El-P

Yeah, he always was ugly, but the aging face and super long hair just don't work anymore... He looks freaky.

It's been working fine with me. It is me of Taker just looks really odd and ugly in that picture ?

Wasn't Vader in that video too at 2:19 ?

I wonder if there was never some kind of bizarre interpromotionnal match happening in Japan too at some point... I could be wrong. At the time of the first Pillman Memorial show, was Regal still employed by WWF, or was he in WCW ?

Now that's a random observation. I guess nobody really cared about this show, which was basically considered as an indy show with names that came form Calgary. What was the main event already ? Rad Radford was a JTTS and Benoit wasn't really established at that point, was he ? Was Nitro on the air yet ?

How the mighty have fallen... the NWA belt on eBay. Which belt is that ? The one he kept after leaving for New York in 91 ?

No way ? Oh man, that's pure gold.

Yeah, I always enjoyed Rude, but I got to really appreciate his work during the GWE poll. Really became a fan of his work at this point.

About Hase "His ability as a real shooter...". BONG. About Edge vs Rude, does the fact that Edge is a rather shitty worker, mediocre at best, count ?

It's pretty much the nature of the business for Bret to return. But he should only be use in an extraordinary, one or two deal shot, for Wrestlemania or SummerSlam as a legendary figure. I don't see Bret being any good at managing (especially in this day and age), announcing or any other regular TV role.

Man... What an all star cast.... If at least you got the Sheepherders vs the Nasties instead, that would have been worthwhile, but as it is...

A WWE fan at heart. Great resumé to get a vote in the Hof....

Oh shit. That's embarrassing...

I see your point about the company being a pro-wrestling outfit. The difference is, as soon as the fights aren't worked, then it becomes a sport, and it's not pro-wrestling anymore. That's where I, personnaly, draw the line. HUSTLE isn't much different from later days FMW in spirit and execution, with pro-wrestling matches going around all the entertainment bullshit. PRIDE was closer to K1 or UFC than to any pro-wrestling promotion.

This explains your contemp for Takada who, from all acounts, couldn't shoot worth a damn. No idea if Fujiwara would have been worth anything in a real setting. I know the though guy shooter reputation of a guy like Regal for instance, is pretty much bullshit. Why ? Aren't they pro-wrestlers ?

All our debate goes down to this actually. Once you've said you consider PRIDE as pro-wrestling (which I already knew), it sums up pretty much everything there's to say on your part. PRIDE did promote some worked matches which were pro-wrestling matches, but that doesn't make the company pro-wrestling. Like some pro-wrestling promotion did promote some legit shoot matches (like the kickboxing stuff in early ARSION cards) but it didn't made them legit fight promotion.

I kinda regret not moving my ass and go see this. Not enough of a lucha fan I guess, but still. Plus the setting was totally awesome, I mean, El Hijo del Santo at the freaking Caroussel du Louvre (which is under the Louvre Museum).

Sak was a very good micard talent. Period. That's not Hof material. End of debate.

The style was not more legit. It "looked" more legit, but it was bullshit too. Severn was a pro-wrestler in indies before he even step foot in the UFC. He was the NWA champ for goodness sake. He said it himslef in interviews, he made money doing pro-wrestling before making money doing MMA. Severn worked indies, IWA Japan, NJ, UWF-I, WWF. Severn was a pro-wrestler who also did MMA. And he said it himself, these are two different profesionnal realms. Which is complete bullshit since it's not a MMA Hof but a pro-wrestling Hof and what you did outside of pro-wrestling just shouldn't count for shit. They're switching between the too becaus eof their fighting background, not because they were "pro-wrestlers". Those who did because they were "pro-wrestlers" without solid fighting background got their asses kicked. As soon as it becomes "real", it's not pro-wrestling anymore. It's like saying porn and prostitution are two exact things. It's not. Sorry for bringing back the pron analogy, but a porn actress and a whore aren't the same thing. No. Like Severn said, it's two different professionnal realm. One day you do a pro-wrestling match, the other you do a MMA fight. It's just not the same thing, how hard is that to understand. A porn actress who would whore out herself on her days off is doing two different activity, even though one ressemble the other very much. It's been a huge draw at some point, but to say that Japanese wrestling is alla bout worked shoot is just wrong. And Inoki wasn't all about worked shoot either. He was also all about fighting Bruiser Brody and Tiger Jeet Singh and Hulk Hogan. And UWF was also all about working pro-wrestling style matches against NJ. And UWF-I was also all about having Sheiky baby and Vader working pro-style. I mean, It's like saying japanese wrestling was all about workrate and such, it's just wrong. That the business part of it are comparable is one thing, but still. Pro-wrestling isn't and has never been a sport. Period. You have to draw the line somewhere. Go a little further and you can say that cinema is the same thing as boxing and pro-wrestling because after all, it's all about getting stars together (good guys vs bad guys in most big mainstream entertainment movie) and drawing huge crowds in theatres and sell DVD's. With that line of thinking, you can go very far.

