Edwin

https://twitter.com/runninjay/status/998550224820883462 MLW is running a Boiler Room Brawl at their next event between Sami Callihan and MVP... Eh... I won't be attending this event as I'll be on vacation out of the country, but I'm guessing this will be taped and aired on the big screen and it will spill over into the ring at some point. Kind of an odd stipulation for an indie show.

Both organizations had admittedly fixed fights, but the weren't all fixed. Ken Shamrock vs. Matt Hume from Pancrase is believed to have been a fix. If you watch it, you can see the lack of struggle and how they just give up positions and don't even try and defend the takedowns. PRIDE has some obvious worked fights, such as Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kyle Sturgeon which isn't only worked, but its a very poorly worked fight. Also, Nobuhiko Takada vs. Mark Coleman has always been talked about being a work. Gary Goodridge has namely been vocal about fixed PRIDE fights, however not all of the fights were fixed, just some of them.

Soooo... Who else hates their job? I got a BSMIS and just got back to school late last year and am already 9 (out of 33 credits) credits into a MNA/MNM, but am taking a break from school this term as I'm going on vacation with my wife out of the country. I was going to do a MBA, but now-a-days everyone has one, so I'd rather take the nonprofit management degree to take a different route, but I'll definitely go back to school for an MBA once I'm done with this degree.

Also, there's a ton of fun Minowaman stuff: Japan had a ton of Catch Wrestlers and Submission Wrestlers that would have been great if they had decided to venture into pro-wrestling for a long run -- Caol Uno, Shinya Aoki, Masakazu Imanari, Rumina Sato, Hayato Sakurai, Kazuyuki Miyata, Ikuhisa Minowa, Daisuke Nakamura, Norifumi Yamamoto, etc. I know guys like Miyata, Minowaman and Nakamura ventured into pro-wres. on a couple of occasions, but they never had long runs and just had a match or two. Tim Cooke had a thread on this already: Mat Work I posted some cliff notes from the PRIDE Secret Files on how DEEP was originally planned on being a pro-wres. organization instead of an MMA organization and some of the matches Saeki wanted to book.

Daisuke Nakamura vs. Hideo Tokoro: That fight features the most exciting grappling exchanges of all time and it makes me wish some shoot style matches featured grappling exchanges like this from time to time. There's also the Tokoro fight with Abel Cullum from DREAM which I remember being pretty great, but I can't find it YouTube. A lot of the old Sakuraba PRIDE fights featured him breaking out some great looking grappling. The Newton match isn't a work despite the lack of striking. They had a gentleman's agreement backstage where they agreed to display their grappling and avoid throwing many strikes. The Sakuraba vs. Royce Gracie 90 minute fight from PRIDE is also must watch. Sakuraba puts on a clinic toying with Royce and taking advantage of his gi. Rumina Sato's 6 second flying armbar against Charles Taylor is legendary: That's how the Minoru Special should be done.

For those of you on NJPW World -- are they still adding footage from the 70's - 90's? Do they plan on adding more footage? Do they announce when they add new footage from those years or does it just pop up randomly? Is there an index for what they have uploaded when? Thanks!

Not entirely a New Japan show, but there will be a mini New Japan show in Daytona Beach next month. https://twitter.com/njpwglobal/status/996168878320332800 I'm definitely going.

$200 -- $1,800+ for second hand tickets for basically an indy show? Yikes, no thanks. I'm a big fan of indy wres., but I could pay $25 and watch most of these guys live at another event. Sure I get the novelty of the event and all and cool for those who actually went ahead and paid whatever they did for their tickets, but to me, personally, that's way more than I'd be willing to pay for most events.

I remember having watched this in the mid 2000's and just re-watched this recently and I loved this even more so now. The venue seems like a New Jersey venue JAPW would run 25 years later and the chaotic atmosphere also carries the feel a JAPW headlined by a Homicide vs. Teddy Hart match would. Utter chaos. The teams are straight out of Genichiro Tenryu WAR card with Santo and Casas working their butts off and the FMW crew just hurtling chairs and punching each other in the face in front of a riled up sea of fans. Totally loved this.

I work in IT (and I hate my job). I'm happily married -- going on my second year in a little over a month and its been awesome as I got to marry my best friend.

