El-P

That cane shot by Lawler was totally unprofessionnal (funny how stuff like this of the infamous alcohol down the throat of Jake Roberts gets a pass…). I don't think Corny needed to lay those racket shots in like that either. Still, this is a classic ECW angle. Absolute chaos and terrific beatdown. And HEAT.

Completely ridiculous as it goes forever, security guys don't do shit while Dreamer is destroying the set and punching guys left and right ! Finally he piledrives a referee to the floor. Pretty funny actually as you feel Dreamer was running out of things to do, so what the hell ! People are actually chearing him too. Well, at least something was happening in Memphis as it was pretty much a zombi promotion. Lance is still great though.

As much as SMW was a fun old-school promotion in the 90's, USWA looks like a relic at this point. So it makes Lawler talking about how theer's only 1500 people in the ECW kinda funny, you know. Anyway, this is typical studio wrestling angle with Dreamer showing up and being restrained even by Mr. Wrestling No Number, carrier of tradition. This is like the mini-me version of nWo invading a Nitro set.

It's not a surprise when you give out the name. He hammers a little bit too much, trying to make some big deal out of Pritchard who was off TV already and basicallly a non-factor for a long time by this point (was he ever anything in WWF but a JTTS anyway ?). The Sunny line if classic though. Nice contrast of promo style as the WWF logo is behind him this time.

What happened to the "Don't talk about how old your opponent is. Don't say he's complete shit either, because that makes you look like shit if they beat you and look like nothing if you beat them" old-school rule ? I guess that's because Lawler is shooting. The line about Paul E. wanting to work for WWF was brillant in hindsight. He also looks old and scarred up there. Really contrast with the plastic look he got with the surgery later on.

Can't believe it's been ten years since the Benoit tragedy already. Then again, it does seem like it was a long time ago, like during another life (which it basically was, for me).

I'm glad I avoided spoilers. So I could watch that obscenity of WCW like booking in "real time". So. First ever Women's Money in the Bank match yaddi yaddi yadda. I can't stand MITB. Anyway, this is obviously put first because the girls won't take the sick bumps men will so it can't be a stunt show. Which actually made the match, although unspectacular despite being way choreographed, quite solid in term of a match that girls are trying to win as opposed to do stupid shit. Tamina & Natalya were ok. Enjoyed Becky & Charlotte. Carmella, as useless as she is, was kinda protected by the gimmick. And of course, *that* ending. Stupid as fuck. Insulting actually. And no matter how some want to twist it as good booking, refreshing and shit, a man won the first women's ladder match. And the worst worker of the bunch got that damn briefcase. She could have easily won after Ellsworth pushed Charlotte off the ladder or something. And still, he's a midcard comedy troll, not Bobby Heenan or something. So there. Tag match was easily the high point of the show. Usos are like the dullest HeadShrinkers ever as heels, but still good workers. New Day's act I can't stand, but the work is good. Never gets tired of Biggie's power spots. The Money Inc. finish though, was terrible. Especially after the first match. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by Lana. She's already better than Carmella. Ok, everyone is, but still. And she's got shitload of character. And she's always talking, like a Russian escort overloaded with Redbull. No, seriously, she's working like Iron Mike Sharpe. Gotta love that. I thought this was a solid match, enjoyed it way more than I probably should. Carmella's trolling was at least a nice touch. Gotta say something for WWE's makeup department again. They make all the women look older than they are. And, manlier.... Really, Kanellis looked better in ROH and TNA, for instance. That gimmick... well... a mix between the Body Donnas & Dean Douglas. It already has the annoying WWE's touch that was absent of her work this last few years. We'll see but yeah, Miz & Maryse are already doing the overbearing couple bit, and doing it very well. Talking about the makeup department again, they should really work on hiding Jinder's disgusting back acne. It's repulsive. Wellness what ? Ok, more of the same as last time, Orton being a complete bore and dropping guys on their head. Same finish. Why the fuck am I wasting my time ? Ascension on PPV. Fashion Police is funny to some people. Sorry, I like my comedy to be actually funny. Why is this on "PPV" ? Hey, Nak gets screwed by Corbin. Twice. Clusterfuck, a bunch of stunts. I have no time for this shit, especially considering the end result. Corbin has zero charisma, has moderate abilities (mediocre at very best) but he's TALL. And no, it's not "good heat", the whole let's screw Nak stuff, because no one hates Corbin for it. This time has passed. When you pay to sing along Nak's entrance and see him hopefully win and you get a big log take that away because he's TALL, you don't get pissed at the big log. You just get pissed at the company for not "putting smile on your face". Because that's supposed to be their line of work now, isn't it ? Anyway, piss poor booking up and down the card and the sole really good match had a shit finish. Fuck this show. Lana was my favourite part. Yeah, there I said it.