Moolah also does extremely well with active wrestlers, so I think part of the difference is historical perception, unless she taught the modern day Divas how to whore themselves out to management and all the top stars. Also, many of Moolah's female peers hated her guts for the same reasons Daddy's peers hate his. Moolah has been pimped for the last 20 years as a legend by the WWE machine, and her later days as a comical figure with Mae Young probably altered the perception of active wrestlers who only knew her as the though and funny (well, to Vince and the WWE office at least) granny instead of a shitty egoistical asshole who pimped her trainees and destroyed any chance of success for women's wrestling in the US.

Don't be stupid. His matches were more legit than Onita's. In what way ? They were about two guys collaborating in a fake fight. And Sakuraba doing pro-westling never drew shit, while Onita drew huge. SAkuraba doing MMA drew huge. This is a pro-wrestling HOF, or at least it should be. That's what they actually were. They weren't pushed as such because UFC was in the US, and there's no way they would have been taken seriously if promoted that way. But that's what they were. It didn't kep Severn from bringing his NWA belt to a UFC fight. Pro-wrestlers doing MMA. Tamura should be in the hall for being the greatest shoot-style wrestler ever and being a reasonnably big star in later days RINGS once Maeda faded. What does "being a pro-wrestler" mean anyway? Of course he's a pro-wrestler, but when he's doing MMA fight, he's not doing pro-wrestling, it's not hard to understand. It's like saying Dennis Rodman's inclusion in the NBA HOF (if there's such a thing) should consider his pro-wrestling matches as a plus because it drew big PPV numbers and TV ratings, and he was a basketball player damnit. Except when he's tagging with Hulk Hogan, this has nothing to do with basketball. When Tamura fights Gilbert Yvel, it has nothing to do with him working a pro-wrestling match with Gary Allbright. The disciplines are closerin style and spirit, but one is a performance, the other is a sporting event. Of course the problem is that PRIDE did promote some wrestling matches too and presented them as legit, which is a problem. Apart from Inoki and UWF which derives directly from him, no, there's no "large chunk of Japanese pro-wrestling history" that is about faking shoots. AJ sure was never about that. Neither was 90% of NJ, which was about juniors, gaijin monsters and Choshu throwing lariats. Neither was 90% of joshi save for the occasionnal martial art bullshit, neither was FMW (which was basically making a spoof out of it at first) nor lucharesu... Worked "shoot" existed in the US too, with the occasionnal gimmick boxing match and such. That it's promoted, or should be promoted as pro-wrestling, well, maybe. But sorry, MMA has never been pro-wrestling and won't be as long as it isn't worked. PRIDE blurred the line but like you said there's that cultural thing in Japan with martial arts and Inoki pretending to shoot, but really, there's no way anybody can say that MMA is pro-wrestling. It's the closest thing to pro-wrestling you can find, but it's just not the same thing at all. It's closer to boxing or any other legit fight sport than it is to pro-wrestling. Which is why the supposed accolades in MMA is bullshit as far as a pro-wrestling HOF goes. FTR I do think the HOF is bullshit anyway and I really don't care one way or another, but that argument about Sakuraba making it thanks to his MMA career just sounds absurd to me. I guess Akebono should go straight into the pro-wrestling HOF then. (I guess you'll tell me that Akebono is still a sumotori and not a pro-wrestler...)

Well, it's the way it is, but it really shouldn't because it's irrelevant to what the guy did in pro-wrestling UWF-I was pro-wrestling. His matches weren't more legit than Onita's. There was no "illusion". He was a pro wrestler. But he was doing MMA, not pro-wrestling. As it is, he was a MMA fighter, with a pro-wrestler gimmick and personna. Does Dan Severn success in UFC and amateur wrestling makes him a HOF too? After all, he was a pro-wrestler before doing MMA, just like Ken Shamrock. Shamrock shoud be in a HOF because of his UFC accolades too ? Tamura's MMA fight should be considered too ? It makes no sense to me. Of course, if Sak matches were worked, then I understand, because it would be pro-wrestling then. But as far as I know, these were legit MMA fights. It all goes down to Meltzer nonsense about MMA being pro-wrestling, because I guess there's a legitimity complex there.

So Sakuraba should be in because he was a pro-wrestler being great and famous at doing something that isn't pro-wrestling ? That makes real sense...

Good analogy with Moolah.

I think wrestling was really big in France in the 50s-60's or so, big stuff on TV. Yet, I never heard a thing about it online. Probably because the footage is very rare, and it's french, and I don't think any of the big star toured anywhere. From the french wrestling scene, only Eddie Carpentier (who became a canadian citizen) and Andre really became big in the US (and the world in the case of Andre). The rest of the history of french wrestling pretty much disapeared.