El-P

Yes, there are, but I wouldn't be able to grasp them I think. To us in France, all Quebecois speak like Céline Dion. (she's hilarious) There was a very distinctive Parisian slang and accent, but it has mostly and sadly disapeared over the years, since most "Parisian" now aren't from Paris anymore. I should now, I've been a Parisian for 16 years. That's sad. I always say to my students (yeah, I'm actually teaching French to foreigners) that they should always try to speak the language, even if it's just very basic and simple stuff, that's it's appreciated. But I understand the situation was a bit different at that point, especially since "fighting for French language" is somewhat part of the Quebec identity. It was during the ridiculous "Freedom fries" era, so it was a xenophobic gimmick. But these guys were not French. And using "La resistance" as a name was idiotic, as if there's *one* symbol of the US-France friendship, it is the French Resistance fighting the Nazis on the occupied field during WWII. There are soooo many gimmick I can think of to make fun of French people and get heat. Every flag other than the Union Jack was booed I guess. I loved how he was using a slowed-down, looped version of La Marseillaise too. Raising the Quebec flag and using the natinoal anthem of another country ! The only successful "quebecer" gimmick was the Fabulous Rougeau to me. The song, the mini-US flags, it was brillant. Well, I admit I loved Jean Pierre Lafitte too.

First off, average French is not "parisian French". Basically, Quebecois is deriving from older French mixed in with some English influence. On one hand, Quebecois speak "more French than French", translating in French words tons of expression we (French from France) use in English (like "week-end" for instance). On the other hand, they use some English structure sometimes and lots of other English words, not to mention tons of purely "Quebecois" stuff. With the amazing, lovable Quebec accent. Average, normalized Quebecois is absolutely comprehensible at 95%. Joual, well, give me subtitles. That being said, two guys from Marseille speaking together using slangs and shit, good luck to your average guy from Quebec city, he'll get nothing out of it. Exactly. Not sure if the difference is more or less pronounced, but that's the same thing. That's why La Resistance was the most idiotic gimmick ever (on every level). They sounded French like I sound Italian.

I actually had to look out for the translation, because I just could't grasp what he said. And people still are surprised when I tell them French people don't understand Quebecers sometimes and this was a clear case of this here. So yeah, he said "You know I hate you." From what I gather, Zayn, at least, is definitely from the English-speaking community of Montreal. Not sure about Steen, although I guess he is too. Neither have the very recognizable french-canadian accent when they speak English (the kind Rick Martel has for instance).

Oh yes you should. Cf my WCW Highway to Hell thread... You've forgotten what you're in for.

Can't believe there were two workers named Haystacks. What are the odds ?

The Loch Ness monster ?

At this point, TNA and rats are the only thing that'll remain after a nuclear apocalypse.

WWE buying another company means less work and alternatives for the workers. Of course it's bad. (not that I care about ROH per say)

Yep. I like this match quite a bit too. Not sure if I'd say it's better than Bret's stuff with Luger or DDP on Nitro later in the year (but I like Bret's WCW more than most), but it is Savage's swan song for sure.

Some dudes threw the same kind of rating 17 years ago, so you're most probably not.

I posted it in the "general thread", as I thought it really didn't fit this one. It's really awful what happened.

Jim Ross' wife as tragically died from an accident on the road. This is really sad.

In the era of the billion podcasts, people are still buying's RF's crap ?

Big hype back then for this match, I remember. We were all over Genki who was a Neo girl I think. (Ran, Amano & Hyuga were already established as excellent workers and Tamura was like a big favourite too)

On the other hand, the Last Nitro episode was all kind of great. And you get another story about Kevin Dunn being a complete dickhead too.

Usually, those great "squash only" wrestlers owed the fact their squashes looked great to solid workers known as jobber back in the days. For instance, the idea Sid was a great squash worker doesn't make sense. Those nameless guys bumping like freaks for his shitty offense made it look that way. There's a reason why the old TV was all about squashes, it's because it's easy to look good when you're facing a jobber whose entire job is to bump and make your crap offense look like killer stuff.

Only a still Royal Rumble ring can stop Vince dead in his tracks.

Not a match, but Sting's promo on 01/28/06 iMPACT is arguably the best of his career up until that point. Of course, they just ignore the few PPV appearance he made for the promotion a few years earlier and play it straight like he's back from the last Nitro, but the whole "I came back to be able to say goodbye", while putting over the promotion and leaving his bat in the middle of the ring was excellent stuff. He also did a good job playing of the "You deserve it" chant with mesured emotion (as in, not like Shawn Michaels would have done). Really, great promo from Sting and super well done segment, with Christian telling him to stay when they hug at the top of the ramp.

You don't say. This is pretty surreal. I'd rather have Nash or Austin introduce DDP though.

I couldn't have put it better myself. And yeah, the late Powerplant era definitely seems like an unexpected influence. The tribal tattoos were such a lame stamp of these years too. And again, for better of for worse (speaking about some annoying working traits), the influx of different body type/looks and actual characters came from the indie scene, CM Punk being the most notable. I was going through the Rumble matches post 2001 last month and it's interesting to see how things slowly evolved on the roster through those years. I guess there would be an interesting, almost ethnographic study to be made about the evolution of body types and characterization in the WWE through these Rumble match alone over the years, complete with the looks (I mean costumes, hairs and such) and names of the workers (complete gimmick names, names that belong to the workers, copyrighted WWE names etc...)

The Tyson stuff. *facepalm*

Holy shit.

It's from 2014 so he was most probably lost in some cave of sorts.

I dunno about absolute garbage, but he sure didn't impress me in Lucha Underground and having him being paired with both Ivelisse and Catrina, the two best women character on the show, didn't sit well with me. Jury's still out, but I was not very interested in what I saw thus far.

Sadly, the DDP episode was all about that, with the litany of Conrad reading results from shows and PPV. Very boring. Not nearly enough Schiavone actually telling stories about DDP. The Klondike Bill story at the beginning was the highlight.