CodySave

Ok, 15 minutes to go and it's at $455. I'm surprised there hasn't been another flurry of bids after the initial flurry the first couple days of the auction.

http://www.wwe.com/shows/ecw/superstars/ma...riker/wow071607. This is an article from Matt Striker (or someone writing as him) educating people about Gino Hernandez, who is pone of the most entertaining wrestlers that most fans have never heard of that.* The fact that they're referencing the Handsome Half-Breed on the ECW website is phenomenal. * I'm sure most of you already know this, but I originally posted this on my local indy's website, where most of the readers are 16 or have the education-level of a 16-year-old. Hopefully this inspires them to learn more info about Gino.

Point very well taken. The Jericho handling was a mess. Still, they couldn't just move the battle royal to the GAB and use all two hours of Smackdown to build up to the match? Have guys cutting promos about how important it is to them to win the gold, have the top five or six guys in the battle royal win cleanly in singles matches put them over as threats, etc. Now what is it? Khali vs. Kane for the belt with absolutely no build? How is that a better solution?

Jesus, they did it again? Remember when Batista was injured and had to vacate the title? Well, it's always bugged the shit out of me that instead of making the Royal Rumble winner the new Smackdown champion 3 weeks later, they instead hotshotted the title to Kurt Angle in a battle royal on Smackdown. So, now, when they could have a battle royal or quick 4-man tournament to determine a new champion at the Great American Bash and possibly convince more people to order the show due to the intrigue of who might become champ, they (reportedly) quickly hot shot the belt to a champ before the show. It doesn't make sense to me.

13 1/2 hours to go before bidding ends and the price has been stsuck at $429.80 for a couple of days. Which eBayer will break the glass ceiling and come away with wrestling eBay auction's top prize? I would love for some indy promoter to buy this and base his/her shows exactly off of this.

Fantastic

You want to be me? You can't handle this hair, son. I give your life a -**** rating. So, what name does this Seth post under at the DVDVR board and what did you do to piss him off besides making rational points? Who the hell would want to be the next Dave Meltze? I even graduated in journalism and enjoy writing, but I would never, ever want to handle the amount of work Dave is doing every week these days. Besides, he never gets to report on positive news anymore. No wonder he's moving from wrestling to MMA - it's much happier to cover.

OK, you're bidding total update for tonight is $419.80 with 5 days, 15 hours left. Only two more bids since last night. I'm sure the bidding will be minimal until the final two days, where I'm sure people will go apeshit.

Why the hell is WWE letting its employees get away with blogging right now? They're already in a PR mess and to have half the roster share their thoughts through badly-written essays is not a good thing to let happen. [EDIT] Holy shit...I'm in the process of moving footage from unlabeled tapes to DVD, and a Chris Benoit sit down promo from post Royal Rumble 2003 pops up. After speaking about the emotions he felt from his family after the match, how proud they were of him, Kurt Angle pops into the screen and proceeds to say that his wife is his WWE title and that his children are his gold medals. So Benoit says: "I look forward to one day taking your family away from you." Really, really eerie to watch in hindsight.

If I had the money, I would have definitely bought it at $200 or $300 and sold PDF copies of it. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there willing to pay $20 for electronic files of this. I didn't even realize this had a $300 Buy It Now. Did Watts really believe he couldn't get much more than that for it? I'm curious to know if there's any relatively well-known names (at least to internet fans) who have put down bids for this. Though, I'd think that someone like Jim Cornette would be able to get a copy of this without having to win an eBay auction.

"Look at him Tony, LOOK AT HIM!" How was Crockett regarded at the time? I assume the "smarter" fans thought he was an idiot, but in hindsight, he's really amazing at pushing the excitement of the action and making people seem important. A large part of why I like Don West is that he's a poor man's David Crockett. At times, West is the only one who can make some of TNA's crap appear sensible. Crockett is incredible in the clip where the Mulkeys score the huge upset over the Gladiators. I believe KrisZ put it up as one of the Territorial Angles of the Day at the DVDVR board. Actually, here's the clip so people can enjoy listening to David while reading about him. Sorry that I don't know how to imbed videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za-YNZ4vTOQ

It's been up for only a day now, but it already has 17 bids and has jumped from $120 to $405. Still six days to go, and I'm sure the bidding will be frantic during the final day. I'm guessing this gets up near $1,000, if not more.

Yeah, Billy had some real gems tonight. In fact, I can't think of a single time he made his point without going off-tangent first. At one point, he set up to make a serious point and tveered off to praise Bruno Sammartino as the "Real Living Legend" for literally about 20 seconds.

From Meltzer: I'm hoping someone like Bix buys this, because I'm sure there's some wonderful info here to educate fans of this era. There's still seven days left on the auction (the default eBay number for auction length), but there's already three bids. I found the auction in question: http://cgi.ebay.com/EXTREMELY-RARE-Mid-Sou...1QQcmdZViewItem

Yeah, I've had the same thoughts on Blackman. The only conclusion I can come up with is that he wants to become an agent or the booker for OVW. I'm only half-joking about the booker theory too - he probably saw Greg Gagne booking and thought "Well, hell, maybe I've got a shot." I loved how Larry introduced Blackman: "Steve Blackman, SIX TIME Hardcore champion..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/business...amp;oref=slogin - Interesting article by Noam Cohen about the Wikipedia entry coincidence and other similar things that have happend on Wikipedia the last couple years.

