El-P

KC's Back to the Territories with Bill Eadie is a major winner. Eadie is truly a charming guy, tells a lot of stories and holy shit does he look like he refuses to age. 69 years old ? Really ? Apparently they're gonna do Puerto Rico with Savio Vega, that's pretty cool. Can't think of anyone more suited. I'd love them to get Raymond Rougeau to do Montreal. This series has easily been the best and most consistent one they have released.

I was interested in seeing this match steeming from the most infamous promos of the last 10 years. Well. Although the "pipe bomb" was indeed quite the fresh stuff at the time (although obviously scripted in its shootiness and far from the nWo era feel of chaos), having Cena doing poop jokes during the contract negociation angle (which was going extremely well until then) was a rough reminder that I was watching a WWE corporate era stuff. Then, the infamous match. Damn. They spend a whole lot of minutes doing a whole not of nothing. Not the best execution. Finally they got it going, but then it's way overlong and most of all it's basically : yeah, a typical self-conscious epic with counters/finisher kick-out spamming. Which bores me to death. They lost me long before the actual ending. The obvious fact is that the booking and crowd heat is 50% of why it's so memorable. For once, they got it right (although the announcing was quite horrid, including Lawler saying that CM Punk leaving with the belt would make him simply "unemployed"), but of course knowing how the whole thing would end up (Kevin Nash, Punk jobbing to HHH) doesn't help the match at all in retrospect. So yeah, probably a "you had to be there" match. As it is, it's just nothing special and falls into the traps of every big WWE match the era.

He was not very good but he was not THAT bad. The one thing I truly hated bout him (apart from the stupid facials, the worst spear ever, the bad WWE comedy) was the fact he, along with the Hardies, brought the infamous "wasted-motion spots" style of working, with awkward body-movement spots requiring illogical bumping or positioning just to make them look "cool". As soon as Christian showed up in late 1998, it was obvious he was the worker though. Probably a nice guy from all acounts, but your typical overrated WWE-only worker and "legend" from the monopoly era.

Watch any Oz Academy (in GAEA mostly although Amano was a JWP girl like Oz) stuff from the mid to late 90's, and any JWP stuff from the same era. Amano was quite the good worker.

Flair sucked by 2003 and Michaels, well, the less said about his vaunted "great" comeback the better, so it's still a matter of too late to me. In 1995 I guess it would have been the best time considering their career, although I doubt it would have got as great as the Jarrett match.

Gran Apache & his daughters Mari & Fabi. A cool bunch. Gran Hamada & his daughter Ayako. What's better than this ?

Shane Douglas vs Ric Flair (old ECW fan talking). 5-6 years too late.

Ok, let's go for broke : short hair rules. I won't say anything more about this particular topic. About Roman Reigns. Well. He's better off with long hair.

Obsessing about men wrestlers' hair : cosmetic and presentation. Obsessing about women wrestlers' hair : sexism and creepiness. Not easy being a wrestling nerd.

Who are we kidding ? This ain't Mania, so I'm cherry picking. No interest in Owens vs Jericho, Seth or the Hardies when they aren't in TNA doing the Broken gimmick. So. Alexa Bliss vs Bailey. I liked this quite a bit. Love the bitchiness of tiny Alexa. That elbow too. Nice selling by Bailey as always. Once it got going, they did turned it into a nice sprint to a finish that would have worked. Anywhere else. Way to kill your crowd WWE. This is sociopathic level of dumbfuckery. Match was really good I thought though. Me enjoy bitch heel Alexa a lot. Good work from both. House of Horrors. Well, I said I was cherry picking. I didn't say I was gonna pick the tasty ones only. Ok, so from the get go it's even worse than I imagined. Is Randy Orton doing some WWE movies ? He shouldn't. I've seen better acting in Brazzers videos. Hell, with this production and camera angle and "spooky" music, I was half-expecting to see some parody porn. Can't we insert some sextape leaks in the middle of this ? Ok, so the House of Horrors is actually some regular white trash house waiting to get repossessed because of Trump being elected. Orton looks around, Bray jumps him from behind then runs away. In EVERY room. Who designed this game ? Wait, a creepy doll room ? Am I watching some episode of Fort Boyard (a very famous TV game show in France) ? To almost quote Hulk Hogan in the Dungeon "It's not fun !". Buried under the fridge. Fuck, that old Police Quest IV final was waaaaaay more scary than this shit. Orton vs Bray. Hey, Orton is doing a Sabu. I wish he could work like Sabu too, but he's just Randy Orton. That Indian Guy runs in ! The right ethnicity + a needle up your ass = push for a brand new market. Well, I wish Tiger Ali Singh was still around. This is a debacle. WCW circa 2000 level of unfun suckitude. Roman Reigns vs Braun Strauman. Hey, Selling ! I won't be accused of being a Roman Reigns mark, but he's doing the best performance I've seen him give at least since that Lesnar match eons ago. Really good beating, really good selling. Basic and to the point. Very nice run to the finish. Great sell job, really. Terrific job of making Strauman a monster, who would have guessed when he debuted. I guess getting him away from that new black hole of suck that is Wyatt was the best move possible. Fuck, Wyatt really is the new Kane. Terrific post-match beating. They should really give the belt to Braun, make a bunch of challengers crash against the wall until Roman climbs the mountain and gets the belts off him at Mania next year. Superb main event match capped off by a great angle. Cherry picking, people.

