Ryan Faulconer

What are the names of the venues that Michinoku Pro ran for the March 16, 1996 and March 9, 1999 shows? I remember hot crowds in a relatively small space that made the shows that much better. There seems to be one particular gymnasium-type place that they ran a lot...or maybe that is a bit too vague for this discussion I also remember a tennis court/green floored and large windowed place being a venue for a lot of my favourite MPro memories. Korakuen is a definite no brainer of course. The Manhattan Center used to be pretty great from 2006-2008. I haven't watched any new ROH since June 2011 so I don't know how badly that has changed. I do remember it getting kind of annoying in late 2009 with so many stupid chants that seemed to take over the show and distract the viewer from otherwise fine wrestling with a hot crowd.

Samu was freakin' awesome in International Wrestling. He was like a cross between the Great Muta and Sabu. Dino Bravo, with dark hair, was the babyface champion the promotion seemed to be banking on for sure. When he turned up all blonde and roided in the WWF I was pretty disappointed.

They started guys on contracts back when they started doing PPVs back in 2007. They really started to lock guys down when DGUSA/EVOLVE started up. I think the only competition with TNA is for various wrestlers that want to work exclusively for one or the other. If anyone in ROH's management thought they could compete with TNA's visibility they are doomed to fail. This ROH is nothing like it was from roughly 2003-2010. Almost the entire roster has changed in the last four years. Couple that with three different(ish) booking regimes since late 2008 and..this aint the ROH that people were always excited about. They would change the name if they didn't think they could squeeze any last bit of "credibility" with the old fanbase by trumping out the ROH name with pretty much only the Briscoes as wrestlers wrestling the way the old fanbase liked. There are a few others that seem to have caught on but this isn't the old ROH. It works the same towns with roughly five of the same wrestlers that were around when they peaked from 2005-2007. With all these numbers thrown around for attendances I always thought that 500 was a regular night for the "B" shows and non-Wrestlemania weekends. Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Long Island, Florida without Wrestlemania, Cleveland, Montreal and so on and so forth were always in the 500 range, if not always lower in some cases. It was only the New York, Toronto, Dayton sometimes, Chicago, Philadelphia (excluding TV tapings) that drew close to a thousand or more.

Someday you will ache like I ache!!!

There was a big LOD/Demolition dream match article in PWI's Wrestling Superstars magazine probably back around 1988 or so. Wrestling Superstars always had a dream match feature in every issue. The first one I remember was a 20 man battle royale with a one million dollar prize. Nikita Koloff, Flair and Brody were the last three and Nikita won by knocking the other two out at the same time with the Russian Sickle, IIRC. I remember other dream matches like Ricky Morton vs. Robert Gibson, Flair vs. Savage and Hogan vs. Tyson. Hogan beats Tyson at Tyson's peak, IMSMR There were still a lot of photos circulating with interpromotional matchups that PWI could use to illustrate the matches. Wrestling Superstars was probably my favourite quarterly magazine with concepts like the dream match feature and assorted lists and contests. Where i live in Canada the NWA/JCP was usually on every week but they would switch up the time slot from noon to mid afternoon to after midnight and leading into GLOW~! This was back in 87-89ish and I could never stay up late enough to watch NWA. VCRs (V-C-WHAT?) were a bit less user friendly back then too so it was hit or miss whether I'd get my latenight Saturday wrestling block each week. I had more posters of The Road Warriors in my room than anything else, including hockey players. When they turned on Sting I had to dig through my backup posters to replace them.

The outfits that Hawk & Animal orignally wore were definitely leather/biker/fetish looking like Demolition eventually were.

Highspots has a bunch of IWA-MS compilations currently available. They are more like anthologies of the "bigger names" that would go on to bigger crowds and better and/or safer non-staph infectious rings. I'm pretty sure there are sets for Punk and Sydal out now. A more eclectic set would be far more satisfying to sit through though. Those shows were so much fun to watch because they were so random at times. Random names, epic "dream matches", Ian hogging the spotlight and then doing some great matches from time to time to make me forget the former and appreciate the latter. Something along the lines of Will's WCW set would be a great way to keep the viewer on their toes. Guys like Jacobs, Delirious, Sydal were balanced out with the Michael Todd Strattons, Bull Pains and the sort to make a wide variety of matches.

