Robert S

Which is funny because aren't the "Polynesians" actually really tribal (pun intended)? I mean the story going around why it took forever for Samoa Joe to get a chance in WWE was because he was NOT an Anoa'i and the Anoa'i family was actively pushing against Samoans not related to them.

this I am able to do approx. conversions from pounds to kg (divide by 2 and round down a little), from feet to m (divide by 3 and round down a little) and from miles to km (times 5 divide by 8 - or if I need rough estimation is good enough, times 2 divide by 3) in my head, but I will never be able to convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius without using digital assistance. There should be a section in the Geneva Conventions about the the use of non-SI units.

Even better was Virgil (an obvious shot against Dusty Rhodes, Vince at that point really had it out for Dusty considering Akeem "the African Dream") being called Vincent in WCW.

It feels like that they have these kind of plans every 10 years. There is this famous picture of Triple H in front of a world map with lot of small NXT markers on different parts of the world and I am pretty sure there were similar news sometimes in the early to mid aughts. Anyway, who could they grab in Europe? Both RevPro and wXw feel too small to make actual plays for real fulltime touring companies.

There are about four page on this at DVDVR (though far) in the general April discussion thread, so I wouldn't say there were no reactions over there.

I am realizing only now that in some way Triple H bought AAA, at least there is something funny about this.

Even cockroach is borderline considering that cockroaches are vermin and you know who used the termin "vermin" for whom.

Yeah, that was one booking decision that seemed suspect (as have no clue about Joshi, I can't judge the booking of those matches), though Aoki does not seem super protected in DDT either, so I guess you could try to argue for that result. I was positively surprised about Natalya's performance. She was the biggest name WWE provided for the show (with maybe the exception of Pete Dunne) and you could have expected her to do the bare minimum here, but she seemed motivated. Except using the Sharpshooter as a finish and spot or two, where I guess her instincts made her do something that did not fit to the style, it was a pretty good match.

I generally agree with that sentiment. The early shows at least had a cool "underground" vibe to them and it felt fresh to have wrestlers outside their normal environments trying to work matches. Also the shows were relatively short which made them easy to get through (in a good sense). Now it's three hour shows in a fully lit arena. I would say in general the quality of the work has improved (I am halfway through this show and all but the first match were at least okay, the opener was a stinker, though). I guess it's still good enough to watch one show a year of that style. The point regarding inconsequentiality is definitely spot on. The agenting was a bit suspect. In one match, you have Regal's kid winning after a backdrop suplex (or a Regal-plex, I guess) where the ref stopped the match immediately after the move. In the next match you have a similar finish, though the ref did not care that the guy taking the backdrop was selling the move like death and had the match continue. Not the refs fault, just bad booking / agenting. I guess you have to expect such things on an indy show (especially full of wrestlers that probably wrestler 2-3 times that day).

It's from a home release, WWF Wrestling World Tour, released in late 92 (so I guess the commentary was taped during Flair's second run). The match is from the same Barcelona show (in 91) where Tito Santana pinned the Undertaker: https://www.prowrestlinghistory.com/videos/wwf/listing/coliseum.html#misc https://thehistoryofwwe.com/wwf-results-1991/

Seriously, fuck this company. As bad as WWE was at its own, somehow TKO made it even worse. I finally cancelled my Network subscription a couple of months ago (not that I was interested at all in the current stuff, but the back catalogue kept me there) as I could not give that detestable company any more of my money in good conscience. Fuck them and fuck a lot of the people who work there.

The WWE Hall of Fame class of 2025 - whoops, all nepotism?

Which is funny, because my only interactions with him were when he was 15-16 years-old and was posting on a German message board (and he was like "I am the son of Axel Dieter and I am going to become a wrestler" and I was like "sure, you are"), so for me he always will be a kid.

Is the record supposed to be that he was the oldest wrestler to have a match? If you don't count Mae Young's last "matches", Dory Funk Jr. has Nagasaki beat by a couple of months and I am sure Kojika will surpass both in 2025 or 2026. Also who knows how old Gypsy Joe really was when he had his last match.

