El-P

There's plenty of good stuff on Souled Out. The opener, Raven vs Benoit, Jericho vs Rey, Martel vs Booker, Flair vs Bret. And there's plenty of stuff they could have talked about with beginning the last great grossing years for WCW, instead they spend an entire match talking shit of Scott Steiner's owing Conrad money or something.

Avoid Souled Out 98. One of the worst watch-along show thus far. Spent way too much time not talking about the show *at all*.

Vince was a fresh act too. He "turned heel" (from being just an announcer) with the Bret screwjob, a few months before. And he was a great character. Stephy has been on TV on and off for almost 20 years at this point. 20 fucking years of dreadful promos and acting (yeah, she showed ass on occasion, mostly in the beginning, but she mostly acted like she was the Mother Hen and above any wrestler for most of this long, looooong time). As far as Rousey goes, nobody knows if she'll be any good at this point, either in the ring of as a character. And another sign they can't get over the Attitude Era. So yeah. A huge turn-off.

Ah ah ah. Stephy. She'll be on WWE TV for the next 20 years.

This about sums up why WWE has mostly been a shitty pro-wrestling promotion since it's became a publicly shared company. Pro-wrestling needs an alternative. Not ROH. Not TNA. It needs a new WCW. Well, not exactly, but you get my drift.

Because anyone knows who the fuck Stephy is already outside of the US wrestling bubble ?

I wish I had came off with that one !

Thanks. I don't mind a watch along once in a while. One of my favourite thus far, because it was one of the funniest to me, was actually the XFL.

Interesting as opposed to exciting as a TV product, yes. I mean, NJ delivers awesome main events regularly on big shows but the average undercard is bleh. Usual weekly WWE TV (not talking about NXT) is still unwatchable to me because of the format, production and god-awful scripted (in-ring promos and backstage stuff) shit. As a guy who never cared one bit about MMA, the Rousey stuff is interesting as far as business goes and how this woman will do in the company, but I never even saw her before the Rumble, so invested I'm not even one bit. Indy wrestling I have no interest into, really, as the style isn't for me (tried ROH a few times, never cared for it). Basically, what wrestling needs is a format change, and as long as WWE has no challenger, it won't happen. So I just wish LU gets a good fun S4, really. Availability is insane indeed.

Angle is underrated at this point. His work in TNA from his start up to where I'm at in early 2008 has only been a plus in my book. Is Angle the best comedic main-eventer ever ? I mean, no one has been pushed as the top guy while being portrayed as a goofball like he did. And in the ring, yeah, he was a go-go guy, but his matches with Joe are terrific and his feud with Christian clearly delivered too. He's on the upswing with me. He's also straight from the Ric Flair (go-go-go) school of work, down to his submission hold that everyone knows how to counter (which used to annoy me, but I take it as an Angle trope at this point, much like I ended up accepting the stupid as fuck 619).

Watching AJ Styles under Russo in TNA in late 00's is pretty eye opening. Despite the booking clearly making him second fiddle to Angle and a goof of a character, Styles still manages to shine whatever position he was put in, and he was a trooper in the backstage/angle stuff. His stuff with Karen showed how much he embraced whatever was thrown at him and was all about making it work, no matter how goofy it was.

BTW Thread Killa, do you recommend actually doing the watch along with this episode, or do you think it would work just as well just listening to it (like you, I used to not be thrilled with the watch along formula for Tony's show, but I actually warmed up to it because I'm an old WCW mark and I don't mind rewatching this stuff *one more time*, again, after all) ?

Those Legends of ECW roundtables with Sandman are pretty funny. Episode 7 had Francine & Jerry Lynn brought to tears listening to Hak tells some of his stories and never shutting up. Warms the heart of this old ECW fan.

It's been discussed in great length before, including during the GWE poll. I finally came to term with it like I said, but for the longest time, it really annoyed me. Similar to the setup for the stinkface or broncobuster. Not a natural position in which wrestlers sell. It's something they only do in matches against Rikishi, or Rey in this case. I don't like it, but it's not enough to dismiss him as a worker in the least. Which is fair enough, but why hold that solely against Rey when it's clearly a WWE stylistic issue? (I don't mean you - just anti-Rey malcontents in general.) I was totally holding this against the WWE style too with their stupid trademark silly moves. Rey made the best out of it because he's great, but to me it was making him gimmicky, and it really wasn't necessary to get him over. I mean, fucking Rey Jr. Keep the silly gimmick spots for underneath guys who don't have much else.

It's been discussed in great length before, including during the GWE poll. I finally came to term with it like I said, but for the longest time, it really annoyed me.

If youre talking about Cole, that was his name in the Indys. I'm talking about "The Undisputed Era". Sounds like what a Japanese team would call themselves, in typical awkward English. Like "The Authors of Pain", it kinda sounds like it doesn't really mean anything, but almost does (actually, the later sounds pretty good in French).

Adam Cole strikes me as a better looking Steve Corino. His match with Black was excellent. Fish & O'Reilly are a tremendous team, from what I've seen. The typical random WWE name is stupid though.

Yep, too much of Conrad reading results/book extracts, as always during these episodes. This is why I like when the topic is more focused on a period or a PPV.

Fuck that "character work" talking point nonsense. Was Duke Droese "character work" garbagy enough ? What the fuck is Gargano's "character work" apart from "underdog babyface" ? Ember Moon is "fiery babyface with a cool look". If that's not enough for you, well... Don't make pro-wrestling more complicated than it needs to be.

I'll have to watch this when it's done and I can get the whole thing in one swoop.

AJ Styles is not in the same universe as Shawn Michaels. People are sleeping on how great he was in TNA since the very beginning and despite Russo treating him like a joke. Quite frankly, at this point, if another GWE poll was to happen, I would have Styles as a sure Top 10. Top 5 maybe. So I rewatched the women's Rumble. Loved it again. Accusation of sloppiness ? Because the men's Rumble don't have that ? Come on now, most of the guys don't know how the fuck to work around the ropes anyway, it's been the case for almost 20 years. Seriously, when you put everything in perspective (by that I mean the use of the old-timers making a comeback just for the occasion and filling a lot of the spots because of roster constraint), it was not only clearly one of the top tier Rumble, but simply one of the best ever. And Becky Lynch's performance there can't be praised enough.

Yep. All because of the 619. It took me a while for me to make peace with that damn spot. Rey being awesome in Lucha Underground probably helped.

My bad. I guess it's only Alvarez then. Cena truly is a strange beast.

Oh yeah, but in WWE-land he was never as explicitly portrayed as the great 'performer' or 'showstopper' in that weird half-kayfabe/half-shoot way like Shawn and Bret were. Especially Shawn. Oh yeah, the WWE Narrative is all fucked up and the only reason Shawn is viewed as highly as he is to me (and that actually includes Meltz too, for whatever reason). I was thinking in the more broader sense. Well, you'll always find *someone* not enjoying something or someone to the extent most do of course (I'm that guy quite regularly ). But I do think Rey is mostly revered as both a legend and an all-time great.

Ok, who doesn't think Rey is one of the greatest ever at this point ? Seriously now, he was pushed as an unbelievable wrestler back in WCW.