CodySave

I'm drawing a blank on who the dude with the namesake of a famous cowboy would be. My guess is Sam Houston.

"World Heavy Middleweight Title" This cracked me up. That's one way to make your lighterweight titles not look inferior or less important than your heavyweight title. The whole presentation, both the round system and the TV commentary, strikes me as pleasantly unique. The commentary especially comes off more "sport-like" than any wrestling announcing I've every heard. I've also never seen wrestling where the wrestlers are allowed to get a drink of water every three minutes.

This match is insane. I've never seen anything like this in pro wrestling before. Sure, I've seen really heated crowds and really intense, hate-filled life-or-death brawling, but I've never seen them combined quite like this. I'm not even sure what I think after first viewing other than I've just watched a hell of a spectacle. I'm definitely going to rewatch this a couple times, because it was just a blur of bloodiness and brawling the first time. And the people crying, both in the crowd and in the ring...god damn. I've never seen wrestling this emotional before. I feel like I just watched a half-hour of wrestling where no one involved - wrestlers, crowd or otherwise - was told "Hey - wrestling's fake, you know." That goes for the brutality as well as emotions. This came off WAY more like a real fight, shit, a real savage beating, than any sort of pro wrestling match. It would help me tremendously if someone could briefly describe the back story going into this match. I've never followed Joshi, and while it's certainly clear they hate each other, I feel I'm missing some important elements.

This is my first time seeing Markoff in action - what a pleasant surprise. I'm a big fan of heels that are so intent on kicking your ass, they're literally do whatever it takes, even if it means prtically flinging their limbs at you. Even the stuff that other posters considered sloppy in this match, I thought more along the lines of "Man, he hates Inoki." Regarding Markoff - is their just not much footage available of him? Because, if there is, I would imagine he would be spoken of much more on mesage boards than he is. His selling is great during this match.

I totally forgot how over Sean Waltman was in 1994. The pop he receives during the entrance is almost hard to believe, until I reminded myself how much I even liked the 1-2-3 Kid during this time period. I even owned a 1-2-3 baseball cap, and yet, I never gave a crap about him at any other point in his career. Seeing young Waltman again compared to current/early 00's/late 90's Waltman is an interesting contrast. By the way, this match is still as awesome as it was when I saw it on TV 13 years ago. The superplex-countered by a shift in weight during the fall spot needs to make a resurgence, as it's always a very convincing near fall. I believe Shawn Michaels did the same thing to win his first Intercontinental title from Bulldog in 92. Interesting to see Kid actually tap, because I don't think tapping was considered a form of "giving up" at this point in time. If I remember correctly, physically tapping to indicate submission seems to have become a standard during the late 90s. Is this correct? Hell, I can remember when guys would tap and it wouldn't mean anything.

I received my discs this afternoon. Currently reliving Bret Hart vs 1-2-3 Kid from RAW 1994, a match I loved in my youth that I thought was lost in time. Loss, I appreciate you organzing this whole club more than you even know.

I also haven't seen this match yet, but I saw a Bret/Yoko cage match at a house show in Des Moines around this same time period and it's still one of my favorite cage matches of all-time, live or on tape. Just an awesome finish that I won't spoiler because I assume this match from Maine uses the same finish. Yoko was so fat that he couldn't get through the door on the first few attempts, so they had to make some sort of last-minute alteration to the cage door area to fit him in.

I'm very jealous/envious of everyone whose discs have arrived. Though, I have the day off work tommorow, so if they arrive tommorow, I should be able to watch many of the matches.

Point very well taken about AAA, but I don't get Galavision on my cable system. I've seen bits and pieces of it at my parent's over the summer, and I really enjoyed it.

The only wrestling show I watch on a regular basis at this point is ECW. I still record RAW and Smackdown on my DVR in case I hear or read about something I'd be interested in seeing, but more often than not, I simply delete them without watching. I've been doing this for about a month or two now, and with even more viewing options available and taking space up on my DVR, my WWE-viewing should only decrease. It's very odd to think that within the span of three months, I've gone from watching 2-3 wrestling shows a week religiously for years to not even caring if I miss any of them. It's not that I dislike wrestling - I still love it and regularly go to local indy shows. I just hate most of the current options on TV. Like many of you, I've really been disgusted with WWE in the last few months and TNA has done an absolutely awful job of picking up fans disenchanted with WWE. I really wish there was another alternative wrestling show on national TV right now.

