like Leslie, hell, I'm right there with you. But to say they were exceptionally silly by the standards of wrestling as a whole is a claim I just don't buy into.

I think their first match after the face turn against the Secret Society is the one that stands out the most to me.

In essence ? No, not really. 99,99999999% of it is pure crap. Who said anything about it not being crap? I said it was laughable. Pick an argument and stick to it already. Yes. Sure, if you think too much about it. With wrestling you don't have to think too much. It's pretty obvious on the surface level. In fact, you probably have to think about it too much to see it as something serious. If you think too much about anything, it can become serious business. Where did I say that? I was responding to you saying their gimmick was ridiculous to anyone over 12. "Big tough guy brawler in face paint" is a pretty typical wrestling gimmick. Pick an argument and stick to it already. See, that criticism makes sense. Don't agree with all of it, but I understand it. Overly excitable guy with tassles is too over the top for wrestling? Are you sure you've actually seen wrestling before?

So is porn. Doesn't mean it's for kids. Porn is laughable. It's grown, frequently drug enhanced men in funny underwear simulating combat in a decidedly over-the-top way. Even taking away the extraneous out-of-the ring antics and excessive gimmickry, it's pretty silly on it's face. The fact that you can't see that suggests you aren't very observant. Who said anything about it not being awesome? I said "laughable", in that it's crazy and weird and silly in the way a lot of lowbrow entertainment is. That doesn't mean it can't also be awesome. If anything it's part of what makes it awesome. And no, smkelly, that is not at all limited to the big US promotions. The Demos were big tough guy brawlers in facepaint. It's not just that they're not exceptionally "laughable" for 80's WWF, it's that they're not exceptionally "laughable" for professional wrestling, period. What place and what time in wrestling history does "big tough guy brawler in face paint" stand out as being over the top bizzare?

Not really. The market for wrestling has never been excusively for kids before Vince Jr. decided that they needed to be a cartoon. Yes, really. It's never been exclusively for kids, but it's always been cheap, lowest common denominator entertainment. Looked at objectively, it's laughable, and Demolition was hardly exceptional by that standard.

Once you're above 12 years old, wrestling is a bit laughable.

For a guy who's exclusively into old school stuff, that's kind of a strange opinion. They definitely weren't bodybuilders, but that body type was pretty common back then.

That sounds like a good movie at the bare minimum. It the right hands, it could be a great movie. I'm not even sure how you would go about disputing that. "By-the-numbers generic b-movies" were typically known for not moving coherently from A to B and failing to pull emotional triggers in the right place at the right time, if they manage to pull them at all. No one is lauding competence alone as greatness. They're saying they do certain fundemental things exceptionally well.

Hell, how many guys got more than one big run against Backlund? Don Muraco...anyone else? I wonder how many guys got multiple runs against Sammartino. 13 non-consecutive years on top...feels like you'd have to go back to someone eventually, but I don't actually know off-hand. Might have to look at Cawthon's site when I get some time.

Professional wrestling isn't a sport. Exceptional performance in wrestling guarantees nothing in terms of making it big. Hell, you can actually be punished for it under the right circumstances. Assuming that wrestling promotions are run as meritocracies is a very big mistake. Also, Jamie Dundee is kind of a fucked up dude, but aside from that....

Yeah, I bet if Vic and Matt had sat down and watched a whole bunch of Demolition matches recently instead of relying on childhood memories, they'd have totally changed their tune. Wait....