Is this whole thread just about semantics? If Dylan had said he had the match in question at the top of his list of "best matches of 2012 so far" or "Favourite matches from 2012 so far" would there be any debate at all here? I thought this place was better than that I wouldn't really consider it as a memorable match though. If I watched the PPVs or more of the TV more regularly it would get pushed down among the matches with more meaning. I've dug Henry since the beginning of his "poetry push". He had this really fun handicap match against Chyna and X-Pac around that time. He actually wrestled like a monster for probably the first time under that particular heel persona. The next week or so on Sunday Night Heat they really flushed that gimmick down the toilet. It wouldn't recover until 2004ish.

In his second book, iirc, Jericho seems to REALLY look back on the Stephanie feud like it was one of the real highlights of his career. I remember reading that and thinking it was written by a smart man who was coming back and didn't want to step on any toes. Creatively it was on the level of some of the worst moments of the Russorific 1999 WWF. Referencing Newman from Seinfeld was maybe the wittiest thing the creative team came up with...and that was roughly five to ten years out of date. Personally, I dig lucha/IWA Winnipeg/Japan Jericho the most. Well, maybe not more than the conspiracy victim version but I'd usually rather watch lucha than almost anything. My absolute highlight of his entire career is probably the awesome duelling promo with The Rock back in 2001. I also keep thinking that when the WWE Jericho DVD set came out I probably should have spent my money more wisely and picked up Will's sets instead. The bio portion of the WWE set is pretty much taken word for word from his book(s).

Punk has "DRUG FREE" or (something like that) tattooed on his knuckles. I'd say he's probably pretty serious about being straight edge. Reading his blog and interviews over the years anyone who acts so sanctimonious probably practices what he preaches. It isn't just a trend with him. Debate what you want about the details but I'd say it is a pretty safe bet that he is alcohol and recreational drug free. Being straight edge (whether he would ever admit it or not) is just like any other belief or religion though. There are people who live to the letter of the law and there are people who practice it in phases. Now, whether his womanizing hurts his "eligibility" as straight edge is another story. Of course its not like we have any proof that he actually had all those relationships. This is the internet after all. Pictures are worth a thousand words.

WWE were stupid to think that just because someone is named Chavo Guerrero Jr. doesn't mean he knows ANYTHING about working lucha style. He's not a luchadore. Signing a few guys from CMLL might become a blessing a disguise for them. Their roster is huge and they can just shuffle some lower or midcard guys up a level and there probably won't be much difference in the quality of the matches if any.

They were crappy games but I always thought the Acclaim WWF games from 98-99 had kind of a lucha-pacing to them and the engine could be tweaked to suit a real AAA or CMLL licensed (HA!) game. Take out the ridiculous twelve step button combination for moves and the physics of Attitude/Warzone kinda sorta looked like lucha. The AKI/THQ games didn't have enough of a flow in the action to imitate lucha. Fire Pro Returns on my PS2 gets the flow of action a little better but there are so many little nuances and quirks in lucha that make it hard to recreate lucha action with what is essentially mostly Japanese-based game developers. Then again I am legally blind so, lucha fanaticism aside, I might be waaaay off on this.

People in the wrestling business are also big showoffs, loudmouths, know-it-alls and gossip hounds. They are like the rest of society only amped up with more recreational drugs, more insecurities, tighter underwear/bigger boobs, less sleep, constant pain and those steroids that everyone love so much.

Are you fucking kidding? Is this some attempt at being hip? I think someone asking if something is hip or saying something is hip eliminates it from any hipness. Those are the rules society lives by. I guess he's disqualified for this round.

I always wondered why Gabe moderated his own company's message board. I thought it was because there was just so few people working for the company that he had to. Now we know it is because he is fragile like an egg...at times that least call for it. There has been so much worse written about him over there. I could see most other bookers snapping and doing similar things if they flew too close to the sun or moderated their own promotion's message board. It is really a recipe for disaster...although Gabe should get special consideration for snapping for no good reason at all. It just feels so random...like Gabe has Tourette syndrome or something and he couldn't hold it back any longer.

There are groups on Facebook proclaiming Benoit's innocence, or at least there were a few months ago. People refuse to believe what they hear from the media. These are the same people who think that Miss Elizabeth died from breast cancer or that they actually watched Owen Hart fall on live TV (or on the news later). Heck, type some combination of innocent + Chris Benoit in google and you will find a ridiculously sad number of people who just don't get it. The media has skewed the reality of pro wrestling for so long that fans get confused over any wrestling stories that they may here. There are three Undertakers, four Ultimate Warriors, Benoit killed Nancy after she killed Daniel, urban pro wrestling legend and urban pro wrestling legend that. Benoit is just another wrestler to fans and all the proof in the world might not sway them as they probably will eventually martyr Benoit for some completely nonsense bullshit pro wrestling-as-reality reason. Benoit's case is just another wrestling legend/myth to them. On a sadly related note. A second ROH forum started up because some fans liked to swear a lot, say even stupider things and hated being censored or restricted in what they said on the official board. I've signed up for like fifteen different forums over the years and rarely post at any that aren't here, the rohwrestling.com forum or DVDVR. I signed up for the uncensored board one day and posted twice but I won't be posting there again. Its even more retarded than the regular forum for several reasons. They had a poster with an sig. file that read something like 'Chris Benoit is Innocent Movement" which looked pretty fancy in all its photoshoppy splendor. ROH hardcore fans aren't much different from WWE or other more mainstream fans. They believe the myths more than the truth even when presented with undeniable evidence.

