El-P

Everything is political. Plus, it's more fun to think. Not everything is political. In the cases where its not, its imagining rather than thinking. But whatever works. you don't think Hulk Hogan waving the flag of the United States and fighting the evil foreigner heels is political ? You don't think ethnic babyface Bruno Sammartino is political ? You don't think JYD being made a blakc babyface in the traditionnaly racist South is political ? You don't think Korean born Riki Choshu and Akira Maeda representing the rebel forces in 80's New Japan is political (I asked the question before, no one answered) ? There's so much political and social comments we can make out of pro-wrestling. It's actually fascinating. You don't think women like to watch some sports because they like to see athletic good looking young men getting at it ? Tennis is not sexualized at all with all the young women in short skirts ? Every sport is about the body, although some body are more desirable than others, following the current social norms. I wouldn't follow weightlifting if I was a woman. As a heterosexual guy I would follow beach volley if I had nothing else better to do.

It's true in every sport though.

Everything is political. Plus, it's more fun to think.

This really has nothing to do with feminisn though. Chyna beating up men was basically a freak show. Plus she was a shit worker, the matches were horrible. Only Jeff Jarrett managed to get something pretty decent ot of her. The fact she wouldn't work with other women because she felt it was "beneath her" says a lot. Chyna was pushed that way because she was basically a man. That what got her over. She had the body of a man, yet no one would hit her because she was a woman. It played on social taboos, despite the fact she was almost as big and strong as the guys. Which was brillant, at first. When she became "just another guy", it negated everything unique about her gimmick. The fact she sucked as a worker was even worse, as it was painfull to see. Pretty much. The fact Bailey is not oversexualised makes her a positive figure since she's also the underdog finally getting to the top (or course you could push it even further in term of social commentary about the whole "getting to the top" aspect of the game, but that would be questionning the entire sports realm). Then again, there's nothing wrong about sexualization in itself, as long as it's assumed as such from the point of view of the woman. Plus, one could argue that Bailey and her imagery are un-sexualized because it refers to childhood. I mean, the giant… stuff (dunno the name in English, well, in French probably either) during her entrance, her whole outfit have somethig "childish" about it. Well, not childish. But something refering to childhood, that's for sure. So. I dunno. I could probably deep deeper into this.

Pretty much. Probably why I enjoy it too.

The Lynn vs Credible matches have been fine thus far. Just too short. Enjoy it while it lasts, people. PPV 51 Shane Douglas is the best promo in the company already. The fact he can't rely on F-bombs surely helps him focusing and not go into self-parody like in the end of the ECW stint and what followed in the indies. Since they teased a Raven vs Sabu feud that never happened, I want my other ECW dream match, although Shane's in-work looks rough at times. Good little Clockwork House of Fun match against CM Punk though, who's trying to impress Raven. On the other hand, the Jarrett and Russo segment was awful. Jarrett sounds so third rate on the mic following Douglas, and Russo is simply unbearable. Hey, more big surprise with... Joe Legend from WWF fame. What ? Joe Legend ? WWF fame ? Anyway, brutal beatdown on Jarrett, split blood and shit, but no one cares. Turn him heel already. Wait, some really good stuff from AJ Styles again, having a good match against Frankie Kazarian. Styles impresses the hell out of me, he managed to get the best out of Frankie who's a sloppy indy spot monkey. His heeling is excellent, he slows the pace down, teases a dive to piss off the crowd, builds hope spots and then bumps like crazy to make Kazarian offense look big time. Amazing how far this guy has come in one year. Runs-in from Chris Sabin & heel Trinity (no explanation of course, but there really can't be any that would make sense). And Kazarian, since he's green and stupid, tucks his chin before the Styles CLash, so he gets dropped straight on his head and neck. Scary spot. Post match was efficient enough in building the title match against D-Lo, which will be a transitionnal feud on top I guess. AMW had a pretty poor match against David Young & Sonny Siaki. Where is Desire ? She was the only element that brought these guys any character. AMW work too fast here and go through too many spots. Too many nearfalls too, no sense of hierarchy. Not a good showing. Sandman vs New Jack in a stupid Hard Ten match, hopefully the last ever. New Jack thrown off balcony into table, how shocking. Mike Sanders vs Shark Boy in a mediocre little match. Konnan, Ron Killings & BG James seem reduced to a comedy trio, making fashion statements. Tracy & Nurse Veronica challenging guys and getting Lollipop and her ass-shaking friend instead. Lollipop looks even hotter when she's not dancing BTW. What a girl. She also showed concern for Jerry Lynn who got beat up by Justin Credible after their Russian Chain match (well, Dog Collar match actually, but Russo is too dumb to know the difference), which they worked really well actually. Well, I give a lot of credit to Jerry Lynn who reminds me that he's really versatile and knows how to work a good brawl too. Nice surprise this match, and Credible is still quite solid too. Funniest match of the night was Erik Watts vs The Abyss (as Bret Hart named him I guess). Introducing your monster against a guy who's almost taller than him is the greatest idea ever. Add the the fact he got powerbombed from the top rope already. His finisher is the oddest too, like a reverse Big Bubba side slam where he's the one running into his opponent and then acting like the momentum comes from the other body. Dunno how to describe the oddness of it. The Abyss really does look like the exact cross between Mankind & Kane, only with a third rate generic look. I think I'm gonna love getting into The Abyss. Goldilocks seems to be gone, which is too bad, I kinda liked her, she wasn't taking shit from the boys. Sting gets to do some kind of shoot interview with Tenay, talking about his career, which is nice, although I'm not sure he's coming back anytime soon. Douglas is a more than welcome addition. Everything involving Jarrett sucks because he's basically feuding with Russo. Mexican legend Negro Casas and Shocker are coming next week. Tequila on the pole anyone ? 2003/07/02 Shane Douglas vs CM Punk 2003/07/02 AJ Styles vs Frankie Kazarian 2003/07/02 Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible

