El-P

British dudes copying American rock n roll and blues artists. This isn't the same "copying" we're talking about.

They don't even need to build Mania to be honest. Cena vs Rock will do monster business no matter what. From teh perspective of a guy who can't care for WWE, I'm mor einterested in Mania that I've been in years, simply because of Rock's return in the ring. Plus I look forward to Punk vs Jericho. Taker vs HHH I couldn't care less. If Taker's entrance is as good as last year's (which I doubt), that will be the only thing interesting to me. Is Shaq the quivalent of L.T. ? Really, I don't follow basketball at all, but I was under the impression this guy was a star in the late 90's.

Don Callis could have been a good manager, but he came too late when the role was already passé. He was good on the mic, was annoying, looked like a total weasel and could bump his ass off. But The Jackyl never was given anything good to do (seriously, The Truth Commission, Kurrgan and then the Parade of the Oddities which of course turned face after two weeks or so), and the Network angle in ECW was rotten. Plus he had to feud with a face Joel Gertner, which was pretty awful. Another guy that got bullied by Bradshaw BTW.

Jesus, that's depressing. Facts like this almost make me feel sorry for Lance. He seems like a really nice guy and he does make some interesting insights, but the more you look at it, his career really was underwhelming. Considering both his in-ring talent (decent) and his charisma/promo skill (below average), I think his career has been pretty much what it should have been. Nice little run in ECW and WCW. A spot on WWF undercard. Add to that a few fun matches in Japan in WAR. I don't see what Lance could have achieve more than he did honestly. And yes, he seems like a nice guy, probably one of the few genuine nice guys without issue in pro-wrestling. I've been kinda hard on him in this thread, but I'm glad he's one who got out before getting severely injured and is able to enjoy a nice life afterward.

I've never seen it, but I think that it was a first blood match in which Flair bleeds and wins via pinfall. It is. Outside of that, it was indeed a pretty good match from what I remember, and mostly famous for being the last big numbers PPV WCW ever did.

I got a kick out of this : Indeed.

Exactly. What japanese pop culture big figure in term of music or cinema is also a big pop culture figure worldwide ? The answer is simple : none. Even in the realm of movie fanatics for instance, where a guy like Takeshi Kitano is well known, most have no idea what status Kitano really has in Japan, he's mostly known in Europe as an arthouse director.

Both.

In mid 91 they were teasing a Flair vs Horsemen feud as well. They did several interviews with Arn and Windham saying they wanted to take care of their singles career and get championships, then asked Flair what would happen if either of them would request a title match, which of course would annoy Flair. Of course the plan was still for Flair to dropo the belt to Luger, but the seeds were planted.

Roma was a natural heel. The two big mistakes about his introduction into the Horsemen were : 1/ making a big deal about it instead of playing the understudy card. 2/ being introduced into a face version of the Horsemen. It's about time to re-evalue Paul Roma. I agree the Young Stallion were a putrid team. Jim Powers was a terrible worker.

Yeah, i'd be perfectly fine never hearing Alvarez again actually. He's smart/lucky enough to constantly surround himself with ppl I do want to listen to however so we're stuck with him coming along for the ride. I want one euro each time he says "Listen" at the beginning of a sentence.

Indeed. People rag on Paul Roma for the Horsemen deal, but he was a solid worker from what I remember. Hell, Power & Glory and Pretty Wonderful were much better teams than The Impact Players. And Lance wasn't the best member of the team, while Roma probably was on both accounts (not sure how good Orndorff was at this point, but I can't wait to get to those years).

Funny, I could write the exact opposite. I don't care for Hogan's WWF reign, at least I didn't give a shit when I was young, and although I gained appreciation for his work later, I could live without ever watching any Hogan from that era ever again. I think the Vader match is an abortion that killed Vader. I enjoyed Hollywood a lot and I loved Hogan's stooging, because he was so good at it. And it was a shitload of fun having Hogan being Piper's bitch at Starrcade. That was the whole point, the big jacked up guy who was really a coward and who was really afraid of Piper kicking his ass.

Well, Alvarez and Storm are friends. edit : and actually, Storm brought up Santana as a comparison to what his status was in the company : "A very respected worker who held all the minor titles". Well, when Santana held the IC and tag titles, these weren't minor titles Lance... But yeah, Alvarez sounded like a generic mark who got into wrestling during the Attitude era there.

To be honest Hogan got plenty of credit during the last few years. I've been surrounded by positive Hogan comments for years now. The Hollywwod Hogan turn is amazing, and Hogan did some of the best work of his career during this time. I've said it a lot, but I'd take a good Hollywood Hogan match over a good Hulk match any day.

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.