Matt D

There are a bunch of cool match ups from the first two nights. I've never seen a full card for the third. I'm not convinced he filmed on night 3, to be honest. Part of the pull was that this, unlike most things in Houston, wouldn't be on TV. On the other hand, could he really not have filmed so important a night for his career as a promoter just for his own sake?

To be fair, I, more than anyone in the world, will gladly accept Gold Cup matches (even squashes) as a peace offering.

I understand that Dibiase vs Duggan is a really important match and it SHOULD be up (again), but now that uploads seem to be only on weekends, it was a bit frustrating to go all week and then just to get something that was already up on the service months ago. It's ok and good for a match like this which got shifted off in the change or whatever, to be put back up, but as part of a random Wednesday upload in the midst of a week of them or something, not as the first one we've gotten since last Sunday. I get that these things take time to upload, but it's not the customer's fault that the matches got taken off in the first place, right? Some of this would be ok if there was better communication. As it is now, we hit reload and just hope for something new.

I'm halfway through now. Alan is someone who is probably on a wildly different part of the wrestling spectrum than I am but he always comes off as hugely likable as a human being. (Rob is also as far from me as you can get but for the little bit of the lucha section I've heard so far he's great at instantly having answers to any question they might toss at him about some obscure undercard luchador from 20 years ago; never question the guy's factual knowledge). Also, as a head's up, I bought a t-shirt for my dad (who teaches Criminal Justice at the community college level) on a lark for late Father's Day that'll probably end up on the Amazon game next week and will pop Bix.

At the very least, that's a more interesting direction to go in than just calling everything equally stupid.

I'd think it's a means to a different end that's far more interesting. That's what you're undercutting in dismissing it. We can't even have that other conversation with you outright dismissing this one basically.

Maria's Brother Love gimmick? Can't have two Shanes.

The Gilbert/Sting vs Young/Gaylord match was a nice surprise. The worst part of it was Gaylord doing basically anything, especially but not just limited to his punches. Everything else was really quite good though. Gilbert was an absolute star, just a perfect stooging villain who knew to cheat and cry and complain at every turn, just a perfect heat magnet, and I think between that, the fact that Young was local, and the simple fact, seen so clearly in all of this footage, that the Southern Tag is the perfect form of wrestling, the crowd really got behind the babyfaces by the end. I loved how Gilbert continuously used the over the top rope throw (with distraction since it's illegal) to either take over or cut off comebacks, and how Young reversed that to set up the hot tag. The most important thing in wrestling are the big moments, the transitions, the comebacks and the cutoffs, and these are downright genius in their simplicity, making use of something that the crowd understood and that had meaning in order to make everything matter. Gilbert is a guy who snuck on my GWE list and I'm sure glad he did.

I'll agree that it matters more in how we interact with one another and in creating discussions that we have than in any sort of universal truth or anything like that.

Always happy to disagree with you utterly and completely, Jerome. But hey, at least we can be civil about it, for the most part.

Fuller coming out to All Hell's Breaking Loose is maybe the most amazing wrestler/actual song pairing in the history of wrestling, especially because it feels like it never actually makes it to the chorus. The Nightmares/Riches feud has been great and they've switched it up so well, but I kind of feel like the Nightmares didn't REALLY come into their own as promos/presence until they lost the masks. They're on a different level into 1986.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUw2n6fMB_A "Saga of the Family" is such a great thing. It's been offline for a couple of years now. Check it out.

1.) I was kidding to make the bad Evolution joke. 2.) I personally see both punches and 450 splashes as generally value-neutral tools and it's about how they're used, so this brand of elitism wouldn't be mine in the first place (were I to admit to such a thing), even if I do probably find effective minimalism more impressive than equally effective excessiveness. 3.) That said, the idea that one form or element of a medium is superior than another is a basic tenet of art criticism and you'd see it as commonplace on a board that thoughtfully covers music or movies or literature. Just because we cover a form of it which is socially considered low (and a lot of us seem to be happily self-deprecating about it) and we do want everyone to be able to enjoy it in their own way independent of our efforts at criticism doesn't mean we can't think and espouse such opinions so long as we're consistent and back up our arguments and aren't assholes about it. We get out what we put in to it. So many people here make honest attempts at analysis and their efforts help to elevate an art form that others (even some here) would be far happier looking at as disposable and inane. We get out what we put in.

