El-P

The AAA show from January 26 was much better. Highlights were Drago vs Parka Negra vs Argenis vs Golden Magic and the very good trios match of Murder Clown, Myzteziz Jr. & Hijo del Vikingo vs Averno, Chessman & SuperFly. The Wagner & co vs Fantasma & co match was good but nothing special, with the rudos usual beat up at the end. Much less angle driven and garbagey than the previous Total Gira show. I guess they are building toward a Fantasma vs Wagner Jr. (who kinda looks like an old Randy Savage too) match at some point. Edit : I had not watched the main event yet. Ok, I guess a "You sick fuck" chant is warranted. I have no idea what the standard is for this kind of stuff today, but I feel like it's a bit destroying your body for not a whole lot. Ciclope's totally scarred up body is kinda disgusting, the fact he worked the match with a 100 dollar bill stapled on his forehead was kinda funny.

That sentence makes no sense to me. I don't understand one bit of what you're saying there. I don't think it's even grammatically correct (and I'm not even an English-speaking native, but this sentence seems rotten to me)

No shit ? Say what again ? Anyway. This is a useless discussion at this point. Your pedantic ways of talking down to people (what year are we again ?) and your inability to understand why you rub some people wrong around here makes it a total waste of time.

If you meet one asshole during the day, you're unlucky. If you meet ten assholes during the day, maybe you got to think about the way you act toward people.

Ok. At this point you're just being dense on purpose. The only one struggling about anything here is you struggling with the notion that your attitude on the board (aka putting yourself over while at the same time denying you're doing so) is why people get really annoyed. That's it.

Fuck me. AGAIN THIS ? You're on auto-repeat now.

Yeah, Aries is a great worker, terrific promo, got tons of charima. Hopefully it's him coming back.

Damn. To me he looks like a cosplayer with no budget nor flair for aesthetics doing comedy garbage spots like the godawful paper cuts. Maybe that's the other half.

Coincides with the interest in Total Divas dropping way down apparently.

Oh, ok. I just wish the TV fee bubble would collapse though. Speaking of which, first Saoudi Parts Unknown show of the year is scheduled in May. There we go again...

Well, it didn't go that well... Davey Boy Smith didn't work well with the Lucha Bros. No chemistry there, I was waiting huge power spots and the Luchas bumping off of him. That's been the one issue I've had with the Luchas, is that they are kinda forcing their style no matter against who they work. If it clicks, it can be terrific like against LAX. Here, not so much. The Doomsday Destroyer is the most spectacular tag team finisher ever though, just amazing to watch. Koto Brazil's just got something special. Some extra oomph with everything he does and tons of expressivity. Martinez is a decent bearded-tatooed heel. Good match I thought, but they fucked up the timing of the finish something fierce. Not too sur who to blame here, but Koto jumping back on Martinez instead of going toward Salina kinda did it I think. Salina looked awesome though and I like her being really active, old-school style. Matt Striker calling Koto Brazil "Swann" was kinda awkward. He could have waited until Koto grabbed Salina by the throat at least.... (yeah, that's a low blow). I know MLW is like the anti-epic promotion, but at some point, you've got to deliver something with a little bit more meat. That main event was ridiculously short. Good for what it was, but after the build of "14 years undefeated" (which is great old-school carny bullshit, since MLW has, what, 4 years of existence total at best ?), not satisfying. Too bad Schiavone wasn't here, as I really don't care for Striker in that setting (and that's from someone who enjoys him in LU, I guess the duo with Vampiro is better than the sum of its parts). Him selling the pepper gas was kinda attention-whoring I thought. Trying to hard here... So yeah, not a huge success I'd say. Plus as always, these MLW crowds look kinda dead. Teddy's line to MJF about "go join the elite" was funny though.

Yeah, did he even realize what he said ?

Meltz said it's a trend that has been going on for quite a while now and is getting worse.

I guess she did. That being said, there's no saying on much she'll actually be on the shows Fox bought at that ridiculous prices. Plus if those ratings don't get really good (and there's no positive sign they will), who knows...

If we're being honest, the Ronda Rousey experiment as far as a drawing card has failed. And Becky Lynch is the hottest name in a cold company right now. The ratings are sinking and sinking. They did not sell out the Rumble. The female audience doesn't seem to care. It's just not working.

That reminds me Yokozuna is gonna be joining WCW as part of the nWo. Apparently, Jimmy Havoc is all in. Well, that's a name I don't exactly care for, everything I've seen from this guy was meh at best, stupid and quite bad at worst. The Lucha Bros. teasing on the latest BTE is another thing though. Just like seeing that brief appearance from Pillman. Those three, yeah.

