El-P

I feel so old.

Yep. He's truly the first death of a huge name from the historical wrestling peak. Well, what can you do, life is a bitch. I should know, I'm in a middle of a truly ugly break-up after a 7 years relationship. Well, I guess I had to tell this sometime somewhere. Since it's late and I'm kinda drunk, there you go. But yeah, car accident at 58 as they came back from celebrating their 1srt year anniversary, man, it's awful. The poor woman must be devastated. Thoughts goes to her and the family, Lanny in particular.

A case can be made for Austin, although I would probably agree with you on that one. It just feels odd. Savage was a huge part of what made me a wrestling fan to begin with. The glamour, the excentricity, the great matches, the intense promos, the idiosyncrasies.

Is Savage clearly the biggest star of the past 30 years who has passed away early ? He was really N°2 behind Hogan for his entire WWF career and was still a huge name in WCW until the end. I can't think of a bigger name of the 80-90's era.

Well, there's that too.

If that's true, somewhere Jim Cornette is laughing his ass off. Also, I had no idea Bruce Pritchard had been fired by WWE and was working in TNA. Man, with all those guys with a long ass experience, they still can't pproduce any shit that makes sense ?

Fuck me, this is so sad. For once a guy who was a survivor from that terrible 80's era, and.... a car accident ? Macho Man was one of my very earliest favourite wrestler, one of those who got me hooked in the first place. He remained a favourite of mine for most his career until his last bad stint in WCW. Great worker, unique charisma, great interview, insane fashion sense. Really, this is sad to go in a fucking car accident at 58.

Shawn vs Razor were two excellent wrestling matches involving a ladder gimmick and made sense. Hardys/E&C/Dudleys were stunt shows whose only apparent goal was to fall from high places onto tables. It's masturbatory garbage wrestling. Spectacular, yes, but that was it.

You might be right there. I think in just about any era of the WWF that you would have wanted this version of the Can-Ams to start off as heels. It would be possible to turn them at the right time and against the right opponents, similar to the MX (or could have been done with Arn & Tully, though obviously they would have preferred to work as heels). I think so too. Kroffat was a natural heel and worked most of his career portraying a dick. Wasn't he working heel in Puerto Rico in the 80's as Phil LaFleur ? I wonder which other territory he worked since I don't think he was in Montreal with the Bravo/Brito/Rougeaus crew. I think he popped up in the original UWF though.

Fixed. Sadly.

There are times where Kroffat worked face in peril well. I'm recalling a title match with Fuchi in 1991 where he was coming back from a knee injury, Fuchi destroyed the knee, and Kroffat sold the fuck out of it. Oh, I remember that particular match. It had escaped my memories. In front of a japanese audience yeah, but is that the same kind of "face in peril" work that would have been needed in WWF in the 90's ? And now that I think of it, why in the hell did they renamed him Phil Lafon ? Dan Kroffat is a kick ass name for a wrestler, and sounds much better I guess to an american ears than the über-French-it-can-only-be-from-quebec Phil Lafon. Really, the only truly French sounding names that have been very over in the last 15 years are Benoit obviously, and to an extent Lesnar who sounds quite French too. Well, there's *that* guy too, but I doubt he would have the same career in WWE if he went by his birth name, which is as French as could be.

If you could do cool looking power shit they would find a place for you. Not like the Acolytes and Hardyz had catch phrases. Hardys were young dudes coming off from ladders. Acolytes were already veterans in WWF at this point, Ron Simmons had been a fixture in US wrestling for more than a decade, and Bradshaw was an office ass-kisser. Two past their prime guys from All Japan wouldn't have cut it. Look what they did to Vader in 1998.

Ok. I probably missed an episode somewhere sometime. But anyway, saying Scorpio had no identity or charisma compared to guys like Benoit or Malenko just doesn't make any sense. Scorpio had a natural charisma, he was flashy, could turn it into self-absorbed arrogance. Malenko or Benoit never had anything beside their great mechanicals (and intensity as far as Benoit goes), and Malenko was just an average worker anyway. Scorp was easily has charismatic as Eddie, even moreso because face Eddie coming off New Japan wasn't exactly the most exciting thing ever during his first few months in WCW.

That's awesome. Wasn't Bob Bradley also doing Battle Kat in 1991 for a while after Brady Boone left/was fired ?

Scorpio, lack of charisma ? Scorpio had shitload of face charisma if he wanted to work purely as a fiery high flyer, and was even better as a dipshit arrogant heel. In ECW he showed tons of charisma. Snow went from being very underrated to be very overrated, in every aspect.