In hindsight, those 100 million were well spent and will go a long way to keep Vince out of prision (via AG Matt Gaetz). Well, those 100 million and whatever they gave to Trump directly in the last 10 years.

Biggest winners: CIMA +37% Hayabusa +30% Shingo Takagi +24% Dorrell Dixon +20% Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada +20% June Byers +17% Morris Sigel +17% Spyros Arion +17% Johnny Rougeau +16% Johnny Saint +16% Roman Reigns +15% Biggest losers: Jim Johnston -10% Dominic DeNucci -4% Reggie Parks -4% Hart Foundation -3% Bob Caudle -3%

Results of the Japanese section: Shingo Takagi 185 votes (65.6%) CIMA 170 votes (60.3%) Hayabusa 150 votes (53.2%) Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada 120 votes (42.6%) Koichi Yoshizawa 104 votes (36.9%) Yoshiaki Fujiwara 92 votes (32.6%) Yoshihiro Takayama 85 votes (30.1%) Tiger Jeet Singh 76 votes (28.1%) Meiko Satomura 62 votes (22.0%) Joe Higuchi 61 votes (21.6%) Rossy Ogawa 60 votes (21.3%) Inoki & Sakaguchi 52 votes (18.4%) Kojima & Tenzan 48 votes (17.0%) Zack Sabre Jr. 46 votes (16.3%) Kento Miyahara did not reach 10%, Asuka (who also did not reach 10%) was part of the US & Canada section, Gran Hamada (42.5%) was part of the Mexican section

Some details (all numbers are subject to Dave-maths): All new inductees were between 60.2% and 66.7% CIMA, Johnny Saint and Bobby Davis were just one vote above the threshold Roman Reigns (#8 among reporters, #5 among historians, #6 among active wrestlers, #3 among retired wrestlers) Shingo Takagi (#7 among reporters, #11 among historians, #18 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Paul Orndorff (#9 among reporters, #7 among historians, #14 among active wrestlers, #19 among retired wrestlers) Johnny Rougeau (#14 among reporters, #4 among historians, #3 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Young Bucks (#2 among reporters, #14 among historians, #14 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Hermanos Dinamita (#14 among reporters, #1 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #13 among retired wrestlers) CIMA (#17 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, #5 among active wrestlers, #5 among retired wrestlers) Johnny Saint (#1 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, #2 among active wrestlers, #7 among retired wrestlers) Bobby Davis (#11 among reporters, #8 among historians, #11 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers) Slightly below the 60% were: Bobby Bruns (56.4%) JYD (53.8%) Hayabusa (53.2%) Dorrell Dixon (53.2%) Ted Turner (52.5%) CM Punk (52.1%) June Byers (50.4%) Dropped from next year are: Asuka, Kevin Owens, Usos, Sid, Bray Wyatt, Sami Zayn, Kento Miyahara, Psycho Clown and Huracan Ramirez (the last one because of the "15 years/50% rule", the rest was below 10%) New candidates for next year: Masaaki Mochizuki, Bill Dundee, Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura, Io Shirai, Gilbert DeLuc, Drew McIntyre, Steve Gray, Ted Marino, Les Kellett, Los Infernales, FTR, Mercedes Moné Other top 10 rankings in the different categories and what they did elsewhere: Larry Matysik did not rank top 30 among reporters, #30 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #1 among retired wrestlers Hayabusa #25 among reporters, #25 among historians, #1 among active wrestlers, #21 among retired wrestlers Bobby Bruns #26 among reporters, #2 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #10 among retired wrestlers Randy Orton did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #2 among retired wrestlers Adrian Street #3 among reporters, did not rank among historians, #12 among active wrestlers, #9 among retired wrestlers José Tarres #27 among reporters, #3 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers JYD #4 among reporters, #27 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Otto Wanz did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #4 among active wrestlers, #30 among retired wrestlers Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada did not rank top 30 among reporters, #16 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #4 among retired wrestlers Cody Rhodes #5 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #19 among retired wrestlers CM Punk #6 among reporters, #29 among historians, #22 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Dorrell Dixon #18 among reporters, #6 among historians, #19 active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Von Erichs #20 among reporters, #18 among historians, #7 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Billy Joyce did not rank top 30 among reporters, #21 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, #7 among retired wrestlers El Hijo del Santo & Octagon did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #8 among active wrestlers Spyros Arion did not rank top 30 among reporters, #9 among historians, #27 among active wrestlers, #22 among retired wrestlers Tony Schiavone did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #9 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Briscoes did not rank top 30 among reporters, did not rank top 30 among historials, #10 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers George Gordienko did not rank top 30 among reporters, #10 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers Ted Turner #10 among reporters, #17 among historians, did not rank top 30 among active wrestlers, did not rank top 30 among retired wrestlers