It's not a matter of "respecting" all style. If you really get bored shitless by shoot-style, which I can understand, I don't see why you should try to watch it, even for GWE purpose. I've been watching pro-wrestling for 25 years. I never got into pure lucha. Not too sure why. Never tried that hard. Never was truly drawn to it either. Also, yeah, at some point, I never could quite figure out what was happening in those trios matches, which I found formulaic, devoid of excitement. Maybe, probably, it's just me not getting the way they work. Maybe it's the cultural gap. Probably not considering how many people not from Mexico love it. Maybe it's just that I really never cared for the style, whereas shoot-style came more naturally because it was closer in form to what I was interested in : japanese guys pretending to fight in martial arts tournaments. Blame Saint Seya & Dragon Ball watch when I was 11. Never liked the lucha announcing, much like the match I thought it was an annoying background sound. Maybe because it sounded like soccer announcing to me, not speaking spanish one bit. I don't give a shit about soccer. Japanese announcing never bothered me as a background sound, I found it charming although I didn't understand anything. Me being interested in Japan much more than Mexico (or hispanic culture as a whole) ?. Maybe. Probably. But in essence, I'm pretty sure if I watched enough, I could rank guys fairly. Like the famous quote said, "X luchador doesn't do anything that the old grandma at ringside can't understand". It's not rocket-science. it's not philosophy not free-jazz, nor serial music. It's too guys pretending to fight, one is the bad guy, one is the good guy. At the end, one wins. Not sure where I'm going, but… well, basically, pro-wrestling is mostly the same thing everywhere. The form changes a bit, so does the presentation, but I don't think there are some grandstandings to make about great cultural differences that would make a style totally impossible to get. Unlike, for instance, try to differenciate Turkish folk and Turkish classical music if you're totally unfamiliar. Or the dozens different romani dance musics that a gypsy orchestra from Eastern Istanbul can play. Pro-wrestling is basic stuff.

Is the suggestion that because there are fewer styles, they are all equally important? Because it's ridiculous to compare pro-wrestling and music, plain and simple. I know people like to babble about how "pro-wrestling is an artform", but it really isn't (and no, I'm not intending on debating that tired point again). And even if it was, what's the point of making analogies and comparison between different artforms ? To accomplish what ? And yes, all style of pro-wrestling can be considered as equally important, especially since, when you really think about it, they are not *that* much different. Shoot-style being the one I can accept looks the most different from all the others (and still, it depends who is doing it, a lot of UWF-I big matches involved pro-wrestlers from pro-style companies like Vader or John Tenta, not to mention the feud with New Japan). It's even more true these days.

Any musical analogy just don't work. Forget it people.

To me there was always a live action shôjo aspect to the whole Crush Gals mania.

