Edwin

So by your logic, if they didn't drop themselves on their heads constantly, they wouldn't have gotten massive emotional engagement out of people even watching it 20 years later? So a death match is of higher quality than a standard match? They do project a higher sense of legit violence and perseverance. That match was highly underwhelming. Take out the shock factor of Taker losing and it's straight up horrible. I've been reading the wrong reviews if the Tiger Suplex spot is the most talked about spot from that match then. Had that spot not happened, the match still would've gotten tons of praise since it's not even a key point in the match. This is rather amusing.

The only reason Japanese pro-wrestling has gained a lot more fanfare stateside online is because of the huge gain in popularity of US indy wrestling in the early 00's namely ROH. ROH was really what got a lot of US indy fans into Japanese wrestling since a lot of their wrestlers blatantly knocked off moves they saw in Japanese wrestling, they name dropped Japanese wrestlers in interviews, they brought over wrestlers from Japan and they did shows in Japan. However they didn't do the same with lucha and that's why lucha isn't as largely accepted online by foreign fans as Japanese wrestling is. Had ROH endorsed lucha more than they did Japanese wrestling and I assure you US indy wrestling would've been crossing the border to watch Atlantis and Blue Panther wrestling live instead of flying across the globe to watch Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura. There would've been less injuries in US indy wrestling too since a lot of the guys would've been locking on complicated submission moves instead of throwing their opponent on their head for the sake of getting a big "OH!" pop from the 50 fans in attendance. IWA-MS running the Strong Style Tournaments pretty much proved that US indy wrestling is a really bad knockoff of Japanese wrestling as it's just a bunch of fat, white Americans hitting themselves really hard and dropping themselves on their heads for the sake of doing it in a broken ring for $40 in front 25 people in some high school's gym or basketball court. This is something that I'm sure Hashimoto would be embarrassed by if he'd been alive and saw it. The pathetic You can't watch this type of wrestling on Monday nights mentality was something that a lot of former US indy wrestling fans turned Japanese wrestling fans carried over and that's why they think anything done in Japan immediately is better than anything done in the WWE.

First off, I used to be a huge Japanese wrestling from the late 90's until recent years when I just lost interest in it since it's quality has downed a lot. I still frequently read results on Puro Love and every now and again watch the New Japan 1/4 Dome shows or may watch a match here and there on YouTube, but it's just no the same anymore to me. Anyway, there's been plenty of great American and Lucha matches over the years that are equally as good/if not better than a lot of the matches that have happened in Japan and that are 1,000 times better than most of the highly regarded ROH matches. It does depend on your preferences though. I know some people like Ditch who may enjoy the highly regarded 6/9/95 match more than the highly regarded Atlantis/Villano III mask match, yet I know some Lucha fans will disagree with him and doesn't mean that the AJPW tag match was better nor worse than the mask match since they're both great match in very diverse styles. The only reason you may assimilate ROH with Japanese wrestling is because they've taken some of the elements from Japanese wrestling and have tried to replicate them which in a lot of cases they have failed to do. Throwing streamers at some wrestlers, dropping your opponent on his head for the sake of getting a pop and hitting each other hard doesn't mean they're the closest there is to Japanese wrestling. Huh? Like I said before, I used to be a huge Japanese wrestling fan, but I really don't understand what head dropping epic even means... I just hope you're not implying a great match necessarily needs head drops to be epic or to be considered good, because I can name a lot of great matches from over the years where there hasn't been a single head drop, yet it's still better than that of many matches featuring numerous head drops. Also I hope you do realize that a lot of the highly regarded AJPW matches from the 90's aren't highly regarded because the guys in it constantly dropped themselves on their heads. Well said on all accounts. One of the things I dislike the most about Japanese wrestling fans that aren't Japanese is the fact that they have this weak mentality where everything that happens in Japan is so much better than anything WWE can produce and try and bash WWE on any account they can to look cool online or something and that itself is an ironic mentality since Japanese wrestling fans who are indeed Japanese who live in Japan support their local organizations don't even have this type of mentality.

They wrestled in the US a bunch of times.

I saw a bunch of his stuff in Stampede as Hashif Khan, but there wasn't anything memorable that I recall.

Here's a must watch clip I posted on DVDVR: Forgot to post this. This is a MUST watch video for any wrestling fan. WWC had a working relationship with Promo Azteca and many Mexican wrestlers came over to work for WWC with Konnan and Pierroth being mainstays and Konnan being a huge fan favorite. Here's a video where Konnan calls out Carlos Colon and Stacy Colon, Carlos daughter and Eddie and Carlitos sister and Primo's cousin. Konnan brings out a mariachi and fakes he's going to ask Carlos for a chance with his daughter Stacy before Konnan attacks her with a guitar. This angle got Konnan so much heat, that fans evacuated the arena went to the back of the locker room to wait for Konnan to kill him. WWC needed to have members of the SWAT police team arrive at the arena and rapidly escort Konnan out of the arena because fans were literally going to kill him.