I would've killed if I'd been in the UWC, but what's the difference, that's all behind me now Cox doing his "Lance Russell wondering if Lawler and Funk will show up for the empty arena match" bit is the most natural he's looked in front of the camera so far. I'd say that's how should approach things all the time - and maybe it is - but it actually kinda made his usual stiffness work in a roundabout way, as you kinda see that that's just the face he puts on when he's trying to look good for the camera. He's not really that stiff and unnatural. That's just how he tries to pay the bills. He's not Chris Wilcox: Cub Reporter 24/7. There's actually a man behind the mask. Speaking of masks, we're back to one match this week, specifically The Secret Society challenging Blackhearted Justice for the tag belts, which again makes this easy to rate. In this case, it's not as good of a one match as Biggie/Twiggy/Orphan vs. Rules/CB4, but it's still a winner. Neither of the Secret Society guys were at their very best on offense here, but Blackheart was great working face in peril, so I could go along with it. They did eat all the BHJ offense really well when things turned around. After the BHJ/Unholy Alliance match where Garrison got his bell rung, kinda surprised to see him bust out that heinous looking German suplex, but I'm definitely not complaining. Grimaldi worked the glorified manager role well, too. This show also had an awesome music video showing clips from their most recent Burlington County College show. Really excellent choice of clips. Definitely left me wanting to see the show. Also, with wrestling having been televised on Saturday nights for something like 30 years following it's initial release, I'm always surprised that no one (to my knowledge, anyway) ever thought to use "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" on a wrestling show before. Better late than never. I'm thinking the Blackhearted Justice promo at the opening is probably the best promo in the short history of this show. Lots of guys on the indies can fake intensity and get pats on the back from psychopathic manchildren and embarrassing scenesters. It's another thing entirely to make you feel like some serious shit is going down. Blackheart usually cuts promos as cocky, funny, cool babyface, and he's very good at it. In episode four, we got to see him step outside of that as an honest, decent guy who wants to do right in spite of his cocky facade, and he worked well there, too. Now we see him as guy so pissed off that he's not even thinking about trying to look cool, and it's fantastic. For a wrestler, that range is pretty good, especially for a guy working a poverty row indy fed. For his own part, Garrison isn't as eloquent as Blackheart, but he's sincere, and I always felt that mattered more. This is also a one match show, with a singles match between newcomers Jael Rose and Stephon Smith turning into a tag match with Rose and Smith against the Staten Island Wrecking Crew. It's the least of the three one matches, but it's definitely not without it's charm. I don't know what Rose and Smith's backgrounds are other than that they apparently trained together and did tours of UK, but they looked like the real deal here. Pretty polished, and they laid in their shots well. Also have to give it up for the dueling Butt Butts at the finish. SI Crew held up their end of the match alright. Sally D suplexing guys twice his size always looks cool, and T-Bonz' sell of the missed top-rope splash was pretty great. He could of killed Smith if he actually landed that thing. We end on kind of a sour-ish note with the Biggie Biggs interview, though. It wasn't all bad. Biggie aping Dusty in his promos usually works, and Biggie doing more personal interviews "as himself" usually works, but mixing and matching the two felt off, though he still got the message across pretty well. Then we get Bubba running in for the beatdown, and it's a solid enough beatdown, but good lord did Cox look out of place when it was going down. Like I said above, he doesn't need to be "Lance Russell wondering if Lawler and Funk will show up for the empty arena match" all the time, but he desperately needed that kind of naturalism here, because it really drained the severity out of the moment.

And to top it all off.... This isn't even a continuity error. It's kinda dumb, and it defeats the purpose of the draft, but they acknowledged he was drafted to Smackdown and the Raw GM signed him back. They kept continuity.

So everyone in the company is sloppy except for Mistico? Seriously, Rey has been working WWE for almost a decade. It's not like no one in the company knows how to work as a base. Kofi Kingston has been around a few years. There are people in WWE who can catch sloppy fliers. The fact that guys who can catch Kofi and Morrison can't catch Sin Cara really doesn't suggest that the bases are to blame.

I'm disinclined to think that WWE were smart enough to be thinking this, but I think that's not a terrible approach. I mean, the whole reason I was excited about Sin Cara despite having never been a Mistico fan was that Mistico as top dog in CMLL got to have the whole promotion built stylistically around him...and it sucked. But I thought going to WWE might force him out of that and make him more adaptable and, with any luck, better. It's also why I liked that they debuted him by running in against Sheamus, as "high energy babyface getting wailed on by heel brawler" is a match he can work really well (see his '05 match with Perrito), and also one that could fit into "WWE style" and help him transition into working everyone else in the company. Chavo seemed like a guy who could fill the Sheamus role reasonably well if they weren't actually going to follow up on that. Obviously, they didn't follow up on that, and the Chavo match didn't work (haven't seen it, so I don't know how much of it was due to Chavo getting hurt and how much was Sin Cara just being that bad, but still). I like Averno, and it'll be interesting to see what he can do in WWE other than carry Sin Cara, but if Sin Cara is just having the same old matches in his comfort zone against the guy he worked them best against...well, then what? Where does he go from there? He still hasn't adapted his style to work half-way decent matches with anyone else, and WWE isn't going to change the company style to accommodate him like CMLL did (nor should they, nor would I want them to). This isn't a raid. This an admission of defeat.

