El-P

Well, maybe it's best that he remain silent after all. Rick Martel's shoot interview makes Zenk come off like a complete douchebag, and really Martel seems like a really honest and humble guy during the whole interview, so I'm inclined to believe him.

Yes, it's strange. I've seen a few AWF matches from 94 or 95, and Tito was perfectly fine there.

I wasn't impressed by the SummerSlam match.

Ok, that's what I thought. It's too bad, he was hilarious. Still want him to show up in a Shoot Interview, but I guess he can't do it now.

Storm is a good guy, he was, at best, a decent wrestler, but he was a non factor during the second hottest period of US wrestling. Santana was a very good worker and a solid part of WWF's undercard during the first hottest period of US wrestling. There's not even a contest. Lance Storm's biggest claim to fame is hoding 3 belts in a dying WCW, and being carried by Justin Credible in a pretty good tag-team in ECW. Saying his career is more important then Tito Santana's is laughable.

I didn't hear him, but I remember his insane articles on his website. Well, if you refer to that, yeah, I understand. Watching him in 91, there was no way to even think he had this venom in him. Whatever happened with him anyway ? All of a sudden all his comments disapeared from his website, and he never said one more word.

I don't see the natural heel charisma of Tom Zenk to be honest. He was a typical 80's white meat smiling babyface. He was not overly charismatic anyway, but good looking enough and well built to get cheered. I don't see the heel in Tom Zenk. WCW had so many heels anyway at this time, the babyface contingent was not overly strong nor fresh.

SMW had a jobber called The Stormtrooper in 1992, wearing a Swastika mask and t-shirt. It's funny because the announcers called absolutely no attention to the fact the promotion had a Nazi sympathizer working for him, he was just Joe Nazi trying to earn a living in the world of professional wrestling. He wrestled Dixie Dynomite in one of his two matches in a battle of racist gimmicks, and after losing, helped Killer Kyle attack Dixie and leave him laying, which seemed to make no sense. Anyway, this guy did not resemble Bill Dundee in stature at all so I doubt it was the same guy, even though it was the same area in the same time. Holy shit.

Nobody understood that Onita was all about making money, and not getting killed in stupid gimmick matches for the "pride of being hardcore". His in-ring style was all about selling and milking the hell out of everything. Then you get a bunch of morons who think the point is to bleed, get hit very hard with chairs and take bumps into barb-wire. Onita was set on *making money*, and the hardcore style was just a vehicule to achieve that. The ECW guys killed themselves because they were drinking Heyman's kool-aid. And don't even mention the cohorts of garbage-men who followed ECW in the US, or FMW in Japan. The break a thousand lightbulbs and bleed buckets and don't make any money doing it. That's the opposite of what Onita was about.

I think the Memphis connection is overstated. Onita did get some stuff from there, but also from Puerto Rico. And don't forget that at the beginning, it was all about Onita vs martial artists, in a bizarre parody of UWF. I don't see how FMW was close to Memphis style at all to be honest.

Of course not. I wouldn't argue otherwise. I just wanted to throw his name to remind that he was quite an amazing promoter, self-promoter if you prefer. He was a former junior heavyweight from All Japan working against a karate guy on indy shows. A few years later he would draw 30.000 people against Terry Funk at the Kawasaki Stadium. All that with no TV. Impressive.

Except Vince is not a pro-wrestling promoter. He's in the entertainment business, from his own account. So, what about Dana White ? ............................. .............................

Well, I admit I thought of Inoki as the guy who created and carried NJ up the the point of becoming the N°1 promotion in the world, totally omitting Shinma and Choshu. John makes a good case of putting Inoki in a not so bright light. That said, Vince has the WBF, the XFL and fucked up the biggest angle in wrestling history to his negative credit. And he kinda ruined wrestling, at least for me. Does he still gets N°1 ?

Why has this guy always had so much heat anyway? He's not a legend of the ring or anything, but he always seemed fine to me. I think we talked about it before. Fat contract from the get go. First garanteed contract from WWF when he jumped. Sable. Laying down his match beforehand (yeah, like it would seem like an issue nowadays). I don't care, I always like Mero, he developped into a good worker over the years. And he comes off as a really cool and likeable guy in interviews. Man, those Desperados videos are brutal. BRUTAL. Long. Not funny. Not going anywhere. Boring. Painfull. LONG. No wonder watching this shit drove Hansen away (if the urban legend is true). What a waste of Mantell. He does what he can, but the material is just rotten.

