Matt D

Matt, please jump in at every possible point with annotations and information. Trust me, it'd be seen as a huge boon to the community and to this thread. I'm sure we could learn a lot that'd help put everything in perspective and provide hugely valuable context. My journey through 1979-81 in Portland has been almost completely textual which is sort of a weird way to do it given the nature of the wrestling business. There was a bit of a gap in the footage I was watching and that threw me, but I'll try to get back into the groove with this stuff next month. I'm hugely looking forward to reaching the face turn and to start to see Buddy in WWF/Japan as I hit that point chronologically. Plus I promised Dylan I'd at least make it to the work with Dynamite Kid to see Buddy out-roperun him. Ideally, I'd get to a couple more sum up essays too, but we'll see.

Most of that stuff was in the vault, so it won't be new saturday morning slam. What kills me with the WCCW and ECW is that they're putting in randomly numbered episodes. Why couldn't they have just started from the beginning? I don't want to watch things like that.

I only hate Raven's character because I have such a liking of Scotty Flamingo/Johnny Polo.

Ok. I'm sticking my thoughts in the Bockwinkel note for now then. I refuse to watch 40 minute draws twice, even if they're pretty good.

AJPW, "REAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE", 1980.12.05 Kochi Prefectural Hall 5,600 Fans REAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE MATCH; Billy Robinson & Les Thornton vs Nick Bockwinkel & Jim Brunzell I watched this tonight. Gimme a thread. Wait, are we doing 80s threads? Is this just for new things?

Some book mentions the Owen match. I thought it was Foley's.

I basically want all of those. Twice.

I did like that JBL expressed frustration about that very thing. They made it sound like Big Show handpicked Cena to feud with at 20 too, which was kind of neat.

Ok, Massacre on 34th Street - FBI (Guido/Mamaluke) vs Doring/Roadkill has to be the most random thing, right? It was a "Championship Firsts" because it's very important to mark the first gold for Doring/Roadkill.

It would actually be great if Ambrose went full on heel with the Authority and they just kept Reigns away from him until at LEAST Summerslam and ideally longer. Instead, they'd probably feud for the next three ppvs after Mania and you'd end up with at least one and maybe both guys cooled off significantly compared to if they were both protected for a few months first.

There was a moment where he winked before pushing a jobber off the apron in his debut match and at the time everyone over at DVDVR went nuts for that. It was such a little thing but so different from everything the rest of the roster was doing at the time.

The very worst is when he does the fake voice. "Well, what about this...." Followed by the crotchety "No." and the surly explanation, which is usually three or four curt sentence fragments.

How do you feel about Irish Whips?

Orton sure loses a lot.

That's the annoying thing about Ross. I get why he's as jaded as he is but it's like no one can have a legitimate concern or complaint about anything. He'll go on about how people today have no patience one minute and then on how there's no long term planning the next without seeing any dissonance at all between the two ideas.

Ross bitching about how corner ten counts expose the business since the punches don't leave a mark was probably the most absurd thing I heard all week, and trust me, that's saying a lot.

I feel like the last few years of WWE, except for maybe the top top main event style matches at the big PPVs, have actually been a move away from some of that.

I get a kick out of Countdown. It's a lot of fun to hear Heyman narrating key WWE moments.

Poor Brotherhood.

I just got an error trying to watch the Steamboat/Regal tag match from Battlebowl 93. Brian over on DVDVR had some 93 WCW problems too.

It's actually the big argument against Bigelow. That he had his best match ever in his first year.

Never before have the WWE youtube 4 minute sum ups been more useful.

I remember a bunch of it ended up on Wrestling Gold. How far back does the library go?

I've seen a lot of prime Triple H lately and his matches are almost all bloated and brutal. He has a lot of the fundamentals, whether it be bumping or selling, or fairly decent offense, but the structure tends to run towards frustrating tedium. Orton can be lazy. I feel like he's stopped working his chinlocks in interesting ways, but if you put him in with a guy like Christian or Bryan, they can have a hell of a match. I don't even think it's in the same book really.

Do they own Southwest?