Matt D

I got way too much of a kick of randomly walking down a street in DC today and seeing the Exotic Express. I forgot they were here tonight.

Maybe he just didn't want the emails from the crazies if he didn't put it?

1979. I'm not kidding in the least.

That's Jim Ross.

At one point I tried to make a blog with my Buddy rose stuff, after PWO went down the first time but before the second. I never got very far in posting it but that was the name I was using too. It's a fine name. EDIT: It was territorial expedition. I was close.

Alright. first of all, you did a really good job summing up the match, and frankly, so did the announcers. I do think it's better than you indicate, and not necessarily just for the fact it had a clear narrative. It's in the performances and character work. Kamala, as you said was great, not just in his portrayal but also with his selling. He made everything Andre do look huge and powerful and meaningful, which anyone can do, really, but when you have a guy Kamala's size and agility doing it, it means all the more. Andre's timing was spot on and I think, save for the transition spot yes, he was so expert at knowing how long to sell for and when to come back. He was a wrestler who could use a portrayal like Kamala's to the fullest. The fans ate up everything with a spoon too. Earlier in the night was David Sammartino vs Moondog Rex. If they had worked this same exact match, it would be logical, sure, maybe, but it also wouldn't have been any good because they would have brought different attributes and tools to the table. Here it worked because of who was in the ring. It was, in a lot of ways, the right match for these two wrestlers. That it was also a logical and well performed match only helped matters. I know you weren't as into this, but every time that Andre seemed to head across the ring to hit Kamala I was excited to see what the shot would look like and how Kamala would sell it and how the crowd would react. Slow motion is fine when almost every physical touch has that level of payoff. No, it wasn't blood and violence and big giant bumps (though there were bumps and it was, at times, violent), but it used the steel cage as an actual cage, in interesting ways, and I think it's well worth watching for that aspect of it alone, even if it does have a lot more to offer.

...yeah, so there's a Duggan/Bagwell vs Arn/Flair match I just found on dailymotion that I need to watch later. Also, to a lesser extent the Arn/Flair/Sullivan vs American Males/Duggan/Pittman match which Loch Ness was supposed to be a part of. Such weird combos.

I think it's on the last DVD bio they did for the Rock where Vince himself says he didn't like the "This is Your Life" skit and has no idea why it was so highly rated. Watching it live and as a fairly experienced wrestling fan at the time, I knew there was a payoff coming. Foley would go through all this sillyness, finally the last person would be revealed as someone who would attack the Rock along with Foley. Heel turn, easy feud. You don't run a 25 minute interview segment without a payoff, right? I still think myself and every other wrestling fan sat through that because they thought there was a big angle or swerve coming at the end. Abdullah the Butcher in a box?

Duggan's shoot was hard to listen to because he's pretty one dimensional and dense and hates little guys and what not. He's genial and really seems to like the fans and what not but there wasn't a ton there. God I don't know and I'm not making the blender joke. -Did he prefer working in front of the more niche Mid-South crowd or in front of the larger but perhaps less focused WWF crowds? -Ask him about working Andre at a point of his career when Andre was so immobile, but still able to get such a reaction with his every movement because of his presence and how good he was at what he did? -He had a really good run with Yokozuna in 93, with some super enjoyable foreign matches and the very memorable knockdown challenge on TV. I don't think he's talked much about that. -Most guys prefer being a heel but he really didn't have a heel run in the most publicized run of his career. Would he have wanted one and maybe a run at hogan or what not in the late 80s/early 90s? -Maybe if he thought Slaughter was underrated as a bumper/wrestler in 91? -The various fake russians he worked with/against in his career? -Stories of working Vader? -He worked a lot in his career teaming with tag teams. I remember notable matches with Demolition and the Rockers in six mans, but also in WCW on shows with Stars and Stripes... eh, I've got nothing there. -Something about the cancer speech in wcw but he's talked about that a lot. -WWF planned SO far ahead in the mid 80s. What WOULD have been the actual plans if he didn't get caught in the car? -Compare Watts and Vince?

It's amazing how far things have turned in a few months. The optimism of earlier this year, the idea that once they got the TV deal they'd be bulletproof and the network would be all bonus!

Rollins looks like a putz for not being put in the main ladder match when they put Orton in just like that. I'm trying to remember the last logic breach that big on WWE tv.

I was excited for the Stardust talk because I had no idea what pop reference they'd get. if any. Bryan went for NES' Pro Wrestling Starman and then Dave said NO NO NO, it's Dusty Rhodes' nickname Stardust. Bryan made sure to point out that he had gloves like AJ Styles. No mention of Bowie. No mention of A Clockwork Orange. No thought that this will lead to a split.

I want a long Wyatts vs Goldust/Stardust feud. I mean I know it has to end in a turn but my god, just imagine that.

That was the most meta thing ever. He had a completely different moveset. I'm not sure WWE's ever done anything like that before.

I might have written that thing up, but I've no idea where it'd be. I'll watch the thing in the next week though.

Not again. Poor Al Snow.

We need Chris to run numbers. Lots and lots of numbers.

Obviously the problem is that with soccer, unlike football, the youth leagues in the States aren't about winning but just being included and having fun. You can see why the Soviets never dominated.

If we're examining that, can we examine the theory that MMA devoured what should have been wrestling's last upcycle?

Bailey, Paige and Emma as the Crush Gals.

John Rogers is pretty solid. Leverage was a great show.

And when you add in the fancams?

Is that the best that ECW ever was, even counting the original run?

If someone who was foreign signed up through some sort of clever means, did they find those people and cut them off for now?

I imagine this is terribly unsurprising to anyone here, but I fall on the Dylan side of this. He and I have fairly similar views on wrestling, though I tend to lean towards overall narrative coherence and he focuses a bit more on building to big moments, but it's still on the same sector of the chart. To me, it's like this. Any number of factors can influence a great match: road agents, the crowd, the placement on the card, opportunity in general. The only way to really know how good a wrestler is, in the end, is to watch a number of their matches, the great ones and the not so great ones, tag matches and singles, matches where they're the heel and where they're the face, matches early in their career and late in their career. When you watch a lot of matches you start to learn things; you see patterns, you see them react to multiple situations, generally multiple times and you see how they choose to act and react in these situations. You see how they work towards the crowd. You see how they use their talents and those of the person in the ring with them and how they allow themselves to be used. You see how they wrestle in a big match setting and how they wrestle in a TV squash and how they wrestle in a long-ish house show match. You come at it from dozens of angles and you get a complete picture of their capabilities and how well they understand professional wrestling. You need a big enough sample size, and generally, that is pretty big. You can learn something from one match. You can learn a few things from a few matches, but you really need a 360 degree view to understand a wrestler. And I frankly think that you can. We watch a lot of wrestling. Charles is confident that he can recognize a good match. I give him more credit than that. I think if I gave him a list of five wrestlers, right now, that I know he's seen a lot of matches of, he could tell me various traits they had, various things they could do well and various things that one might do better than another. I've heard him on podcasts and read his stuff right here and I promise you he could that and do it well. Now, if he's more comfortable or more interested coming at things on a match by match basis and focusing his analysis that way, then that's fine. One of the best things about this place is that so many of us come at understanding and enjoying and appreciating pro wrestling so many different ways. It means that we generate a more robust and interesting picture, even if sometimes, we can't argue directly with one another since we're tackling things from too different an angle.