El-P

Thanks. I will check this one out.

I remember Corny also made some awkward (to put it in an acceptable way) comments regarding muslims in reference to Sami... And no, don't ask me a precise reference but I remember it from 2016 and I was living in a muslim country at the time, so it really kinda hit me in the wrong way back then (wow, I was still listening to Corny then I guess, or maybe just to have his take on Mania and Takeover, don't remember).

I'm glad someone other than me drops that one (because I was not about to do it, I come off enough of a fucking heel already ), but yeah, anecdotal personal experience is never a good way to pass judgement on a phenomenon. Like, never. BTW, just in passing, see what happens when you drop by on the board Charles ? You trigger *interesting* discussions and interactions. Unlike Edge, you're a draw ! Don't be a stranger in your own home.

Yes, I meant the whole thing. Wow. If anyone can find the date of the episode and the timecode. I'd be curious (morbidly curious I guess) to hear that one.

Indeed. see also : Ashley Massaro... It's not a tragedy, it's actual crime. And that clip with Gorilla making a joke is gross as hell in retrospect.

DA FUCK ? I was thinking about watching that match just for the novelty of it, he's 58 and totally broken down. Puzzling decision to say the least.

Well, your comment encouraged me to watch it after all, and I enjoyed it much more than the Hiromu vs Sho match. The bolded part, yeah, it's been an issue of a lot of SANADA's big matches, although it doesn't bother me that much. He has that very old-school NJ feel to his work, probably stemming from the fact he's a Mutoh disciple, with some matwork to start the match and a submission hold which is pretty derivative from Fujinami (without the urgency though, and it kinda hurts the perception of the ending stretch when they stay too long in the spot). Overall I thought it was really good, although the awful looking TKO spot outside took me out of it for a moment. The fact SANADA can get a (and the only legit one to me) nearfall using the fucking Backlund finisher in 2021 is pretty cool. Ibushi has this thing where he really works toward the style of his opponent, which is also why I believe it did not kick into high gear. Overall, a cool first little title defense for Ibushi. I wonder if they really are gonna split up the titles again though with this defense of the IC against Naito (too soon to do that one again, uh ?)

To me the no-crowd thing is funny, because at times it's been rough to watch some stuff, like the weekly IMPACT shows at first, but now I wish they would not add fake crowd noise as I got used to the silence in the studio and hearing more clearly of what happens in the ring. Also, it allowed for a more out of the box thinking (although of course Broken Matt Hardy and Lucha Underground already set the groundwork for this in the second half of the 10's) and although some stuff has sucked really hard (you know which ones), others have been just wonderful and responsible for some of the most fun I had watching pro-wrestling last year (Stadium Stampede actually will remain a GOAT pro-wrestling "match" to me, but the Taker vs Styles one at Mania was terrific too, I loved the Wrestler House in IMPACT like I said). It surely has impacted AEW a lot in term of atmosphere, especially with all these debuts which would have gotten such huge pops and the perception of the workers would probably have been positively affected. Still, last year had some of my favorite moments ever in my 30 years of watching pro-wrestling. Plus it's far from being over, we're soon getting to the point of closing a year of COVID-era pro-wrestling and even in Japan where you have crowds it's not nearly the same thing with only clapping (even in Japan where the sound of the crowd is very different from US or Mexico, which is another issue altogether as I haven't been tempted to watch any lucha without a crowd). On a personal note, as a bit of an agoraphobic person, the idea that there will never ever be those super large crowds is kind of cool, because I just can't stand crowds in general ! (that being said, I love huge stadiums settings for pro-wrestling show from a purely visual standpoint, so I'l confusing myself !)

Because Twitter stuff is posted all the time on the board. No one is talking about "invisible Twitter folk". That Twitter is mostly a cesspool is not exactly a pro-wrestling thing either. It is a cesspool in general. Spending 20 minutes on Twitter on any subject pretty much makes me want to throw myself out the window. Good for you. Does that mean we shouldn't talk about the #SpeakingOut movement on the board or the fact Vince treats people who works for him like shit or everything wrong about pro-wrestling ?