Well, there's AAA under Pena and IWA Puerto Rico under Jovica. Those would be bigger.

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen me and Bix in the same place at the same time? I haven't.

I'm a 27-year-old Long Island Jew who got online in '95 but basically lurked and learned until 2003. I think that's also known, though.

Not as huge as you, I would admit. I think the joke might have faded into the background a bit. I mean, the link is about trying to find a modern equivalent since the original doesn't hold much weight anymore. But yeah, I just missed out on that one somehow. My bad. I would allow than a young non-Westerner who doesn't listen to music might not know about The Beatles. But unless you're a missionary helping lepers in the third world 24/7, that probably doesn't describe the majority of the people you interact with. It's kind of a minor, silly point I'm belaboring, but they were a poor choice for your original analogy based on a questionable frame of reference. Like saying GSP is a more famous Canadian athlete than Wayne Gretzky, for example, except I can actually see the logic behind what you were trying to say.

But now, it's the first time I ever heard it, and I'm guessing I'm not alone on that one. Outside of Dean Rasmussen, can't think of a soul on Earth who would associate Paul with Wings or his solo career before associating him with The Beatles. And don't take my word for it. 1, as previously mentioned was the best-selling album of the decade. Wingspan? Didn't place in the top ten. Unfortunately, the top ten is all that Nielsen SoundScan actually releases, so I can't tell if it was on the bubble or not. The best I can do is look at the Billboard charts, which uses Nielsen SoundScan to compile data. Despite this, they came to a different conclusion, placing 1 8th on the Top 200 for the last decade. Still not bad for a band that broke up 30 years earlier. Wingspan didn't make the top 200 for the decade. You seriously think Outkast is comparable to The Beatles? Like, seriously? I mean, they were big...but Beatles big? Not to mention that the drop-off in quality from their peak work to Idlewild >>>>>> the drop-off in quality from The Beatles peak work to Let It Be. Or that Let It Be is still as good or better than most of Outkast's peak work. Or that Outkast's peak work constitutes five albums worth of material vs. The Beatles' eleven (thirteen, really, if you want to count the Past Masters compilations of their non-album material). Outkast's one #1 album vs. The Beatles' fourteen (just counting original US releases, reissues and compilations would bring The Beatles up to 21)? Outkast's three #1 singles vs. The Beatles' 21? I don't think anyone is going to argue that The Beatles are every bit as big today as they were in the 60's. They split up 40 years ago, and two of them are dead now. By that very nature, they're going to be in the background today. But they're standing about as close to the foreground as they possibly can without being in it. Pretty easy to look into the background as see them standing there. Pretty easy to hear what they're saying from there, and pretty clear that there's still a shit ton of people - of all ages and demographics - who still want to hear it. Suggesting their fade is any way comparable to Bo Jackson's or Outkast's doesn't pass the laugh test. Yeah, they all faded into the background, but you can still get a lot of play from the background. Bo is an example of time moving forward. The Beatles are an example of standing the test of time.

When I was in high school (1981-84), there was exactly one Beatles t-shirt that ever got worn by one person in that school. Of course the same person also wore Who, U2, Stones, Pretenders, Clash and a variety of other shirts. But a fair number of other folks wore those other shirts. The Beatles in that period were "known"... but that was less than 15 years after they'd split, a year after John got shot... and they were way in the background. Time passes rather fast. Bo was monsterous in the late 80s. To a generation he still has meaning. But it's on 20 years now. John I know a wise man who once said.... The Beatles were not exactly the brief pop culture dalliance that Bo Jackson was.

