Death From Above

I lost my password here ages ago then sort of gave up after like 20 tries to decipher the Rosetta Stone that is those pictures you have to type out to get a new password here, then got a new comp and was gone forever. But came back and finally got a picture I could decipher. Those really aren't very clear though. I got lucky that I got one with two 3's, a 4, a 7 and an A in it, but some of them are as good as a totally different alphabet.

By wrestling standards of "retirement" hasn't he been retired for a couple years now?

There is a pretty huge gap between groupies and stalkers and I'm kind of disheartened at where this is going already.

I feel like I want to get a comment in before this one picks up steam, because I know I'm out on my own with this one, and people are going to disagree with my important opinion on the interwebz and we all know how THAT ends. But this is probably my favorite 6-man tag of all time, and seriously one of 10 matches that really shaped me as a wrestling fan. I remember when a buddy of mine first got some AJPW TV in glorious grainy, shitty 4-th gen VHS (of which I made a grainier, shittier 5th gen copy, of course, and I played the hell out of them all... God bless the good old days), this was a match that just totally blew me off the face of the planet. Watching Raw and Nitro every week, this was certainly about as different a planet for match length as you could step into. And really, these are probably at the end of the day six of my (more or less) 25 favorite wrestlers ever, as it turns out. My transition out of just watching what was readily in front of my face went ECW > Japanese Hardcore stuff > All and New Japan > everything else. This is definitely one of the matches that really stoked the fires to me, it was just a story I could watch all day. And probably did if you add the times I've watched it together. I don't expect anyone else to love it as much as I do, but there you have it. It's my baby and so it's perfect, to me.

What was the full story behind that match where Fujita dropped the IWGP title to Kensuke Sasaki in like 90 seconds? I seem to remember it being a really bad period for New Japan. Something like Bob Sapp wins IWGP > Sapp loses shoot to Fujita > Inoki panics and sticks title on Fujita > Fujita makes a fuss about something or other > company drops belt to Sasaki in a major stinker. I've forgotten most of the details though where Fujita basically didn't have to work. The company looked really bad through that whole phase. There was a lot of ill will among the puro community for that whole timeframe.

Flair for the Gold always reminded me of Donahue for some reason. Flair just standing around in a suit trying to get his questions in surrounded by idiots. I'm not sure this has really changed. Have you ever watched Dr. Phil? A lot of those episodes are straight up Jerry Springer for the suburbs instead of the trailer parks.

If there has been a worse faction name in wrestling history than S.E.X. I don't even want to know what it is. It's something you'd expect if the company was run by 13 year old marks. Insert your own joke about the wrestling industry here. A "complete and accurate history of TNA" would be the thing that would probably push my limits to see if I could read through it all. Well done to make it through all this sir. Looking forward to more... sort of. Man I'm tempted to just outright call this a top 10 career Konnan highlight.

As someone on DVDVR said, CM Punk broke the internet. Again. When I'm actually halfway interested about wanting to see a WWE PPV, it's a rare fucking day indeed.

Couldn't agree more. Sting/Flair at the Clash was interesting once, but then you're aware they literally do the *entire* match twice, because Sting has nothing else to fill time and I guess by then no one wanted to see matwork, or something (not that there's any real evidence Sting can do anything on the mat so I suppose it's not like I'm suggesting they should do that). Not all of the Luger/Flair matches were aces, but the best ones absolutely crush it by a mile. Overall I'd be tempted to take Luger as I enjoyed his high end stuff more on the whole. He had periods where he wasn't good at all (not that Sting hasn't), but I enjoyed his peaks just fine. Sting I also like and I think he's done a lot to work through more than one questionable program in his time, but I'd have a hard time putting together a list of what I thought his supposedly great matches are once you got past a couple. Sting is also one of the worst promos among top level guys in US history for long periods of time. Very goofy guy even for wrestling. Silent Sting in WCW was a blessing in disguise, at least for a time. Haven't really looked at it close but I suspect if I went through it all I'd come away thinking Luger might be a little underrated as a promo.

I assume the Onita vs. Tenryu Super-Duper Sparkler Cage of Death (If Onita loses he must retire in one year) from 5/5/94 is quite likely to make an appearance, both for significance and because not surprisingly when he's working Tenryu instead of, like, Mr. fucking Pogo, it's one of Onita's better FMW matches from this timeframe. I'm sure there was build up to it as well featuring a tag match but I'm rusty and just totally blanking on dates. I think that was in W.A.R. and it was quite good and heated. The Sabu/Douglas/Funk 60-minutes 3-way from ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed probably has to make an appearance as it is the match that put ECW on the map to quite a few people, but I do remember it sucking pretty bad, really. Hopefully there is a clipped version of it floating around that might be more palatable. On the wrestecrap front there's the JT Smith vs. Mike Awesome match from that same show where Mike almost breaks JT in half on one of those crazy dives he would do, then the top rope breaks. It's a total fucking disaster but ECW had a few of those that you can't really cover their history without looking at. It's also really short, at least. The Bull Nakano vs. Alundra Blayze match from Summerslam might be worth including for a yearbook style format, though having not seen it in forever I have no idea how it holds up. It's nowhere close to "great all time joshi match" but for one held on American soil it probably doesn't get a lot better, so I suppose you include it for comparison if nothing else.

Tenryu/Hogan vs. Road Warriors seems like it should make it simply as an oddity/significant happening since it headlined the Dome and all. I've never actually seen it, mind.

Just like to second this as well. I haven't seen that much ARSION but this was a standout, mat-based contest that had a great sense of struggle and told a great story. Definitely a strong match.

