WrestlingPower

I went to Friday's TV taping in Philly. The Arena is amazing in its new form. If someone hadn't seen the old place they would really take it for granted. I thought the Arena was already a much better place to watch wrestling within the last 5 years anyway but now with the new setup of the giant lobby & bathroom area, it really needs to be hosting more events. I won't spoil much but episode 2 is the one to see. Bucks vs. Addiction was good but not over the top. Strong/Lethal stole the show. I didn't see the hour match & haven't seen very much of Strong in 2015 but this was a very good match. I'm kind of curious to see where they go with these guys booking wise. As far as the New Japan guys go, the 6-man with Okada in it was fun, nothing blow away but probably the 3-4th best match of the show. He was totally not presented as a world champion, though I'm not sure anyone noticed. I don't think he should necessarily be presented as being several levels above everyone else or anything but he probably shouldn't be trying to mimic Roppongi Vice and get himself over with his tag partners. He came across as like a young, un-hip guy trying to fit in & gain acceptance from his partners. Not sure you book a world champion singles guy like that with a mid-level tag team. Some liked Sydal/Kushida better than me but that was kind of in the death spot of the show. It opened hour 4 of the taping, it was getting late, and they worked like a 15 minute match without as much flying as you might expect. Nakamura/Cole was good, but nothing more. Another one that might come across better on TV without having sat there for 4 hours at that point. It was interesting to see just how over Moose and Castle were live. I also got the impression live that War Machine would be an acceptable next team to get the belts to spice things up.

Gran Apache was more known as having a hand in training the Mexican girls who worked for Arsion. And it's pronounced "Arcy ahn"

Larry Katz is the guy Bix was trying to think of. His radio show was out of Baltimore. He had an association with the MD/VA indie scene around that time and would do some ring announcing.

I'm only 30 minutes in but the Bigelow talk each week almost screams for a show specifically on Bigelow to step thru his career path step-by-step. I didn't realize how disjointed his career was until hearing these.

Al Snow was like my favorite wrestler for a time there in 1995. He kind of came to everyone's attention in the newsletter community in 1994 with those Sabu matches as mentioned. His SMW run was incredible and I remember some of the Fanweek attendees from outside the area just being blown away at some of the stuff they hadn't seen. I particularly remember the Magee Bros. popping over first seeing the stuff of Snow making fun of RnR. Also the heel promos of the SMW guys on the Louisville USWA shows as I was getting that stuff regularly at that time. Also interesting to hear a different perspective on Onita. The consensus among those I travelled to Japan with in the early 2000s still viewed Onita as this iconic, charismatic celebrity type who could do no wrong. It was like hero worship. Sure everyone knew about the Gonzalez angle & all the sleazy stuff but it seemed to be almost like part of his charm & appeal, like "oh it's just Onita being Onita". The way you presented him on this show really makes him come across like a carny con man, which maybe is the more proper way to view him. It just struck me when I heard this as the polar opposite of how I'd always heard people talk about him.

I was on the Fanweek trip too so I may have more thoughts when I get to that point in the show. I distinctly remember that USWA show was the same night as the Clash of Champions because there was one moron on the trip that chose to stay at the hotel & watch the Clash instead of going with us to Louisville.

Hilarious that this show is now sponsored by a mattress company.

Totally agree on Terry Taylor, I always liked him as the pretty boy face in the late 80s. Then he was one of my favorites in the early 90s after I got "smartened up" but I wasn't aware of his All Japan run. I guess that was nothing memorable?

Did NAWA/SAPW ever draw? I looked at the results & stuff on prowrestlinghistory and it looks like they never really did. They were on TV here in Richmond for like 4-6 weeks at the very beginning. They ran one live event here, it must not have drawn, as it was gone from TV within a couple weeks. The way I remember it, they ran TV for like a month setting up the live show (which I planned to go to but decided against on the day of), then the week after the live show they did announce a return date on TV but then the show & the TV were gone either the next week or the week after. I'd be curious to know a bit more about Nelson Royal's ACW and this group, as I can kind of see how the idea of running the small towns that JCP abandoned as seeming like a good idea but not sure if paying for TV would have been the death blow or if they just didn't have the talent to draw. Or maybe with more pub they would have drawn? This is really the beginning of the plight of most Southeast indies I guess.

Enjoying the show so far. I really liked the SWS talk as that's such an obscure group that doesn't get much talk. I think I started getting Observer in 1990 but none of the context of who was who would have meant much to me then so I certainly didn't retain any of it. I too have never seen Matwatch but I know that was seen as on par with Torch & Observer at the time.

Anyone seen Mid-Atlantic Memories yet?

I can't get into current wrestlers doing an 80s style. Like I'm baffled by all the love of "Southern style" cheap heat/stalling/whatever in a modern day context. To me all that stuff is "been there done that". I've seen it all before and if I want to watch it I've got vast amounts of it here with guys I've got an emotional attachment to watching. I don't feel the need to waste a whole day to go to a show where guys are working a style that's not pushing the envelope or requiring much athletic skill.

I guess I was just hoping he would give some kind of response like "we have 2 boxes of unlabeled stuff" or "we have 30 tapes that are unlabeled" or something. Maybe the collection is just too overwhelming to really know how much is catalogued & not.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Tharpe conversation with Meltzer. It really hit home just what an undertaking this is and how important it is to have a 3rd party outside of WWE preserving wrestling history. I feel like subscribing to support the venture as much as actually watching any of the content. I really hope they make some money at this since it needs to be worth everyone's time to go to the trouble of getting everything up there. Highlights of the podcast for those that haven't listened or don't subscribe: --the oldest match they have found is Thesz/Longson from the 50s --they have stuff from the late 60s (he mentioned a Keomuka vs. Kowalski match) thru 1986 --said there are 2-3 El Santo matches --they eventually hope to market blu-rays or "box sets" as he called them & mentioned that he would like to release Dusty & Bockwinkel sets --they had a literal truckload of stuff they took from Texas to Indianapolis where they are doing the digitizing --Boesch had stuff cataloged & they haven't even gone thru the entirety of what's cataloged yet & are constantly finding extra gems that weren't catalogued. They tried to question him on the amount of uncatalogued stuff but he didn't give a straight answer. I'm guessing the uptick in orders was more due to that show than anything at Fanfest. My experiences with Fanfest is word of something like this doesn't exactly spread there to any great degree. It's mostly people there who either don't interact a whole lot with others or people who have their cliques that they hang with every year. A vast majority aren't people looking to actively spend money on anything current (or ongoing as the case may be). I think Cornette having Tharpe on his show would be a blast.

Is it safe to say that even on this tape that Hogan's words are more noteworthy than when he's "in action"?

Maybe he has the goods on Savage & Steph.