El-P

Yep, seems like the strong "argument" days and Conrad "standing up" for Meltz are over. Sorry to ask, but what happened with Lawler ?

"When you have to think about "Is having a drink today an issue or not ?", you're already having an issue." But not really, all things considered. Having shared the life of an alcoholic, you get some habits sometimes though.

The clue makes it real easy. Kinda brillant.

I guess listening to Meltz is the way I kept in touch with the scene as for a very, very long time, I was only following WWE from the business standpoint. I went back for a few years (more or less when Daniel Bryan won at Mania until the Saudi Arabia debacle, with various spots of interest) but the WWE still is a pretty awful product to watch anyway (some matches are great, but that's it, all the rest is eye gouging), so I'm probably going back to following more or less the business side again. Listening to the Bruce podcast certainly goes into that category as well. LU, which is the promotion I've been following the past few years, really, I don't care about the backstage stuff.

I'd guess around 10 hours a week, but it can be a lot less or a lot more, depending on the mood. I'm binge watching TNA (currently 2008) but not always an episode a day either, or I can go hardcore and then not watch for an entire week. Plus I've got back to watch some 00's puroresu, mostly NOAH stuff and some current NJ, but when it's matches only it takes less times usually, so it's more digestible. As of now, I've dropped any WWE content (not saying I miss much, but I was regularly batting an eye at some weekly show matches and watched all the PPV, although cherry picking a lot of the time). Can't wait for LU to start again, as this is super easy to watch.

Damn. Kane suck at politics too. And yeah, the fact Enzo's case was closed doesn't mean he didn't do anything, really...

Even husbands and wife don't talk during the week. They wait until they get to RAW to address their issues either in the ring or in backstage segments, only when the camera is on. The WWE Universe is one fucked up twilight zone when you think about it...

I never listened to a second of this ones, but it's pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. Yep. Not listening to that bullshit !

It's striking how different Jado & Gedo work compared to the usual NJ teams. They are much more US influenced and it shows, as they are more about getting heat than anything else. They are still really solid though and have their act down pat (they really polished it, along with their bodies, in FMW before joining NJ, which was quite surprising at the time to me). It doesn't produce the great matches Kikuchi & Kanemaru usually have against Liger & (insert cool NJ junior) but it's a nice change of pace and approach. Jado has a terrific lariat to go along Gedo's terrific frogplash. Very good stuff.

Makoto Hashi, the guy who thought it was a good idea to emulate Hiroyoshi Tenzan. As a junior wrestler. Well that fact apart, he was still quite the solid worker, going against veteran ass-kicker Kanemoto, getting his ass beat for a long while because Koji is just that much more experienced, better, meaner and hell, you're a Tenzan wannabe. It's all about Hashi proving himself worthy of pushing the almost legend to the edge and maybe score the upset. Very good match, because Kanemoto knows his stuff and Hashi's goofy (and neck-cracking) offense still gets over.

Different dynamics as this one is held in NJPW. Well, Tanaka is still an arrogant prick and Liger is still heelish as hell. This is the one Kikuchi looks kinda rough at times, especially selling some of the shots like he's Kevin Sullivan or something. Still, it's really really good but not on the level of their previous one (the NJPW early 00's jinx effect ?). It was time to shake things up a bit. Still, a more than welcomed addition, with a whole lot of Liger vs Kikuchi goodness, while Kanemaru & Tanaka compete for who can be the biggest asshole. Tanaka was smooth as hell. No wonder he got Yumi.

Tanaka was in full "I'm married to Yumi Fukawa and you're not" mode. He's such a great heel, I had no idea he had this in him (I'm more used to the old Battlart Tanaka). Yet another terrific junior interpromotional war, and that's all there is to it. It really gave Kikuchi a nice last great stint, although he looked really rough at times. But damn, heel Liger getting elbowed in the face never gets old. Great match. Again.

Yeah, and that comes through more and more and actively drives my interest away, because the more it goes, the more the show looks like it's just a vehicule to sell shit and live shows now. My IRL distaste for sellers doesn't help I guess, but the whole Conrad stuff playing himself as "just a fan" when he's actually dating Flair's daughter and on the other hand bragging constantly about his large collection of memorabilia that he *OWNS*, ya know, is just getting tiresome, if not plain annoying. I've not given up because there are some good topics coming up, and a few of the last shows have been really good (the RVD one).

