S.L.L.

Did anyone pick this guy in the '83 Fantasy Draft?

The ones that come to mind are.... vs. Kyoko Kimura (SENDAI, 12/3/06) vs. Chikayo Nagashima (Amano/Nagashima/Kato Produce, 4/30/09) vs. Kana (Kana Pro, 2/13/11) vs. Nanae Takahashi (Stardom, 3/20/12) vs. Sonoko Kato (OZ Academy, 2/10/13) vs. Sonoko Kato (OZ Academy, 9/15/13) vs. Kana (Kana Pro, 2/25/14) vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto (Fortune Dream, 6/8/14) vs. Ayako Hamada (SENDAI, 10/18/14) vs. Kairi Hojo (Fortune Dream, 12/10/14) She also had another match with Hojo in Stardom last month that people were raving about. Unfortunately, I was a little slow on the draw in watching it, and it got yanked from the internet. Thanks a pantload, Samurai TV. I should probably go back and rewatch that Kimura match considering how much I ragged on the match they had this year. I had actually forgotten about it when I was watching this match, but there was something vaguely familiar about Kimura's Japanese Daizee Haze schitick, and it wasn't until just now that I remembered "oh yeah...they had a great match against each other, like, a decade ago". So now I should probably go back and see if it holds up and, if so, what went wrong between then and now.

Off topic, but who does that entail besides the obvious names like Austin, Rock and Hogan. Lesnar was mainly known as the "fake wrestling guy" in UFC and despite his recent film success, Batista isn't really a large name yet. Every one of those names eventually came back and made nice, sometimes more than once. Only exception I can think of is Savage. Maven appearing on infomercials and the Surreal Life and Stacy Keibler being the arm candy of Clooney for few years before promptly disappearing after breaking up aren't people I would say became bigger than the company. trish stratus has also become a thing in the fitness world with her yoga DVDs or w/e. steadier & easier money than wrestling, i'd imagine Maria was fired preemptively simply for being a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice, because they figured that would lead to her getting too big for them, which suggests that it's not so much a matter of them actually being bigger than WWE, but Vince et al. being so insecure that they saw the mainstream acting career of Stacy Kiebler as a threat.

RIP Robo-Johnny (Johnny 5?). If I lived in a part of the country where I could get a Mello Yello, I'd pour one out for you. That's hard times.

I am extremely ready for these worlds colliding!

He must have gotten those from reading the dirtsheets.

I've been looking forward to this one, and it totally lived up to expectations. Can't wait for Jim Herd talk in part two.

The words Exile + Main Street have been linked in my mind for 30+ years. Apologies to Kris but when i link Badstreet its to USA. Main Street, Atlanta USA! Mainest street in the whole GA! Great show, guys. Can't wait to vote Sasha Banks top 25 on my WKO 100 ballot this year.

I was thinking more "Onita vs. Aoyagi-style matches with Big Trouble in Little China storylines"...yeah, that'd end about as well.

Is this where I reassert my theory from 2008-2009 or so that the best approach to a new wrestling TV product (or internet product, or streaming media product as the case may now be) would be to present it as a sort of UFC 1/Street Fighter/WMAC Masters over-the-top fighting competition that explicitly does not refer to itself as wrestling and distances itself from wrestling canon, but uses professional wrestlers for it's roster, utilizes a lot of wrestling gimmickry and storytelling, and is essentially worked BattlArts-style? Because I still kind of believe that, even though it's obviously every bit as ludicrous as any other idea you might come up with.

Late April might seem like a strange time to start reflecting on the best wrestlers of the previous year, but over at Wrestling KO, that's what we're doing. I've been running the annual poll and countdown since 2010, and it is my favorite wrestling nerd activity of the year, so if you want to follow along, here it is: The 2014 WKO 100 Countdown!

Crosses over with kickboxing and MMA, but still... And lest we forget, my personal favorite.....

As Timbo alluded to elsewhere, I was planning on nominating her myself. I held up because while looking for match reviews, most the ones I found were a little lacking in substantive praise. Ultimately my solution to this was that I decided to start a Complete and Accurate project for her, the first entry of which I just put up over at Segunda Caida. For the record, I have no clue whether or not Meiko would go on my ballot or not, but she's someone I'd seriously consider. More to the point, she's someone with a really unique candidacy. It's been over a decade now since joshi's well ran dry, but Meiko basically just shrugged that off and decided to keep being awesome right to this day. That's a genuinely amazing feat to me, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I guess the big question - as Badlittlekitten alluded to - is whether or not she had enough opportunities to show off her skills after the scene starting going to shit. I'm not sure, but I've seen enough great post-joshi collapse Meiko that it doesn't seem crazy to me. Also, personally, she's just one of those wrestlers who's matches I will always watch if I'm presented with one (and not just because I'm doing a project explicitly built around seeking out Meiko matches), and that will score you points when I make my ballot (Andre for #100!). But don't take my word for it. Take LOTS of my words for it! The Complete & Accurate Meiko Satomura

Bizarre, possibly drug-fueled promos Gary Young and Billy Joe Travis The time my dad declared Kamala to be his favorite wrestler ever after he beat Kim Chee at a WWF house show when I was eight The time my dad declared Bruiser Brody vs. Abdullah the Butcher to be the best wrestling match ever while I was working the 80's Texas Set Minis Super Porky Jimmy and Lacey The Bill and Buddy Show Wrestling With Death Pirata Morgan Negro Casas El Dandy Yoshiaki Fujiwara Jaguar Yokota Hikari Fukuoka's Moonsault Footstomp World Class-era Jimmy Garvin Rusev's Tank The Regal/Finlay feud of '96 The Liger/Kikuchi feud of '02 The Perros/Capos feud of '04/'05 The ROH/CZW feud of '06 El Hijo del Santo

Mr. McMahon Lucha brawling When a bad wrestler becomes great Heel Doink Sid - one of the very few wrestlers to really pull off "so bad it's good", and almost certainly the "best" in that regard

Also, shouldn't "Monster Mafia" just be Da Hit Squad?

