El-P

Weren't you pretty much in tears the entire time you were reviewing the Russo era of WCW? And I imagine now that you're viewing his run in TNA, your cheeks are pretty tear-stained as well. Nah, that ship has sailed. The name is not Cornette. I just fast-forward a lot through the TNA stuff, the TV show is mostly very uninteresting, with all the terrible WWEism (written promos with awkward delivery, with a thousand overemphased "TONIGHT !") added to Russo's brutal "creative writing" (the whole Abyss & Sting angle is some of the worst rehashed shit). I'm just trying to look for a few cool matches and angles, which I give full credit to Dutch Mantell (Storm feuding vs Harris, LAX vs Team 3D stuff).

Well, Casas certainly was phoning it in hard when he worked Japan in the 90's. His stuff against Liger is the most dull Liger stuff of the decade and Motegi had better J-Cup/J Crown matches than Casas. (not saying it's relevant to his Mexico stuff, but there's some phoning it in performances from Casas on super famous shows)

Mike is still selling stuff ? I'm amazed !

Considering the praise it gets, let's try "Most overrated studio match ever". This was fun for what it was but was totally goofy and amounted to zilch. I'll never get how Garvin gets so much praise. I guess doing a thousand open hand slaps passes for great work. Yeah, it's stiff. And so ? Exchanges at first are nice. Then Ron injures his left arm on the outside post, which doesn't mean much since he's right handed. This will be forgotten pretty quickly anyway. Tons of slaps. A bunch of headbutts. Hey, if you do five fucking heabutts in a row and don't KO your opponent, that's piss poor use of a spot. And people give Kurt Angle hard time, like this kind of shit is any better… Ron does some random no-selling comebacks. Flair and him brawling is goofy, with usual Flair delayed bumps, Garvin's punches that aren't that great, the selling doesn't carry any sense of exhaustion either. Then it ends up in a giant schmozz. I wouldn't even call that match *good*. Fun stiff-fest. Okay. And before any pissant gets on me with "you want more MOVEZ LOL" bullshit, on the same TV show, Ole Anderson and Magnum TA beat the shit out of each other for 15/20 minutes in a match that actually had less "highspots" (I believe one dropkick and an axhandle from the second rope from Magnum), was all about punches and body shots exchanges and trying to punish each others arms if you could. It had nice transitions, excellent selling on both part, it looked like a real struggle and a fight (as opposed to a stiff chop exchange wankery). The more I see Ole, the more I think he's a completely overlooked and forgotten great (which is odd considering how minimalistic and to the core is was). The more I see Garvin, the more I think he's been ridiculously overrated in the last few years.

In general tribute shows for deceased workers are tear jerkers to get through, but for me, there always seems to be the reaction of one person that can set you off - for the Owen Hart show it's Jeff Jarrett's reaction, makes me well up whenever I've seen it. I haven't watch any other tribute show (except maybe JWP's tribute to Plum, but that was different as it was years after the fact, I wasn't following WWE at all when Eddie died) and I hate tear-jerkers in general. But for Owen you could feel the genuine emotion of many, Jarrett being indeed the hardest one to watch, you could feel how devastated he was.

Owen Hart's tribute show.

That's actually pretty cool !

It's fucking insane that this guy is president. Insane.

At this age, maybe so, yes. Either way, it's pretty damn awful.

I coined the term "Post Benoit workrate guilt", so that should tell you all about what I think of this debate. Tons of pro-wrestlers have taken way too much bumps, taken way too many chemicals and drank way too much. The percentage of those who went on and killed a woman is quite low, all things considered. Although some of them still are portrayed as heroes in 2017 (brutha). A woman dies every three days because of domestic violence (in my country, guess it's not much better in the US), so whether a guy took "too much bumps" or not is irrelevant to me. It's the whole patriarchal system that is beating on (and killing) women. Criminal assholes are just that.

It has less to do with pro-wrestling being full of awful people and more to do with the high level of domestic violence and women dying in the hands of their husband/partner in general. Earth is full of awful people, sadly. (that being said, here's one more guy I don't want to watch)

The bloodletting of all bloodletting. This match is about 70% selling. The important is not what you do but what your project. And these two projected a whole lot of emotions. They actually did beat the shit out of each other too, looking to work snug. The blood was also quite a big part for the nightmarish visuals of two guys wanting to maul each other. Yeah, those screams... Tully is absolutely fantastic, but Magnum has a once in a lifetime performance too. The finish is an apex of violence, the post-match is fantastic while Magnum renouncing to injure Tully even more and dropping the piece of wood down. Classic match with timeless appeal.

