El-P

Yeah, about those "niche" picks. Takada was arguably the biggest draw in Japan at one point. Zenjo was packing Budokan during it's peak years. "Niche" is a patronizing term. Totally agree.

I'm not, considering where it was going. The fun thing now is that Flair fans won't be able to say shit about "being Fair to Flair" for the next ten years.

Ah ah ! To be the Man etc... Flair cheated. As always.

Ok. DROP THE BOMB !

Takako Inoue, obviously. My fault.

From what I get from shoot interviews, Adams was a cool and very funny guy in real life. While Clarke came off as an asshole with an unwarranted ego. In the ring though, Clarke wins hands down. I always wished he was pushed more than he was, I was a fan of Adam Bomb for fuck's sake. He had some really fun stuff in WCW when he was teaming with Kanyon. Then he got over again in 1998 when they gave him a streak on Nitro, only to have Nash squash him on the route to kill Goldberg. Kronik was an awful team though, they looked like two giant clowns on steroids.

Ah ah, the Batllart quote is pretty funny. And yeah, I'd also pop whenever Valentine had a random JTTS match on Nitro in 96. He should have gotten the TV title and feuded with Regal. Loved the robes and shit. And I would always imitate the Fink introducing the Hammer for whatever reason. "From Seattle, Washington. Greg. The Hammer. Valentiiiiiiiiiine." Classic.

Terry Funk's case was made everywhere.

I became a Ric Flair fan the minute he showed up on WWF T.V. Wait, rewind. At this time in France, we only had WWF TV. Wrestling was WWF. Two years earlier, when I went on vacation with my parents through Great Britain, I saw in a window shop a few wrestling toys. The logo was not WWF, much to my surprise. It was WCW. Logo sucked. And there were these guys with superhero names : Lex Luger, Sting and Ric Flair. back in 1991. When Eddie Carpentier announced that the following week, there would be the debut of "The real World's champion" Ric Flair, I was excited. That was the guy from the other federation. And he was the Real World Champion ? Eddie Carpentier, who I guess didn't care much about WWF corporate history, even said that Hogan was only the WWF champ while Flair was the true World champ. Well, he used to say Rick Martel had been the World champ to on TV. When Flair showed up, he looked like an old-school wrestler to me, yeah, even in 1991. The robe a-la Greg Valentine/Rick Rude, the matching color tights/kneepads/boots, the non bodybuilder body. And the promos, with French subtitled. I didn't get everything, but I was mesmerized. Royal Rumble 1992 was my very first "special event", as they said, showed on TV. I was pulling for Flair. I was a mark. And when Flair won, I popped like crazy. I never cared for Hogan. I wanted either Flair or Sid to win, but I was a Flair fan. The post-match promo was the greatest thing I ever heard. From there, I was done. I had no idea about the NWA legacy, the Steamboat feuds, the Four Horsemen, Dusty. All of this would came later on. Then in 1996, WWF TV was replaced by WCW Nitro. I was not happy. I was a WWF mark. I thought Rey was "too small" the first time I saw him. I thought Hogan and Savage looked old and that it was just WWF rehash. But Flair was there. And shit, he was with Liz, who was hotter than ever, and a heel. And this other Woman. I always loved glamour in pro-wrestling. Ric Flair was still *it*. And that Arn Anderson, who looked like an old math teacher, well, he was pretty good too after all. And yes, I was still a Ric Flair mark. And I became a Nitro fan quite quickly. I wanted Flair to jump to RAW in the spring of 1998. I wanted Flair vs Austin. Instead, we got the Attitude era and Vince McMahon winning the Royal Rumble. And Owen Hart dying. I stopped following WWF. WCW was my only hope for US wrestling, and Ric Flair although way passed his prime, was still Ric Flair. Wait ? The last hope ? Not really. By early 1997, I got the Internet and heard about that ECW promotion. The greatest thing ever. Violence, sex, blood, swearing. Revolutionary stuff that had never been done before. And there was a legend of pro-wrestling over there. Terry Funk. I read about Terry Funk on a french WWF Magazine, years earlier, during a WrestleMania recap. There was even a picture of that insane cowboy looking guy. And then he showed up at Royal Rumble 1997, that I watched on a Sky broadcast, my first PPV in English. And then I saw him on that Mania tape I bought (well, I bought the entire Mania collection released in 1997, 1 to 14) at Mania 2. The guy was fun. He looked insane indeed. And then I saw a bunch of ECW stuff on a German channel. And then more on a channel called Bravo, I believe. The joy of satellite TV. And I became a fan of Terry Funk in ECW. I knew about the history, so when I began buying tapes, I bought some old All Japan Tag Team League compilation from the 70's, and some FMW with the Onita match, and the IWA Deathmatch tournament (like everyone else, Terry Funk was Mick Foley's mentor, and I loved Mick Foley) and those 1989 NWA PPV's with the Flair matches. Every time, Funk was different, yet himself. And he was incredible to watch. Then he showed up in WWF as Chainsaw Charlie, then I bought more tapes, then wrestling videos started pop up on Internet. Terry was everywhere, old, young, bloody, heel, face, crazy, hilarious, Memphis, WCW. Terry was everywhere and Terry was the perfect pro-wrestler. Since then, I got a little bit tired of Ric Flair big match style.Not tired of Flair himself. Flair will always remained one of my all-time favourites. I never got tired of Terry Funk's match though. Probably because it was never the same, he could improvise like nobody's business, he was just insane and brillant. I voted Terry #3, but in all honesty, Terry Funk is probably my favourite pro-wrestler.

