El-P

Nice to see this with fresh eyes, after almost a decade of not watching that kind of stuff. Could they have cut 5 minutes or so near the end ? Sure. Would one or two headdropping spot could have been cut out ? Of course. But still. You've got young punk Akiyama not being able to take it to tank-babyface Kobashi until he kicks his right knee from under his knee. Then Kob says "Oh, that's how you play it young fucker ?" and drops the bomb, followed by Aki not taking it and dropping the bomb himself. Then soon comes the brutal work on the arm, which Kobashi will masterfully sell for most of the match. Kob is such a great babyface. So yeah, at one point during the long finishing stretch, they could have cut some crap out (around the time they go outside). But the last five minutes are complete ace work. It's wonderful to hear the crowd go up and down and up and down and you get a really good sense of escalation. Final Hammer in the final coffin, and that's that. Excellent match with some great moments.

Herb Kunze. Now, that's a name I haven't heard for a lonh while. Yeah, he was Meltz boy.

Hilarious. John just answered "Not too directly" about SKeith and then you dig an old post from two years (aren't you a bit obsessive ?) where he just details why SKeith was influenced "not too directly" And then you act like it prooves you right. *facepalm* You're soooo full of shit, it's not even funny. Well, it is. Kinda. (save yourself the "90's boys to the rescue", that gimmick is old already)

Fuck masculinity. Next step : transgender world champ coming out to Psychic TV. Embrace the future.

Yeah, sure. WWF drew a lot more people, ratings and money in 94-95 than WCW did in 96-97. That's factual. That red hot Razor vs Jarrett feud in 95 under Diesel vs Sid was much more substantial than Benoit vs Sullivan under the nWo in 96. Eddie vs Rey at Havoc 97 is nothing in term of hot undercard match next to Razor vs I.R.S. in 94. Self-evident indeed. ..... for fuck's sake.

Not the run. But the gimmick. Save for the accent, it was basically the same. But of course, you're ignoring my point. How is Bischoff making Diesel, the biggest failure as WWF champ ever, and Razor Ramon, WWF upper midcarder when WWF wasn't drawing shit, into true STAR drawing shitloads of money different from what Vince did with Rey/Eddie/Jericho/Benoit (except those really didn't draw shitloads of money in WWE) ? Still waiting for you to make sense and stop the double talk.

I see you basically just added "new star" next to "talent spotting" just to justify your point. You're a riot. BTW, what about the fact Vince let Hogan & Savage go because they were "tool old", despite what Jerry Jarrett was telling him, and Bischoff finding a way to make them relevant again in 96/97 and the biggest money machine ever this side to New Japan ? Jericho & Chris Benoit would not do that kind of business, not at this point (well, it's not like they ever did in WWE either, but that's beside the point, Eddie, Rey & Jericho were main event and star material). Any credit for that ? Another thing : should we give credit to Vince for making Diesel & Ramon, whom he basically took from WCW with more or less the same kind of gimmicks (really, look at Vinnie Vegas and the later days Diamond Studd) ? And should we not give credit for Bischoff to make them STARS with the nWo angle (like Vince did with Rey/Eddie/Jericho, on a lesser scale) ? Or does that work only in one way (Vince = God = 10 / Bischoff = Evil = 0) ? Goldy ? Still 0 ? Lex Luger flopping in WWF and being a star again in WCW ? Raven being the most over upper mid-carder in WCW at one point / not doing shit in WWF ? DDP ? Bischoff not getting credit for DDP ?? REALLY ????

Well YOU can't give Vince credit for Austin and then deny Verne credit for Hogan because "Verne didn't make Hogan a star, Hogan made Hogan a star. Verne even initially wanted to book him heel. Hogan was a huge phenomena pretty much despite Verne, not because of him." Which applies as much or more to Austin. Bingo.

You don't know shit Parv. You can't even read right. I just did give him credit for The Rock. I also give him credit for pushing Austin, although we should all agree that Vince's vision for Austin sucked dick and it was not until Austin made himself a new image and Bret requested to work with him that he began to see something in him. Bischoff didn't give Jericho his start in the US. Corny did. Then Heyman did. Same with Eddie. Same with Benoit. Same with Rey. They all got over big in WCW, which is why they were a big deal already when they jumped in WWF. Did they gained profile there ? Of course. Should we credit Vince for spoting their talent at first ? Ah ah ah. You're just putting stuff in your own little predetermined boxes, as you always do about everything.

I love how Vince gets talent spotting 10 in the 90's while Bischoff gets 0. Hilarious. Yeah, WCW did not bring Eddie, Benoit, Regal, Jericho & Rey Jr. to the major leagues, he didn't find Goldberg at all, he also didn't make a failure at drawing Diesel & Razor Ramon into money machines for a while. Meanwhile, who did Vince "spot" in the 90's ? Duke Droese ? Henry Godwin ? He basically signed bunch of WCW rejects and worked from there, lucking in on Austin while he was cutting his own legendary promo (and not really getting serious about him until Michaels threw a sissy fit). His big project was Mero. Yeah, he did spot The Rock and a bunch of guys who would make the Attitude Era (Venis, D-Lo, Edge, Christian, Hardies & such), in big parts thanks to Jim Ross & Jim Cornette (who also played a major part in why Foley, Austin & Goldust were signed).

