El-P

The IIzuka retirement show was one of the most fun of the year thus far, with a lot of cool matches with unusual pairings. The retirement match and post-match mess was terrific. Crazy how they managed to get a great moment out of IIzuka. Suzuki's ten count was quite funny too. NJPW can really thank Suzuki-Gun, they are the true life of the heel side in the company.

I can't think of one legit movie star looking likle a pro-wrestler in the 80's (Micheal Douglas, Harrisson Ford, Al Pacino, Bob DeNiro… yeah, not really) . Fucking mullets, trashy bleached blond hair, ugly mug. Either that of the porn-stache look of Rick Rude or Scott Hall. There were actually a few good looking dudes (Martel, Steamboat, Hennig), but most of the heartthrob-type looked sleazy as fuck. Not that the generic short hair tribal tattoed goofs of the 00's were that much better, they could all have taken part in a gang-bang in a low-rent Brazzers video. But overall, there's no comparison between a guy like The Rock and a guy like Flair, who has charisma up his ass but "attractive" in a conventionnal way, not seeing it either. Oh, the idea of Batista being "good-looking" is quite puzzling to me BTW.

Not there yet, but on the previous week's show, on February 15, Caristico & Mistico & Valiente vs Los Guerreros Laguneros is just a great, great match. The diving sequence in the third fall is insane, the finish is beautiful, the pop is awesome. Really, CMLL shows on Youtube are a blessing.

I tend to agree. When Mack was doing Austin mannerisms in LU, he came off more like a cosplayer than a star, and it's not like he needs any makeup to look like a star on his own, he's got the working ability and charisma.

Oh, I have no doubt it will probably end up being very good, especially in the later phases, but I meant no way I'm watching all those live shows to follow the tournament from the beginning.

I dunno, the junior division has a great legacy. Guys like Ishimorii will never graduate to the heavies. They should absolutely do away with useless belts like the Openweight title, the 6 men whatever titles, the US belt which is akin to the old WWF European belt, hell even the IC title doesn't seem to be necessary (was it ever ?). Way too many titles, it's like Crockett in 87 or so. And honestly, although I totally do understand the culture as an old joshi puroresu fan, NJ should totally do a women's division. They have the best pool of talent available in their own country. Not sure the daughter of Animal Hamaguchi is still available though (old-school joke).

Holy shit, between Meltz basically calling Prichard outdated (well, he said that his knowledge is about the past, which is part of why it didn't work out in MLW with the younger talent) and a yesman and Jarrett saying during the (excellent) interview that he was basically a gofer for Patterson and a non-factor in his life, Brucie's got piled on quite on bit on this episode ! To his credit, Meltz said maybe it was gonna help the product in some respect. But the most interesting point to me is that he mentioned Bruce had been a soldier for Vince in both wars against Crockett and WCW, and he's basically the last of this kind. Hiring a guy like this kinda speaks volume of the mindset of Vince these days.

Willie Mack has been using it for a while now.

It also makes the whole thing way too much of a hassle to follow. This reeks of something you'd want to watch a best-of after the fact. I mean, Lance Archer vs Toa Henare, Cold Cabana vs Makabe, Elgin vs Whoever, Nakanishi vs Yoshi-Hashi... It's like those old KOTR qualifiers matches on Superstars...

You know this is bound to become a running gag everytime something half-decent will happen in the company now with all the crowd of fanboys of the podcast on Twitter. Speaking of which, any news from Conrad about this ? So, here goes Matt Hardy's retirement. How long did that one last ? Trve pro-wrestler, he is. At this point, they should just give the title to Kofi at Fastlane and have Bryan take it back at Mania and go on his merry way.

