El-P

Certainly not to me. When he drops one of these horrible looking enzuigiri, I don't find it cool and he doesn't look more dangerous for it. It just looks terrible and I'm just brushing it off like "Well, that's Tenryu for you...". Same thing for the powerbomb. What makes Tenryu great is what he's great at (which are many many things).

That's actually called having double standart. Which is also why John Cena gets a pass despite most of his stuff looking like shit. I love Tenryu (my #6 or 7 I think), but I could do with him throwing a good looking enzuigiri and a devastating powerbomb instead of shitty ones. His sloppyness is absolutely not part of his appeal. Everything else great about him is.

Nah. RVD just sucked. And Kamala wasn't good because he was supposed to suck. This is the expressway to complte relativism. Although I'm tempted to use it to defend Sandman, who's supposed to be a bumbling drunk. But then again, when you watch closely, Sandman's execution of small things was actually good, so there's that. Piper was supposed to be a wild scrapper, but his offense looked like shit, not like wild scrapping. So. There's no such thing as good bad execution. Plus, Sabu was fucking up some spots on purpose to the point it was like Flair's top rope failures. It gets obvious when you watch it chronologically, you can see him adding "failed" spots from time to time and repeating it the exact same way he did before (not to say he didn't actually blew spots, but that's another matter). And if Tenryu actually had great looking powerbombs and enzuigiri, it would only make him better.

One of them, clearly. It's amazing that a veteran like Jarrett would just not have the sense to understand thet it looked like shit.

PPV 63 This plays like a fun equation : you’ve got Jeff Jarrett & Dusty Rhodes (in tights, yick) vs AJ Styles & Vince Russo (with hockey/football protection, don’t ask me these sports are too exotic). Jarrett is having his big title shot (which he’ll win, of course) in three weeks against Styles. So, who pins who ? Wait : Jarrett is basically the owner of the promotion; Vince Russo is still the head-writer; Dusty Rhodes is most probably the soon-to-be head-writer of something. So, who pins who ? No, the answer is not «one guy in the title shot match pins the old guy or the non-wrestler ». The answer is, old Dusty Rhodes pins AJ Styles clean and spanks his ass. Yep. And gets a gimmick title shot next week, so Jarrett ain’t happy. I guess he’s channeling Hulk Hogan now, as he’s acting like a petty little prick. Dusty looked better than you thought he would, but this booking is horrendous. However, Raven is fucking over and the biggest star in this company. He cuts a would-be-money-anywhere-else-promo after his run-in at the end of 3 Live Kru vs Vampiro & Slash & Sinn, which was watchable all things considered, despite Vamp looking like his old self (sucky like only Vamp can). Shane Douglas announces at the color mic that he’s having big plan for a new Franchise. At least things are moving forward. 3 Live Kru are an over bunch too. Mic work gets you that far. Not much notable stuff, as this show was really about forwarding angles and feuds, which at least is a good, logical thing. Except during the awful main event, you can feel Russo’s influence fading away pretty clearly. A few decent matches on the undercard : _Jerry Lynn vs Micheal Shane, who didn’t click that well together. Total overstatement of Jerry Lynn’s career going nowhere if he can’t win that title tonight, because he’s 40, you know. No idea where this is going, but seems like Lynn is getting the old WCW Dean Malenko/ WWF Vader treatment. Meanwhile, Shane will feud with Sabin. Two heels. _Chris Daniels vs D-Lo Brown was good as a Nitro sprint, but it’s getting obvious now that D-Lo has some limitations in term of building a match, too weak on selling, not that great on fiery comebacks. He’s right at his place in the undercard having solid match which can be spectacular and fun in terms of spots. That’s why he’s still feuding with Sonny Siaki & Ekmo I guess, who win a decent JTTS match against Shark Boy & Mad Mikey. For all the old hype about Erin O’Grady back in the days, he sure never went further than comedy guy. Kinda sad. AMW are going to feud with Abyss & Kid Kash, but their first match wasn’t too good. Because Kash & Abyss aren’t too good. At least it keep them occupied while Simon Diamond & Johnny Swinger have their little reign. Good interview segment with Tenay. Gilberti is an asshole to David Young, whose gimmick seems to be « perenial wannabee » after months doing deeds for Siaki. They beat him up after he loses to the Sandman. This bunch have a decent little chemistry as characters. The product is way less crazy than it was, makes more sense and has more developped feuds. The main event scene is still dead because of the booking and presence of Russo, and now Dusty. AJ Styles has really been wasted big time. 2003/10/01 Jerry Lynn vs Michael Shane 2003/10/01 Chris Daniels vs D-Lo Brown