Inter-gender match in LU are basically as good as you can make them without being too unrealistic of make the process idiotic looking, since there are a lot of spots playing with body momentum and such, which already looke "funny" in pure lucha anyway. When they're dealing with a huge size and weight difference, because that's really what it comes down to, they are trying to do the most of it kinda like the small woman would be a small man. Still, at some point, there's still this fact of a man hitting a woman which can get creepy quite quickly. The worst representation of "feminism" always have been Russo's of course. PMS. Say no more. Bayley is really the closest thing from a totally unsexualised (but still cute, as in, not made to look like some kind of ugly nerd like she would have in the past) and positive feminist figure in WWE. Stephy sure isn't. Japanese wrestlers, I think it's a whole different ballgame, as you can't essentialize things, and I think one would have to really understand the Japanese society and its codes to really talk about it. When I heard Dylan write than Dump vs Chiggy had "rape porn" element in it, I really cringed for instance.

Some people are trendsetters. Some people follow trends. Human nature. The WWE narratives surely are the strongest in term of setting trends that the mianstream fan is following. Shawn Michaels = greatest wrestler ever is one. It sure helps his case in some circles. Not so much around here, where it probably even has a negative, opposite effect as a reaction.

Glad they didn't show that... PPV 50 First legit great match in TNA in 2003 (and maybe ever ?). AMX vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels) cage match. Tenay taking shots at the climbing cage gimmick was kinda funny. Straight out of WCW 1995. They worked it old-school with blood, not going insane with the cage gimmick, really milking the babyfaces comebacks than escalating the tension at the end before an awesome finish. Two huge dives that made sense. Kudos to Skipper who seemed to have hurt himself early in the match but worked it through anyway. Daniels is just terrific, does a lot of small things right actually. Plus it was the opener so great kickstart to this show. Then of course, you have to reduce the impact of this match, so we get an impromptu match in the cage between AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown. With blood. Of course. Keeping the big cage match unique would make too much sense. Russo runs-in. Fuck, he’s gonna ruin every AJ Styles segment now. At least the action was promising and they’re making an effort to build D-Lo to somewhat main-event level. As far as good stuff goes, Shane Douglas cut a good focused promo, talking about how he ruined the legacy of the NWA ten years before and now Raven wants to rehabilitate it. Kinda liked how he basically no-sold Jarrett’s reign in hindsight. Leads to a Douglas & Gilberti vs Raven & Jarrett main event, which went off the wheel. Pretty good brawling at first, but then Raven hurt his ankle on a terrible looking tope and Gilberti & Jarrett weren’t too good. Douglas looked fat and rusty. Raven actually did a terrific job working hurt and keeping things together, but the ending was poorly executed. Jarrett is using the guitar gimmick again now. Oh, fuck me, that really didn't make any sense in WCW, and does even less now. Shane Douglas isn’t working for Russo but for James Mitchell. This, I can get behind. Jerry Lynn & Justin Credible had a short but intense brawl starting outside the building. Damn, the TNA Asylum looks really redneck from the surroundings. Poor finish though, with Lollipop busting out of her cage and injury herself, leading to Jerry Lynn being kinda distracted but still winning the match with a roll-up on the ramp. Yeah, that’s how you win a lights out match, with a roll-up. Next week, Russian chain match. Idiotic (comes from nowhere) but at least we’ll see how Lynn handles this kind of gimmick. X-division match was Chris Sabin vs Frankie Kazarian. Moves. Lot of them. Funky looking. By that I mean awkward. No selling. You turn my turn. Sloppy execution. They picked it up a bit at the very end, but this is basically a wankfest by two young indy guys who have no idea how to work. Sabin should have tagged with Harris, he was so much better in that context. Erik Watts finally gets to work a match against Kid Kash, which was watchable I guess. Abyss is helping Kash & Goldilock (Hudson has disappeared BTW) shows her concern and cleavage. The stupid Hard Ten tournament is still going on, New Jack is doing comedy with Shark Boy, BJ James does a really funny impersonnation of Don West. So I guess now the minority guys are comedians. Yeah, BJ James is a minority guy because he’s street, basically. SEX is done. And oh : Stupid turn of the week : Trinity. Turning heel to join the ex-SEX guys, choking Goldilock from nowhere, for absolutely no reason. One week after they showed that very good babyface video package and after weeks of abuse by Kid Kash. Clap clap clap. Glorious. 2003/06/25 Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible 2003/06/25 AMX vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels)

Lutteroth's name comes from the french word "lutteur", which means, "wrestler". Make of that what you want, I'm no lucha expert at all.

