El-P

So, Mania already looks dreadful with all those dream/nightmare matches. Hey, if they do Sasha vs Bailey, they should steal the show at least.

And it's really too bad, because it's obvious Gordon would be more than willing to tell the rest of the story. A terrific edition, easily one of the best with the 97 Cornette one. So many cool stories.

Always loved glamour in pro-wrestling. Or sleezyness in certain context (ECW, becaus it fit the atmosphere). Yeah, Sherry was probably my first adolescent fantasy. She just had the attitude of being sexy, which works much better than soulless T&A bimbos that came later in the Attitude Eras and later. To me Liz was nothing special until she hit 35 and got all milfy in WCW. She was hitting her peak during those days. So, no. One word : Woman. So 80's in WCW, then simply drop dead sexy and evil in ECW with the Sandman. The sad things is that being a valet is basically a lost art, as showed by Lana, who's a good performer but who isn't doing anything really until that one stop usually, whereas Sherry, Woman, Francine (especially with Douglas, who always knew how to integrate a valet in his act), all those girls were integral part of a match like a Cornette or Heenan could be, in different ways. Nobody to teach them I guess.

Good analogy. Let me add my voice to the "Why should anyone give a fuck" crowd. (Oh, yeah, because the late 90's is the last time pro-wrestling was relevant in the grand scheme of things, and no one has been a real star since then, and HHH is a legend). Plus they had one of the worst match ever already. But hey, you get the dream match you deserve. I'll add "good for Goldy" though, who's supposedly a good guy and heard he really wanted his child see him wrestle once. More power to him if he tricks those WWE idiots into throwing more money into a useless nostalgia match. I do want Sable on my WWE TV at some point. She was a fucking draw too in 1999. Make it happen. (but, uh, yeah, this beats Lesnar vs Shane by a million stars)

The first story being Sandman banned from the venue (a sports bar) before even the very first show makes it worthwhile already. This is glorious.

It's really telling that this is the guy they want to be the #1 babyface and his segment consisted of bullying a woman, Come on, don't diss the "Stop bullying" campaign and other feminist accomplishment by Stephy.

You obviously don't see the wink in japanese pro-wrestling I guess. BTW, Ric Flair was also cheered whether he was a heel or a face after a while. Atsushi Onita : greatest babyface ever switched to a guy his own audience couldn't stand.

Ah, the idea that there are no legit heels in Japan is hilarious. LCO beatdowns make the Horsemen look like pussies (to use a very 80's vernacular, pardon me people). As for the Rushmore of "can do it all on all front", here we go : _Terry Funk _Jushin Liger _Akira Hokuto _Barry Windham All pretty much clear as cristal.

Is that a new thing ? Stabbing pro-wrestlers ? I mean, Jamie Knoble got a pretty bad deal this week-end, now this ?

A Block B Block ****+ as they say Elgin vs. Naito Naito vs. Shibata Honma vs. Naito Naito vs. Nakajima Quite excellent SANADA vs. Tanahashi Nakajima vs. Shibata Okada vs. Marufuji Nakajima vs. Nagata SANADA vs. Okada Shibata vs. Omega Tenzan vs. Marufuji Ishii vs. Marufuji Tanahashi vs Goto Ishii vs. Tanahashi Damn fine Tenzan vs. Ishii Nagata vs. Naito Fale vs. Goto Shibata vs. Honma Ishii vs. Goto YOSHI-HASHI vs. Honma Fale vs. Marufuji Omega vs. Yano Goto vs. Okada YOSHI-HASHI vs. Nagata Fale vs. Tanahashi EVIL vs. Nakajima Tenzan vs Okada EVIL vs. YOSHI-HASHI Nakajima vs. YOSHI-HASHI YOSHI-HASHI vs. Elgin Good it is indeed Makabe vs. Tenzan Omega vs. YOSHI-HASHI Tonga vs Ishii Elgin vs. EVIL Makabe vs Marufuji Honma vs. Omega Naomichi Marufuji vs. SANADA Shibata vs. Elgin Okada vs. Makabe Omega vs. Elgin Omega vs. EVIL Honma vs. EVIL Unoffensive Makabe vs. Tanahashi Yano vs. Nakajima Ishii vs. Fale EVIL vs. Nagata SANADA vs. Makabe Naito vs. Yano Tonga vs. Tanahashi Honma vs. Yano SANADA vs. Goto Shibata vs. Yano Okada vs. Tonga Yano vs. Nagata Tonga vs. Goto Not good Makabe vs. Tonga Nagata vs. Elgin Tenzan vs Tonga SANADA vs Fale Fale vs. Tenzan