I feel like we need to poke at this a bit. I've been saying this for years. The Worm is hideous. At least the People's Elbow looks cool because of the Rock's maneurisms and the Mutaesque snap. Cena's version with the shitty fist-drop is ridiculous.

"L"ascenceur social", as we say in French. But really, yeah, good for her though.

You got a laugh out of me.

PPV 62 The Raven vs James Mitchell feud keeps on carrying this promotion, with strong promos, logical build and this week a chaotic and bloody six-men dog collar match between Raven & CM Punk & Julio Dinero vs Shane Douglas & Slash & Sinn, which had a few interesting spots and, despite an anti-climatic finish not even caught on camera (nice TNA prod), felt like an old IWA Japan match. That’s a positive. The post match with a group hanging was actually very good, CM Punk doing a great job looking hung. Jeff Jarrett has its first good match in a while against Chris Daniels, who’s got a bunch of creepy zombi-looking minions with him. That gimmick feels pretty forced. 3 Live Kru is a perfect instance of the whole being better than the sum of its parts, as their match against Gilberti, Diamond & David Young (subbing for an injured Swinger) was pretty good and heated. Of course, the tag titles were on the line despite only Diamond being a legit tag champ. Always hate when that happens. Anyway, 3 Live Kru goes like this : Konnan does his sequence with funky submissions and rool-up sequences then tags out to catch his breath for the rest of the match, Ron Killings does athletic spots then sells, and James gets the hot tag and does his routine. It kinda works. Russo is a petty mysoginic pussy. Why ? Ok, a useless Dusty Rhodes vs AJ Styles bunkhouse match which ends with AJ getting a bare ass spanking, then Dusty threatens to hit Russo with his leather belt only to have Trinity (in a short dress, that’s important) putting her body on the line and getting, yes, a spanking too. So, World champ AJ Styles and former powerful female figure Trinity show ass, while Russo doesn’t even get one belt lash. Big fucking pussy. The X-div elimination match between Jerry Lynn, Chris Sabin, Juventud Guerrera, Frankie Kazarian & Nosawa was pretty decent since they didn’t need to sell a lot, although it kinda degenerated into a little bit of a cluster when they got to the final three. Kazarian hits on every hot girl now (Lollipop this week, can't blame him), so I guess he’s a heel now. The Kid Kash stuff against Terry Taylor was bad, with Rooster looking worse than pretty much every other veterans that have showed up (not working since 1995 probably explains it though, as he was in really good shape physically), and the Red Shirt Security vs Black Shirt Security was kinda ridiculous aesthetically, although not that bad as Kevin Northcut looks like a decent power hoss. The Black Shirt are complete jabronies though. 2003/09/24 Jeff Jarrett vs Christopher Daniels 2003/09/24 3 Live Kru vs Glen Gilberti & Simon Diamond & David Young 2003/09/24 Raven & CM Punk & Julio vs Shane Douglas & Slash & Sinn

What new show ? Total Diva ? Well, good for Foley who manages to still get a paycheck from them.