It's been mentioned in the previous post that : and then my quote was : So there. As far as the rest goes, Bischoff is notoriously full of shit. And judging from the first episode, which I have listened, and various other interviews over the years, both in podcast and in classic Shoot interview mode (with KC), he's also not very entertaining nor engaging to me. So... And really, the idea of yet another Conrad show just doesn't appeal to me at this point and what I read in this thread, including from people who actually like the show, just confirm my idea that I'm not missing much at all, considering who's involved.

Meltz totally burying Bischoff on the Bret Hart deal was quite entertaining. The fact Bischoff comes after Sullivan now apparently makes it even worse to me, as Sully as been credited by many as quite important to WCW's success during those days. Yeah, no time to listen to another bullshit show. At least Prichard is entertaining.

Fuck me ! Really ? This video is everything why WWE sucks so bad. So wrong on every level.

Off-topic : Holy shit man. In another life (the previous century), I was a medievalist too. I wrote my Master's thesis on Normand lineages in the Celtic fringes in the XI & XII centuries.

Had a long-time girlfriend (attractive but crazy), an average paid job (French teacher in an international organization), a flat (small but near the center of Paris). Left all three a few years ago. Tried something else with someone else somewhere else. Failed. Since then, as Grandaddy would say : "I'm on standby". (and that's my post 9966. Perfect number.)

These last two legit cracked me up.

I could say a thing or two about Nia Jax, but I'm not sure how well it would be recieved... Ok, what the hell. Let me preface this by re-afirming that I find Nia Jax to be a mostly crappy worker who brings exactly jackshit to the table apart from a few basic power moves. I rated her as a third rate Eagle Sawaii before, but I'm not sure if she's even at this level. And just as poor a heel as a babyface. So, there it is. I also don't see shit in Jax "good looks" as sold by WWE. Maybe IRL (and by that I mean when she hasn't got a hundred layers of bad makeup plastered on her face and poorly reciting awful written promos) she is charming and all, but what I see on WWE TV really isn't. I'll go a step further, the way WWE pushed her as being attractive and model-like effectively makes her unattractive to me. Not to even mention the reason why they are pushing her that way (PC/PR bullshit), despite the fact they are going for the idiotic "be yourself' stuff, they are actually pushing Nia Jax as a form of super normative beauty type, with the über feminine makeup and long flowing hair. "Ok, she's a super big girl, but look at her face, she's actually in the norm of what's accepted as female beauty, she's model-like". She's absolutely not "herself" as in unique and attractive because of it. She's almost branded as "big *BUT* model-like" in a super normative way. To me (and that struck me from the very first time I saw her) she looks like Chyna post-operation when she was making herself more feminine. Again, maybe she looks super fine and has a terrific personnality IRL, but what I see on WWE TV is some unassuming monster-like worker (by her body-type only, that's what is being presented) cosplaying as a PC/PR barbie-doll-for-big-girls. The fact she really isn't a good performer at all on any level surely doesn't help seeing through that stuff either. Now I'll take another exemple. I always thought Bison Kimura was attractive. Yeah, Bison Kimura. Not the same kind of body type, but not exactly your typical hot modely girl either. And that face too with the grotesque makeup. Hell, someone mentionned Reggie Bennett earlier. I second this. The giant Kim Deal-like smile probably played a huge part. The huge boobs too (let's be blunt for once). But there was something about Reggie Bennett (a BIG girl in her own right) that was definitely really attractive, something about her personnality that came through. Meanwhile, Nia Jax being *sold* as model-like and presented in a very conscious effort with a normative kind of beauty (despite her frame : what matters is her overly plastered face and worked hair, which is the idea of "attractive" to the WWE people. As they can't sell her body, they focus on her face.) absolutely works against her to me, because it contradicts itself both formally (ok, that's subjective I guess, I do not find her attractive at all, that's a fact) and as far as what they are pretending to present (a "different" kind of beauty, which she is not, she's actually totally obeying and conveying a sense of norm).

Arn Anderson always seemed to me like he would be big there too.