Takehiro Murahama from Osaka Pro seemed to pick things up pretty quickly once he ditched the boxing gloves and worked shooter-stylings. He debuted in the spring of 2000 and by the fall and winter he was pretty good. Liger must have seen something in him that's for sure. Takeshi Sugiura looked really comfortable in his debut in late 2000 period NOAH. It is a lot harder picking guys out now for some reason. Its hard to judge how good the New Japan rookies of the past eight to ten years are when they were mostly kept in supporting roles or opening shows for the first few years. Guys like Inoue, Shibata, Kenzo Suzuki, Tanahashi, Goto and others looked like natural athletes with a good grasp of timing and how to wrestle the "rookie style". Okay, Suzuki wasn't as good as the others but he stood out more than Tanahashi at first glance to me. Only guys like Nakamura and Suwama get the opportunities to shine early on. I've seen only a couple of Suwama matches but he doesn't have any kind of positive buzz about him at all. I'm still not sure how good Kazuya Yuasa/GAINA is after wrestling for an incredible length of time in MPro in the rookie role. Battlarts had a few decent rookies like Nayuki Taira(sp?) or Nagai...although I'm not sure if Nagai came from somewhere else beforehand. Davey Boy Smith's greatness stands out even more when compared to his cousin's bitter bitter BITTER dislike of him in Pure Dynamite. That was such a good book but almost any wrestling fan with two eyes, and me with my horrible eyesight, could tell that Davey was a natural. I guess by the time he was working as a singles guy in the WWF Bret didn't have the most confidence in Davey either. I'm guessing steroids and recreational drugs had more to do with that than Davey just losing it. He had several very good years right up until he went to WCW in 1998. He was awesome in the WWF right up until the Survivor Series fallout. That's another case where his knees, drugs of choice and motivation probably played a bigger role in him sucking in WCW than any supposed innate lack of ability that guys like Dynamite Kid claimed about Davey.

For fuck's sake. If this IS real, can we just donate enough money to get Dr. Kervorkian to pay this whiny bitch a visit? So does this mean that you don't know any disabled people who might have a bad day and post something rather sad on their blog/website? Being in Eric's position would probably lead a lot of "normal" people to a much sadder state of mind. The Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows documentary has at least one person who claims that Bret Hart pretty much inspired her to finally do something with her life and go to college. Those are the fans that wrestling promotions probably covet. Heck, people probably make similar claims that Eric does when talking about their favourite music. Wrestling fans, or any superfans of other forms of entertainment, are prone to being drama queens. This guy Eric is obviously in a position that none of us would envy. He doesn't deserve our contempt just because he's having a bad day or at worst being a bit of a drama queen. This thread veers off into drama queen city every now and then too.

What a lame idea for an angle. ROH is booked by a slimeball just like a lot of other wrestling promotions. That shouldn't surprise anyone. Which promoters or bookers don't talk out of one side of their mouth and lie about things just to get some good press? They are really good at marketing to internet wrestling fans and somehow con people into thinking that ROH is above that sort of stuff. We shouldn't hold them to a higher standard just because they make a half hearted effort to be "different" from WWE. Its just a wrestling promotion. Just because Gabe has Meltzer's ear doesn't make them any less likely to do ridiculously stupid things like all the other promotions out there. They are a couple rape angles behind WWE. Maybe they can catch up somehow at the next doubleshot. I'm so tired of reading about ROH's problems or perceived problems by wrestling fans online. Everyone should go back to watching promotions that aren't booked for an English speaking audience. We were all so much happier then. We kept our heads in the sand, turned a blind eye or were willfully obtuse when it came to things like Pena molesting minis or Sasuke starving his wrestlers. All those Japanese promotions we loved were run by the lovable humanitarians who make up the Japanese organized crime underworld.