I thought Teddy Hart was ridiculous, both in look and work. Indierrific spotfu is probably the worst kind of pro-wrestling to me. PPV 61 At least, the two main events delivered, in their own way. Raven vs Shane Douglas in a hair vs hair match was a total veteran minimalistic main event, Douglas being obviously far from his own self physically. It shows whenever he has to bump or do something requiring any speed, so Raven’s offense which is never the strongest doesn’t look that great here. On the other hand, Douglas is a master in getting heat and antagonizing the crowd, which he does in spades. So they don’t do much but make it mean something and managed to get some cool moments like Raven making fans hold a chair for him to bust Douglas, or Shane showing Raven’s blood on his hands to a girl at ringside. And then, well, Dougals pukes in the ring. He puuuuuuuukes ! Yep, not in ring-shape anymore. And then the match kinda goes into stupidity with the tables and run-ins of both factions and finally the lights going out to reveal : the comeback of Sabu ! Fuck. It’s Vampiro. Damn. He looks all Muta-esque and creepy, but he still sucks, as showed by the horrendous, sub-Onita DDT he gives to Raven. The post-match hair cutting was really good though, with Douglas holding a mirror so Raven has to watch his own humiliation. Don West and particulary Tenay totally overselling it was fucking hilarious. AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn was short, but excellent for what it was. These two were the MVP’s of 2002, hell, they were the only thing worth watching the promotion in 2002, and AJ is even better now. Lynn bleeds a gusher which was a dubious decision considering the main event which had double blood to come. Still great chemistry though, and Trinity is a good working valet. The only other fun match of the show was a casket match, with the casket inside the ring so it can be used as a weapon, between D-Lo Brown & Sonny Siaki. Ok, it’s a ridiculous WCW 00-like Nitro match, but it was dynamic enough and the casket inside the ring prevents a shitty WWF-like match with « rolling people on the apron » spots. And the debut of « He-was-Jamal-of-3-Minutes-Warning-in-WWE-fame ». Just give these guys fucking names already, this WWE fetish is exactly what made this company a joke from the get go. X-division guys have a 6-men spotfest which wasn’t good. Eric Young debuted and bumped on a phantom dropkick, nice idiotic spot that exposed how much these guys work like robots instead of reacting organically. Frankie Kazarian just forgot about the match to hit on a blonde at ringside. Well, I guess there are no babyface in the X-div anymore, and Juvy hasn’t been able to reign these guys at all, on the contrary he’s just doing the same spotty thoughtless style. A pretty poor N°1 contender match between four teams. Only one pinfall, which is always a recipe for crappy matches. So 3 Live Kru are the N°1 contenders now. Not that I wanted to see that feud, but the whole minority against racist Harris Boys has been completely forgotten, 3 Live Kru are just happy-go-lucky now. They’re like a Benetton commercial. And Kid Kash is seemingly feuding with Terry Taylor who screwed up his balls shot. Piper showing up to ramble like an irrelevant old guy, which he was. He can’t even catch the hard cam. Russo, Dusty, whatever. Dusty once in a while is cool. Dusty all the time is quickly tiring. Jeff Jarrett is beating up Chris Daniels minions now. Oh man, we don’t need another evil preacher gimmick with « mind control » for fuck’s sake. Tenay & West already dropped the "mind control" phrase about Jim Mitchell, Raven, Kid Kash... Why is that every Jarrett feud is the worst ? He hasn't been very good himself, he doesn't need shitty angles to boot. 2003/09/17 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2003/09/17 Raven vs Shane Douglas

Yeah, that one too. It's crazy.

The jokes write themselves.

Rudy Charles, TNA referee. Terrible. Bad positioning, positively distracting, awful at being distracted and looking away. No idea if he improved, but in 2003, this guy was the shits.

