El-P

You're right, segregated crowd is the best. Who cares that no woman can get in by herself, they are booing the heels, yipeeeeee.

Mostly slow. Cena's stuff looks awful. he was always awkard, but jeez, these shots makes Taue look like Low Ki.

This is such a mediocre house show match.

I wish we were in the reality where Angle married Steph and Triple H is being embarrassingly booked with Ciampa was his illegitimate kid. He's about as ripped as Ciampa too...

And he books himself vs Cena as the opener, in case this show goes totally awry (and really, by the end people are gonna be spent). The Game is not a gimmick, it's a way of life.

Bwahahah !! I was wondering what you were refering to (again, a few minutes behind), this is a great call !

HHH is sporting quite the impressive beard...

I want Mania in Dubaï in two years. I heard from good source you can get shitfaced over there without much issue.

And here goes the propaganda. Hey, the Saudi anthem at a WWE show and no heel coming down the aisle to talk shit about the good ol' US of A ? SURREAL as fuck already... Damn, some expats in the crowds.

That was one of the point of the propaganda (and yet segregation policy) : having tickets more accessible for men with women than for single men.

I can watch the greatest propaganda pro-wrestling card since WCW in Korea "almost live" right at happy hour time. Gotta get some beer. This has to be surreal. No woman. Segregated audience. A pause for prayer. And a Roman Reigns coronation (again!!!!!! (probably not)) ? What the fuck WWE ?

Listen to Tony watch ECW from this week. I'm not saying EVERYONE should, but you should. A little goes a long way but it's appropriately surreal and ridiculous. It loses a bit of steam by the end (which happens in every damn watch-along), but Tony Schiavone marking out watching RVD throw chairs into Lance Storm's face, loosing his shit over Francine and doing absurd commentary over the MPro match was gold. I love the fact Tony is a Raven fan too. (and damn, that PPV was fun, I never thought I'd watch it again) EDIT : damn, I forgot Terry Funk won with an inside craddle. Rewatching this, I'm so glad I was an ECW fan. It's still great shit and I got a kick out of Tony loving the main event. For a guy was was "bitter" about pro-wrestling for so long, it's so cool to hear him enjoying the hell out of this nonsense. We're living in amazing times for pro-wrestling (despite all the bullshit), honestly.

You're being way generous. Scott Keith is a relik from the previous millenium. I have no idea why there's still a thread about him going on here tbh. It's like complaining about Compuserve or the latest update of Netscape.

Indeed. But fuck "watching" that on Youtube. >>> Convert to mp3. The RVD episode was really good. I happened to agree with Prichard quite a bit, especially about being unique like RVD (or Cena) being very important. The HHH running gag was funny (although it seems obvious that HHH did contribute to hold RVD down at one point where he was one if not the most over guy in the company).

One of those two has to be a mega-heel there...

Sammy was pimped pretty heavily back in the glory days of the NJ junior fandom. To me he's maybe the greatest awkward worker ever this side of Taue. There's a topic for you, great awkward looking workers : Samurai, Angle, Taue. As opposed to great elegant workers (which are less) : Misawa, Windham. Totally agree about the pendulum effect on Kandori BTW. She was very underrated and she became quite overrated at one point. Since classic joshi is not very much talked about (although it's cool to see a younger generation discover it again now), the pages are probably blank now.

Gently go fuck yourself, TriPaul.

Is Cena booked for that one ?

Nothing screams more "Mid-00's NOAH" than the KENTA & Marufuji team. Total post 2000 blowjob babyface japanese tag team. Marufuji looks like some hostess-boy for geek girls too. Kenta had evolved past the Kobashi understudy then and was all kicking and hitting hard. Kanemaru shines again in his dickish glory. Meanwhile, Makoto Hashi (damn, forgot about that fellow) thought it was a good idea for a junior to emulate Tenzan. People are odd. Well, this is mostly excellent, especially when KENTA is in, either kicking the crap out of the heels either being punted around. Hashi slapping him for no reason just after KENTA took that brutal bodyslam from the ramp was neat. This is also very much a modern junior style match : apron spot, kicking out of what looked like death spots. Excess incoming, but that was the style and they do a really good job at it, as KENTA is actually a great babyface both in peril, hope and kicking back. Marufuji.... well, I like Maru. He's an innovator, he truly is. For better or worse, he's kinda the blueprint for what was to come. Some of his stuff looks amazing. Some looks cringeworthy. It would be neat if he could hit at least one superkick that looks good from time to time. This really isn't it (ok, the last one on Hashi was nice), and since he hits like four of five of them... The ending sequence is a pretty awful botch too that he tries to catch up doing some fucked up La Majistral. More power to him, but really, Maru... Well, overall it was still a very good match thanks to strong performances especially by KENTA & Kanemaru.