Koko's punching is up there with the best candidates ever. I can watch this guy punch all day. Formula touring champ Flair at the period he was at his very best. So it's an excellent match with a shit finish (like most Flair matches). Flair does tons of great shit here, including working the arm like his cousins would, busting out a double stomp and building a dynamic match against Koko who, despite not being Sam Houston or something, still had no chance in hell of winning. Koko is your regular Rocky Balboa, minus the win. Wonderful shot exchanges, this is basic and terrific at being basic. I had reached the point where I was bored shitless with Flair, but this kind of performance happily revives the Flair fan in me. Until the shit finish (which is expected). Still, Flair was great and Koko was excellent. Terrific match.

This. The period of me being a "mark", and Bret was my favourite pro-wrestler and a big reason why I was following the WWF (despite Duke Droese, King Mabel, Taker vs fake Taker etc…). The 1997 Bret vs Austin feud really capped off this period of my life and still remains I believe a highlight of pro-wrestling in general.

Damn. Now she really does work like Iron Mike Sharpe. That was stupid. Both nights were. The whole "let's redo the MITB on TV just after the PPV" was soooo WCW damage control bullshit. Samey match, only seemed longer. Only to confirm the result of the worst female worker on the roster getting the win. Whoopie doo. Well, thankfully we still have Asuka kicking ass on NXT (yeah, I did watch that match) and Banks vs Bliss at GBOF. So, all is not a waste.

Come on, Jeffey has been away from the McMahons for 17 years straight, building his own little legacy as a World Champion and promotion owner, now he got his stuff back while rebranding it, with that idiot Dixie finally away after years of debacles one after another. Not to say this will finally amount to anything now, but Double J is one hell of an old-school carny.

Exhibit #1 1985 Magnum TA says to Baby Doll that he'll show her what a real man is then proceeds to force a long kiss on her, while Dave Crockett is all smile and excited and comments "She likes it ! She likes it !" Of course she didn't and when Magnum let her go, she of course slaps the shit out of him. Which leads to Magnum trying to tear her clothes off. THEN, Tully Blanchard jumps on Magnum like a crazed man and tries to beat the shit out of him. So, the babyface sexually assaulted a woman with the happy approval of the announcer then tried to expose her when she actually dared to retaliate. And the heel (and what a creep Tully Blanchard was) jumped to the rescue of his girlfriend with tons of fire.

I see the exact opposite : Cena will get cheered like crazy by the hardcores, the match will be your typical Mania self-conscious epic with tons of finisher spamming/kick outs but people will rave about it anyway, lamenting that this won't get enough credit compared to the latest NJ Dome show main event.

Is that the most irrelevant acquisition in pro-wrestling history ? Can they do an invasion angle out of it ? Will TNA outlive the next atomic warfare ?

Just watched that match. Thought it was very good. Damn, Taylor is just crisp and a terrific young babyface. Never ever understood the ridiculous backlash. Tully is awesome at doing little things and he's also a perfect ten as far as execution goes. The more I watch this stuff (Horsemen comp), the more appreciation I gain for Tully & Ole (Arn was already great and Flair was, well, Flair).

Gotta agree. I dunno what they were thinking with these 40 first minutes. You can feel how Arn & Tully leaving was the end of an era for Tony himself though. I hope they'll get into the later Horsemen in some other episode (gotta hear what Tony thinks about Roma), although they seem to go back to a show per podcast formula, which doesn't bother me at all. Still, Schiavone gave a lot of hinsight to the whole story I felt. And still sounds like the more balanced guy I've heard too. The story about Windham getting him drunk was kinda classic.

So, they acquired Global Force Wrestling, the brand new promotion that never was. Kinda fitting.

Never saw "Orange is the New Black", but was a huge "Weeds" fan. So, I'm gonna take my time watching this because I feel this may be the highlight of the summer in term of pro-wrestling stuff to me.

It's a classic bloodletting. The greatest part being the japanese Korakuen Hall fans chanting "2 ! 2 ! 2 !", as #2 was the babyface in this. Try to ponder that for a minute. The most crazy IWA matches are of course the infamous Bathhouse deathmatches. Pure japan sleaze gold.

Download - Watch - and then Delete ! Delete ! Delete ! (I kinda had to do it, since it's how I actually do it)