This is how capitalism works. The richest of the riches got even richer during the pandemic, the more you have, the less you give away. Yeah, this is Wall Street "greed is good" complete bullshit mentality, it's pathetic. Vince is gonna die a very, very rich man. He'll get to be the richest guy in the cemetary. Clap clap clap.

Zach Sabre Jr. in NJPW, Deonna Purrazzo in IMPACT, Timothy Tatcher in NXT, from the top of my head. Tay Conti and Leila Hirsch are gonna bring some sweet submission work to AEW on a regular basis too.

Well, that's quite a choice for a "classic" movie because back when it was made, Leone was the furthest from classic western and his style actually was playing around conventions and the classic western movies fans thought it was shit. FTR I love Leone's movies, especially that one, all-time favorites of mine. The thing is, as a fan of the current stuff, and I can still say I'm a fan of Nick Bockwinkle and Ric Flair and Misawa and Bret and whatnot, I hear much more talk about "today's workers don't know how to work, there's no psychology, it's a bunch of moves" than the other way around because I believe most of the people who enjoy the current stuff and have been watching for a long time still keep the older stuff in high regard. I really feel the lecturing has been mostly one way TBH, and it's always going the same way. I very seldom (if ever, because I don't remember hearing it at all, really) hear people pimping Omega shitting on the old stuff for instance. It's always "How dare you love this as much or more than this old Ric Flair or Misawa match ? It just can't be as good !" And at some point, yes, it is indeed tiresome to hear the same old song about pro-wrestling was so much better before and these days they have no psychology (which is totally false) and don't know how to sell (which is also false). The worst is that you almost feel obligated to justify yourself (like I pretty much did at the beginning of my post) by reminding everyone you're a Flair/Misawa/whatever fan before you say that you love the current stuff. At some point, I'm like, just fuck this, I'm gonna pimp this modern shit hard because I do believe it's great, I'm just tired of having to justify myself and show my credentials of "old-school fan" too. Yes, I do believe that the best workers of today are better than the best workers of yesteryear and that comes from a very pragmatical experience : the fact the three or four best matches I've ever seen after 30 years of watching pro-wrestling have happened in the last 3/4 years. It's not taking anything away from the great matches and workers of the past. In a way it makes sense that the workers of today should be better because they have all this history of great workers they can learn from, and it's very obvious they do when you watch workers like the Young Bucks or Tanahashi for instance.

Back in the days, I made snarky comments about people stanning Invader 1 when he was the "new hot find" and I was met with agressive replies about me having houlier than thou attitude and such. I'm sure it would be *quite* different these days. Things have evolved quite a bit. And yeah, not only Lawler is overrated as a worker but the fact he seemingly still gets a pass because "he threw great punches" really remains a head-scratching thing to me.

After the Taker debacle the other week there was this talk about the locker rooms being much better today than they ever were in the past too. Of course #SpeakingOut showed that there was still a lot of issues, especially with the rise of women pro-wrestling in the US and Europe with all the grooming and creepy coaching stuff (as before it was basically wrestlers having sex with groupies, the whole "rat" culture itself was probably quite an ugly thing at times), but overall, there are less true carnies in pro-wrestling. Maybe that was part of its "charm", or maybe we all romanticized this aspect of pro-wrestling for way too long.

AEW is definitely connected to pro-wrestling history, much more than any mainstream company ever was, really (I mean, before WWE "bought" a part of pro-wrestling history). Even IMPACT embraces their crappy TNA heritage (although in a very ironic way). I don't see any modern pro-wrestling that is just from nowhere with no attachment to pro-wrestling as it was. Even Lucha Underground was, despite the witches and killings and aliens.

Of course there are still pieces of shit in the business, but probably "less" than before, and really you won't hear a crowd chant "faggot" at a heel nor an announcer say "She likes it !" when a babyface sexually assault a heel valet. And probably less racist angles and characters too.