In the grand scheme of things, I agree with that. As far as Moolah goes, she was an asshole anyway you slice it and she's dead, so yeah, the collective bias probably plays a part. That being said, none of the stories about "She treated *me* right" are convincing that she didn't do any really dirty stuff. FWIW, Prichard (yeah, I know) said he never even heard about the Savage rumour until years after the fact. To me it's one of those things that came up during the infamous "sleaze thread" and became its own urban legend. Very hard to believe honestly. (now, you've told me Lawler, then it would be way different...)

Especially since he doesn't actually gives any sources at all. When the whole Battle Royal deal happened, he wasn't exactly that straight on the issue either, saying on the WOR show that these stories were "probably way exagerated", but he didn't give any of those straight "debunking" either. So it does comes out of the blue and without any actual sources on this one. Like Grimmas said, considering how he handled the Elgin & Swann situations, not exactly sure how to read that one. (to give him credit, he's saying this in the middle of an argument about how the Saudi Arabia issue is much more problematic and embarrassing, which I agree with)

Indeed, not at all. This is great. Wait, what ? Sometimes I wonder if people are actually watching the same matches I do... No offense. But Liger & Kanemoto absolutely work heel from the get-go, disrespecting NOAH junior belt even before the match starts. You'd expect Kikuchi & Kanemaru not taking that too well, hence the first chaotic brawling part of the match, peaking with that ridiculous (and stupid, let's be honest) headbutt by Kikuchi, allowing them to beat on NJ asshole Kanemoto. It's gonna haunt the old, fat, gassed up fuck later on, during a long heat sequence on his ass, which include the greatest camel clutch ever by the Liger/Kanemoto duo. Kikuchi finally manage to make a hot tag (as the babyface dynamic commands) to get onto the last stretch. Although some of his stuff looks downright bad, Kikuchi really is the star of the match, and some of his timing, as well as attitude, is quite awesome. Yet again, kudos to Misawa for booking that awesome Kikuchi resurgence in the early 00's after years of doing nothing in AJ after the great early 90's stuff. Liger shows again why he's probably the best interpromotionnal worker ever. Complete antagonist here. Kanemoto is crisp as ever, although he does no-sell on random at times like he always does (the brainbusters series interrupted after two for the worst offense to selling 101) while Kanemaru kinda takes a little step back to his old-ass elbowing partner but still working some cool shit against his NJ counterpart Kanemoto. Liger keeps on being a dick even after he won. Great match.

Funny and topical, as I'm waching the Back to the Territories Houston edition (which is excellent BTW, a real pleasure), at some point Cornette mentions Moolah in a rather sarcastic way, to which Bruce says "Hey, don't disparage the good name of Lilian". Cornette then goes "She was always wonderful to me". Bruce "To me too". Cornette, under his breath a bit "… we didn't train under her".

FWIW, from the French TV timeframe, this is gonna be a 4h 40 mn show (this include a commercial break or two here). Insane.

Tanaka still looks like FMW Tanaka here. Saito has blonde hair. So when they face off, it looks like Tanaka is workintg against an uncool looking erzatz of Mr. Gannosuke. Odd. Also odd to see Tanaka be a dick, as he always was a perenial babyface. He does it quite well though, as he should since the first half of the match is mostly him and Ohtani, who's used to being a dick and loves to slap people around, doing heelish stuff like they are the Fabulous Ones or something. They do get heat although the home team is also a bunch of dicks. Akiyama does no sell a ton at first, like "I'm not selling that second rate promotion weak shit", and he doesn't make a lot of effort to put the opposition over. Honestly, I'd go so far to say he was the worst of the four here, as Saito is getting used to get his ass kicked now and does it well. It's like Akiyama was a bit disinterested to make this compelling honestly. There's a ludicrous no-selling exchange with him and Ohtani early which doesn't look very good, but apart from that he was still at least (and at best) *good*. Maybe the fact he didn't work on top kinda took its toll on his motivation. Anyway, after an okay "let's heel up" period, the finishing stretch finaly gets things going and Tanaka finally shines doing what he does. Heavyweight Ohtani still can deliver a terrific top rope dropkick on the back of your head too. NOAH's booking really was putting emphasis on Saito, as he's the one who gets to shine at the end. Very good match in the end.