I second most of this, although I really liked the World Cup match more than you did apparently, even though it kinda lost a bit of steam once they went two vs two. I was quite impressed with how Bah put his shit in the best way imaginable with the luchadors, I enjoyed how they kept on building Drake vs Eddie, the diving sequence was terrific, they mixed in some comedy but not too much. "Someone call Peta" call by Matthews when Bah was against Puma King was quite a funny line. Kinda cool how they work those old TNA gimmicks in the current product. First World Cup was in 2004 I believe, and AAA was involved already. And yeah, Tessa vs Taya was excellent. Same match move per move in WWE and people would lose their shit over it and call it MOTYC, but since it's on iMPACT, it's barely been payed attention too. Fuck me Tessa is so good in this setting too, and you could see Taya is right at ease. Loved the details of Taya wearing the Perros del Mar shirt while Tessa had an old 4H on. Callahan beating on Swann was effective. Callahan is simply a terribly effective heel. Page vs Mack was quite good. The main event had its moment. I guess I like Moose more than most. Really enjoying Cross. I enjoy Johnny in a RVD way, in that he can do tons of cool shit, but damn his finisher is so awful. Yeah, the twists look cool, but it always looks like he barely touches his opponent. Reminds me of Chaparita ASARI in the 90's, now that's a dated reference no one will get today... Overall, agree it was a super strong episode. The current iMPACT format really works.

This. It's becoming very obvious social media are trash and only make everything worse.

Opening match. I actually would rather watch Omega play video games on Twitch than 50 years old Trip vs Batista having a banger of a boring as fuck nostalgia match at Mania. Put me in the "wouldn't give less of a fuck" crowd about this one. Well, since it's gonna be the only old legends match at Mania this year probably, maybe at least it will look different. As far as general interest, I guess this is gonna be hotter than anything involving Seth though... Good for Roman !

Who called Bolsonaro a dog ?

This. And this. And really, none of these fuckers would ever get close to a girl looking like Liv IRL, so calling her fat is a way to express their anger at sexual frustration, really. I mean, Scarlett Bordeaux has been called fat too apparently. Like... I can't find a facepalm emoji on there, but there you go.

A litany of awful angles and awful matches. Taker gets a pass for being involved in so much godawful stuff, but when you really think about it, I'm not sure the ratio of good angles and matches is very high when you consider his entire career. This 00's stuff is almost worse than the 90's, which had the charm of being new at least.

Which was quite good, until the usual AAA overbooking kicked in. I can never get too much Faby Apache in my life though. The next AAA Total Gira show was easily the best since the beginning of the year. Maybe the fact there was a lot of trios match helped (one fall only though), with Sammy Guevarra vs Laredo Kid being a very good spotfest. Top to bottom, a very enjoyable card, Poder Del Norte always delivering the good, this time in the best match of the night against Hijo del Vikingo, Aerostar & Drago. Even Jeff Jarrett looks good in this setting simply trading punches against Wagner Jr. Both intergender matches were very fun as always, I'm becoming a Lady Maravilla fan, and Faby is Faby. The English announcing from Vamp & Australian Suicide was comically awful. Like two regular dudes shooting the shit and not being very good at it. Suicide actually kinda got better toward the end when he got focused a bit on doing old-school heel color guy stuff, but really, it was totally non-professionnal.

Same things in France. My nephews followed pro-wrestling for a while with Cena on top. Actually I think they kinda stopped being a fan after going to see a live show, one thing that they missed was the announcing (which is indeed pretty terrific in its own ways). Cena is the last "mainstream" star they had here. No one knows who Roman Reigns is.

Liv Morgan ? FAT ? What are these people smoking ?!?

Lana says it's Rusev. Who are you to doubt Lana ?

Yeah. He only hosted the press conference for Double or Nothing.

This shit is crazy. That would be kinda glorious in its fuckery level. Can't wait for fanboys praising the booking now that he'll be part of a 57 members or so writing team. So, is it the end of Something to Wrestle With ? The latest episodes have been so-so, not offensive neither very good, so in the grand scheme of things, not a huge loss. Of course, maybe it means only a WWE approved version on the Network will surge. With Conrad's kinda sorta affiliations with AEW, I would doubt it though. Kinda funny how this podcast made Prichard relevant again. Think about the same news in 2014 or so. Nobody would give a flying fuck.

Some average looking men age quite gracefully, whereas those who only had the beauty of the youth often end up... well... like Shawn Micheals.

Is it me having issues on my side of things or is the board having regular downtime these days ?

Basically, the guy eating junkfood and living lazy is the babyface, and the progressive guy caring about the environment and his own health is the heel. At this rate, I'd have a SJW on a Pole match or something... (and I say that as someone who's often annoyed by some vegans' holier than thou attitude)