Matt D

I've been 98% digital only since I graduated college in 03 (don't do the math on that), with a few trades I picked up here or there after. So the collection I have, which is pretty huge and primarily 70s-early 00s, is still in my parent's house back in MA. At some point, after the crash, I stopped caring and putting things in bags, so who knows what the condition of anything is anymore, but I have a lot of issues (thousands, easily), though not a ton that I think would be hugely valuable on their own. I had a bunch of "wall comics" that are probably in better shape, though nothing too old. My favorite is probably a beat up Hawkeye first appearance. My parents ask now and again and I dodge because I don't want to deal with it and tell them they can just sell the stuff if they want. They're down here fairly often (pre-pandemic) to see the kids, but I haven't been back up there since 2013, so it's sort of out of sight/out of mind.

This company wastes everything good.

We have five years. Hopefully, we see a hundred different projects from dozens of different people in that time. I'm in a fortunate spot in that even though I've watched a ton of wrestling, I always sort of steered clear from certain things for various reasons, so I'm going through every single AJPW match in 89 (and probably 90) right now on DVDVR. After I'm done with that, I'm thinking of tracing Hashimoto's entire career which will help me come up with some NJPW 80s-90s avenues to explore, while still probably carrying Tenryu forward and exploring the rest of his career. We're obviously watching the French library chronologically on Segunda Caida. After that I'm very tempted to try to do something similar with WoS. I'm going to delve into Shocker's early 00s work and El Dandy from 89-93, and I'll learn what I'll learn about other wrestlers through that lens. I want a better grasp on shoot style since I wasn't comfortable including that last time. I'm not trying to cover every gap. I'm trying to hit wide swaths in the most enjoyable ways possible.

What agent puts together a match with two "Reigns gets out of the way" spots that happen in exactly the same part of the ring from exactly the same angle?

Reigns' selling of the kicks is just so interesting relative to how everyone else sells them.

I watched that one too. Ah well. I'm not sure Bryan's shit eating grin and bouncing around is doing Reigns any long-term favors unless he absolutely kills him in the end.

The golden glove is a nice touch. How long has he had that?

I actually don't think I have. I've seen my share of stuff like this over the years and it's as you (and I) described but maybe not this vein specifically.

Most 8mm footage that's out there is just a few moments here and a few moments there. When you're lucky, it's carried over throughout the match so you can get a sort of clipped sense of the narrative. That's probably what this would be too, right?

Edge isn't the guy. He's the guy who wrestles the guy. He's a Paul Orndorff.

That'll be my 2036 deal. I'm glad to work to clear up the blind spots pre-2000 I still have here so that there aren't guys in my 70s or 80s that I couldn't justify nearly as well. My criteria is pretty unforgiving (to me more so than the wrestlers!) and I think over the next years I can sure up most of pre-2000.

This is well worth reading: https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/18802068/oral-history-wrestlemania-3-randy-savage-vs-ricky-dragon-steamboat

Lots of metrics to think about. For instance, he was featured in one way or another in SNME I, III, IV, VI, VII, IX, X, and XI). I'm not going to REALLY look at it, but at a glance I think that's second to only Hogan in those 11 shows.

Steamboat was an important cog in WWF and a lot of that was about The Karate Kid and not necessarily his body.

Nicieza's character development of Zemo in the back half of Thundbolts v1 is one of the most interesting bits of writing you'll get out of Marvel in that period.

I'll have some time for a tiny bit of 21st century wrestling in 2023, maybe. We can pencil this in for June.

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had in wrestling was watching the Shane match as it happened with you guys on the board. https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/33777-wrestle-mania-32-live-as-it-happens/?page=10

I think the real joy of Earth X was in the previews/Wizard and the guidebook/handbook, just seeing the sketches and learning about the world they mapped out. As a teenager, I enjoyed that way more than reading the actual story. Kingdom Come, on the other hand, work as both a story and that. With Kingdom Come, there were so many tiny background characters that actually had fleshed out backstories and personalities that you could only learn about through secondary media.

Anyway, definitely exploring a bunch of Pat Patterson 1980 TV matches, IWE Mighty Inoue, and whatever Caswell Martin I can find.

Cena sure sold a lot. But I can see how Dave might have missed that?

I am not promising to do it during this calendar year, necessarily (We have a bunch of years ahead of us) but having forced this zine into the world, I would be willing to write two sorts of articles now and again: "The Case For" and "The Case Against". As in "The Case for Negro Casas" and "The Case Against Brock Lesnar"

I watched 3 TV matches between Pat Patterson and Johnny Rodz from 1980 last night. I'm not 100% sure I would have done that if I wasn't thinking about this stuff. But I'm also in the middle of a comprehensive 1989 AJPW (as in everything) watch and I'm not about to stop watching whatever Shinichi Nakano vs Isao Takagi handheld match (hypothetical, that doesn't actually exist) I would have watched as part of that for this even though neither would make my list. I think it's additive and not subtractive right now, is what I'd say.

SNL would make sense like that.

Cowards.

People could probably get access to every year of WCW SN for $20? And not just like six episodes of 93 for $10?