This is not one of the "best" matches I've ever seen, but it is definitely a personal favorite. It really feels like it was supposed to be "Hansen's last hurrah" as a big time top guy, then the NOAH split sort of forced that out the window. But the crowd reactions alone would get this on the set - the crowd turning briefly on Kobashi for beating on Hansen is a fantastically surreal moment for a long time All Japan fan. Bonus: Hansen doing a really cool, low key post match "I'm getting too old for this shit" kind of promo, and him walking out to the tour bus after with a bunch of the hardcore fans still there to send him off even in defeat. Just a fucking awesome moment that absolutely gave me goosebumps.

I always loved Fukazawa, and it was all about the energy. I never picked up more than a few basic phrases at most. People bitching that he's over the top and a goof are seriously in the wrong hobby.

I've read the idea more than once and I just don't get it at all. Explaining it won't make it suddenly make sense either. It's just... why? These people are trying to fail on purpose. It has to be a mass social experiment at this point.

Stan is definitely one of my personal Big Four (along with Jumbo, Misawa, and Terry Funk). The fifth spot would change based on mood but there's never really been a point in relevant memory where those haven't been my shortlist. Stan would have great matches once in a while, but almost always seemed reliable to be at least "very good". And there's a sense of genuine chaos to his matches you really just don't get a sense of in most other matches. He was a guy that could actually have fights with a sense of "struggle" - which so much wrestling is missing - that you could suspend disbelief about and get a real sense of not being really sure what was going to happen next, when he was on. It's just a thing of beauty when it comes off. Stan at his best came off like this unpredictable nut, and it was just a hoot to watch. He's also a guy that really belongs for me in the discussion of great all-time tag team wrestlers. Almost every other regular American in All Japan seems to have been his partner at one point (except Dr. Death). Again I think it's not so much about the matches right at the top end as it is about just the sheer number of matches on that next level down, where there's just so many fun matches you can come across over his career. If you asked me to build the fantasy la-la land promotion and I had to pick a guy to build around that I thought could consistently give me that good match against just about any opponent, Stan is right there at the top. He never worked much in the States but even so I've seen very little of it. I'VE GOT A FAT WIFE AND NINE KIDS TO FEED comes to mind as a highlight, and I like his match with Luger as one of those "very good/odd collectible" things that happened. Would have been interesting if he'd been around more I agree, but he produced a ton of great work in Japan once he went back for a while there, so I won't complain. Hopefully a couple new gems come out of the 1980's project. I find it baffling Hansen vs. Flair either never happened, or at the very least never happened anywhere that was taped. How the hell can that be? It's just... not right. You would think at some point in the 1980's when Flair was around All Japan as a guest attraction that at the very least they must have pitched the idea. That's got to be right at the top of the list of my all time dream matches that would not have required time travel or something really weird happening. Also his AJPW theme is probably my favourite wrestling theme song ever. So there's a bonus point.

I've always been somewhat baffled by the DDP hate. Sure, I've heard about his obsessive need for details and scripting things out to the nth degree in advance, and I understand why a lot of people didn't like it (I'm sure he took a ton of ribbing about it both to his face and behind his back from other workers). But I thought he did a ton to justify his place as a top guy for a decent while. He's this guy that seemed to draw wrath that well outstripped any possible justification, in a club with Marc Mero and some others.

It's kind of amazing all the sillyness they put into trying to get Vampiro over, when I really can't remember a time he drew a decent reaction from the crowd at all. Even most of his work with Sting draws almost no response. And Sting got a fucking match out of Horace Boulder on Thunder once.

I'm pretty sure the "on fire and jumps of the Titantron" thing wasn't actually Sting. The lights conveniently go out for a few seconds before "Sting" gets lit on fire, and I think it was a stuntman in his place. I remember watching it being fairly certain they'd pulled a (pretty decent) switcharoo. Been ages since I watched it though. If it wasn't... Jesus, WCW.

Speaking of Samoa Joe, boy has his arc in TNA been the poster child for crushed hopes and dreams.

The best example yet: TNA wrestler Jesse Neal tweets that he's qualified for food stamps! Yeah that new piece of news was one of the specific reasons I threw that comment in. Although there's been stories in the past about things like workers (and not even new guys, but veterans you should know what you're getting) being offered tryout matches where they have to come down and work a dark match, pay for their own rent-a-car and hotel etc. I don't know if that's still going on but it did at one point, and it seems very lowball for a company with the kind of backing they have and who want to be the #2 representation of their industry on the continent. I know it's not news that there is a massive gap in wrestling between what the big stars and the little people make, but a company of this size should be doing better. The worst paid workers in WWE are still making a living, at least.

Honestly TNA is so utterly absurd if you look at it on the whole over it's entire lifespan that I think you have to start reaching out of wrestling and into completely different fields to start actually finding a valid comparison at this point. And I'm not even sure what those comparisons would be. It's not even just the product being shit. You've also got to add in what seems like a disproportionately high amount of tension between the employees, the seemingly reckless condoning of some employee's substance problems, the way it seems to be a complete money funnel down the tubes (even though a lot of it's employees seem underpaid), having a unique owner that is completely oblivious etc. If you start listing all the specifics of those it could drag on for ever. And on top of those things, the in-ring product has to be at least ballpark of UWF, but with SWERVES every second match. I almost don't want it to ever die. I want to see how long it can possibly go. A social experiment, if you will.

From the Savage Bio part 2, on a fight between Savage and a fan in Nashville: Now THAT is a professional wrestling story.

Both Pacino and Flair had to do a fake heart attack as part of their character during down periods in their character arc.

U-Style would have been amazing if they had a deeper roster and had been able to do more. As it is, they are really more of a suppliment. I can't even stress enough what that 15 minute time limit they imposed did for them. So much of UWF-i was just laying around doing fuck all because they booked 6 matches to fill 2 hours in a company with no interviews, 6-mans and angles. When it worked it was a good company, but I also thought there were a lot of times that it really, really didn't.