Day 12 - B-Block Yano vs. Nagata If I were Nagata, I'd be pissed at the ref too. Gotta love that total "What the fuck was that supposed to be ?" look when he got counted out. Yano is always entertaining. Fun little tricky match. YOSHI-HASHI vs. Elgin Well, these two brought the best in each other. Short but intense, with strong sense of purpose (fuck up that shoulder, YOSHI) and selling (really good job by Elgin). Elgin's power spots fought through the pain and YH's quick, stiff offense countering the massive log worked wonders. Very good match and the proof that Elgin can be that good when he doesn't get ROHgoofy. Honma vs. EVIL Good standart EVIL match, in which Homna played his usual underdog-but-not-so-quite role efficiently. So, the headrropping is something that happens a lot in New Japan I guess, but this led to a finish so no complaint. EVIL has revealed himself as a solid worker through this tournament. Shibata vs. Omega Holy shit. So, when Omega tons his cooked up shit down, he can be a fucking great worker. Maybe the fact he was trying to upstage shoot-style Shibata played a part, but this is the best he has ever looked to me. Brutal and focused work, beat up each other's injuries until something breaks, superb execution, no stupid no-selling. Damn, this was excellent, bordering on great. Naito vs. Nakajima Naito's stalling is state of the art, and with stoic hiding a hot temper Nakajima, it works wonder. Great leg work as usual which was followed through, Nakajima still kicking the shit out of Naito once he gets on top. The finishing stretch with counters and shit was pretty wonderful. Great match. Ok, so B Block delivers the goods again in a big way, with Elgin & Omega looking at their best, which was nice to see.

It seems I'll never get through this thingy… Day ELEVEN. A-Block. Fale vs. Tenzan These two are not meant to meat each other and have a good match. This is sluggish and slow and sweaty and not good. Fale can be really fun to watch when he's in with the right guy. Tenzan ain't that guy. Tenzan usually gets a good match with everyone. This isn't working. Tonga vs. Goto Tonga is a jobber who gets way to much from the other guys. Which make every match of his kind of a chore to watch, as he's not very good and most probably will lose anyway. Goto does a good job though, and the finishing running around sequence works again, with RKO teases and tries. Decent stuff, but Tonga is mostly a waste of time, he should mostly be squashed. Naomichi Marufuji vs. SANADA SANADA tries to hit harder than Marufuji. He fails. So he tries to run faster than Marufuji. Nice attempts. But fails too. SANADA shows some spunk against stiffy & tricky veteran though and it makes for a good match, although SANADA clearly lacks something on his own, it's pretty clear at this point. Ishii vs. Tanahashi This had some goofiness elements at some point, and Tanahashi's execution at the end was not as good as it usually is, but what a terrific match for the most part. A bit heavy and strike exchanges, but the slapping part where Tana drops down Ishii was really good thanks to Ishii's selling. Okay, so I guess dragon suplexe are meant to be not sold, but not in an ugly Omega-match way. Tanahashi rising up as the ace that has to be overcomed was really good. Excellent, maybe great match. Okada vs. Makabe Sometimes, Okada is too much Rockyesque for me in his maneurisms. Good Makabe match though. Nothing special, but Okada does a good job making the old brawler look fine. Not exactly an epic main event though. Apart from the Ishii vs Tana match, this was pretty so-so. The A-Block clearly has some weakness which only appear even more with the wrong combinations. Is this thing ever gonna end anyway ?