Maybe. But that was the 80's. 40 years ago. The idea that pro-wrestling in the 2020's should be anything like the pro-wrestling in the 80's doesn't make much sense to me (which is why I did not care for the first version of NWA Powerr). It's like saying hip-hop in 2020 should be inspired by Run DMC and Eric B & Rakim. I mean...

Yeah, totally agree with that point. I'm not sure I'd be interested in doing that honestly. I dunno. There's so much toxicity about old pro-wrestling especially in the US (blatant racism, homophobia, sexism) that it can be awkward to watch these days honestly (and really, some of these aspects already bothered me when I was 15 years old). As far as pure aesthetics, I take the Lucha Underground setting over anything from the past. And I love the more out there stuff that has been done both in IMPACT (Wrestler House) and AEW (Stadium Stampede). I for one love the fact pro-wrestlers of today have embraced the cheesiness of the history of pro-wrestling and have a meta approach to it at times. So it's really not a matter of "more 4* matches" (which really doesn't mean much since ratings are very subjectives). Basically I'm more excited about what's to come instead of what used to be. And I do believe that the best matches of today blow away the best matches of yesteryear in every aspect : moves and psychology. Not even close.

The end result showed that most of all, it was a pretty reactionary thing, very biased toward older and US stuff, very biased toward WWE (I guess 15 years of monopoly will do that), very biased against japanese women, lucha libre (which did better than in 2006 but not that great either, that being said the lucha libre fans did themselves no favors honestly with the goofy "lucha libre is the hardest pro-wrestling to get" argument which only gave bullets to some infamous lucha haters) and post 00's stuff that isn't WWE. I would hope a 2026 poll would balance itself with a much more open minded spirit toward the modern stuff, but considering the "pro-wrestling was better 20 years ago" mentality of many, I doubt it would be the case, sadly (or maybe in five years, people will complain that the zoomers can't work and that they miss the good old times of the 10's when pro-wrestling was good ). Fuck, I'd probably have a ballot with Omega, Okada, Tanahashi and Styles in the top 10 now, easily.

I've watched Hiromu vs Sho and yeah, you can scratch EASILY 15mn out of it. The first 15 minutes were basically wasting time with a totally aimless and neverending elbow exchanges and then two big spots outsides for fake drama purposes. And by fake drama I mean, no one ever wins a match by count out in NJPW, yet they do that "count goes to 19 and..... guy gets back in" every time. Ok, whatever, it's a trope. But they did it no less than 3 times in those first 15 minutes. Somewhere there's an excellent 17mn match buried in here, but the one thing going so long did for me was expose Sho as someone who just is not that great (he can do lot of stuff because of his physical abilities, but really he wasn't very compelling to watch out of himself, as it was obvious Takahashi was the one carrying the match from A to Z), which I don't think is the point. And kayfabe wise, you get the longest IWGP Jr. title match ever involving Sho ? Seriously now ? That doesn't make Hiromu look strong at all and that doesn't make this match go epic and legendary, it makes the whole thing just self-conscious about going way long for the sake of it. Considering the feedback, I'm not even sure I want to watch Ibushi vs Sanada, which I was quite interested in after WK. I wonder if this year is gonna end up being like last year, a great WK show (well, two of them), a great G1 Climax and really disappointing stuff in between with bad, repetitive booking with bullshit galore, and overlong matches.