Haven't followed WWE at all since Mania. Funny line up with Owens vs Zayn & Enzo Amore & Big Cass vs. The Vaudevillains + AJ Styles in the main event. It's like NXT undercard with a TNA guy main eventing. Wacky 2016 pro-wrestling.

Ditto.

Let's not become the Pitchfork of pro-wrestling, please. That said, Mtume and Frankie Knuckles rule.

I feel like we sort of survived the whole process together. We always argued with one another, five years ago, three years ago, now. This was never a shiny happy agreeable place. But we treat each other with respect for the most part and we enjoy it. I think we will be stronger for having survived this. One day after the other. One day after the other...

This. It really isn't. There is no nice way to say this but people have been driven away from the reactions thread because they did not enjoy your complaining. Most of the posts -- and not just from you -- have been more about complaining about placement and harping on the weaknesses of the greats. Well, life's a bitch. Bitching and moaning was always part of the fun of the countdown, and I do think that although things were a lot more abrasive in 2006 from what I remember, people also took themselves, and the whole process, way less seriously. I mean, at some point, the whole "mainstream US" thing became a freaking running gag. People got driven away ? You mean, like Parv who couldn't grace us with his wisdom to the point of posting his reaction "essay" not-on-the-board ? What, we're not worthy ? Give me a freaking break. Tons of people haven't been driven away too. We bitched, we celebrated, we got absurd and pissed. Kinda like it should. The rest... literature...

The whole "corrosive" talking point is melodramatic bullshit, really.

SWJ ? What do you mean ? Like, saying Kamala was a racist gimmick ? Or that a babyface hitting a woman was wrong ? I haven't seen much SWJ creeping up to be honest. Pro-wrestling is a pretty low form of entertainment (sorry guys, it just is, doesn't mean I don't love it) with historically tons of awful things attached to it : bullying, racism, jingoism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, you name it. Yeah it would be great to see "the business", as they say, evolve, and I don't see what's wrong about talking about social issues inside the wrestling world and how they are presented and how we perceived them and how it influences our viewing experience. I mean, even when I was 14, I hated Jim Duggan's jingoist shit.

It's a mess, I'm telling you. #1 Jumbo Tsuruta #2 Stan Hansen #3 Terry Funk #4 Toshiaki Kawada #5 Kiyoshi Tamura #6 Genichiro Tenryu #7 Mitsuharu Misawa #8 Nobuhiko Takada #9 Jushin Liger #10 Nick Bockwinkle #11 Shinya Hashimoto #12 Kenta Kobashi #13 Arn Anderson #14 Bret Hart #15 Aja Kong #16 Mayumi Ozaki #17 Bull Nakano #18 Rey Misterio Jr. #19 Mariko Yoshida #20 Ric Flair #21 Vader #22 Ricky Steamboat #23 Daniel Bryan #24 Dustin Rhodes #25 Akira Hokuto #26 Akira Taue #27 Yoshiaki Fujiwara #28 AJ Styles #29 Shinsuke Nakamura #30 Naoki Sano #31 Chris Benoit #32 Ricky Morton #33 Bobby Eaton #34 Hiroshi Tanahashi #35 Bob Backlund #36 CM Punk #37 Volk Han #38 Brock Lesnar #39 Kazuo Yamazaki #40 Barry Windham #41 Tatsumi Fujinami #42 Hiroshi Hase #43 Brian Pillman #44 Eddie Guerrero #45 Mick Foley #46 2 Cold Scorpio #47 Randy Savage #48 Rick Martel #49 Mr. Gannosuke #50 Hayabusa #51 Jaguar Yokota #52 Kyoko Inoue #53 Akira Maeda #54 Manami Toyota #55 Shane Douglas #56 Owen Hart #57 Dan Kroffat #58 Azumi Hyuga #59 Mima Shimoda #60 Takako Inoue #61 Steve Austin #62 Shiro Koshinaka #63 Tommy Rogers #64 Masato Tanaka #65 Tully Blanchard #66 Curt Hennig #67 Tracey Smothers #68 Megumi Kudo #69 Sean Waltman
 #70 Sabu #71 Dynamite Kansai #72 Yoshihiro Tajiri #73 Steve Regal #74 Greg Valentine #75 Terry Gordy #76 Shinjiro Ohtani #77 Chris Jericho #78 Shawn Michaels #79 Riki Choshu #80 Giant Baba #81 Marty Jannetty #82 Buddy Rose #83 Dick Murdoch #84 Jerry Lawler #85 Chris Candido #86 Keiji Mutoh #87 TAKA Michinoku #88 Yumi Fukawa #89 Steve Williams #90 Cuty Suzuki #91 Tsuyoshi Khosaka #92 Jerry Lynn #93 Atsushi Onita #94 Savio Vega #95 Masa Fuchi #96 DDP #97 Jinsei Shinzaki #98 Dutch Mantell #99 Andre the Giant #100 Raven

