Kronos

Spoken like an experienced forum moderator!

I am afraid I just don't get lucha trios matches yet. Last night, I was watching that first CMLL Puebla 6-man on Schneider 26 (for the second time). I have to say that Toro Bill is a bumping fool -- that's a fat old man who's not afraid to go flying, and I kind of love him. But I do feel like these matches have a tendency to devolve into chaos, with all 6 men in the ring at once, or else an extended 3-on-1 segment. Am I just not used to it? Maybe it's like hockey, where you just have to develop a feel for how it comes together. . .

Wait, I am confused. I thought Andre died in 91 or 93? Is there another match later than Mania 3 that you mean? He's joking about the tall tales surrounding the match, especially from Hogan. Right, right. Good call.

Wait, I am confused. I thought Andre died in 91 or 93? Is there another match later than Mania 3 that you mean?

On Rumble 94, there's a great recap of Owen v Bret that should be included, since it sets up the feud going into Mania. And of course the finish from the Hart Foundation tag on the same show, with Owen's heel turn.

Wouldn't Bo be more along the lines of Agassi? He didn't reach the heights in his sport that AA did. But in terms of media darlings and the "IT" athlete, they could be similar.

Ultimate Warrior vs Sgt. Slaughter - Royal Rumble, 1/19/91 Sarge looks fat and slow, and he's saddled with a difficult gimmick. His prematch promo is crazy over the top, though, and I kind of love him for it. Warrior cuts yet another of his insane promos. I don't know how the Mean Genes of the world handled him without laughing or shaking their heads in amazement. The match itself starts really strong, with Warrior destroying Adnan and his flag. Sarge bumps like crazy for him, until Sherri and Savage run in and cause havok, leaving UW beaten up and struggling to crawl back to the ring. This segment and the bearhug soon after threaten to bring the match to a screaming halt, though, which is too bad because it's been exciting until then. Warrior gets his hulk-up bit, Sarge shows off his Iron Sheik boots, and things start rolling some more. Sherri proves she's crazy and wonderful when she gets thrown over half way across the ring, over the top rope, and onto Savage on the floor. And then the ending, which is supposed to be all shocking but really is kind of a letdown. Slaughter's skills at pacing the match and working the crowd carry things here. But because he's not in his physical prime, they definitely need Warrior's coke-infused energy to keep it rolling. For the most part, Slaughter is able to harness that energy and make things work. I am not one of those people that hates Warrior. And I like him here. But he needed Slaughter's experience to take his wild, flailing enthusiasm and use it for some actual storytelling. A good match which does a nice job of setting up the Savage/Warrior feud into Mania. Incidentally, is that a "Bullshit!" chant after the match? Savage: "Lord Alfred Hayes, you're everything that you think you are. But you're a figment of your imagination!" Doesn't that sound like something Foley would say a few years later? I love Sherri's freaky makeup and her wild bouncing around in the background. I love Sherri Martel in general. The beginning is batshit, with Savage hiding behind the chairs and ambushing Warrior, leading to a brawl outside the cage. Once they get into the ring, I have to agree with OJ that the bulk of the match is downright dull. It takes them a good 10 min to remember they even have a cage, and then we get the ridiculous conclusion with Warrior reaching through the cage and holding Savage my his hair. Because it's Warrior, we will get some misogyny. Sherri gets choked, stripped, and later gorilla slammed. (I think I remember her saying in her shoot that it hurt quite a lot when he dropped her on her tits.) This match is important for the feud, but it was pretty damned boring.

Sting & Lex Luger vs Steiner Brothers - Superbrawl, 5/19/91 Sting & Lex Luger vs Steiner Brothers - Nitro, 9/2/96 It's not really fair to compare these two matches. One is a 10-12 min PPV match. The other is a 20 sec DQ on TV (to set up an angle?). But I think it's interesting to see them as an example of what has changed and shifted in the 5 1/2 years between. The first match is a solid tag match, with a few cool spots and some nice back and forth. All four guys look good, and it's clear the crowd loves them. In the years following, Luger looks a lot older. Sting when back to his real hair and looks sillier. Scotty is well on his way to becoming Big Poppa Pump in a few years. And Rick looks exactly the same as he looked in 1989 and in 2007. That guy will never change. They don't get to have a match at all, though it's interesting to note Luger and Rick open both matches with almost the same moves. I liked the Superbrawl match quite a bit. I have seen some talk here -- and in the youtube comments -- about its being people's favorite tag matches ever. I can't go that far. I have seen plenty of tags I liked better. But this one is a lot of fun, and it's fairly quick so they have no time to screw up or get boring. Sting vs Brian Pillman - WCW Saturday Night, 9/30/95 Pillman seems well into his Loose Cannon gimmick here. He's taunting the crowd and knocking over guardrails. (Sting, incidentally, is such a gentleman that he goes to the floor and helps put the rail back up - Nerd Alert!) This is a short TV match that has lots of Pillman stooging, faking a knee injury, taking some nice bumps off a very athletic Sting. The final spot leading to the pin looks a bit too rehearsed, but it's still kind of cool as Pillman comes over the top rope and dives straight into a powerslam and quick pin. It's capped by a confrontation between Flair and Sting postmatch in which Sting wisely lets Flair do most of the talking and so doesn't embarrass himself.