LCO vs Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe, AJW, 1997. Simply the best cage match I've seen.

The big question is, since WWE is not producing wrestling shows, what the hell will WWE Channel feature ?...

If that's what you meant, then ok. But that's not being "clueless at working holds", that's "not being lazy during 8 minutes TV matches". They would have not been given a chance at all during that time. Wrestling didn't matter, it was all about catchphrases and stupid soap operas. At least in 1997 they got those two or three matches with Bulldog and Owen.

Who was "working holds" in WWF in the 90's ? Except for Bret and the combination figure-four sharpshooter, what was the great holds work in the WWE during that time ? Working holds in WWF was basically : chinlock to rest a few minutes. Kroffat could work holds as well as Malenko, except he was actually an excellent dickhead heel, but their style was indeed more suited to the all action go-go-go workrate style of Japan. The problem in WWF is that no one could work with them, with the exception of Owen, Bulldog, and probably Scorpio and Snow to an extent. Hearing the Godwinns say that working them was like "pulling teeth" is hilarious. Who was pulling teeth to get something watchable out of the others really ? Another problem is that WWF introduced tham as faces, and Kroffat has zero face charisma and can't do face-in-peril. He's either a simple great wrestling machine, or works like a dick workrate heel. But having him as a face was a big mistake. And Furnas is just a power guy with no distinguishable charisma, so again, while the audience would easily pop for his big spots, he's not gonna play face-in-peril. Snow wasn't linked to New Japan, and quite frankly I think the NJ link was as important as the ECW one to get Malenko/Benoit/Guerrero to WCW. Konnan was a big new star in Mexico, Rey, Juvy and Psic the talk of the day over there, with tours in Japan. Snow was just another indy guy who'd been around for ever without accomplishing anything.

I always liked Shane Douglas, and quite frankly, rewatching his entire ECW stint, my opinion of him only went up. From 94 to 96 (in ECW, as his work in WWF was just subpar, for various reasons), he was one of the best workers in the US. And even after his prime, he was really solid. He had an excellent match with Justin Credible in 1999 just before he left for WCW. I don't think the concensus thinks very highly of him, but to hell with the concensus. Also, 1996 Douglas smokes 1996 Michaels in my eyes.

In my mind Scorpio really is an ECW guy like Shane Douglas, that's where he shined the most. He went places and was featured before coming to ECW, but he peaked over there.

You know my opinion of Spike Dudley. Furnas was not a good single worker anyway, I thought the RVD match was widely overrated. I don't remember much about the Scorp one. And the Tanaka match was godawful because Furnas had no idea how to work with Tanaka, and Tanaka was supposed to work Kanemura which he had workes a hundred times already, so it's not like he was ready for a guy like Furnas. I maintain they would have been perfectly fine in WCW. Would they have receive a big push ? No. But they would have delivered in the ring because WCW allowed their workers to work. And their roster was infinitely deeper and better than ECW's. It would have been some good random fun.

Scorpio would have kicked major ass in WCW with Benoit/Guerrero/Jericho/Rey. I put Malenko apart because to me he was way inferior as a worker. Al Snow falls in that category also, and without a strong gimmick, I don't feel he would have made a huge difference in WCW. But probably much better than he made in WWF, which wasn't difficult. Furnas/Kroffat in WCW would have been awesome working with the Steiners and throwing bombs at each others. They would have been awesome working with Benoit/Malenko. WWF killed those guys. Kroffat was past its prime, but he was still a terrific worker, and Furnas was a bomb thrower that could toss around people like nobody's business. I don't think it's fair to judge Furnas/Kroffat from the few matches they had in ECW, they had to work with the freaking Eliminators and the pair of Sabu/RVD which was always difficult. Their work in WWF against Owen/Bulldog was excellent for the few months they were given some time and attention. My biggest regret during those years is that Kroffat/Furnas/Scorpio didn't jump in WCW between 96/99. They were totally wasted in WWF. As far as getting a better position in WWF, Scorpio yes if he had the "Radical" status after years of working WCW with the pack. Kroffat/Furnas, don't think so, they just would never fit, kinda like Steiner.

Remember about the on/off rumours during the early 2000's about New Japan getting a joshi division headlined with Kyoko Hamaguchi ? This was coming back regularly.

So, are people really paying to hear Brian Alvarez talk to his grandma ?