Don't Change the Channel, Don't Touch that Dial, We've Got it All on UWC "Tiger Mask blood and Adrian Adonis DNA"...OK, that was cute, but I liked Joe Rules better as Wallace Shawn than Charlie Sheen. On the bright side, this was the least load-like in-ring performance he's ever given. It was the only match on the show, but it was one of the better ones I've ever seen from them, so this wasn't a hard call. The whole set-up for turning the tag into a six-man was great, with Rules' goofy "this is what I'd to Biggie Biggs if he was here" bit while Biggie enters the ring behind him. And then the match itself was a blast. Bubba incorporating the shootstyle armholds to take advantage of Biggie's injury was clever. I think Big Rig was the star of the heel team, though. He bumps around really well for a guy his size, but lays in his offense enough to stay a credible threat. I felt like he was doing the lion's share of the work for his team, and that suits me just fine. We also have a long Twiggy FIP section, and Twiggy is just great in that scenario. He has proven before that he's an excellent seller, so it's not surprising that he excels in this role, and it really makes the match. This was also the best screwy finish they've pulled off yet, though it was also the least screwy screwy finish, as Bravo's interference didn't lead directly to the finish. Yeah, loved this one. We're back to two matches, both of which were enjoyable. I think Dave Patera's singles excursion did him good. He looks really sharp now and definitely stood out to more than the has in the past. The downside is that "Textbook" Philly Madison kinda feels more one-dimensional by comparison, though I was amused that his textbook was apparently the UWC rulebook, and his attempts to lecture the ref with it were fun. Silly Billy also showed a bit more fire here beyond his usual comedy stuff. His brawling looked good, he had a nice elbowdrop, and the crane kick was cute. I've mentioned before that his playing the retard gimmick as more just childlike works well for him, but if the pre-match promo is any indication, he has now transcended even that and become the defender of the retarded and the children, and who has adopted their trappings as a show of solidarity, which is one of the most mind-meltingly great gimmicks I've ever seen, even if it exists solely in my head. Also, Slayer is a perfectly fine third-rate Sabu, and if your show is supposed to be as squeaky clean as this one, there's no point in getting a first or second-rate one, anyway. Unholy Alliance vs. Secret Society was also really good. The Secret Society was a little disappointing here. Not bad by any means, but not Mighty Mo's best showing and Savage Payne (whom I'm guessing I haven't seen before unless I'm told otherwise) looked solid but unremarkable. Still, Unholy Alliance put on a good show, and the Secret Society ate all their stiff shots really well. At one point early in the match, Ripper looked like he tweaked his knee doing a dropkick, and with the lack of height, ended up booting Payne in the jimmy. Kinda impressed by both guys coming back from that.

Nice. Definitely sounds like I have some fun stuff to look forward too. Yeah, I'm just talking from the perspective of a fan, but that did look really nasty. I can see why that match would work better for me than it would for them. You are. You've graduated from keeping your hands stiff at your side to moving your hands around more but in kind of an awkward way. I didn't want to comment on stuff like that too much, at least not until I've totally caught up so I know where you're at right now. Still, the actual commentary is good, and I think you do a good job of getting over the wrestlers and the importance of the matches, which is the most important thing.

Speaking of which... *Dory/Terry vs. Abby/Sheik RWTL Finals '77 and '79 *Dory/Terry vs. Brody/Snuka RWTL Finals '81