PPV 60 « You should give up when you get to the X Cup Tournament in September 2003. » I should have listened. Easily the most boring, clusterfucky show of all. Stage 1 : A godawul opener with Mad Mickey vs Lazz. No idea what the fuck Lazz is supposed to be. Dressed as a woman with odd facepaint, does homoerotic spots that are supposed to be comedic. Fast forward. I don’t want to see either of these two ever again. Stage 2 : The Super X Cup aka the shittiest Super J Cup ever. A tournament of eight guys in about one hour. A bunch of Nitro cruiserweight quickies at best (Nosawa vs Juvy / Lynn vs Sabin) awful indierrific wankfest with contrived moves, stunts, no-transition and shit selling (everything else). First look at Teddy Hart. Hope I won’t see him ever again, his match with other spotmonkey Jonny Storm was embarrassing. Kazarian is extremely annoying. Shane & Sabin have the most potential, but even the final of Sabin vs Juventud, which was the best match of all for a while, was still sloppy with no psychology at all and after an horrible Eddielenko sequence just went straight down the sewer when, after being dropped right on his head and kicking out of it, Sabin got back on offense like nothing happened because it was his turn to do a finisher. And a kick-out from Juvy. Rince, repeat. Total false epic. I gotta state again how terrible Rudy Charles is as a referee, he’s downright distracting at times. Juvy wins, whatever. Don’t do that again, please. Micheal Shane got beat in the first round, despite being the champ. Brillant booking too. Stage 3 : Well, that Wargames-like match wasn’t a good idea after all. One cage only, too much people and the weapons inside turned it into a Gangstas vs Public Enemy match circa 1995. Total clusterfuck, got boring quick as soon as the ring got saturated. Jarrett wins. Heels cut Raven’s hair. And a Interrogators segment with « The red shirt security guys », which are bad guys. How fucking exciting as character. The red shirt security guys. Feel the money dropping. Can’t wait to see a bunch of matches with The red shirt security guys. The X tournament could have been watchable if not for indy spotwank matches all over, and the final was almost good. Juvy has regressed a lot as a worker. The cage match was a complete mess.

Yeah, his promos and interactions were so good in WCW and TNA. I mean, so damn good.

That's the old mentality of "He didn't really love da buziness" that painted Lex Luger or Goldberg in a bad light. Yeah, that Goldberg guy who is a militant for animal rights surely deserves shit for not loving da buziness like those sleazebags who drug raped "rats" and used to shit in bags. (I guess all this talk should be transferred in "pro-wrestling as a cult" thread though). But yeah. If John Laurinaitis wanted to recruit lingerie models, why blame any of those women to try and make a buck out of it ? This is show business. The whole "getting new fresh meat" for the boyz is another issue entirely, although I wonder if that's not also a case of slut shaming. If some of these girls flirted with the boyz, what's the big deal about it ?

Who ? No disrespect, but I don't think it's seen exactly like being the child of a former mainstream WWE/NWA guy, especially to those guys in Titan Tower. Foley's daughter is wrestling ?

I realized today that I can't hear "enough is enough" without thinking "and it's time for a change". Thanks Owen.

Who are they ? Ric's daughter. Neidhart's daughter. Snuka's daughter. Tully's daughter. Who else ? And about sexism, since we're at it, gotta "love" Corny's latest rant about female wrestler (who paid their dues) vs hoes of Total Divas. And by hoes he meant girls who are using pro-wrestler as a way to get into the entertainment business and don't really love pro-wrestling and don't pay their dues by travelling, earning shit and suffering for da buziness… you know the drill. And then, he adds about Charlotte "okay, she didn't do it that way, but she's go the genes". Oh. So that's why A guy like Randy Orton is revered by co-workers despite being a black hole of charisma and work. But back to the women, he talks about Stacy Keibler who "sucked dicks to her way to spousing a millionaire", to which I really can't disagree that much, since Stacy really dind't showcase very much talent at all except having great legs. But that's another matter. Beautiful people, you know how it works. But yeah, those "second generation" girls who "got the genes", it's no big deal they get straight into WWE's contracts. But a girl like Nikki Bella who at one point improved a lot and became a really good heel shouldn't get any respect, if you follow his diatribe. Double standarts anyone ? So yeah, maybe, from the perspective of the people in the business, it plays into this whole new vision of women's wrestling.