That would be Tony Atlas. I think.

Foley I guess.

That picture of Ellering is eye-gouging. Without looking at the name I thought it was Ventura. I think that was the case, make the character a little bit cartoonier with Percy Pringle going way over the top. I agree the Taker/Brother Love was way creepier.

New Japan was the number 1 promotion in the world for nearly 20 years. Yes. I think there was a brief period in the mid 80s when All Japan was beating New Japan, but that coincided with Choshu's jump. Am I correct? Yep, I think so.

New Japan was the number 1 promotion in the world for nearly 20 years.

See above. The answer's been given. I wish there was tapes from Australia. Inoki has a very strong case. Since we're throwing Jerry Jarrett in there, what about Victor Jovica ? He's been going since the early 70's on an Island, and no one ever disputed his crown. Names that haven't been mentionned there are the Matsunaga brothers. I mean Zenjo was huge at points, and it has a very long history of being a super successful promotion. And defining women's wrestling. You can argue Atsushi Onita has a place for doing so much with so few. The guy had no TV for so long, and he made shitload of money and drew shitload of people. Sure, it didn't lasted, but it was impressive while it was going on. I'm not seriously arguing Onita is the N°2 of course, but just wanted to throw his name out there. I don't think anyone accomplished so much with so few cards in his hands.

He really wasn't. Crush wasn't much there after the tag match with Yoko against the Head Shrinkers. I think he left of was fired that summer. They just brought him back to fill a spot during the Rumble, which seemed like the theme of the year (both Bushwhackers in the Rumble in 95 ? Really ?). He didn't show up again before the jailbird comeback in late 96.

The York Foundation is my favourite part of 1991 thus far. Makes the undercard fun no matter what.

Salvador Lutheroth Gonzales, no ? Either him or Inoki. Or Jim Barnett, my boy. I love Cornette, but what did he do as a promoter excatly ? SMW ? I love ECW, but seriously... Yes, it was an influence on Bischoff then Vince. On its own, ECW was an experiment that fell flat on its face, lost money and died a horrible death. Not to mention the good it brought has been balanced by all the bad it brought. What is the "good" influence of ECW on today's product ? Zilch. I like Bischoff as a character, and he had a hand on WCW's success at one point, but he was no promoter, and fucked up way more things than he actualy built.

Yeah, coming in he was in the best shape of his life. And Eaton was great in the match, but 14 minutes for a 2/3 falls match is ridiculous. Plus it had no heat, no one thought Eaton would win the title. Yeah, it was ridiculous. Way too many matches, way too many angles. Most of which were good on paper, which makes it even more frustrating. The Rickin Morton joigning the York Foundation, then arguing with Robert, then keeping Hughes & Taylor from jumping, then punching Robert was cringeworthy. They could have spread this on two or three good weeks of TV. And the Brian Pillman stuff was embarrassing. Loser leaves town match in 2 minutes, Pillman gone clean. He got such a raw deal depsite working his ass off for two years and getting over. No wonder his push in 95 was too little too late. Pillman should have been pushed to the top way sooner, he was fresh. Really, it felt like a Vince Russo booked show in that matcehs were cut ridiculously short, we go from an angle to another without having the time to digest anything, they also put squash matches that had no place there, including a Steve Austin squash without any intro (which is too bad since it was the first time Lady Blossom appeared. Man... Lady Blossom...). Very frustrating booking when you got a lot of really good match lined up. It's obvious watching that show that the promotion was treading waters on top. Getting Murdoch & Slater to feud with the Steiners wasn't hot. Getting back to Luger vs Flair at this point when things have really cooled off since early 90 was sad already for Luger... Little did he know... Watching 2 years and a half of NWA/WCW, there's no doubt in my mind that Luger career during this time murders Sting's in term of delivering in big matches. Luger has a number of excellent to great matches (the Muta one could have been excellent, it just needed the time) over this timespan, while Sting has zilch. Oh yeah, he was in the Wargames. Luger has been much better than Sting during this entire period, on every level. I haven't seen a really strong performance from Sting yet. The only time I was midly impressed was how he managed to work with an inept Sid. That was pretty good. Outside of that, Sting has lost quite a bit of stock with me (not that I was a big fan) while Luger has gained a lot. I may take a little break from WCW at the end of June. I feel the burn out coming. Flair's leaving, it's a good time to pause.

Apparently Stephy has her own idea of what a wrestler should look like. Didn't she get rid of Ariel because she doesn't look like your stereotypical diva ?