Of course he is. And fuck me, he scored Lana (yeah, I know how awful that sentence sounds, but I use it on purpose because we're talking about the twisted perception that a guy like him *shouldn't be* with woman like that coming from the office they both work for), so how's that for being attractive and charismatic ?

Rusev & Lana is definitely an act that would get over huge in AEW I believe. Of course the WWE would never let them go at this point, despite doing absolutely jackshit with them. The toxicity of this company has been established many many times.

The Harris Bros would be a step up from this.

Well, I don't do watch-along anymore, but you convinced me to try that one out. The Starrcade 96 podcast had a quite interesting bit to me. I was very surprised to hear about it, and it was quite cool to hear about the fact WCW got to replace WWF in France in late 1996. I got a kick out of hearing Bischoff correcting Conrad on how to prononce "Canal Plus", which was the TV channel where I discover pro-wrestling back in 1990. I liked how Bischoff said it was a major coup for them because the aura of Canal Plus (which was very real back then) helped them get validation to win more market in Europe. Of course, when the switch occured, I was livid as a long time WWF fan. To me WCW was some sort of unknown erzatz whose mere existence only came to my knowledge during a trip in Ireland with my parents in 1992, when I saw some Lex Luger & Ric Flair (whom I knew because they were WWF at the time) figurines in a store (and a bad reportage about pro-wrestling on French TV show the same year, in which I could see for the very first time videos of Vader, Cactus Jack and Ron Simmons preparing for Halloween Havoc). I was such a blind WWF mark then (yeah, hard to believe now) two of my stupidest reaction watching Nitro were : "who is that lame old guy named Arn Anderson ?" and "that Rey Mysterio Jr. guy ain'y shit, it's easy to fly like that when you're so small". Yeah... Of course, it only was a matter of a few weeks for me to become a closet WCW fan, as their product was so much more exciting than WWF at the time, plus it was really my first exposure to mexican guys (I had seen NJ stuff before on Eurosport). Anyway, the fact Conrad brought this up was really cool and interesting I thought. And to me, it was the beginning of broadening my taste in US wrestling (the next year or so I would have access to ECW on a german channel).

And while the crew was having fun in Japan, Rush vs Euforia had a terrific match at Arena Mexico on 01/25. The heat in the third fall was something else. Quite the bomb throwing spectacle. For anyone who doesn't "get" Rush, well, this would be a pretty good eye opener. (on the undercard, Mil Mascaras working as "Gilbert" and looking like a uglier jacked up Bret Hart with red hair isn't exactly the same thing as, well, Mil Mascaras)

Shane McMahon is co-holder of one set of tag-team championship. Take this fact the way you want.

Well, the idea of good work is not giving the other guy a concussion either. If both guys are good workers, a DDT is both painless and safe. That was the art of pro-wrestling. I remember Bruce Prichard mentionning how taking the DDT from Jake Roberts was the easiest bump he ever took. Let's say you're a worker. What would you rather take ? A piledriver from prime Jerry Lawler or a chop from Walter ? The other day on Fantastica Mania, 50 year old Liger did his brainbuster on 48 years old Mima Shimoda (she was alongside Okamura). It looked great. I'm pretty sure she barely felt it.

Holy shit. Let me spell it for you again. N.O.B.O.D.Y. G.I.V.E.S. A .F.U.C.K. Nobody's jealous. Nobody's mad. People just find your ways unbearable because of the way you make yourself seemingly so important everytime you say something. At this point, "I'm friend with X" and "Wrestlers and fans have never been so close, if you don't get it you don't get pro-wrestling in 2019" is akin to "Me and my odd tastes". How do you like Volk Han ? for fuck's sake… get over yourself... (the micro echo-chamber thingy favorized by social media really makes people dense as all fuck. Future isn't bright people.)

The last iMPACT of January had two strong matches in Johnny Impact vs Killer Kross (who I'm slowly enjoying more and more as an in-ring worker) and Rich Swann vs Vikingo. Also, the angle developing between Swann & Callihan is good stuff, bringing a multidimensional aspect to both guys. Ater watching Swann working more heelish in MLW, I wouldn't mind see the same style for him here. The Rascalz gimmick is flying way, way over my head (I guess it's a millennial thing...) but their finisher is the coolest I've seen in a long time. Also, it was so good to see Melissa Santos ! Last but not least, Scarlett Bx's training video was pretty funny. Her literally deep throating a banana in the most casual way ever was gold.