I love how in the span of two sentences, he seamlessly transitions from talking about depression due to obesity to encouraging Brandon to eat a a farm's worth of food.

As hinted at two posts above, I find it strange that it's noted "We do not have a copy of the autopsy report for Brian Pillman, who died October 5, 1997, as it is not genrally available to the public under Minnesota law," when Eddie Guerrero, whose autopsy is provided, also died in Minnesota. I assume his autopsy was done in Minnesota as well.

Just to prove that there's still people out there that think Chris Benoit was framed, my cable "technician" tried to convince me yesterday that he was. His assistant agreed with me that there's no way he didn't commit the murders, but also thinks it would be a good idea if WWE released a Chris and Nancy Benoit wrestling figure 2-pack, complete with a smaller Daniel as the accessory. Judging by the looks of the latter "tech"....meth is a hell of a drug. And he was the smart one.

I wonder how the poor bastard feels now that he's written an uneccessarily long column about WWE approaching doomsday based on a TV rating that has been revealed to have been a Nielsen error.

According to Meltzer, other congressional committees are jumping on board:

This, and definitely health insurance during their careers as well. It's ridiculous that wrestlers don't have health insurance when most full-time workers in America get health benefits through their employer. I understand it's much costlier to insure wrestlers, but I'm sure something can be done with the right amount of money and WWE needs to spend as much money as needed. I also want very strict, independently run drug-testing with set punishments that aren't biased towards a wrestler's spot on the card. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't UFC suspend fighters even seperate from the athletic commission suspensions? I wish WWE had a real no-nonsense attitude toward drug use, even to the upper card wrestlers. Admittedly, they've done better in recent years compared to the past, but they could do a hell of a lot better. [EDIT] And I completely forgot to mention an off-season. Take 3-4 months off after Wrestlemania and come back during the summer when all other TV shows are in re-runs. The excitement of the new season would probably help out WWE's ratings quite a bit.

Even if you switch "won't" with "can't," my statement would be the same. Who's to say they can't change anything if they don't try? I can't stand it when people throw in the towel simply on the assumption they can't change anything. That's a terribly unconfident attitude to live with.

Here's what I posted on the DVDVR board in response to the "Why bother trying" attitude, which I hate when used with anything in life:

Dan Wahlers fine work today: God damnit, Triple H hasn't done anything you could remotely claim as "a burial" in what, three years? Funny thing is, so many net fans think Triple H is awful, but from talking to a number of indy wrestlers, his wrestling is pretty well respected, at least among the wrestlers that know what they're doing in the ring and not simply throwing at their "Fighting Spirit" puro moves at meaningless times. I mean, seriously, was John Cena buried when he submitted Triple H at Wrestlemania? How about Benoit tapping him at Wrestlemania 20? Hell, he lost cleanly to Shelton Benjamin on RAW. Granted, I still think he should have put Booker T over at Mania. By Triple H "burial standards," John Cena is a worst offender than Triple H ever has been. Not that I think Cena's buried anyone.

Off topic, but I've never heard of Sunbelt Wrestling before. Does footage exist and was it actually any good?

