El-P

Isn't it depressing that each year for the past 4 or 5, the big WrestleMania event is all about an old guy retiring, coming off retirement, or having one of his last match. Tells everything about the state of pro-wrestling.

I'm not touching that. That being said, yeah, sometime I feel the same way, I'm like "What the hell, I'm watching 12 years old ECW TV". Then I stumble onto Chris Candido vs Simon Diamond and I think "Aww fuck it, this is great.".

Garrett Bischoff, new World Heavyweight Champion.

When Woman managed the Sullivan/Tazmaniac team in ECW, I swear she looked taller than both of them, wearing high heels and all.

Isn't she the daughter of the owner ? Which would make her, well, the Boss ? She should bitchslap inept people and fire them all. The thing is, Russo and Jarrett have been piping smoke up her ass for so long, and she knows nothing about the wrestling business, that she's still convinced that Russo is very valuable.

"Who the fuck hired Raven ?" Vince McMahon.

I never said that most ECW was horrible. I enjoyed the hell out of watching back ECW mostly from 94 to 97 actually, which were the peak years. 99/2000 were the painfull years. This makes no sense at all. Russo is about hotshotting stuff and nothing making sense because he hates wrestling and thinks nothing matters at all. There is no thoughts at all beyond "give everyone a gimmick, do swerve and humiliate women". Raven is the exact opposite. Yes, he's all about the dog & pony show and not old-school one on one wrestling, but in his case, it actually works very well, usually makes sense, and he's big on continuity as far as character go. The Raven vs Saturn match from Fall Brawl 1998 is an amazing match, and the runs-in are an integral part of why it's so great. I also happen to think his character is more fun than 90% of any other wrestling character.

You mean there are no "Those guys don't know how to work, it's just spot spot spot. We told stories back in the days." and no "We used to work 30 minutes matches every nights, we were having great matches, we drew tons of people. Nobody can draw today because they don't know how to work.", from guys who were barely above average workers ? Seriously, I'll watch that soon. I loved Mike when she was ring announcing for the WWF. Dressed like crap though, oh, the bad fashion sense of the late 80's/early 90's (see also : York, Alexandria).

This too. And he's not above laughing at himself, especially at his poor athleticism (or lack thereof), or the fact he was really lazy at times. He's truly one of the most interesting wrestling personnality to me, as he's got that old-school vibe to him despite being very progressive. Probably the fact that he came out during the dying days of the territories, and that Levy is himself an interesting guy to begin with.

Not many people are capable to work an exciting 30 minute main event period. And I don't think he ever claimed he could (nor anyone else for that matter). I found Raven matches more enjoyable than most stuff on ECW, certainly more enjoyable 15 years later than overrated "technical" demonstrations of Eddie vs Dean, or nonsensical wankery a la RVD, or horrible boring brawls a la Duds. Way more fresh and more fun to watch. Yes there was ton of bullshit, but it was fun bullshit that worked. Just me (litteraly, since I'm probably alone to still enjoy Raven as much as I do).

Oh man... What is she smoking ?

Russo gone is good, but as long as Bischoff is still there, nothing will change much, as Russo already lost a lot of imput when Brother Love came in board. And Pritchard isn't the answer at all. They need to get rid of Bisch & Hogan anyway, they are just leeches.

41 ? That means he was only 30 when ECW went under and his body was already broken down. I didn't think he was as old as Raven, but I never thought he was just passed 40. Amazing.

I know this is about TNA and India, but I have no idea what this is exactly about.

This is awesome. And this reminds me I should listen to more Lambchop. Kurt Wagner still has this great voice.

I think Atlas is thinking backward. The most glaring instance to me is Ranger Ross talking about how he was denied a spot, I think with Crockett, when he was told they already had a black guy in the roster. And that's in the late 80's.

Really ? Russo is gone ? It sure took some damn time. Get rid of Hogan and Bischoff, hire some people who know their shit, and maybe there will be some hope.

Actually, the Bret heel turn from mid-98 is greatly entertaining. Excellent promos, excellent TV matches against Luger and DDP. But yeah, overall, huge waste because the booking was awful. I think Mr. McMahon would have surged at some point anyway, as the feud with Austin was foreshadowed by McMahon being stunned as early as the fall of 97. People seem to think that Mr. McMahon just popped up with the Bret screwed Bret promo, but infact it was several months after than the character slowly showed up, and the real beginning of the Austin vs McMahon feud was Austin "ruining everything" with Tyson on RAW.

In other words, we were the one getting screwed.

Tony Atlas got a theory about how there's no racism in prowrestling since most black men ended up main-eventing at some point. What do you think ? On the opposite side of the coin, a guy like Ranger Ross or Curtis Hughes would tell you they encountered racism in pro-wrestling while they didn't before in other domain (football, rangers).

Not fair. I could easily have said the 04/02/95 Weekly Pro Wrestling card since it was one of those once in a lifetime (frankly all of pro wrestling's history of lifetimes) card. Maybe not the best ever, but a pretty mind numbing collection of talent when you think of it... and the ability to see it all one one card, with a number of the matches damn entertaining. That AJPW match isn't close to the best those guys put on, but if I asked every AJPW fan on the board that they if it's the only match between all of the Four Corners that they'd ever have a chance to see... they'd be perfectly happy to see it rather than never seeing them together. John Actually I have it on my hard drive somewhere, but never got to watch it. Gotta find a slot sometime. Yeah, pretty amazing collection of talent here. This won't be duplicated, ever.

Listening to Tony Atlas Youshoot, and it's pretty fascinating to hear him talk about the psychology of his foot fetish. More interesting than the bullshit about how in the days, 70% of working a match was actually real because you had to take care of yourself.

Yep. I enjoy Raven a lot. EDIT : and Dylan (among others) doesn't always get my dry humour.

Wait, what ?

If you mean the Steamboat match, no, I have not. Which isn't very surprising after all.