Here's the title of a link on the Observer site today: By the way, the NWO ran in and beat the hell out of both of them, so the match was ruled a no contest. It was a chaotic scene, with Vitali running out from the back and Lennox Lewis charging from the ringside commentary table in a failed effort to fight off the likes of Vincent, Buff Bagwell, Konnan, Brian Adams, The Giant and V.K. Wallstreet.

"He just knocked the mousse out of Billy Gunn's hair!" - Jim Ross, commentating during a Hardcore Holly vs Billy Gunn hardcore title match from a spring 1999 episode of RAW. "Above Mike Average Sanders has got him..." - slightly paraphrased Schiavone commentary during an episode of Thunder from 2000.

I watched Nigel McGuiness vs. Kotaro Suzuki and Marufuji/Kota Ibushi vs. The Briscoes from the July 1 NOAH show today. I haven't seen a lot of 2007 wrestling from Japan, but both these matches were really entertaining. It should be noted that each of these matches were much more about MOVEZ than psychology-based grappling. Normally, I'm not such a fan of this, but I'm also a sucker for strings of acrobatic moves and there was plenty of that, especially in the tag match. Nigel McGuiness vs. Kotaro Suzuki - Nigel's a guy I really like even though his finishers and the amount of times he uses his finishers in certain matches bugs the hell out of me. Like, that stupid headstand he does in the corner always comes off awkard in every Nigel match I've seen. And his Tower of London looks bad when the opponent doesn't know how to eat it. Kotaro's a guy I really like even though I've only seen him a handful of times. I'm sure any fan has a few wrestlers they enjoy for the slightest of reasons, like the coolness of their wrestling gear. Kotaro has cool blue/yellow/white tights and a nifty entrance jacket. Throughout the match, the card for the ROH in Japan show flashes on the screen, so it's definitely getting some promotion from NOAH. All of Nigel's signature moves are seen here, including lots of lariats, which look great here. Kotaro counters the aforementioned headstand spot very nicely and uses lots of speed and aerial moves to achieve nearfalls. He also eats the Tower of London better than most of Nigel's opponents. Certainly not a MOTYC candidate, but good enough that you should make an effort to see it. If you love ROH-style, you'll really like this. Kotaro looks much better now than he did as a newcomer to the scene in the 2003 Differ Cup, but I doubt he'll ever be one to use lots of psychology in his matches. Marufuji/Kota Ibushi vs. The Briscoes - This is the first time I've seen Ibushi besides a 4-minute clip against American Ballon on YouTube, and jesus christ am I impressed. In the last two weeks, I've seen my first fooage of Ibushi, Super Fly and Laredo Kid, who provided enough awesome aerial moves to fill a year's worth of highlights. Ibushi caused me to react out loud four or five seperate times during this match, including a few spots I've never seen: I can't imagine current DDT is as great as some make it sound, but Ibushi seems too talented to be stuck in the Japanese indy ranks and I suspect he'll be making many more appearances in NOAH. Based on this performance, ROH fans would go apeshit for him. The Briscoes threw in a bunch of impressive double team moves, but it never seems like there's much rhyme or reason why they use a certain move at a certain time. I honestly didn't notice Marufuji much in this match between all the crazy moves Ibushi was throwing out and the Briscoes double-team work. Listen for one of the Briscoes speaking to the camera at the end for a really funny line. This match should be seen for the numerous innovative spots, but some of them will undoubtedly make you shake your head at the amount of set up involved. Lots of action movie-style ducking and dodging. The last ten minutes is really entertaining, if not absurd at times. Still, this is definitely one of the most entertaining tag team matches I've seen this year. [EDIT] It's come to my attention that this match is part of the NOAH Nippon Jr. Cup Tag League. Or something like that.

Yeah, I've been to two ROH shows in St. Paul, and at both shows they shut off the building lights and used four of their own high-powered lights pointed at the ring. Definitely gave the action a more "epic", less indyriffic feel. The difference was really noticeable when their lights went out and they had to use the normal building lights during one match. But 5,000 fans? How did they manage to draw that many fans? Listening to the reactions, this definitely sounds like more of a lucha-viewing crowd, but I assume they must have had some actual drawing names on the card? I'm sure it'd be tough to find 5,000 people who even know who Adam Pearce is. Actually, here's what someone psoted as the card before the event: That explains the lucha fans in attendence. I'm still surprised they drew 5,000 though. I assume a large portion of the crowd was given free tickets?

[EDIT] Sorry, double post. DSL is acting wonky.

Slightly off-topic, but was anyone else shocked at how great the production is on this clip? When I clicked on the clip, I assumed the match was being held in a school gym or armory, just like any other modern-day NWA promotion footage. So, what's the backstory on this? How do any of the NWA promotions have the money to run an actual arena and have slick production values? ROH is generally considered the top indy in America and the production on this clip is worlds better than any ROH footage you see. Hell, this is better than what ECW was putting out on PPV. Is it truly a case of the NWA having more money to work with, or is it that the majority of indys are staffed by people that know next-to-nothing about TV-style production? I have to think that the NWA could get on at least a regional TV sports network with production this slick.

I'd love to sign up as well and had the same questions. I assume I can simply send $5 each month?