Kronos

EDITED TO ADD: I meant in that subtitle that the match had been superpimped, but I wasn't superpimping it. I was pretty excited to sit down and watch this match, after all the love it seems to have gotten across the board. I was excited when Aries gave a nice bastardly promo, amused at how he used words like heel and face. And then I was interested in how they started slowly, feeling easch other out. Countering each other's moves. I appreciated Davey's knee being "hurt" and their presence of mind to keep that as a factor. There were even some really great spots. But about half way through, I just lost interest. Ironically, it was about the time the crowd got into the match. But suddenly, I didn't care anymore who won or who lost. And truth be told, that's how I feel nearly everytime I watch ROH 2009 and forward. It's entertaining and athletic, but I just don't care.

It's probably the case that "bitter" was the wrong word. I had also just listened to Cornette on a 10 min political rant (which was a great promo but a lousy free discussion of ideas ). The word I should have chosen was "angry". He just always seems pissed off about the industry. One can be angry with good cause, so that's okay. BTW, I am glad someone else agrees with me about Snow. I liked his secrets of the ring, but he did come across as pretty self-important.

That would be awesome! "Hey, we need a clip of Backlund with a bloody face." "Oh, here's one: File 1027G, item 46." *drools at the prospect* *recoils at the amount of work required*

I've actually been trying to do this through excel, a spreadsheet with my collection indexed by disc, and by wrestler/tag team That would be a helpful project, too. But I have recently begun using Access for some records at my job -- records we used to keep on Excel. It's a bit of a steepish learning curve, but it's so far superior in ease of data entry, updating existing info, running all sorts of reports that show the data, exporting to Excel, PDF, etc. I haven't even really begun to learn it, yet, and already I would never go back on these projects, anyway. I highly recommend it (or filemaker or whatever one likes).

Is it fair to say: Cornette is easily the most bitter man in wrestling today -- at least, the most bitter who has a forum for posting it. Lance Storm complains, but he also likes a lot of stuff. Bruno and Orndorff complain, but no one listens. Al Snow complains, but he just comes across as thinking he's better than he is. No, it's Cornette who is always critical. But here's the thing: To my money, he has earned the right. He understands old school wrestling. He understands storytelling. He's been there for nearly every big move in the business for 20+ years. The man's not perfect, but he knows what he's saying. And if he says Dave is a lying sack, then I believe him.

When you get that comprehensive, it almost becomes more of a reference than something to watch on a day-to-day basis. You know, like Bix's collection. (teasing -- actually, Lynch is probably a better example) If you had 100+ discs, you'd have to build a massive cross-referenced Access database or something just to find anything - and maybe you even spending months and terabytes ripping it to high bit rate AVI or MP4 for easier access. Again, it would be a beautiful tape library, encyclopedic in scope. But who could ever watch it all? Speaking of too much, it's time I placed an order for some more PS, RN, and PWO comps.

Eddy Guerrero is 30+ discs, too.

Nice. . .

Isn't Terry something like 40 discs? (Oh, wait, that's the Horsemen - and I am too lazy to go into the other forum and count the number of discs on will's thread.) LOL - you're gonna be freaking busy. That's what we call overload! Reminds me of the month I rented a seedbox and torrented something like 400GB of rasslin footage in about 5 days.

I have to agree with other comments on this list. The biggest stressor is this perceived need to see EVERYTHING new every week, in case something gets missed. If one wanted to just watch US TV each week, that's: WWE - 6 hrs TNA - 2 hrs ROH - 1 hr Nine hours!!! But you know what? It's okay to miss it. If a really standout match occurs, you'll hear about it. It'll be on youtube or dailymotion. Or heck, wait a whole year and catch it on Will's end of year comp. Life goes on. I am preaching at myself as much as at anyone else. Like Ditch and John say, there's too much time wasted watching crap. Me? These days I pretty much only catch the WWE PPVs and the occasional pimped match (like Danielson/Jericho on NXT - I made an effort to track that one down on youtube). I haven't watched TNA or ROH in months. I am busy enough with SHIMMER and joshi -- and I am always trying to dig into puro, which is essentially an endless sea of matches. I also love to troll through youtube and dailymotion and find older WWF and WCW matches (and world class, mid south, memphis, ECW, etc), and from time to time I feel the desire to learn about lucha. That's waaaaaaay too much. But I just have to keep remembering that it's not going anywhere. The more time that passes, the more stuff becomes easily accessible. It's supposed to be fun. Haha.