Yeah, New Jack was funny and cut good promos, but his matches were the shits. Should have been kept a character on-air though. PPV 59 Wait. Another good TNA PPV ? WTF ? Gotta give some kredit to 3 Live Kru. They aren’t good in-ring workers, but they actually put some effort in creating some cool tag team moves, and they are over. Konnan wish the audience would let him speak on this too. Heated opener against Slash & Sinn ending in a schmozz. D-Lo Brown vs Sonny Siaki was as good as a Siaki match gets. Trinity is now a undercarder valet. Female empowerment. Well, she did hit a nice spot on D-Lo, giving Sonny the win. Wait, how long before Trinity gets sick of this again ? Jeff Jarrett runs in and bashes a guitar. Abyss vs Sandman was decent enough as a JTTS match. Kinda sad Sandman is reduced to this role though, Abyss' whole gimmick is so low-rent. Now, the good stuff, Jerry Lynn vs Michael Shane was the best straight X-div match in a while, with Lynn controlling the pace. Shane is now a heel apparently, after his babyface performance the week before. Make sense, in a WCW way. And his entire gimmick is to be Shawn Micheals' cousin. Yes, Russo, always promoting WWE. He’s a plant booker. Shane shows quite decent heel character though, including teasing an elbowdrop and not doing it, which always pisses off fans. Don Callis at ringside is doing a good job on color as, even as a heel, he actually puts over Lynn. Take notes JBL. Simon Diamond & Swinger vs AMW in a tag title match was yet another good bout. This feud has been going on for long now but it does not drag yet, and this time the heels finally wins thanks to Gilberti, so AMW can chase the title again. This leads into a pretty decent, all things considered, Dusty Rhodes vs Glen Gilberti bullrope match. Better than the Corino one in ECW I believe, so kudos do Disco on that one. The only bad stuff on this show was Terry Taylor as a backstage interviewer, in which he sucked a dick, contrary to Goldylocks. Plus, if we believe Cornette, Taylor is a stooge. If we believe Missy Hyatt, Taylor has a small dick. Jeff Jarrett runs in and bashes a guitar at some point too. And a terrible Mad Mickey segment with Tenay. Since he showed up, he’s been the worst part of the show every week. And then Raven vs AJ Styles in maybe the best single match of the year thus far. And probably Raven’s best single match ever, and it’s not like he’s been carried, although Styles is great no matter what. Lots of cool stuff here, excellent bayface work by Raven despite a few shaky executed spots (but Raven has never been the smoothest guy around, and who cares at this point ?) and a hot finish with run-ins that are used to their best effect (as opposed to a stupid Double J Special). Douglas finally screws Raven who loses the match to the outrage of the other babyfaces while James Mitchell looks evil as Hell. Jarrett runs in and gets booed. Erik Watts runs in and gets cheered. Next week, some sort of Wargames match. Awesome. Two weeks in a row, TNA delivers the goods. Was Russo still booking ? If not, who was ? Mantell ? Dusty ? Oh yeah, they have been promoting Roddy Piper for two weeks now. Hopefully he does like Negro Casas and don't show up. 27/08/2003 Jerry Lynn vs Michael Shane 27/08/2003 AMW vs Simon Diamond & Swinger 27/08/2003 Raven vs AJ Styles

BTW, I've gotta say, I love the southern accent drawl. Maybe that plays a part in why Dutch Mantell and Lance Russel are two of my all-time favourite announcers.

There's a stigma against southern accents because states in the Deep South, where you'll find the thickest accents in the country, happen to also be the poorest, least educated, and most obese. Combine that with the region's history with the civil war and the rampant racism and it's a pretty easy region to make fun of. Half those guys you listed as being able to work around a southern accent are from Texas. I think, given the area's wealth and popularity as a vacation destination, there's not much association with the neighboring Deep South, so that's what makes it possible for people get a Texan accent over without getting branded as a southern guy. Same thing for Florida. RE: the "rampant racism" of the South, singling out the South for racism is one of the laziest stereotypes there is. I saw more overt racism growing up in the Cincinnati area than I do now in Dallas. Partially that could be the changing times, of course. OTOH, I saw some dude just waving the Confederate flag on a busy street corner a couple weeks ago in Dallas, so what do I know. I'd dream of a southern heel coming out to "Rednecks" by Randy Newman. Of course the subtleties of the song would fly over 90% of the pro-wrestling audience I guess, but it would be amazing, still.

I just saw the finish. She's the one getting pinned.

Is this just wrestling related though ? How many people with Southern accent do you hear on national TV and programs ? It's kinda the same thing in France. Regional accents are erased from TV, except on shows with regional flavors or sports-broadcasting that have an historical attachment to some regions like the south with rugby. Language is getting streamlined.