Agreed. Which is why I'd say that by default, most of the WWE-only workers are overrated by default. Unless they go work in a different context where everything is not as micro-managed, there's no way of knowing what they are really able to do outside the context of machine. I'd argue that Kurt Angle became a better worker in TNA. Ditto Christian Cage. That's from current viewing experience. True. But we can't ignore what we know about the context (ie : the agenting, for instance Pat Patterson putting Hogan vs Warrior at Mania 6 together and them rehearsing it) and the workers in question from other matches or simply verified informations (like Flair & Steamboat calling it in the ring, but also having worked a hundred times together, or Savage and DDP laying it in advance and getting the best matches ever out of super limited guys in the process) Then again, the match being good/bad is very subjective. Meanwhile, a match can be poor but one of the guys involved can be clearly responsible for it sucking, while the other still has a good showing. From there, you can point to positives and negatives about each worker, the match itself being less important in putting out an evaluation. And then again, all of it is from an outside perspective, where only matters what is produced. The production itself we could not give a shit about, which is where stuff like people loving to work with Kane or Randy Orton comes from, despite the fact it doesn't matter in the end result, seen from the audience's perspective. So yeah, what do we know...

The more I watch NOAH Misawa, the more I'm fascinated and it reminds me how great this man was both as a worker and actually as a booker too. Here he is, leading his new company toward new coasts in dream matches that could never happen because of Baba isolationist mentality, and most of all preparing the field for his men to get over on the big stage. So he gets Chono, who is still in heel mode here (as opposed to the following year when he will already have turned into more of a legend figure) and also much more active than in the Kobashi match in 2003. Yet, we're leading toward that match already, as Misawa, who barely loses anyway, won't be able to take Chono down and go to a 30 mn draw. Now that may seem a crazy thought, especially by 2002 in a Dome (ah, the days where NJ would still run several Dome shows a year), but it actually works really well because Misawa knows what the fuck he's doing, and Chono is game enough. Sure, it's a slower paced match. Sure, there's a lot of repetition of spots, but it's because the match works that way : who is gonna put the other one down with his favourite weapon : the elbow / the kenta kicks ? They mix up other spots too : Chono going for a few submissions, and Misawa doing a really good job putting the STF (whom everybody knows won't get him, really); Misawa actually does an emerald frosion on the ramp (which allows Chono to not have to kick out out it right way, as Misawa is also selling a piledriver too by that point, so it takes quite some time before they get back in the ring). A super neat sequences comes after Chono uses the Russian Legswip, which was a Baba spot, so Misawa retaliates with the same spot followed by a neckbreaker drop (again, old Baba spot). Yeah, some fine reference work there, again as Misawa uses the manjigatame on Chono (he gets countered of course, since he's not as good as Chono at it, it's a Inoki hold after all). Plenty of neat little stuff like this, until the point where it comes down to Chono not being strong enough to sustain Misawa's elbows (who is ?), yet manage to work enough counters and muster enough will to work up a few kenta kicks of his own. At this point, it's a matter of him not sinking more than beating Misawa (come on now, Chono ain't gonna beat Misawa)? leading to an unexpected draw. Another thing : Misawa didn't drop Chono on his head once inside the ring. That will be Kobashi's not-so -secret-weapon. So yeah, this was not an epic spectacle nor a magnificient action packed match, but it was just right, it told a fine story, Misawa did an excellent job making the most out of Chono's sometimes really light offense, it felt like two big stars finally colliding, there was the old AJ vs NJ feel to it. Really good, smart, compelling stuff. And it let the door open for Kobashi, the real Ace of NOAH (still to come) to beat Masa Chono. Misawa was such a great, great pro-wrestler, coupled with a selfless booker.

I'm very aware (although the musical analogy always cracked me up because ECW was using Guns & Roses as the music theme for their major show deep into the 90's and grunge was already dead when the Raven character debuted, but for the pro-wrestling bubble, they were as current as you could be I guess). Hey, this is clearly my generation of slackers... But I thought I'd be almost the only one on this board still proudly waving the flag of good ol' ECW, its sloppy spotfests, über sexist-catfights, grotesque bloodletting, inane balcony jumps and Joey Styles screaming out of his lungs, not to mention the most crass and obnoxious audience ever.

I'm shocked, I thought you'd say CMLL. Interesting to have so many ECW guys. And an actual TNA fan.