How do you remember all of this ? I think I was still around when the Best of WWF/E matches poll happened. I know I was there during the first restart. I remember a Best WCW match poll in which I don't think I tool part in. I began posting here in 2008 so that timeframe makes sense.

I realized voting for Andre was maybe my way of representing France on the poll. Well, expect it really wasn't. But hey, that's one French guy on the top 100.

PPV 49 For their first Anniversary show, TNA managed to put on the worst show possible considering what was on paper. New entrance set so the show looks more like a second rate Thunder now. God Bless Lollipop. What could have been the show stealer, XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW, ended up being a rushed Nitro seven minutes match with the wrong team going over. It was still the best action on the show, but AMW not going over is kinda ridiculous. The X-division match between Chris Sabin & Paul London is exactly what I don’t care for, a bunch of spectacular moves and sequences with no rhyme or reason (London doing an amazing shooting star press of the apron two minutes into the match and it meant zilch), with a lot of contrived stuff. When you’re only doing moves that look special, nothing is actually special anymore. London really is your posterboy for 00’s indy guy. Booking had CM Punk, who wants to impress Raven, do a Raven impersonnation and screw London, so there goes your clean finishes in the « workrate » division. Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible could have been the savior of the undercard as they had really good stuff in ECW, but it was cut short with a terrible job by the ref, who looked inept. The six-man opener of Siaki, Heavy D. & David Young vs D-Lo, Kazarian & Sandman (who barely entered the ring) was decent but again, totally rushed. Because you see, you needed time for your 30 mn Vince Russo segment talking about WWE and shit. He looks ridiculous with that perm too. Anyway, Raven wants to beat him up (I feel your pain) but Shane Douglas jumps on him. Waste of time during which Sting makes his first appearance, closely followed by Jeff Jarrett so he can get the huge Sting pop too and pretend he's over. What a carny. And we get more Russo shooty bullshit before the main event as he introduces Sean Waltman (in street clothes) who supposedly said he would never work with him again. Wait ? Where ? When ? I guess in shoot interviews on the Internet. And the announcers have to act like it’s a known fact. Pathetic stuff. Jarrett & Sting vs Waltman & AJ Styles was pretty good before it got all clusterfucky with *more* Russo, Raven & Douglas run-ins, but Jarrett looked the worst of the four again, and yet still got the win. He can be glad daddy (who was interviewed by Tenay earlier to say basically nothing) got a promotion for him to play around. No wonder he and Dixie understood each other, there are two of the same. Sting is more over than anyone else since the beginning of the promotion and really brings on some legit star power. But I guess it was a one shot before he came in for good much later. A few decent stuff in the undercard like that funny parody interview with Konnan & Ron Killings as BG James played racist Mike Tenay. Wait, I thought they were supposed to be babyfaces ? And a good Trinity video package showing her stunt work, building her as the female ace of the promotion. Too bad she kinda sucks in the ring actually when she has do work an entire match, because she looked good here. And some awful stuff, a stupid Hard Ten (duh !) match with New Jack (who’s playing along Shark Boy these days) and Mike Sanders and an awful segment with Watts interviewing Kid Kash who got applause when he said he was beating his women. Fucking rednecks. And Goldylock in a cage backstage with Abyss, unexplained. And a terrible Saturn vs Kenzo Suzuki match with a swerve as Justin Credible screws his ECW partner. Suzuki sure looks good physically, but he’s just rough to watch, and Saturn really sucked here, blowing spots left and right. In other words, Vince Russo needs to go. Now. 2003/06/18 AMW vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels) 2003/06/18 Jeff Jarrett & Sting vs AJ Styles & Sean Waltman