The post-Attitude, pre-Cena era of WWE sounds like the pits of boredom hell. PPV 48 For a Triple Threat match, Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles vs Raven was pretty good but the lack of heel/face dynamic really hurts everything. Raven is made out to be the biggest babyface of all without having turned really, since AJ & Jeff double team him for a while. Then it turns into a one on one match when Shane Douglas (finally !) attacks Raven and drags him away. Styles vs Jarrett was good but Jarrett has some annoying execution flaws like anticipating some moves way too early. And of course, Russo shows up and finally screws Jarrett (he tries to do the old « Who is he gonna hit ?» game but he’s so awful at anything he does that it was totally obvious). Nice, so now AJ Styles first title reign is thanks to Russo, who booked himself in the main event scene again. Rest of the show was terrible. Well, Chris Sabin vs Shark Boy was a pretty watchable little X-division match and Sandman & Devon Storm (in complete Crowbar costume) actually found a way to almost make the idiotic Hard Ten gimmick work. Almost. On the most terrible side of things, Kid Kash vs Trinity & Goldylocks (who’s a character I guess now that Scott Hudson debuted as the backstage interviewer) was not only awful but it also marks the debut of Abyss, whom from what I’ve seen is one of the stupidest garbage worker ever with a third rate gimmick. Well, his stock can only rise. Kid Kash wins BTW, so yeah, the woman abuser pig wins in the end. In the same « woman are sluts to be abused anyway » category, AMW vs David Young & Tracy was awful too. AMW were totally off, I guess not motivated by working a match which makes them and the whole tag team division look stupid. Tracy’s whole gimmick is talking bump and showing ass, litteraly I mean. Oh, and her big spot, which is basically Matt Borne’s bomb’s away, is called « The pie in the sky ». How classy. More PMS-like deal after the match with Nurse Veronica making a comeback. The only good segments on the undercard was a decent brawl between D-Lo Brown & Julio (not Dinero anymore, which is annoying since it makes him generic) and the Interrogators stuff with Justin Credible & Jerry Lynn, picking at each other until they just go at it. In other words, what I’m looking for now is Raven vs Shane Douglas and Justin Credible vs Jerry Lynn. Welcome to ECW 1999. Next week, for the first anniversary show : Sting. Really ? 2003/06/11 Raven vs AJ Styles vs Jeff Jarrett

NOAH fans ?

Still untangling my brain from trying to read this sentence. My God, man, where's the punctuation? THINK OF THE CHILDREN! There's a hypen You can use more than two h per sentence too.

Flair will win. Funk is better.

Yep, I guessed right. Now, can Funk pull it off ? I guess not but it would be awesome.

Well, I have 2/3 at least. In which order ? I don't think Hansen will finish #2 like I had him.

Actually, I think #3 will be Hansen. Flair, Funk, or Hansen? Hansen.

Miz ? Kofi Kingston ? I'm already going through vintage TNA, no need for more spot monkeys and dull-ass cosplayers.