Isn't Shingo even a worse pick than CIMA?

Wanz got a good laugh out of me calling Rambo a "McDonalds athlete" and having "McDonalds and hamburger muscles" (I guess that was the only comeback he could come up after the ice cream and Schnitzel remarks by Rambo). I doubt this aired on any TV (the interviewer is clearly Austrian (he has a clear accent) so you would expect the watermark of the Austrian broadcasting corporation ORF which is not there), this looks more like something CWA produced themselves and sent to the ORF with the hope that they air it as a time filler. Wanz always running around with the tobacco brand on his shirts & gear somehow makes me chuckle as well ("Milde Sorte" was an Austrian tobacco brand), mostly because tobacco ads are forbidden now for 20 years or so.

Question is, how much "you know"s ended up on the cutting floor, probably enough for hours and hours. I have watched the first two episodes and am too a bit disappointed on how WWF/WWE centric there is. I realize that there is only so much they can do in 6 hours so you concentrate on what people will probably want to see the most, but there were no mentions at all of the name he lived by for maybe 20 years, North Carolina, everything he said in the Playboy interview or his early business failures like the Snake River Canyon jump. Besides a couple of pictures, there is also very little on the family side so far.

So far I have only watched the first episode but the talk before the Sato vs. Ueda match about if there would a predetermined winner or not almost completely lost me. Wrestling TV / movies in 2024 should not try to keep kayfabe. I suppose one reason for this choice was that kayfabe was never that explicitly and widespread broken in Japan as it is in the US, but still.

Just a nitpick (as I have seen you doing that spelling mistake a couple of times): the German name of Vienna is "Wien", "Wein" is the German word for "wine" (and even though the Roman name for the town was "Vindobona" and the Old High German word for wine was "win" (derived from the Latin word "vinum"), "Wein" and "Wien" are false friends). I guess native English speakers tend to make that kind of mistakes as the pronounciations of "ei" and "ie" switched between English and German (at least kind of, German "ei" and English "ie" are the some sound; German "ie" is just a long "i" (not as in "I" but as in "India"); see the common WCW production error spelling the Steiners "Stiener".

That's not really what they concentrate on here. The main question the makers of this try to answer is why people go to those shows, why they like what it and most people said something like that it's fun ("a Hetz" in Viennese German), one man meant that it's better than any "Bauerntheater" (very low level theatre doing very basic comedy). One woman also said something like "they don't hurt each other". Some women add that it's also about seeing good looking men. Even the promoter meant that this is a place where people can relax, forget about their daily life for some short hours (while making a very outlandish claim that the proceeds of the show are used to finance amateur athletes like ice skaters - workers gonna work). The announcer sums it up, "Only a minority takes the matches super serious but that does not hurt the show at all, in the end we also go to the movies or the theatre with the intention to see an illusion." Ergo: kayfabe was not a thing in early 60ies wrestling in Austria Oh yes, and they give a very suspect figure of what the wrestlers were making (600 to 1200 Austrian Schilling per night, which, adjusted to inflation, is about $330 to $660)

So the talking heads are Hogan, Cena, HHH, Rock, Austin & Jimmy Hart? Yeah, even if they cover his current legal issues properly, there will be a lot of Vince-washing of wrestling history.