El-P

Oh yeah, give us Suzuki vs Alexander already. Hell, Suzuki victimizing Matt Cardona would be fun too. Or a NOAH rematch with Eddie Edwards (I guess they met then). Or a match with Moose (who had an awesome match with Ishii). The summit between Christian & Alexander was really well done in making Cage the subtle heel (which is needed). Using some footage from an AEW meet & greet to stir up the shit was a very cool touch.

Da Big Dog is All Elite. There you have your Mall of America moment.

The "It's great for professional wrestling" is pretty rich when you're playing corporate lapdog for the company that has tried every tactics (and still do) in the book for AEW not to exist. His stuff about CM Punk is hilarious too. "If our audience want to see it and were clamoring for it"... Wait, what ? I guess he never heard those CM Punk chants for years when he was in the ring and while people left Mania while he was main-eventing against the same guy he'll meet at Blood Money... Sure, if CM Punk had come back to WWE, the fans would not clamor for that match at all. And I mean, I wonder what he would say then considering it's obvious Punk would have received the exact insane pop, one Roman has never and will never get. Ponder that one for a second or two... The whole interview reeks of insecurity and pettiness, which is kinda ironic when you speak from a position of privilege (let's get real, Roman got everything handed to him, much like Randy Orton before him, and for the same reasons, and he's working for the Coca-Cola of the industry basically).

He's the biggest star in the N°1 company in the world and he comes off like a big baby. Big Dog ? Lapdog rather...

Yep, but I had to check the old thread to see what I said back then about him (which is worth whatever is worth, although I doubt my opinion would change radically, if anything I'd probably be much less annoyed by the hulk-ups now, not that I would like them either but you get the point) : "Kinda like the mix between a short One Man Gang and a proto-Mick Foley (those bumps as a heel). So yeah, really good worker. Although he had the very annoying habit as a babyface of doing no-sell hulk up/lawler up comebacks, which always suck no matter who you are. So I prefer him as a heel. Better than Bigelow, no doubt. Vader ? Nah." But to be honest, I don't really remember what I had watched when I was into my AWA TV/matches watch. Kinda sucks to realize that your memory is kinda shot to a degree because you're aging !

Honestly it was more me being facetious, I have nothing against Bundy, I always enjoyed those old-school monsters. But I admit he's not close to One Man Gang or Tenta to me, I really enjoy them a lot more (and I have not seen that much of older Bundy).

I concur. And Bam Bam working like a cat was a huge part of his appeal and what made him so fun. That brought something different to the table and allowed his opponent to have different kinds of matches than they would with the usual "monster". See also : Vader. He won't make my list, but neither are OMG (whom I love), John Tenta (whom I love), Mark Henry (whom I enjoy) or King Kong Bundy (who's name is King Kong Bundy).

I have not watched a Shawn Michaels match (apart from the Taker @ Mania project) in eons, and I have not seen everything from his comeback in the 00's, but from memory I don't think I'd put any of them against Omega vs Danielson, his deathmatches with Mox as far as gimmick matches go, or even his draw with PAC. And as far as TV matches, his stuff with Fénix and Jungle Boy are a pretty high level and I'm not sure I could find anything in Shawn resume in a comparable context that even measures up. Not even mentioning the Omega/Hangman vs Young Bucks match from last year, because this is the GOAT tag team match ever probably, so let's be serious for a moment here, I loved the Rockers but come on now... And of course, Omega's NJPW stuff is clearly out of reach anyway. That being said, I'll probably re-visit Shawn's post-comeback eventually.

I love how he kinda sounds like Bill Alfonso at times. Yeah, really good interview. You got my money for Full Gear for sure, Coach Tony K.

Things that we knew already : Moolah was a piece of shit. Dick Slater was a piece of shit. The WWF Office were pieces of shit (the anecdote about the Mania post-match is just disgusting and heartbreaking). Things I did not knew : that she actually was adopted. That she may or may not have been abused by her Aunt. That Dave Heath was not a real vampire ! I thought Dave Heath came off like such a good guy, and I can empathize so much, including when he talks about how he kinda felt guilty after he ended the relationship because he thought it was selfish of him to not take care of her anymore, because who would... It's crazy thinking (like he said, at some point you have no other choice but to leave), but this kind of relationship absolutely leads your there, I know first hand (on a less extreme degree of course, but still, to some pretty bad degrees). One interesting bit in term of WWF culture that was absent in the doc is that when she went to WCW after ECW, she wasn't made a manager and they had her as a worker, at a time when WWF had no women's division left. So again, while the culture was bad, some places where worst than others... The whole Sable debacle is well known, and although Sable probably was over her head and got the big ego and was a bitch about it, it was the office responsibility to acknowledge Luna's work, which they did not do. Of course it was easy to put the blame on Luna's mental issues. Thankfully we've made a lot of progress, although not nearly enough. Also, that Royal Rumble's swimsuit stuff, with Lawler doing the intros and the bunch of old guys (and fucking pimp Moolah) giving notes is cringe as fuck now, on many levels. Pretty striking take that after all of these years of making her ugly, now they wanted her to be sexy, yet basically shamed her during the thing (well, I for one always thought she was beautiful and sexy, but that's way beside the point). Mick Foley's eulogy was quite touching I thought, and it was nice to end with that hilarious impersonation ! Yeah, Luna in 2021 would be a big star, no doubt.

