El-P

That bump was sure worth it....

More KC goodness with Honky Tonk Man covering his journey to SummerSlam 88. It's really an interesting dive into how business worked back then, especially how Vince functions (the part where he tries desperately to sell HTM as a babyface for sheer merchandise reasons echoes with some familiar modern situations…) and treats his talent. HTM goes pretty much in details about the whole refusing to job to Savage, and again it's quite interesting to grasp how he was considering his whole stint and how things worked then.

Sato sucked by 2000. And KAORU was never very good (the Aja match is like a miracle and Aja working her magic). So there. Oz Academy was really GAEA at this point.

I'd rather watch Edge than just any of these guys save for Koko (especially in Memphis).

Ding ding ding. End of match. Your winner is.

Cody Rhodes is like the Randy Orton of his dynasty.

Not really. There have always been "workrate" (before it turned into an ugly word in the mouth of our brand new crowd of retrohipsters) territories and promotions where doing as little as possible wasn't gonna fly. Hence the differences between Memphis, Mid-south, Mid-Atlantic, AWA, New York, 80's New Japan etc... Doing what is necessary, depending on the context and what you want to achieve. Actually, Cena and Micheals were having those self-conscious epics, finishers kick-outs burning borefest way way before the #evilindydarling came in and "changed the style". And honestly, I'd take a stupid and ridiculous modern spotfest over a fake overdrawn "epic" anyday.

Arn Anderson. The best ever to me.

Listen to that sound ? That's me marking the fuck out already (Weeds fan). Awesome Kong to boot ? I'm there. This is gonna be glowious.

We should make every thread ever about how Randy Orton is a fucking bore. Yeah, it would get old quick. But not quite as dull as a Randy Orton match or promo or angle.

He already is, by the way of 15 years of dull as fuck matches, promos, feuds and terrible acting.

The thing is, you can think whatever you want about the Young Bucks, but they manage to *draw* and *make money* out of their act. I mean, Rip Rogers was a guy doing jobs on WCW TV and he was taking really stupid bumps during those matches too. As much as I do agree with him on some aspects, there's plenty of stupid as fuck work in WWE too, it's not just #evilindies. It kinda reeks of "old man yells at cloud" a bit...

That's a pretty accurate sump-up of the first three years. Chama (Ohmukai) showed so much promised in 1998 but she never became what she could have. Futagami switching to GAMI worked wonders for her character wise (and she is GAMI in real life) but the match quality suffered a lot because of it. Candy had a great 1998 comeback but her back injury probably was too much to keep that high level of work. And her character got annoying. Tamada is someone who took a lot of crap back in the days but she was more hit and miss and still delivered nice work at points. Ayako becoming ace was a nice cap-off of her… two years career (amazing when you think of it!) and for all the talk of her being overpushed because of her name early on, she really took the ball and ran with it with her mega push and at the end of 2000 there was no doubt she had earned every bit of it and it was the right choice. Yoshida was still the best and coolest wrestler on earth too. Ah, 2001, the beginning of the TV shows There's a famous power play debacle at the beginning of the year. I have to watch that stuff back at some point. Good memories. Really enjoying this thread.

This is what I thought too.

Both very good matches. The tag team match was actually excellent and what bothered me the most was the ridiculous and dated use of some random amazon-looking women to "neutralize" Gail Kim (who took a terrific bump from the top rope). I guess it was supposed to be Jackie Gayda before she left as she got pregnant, it would have at least pay off an otherwise totally useless stint (which seems to sum up Gayda's entire pro-wrestling career). Yes, they didn't respect the tag legalities at the very end but it wasn't that bad, plus the finish was exactly what it should have been with a great feel-good moment. Steiner was all business and worked very well with Joe. Nice psychology and build, too bad the lead to the finishing spot was indeed blown, which made the ending kinda odd, the powerslam not being one of Joe's finisher. Still, Steiner showed he could absolutely work and deliver as late as 2006. Too bad they manage to fuck up the King of Mountain match. It was already the worst of the three, not nearly as good as the other ones, as if they forgot how to make the best and most fun use of the cage gimmick. Uneventful with long, boring crowd brawling sequences and Ron Killing wassuping his way into nothingness (really, why was he booked back in the main event at this point ?). It got better toward the end with some big spots, but the "creative" booking got in the way, including a particulary annoying Earl Hebner performance and totally screwy ending with some kind of Dusty finish. Kinda sad as it probably foreshadows the arrival of Russo on booking in the following months. This is the first true fail of D'Amore's booking era, and the fact it happened within their big annual gimmick match could not have been worse timing.

Cool to see those Jd' reviews in 2017. This was the ultimate cult-following (like, a dozen people including yours truly ) in joshi community lovers at the time. The Bloody & Yabushita were my two favourites, but I also enjoyed Sakai a whole lot and Fang was the unexpected underrated brawler.

Never heard it ever anywhere unless on WWE TV or what followed suit (WCW, TNA etc).

Sports-entertainment still sounds dumb as fuck, 30 years later. No one in real life says there's "sports-entertainment fan" or that they watch "sports-entertainment" or that they go to a "sports-entertainment show". It sounds completely idiotic.

It's not exactly a minor thing. It makes everything sounds ridiculous and, for me, unlistenable. It's like every *element* of the WWE is like WCW's infamous "international object". It's a brand new way of pro-wrestling being fake as all hell.

She looked Nitro Girl level dancer on those vignettes... Talking about crappy workers, whatever happened to Eva Marie ?

I'm glad I'm not on Twitter then.

Better that than the pity babyface push (cf Rey Jr.). And Eddie was a heel too anyway.

That new Lana gimmick seems like a terrible idea to begin with. No idea what the fuck they are thinking.

Ayako had come so far in just two years. This match truly was a coronation of sorts. Yoshida with the brand new punching ability was even cooler than before, if such a thing was possible. Asari looked better in ARSION than she ever did. Working a lot with Yagi probably helped.

Damn, I was just mentioning him and his fabulous daughters in the parent/children thread. Thoughts goes to Mari & Fabi, I loved to see them work along their father, who also played a part in training the girls in ARSION to the lucha style. That's how I remember Gran Apache.