Matt D

Psst, Bruce. My monthly sub just rolled over again. In honor of that, can I request a Bockwinkel match soon. I don't think we've gotten one yet.

Only Steven is allowed to hate fake statistics.

Watched the Gordman match. I like him a lot, especially on offense (though the trap hold went a bit long/uninterestingly). How crazy were the two STOs? And then there's the DDT. Not at all a fluke. He did it in the 60s black and white footage i saw with Santo. He did it in the 77 match with Choshu/Inoki and he did it here and Boesch even pointed out it was one of his favorite holds. Roberts was in and out of Houston at this time. That whole story is debunked now. It wasn't some sort of accident that caught on. I know all wrestling is BS but that's especially so.

I figure there's at least a 40% chance it's Kane, so I'm looking forward the possibility of hat-eating-pictures.

It's a damn shame that I don't know the name of a 1980s Japanese Actress of note or else I could make a Molly Ringwald joke.

Right now I figure it's going to be Kane.

As said elsewhere on this board, that's the sort of mindset that's going to leave them in big trouble in a few years.

I love how smoothly Andre slipped into that role. We had some idea that he could from some of the early 70s 2/3 fall matches in Japan but this was so blatant. A NWA title match from that era really brings forth a certain style and on paper, he's not a guy that you think would do that, and he absolutely did, while putting his own spin on it. Andre's awesome. For a guy who could have just coasted on his size, he was so good.

Someone asked the Bellas about Grado at a media event in the last week I think. I know I saw a quick video clip.

It's an absolutely great match, no doubt, and up there with the Cowabunga match as the best Cornette performance I've ever seen.

I loved the moment when Eaton conducted the "two" chants during the beat down on Mr. wrestling II.

On Austin, Keller sure loved the finish to Undertaker vs Brock.

One of my favorite things about Austin is how into watching wrestling he is.

Personally, I want to know what the heck he's saying on commentary most of the time.

I love the WCW C-shows in 1995. Prime has a ton of fun match ups and Dusty hosting.

A lot of the main events from the 70s are more exciting to me personally than the Mid-south stuff, but the undercards aren't as strong, no. The flipside is that I think we have had less of it previously available in general so it could give us some new looks at wrestlers. Again, I'm probably more excited about all the Dale Valentine stuff (especially the stuff towards the top of the card) than I should be.

I think that's just what got sent to be processed first mainly.

It's sped up (here's the non sped up version: https://gifs.com/gif/y3kYq0) but that's Gordman hitting a DDT in 1968 vs Santo.

As an aside, I think it could be worth looking at "how it was intended" at some point. In the older stuff we watch, the intention was pretty much to goad a bunch of easily manipulated people into first giving up their money and then feeling good about the fact that they did so that they'll do it again.

We also come into this having seen some of the footage, which isn't going to be true of everyone. I think a lot of us have seen the Dibiase/Duggan gimmick match probably multiple times. It's one of the best matches of the 80s, but we're very familiar with it. Same with some of the other high end stuff, so there are things which on paper that we should get really excited about and I'm sure people more unfamiliar with this stuff are getting excited about, that we're not. Even then we've gotten some VQ updates, etc. So it's not fair to hold that against the service. The fact that in a two month span we've gotten something like 10 great matches that no one's seen in thirty years and a number of other good ones that have given some underlooked wrestlers more exposure is phenomenal. Sometimes we go a year and only a fraction of that number might emerge. And there's so much more to come.

I was in the very last row of the building, as far back as you can get and I had a pretty good vantage of the place. I was probably one of the first jerks to pop up too. I lean against work.

I wish Johnny Ace was my uncle.

I wonder if he's not unlike Michaels in that regard, with the caveat that where Michaels failed in his execution was in a lot of the emotional delivery and where Punk could fail was somewhat more physical. I find your inclusion of the word "modern" interesting there. He worked a much more self-aware style (as did Michaels at the end) then someone thirty years ago. I can't quite flesh out my thoughts on that right now, but I think it's something worth exploring in general. There's a fan fiction element to almost all wrestling now (but then was that what Flair was doing on some level? Ray Stevens fan fiction? As opposed to a guy like Luger or Rotunda who didn't start out a fan?). there's something to discuss here later, I think.

Did Harvey really manage Papa Shango? I don't remember that at all.