Probably not that much of a hardcore pro-wrestling fan audience since apparently, MLW's ratings following the show totally sucked. Next episode is Luna, right ? Now, this one I look very much forward to. I had been a Luna fan since the very first time I saw her (at Mania 9).

??? Really ? After a post where I actually talk about how I loved Crush's music themes from the mid-90's ? I mean. I can't get much less sarcastic than this... I mean, yeah, I was sarcastic about Crush using the heart punch, since he sucked and so does the move, but... And if you thought that was a response of sort to your Rob Terry post, well, it wasn't, I just remembered than Crush of all people used it during one of his many ill-fated billions comebacks.

Remember how Crush in his jailbird/white-guy-with-dreads-and-face-tatoo/Nation of Domination period was using the heart punch as a finisher ? Yeah, everything about this was so awesome... For real though I enjoyed his music theme then. Some kick-ass FPS-like theme. But I enjoyed even more his droning, evil, Point&Click-like theme during his heel stint in 94. Jim Johnston could make me "care" about Crush just because I liked the music.

Yeah, to me it's really a case where context and production played a huge part. The whole territory was a smoke-screen for a family business that really had zilch to offer in term of good pro-wrestling (apart from a few really big match here and there, and mostly Flair showing up really). The matches weren't good. The promos sucked. The promotional tactics were really offensive (Fritz was a piece of trash). So yeah, you got Tom Sawyer (if you can handle listening to fucking Rush at *every fucking show*) and Freebird (which I never get tired of, then again I was born in a country where it's not even on the radar so it's not like I could get tired of it listening to it on the radio, first time I heard it was in ECW ) and a lot of young female fans screaming (just picture the "sex with underage" cases for a second). I don't have any fetish at all for 80's territories wrestling, and now less than ever, but WCCW easily ranks among the worst pro-wrestling stuff I've watched.

Well, that too. When I went through many of the territories TV a few years ago, WCCW was by far the worst and the whole Von Erich thing did not register at all with me in any way shape or form.

Mean Mark Callous used it as a finisher, yes. I thought it was a NXT 2.0 gimmick...

Damn ! Hey, glad you found something to enjoy there then !

Actually, tons of finishers are protected today. But there are like hundreds more moves than before, and only a few of them actually need to be protected, because if not, well, 90% of moves would be finishers.

Funny tidbit, the former Salina de la Renta talked about her experience at the Performance Center. So they had her work matches and cut no promo at all. The amazing sense of talent at the Performance Center, as always... And then she did not hear from them. And now that she's doing some OnlyFan stuff alongside Alicia Atout, needless to say it's not a given she'll end up there eventually. Would love to see her in either IMPACT or AEW, can be a great heel manager.

That works.

You don't have to watch it at all though, since you don't like the current stuff anyway. While I, as I'm watching the fucking NJPW G1 in 2021, am not supposed to get see a fucking CLAW HOLD by a goofball disguised in mongolian gimmick.

The People's Elbow was cool as a move. That's the difference to me. I'd rather have a move that is absolutely ludicrous and overtly ridiculous but actually cool and dynamic in its execution than a move that has some awkward "kayfabe" explanation dating back from the "let's play the marks" era but looks awfully dull (not to mention something that *anyone*, yours truly included, can execute). That's the difference to me. I know it's been an accepted spot, but the form of it makes it just a no-no for me. Here's hoping no one brings back the heart-punch as a finisher in NJPW.

Oh yes ! That one too ! And it was also brutal, from memory.

I don't want to see the claw period. Like, I don't want to see it. At all. Ever. Please, people. Just stop doing it. It makes me sad. Yeah, but that's part of Ibushi deranged genius. Only he could come up with something like this and make it work to boot.

It was a rhetorical question, I know what it's supposed to do... I used to massage the temples of my ex-girlfriend when she was hangover and I would absolutely do it in a claw way (not on her face though, but I absolutely thought about the damn wrestling hold !). To me it's like the infamous trapeze hold aka the samoan shoulder massage.