El-P

The tales of two matches. Well, three parts actually. RVD was clearly the MVP of the match, and kudos to HHH for taking those brutal bumps on the steel two. Blood. Wow, that was another era although it looks almost the same as today. RVD makes the most out of the gimmick, which also allows him to look better than he actually is. Jericho gets in and the match keep on focusing on RVD, with Jericho packing heat on him while working along HHH. Then Booker gets in. Well, he's not looking that good, but he's Booker. Then. Well, RVD gets eliminated and the crowd DIES. They didn't want that result at all. From there, after the crowd has died, so does the match and it's only fitting that Kane is getting in to suck like only he can. What a boring worker this guy has been for 25 years. The only thing that save his part is Jericho being thrown through the "bulletproof" glass, which is a gimmick spot but a rather cool one, although it kinda make the announcer look like fools. Also, fucking up your structure in the very first match, well. And also, it makes the Shawn bump later less effective. Crowd couldn't give a fuck otherwise. They just wants HBK to get in. And so he does, bad hair, awful pants (he didn't had his gear), small body. That's the 00's Micheals. Still looks pretty damn good though. HHH has been hiding forever at this point. Once the loads are out of the way, the match gets really good again. Micheals "saving" HHH doesn't make sense with the story the announcers were telling earlier about him only being there to make sure HHH would not win. HHH vs Micheals in 2002 almost feels like nostalgia already, but the final pop is crazy. Micheals in 2002 was a bigger star than anyone is today. Jericho was probably the best in-ring guy though, as the glue-worker, and RVD the most impressive as far as using the gimmick, but Michaels looked good considering it was his second match back in the company. HHH looked like his old solid self, picking his spots effectively. Overall, an up and down match with a crazy first part and a really good finishing stretch, but a very mild and boring middle part with the usual Big Red work killer. So, we can call it very good as a whole, with a great unexpected finish. Clearly a success for this new gimmick but far from a great match.

Ospreay isn't compelling for shits. Original ? Not even that, he's just a flippy guy doing flippy stuff, unlike say, RVD who at least was idiosyncratic (and still remains so, no one works like RVD). Creative as far as adding layers of crazyness yet also stupidity to his acrobatics ? Yes, straight from the Petey Williams/Amazing Red school of inventiveness in the early/mid 00's. Hardly something that should be heralded, unless Canadian Destroyer and Spanish Flies are your idea of great work.

I know. I remember when Gedo & Jado were cult favourites in some circles because they were overt US territory fans. Wasn't Gedo nicknamed "Superfly" in FMW in 2000 or so during the Complete Players (was that the name of the copycat stable with Kaori Nakayama ?) stuff ? Seems like a long time ago, now it's fashionable to bash Gedo for no other reason than NJ being Meltz favourite, despite the fact he's indeed a good booker. Trends come and go...

I don't usually do that but I can't resist that one. "Will Ospreay may be the most talented guy in the business today." Da Meltz 10/02/18. Ok. So, the bastard son of Petey Williams & Amazing Red on coke is the model from pro-wrestling today. Funny thing is that, while praying the match with Takahashi to no ends, he still managed to say that well, if they cut off the 5 or 6 most dangerous spots he would probably have loved it even more and that Ospreay is basically destroying himself and will end up being the next Dynamite Kid (despite having a "great mind for wrestling") and that Takahashi is the one who has the star charisma. So yeah. Meltz loves the crazy moves and flips but... the reasonable part of him, the one who praised (rightfully so) the Nagata vs Kitamura opener and the SANADA vs Okada match, has to know, deep down, that Ospreay is a dumb fuck spot monkey wanker.

Actually, this is more : who gives a flying fuck ?

Thanks for the recommandations, but I'm at this point where I'm just not interested in checking out a guy I can't stand just because he had better performances. Life's too short. Well, if that Okada match happens (yikes), I'll watch it because of Okada, but that's pretty much it. Card was too long and the Ospreay match was a legit chore to get through, especially after the multi-match involving Henare, who looks like a WCW circa 93 Barbarian rip-off and Jay White, who really is a big nothing. Gedo vs BUSHI was "fun" I guess, if you like bullshit with mask and beards. Well, not that fun, really. Too much titles (in every damn match, please, is this Crockett in 88 ?). Too much gaijins. Too much sameness in the tropes. But that's modern NJ wrestling for you. Enjoyed the opener with the roided rookie Kitamura being schooled by veteran Nagata (who's sporting the cool old All Asia tag belt). The Junior tag-team match was very good with a super solid performance from Desperado & Kanemaru. Enjoyed the Fuyuki-Gun multi-match because they kept it moving and Suzuki vs Makabe is at least intriguing on a "can Suzuki carry Makabe to a fun match" level. Naito vs YOSHI-HASHI was very good/excellent, Goto vs EVIL was good (but by then I was annoyed and tired because of the series of mediocre matches). Okada vs SANADA was great and all about selling and psychology as opposed to do a bunch of big moves and no-selling them. Simple, slow paced but took the time to build, reminded me of a 90's match. Probably even MOTYC caliber for me. So I can't complain, really, but you could scratch a good hour from the show. And I'm guessing the English broadcast made things worst, I'm only getting the Japanese version now, don't want to hear Kelly babble about star ratings.

To the question : what is wrong with today's pro-wrestling, the answer is : Will Ospreay vs Hiromu Takahashi. And really, Will Ospreay. This guy is a perfect synthesis of everything wrong about "Millenials Wrestling". He's an unbelievable athlete. He's also a godawful pro-wrestler. I have no doubt Meltz will praise this ridiculous match to the highest of hights, which means you'll have to take a shower hearing him talk about it. Either this, or pro-wrestling has definitely passed me by. But really, I have loved tons of current pro-wrestling, so I don't think it's the case. This match was painfull to match. Made no fucking sense. Had every worst indiefest spot imaginable. Selling was dogshit in a cosplay way (because Ospreay pretends he's selling, but it comes off as absolutely fake). Death spots were not sold as such. And there were even some sloppy spots (mostly on Ospreay's part), because what they did was so difficult to do that it's impossible to pull everything off totally clean, despite the fact it is supposed to. Ospreay's game is all about "look at me doing incredible moves", as his constant mugging at the camera betrays (don't give me "character work" shit here). It's Instagram Pro-wrestling. If the guy could take selfies of himself while working, he'd do it. It's pro-wrestling-for-GIFs. It's Snapchat pro-wrestling. It's terrible.

Hog Wild wasn't a watch-along though, but yeah, it was quite an interesting episode.

The shittiest the PPV, the best the watch along, usually. Like it's been said, Havoc 95 has awesome stuff. Starrcade 97 was quite good too.

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).