Okada gonna go to tha pay window baby.

In a way, they made the opposite journey from WWE. They started with indy prodigies (CM Punk, Bryan, AJ, Samoa Joe) and they ended up with cookie cutter dull-ass 00's "name".

Pro-wrestling is goofy. So, this is a lights out match. It is announced before the match : this is not sanctioned by the NWA. Ok. So why is Tommy Young in the ring, checking for foreign objects and all ? How can it officially be a TV title match ? Doesn't make a lick of sense. Pro-wrestling has always been crass. "This match is for the TV title and Baby Doll". Wait, what ? So, a woman is officially the same thing as a piece of luggage. They could have said "Dusty gets the services of Baby Doll for 30 days." Nope. "Baby Doll is his." Women as property. Ah, the good old days. As far as the match goes, it's okay. Let's be honest now. Dusty is just not very good. He shows glimpse of goodness, but he's not bumping very well, his stuff looks sloppy most of the time, and you can give so many elbows before it gets boring. He's also not very good as building a match at all. People dump on "Your turn My turn" as if it was a workrate invention. This match is pretty much all "My turn Your turn". Dusty never sells for long enough to build a meaningful comeback. He sells, then simply goes back on offense whenever he sees fit. Ok, it's a brawl. Not a particulary intense one because Dusty is just moving at a snail pace and not selling very well. No drama, no sense of building toward a finish. It ends when Dusty simply wins. Blanchard is very good here. Dusty is ok at best. Since Dusty is basically doing what he wants, the match is ok. On the same show, big log Nikita Koloff showed a much better sense of selling and putting over the offense of Flair, along with the cumulative damage.

Just listened to the Prichard podcast, him reacting to the insane claim of Russo being responsible for everything (while at the same time pretending not wanting to take any credit) was quite funny. The extracts from the book are downright insane at times and they paint one hell of a mental image of this guy. Pathological liar, contradicting his own versions, complete drama queen with a victim complex while at the same time being totally offensive to people (gotta love the idea that he had AJ Styles throw a "fuck" at him) and then some. The killer being the stuff about the Warrior, whom Russo describes as the "most intelligent guy he ever met". As dumb as he is toxic. Well, maybe Corny's not that far gone after all (just kidding, but I can understand wanting to slap the fuck out of the guy, still). Russo being a pervert narcissic of sorts wouldn't surprise me though... A rather fascinating listen.

The first Horsemen episode was awesome. Everyone needs to listen to this.

Come on, Corny doesn't need to "get himself over" in 2017. Nor even to get paychecks (from WWE mind you, which still seems unbelievable !). Bt yeah, whatever that idiot Russo says, there should be an "Ignore" function.

I agree Corny sounds way off his rocker when he goes on those kind of rants. Although parts of me thinks Corny is just cutting a promo, because that's what these old-school guy always do.

One hell of a freak and a terrific heel in FMW. Despite the cliché, he had shitloads of psychology and he wasn't just about crazy bumps and gore. Some of his matches with Onita are classics. I sure enjoyed some of his work a lot, and he was one of the first glimpse of Japanese pro-wrestling I had seen (as Onita's best off was part of the first batch of tapes I got back in the days). Puerto Rican fans surely have some memories of the guy to share too. As far as bloodletting monsters, he has been one of the all-time best.

