El-P

I downloaded those two episodes as well. I'll listen to it while walking through the warm streets of Paris at night.

Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious. It's been scandal after scandal for a little while now. Last year a bunch of guys got caught up in a gambling scandal including an Ozeki(2nd highest rank). The biggest scandal is match fixing via cellphones. Even though it's well known that people take pay offs to lose, the media really got a hold of it. Then because of it, the Spring tournament got cancelled and 22 guys retired. Also, within the last year, the yokozuna Asashoryu was forced to resign due to a drunken fight. The last few years had some other bad issues too with a guy in a sumo stable getting beaten to death and people getting caught with marijuana(Japan is serious about drugs). This. Since Asashoryu was forced into intai, it has been a downward spiral with new and worst scandals every months.

The guy who killed my interest in US pro-wrestling.

First time I listen to your podcast. Really fun stuff. Hero was hilarious.

In my case, blame unemployment. And torrent sites which make huge contents available for free. And of course an interest in revisiting, or in the case of ECW 1993-1995 and 99-00 visiting a product I wasn't familiar with in great details. But really, in the mid-00's, there was a point I wasn't watching wrestling at all. To the point of when I got to Japan in 2005, I didn't bother going to a wrestling show, and quite frankly I was totally disconnected from the scene even back then. I'm a much bigger sumo fan at this point, although it's probably the worst and most depressing time ever to be a sumo fan at this point, but that's another story.

No, I think either Samu or Fatu entered #2. Man, I remember way too much useless stuff. Kwang entered later and was eliminated by Diesel. Yeah, not a good gimmick at all for Savio.

Yep. Once the Diesel stuff is done, nothing happens until the end. The only cool thing was the little interaction Michaels and Jannetty had, which was neat since really Jannetty was nothing more than an afterthough JTTS at this point. I hate the overscripted version of the post 99 Rumbles, but this one takes the cake for being a huge nothing match. But hey, you got the debut of Kwang and Thurman Sparky Plugg. Ah, the 90's...

I have 500+ unwatched non-wrestling disks... and that's not an exageration. I just got the entire collection of Weeds, they're just sitting on the shelf still in the shrink wrap... and there's only a 50% change that I'll watch them before 2011 is up. The Cracker disks that I'm watching now are probably 3 years old, and I was susprised they were still in the shrink wrap when I pulled them off the shelf. I'm just now reading my birthday present from my girlfriend... from last year. My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, the second book in the series has just been released, and she'll be getting it to me... lord knows when I'll get to it because there are another 30-50 new books on the shelf that I'm slowly working my way through. This post makes me feel good about my unwatched DVD from last Christmas, my few dozens of Go of unwatched wrestling on DVDs and hard drive, and the 60 or so unlistened CD's on my shelves. And between unwatched wrestling and Mary-Louise Parker, I choose the WeedMilf in a second.

He got a trampoline intro. A trampoline intro... Screams "high flyer" to me.

The Miz. Dear Lord...

Do you think Hogan was a hero, really ? Hogan acted like an egotistical dipshit, he was jealous of the succes of his "friends", he only cared about himself, he was acting like a heel in the ring. And from a foreigner point of view, the *uber* american patriot act mixed with bigotry looked like a perfect illustration of Reagan's america. In a way, really Hogan was everything bad about the USA's imperialistic policy. Yeah, I'm going a bit far, and I'm not saying 10 year old me hated Hogan for all these reasons, but looking back at it, it seems obvious Hogan in the 80's was the representation of something really horrible when you think of it. Luger doing the american gimmick was a lot more sympathetic actually, more blue collar in a way. Hogan's character was just unbearable to me, that's why his heel turn was so right on the money, and that's why Heenan saying Hogan has always been this way was perfect, because even in a kayfaybe way, that really was the case. Hogan was about steroid, money, manipulation, stealing his so-called best friend woman, and pretending friendship to get his belt back at any cost. Hogan a hero ? My ass.

Considering Jingus said they're down on most cruiserweight matches, no it's not. But your reply was.

Well, it's been oft-said that comedy is the most subjective thing in the world. The stuff Hirota does just looks funny to me, it's hard to explain. Yeah, Sakura was funnier (or less annoying) than most comedy workers in joshi, but that doesn't mean much to me. The fact that she is *loved* just baffles me. Then again, I always thought GAEA as a whole was the most overrated joshi promotion ever, despite being the most popular at one time. ARSION, Jd', JWP and AJW big matches smoked GAEA. That is very surprising.

I think Barry Windham is a good guy to compare him too. Barry Windham at his peak smokes DiBiase seven ways to sunday. That said, to me peak Windham smokes the vast majority of the workers I've seen.

I've seen a whole lot of DiBiase in Mid-South and some in AJ, and despite being even better than during his WWF stint, I can't think of a single *great* wrestling match. This is not a knock on DiBiase, I like him a lot, I just don't see him as a great match worker. I agree the perception of him being a "technical worker" hurt him because he was better as a vicious brawling heel. Is there a lot of DiBiase in the AJ set ?

Crammed into 10-15 minutes, it would have been tolerable. As it was, it's a failed self-conscious WWE "epic"/HHH "long match equals great match" borefest. Really, they weren't selling, they were sleeping.

Heh, out of all the comps i've made over the years my Hirota one was by far the biggest seller. People love the heck out of that girl I never *ever* understood the love for Sakura Hirota. Ever.

Do you think when Vince dies this nonsense will stop and HHH will go back to "wrestling" ? It's hilarious the amount of effort put into not using the word "pro-wrestling" when it's all that WWE has ever and will ever be.

Holy shit then.

I dunno who Bruce is, but he's smoking something illegal.

Which defines one of the reason WWE is so dull and stale, and has been for a decade now.

DiBiase was really good, really solid, but he never had any great performance, any great match that really stands out. Greatest wrestler who never had a great match or simply a damn solid and consistant worker that barely had any bad match ? I tend to think it's the later. DiBiase would deliver something at least good, at best very good, but I've never seen any great match involving DiBiase. I've seen way worst workers than DIBiase (even some shitty workers like Warrior) having great matches, and I don't mean being carried like a broom. So, there it is. DiBiase is kinda like Tito Santana to me, a damn good worker, and that's a positive.

Cena ending the streak would be godawful. Cena would actually be the worst candidate to end the streak. Even HHH would be less offensive at this point.

I'm glad some boards disappeared too, because I had my days as an unbelievable asshole. I would be embarrassed to read some of the stuff I was writing at the time probably.

I agee with DFA, at this point, I don't see the point of ending the streak. Really, Taker winning was the only real WM great feel good moment this year. And they really have no-one at this point to break the streak, especially after HHH nearly killed Taker and still failed. No-one has the credibility anymore, only The Rock, Austin or Hogan in their prime could do it without seeming forced. And it's not like Taker will work many matches at this point, he could realistically retire after the 20-0 next year. Quite frankly, you wnat a big match, make it Taker's last match and HHH retires if he can't break the streak. And have both retire at the same time. Add to that Rock vs Cena and you get a huge WM.