The Complete and Accurate UWC Championship Wrestling So I am finally getting a chance to catch up on this, and am also warming up for my own Complete and Accurate series over at Segunda Caida (subject TBA), and this feels like a pretty good way to work on both. I'm looking at this show-by-show rather than match-by-match, though obviously the matches are going to get talked about in the process. Otherwise, the format is the same, with every show being rated as EPIC, GREAT, FUN, and SKIPPABLE. So let's dive right in and see how my favorite poverty row indy is doing these days.... As a general rule, I don't watch TV shows in their first season. Most shows, even the really great ones, have some growing pains they need to work out, and I don't want to be turned off by a show because I didn't like it in it's formative stages, only to miss out when said show finds it voice later on. I mean, thank God I totally missed out on the first season of The Simpsons, because there's about 17 years of quality stuff that followed it that I might have overlooked otherwise. So I don't hold the fact the the first UWC Championship Wrestling show has some obvious kinks in it's system. Cox is at his very stiffest, opening angle with Silly Billy receiving a tepid beatdown from the Secret Scociety and Rudo the Heel making the save as a comedy spot wasn't the best way get things rolling, and the first match of the show was kind of a letdown. Still, lowered expectations does not a good show make. Geofrey Bravo is a guy with a lot of promise, and while I have had limited exposure to Andd Bivians, he strikes me as a guy I want to watch. Still, outside of Bravo's uber-nasty headbutts, this was not their best stuff. A six-minute match should not be worked as a "what will it take to put him away?" style bout. The Rudo vs. Secret Society handicap match was fine on it's own merits, but taken in the larger context of the show, Rudo's comedy antics feel like they should've been shelved for another day. And while Rudo's comedy is well-done and is his calling card, he's actually got a little bit more to him as a worker, and it feels like he could have pulled off a more serious match in light of his opponents taking out his partner earlier in the show, especially considering how capable his opponents are as heels. Looking at it in a vacuum, the match worked, but it should've been more, and this felt like the wrong foot to get off on. What I wrote on the previous page in case you already forgot: Yeah, it took me a while to check out episode 3, but now that I have.... Biggie vs. Bubba was a nifty brawl. Glad to see that CB4 has finally started to fully embrace their heelishness, and their shit-talking is great ("I felt his arm break in my tummy!"). The babyface comeback felt inorganic and forced, and the DQ finish looked off to me, which seems to be a recurring theme with the screwjob finishes in UWC for some reason, but the post-match beatdown was really good, and overall, this worked. Also, while The Big Unit always kinda ran hot and cold with me, I am kinda digging Dave Patera's singles run. His heel schtick is plenty fun, and while Adam Aces never really looked that good to me, Patera ate all his stuff really well and had me thinking he might be worth something after all. Nothing essential, but definitely enjoyable. On paper, Blackhearted Justice vs. The Unholy Alliance looks like one of the best matches this company could put out. My expectations may have been a touch too lofty, and it didn't quite meet them, but it was still a strong match that I really enjoyed. This was face vs. face, so I shouldn't be surprised that the Unholies didn't just lay into BHJ, which is what I really wanted to see. Instead, it was mostly worked clean, with a lot of mat stuff at the beginning. I had not really seen these guys take it to the mat before, and while there are no Negro Navarros in this bunch, they looked pretty comfortable there. Ripper looked good as usual, and Blackheart got to belly-to-belly suplex a fat guy, which I always like to see. The screwjob finish really dragged it down, as it was one of the weirder-looking, harder to follow ones. Still, body of the match was really good. The post-match promo with the two teams trying to sort things out was done well, too. Blackheart is a guy who tends to come off as a natural heel on the mic, and I could see this setting up a heel turn for them, though he also plays FIP really well, and BHJ are really over as faces, so it probably wouldn't be a good idea. Still, as a guy who generally feels like a natural heel, I was impressed at how convincing he was apologizing to the Unholies for the way things work out. Bought him as an guy who's kinda arrogant when talking up himself and his partner, but is still a good guy at heart who wants to do things the right way. Honestly, out of everyone on the roster, he feels like the guy with the best shot at upward mobility in the wrestling world. We also had Taylor Nicole Rules vs. WSU mainstay Roxie Cotton, and even as a guy who tends to enjoy Taylor's matches more than I probably should, I was genuinely surprised at how much I liked this. It might just be that Cotton is the best "hand" that Taylor's been put up against, but Taylor is a decent brawler and a good babyface seller in her own right, and this didn't really feel like a carryjob so much as Roxie holding up her end of the bargain more than any other woman they've brought in to fight Taylor. Thought her cowardly heel stuff worked well, and her charging elbows to the corner were pretty choice. For her own part, Taylor's sidewalk slam - which she typically uses as a finisher - was her best looking one yet, though she actually finished with a Billy Goat's Curse. Didn't actully lift Roxie off of the mat, but it looked like she was crunching her lower back enough that it still made for a convincing finish. Joe Rules was aces in the corner as usual. The first four episodes were all taped at the same event, and on first glance, this actually felt like the match of the night, which I did not see coming. "Gee-off Bravo"....my kid brother has the same name, and he is also frequently referred to as "Gee-off" and "Geo" and what have you. It's all good fun, and I normally wouldn't complain, but if the plan is to build up Bravo as the top in-ring heel - which appears to be the case - not sure comedying up his ring name is a good idea. The match with Rudo the Heel wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good, either. Bravo's headbutts continue to rule the world, but otherwise, this was nothing special, and it's frustrating that Bravo's attempts to groom himself for stardom this year have instead left him 0-for-2 for good matches, and it's not like Bivians and Rudo are slouches or anything. I still think he can do it, but you can see he's not ready just yet. Elsewhere on the card, Legion vs. Warhead was pretty much exactly what their match at the Toys for Tots show should have been. Legion looked absolutely terrible the first time I saw him, but he has shown some genuine improvement since then, and by this point, he honestly feels like a perfectly acceptable pro wrestler. His elbowdrop and headbutts were nasty, and Warhead is way better at eating punishment than dishing it out, so booking him to get squashed the whole match and then pull out a fluke win after Legion's hubris got the better of him was definitely the way to go. I liked this, and it probably would've gotten the show to FUN or even GREAT if Rudo/Bravo was better. But as is, you can pass on this one.