This makes the most sense in the WWE Universe.

That's what my brain actually read. Well, in a few weeks it's gonna be the tenth anniversary of the Benoit murders. 10 years...

I'm just saying that there are better ways to protect your stuff than keeping it on your phone or uploading it on a cloud. I for one would never put anything personal on a Cloud or keep intimate photos on a smartphone. I just don't trust these to be safe. My phone can get stolen, or I can lose it somewhere. It's just a matter of being smarter. Of course *it sucks* for Victoria, and Charlotte.

Yawn. Here we go again. It's not victim blaming. It's just common sense. If I'm a celeb and I take some dicks and pussy pics with my phone, I'm gonna put them immediately on some hard-drive that won't be as easy to hack as a phone or a cloud. Because this shit happens. A lot. Especially to women. It sucks, but that's the way it is. (Now, if you want to talk about the fixations with people taking pics of their dicks or their boobs we can go there too, then again I don't think it's a good idea. Ok, it's just dumb as fuck.)

If you are a celeb and you are taking naked pics of yourself, you are BEGGING for this to happen. I wouldn't go that far, but essentially yeah. In the WWE context, a month or so after the Paige stuff, still keeping naked pics (well, I don't get that idea to begin with, but to each his own) on your phone/cloud is really not smart at all. You gotta know some no-life shithead is gonna try to hack your stuff. Hide your intimate stuff somewhere safer.

This. Who gives a fuck, really ?

Come one. It was the old WCW JTTS Savage match where babyface Randy sells 95% of the match then wins with two moves like nothing happened. He was never presented as a threat at all. Dave also said that Miz had been "great" in his role. So there.

Ok, so I mixed up the two I guess. Yeah, I remember liking both of them in the pre-Mania Takeover. I did drop that Princess Nokia reference before I said anything else, so yeah, maybe. That being said, there's an issue with WWE's makeup department. A real issue.

Well, I admit I probably didn't pay attention to most of these people. I did learn some vocabulary I don't even know in my native language. Braids, rows, undercuts, pompadours… Isn't Ruby Riot kind of a "goofy girl", though ? (true question, I've seen her twice)

We should do a whole thread about WWE makeup. Really, we should. It's pretty awful. I'd bet my ass all those girls look better without the WWE makeup. The hair. Interesting point you make there. However, and funny as it is, I saw Princess Nokia on stage the other day and she got that song about "do not question black women about their hair and how it's fake or not, it's prejudice and offensive and we do what we want about our hair". Well yeah. Princess Nokia, as talented as she is, is also a bit annoying with the constant moralistic stuff at points too. And she raps over her own voice, which is really lazy, especially when you don't need it, because she could kill it without a net. But anyway. That made me think about that song from a artist witha strong feminist stance. On the other hand, I totally agree that the image of the woman-with-the-long-flying-hair forced by the WWE totally comes from a stereotypical, patriarchal representation. When was the last time you saw a black girl with some kind of afro or dreads or whatever style a man worker can wear, without it being a gimmick too ? Or a very short hair girl that wasn't some kind of "freak" ? Well, this probably has its place in the M.I.S., it's actually fascinating when you think about it. Anyway, I had no idea this was an obsession of crappy boards. Glad I'm not going anywhere else. As far as Roman goes. Well people do seem to be obsessed with Roman here too, with the whole boring "damn those idiots WWE fan" routine that has become incredibly tiresome in the last few months. Get over it. Accept the fact the company is rigid and could do much better with this guy with a wee bit of creativity. But anyway.

This whole ECW Arena show, as a counter product to the brand new WWECW, was quite the fun deal from top to bottom. Of course, this was the killer match. Not a MOTYC quality match, but still a great three-way, which is always an accomplishment. You get the feel these three could work a great match together in their sleep. Gotta love the ECW Arena atmopshere too, although I wonder how much of it was the old ECW crowd and how much was just posturing. Still, a refreshing bit of revivalism, much better than any of the WWE produced stuff and certainly better than most revival show with tons of sad, way over the hill guys showing up pretending it's 1996 again.

Cop-out. Because when WCW and WWF were drawing huge numbers (of both TV ratings and people in the arenas), the nWo and Austin didn't sell osbcene amounts of T-shirts, you see...

When all is said and done, Bray Wyatt will be the Kane of his generation. Which is a shame, the character had so much potential when he debuted, with a terrific intro. As it is, he's already been both totally boring/useless as a character and a black hole of dullness in big matches despite his potential. I'd rather watch a good old Captain Rotunda match. Bray needs to go. Go elsewhere and come back fresh. Oh, but you can't do that now. Look at Randy Orton.

This. Crying about "those idiots WWE fans" and "indy darlings" and "Meltz and his NJ fetish" is the new MOVEZ !! annoying niche meme today. Boring and repetitive as fuck by this point. I may wanna watch that Reigns vs Strauman stuff, the women and tag match (no, not Enzo & Cass, the other one). House of Horrors sounds "so bad it's good", then again, with Orton & Wyatt involved it's probably so bad it's awful, so I'll probably pass. I do love the fact that Indian guy is getting a push, only for heck of me (and other people) saying so on the board.

Say what you want, I get a kick out of the fact Billy fucking Corgan is a pro-wrestling super-fan.