I can't keep track with these things. Anyway, I feel like Pete is a good barometer for star ratings, actually. If you have to sync yourself up for some reason, Pete's a good person to do so with.

No you're not. This was a lot of fun. Kelly discovering star ratings was probably the highlight. I await the Debbie Harry episode.

I think, in general, there are times to get heat and to ramp up the heat, and then there are times to give the babyface a win, and figuring out when to do one and when to do the other is pretty much the most important aspect of wrestling booking and something that WWE gets right about once every ten years.

Evolution is finding increasing amounts of appreciation of less extreme things. We solved the mystery.

I think Lady (Mad) Maxine, not any Armstrong might be the most over person in the history of Alabama. That crowd came unglued when she finally showed up (which really has more to say about Street/Linda than anything else). Also fun in that episode was, in the transition from the Bullet/Flame feud to Bullet/Mr. Olympia, Bob messing up and going "My other son.. uh, Bob Armstrong's other son." when commentating over the footage.

Is it watchable? I've never actually seen that, I don't think.

1.) Ken Timbs is not nearly as good as Buddy Rose because he overthrows himself into all of his bumps; Buddy always seemed far more natural (while being hugely over the top). 2.) This stuff is almost TOO good. I really wanted something as background for when I'm working. Memphis TV works really well for that, which is why I was watching 89. But almost every show has matches I want to pay a lot of attention to.

I'm sorry everyone: 32 Second Mark: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/wrestling-match-between-jack-bence-and-nick-kozak-turns-news-footage/594658907 I was just looking for Nick Kozak footage. I swear. (The finish of that match looks awesome by the way) This is something else, but it's got such a cool finish too: http://media.gettyimages.com/videos/wrestling-days-are-here-again-two-wrestlers-in-the-rings-one-man-pins-video-id594666469

I wonder if there really were more good finishes ten years ago?

Really, I'd be happy with just about any of these. I've been enjoying the UWF stuff a lot but my heart's in the earlier footage.

Gino vs Kozak was a hell of a lot of fun. It's really striking how Gino switched up his wrestling given the match. Again, this is stuff I wouldn't expect someone five years older than him to necessarily do. He was blinded a few times in the match due to shots he took (which makes sense given how the mask might shift on his face) and throwing these giant missed haymakers. A different sort of stooging considering he didn't have access to his facial features. The guy with the mask in the crowd was a blast. Kozak is one featured match away from really jumping out of the pack. I don't think we're going to get it from looking at the 78-on results thought. He's got a match vs Thornton and one vs Tiger. He's got a couple of mid-card featured tags that might get time. There's just a way that he dives into his spots with an alacrity you just don't expect from the guy that makes me think he really was something in his day. If we do get footage back in to 76, maybe we'll get that match. I loved OMG vs Dibiase too. It's a shame we never did get that Glove vs Chain moment they teased early on. Tough but vulnerable babyface ace scrapper Dibiase is the best Dibiase no matter what anyone says. I thought the use of blood was really smart here. Gang wasn't really in danger until Dibiase got the knuckle dusters and opened him up (though his belabored blade job was pretty bad). Slightly earlier was a moment that really makes UWF and WWF stand out. Gang was in control, had Dibiase bleeding. They were heading on towards the comeback. They just needed to take the crowd down and up one last time. Gang sits on him and it looks like he's going for the ol' classic WWF chinlock (which is fine; I can't say that enough. It's fine when used well and worked hard). Instead, he course corrects and goes after the wound nastily. They build Dibiase back by having him rail against that instead. It's a great sign that there's not just one way to build a match and also in the stylistic differences between promotions. They could have gotten away with the chinlock comeback there, but this was a no dq match and attacking the wound and Dibiase responding to the sight of his own blood worked so much better in context. Looking forward to the promos.

Judging by the thread, I deserve it? Apparently it's not easy to leave an abusive relationship?