Dwight does indeed carry the post Michael Scott seasons. Out of the post Michael Scott seasons, the final one is the only one really worth watching as. The other seasons, I agree with you are underwhelming. However, my wife and I love Kevin. He gets more talking time in the post Michael Scott seasons and some of his lines are hilarious (Andy, Andy... You gotta hear this... I woke up at 4 AM by accident just in time for the paper to get deliver; GUESS WHAT... It's not a boy on a bike... IT'S A MAN IN A CAR!) There's some YouTube videos where they theorize that Toby was the Scranton Strangler and Kevin wasn't really slow and was just playing it up to the cameras so he could get away with money laundering along with Oscar and Angela in accounting. We also really disliked Erin and thought the show would have been better without her or Andy as they don't really add anything to the show. I still love football, but the Spanish giants (Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid) have pretty much been unbeatable on club level. A lot of Italian fans feel the same way you do; i.e.; sheer number of average foreign imports have affected the progression of the Italians. I'm heading to Italy and Spain at the end of the month on vacation with my wife and will be visiting the Allianz Stadium and San Siro in Italy and the Santiago Bernabéu, Wanda Metropolitano (Atlético de Madrid's new stadium), Benito Villamarín, Mestlla and the Camp Nou and am super stoked. I don't follow or watch the EPL, but Arsenal fans have really (REALLY) had a tough times they last couple of seasons.

Some of it, yes, but the Gokuaku Domei vs. Crush Gals is pretty easy to get into as its pretty easy to define the heel/face dynamic there, namely the 2 hair matches which are great.

In the 90's, WCW. In the late 90's and early 00's, I got into Japanese (Thanks to the Tokyo Pop FMW VHS and DVDs) and indy wrestling and my promotion was IWA-MS (IWA-MS > ROH) and DDT (DDT > AJPW/NJPW/Noah/Toryumon JAPAN ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). In the the late 2000's I stopped following pro-wres. (around a year or so after I registered on here -- 2007) and just got back to following regularly 2 or so years ago and now I would say my promotion is EVOLVE. So my timeline would be: 1990's -- WCW 2000's -- IWA-MS & DDT Now -- EVOLVE

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/994964918737633280 @davemeltzerWON do you want a report from the Eurovision show in Lisbon tomorrow? Lots of European talent on the card, as well as Rybak headlining

It was a generalization about the majority of the big New Japan main events (which I thought was kinda obvious), so let the record reflect I was not specifically speaking about the aforementioned match.

Not that it really matters, but ROH has uploaded old videos on social media -- today they uploaded one of the Embassay vs. Generation Next matches on Facebook. I'm sure they still have these videos around. Why they don't want to upload it to Honor Club will continue to be a mystery.

The UFC cut Yair for turning down fights with Zabit and Lamas, ugh...

Not really much else can be added to this that hasn't been already said -- big man battle with both guys just clobbering each other with some massive shots. Really dug Andre getting lariated to the floor and then coming back in the ring with his own elbow pad to even things up with Hansen. The finish in this makes sense as the guys are just too big and too out of control for the ref. to handle. Really great match.

This is pretty great. Brutal bloody brawl. Slaughter's crimson mask after the ring post slingshot was easily the highlight of this for me. Awesome finish with the Grand Wizard just throwing the towel in to save Slaughter, too.

I've personally never cared much for Meltz ratings, but I think its a given he will give any big New Japan match with endless big move 2.9 kick outs *****+. I'm just happy this is a place where his opinion and ratings are just seen as that and aren't taken as the gospel truth and everyone here carries their own opinion and aren't afraid to express what they like or dislike.

I don't think I liked this as much as you all did, but yeah, this match is still pretty great. The crowd is super hot for the entirety of this and there's a ton of blood and brutality here. Some great selling by Backlund -- I really loved his swinging drunk punches to the air.

I thought this is a notch above their tag league final match from two years before. Worked in the same vein of the aforementioned match with the utter chaos, bleeding, brawling, drama, heated crowd and amazing Terry Funk selling and gruesome gusher. Everyone play their role perfectly, but this is still the Terry Funk show. Great match.

What Boss Rock said and according to reddit he also said sometimes he thinks Bryan should walk in September.

Blood and mustard! This is utter chaos and it rules. From what I have seen of this, it is about 30 seconds of the match and the utter chaos breaking out with all four guys plus Tojo Yamamoto just fighting all over the concession stand. Everyone is covered in blood and mustard while slipping all over the place and the crowd just going bonkers as there is just trash cans flying, brooms being swung, chairs getting dismantled and guys fighting on tables. A truly iconic and must watch moment in pro-wres. history.

This match is great. It's the utter chaos you'd expect from these two and this would fit perfectly into a ring in Puerto Rico with fans pelting garbage into the ring, blood and brawling. Terry getting his arm shredded by Abdullah and Sheik's spike created an amazing visual and his selling of it getting it all wrapped up before the fiery comeback was epic. Higuchi knew he was better off ignoring the spike because he knew what would happen to him if he tried to do something about it.