I seriously doubt anyone cares, but I feel the need to mention it anyway - just briefly. A few months back, I said something stupid and inappropriate on DVDVR, and Phil rightly invited my a$$ off the forum. Since then, I have lurked here but chosen not to post out of respect for that banning (and out of shame for acting a fool). I believe I have worked it out with him. And so I am going to start posting again. Like I said, you probably don't care. But I respect the members of this forum, so I thought I would let you know that I apologize for what I said. I didn't mean it, and I shall be on my best behavior. /drama

I am with you on this one. The singer gimmick in WWF was horrible; he was a bit better in WCW. But in TNA, he's really done some good stuff. Did he book himself to power? Yes, and he shouldn't be lauded for it. I used to be a Jarrett hater, but he's won me over big time. His feud with Raven was terrific. (loved the match when he fought Alexis Laree in the Clockwork Orange House) His mic work in the last year has been exemplary, far better IMO than Angle's has ever been. Angle has done some very nice stuff in the ring, no doubt -- but JJ understands the whole package in a way Kurt never has.

Hmmm. Well, as I said, I haven't seen it in awhile. According to imdb, the show ran from 1989-98. I started college in 1992, and I honestly don't remember much of the show after that point. Perhaps I would appreciate the ridiculousness now (I have no problem with silly if it's done well), although I am not sure I am inclined to take the time to look into it -- hell, I have am unofficial plan to watch all of MASH in the near future, and I still need to finish MOONLIGHTING. Who has time for Family Matters? This discussion reminds me a bit of the deconstruction of ARCHIE over on DVDVR. I grew up in Dallas. Jim Varney was a character on Braum's ice cream commercials, as I recall. Didn't he somehow take that character and expand it into the movie franchise? Know what I mean, Verne? (By the way, I think Pauley Shore's SON-IN-LAW trumps all those Ernest films.)

I haven't seen the show in awhile, so I don't know how it holds up now. But I seem to think FM has not aged all that well (truthfully, what sitcoms do?) -- it has always been faaaaaaar better than FH, of course. The characters are stock, to be sure, but the formula worked. One thing I liked about it, which made it somewhat ahead of its time, was that the black family was solidly middle class. They weren't white trash like the Bundys, nor were they upper-middle class like the Cosbys. They were just relatively "normal" people like Roseanne's family (although a bit wealthier and not as abrasive, but you get the point). Urkel was heavily over-exposed, especially when he started dressing in drag, etc. Like Cena, it became cool to hate him, I think, precisely because of his success. But all TV writers and actors should be so lucky as to create a character that gets over to that extent and becomes something of a pop culture icon.

Will, just gotta throw down some major kudos for the Tanya Tucker menu song on disc 7 of FBVE. Damn, that song makes me homesick. "When I die, I may not go to heaven. I don't know if they let cowboys in. If they don't, just let me go to Texas. Texas is as close as I've been. . ."

Dude, you like FAMILY MATTERS??!! Good read, SLL. I am always asking myself that same question - "Does it matter?" I ask it because I am trying to get away from justifying how much time and $$ and mental energy I put into rasslin fandom. And I ask it to see if trying to be caught up on everything is worth it after all. Some years back, I realized that reading every comic I could get my hands on became not "worth it", despite how much I wanted to not miss out. Similar here. But I suppose obsessions are like that. . . A few years back, I wrote a paper for a grad course on wrestling as theater. It started off tongue-in-cheek, but it turned into 16 pages of thoughtful (if markish) observations. I am proud of that essay, partly because it allowed me to intellectualize/legitimize my hobby a bit. And everyone of my classmates that I told about it wanted to read it. And I got an "A".

Yes, I am in the same boat. My understanding of wrestling as a performance art permeates how I watch everything else. Heel/Face turns, great promos, "getting over", working the crowds, etc -- I think it's all made me a smarter viewer of everything else in my life. Even if it hasn't made me more sophisticated or more profound in my understanding, it has ccertainly given me a vocabulary to discuss these things.