Oh yeah. When I went through my infamous WCW Highway to Hell, I reached the point where I understood why a guy like Cornette would go insane. It was toxic stuff as far as pro-wrestling goes. Russo is clueless. And lately, I've reached th point where he came back to TNA, and it's even worse since the promotion had so much talent and potential still. He fucking turned this stuff upside down in a matter of a few weeks and ruined *everything* with god-awful angles, the disappearance of any good wrestling on TV, awful comedy, inane WWE trolling and horrible treatment of women : in a matter of a few weeks, we had Tracy whoring herself to have Eric Young sign a contract with Bobby Roode (which doesn't make any lick of sense anyway), Kurt Angle abusing two women (So Cal Val & Samoa Joe's girlfriend whom ankle he broke) while still being considered a babyface, Chrystie Hemme being called a slut by Kip James (also a babyface). (I don't have any idea how somehow, Russo fanboys still exist in 2017. Well, people are dumb as fuck, but still…)

That's classic !

Fantastic post ! The kind of which has me work on my English too to get the whole of it. (this is where I reach my limitations too, sadly) Just this : I would agree with this, with emphasis on the bolded part. I would also use the word "craftmanship" as far as to describe what pro-wrestling is. But again, terrific post.

Couldn't have said it better. I dunno if I have said it in one of my annoying posts yesterday, but i sure wanted to say this : pro-wrestling expresses nothing about nothing. (of course, through pro-wrestling you can read a lot of things about lots of things, thanks to the signs, but this has nothing to do with any artistic content, signs are everywhere. Hell, Roland Barthes' pages about pro-wrestling are still relevant today and a joy to read.)

What is baffling is with the average quality level of TV series these days, they are so behind the times on about every level imaginable. That's why Lucha Underground, with its B-movie/comics/pulp aesthetics and a guy like Dario Cueto looks a zillion times more relevant and cool, whatever you may think of the actual quality of the matches (of course no-one seems to be watching it either, but that's another issue)

That's the whole problem right there. The issue with WWE. They got 20 or so "writers", and apparently, none of them are worth shit. As much as some matches can be great these days, the booking, sorry, "writing" is dumb, uninteresting and overall, pretty awful (going back to the "art" argument, if we judge WWE by its stories, acting, dialogues, it's barely above your classic 90's porn in term of quality). Has been the case since WWE became what it is in the very early 00's. No one should "write" Bayley. They should just let her be, and work around that. Easy as fuck. "Creative writing" is the worst thing that ever happened to pro-wrestling. (again, we can credit, at least in partly, Vince Russo, who was the first non pro-wrestling guy "writing" pro-wrestling TV)

I made a long, boring post that I basically erased in which I actually talked about that fact, the whole validation stuff. To me that's exactly what I get out of the neverending argument (from hardcore pro-wrestling fans only) that pro-wrestling is an art. It's simply seeking social validation, or actually simply self-social validation to feel justified about spending sooo much time on that hobby. Because if it's an Art (with the capital A), then you see, it's much more respectable and intellectual and shit. When in fact, it's not. I mean really. It's not. And it's no big deal. I sure don't give a shit about seeking validation because I've spent the last 20 years writing stuff about pro-wrestling. I don't need pro-wrestling to be ART to love (and hate) it. It's great for what it is when it is great. There's plenty of stuff to get out of it as it is. No need to try to stuff pro-wrestling in the Temple of Arts. It doesn't belong there. But hey, if people want to convince themselves otherwise, fine. Doesn't matter.

Not to me. I don't give a shit about pro-wrestling being an artform. I've loved pro-wrestling pretty much my whole life and spent 20 years writing about it. It doesn't have to be an ART to be great when it's great.

Nevermind.

A classic Horsemen extensive compilation to wash out the bad taste of Russo's TNA Redux in late 2006/early 2007. Tully, Arn, Ole, Ric. What a breath of fresh air.