Wow, Arn was only 38? That means he was in his 20s or early 30s during the Horsemen heyday. I never would have guessed. He's always seemed older and crustier than almost any of them. God, I love AA.

Wasn't the newer pirate character Paul Burchill? I liked that guy as a worker, with Katie Lea. I've never seen his pirate stuff, though.

The Schneider 25 show is fantastic - very informative and had me laughing quite a few times. And get on with that Midgets comp, straight away!

Wow. Suicide? OD? Terrible news.

Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious. I don't watch Sumo, though I would if I had a sense of what youtube channels to view and such. But there have been a number of scandals lately about match-fixing. . .

"When you are talking about money, you are talking about old school. I was hired to bring ratings." What an idiot. I watched that clip, and I am not even sure what it means. He's saying being concerned about drawing money is old school? In the sense of this argument, Ratings=Money. So it's the same thing. . .

The thing I have always noticed most strongly about Russo is his apparently lack of any filter for future consequences. If he had an idea, it seemed he would just run with it. It might pop the crowd now, but next week or next month how do you dig out of the hole/corner?

Goldberg vs Hogan - Nitro, 7/6/98 Been meaning to watch this one forever. Goldberg's entrance gives me chills, and the size of the crowd makes me the millionth person to wonder: Why the Blue He'll did they give away this match on free tv? Not a particularly special match from a technical standpoint. Hogan does all the work, while Goldberg just seems confused. A perfect example is a chain wrestling sequence where Hogan goes into a hammerlock. G reverses into his own hammerlock, at which point he proceeds to stand there holding the arm and clearly unsure what to do. They're fortunate we get the shot from behind, or the camera would likely have picked up a "What now?" expression. In the end, Hogan gets distracted by some confusing runins, setting up for the spear and vertical suplex. Goldberg knew how to work the crowd with his spear, jumping up and roaring like Leonidas. The crowd is nuts, and the spectacle covers up the fact that we got about 10 min of beginner level work. Great theater.

Count me as another big fan of this match. The crowd is white hot for all 4 guys, and they really appreciate what's happening. My favorite sequence is when Kakihara lands an axe kick on Fujiwara -- he seems to become legit pissed and start shooting on Kakihara for a minute. He basically starts ground-and-pounding him. I also thought the out f nowhere submission was very realistic, as you see that kind of finish in grappling and MMA all the time. It's awesome. My brother wandered in and watched a few minutes. Then he said, "One of the things I don't like about pro wrestling -- and why I can never get into it -- is that they don't seem to follow even their fake rules." He was talking about how a tag partner will almost always run in and break up a pin. It was after Takada comes in and breaks up the sharpshooter.

One of the differences between Rock, say, and House is that while House is a jerk, he'll still save your life. Rock's just rude because it's 'funny'. Even Austin at least fought TPTb in the form of Vince.

Rock restarted the match - though there's no precedent for why he had the power to run around restarting matches. he wasn't GM for the night. And then he attacked Cena, leading to Miz's win. It was a bullshit ending that made both and Cena and Miz look bad, IMO.

I understand that term to mean someone who enjoys mainstream wrestling. If "smarks" like ROH and PWG (and maybe Japan, as long as it's full of headdropping and high flying), then antismarks trumpet the talent of Mark Henry or appreciate a silly angle. It's a derogatory term. And stupid.

He looks a lot like the guy from whom I studied jujitsu in 2009 before I went back to being fat and lazy.

A comment I was making on another forum about Punk/Orton fits here, too:

No, I think either Samu or Fatu entered #2. Man, I remember way too much useless stuff. Kwang entered later and was eliminated by Diesel. Yeah, not a good gimmick at all for Savio. That's right. I was Scott Steiner, then a Headshrinker, then Rick Steiner, then Kwang (who misted Rick immediately).