WrestleMania 13 (1997) – Undertaker vs Sid First Taker Mania main event. First Mania WWF title match. Against Sid ! Poor fellow. We’ve reached the point where they begin to historicize Taker’s story in the company, and that goes along the fact he is wearing the old grey boots and gloves here, as if there is something to be « Old School » already. I did not remember Bret Hart cutting that awesome heel promo before they can start the match, but he sure did slay Micheals (who was announcing and doing a bad job at it) and tore down both Taker and Sid, before the later punched him out of the ring. One day I'll have to rewatch the whole Bret saga in 97, I think it's taken a bit for granted nowadays. So there goes a babyface vs babyface match with Taker doing his usual match beginnings until Sid... grabs a bearhold. I swear that’s the very first « offensive move » Sid does. And he lets go. And goes back to it. THREE TIMES. This match is already dead five minutes in. Taker takes a ridiculous backbump over the spanish table and we go into full incoming-Attitude Era tropes of slamming people on tables and stairs outside. Before.... grabbing a camel clutch ! Of course, why the fuck not. Sid is downright awful on offense and almost Giant Gonzalez bad on selling. And really, after Taker has done his requisite rope walk, which is a beginning-of-match spot, his comebacks aren’t really interesting as I pointed out before. And his selling isn’t super compelling either, he’s grimacing through his hair, his body is kinda wobbling around but there’s never something really specific about what he does. Oh fuck now HE grabs a nerve hold, this has to be a joke. Meanwhile, Sid does disgusting looking stuff like this pathetic powerslam which had zero power nor any slam to it. By the way, as nothing pretty much happens ever, Bret Hart shows up not once, but twice to fuck Sid up, which will actually cost him the match, so Taker’s win at the end really isn’t clean at all. Before that, they do a reverse Tombstone spot where Sid actually plants it and gets a nearfall out of it, so this is an interesting first occurrence of one classic spot-to-be of incoming Epic matches. This however is un-epic as fuck despite Sid kicking out of the chokeslam (again, that is gonna be a staple of big Taker Mania matches in the future). Hell, Sid does not even do the powerbomb nor even a simple tease of it, as the psychology is all over the place. In the end, just a bad, boring match. 1-5

Wow. They really have been killing it with TV main event since the start of the year. This was all I expected to be and then some. Actually, much better than I expected to be. There's a poetic justice to see KENTA here, after his hurtful NXT stint a few years ago. So much greatness in that match, the best insane brawl I've seen in a while. I also want to see Omega vs Archer now. Crazy to think that in a few months span, AEW Dynamite displayed the NWA women title, the IMPACT tag team titles and the NJPW US title. Sammy Guevarra shouting "You're recording me ?!" was funny as hell. Hey, Sammy, you actually brought a cameraman to feature this conversation on live TV. They should play it as Sammy was just looking for a reason to punch MJF ! But anyway, Sammy leaving and turning babyface is opening a lot of excellent stuff. On the minor stuff, it was interesting how they had Lee Johnson not credit QT Marshall for his training, as he looked pretty "WTF is this ?". Nice little teacher/student feud incoming there. Leila Hirsh going all Kurt Angle and doing a bunch of moonsaults and shit endears herself to me even more than she was before. She's green still, but I already enjoy to watch her a lot, tons of potential. Despite some rough spots, quite a good match thanks to Rosa. That women's tournament really is what the division needed, something simple and focused with good workers. I have seen enough of the Acclaim for now, thanks... Janela vs Allin was a very good opener I thought, despite not going at all for a crazy-as match, which they can do in the future. I wish they'd push Janela/Kiss instead of you know who, much better in every aspect. Odds that Sting is gonna get interrupted after one sentence next week ? I mean, good for him, he'll probably get a nice cinematic matches, but his weeky appearances have been diminishing returns AF, especially since he basically does the same thing every week, that is, nothing. I mean, the guy is 60 years old and hurt (thanks Rollins), he's not gonna bump around, so what do you do ? I wish they'd only have him on small doses, but what the hell. Hangman Page has to be the most sympathetic character in all pro-wrestling today. Loving every of his appearance and interactions. I could not care less about that Shaq match. It has been cursed from the beginning with bad promos, bad angles, there's no reason for it anyway (I mean really). I understand why they try to do, but AEW is best when they cater to the hardcore audience. Get this out of the way already and have Cody do something interesting again.

Well done. They sure glam'ed her up a notch...

That's interesting. I wouldn't know which one it is to me, really. I think I'd say the same thing, although binge watching pro-wrestling at times has absolutely been escapism from me (in times of depressive states for instance, I mean I did start to watch TNA in 2015 for that reason, as a shoot).

The very format of Twitter makes long "threads" unreadable to me.