Ditch, as a Cowboys fan (Dallas is my home town) I say, "Suck it!" LOL That Indikator quote has served me well as a sig for awhile -- didn't it come from the Porn v Wrestling thread? That thread ruled. It took me awhile to "come out" as a wrestling fan to anyone at all because I was ashamed and didn't feel like dealing with the teasing. These days, I am very open about it -- at my old job, it was a source of pride that everyone knew I was a rasslin fan. I almost ordered a Randy Savage poster for my cube (and would have, if Highspots didn't crash everytime I tried to order that poster). It's easily the hobby that takes up the most of my time and $$. In fact, I am constantly trying to figure out how to not be so obsessed; even now, I am posting on this forum instead of dealing with the mountain of work I should be doing right now. And my enjoyment from reading about it in books and online is only eclipsed by my love for reading about baseball history.

Ditch, I think now I understand that this thread was the inspiration for your survey on DVDVR. What's the point of that survey, anyway? To show how many of us that haven't seen so many of the classics don't have the right to speak because we haven't seen all the best stuff? Or to show that we newer puro fans think things are cool when they aren't? Or to satisfy yourself that most of your regulars on Purotopia are properly educated? I realize I am sounding snippy, and I don't mean to be. I am just suddenly curious at where you were going with it. Is it a kind of two-pronged experiment, in which you narrow down which have not seen the Kawada match (as part one)? And then send those people off to watch it to see if they come back with their own opinions? Probably nothing so sinister -- you may have just been curious as to whether your 3-part division on puro fandom was accurate. But as I review this thread, I see that it discusses the idea that people can't have their own ideas (or won't) but can only parrot what the online wise men tell them to think, and I wonder if you're trying to prove or disprove that theory?

The first time I have seen these two guys work. How can I begin to describe how much fun it was? Nasty jujitsu-looking submissions -- I thought I was watching BattlArts a few times. Wicked power moves. Hase's "miss" of Takada over the top ropes, taking him all the way to the floor. Even the confrontation after the match was great. Tops for me was the ref getting knocked out. Takada pins Hase, the CROWD counts to three, and Takada jumps up like he's just won the match. You just can't script it when the crowd is involved -- beautiful, beautiful segment. I chuckled to myself because they even look like faces/heels. Compare Takada's Nippon "all-American boy" look to Hase's greasy 'stache and mullet -- he looks like a member of Chosin's gang in KARATE KID 2. When I get paid on Monday, I am more than ever committed to getting in on New Japan after watching this stellar 80's match. I only have 2 more matches to go on this comp, but I already believe it's one of the greatest I have ever watched.

I thought it was fantastic. Any match where you get not one but THREE Flair Flops, Flair going over the top rope from a CHOP by Jumbo, and figure four spot that seems to go on forever is tops in my book. Seriously, though, we're really watching two masters in their primes who know how to build tension, pick up the pace now and then to get the crowd hot, and who show that they really, really want it. Lots of favorite segments in this one, but I think my top one is when Jumbo seems to botch hurdling over Flair and then turns into a nearfall anyway. Greatness -- no, wait, I am remembering the missle drop kick when Jumbo is covered in streamers. Yes, that is the coolest bit ever. Did I see a very young Kawada in Jumbo's corner at the end? And how sad was it that Flair had no one in his corner after the first fall, when Jumbo had a whole team? Was that just how it was for gaijin, or was it part of the story that he was really and truly alone in this foreign country? EDIT: I always try to wait until I post my own thoughts before reading everyone else's. Just now going back, I see nearly everyone loved that missile dropkick as much as I did. Sweet. . .

Last night, I started disc 2 of the Freebirds v VE's. I'll tell you what -- say what you will about Michael Hayes having a distorted view of his own importance, but the man could deliver a promo! He's gold everytime he's on screen. And Gordy is just dumb-sounding enough to be fun. Roberts I could do without -- so far, he's easily the least interesting of all 5 guys in the original feud, for my $$ -- and that's saying something when Kevin is in the batch. But cheesus crust, do I love World Class. The superhot crowds alone make it worth watching, even if the rest of it weren't so damned entertaining. "No more Freebirds! No more Freebirds!" What does the "PS" stand for anyway?

Too bad. I would have liked to have seen the picture of the last house on the end of Bad Street. . . Damn you, that song is now stuck in my head. . .