I also watched this recently. Like sek69, I haven't seen a full show since...well on DVD, I have no idea. Perhaps Kobashi vs Joe? I did see ROH live in St. Paul in April. Overall, I was pretty impressed and I don't think any wrestling fan would think they wasted $10 after watching this. That being said, there were a number of little production quirks that annoyed me. When you watch WWE or even TNA, you hardly notice the VERY brief transitions between scenes. After watching this, you realize even a slight visual transition into the next scene makes worlds of difference. I think every time they showed highlights of a wrestler during introductions, it would quickly cut back to the ring. For me, it cut so fast that it was a noticeable gap in production that you probably don't notice is normally present but is really noticeable when it's gone. So, production wise, this isn't even at the level of the ECW PPV's, but a few minor changes would help the PPV's in the long run. Most of the changes I had in mind can be done under ROH's budget as well - I assume they just don't have a really knowledgeable production staff, at least by TV/PPV prgoramming standards. As for the matches, one thing that stuck out to me is that every match was a sprint for the most part (except parts of Strong vs Delirious). Watching a ROH event live is a phenomenal experience, and a whole card of sprint matches can be great to watch in a live setting. However, I felt like I needed a break after the Briscoes tag team match because the show was moving at such a quick pace. In recent years, I've definitely developed an appreciation for WWE's ability to throw a slowed-down/throwaway match between matches people actually bought the PPV to see. The Briscoes really throw me for a loop. On one hand, I don't like that their matches are simply full of moves that don't build on one another. On the other hand, I can't say I've haven't seen a recent Briscoes match that didn't entertain the hell out of me. I've decided that instead of using anything that remotely resembles typical "wear down a limb" psychology, their gimmick is to just beat the hell out of people with everything they have until they knock them out for a pin. I think they're the best team in the world as far as double team moves are considered, but I wouldn't say they're the best in the world at tag team wrestling. I'd love to see them against the current Hardys in a WWE match though. I think the Hardys could reign them in so they only throw half the high-impact moves they usually do for double the overall meaning. Matt Sydal and Claudio Castagnoli are a really good team in their own right. Sydl looked phenomenal. I loved the brawl at the end with El Generico and Kevin Steen. God damn, Adam Pearce caught a spectacular promo, and even better, like sek69 said, I'm not even sure what he was talking about. Apparently he knows Whitmer is dperessed that he's a loser and is trying to help him. Are his promos always that good? If I saw him cut a promo like that every other week on TV, he'd be my favorite wrestler. I've never seen Larry Sweeney in the sports agent role before this, and he pulls it off just as well as you'd imagine. If male managers weren't a thing of the past, he'd be managing on WWE TV right now. Also, I think Rocky Romero is actually really, really good. He was excellent here and he was awesome when I saw him live. Where does all the hate he gets stem from? The top rope cross armbreaker was one of the most spectacular moves on the whole PPV. The main event was good, but by that point, I was tired from everything that happened before it. Which is odd, because looking at the results there were only five matches, but the show moved so, so quickly. Some of this has to do with the production issues I wrote about above. Typically I hate B.J. Whitmer, but his quick squash to Morishima worked really well in showing what Morishima brings to the table. I don't think I've ever seen a a match that short with so many 2.9 counts though. I was actually impressed with Prazak's and Leonard's commentary. The definitely could pull off excitement better though. Usually I'm a big proponent for the "face/heel" announce team, but with ROH's dynamic of fans cheering everbody, it wouldn't work as well. I know they had Prazak list off all the upcoming events, but I'm shocked they didn't show a graphic with all the upcoming events. It's definitely worth the $10 to spend on it. Hopefully, the $10 PPV's catch on with fans because in all seriousness, with the help of advertising, I think you could get many more people to pay $10 for a ROH PPV than $30 for a TNA PPV. Did inDemand and Dish advertise this PPV at all? I didn't see anything on Dish advertising it.

Wha....how old is he again? I want to say 43. Still, is Ric Flair even a grandfather yet? It's just very strange that a guy who's jacked up and considered a viable contender for the World title is already a grandpa.

I remember watching "Beyond the Mat" years ago, shortly after it was released on video. There's a scene where Jim Ross says something to the effect (terribly paraphrased) "As long as there's an ass in a seat every 18 inches, I don't care what we present them in the ring." At the time it shocked me because I thought "Man, that doesn's sound very Jim Ross-like." Actually, it sure does. If anyone knows the exact quote, please correct me because I'm pretty confident the last half of that is wrong. I think you get the idea though, and I know he said the 18 inches part.

I don't know much about how the stock market or buying and selling stock works, but why would Dunn sell 10,000 shares of WWE stock and then turn around and buy 50,000 shares of WWE stock? Is it a case that the sell price is cheaper than the buy price?

Fritz Von Erich cons World Class fans with dead son David Von Erich's "autographed" photos Let me preface this by saying that if I have the details wrong, someone please correct me. Anyway, I've read in many places that following David's death, autogrpahed photos of David were being sold at World Class shows. Except, instead of it being David's signature, it was actually Fritz or another office person signing the photos with David's signature. I assume this was also done for the other son's that died. Is it correct to assume this? Also: Perverted Justice and a local TV station con Rob Feinstein into thinking he's meeting with a 14-year-old boy I think we all know how this turned out. For ROH's sake, it's a good thing Perverted Justice wasn't hooked up with Dateline NBC yet or the backlash on the company could have been much worse if this would have been on national TV.