I'm guessing the story of the tape library being damaged is true. I think the majority of it is lost, because they put out a WWC Aniversario DVD a couple of years ago with footage from the old WWC video releases which they purchased online. I know because the entire thing happened on the old WWC forum. Had they had more footage, I know the DVD set would've had a different set of matches. Does WWC also own the All Star and IWA tape libraries? I'm not sure about that. IWA had matches with a lot of top WWE guys like the Rock, Kane, X-Pac, Edge & Christian, Gangrel, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Hardcore Holly, etc. If I recall correctly, the Rock worked a tag team match teaming with someone local against the New Age Outlaws. I know Kane teamed with X-Pac and they fought the Hardy Boyz. Also Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho fought back to back during a weekend with one of the matches being a tag team match with Jericho teaming with Miguel Perez and Benoit teaming with Huracan Castillo which never aired on TV and the other day they fought each other in a short singles match which did air on TV. Miguel Perez also fought Hardcore Holly in a hardcore match on the same show that featured the Benoit and Jericho singles match. There's also the AWF tape library from the 90's. I remember AWF was smaller than WWC, yet they put on shows with WWE wrestlers including the Undertaker. I remember they were building up a huge show leading to a blow off feud they had set up between the Undertaker and Fidel Sierra in a casket match and Savio Vega vs. El Bronco in a double title match, but the show feel through and they ended up doing a smaller show in the garaje in someone's house with 2 small handheld video cameras with the Savio and Bronco match happening being the main event final match of their final show.

Vince acquired the mess that is the WWC tape library? I actually don't think they own or have that much archived. The fans who upload stuff on YouTube probably own more WWC footage than WWC does.

In the heyday, Chicky Starr by far. In modern times, Ray Gonzales. Colon was seen as a local hometown hero and not based on his amazing in ring work, so I would say he was more of a Hogan. Puerto Rican wrestling fans have never been as picky about great in ring work or anything. They just get the kick out of going to arenas and booing the heels and cheering the faces. They're still very passionate about wrestling though. In ring charisma is far more important in Puerto Rican wrestling than in ring work itself. You can suck at everything and be very charismatic and you'll still be loved by the fans if you're a face. Micwork in Puerto Rican wrestling is mostly important if you're a heel. Faces usually suck at promos down here which is why Chicky and Ray are the top 2 promo guys in Puerto Rican wrestling.

HHH and Steph coming out to open RAW and mentioning the fans were angry because they didn't get what they wanted and DBryan coming out to confront them for it pretty much hinted it's been a work or at least that's what it looked like. I wouldn't be surprised if DBryan is somehow screwed out of the title at the EC and he receives multiple title shots and is screwed out of all of them until he eventually wins the title similarly to the Homicide ROH World Title angle where he was constantly screwed out of the title until he eventually won it. Except Homicide stayed loyal to ROH and DBryan stays loyal to the fans.

If they break the Shield up before WM, I hope they go with Reigns vs. Ambrose for the US title instead of doing a handicap match.

Daniel Bryan vs. Bray Wyatt - WWE Royal Rumble, 1/26 Aside from the meaningless legwork some people have seemed to be bothered by, this was a very good match. Both guys just went balls to the wall working a more high impact style than that to be expected in the WWE. Loved Bray's offense with the senton on the outside and the huge lariat spot. DBryan busting out the diving tornado DDT from the ring apron and the curb stomp were some neat spot too. The finishing bit with Bray catching DBryan's suicide dive and hitting the Sister Abigail into the guard barrier was a sick spot and neat way to wrap things up. Far from a MOTY candidate, but a fun match worth checking out if you haven't already.

Cesaro's a former rugby player which is why he wears those leg straps.

That's a really good match on paper and it's good they're at least keeping the Shield together a bit longer, but Reigns seems to be getting more and more over, so I'm not sure they'll be together come WM.

Jake "the Snake" Roberts is being inducted into the WWE HOF.

I'm more surprised they're interested in someone like KENTA instead of Marufuji who one would think would be a more appealing guy to the WWE fanbase than KENTA.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but PRIDE originally had ideas of booking guys like Hashimoto, Choshu, Misawa and Vader in shoot fights. Also DEEP was originally planned of being a wrestling organization instead of a MMA organization. Takada vs. Cactus Jack and the Road Warriors vs. TEAM NO FEAR were 2 matches planned for their inaugural event. Yuji Shimada told Shigeru Saeki about negotiating with the WWE so they would lend them a couple of wrestlers. DEEP also tried setting up Animal vs. Kengo Watanabe in a shoot fight, Minowaman vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Kim Duk vs. the Cobra George Takano in shoot fights. Animal turned down the fight with Kengo. Minowaman vs. Takaiwa was being built up since Minowaman tried a piledriver in his fight with Paulo Filho and he said in a post fight interview he would try a Death Valley Bomb in one of his upcoming fights. Takaiwa accepted the offer for the fight, but ZERO ONE turned it down. Takano turned down the fight with Duk. Saeki also had plans of putting on shoot fights featuring other wrestlers like Ebessan and NOSAWA Rongai.

UFC's not the place to start watching right now then since the guys you'll most likely want to win are either out or on their way out.

My point exactly. About RR specifically though, people were popping for Reigns simply because they wanted to see DBryan and not Batista win. Like I said before, you could've stuck anyone in there as a final participant against Batista and they still would've popped for whoever it was. They just wanted to see DBryan participate that's why they booed Rey Mysterio coming out as #30 instead of him and cheered for Batista since he came in before #30 and booed him afterwards once the last entrant had already entered.

And the Shield which is pretty terrible aside from Reigns getting a main event push.

The RR was fine. The booking sucked. People are just reacting to it out of disinterest.

I'm sure you could've had the Bulgarian guy from NXT in there with Batista and being a virtual unknown to the "WWE Universe" they still would've cheered him on against Batista considering they just wanted to see Batista lose and DBryan enter the RR.

It's no so much the fans cheering on Reigns as they are shitting on Batista. They just wanted DBryan and were very vocal about it, that's all.

I prefer Daniel & Cena vs. the Wyatts instead of Cena vs. Bray at WM. I think it's much better since there doesn't seem there's much left for them to do with Daniel.

Shooty vibe?