This pro-Vince bias is hilarious at this point. Anyone not realizing that Verne made Hogan a star is delusionnal as fuck. Vince made Hulkamania as much as Hulkamania made Vince. And yeah, Riki Choshu in the 90's blows pretty much all these guys out of the water anyway.

Sabu = Greatest things ever, the icon of ECW. Crowd ate it up. Then. "Oh, fuck Sabu because he's not showing up !". And the crowd ate it up. Then. Sabu's back, handshake, he's the greatest thing ever. And the crowd ate it up. Heyman could do whatever he wanted. Did we mention 911 yet ?

Heyman tricked people into thinking the Public Enemy were a big deal and that Taz was the baddest motherfucker alive. If that's not mastery over crowd and producing, I don't know what is.

The sing-along catchphrases was one of the worst thing that happened to pro-wrestling. "What" being the absolute worst. It killed promos for years.

That's a pretty interesting point. For the influence of 90's All Japan on 21st century US wrestling, the crowds could not have been more different. A Tokyo salaryman in 1994 and a US student from Orlando in 2016 are indeed two very different people. There's no reason why they would react the same way. The indy workers of the 00's aped AJ (often for a lot of wrong reasons) as the indy crowds evolved from the ECW mold. They were at the same place at the same time, maybe having watched the same matches, but ones were workers, others were just fans. As the workers didn't really work like Misawa & Co, they also didn't work in front of the same kind of audience Misawa & Co did (at all, on every degree). As the indy mentality and tropes slowly sneaked their ways into the mainstream, there's no reason why a big WWE crowd would act like an All Japan crowd from the 90's when they see Nakamura for instance, or when Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn are having their "indiffied" matches. There's absolutely no link between the two kind of crowds.

That's exactly what they are doing with the Network. WWE fans are submerged with hours of programming.

Cinema & TV series are not pro-wrestling. They don't work the same. So, culture shift on a whole don't affect something as major and diverse as cinema and something as low-brow and minor and specific as pro-wrestling the same way.

This has nothing to do with pro-westling. TV series/cinema analogy just don't work.

(Game of Thrones sucks)

This. Today, what I want from pro-wrestling is basically Lucha Underground. This is the most fun I had watching current pro-wrestling since I was following ARSION (through buying tapes) in the late 90's/early 00's.

Yes. But still. It was a crowd not happy but a business decision who shat on an entire show and did a "smart" chant akin to people chanting CM Punk in WWE just after he left.

When the people chanted "We Want Flair" in 1990, was that one because of Gabe, Heyman & Russo too ?

They filmed some Total Divas in Paris ? Interesting. Wonder where they went. Well, probably not in the places I used to go.

Jeff Jarrett vs Jeff Hardy (NWA title match - TNA 09/08/04) Jeff Hardy being treated like a megastar when he really had not been anything but a stuntman tag champ in WWF was really the first occurence of TNA making themselves look like WWE fetichists (there had been the D-Lo push, but it was more filler). Add the fact Hardy really looked poor in the few matches he had to that point, the last weekly PPV, and you got all the recipe for a wimper of a match. The entire PPV had been quite bad thus far too, easily the worst in months. Begins with an endless brawl involving security during the introduction, because this is so intense, you see, the biggest match of TNA, of Hardy's and Jarrett's career. I don't get Hardy at all. I know I'm not the right audience, but still. He should never try to punch. The thing is, he looks sloppy and works like he looks. I can't think one thing he's particulary good at. His flying looks pathetic compared to most of the X div guys. His striking is awful. I guess he can get sympathy from the girls. He does idiotic moves modifications (the Hardys & Edge, damn them). This was a complete nothing match, one of Jarrett's worst (after he had some really good stuff a few months before), with crappy pacing, going nowhere during an endless Korakuen walk brawling sequence leading to Hardy hitting his finisher so Jarrett can kickout (ah ah). Then Hardy kicks out of the Stroke (surprising somewhat, Jarrett can be carnier than this). Then a figure four with zero preparation of course. Then Hardy doing a sloppy looking crab. Run-ins from Dusty, Russo. Guitar shot. Even for a Double J Special, it was bad. Jarrett looked his old bad self from late 03 and Hardy looked like crap. This is a sad ending to the weekly PPV era, which had some good stuff buried in there.

ADR = all time GOAT if true, You don't call him El Patron for nothing. I wonder who took the others finisher though. (can't wait for the Alberto Youshoot V2.0, he was such the clean family one in version 1)