Indeed. Todd is God...

I'm not really sure any revisionism needs to be done. It's not like TNA posed a true threat at any point. What would WWE really need to retcon about TNA's history? Exactly. What are they gonna do, create a narrative that makes TNA look like it ever mattered? Considering AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Bobby Roode were perceived like stars by the WWE audience as soon as they passed the door, TNA did matter a little bit more than people give it credit for. So there's always room for revisionism. But it would mostly be terrible for the guys looking for jobs. (whatever happened with GWF anyway ? Ponzi scheme ?)

If this is true, then more revisionism incoming and one place less for workers to go (which means less space for developping talents too). Job well done Dixie.

I still fail to see how Roman Reigns is considered by some as some kind of special worker. He sure didn't brought much special to the table in the Rusev match, it was all Rusev keeping things together and feeding for Roman usual dull superman punches comebacks. Plus he's not a great seller or bumper, so Rusev beating on him was nothing special. He's a decent power guy with a bad spear. He doesn't do anything that remotely sparks my interest. Rusev & Lana should be in the main event scene yesterday. Didn't watch the entire thing (I guess I missed something with Cesaro vs Sheamus, but Sheamus I have no time for). Really, that tag match needed fast forward, the New Day have jumped the shark a long tile ago and Doc & Anderson aren't anything special. The female trio match booking was odd. Charlotte basically beat up the two babyfaces clean. I like the Sasha/Sabu comparison someone made. Good match, but clusterfucky as every thriple way are. Jericho vs Zayn was cool. Sleazy old Jericho works for me. At some point during this match Philippe Chereau cracked me up so bad. The french announcing is a show saver sometimes. TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick was good, but I'm not too fond of some Perkins indieriffic spots, with odd body placements and useless bumping-on-offense kinda spots. I don't think this cruiserweight division is going anywhere, but the purple lightning was a nice touch in term of presentation.

I said they were gonna be the New Age Outlaws redux (with a bit of Kid Kash & Dallas because of the characters and sizes) the very first time I saw them. Enzo is an awful worker to boot, and Cass is just another Test clone. No depth whatsoever and their match aren't good.

Une fois n'est pas coutume : I TOTALLY agree with this. Couldn't have said it better.

And you wonder why no-one remembers about it ? Well : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/page-24&do=findComment&comment=5549868

No one said Mero had a great WWE run either. And yes, I was watching the product week to week. Mero had good matches on PPV all the time until he blew out his knee. Then he was a fun heel as Marvelous Mark. It's a decent run. (didn't he innovate the TKO too or did he stole it from someone ?)

No, he didn't talk I don't think, he couldn't. It was a "Hey, look who's here !" moment. Sable did it too when Russo was in charge (or maybe they were together, but I doubt it), but they could not use her anyway. DUMBFUCKERY.

Maybe you just have no sense of humour. Or empathy. You certainly don't get the "wink" of some people around here, so. (another semi-smart gif on the way ?)

Same thing here. At some point, you just have to draw a fucking line."You don't deserve love or happiness in your life". Seriously ?

Well, considering Mero & Sable were married, it didn't matter in the end, all the money went to their household and Mero says he had tons of fun working at putting her over. I'm just surprised Mero never showed up back in WCW but I guess he was smart with his money. He did came back as Johnny B. Badd in TNA for a while though, which was odd to say the least.

How was Mero a colossal disapointment ? He was never gonna have any great matches anyway. Mero was a solid worker who had good PPV matches with DDP. Oh, yeah, there was that Pillman masterpiece, in which Mero was game. But really, a very good match with Steve Austin isn't a disapointment, it's exactly what you could expect out of him. I say it was better than Michaels vs Bulldog actually. Vince thought for whatever reason that Mero and Sable would be the new Savage & Liz I guess. Not good judgement on his part, although Sable's fake boobs ended up drawing well for a while.