El-P

And right I was. Decent interview, a lot more based on production and operations than wrestling, of course. Not a lot of good stories though, and a lot of "I don't remember the details" indeed.

Easily the best worker in GAEA, she was incredible to watch. One of best wrestler of post-boom joshi sounds perfectly right to me. Her vs Yumi Fukawa was the dream match that never happened.

And you made mine. Didn't know France housed vampires. Damnit ! And I for one always tell my students to never use litteral translations. (so, you really can't use "you made my night" like you would with "you made my day" in English ?) (then again, I never enjoyed the sunrise)

I'm not sure Billy Gunn was actually ever over by himself. The only thing he did that ever got a reaction was say "suck it !". When he became "The One" and didn't have Road Dogg to do the intro routine anymore, he got about the same reaction as Rockabilly.

You made my night, ah ah ah !

Well, Chyna actually helped HHH get over. Like DX did. And Foley. And Stephy….

God awful worker in WWECW. Truly god awful. And although he showed potential as a green guy in WCW, he gained weight and was already pretty bad when he showed up in WWF in 99 (god, those Kane matches…). I always thought the name was lame as hell too. The Big Show ? Really ? Nah. From what I've seen and considering the opportunities he got, the biggest underachievers of superheavies. Sure, the WWE booking never did him any favours, but still. Overrated guys like Bam Bam run circles around the big oaf.

Atsushi Onita.

Arn Anderson. Shiro Koshinaka.

Good match, bordering on very good thanks to Tenryu's performance. I fail to see how this can be called great, or even top tier in a year like 1990 (if only in Japan). Gotta love George Takano's tights with his initials on : JT. Those wacky Japanese… Takano really isn't very good, he's a buffed up junior at this point, with a bunch of semi-spectacular highspots, but really isn't much of a solid worker. Does a bunch of kicks and dive, looks strong, some goofy palm strikes. He actually was outworked by his usually shitty and fat brother the night before during the tag tournament final, which was a better match too. Tenryu sold his ankle after he used it to prevent Takano from using the german suplex. Takano beat Tenryu with that hold during the tag tournament final, so that was a good element of psychology of having Tenryu volontarily "sacrifying" his ankle by having Takano crumble onto it instead of allowing the german suplex that already defeated him the night before. So yeah, Tenryu was ace during that match and carried that goofball Takano to probably his best single match as a heavyweight (haven't watched the Cobra stuff in years, but I'm not sure Takano was ever that good of a worker). Welcome to "Money Puroresu", presented to you by Megane Super, a freaking glass company. It would be like Afflelou promoting catch in France. Odd. That fed was goofy as hell and not as supremely random as WAR would be, but it had its cool moments.

Typical SMW random match, the kind of like WAR would proudly deliver on regular occasions. Orton looked really good here, actually better than during most of his WWF stint. The match was fine, but the final with Tenryu & Kabuki vs the Takano brothers is really good, with Kabuki showing he had quite a bit left in the tank, and Shunji surprisingly having a solid showing (actually better than his brother).

Hum… just watch that Fuji vs Tenryu match from that WAR show in 93, and if I could find a bunch of matches as good as this, there's a case to be made for Fuji actually not being as dull as fuck as I thought, at least in big matches. This is excellent, and Fuji has some tricks up his sleeves, as this terrific counter for Tenryu's rolling kick. Tenryu's execution really can be problematic at points though, and Fuji was much better in that respect. Honestly, this gives me the urge to revisit a lot of NJ from the 90's to see if Fuji was not actually as good or better than Flair in the 90's after all. Yeah, I'm kind of eating my words after watching this match, but I have no problem doing so if means I'm watching good stuff I wasn't expecting. I still have bad memories of Fuji during that period, including his nostalgia reign in 98 or so. That Tenryu match was only in 93 though, but it smokes pretty much any Flair match/performances from that year apart from the Vader match.

Because some people miles past their prime still deliver good or even better stuff. Piper was godawful, and he was not that old either. So yeah. But really, even isolated peak Piper would have no shot, so in the end, it makes no difference whatsoever to me.

Like shootsyle ?

DItto. He's been on a roll lately.

Thanks for the laugh.

Kansai at her peak (mid 90's until the health problems) was a terrific worker.

Still. It's like Goldy had never existed and they went back Hogan like the previous year when they basically erased Sting from the top spot after a 14 months build (with the amazing evil Hogan promo). The Flair/Hogan deal was a last drop of nostalgia. It couldn't be sustained. Really, in term of symbolism, the Fingerpoke was it.

How's he wrong? The Raw rating that week jumped an entire half a point from the week before, from 3.48 to an even 4.0, the highest number they'd scored in six months. They fell again the next week and wavered for a while, but immediately following Wrestlemania the ratings leaped higher and higher than they'd ever been before. It's pretty widely agreed that the whole Stone Cold/Mike Tyson angle was what drew new fans to watch the WWF in large hordes. No, my post was confusing, that's what I meant. HHH is usually in denial about his own importance, but the Austin/Tyson deal is just too historicaly significant for him to deny *that* one. That would be insane.

I think the fingerpoke and what it represented meant a whole lot more to WCW than Mankind winning the title did to the WWF. Agreed.

Yeah, but the combination of this and the Fingerpoke of Doom at the exact same moment really was the point where there would no be looking back. The triomphant moment of Mick Foley over the new young megastar and Steve Austin getting one of the biggest pop ever. Meanwhile, you had Hogan killing dead the remainders of WCW's last ray of hope, who already had been damaged by losing the title, and by forcing a reboot two years in a row and erasing whatever good the Sting angle and the Goldy push had produced. So yeah, in a way, that moment really was the turning point, also WCW would win one last battle with, oh irony, Hogan vs Flair on PPV a few months after.

There's being in denial, and there's being at Hogan level insanity. Really, there's no way they can rewrite history to *this* extent.

Yep. It was such a bizarre situation. And if you've never seen Hashimoto vs Kanemura from Fuyuki's tribute show, it's the most surreal thing ever in pro-wrestling. Things always were more real in Japan, but this takes the cake.

And the King of the Ring PPV. Yeah, apparently, tournaments never drew well anywhere.

From the Divas special on the Network : Vince McMahon invented the valets with Savage & Miss Elisabeth.