I'm a fan of the promotion right now and even I think that kind memo reveals more than one issue which isn't strictly related to "ROH being ROH". This is what happens when a promotion that kind of started as an intentional parody of a wrestling promotion ends up being an actual wrestling promotion. I don't know if that other owner or the cameraman had more experience running wrestling companies but it looks like they need more than just the guy who listened to Heyman a lot and then handed out programs before events. Gabe probably feels overworked while trying to run a company like Heyman apparently did. Its my understanding that Heyman basically ran everything himself with help from Dreamer (IIRC). Heyman had a decade or so in the business wearing several different hats before he had his own "bigger" small promotion in ECW. ROH needs a veteran booker or co-booker or some other older talent. Rey Mysterio Jr. has had more awesome/cool/kewl/MOTYCs than almost anyone and he never had to swear to get his point across in an interview. Someone has to explain to the "kids" that the kind of language ROH wrestlers apparently use and/or the style of matches that they do won't make you a veteran in the business. It will probably turn you into Nick Mondo and Mikey Whipreck though. Not that either of them swore much, if at all, but they gave too much of their bodies to entertain the fickle mush heads who make up the fanbase for ECW and now ROH. The swearing thing is something that they can't control without some kind of parental figure. Someone has to tell them that they will never make more than they do in ROH by swearing during promos. That shit just isn't fucking acceptable in the real world and in front of a family audience. They could fine guys but how much does a fine take out of an already small payday? I actually don't notice a lot of swearing from the wrestlers themselves on the shows. Its the fans that make the promotion non-family friendly. They had some announcement before an event in the last year or so to keep the swearing to a minimum. What do the fans do? Why, they swear even more to show hardcore they are. They might also swear because that's the only way they can converse in whatever freak subculture they think they are associating with. They think swearing is cool. They think ROH is cool. They probably aren't all that cool themselves. Check out all the censored words on the ROH forums. I mean, someone like Phil or Dean swears a lot at times in their reviews but at least people read what they write and it is part of their "style".

What I'm Expecting in 2008: - ROH stops PPVs after the last March commitment - runs less shows, relies less on Japanese talent and builds up Hero and Claudio to at least the level Nigel McGuinness is at. - CMLL will continue its perpetual lucha machine - AAA will be all over the place with a hot undercard...but if we knew about AAA what we know about American promotions people wouldn't touch it with a ten foot lucha pole What I'm hoping for in 2008: - AAA and CMLL to lure me in like they did before I had to take a break from watching wrestling in 2006-2007. - ROH can stay as it is for all I care or go back to 15 shows a month. Like I said on DVDVR I'm really hoping current lucha (or some guys in Japan) catch my interest again. I watch ROH now, and actually pay for DVDs - foolishly because my computer sucks or something like that, but it was much better when the only person theorizing my favourite promotion's demize was a crackpot like Zach Arnold or an agenda pushing Bob Barnett. Its much more enjoyable to appreciate something from a distance and just watch the shows. With WWE, ROH and TNA the bottom line, daily rumours and all that other stuff gets in the way. That's not why I started following wrestling and that's not why I follow it moreso now that I'm on the internet. I'm not watching wrestling to appreciate how the free market system works. I don't do that with movies or music because God knows I'd be a lunatic fanboy hoping for his favourite band or movie to compromise what makes them appealing in the first place. Maybe I'm silly for mentioning wrestling in the same breath as cinema or music but its all the same to me.

I downloaded the PPV everybody was talking about. Driven? Anyway, made me realize I was right when I stopped watching ROH. None of this outside of the first few sentences discussing the Driven PPV is directed at you specially, Grimmas. I loved a few matches on it. Danielson/McGuinness and the opener were just so much fun. The opener lacked the zany gimmicks of the MPro/Dragon Gate six mans, outside of Delirious, but the action was up there. The announcing is a trillion times better than it was in the early years too and they actually book heels and babyfaces. Whoever compared it to Mid South over here isn't that far off. I mean, its a different era but the pretentiousness is certainly there along with a unified vision of what they want their promotion to be. It is certainly conscious of how it presents wrestling, perhaps to the point of obsessing over it - much like the Watts territory. They can't control the chanting or collector-crazy-fanbase but it does everything else that Mid South/UWF tried in order to present itself as a "better world" than what we see in the major TV wrestling promotions - whether it was the WWF of twenty five years ago or WWE of today. I've given up on following all of the promotions out there. ROH is my wrestling of choice lately. For the most part I don't care about their backroom dealings or failure at growing their fanbase with PPV. Its alive and putting out shows that seem to be enjoyed by many in this subculture of the web. That used to be enough to justify a promotion's quality.