Alexander Otsuka Meiko Satomura The knowledge that no matter how bad things seem to get, there always seems to be something out there worth watching

Wade through a lot of different topics on the front page, or wade through a lot of different posts in a single thread....I see how this could be an improvement, I see how this could just be a lateral move...not really seeing how this is a board-ruining calamity.

With The Undertaker's Mania undefeated streak over, the new most important title in wrestling emerges!

Stacy Kiebler, I assume.

Power of the Brass Ring helps him survive getting murdelized by Brock when it forced him to work even at best with nobody jobber Bryan? Wrestlemania adrenaline helped Reigns deal with Brock that much more than it helped The Undertaker? I mean, I guess when you're dead, your adrenal glands don't work so well, but come on! Didn't Brock bleed when he squashed Cena? Wasn't his reaction to stick his tongue out and laugh and then resume the slaughter? Unless Brock hit a serious gusher, why was blood working against him when he laughed it off in the Cena match? If anything, he busted out less. The Superman Punches and Spears looked great - they always do - and I'm not a guy who thinks you need a giant offense to be a great wrestler by any means, but Reigns unbelievably surviving a Lesnar-sized asskicking and then evening things up by basically just spamming two moves until Rollins ran in really didn't help his case. I don't get this at all. Cena-Lesnar was the extended squash of extended squashes-- when was Cena ever in control of that match? Reigns absolutely had control, or least the dominant momentum, during this match. Reigns winning was presented as a possibility at the apex of the match, which was never the case at SummerSlam. There's no reason it should've been the case here, because there's no reason he should've survived that beatdown to make it to the apex of the match. I mean, there were ways to get there. Have Reigns blast Lesnar with a Superman Punch out of nowhere early, so Lesnar is thrown off his game. Give Reigns some hope spots here and there before the posting to keep it from being a total decimation. Let him escape/counter some of the throws instead of just taking them all and smiling through them. But no - book him to be literally more invincible than The Undertaker after spending all of the build to the match making him look like a chump. Whatever, guy who produced this match. It makes him look weak, it makes everyone he destroyed with it look weak, and since, three-ways aside, this is apparently all they can think of to do with him now, it also makes him look like a bit of a one-trick pony. A one-trick pony who doesn't draw. And who they just resigned to a multi-million dollar deal for several years. Hoo boy, this company.

I know this is a typing error but what are you asking? I don't know the question. I meant "Do you know what brilliant move WWE pulled to get around that?" The question, basically, is why I'm supposed to suddenly buy Reigns as who can eat bigger Brock beatings than both Cena and Taker fell to when all booking up to this point suggested the opposite.

OK, I've been rolling this around in my head since Sunday night, because I wanted to listen to/read everyone's opinions to see if I'm crazy or not, and I'm still not really satisfied, so I'm just gonna throw out this thought here: Remember how some of us thought that Reigns/Bryan - actual match quality aside - was kinda dumb because Reigns was booked essentially as underdog to that 5'nothing scrub nobody Bryan, and if he struggled with him, how were we supposed to buy him against unstoppable juggernaut Brock? Do you what brilliant move WWE pulled to get around that? No, seriously, I'm asking you guys - do you what brilliant move WWE pulled to get around that? Because you all seemed to see it, or at least, you weren't bothered by it, and wasn't the case for me. For that matter, why was Lesnar able to devastate John Cena with a roughly equivalent assault while Reigns was able to laugh and smile his way through this one until he found his opening? Is Reigns that much tougher than Cena? He sure hadn't been established as being that. Why were three F5's enough to end the Mania undefeated streak of the Undertaker, but that plus a bajillion horrifying suplexes can't stop Reigns? Is Reigns vastly more invincible than The Undertaker? I know that hadn't been established. In some respects, the Mania main event was the strangest match I've ever seen. To the best of my recollection, it is the only match I've ever seen since realizing that wrestling was fake that I did not like purely because I was unable to suspend disbelief for it. In terms of the things they actually had direct control over, Brock and Reigns both gave excellent performances, but placed in context of the characters and how they've been built to this moment, the layout of the match mystified me. Before Rollins cashed in, it really looked to me like the goal was to establish Roman Reigns as exactly the kind of guy that every John Cena detractor ever bitched about him being, right down to incorporating the "smiley happy babyface who doesn't care that he suffered a setback" routine right into the match itself. Obviously, that's not actually what was happening, but in some ways, that just makes it more confusing. I don't know what to do with it, and really that's my story with Mania as a whole this year: what do you do with a show that technically gave you a lot of good things, but really just left you feeling hollow inside? Rusev's tank was the shit, though. I think we can at least all rally around that.

It inspired me to make an Aubrey Plaza joke on Twitter. See, everybody wins!

And why are they now throwing him into a ladder match car crash-style match? His health is as much of an issue as Titus O'Neil's age.