Fujiwara's dazed no-selling in the corner makes Takada's leglock the equivalent of A Love Supreme. (I totally feel like I'm in the insult contest of Monkey Island now. )

Honestly, I'm baffled that of all the AJ guys, Misawa is the one who actually *gained spots* since 2006. Considering the criticims thrown at All Japan style and NOAHism, considering the fact Misawa is actually the one who died because of it, considering his NOAH work really isn't talked about with much enthousiasm, I really thought he would be the one who would drop he most out of the 4 pillars. I'm kinda stunned. Totally pulling for him though.

Takada's leglock still looks more realistic than Fujiwara's headbutts, so all is well.

The 619 impact always look awkward, especially when people bump like idiots from taking it. I've learned to deal with the fact Rey is gonna do it at some point and the setup is gonna be half-smart/half-ridiculous/contrived, but the impact looks weak most of the time. It's one of those moves where the Idea of it is much better than the actual execution. The 619 is a great Platonician pro-wrestling move.

And what about the 619 ? It is painfull.

I'm not sure the term "beautiful" really relates to anything in TNA except Lollipop. But thanks ! And yeah, group therapy by reviewing crappy wrestling promotions ! It can work ! We can't get much more down than these people went. So : PPV 47 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown to determine a N°1 contender was good. They played the familiarity game, so a lot of your-turn my-turn, but D-Lo did some impressive stuff (a frogspash to the outside). They did play the difference of strenght too. Raven attacks both guys. And the match next week will be a three-way since Raven was promised a title shot before. I don’t like three ways, but at least you got the three top guys in the same match. This is the infamous Glen Gilberti vs Jeff Jarrett main event, which makes everyone in the company look dumb. This is where a sense of hierarchy is actually important. As much as Gilberti was decent as a mouthpiece and as much as he can be fine in the middle of the undercard, having him in the main event and trying to work an epic match with Jarrett just fucks up everything. At least he should work from underneath, trying to sneak into a fluke victory. But no, he’s working as an ass-kicker and thinks he’s Kurt Angle again. Anyway, bad match with trading finishers (wow, every bit of WWE self-conscious epics tropes are there. Was this already a staple in WWE at the time ?), sloppy execution and Russo showing up again. The rest of the card was just as bad. Frankie Kazarian debuts in a six-man tag cluster with CM Punk & some guy named Matt Stryker, with an Y vs Kid Romeo, Swinger (yawn) and some green-ass guy named Damien Dothart. Punk isn’t made for this kind of stuff and Kazarian deserved a better set up since they teased a feud with Sabin already. More Hard Ten stupidity, this time with The Vampire Warrior. Tenay had to remind everyone that « He was Gangrel in WWE ». Seriously, let it go already, it's not like Gangrel was anything but JTTS. Well, so was D-Lo when you think about it. More stupid tournament matches, including AMW getting back together and having to carry BJ James & Konnan, both looking as lazy/bad as ever, and another « tag » match with Ron Killings alone (HarriSS doesn’t want to tag with him because he accuses him of playing the « race card », funny to have a guy with an SS tatoo play a racist shit) vs David Young & Tracy. Killings is one of those « wasted movements » workers like RVD or Booker T. Tracy takes stupid bumps and has a catfight with Desire. Tracy has to show lots of ass every week. Talking about women mistreatment, the Kid Kash & Trinity angle keeps on going… more verbal and physical abuse and now Trinity doesn’t do shit. So Goldylocks defends her, which leads to homophobic jokes by Kash, implying that Goldy & Trinty have sex together. Well, I did like Goldy’s answer though, talking about Kash’s « limp bizkit ». Ok, it wasn’t very smart and led to more woman abuse, until Erik Watts runs-in and saves the day to a big pop. They found a way to make people care about Erik Watts for a second, although of course, this whole angle should have stopped as soon as Trinity beat Kash weeks ago. Raven had actually two interview segments which shows how well this show is pre-planned... As always the Tenay interview was shooty and Raven reverted back to Scott Levy talking about his career, even telling the infamous Bischoff story where he just left the room. Bad show « saved » by a Raven promo, D-Lo vs AJ and Tracy’s ass.The main event was particulary embarrassing even beyond the subpar work. 2003/06/03 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown

He was selling.

As goc said, he had improved by the time he ended up in TNA as Malice. But as The Wall/AWOL, he was godawful indeed.