Matt D

He was fucking awful in WCW, on every level. Probably the worst all-around worker there with Stevie Ray and Brian Adams. La Parka/Silver King vs Kendall Windham/Curly Bill WCW SN 11-2-99 I am specifically looking at whether or not Mike Jones is good here. I wanted to find the Curly Bill vs Lash match that Eric liked on Segunda Caida but I'm going with this instead. He obviously has quality opponents here. Immediately, he tries to punch Silver King who blocks it and thigh kicks him. Jones sells it by stooging huge, hopping around and eating a thrust kick. Silver King tries to whip him into the corner but he reverses it. Silver King climbs up the ropes and Jones does this great ducking weave thing to shoot under the back flip and follows with a huge clothesline that Silver King sells big. Some decent stomps, once nice downward punch, and a really mean slam before Jones tosses him into Windham's boot. Silver King stumbles into a neutral corner and Jones hits a chop. He tosses Silver King into the ropes and King does a whip around recoveral. Jones misses a fairly slow clothesline and gets hit by a spinning wheel kick. I think Silver King was going for a top rope dive but he went to the Rednecks' corner to do it and Kendall clobbered him. Virgil grabs a leg and knocks him down so he can tag Kendall in. So yeah, Kendall Windham was pretty fun here. Lots of long limbed offense. It's like watching a balding Mr. Fantastic or something. Anyway, long story short, this leads to chinlocks, a comeback, and a quizzically set up hot tag, followed by Jones eating some offense and a Windham boot as a foreign object to save the day for the Rednecks. I don't think he was totally smooth in keeping up with Silver King, but he stooged well and his offense looked pretty good and a lot of what he's been given credit for in this era has been limbwork and that didn't come into play here. Here's what Eric said about the Lash match and what he said about the Frankie Lancaster match If I could find either of those easily I'd take a look at them. Found another match. Vincent vs Lizmark Jr May 22nd, 1999 Worldwide I can't call him "Curly Bill" but I can call him Vincent. Vincent has a great jab that he does right ot Lizmark's face out of nowehre. Really nice spinning neckbreaker too. He's working the crowd which is nice and probably easier at a Worldwide taping than elsewhere. He can't eat a spin kick for the life of him but he can eat dropkicks and does so here twice really well, once going out to the floor through the second rope. They do a transition where Vincent punches Lizmark mid plancha, which is a good thought even if the execution is just okay. Really nice selling of a Lizmark punch flurry. Good punch drunk look, then this great little casual step away to avoid a corner splash. His single arm DDT is really swank and is followed by his smooth little transition into the fujiwara arm bar, which he really leans into, and that's the match. Again, it's not a match with armwork and it's against a luchador but I think this was a better showing than the tag match and he did a lot of things well here. I remember really liking a Vincent vs Barry Horowitz match from 99 SN but I haven't seen it in a while.

You get the sense Rip Hawk was just groaning and thinking "Calm down you little puke."

Ah! I know. TNA should offer him a lot of money.

Virgil got a hell of a lot better by late 92/early 93. He had some squash matches in 92 where he just killed the poor guy. He was also a late era WCW SN Superworker.

Tito had a massive connection to the crowd for years

I love Maddox on commentary. He's a riot.

Of the Saturday TV we don't have for early 81, one is Buddy vs Andre, one on one. That kills me. I just want to see Buddy Rose vs Andre the Giant. Is that too much to ask? I don't ask for much.

Lawler was the best at selling an upcoming show while talking about his Softball team, certainly. Did anyone get exactly what he wanted out of wrestling better than him?

How viable was Slater? He was seen as sort of a Terry Funk clone inside the business, no?

I still don't have a good sense of what heels Dusty feuds with in Florida from 75-82 or so.

That's the thing with 81. I can think of way more guys for 83-84 and I think we might be missing a few who were hot in the late 70s but not so much later.

NXT is on the free version of Hulu, though I could imagine that they'd block it in foreign countries such as Texas.

Are you totally discounting the NXT women's roster or something? I'm not digging for the pics of young Paige meeting Goldust or young Bailey decked out in her Hardy Boyz gear and I'm sure rovert would love to come in and tell you about what's her face. And Sasha Banks isn't great but they still pulled her from Kowalski's school and the indies and I suppose there's some inherent value to Charlotte (and Shaul Guerrero if she's on her way back in). What I said. I see a bunch of female wrestlers coming up in the system who are fans or not just in this for the fame, who have experience already or are second generation (and Paige is as well). The entire next generation of "divas" seems to fit into that. The ones that might not completely are being taught to really work their character into their matches and to work focused, narrative-driven short matches that have been consistently good. Emma and Summer Rae are excellent at working their characters into their matches, way better than even a lot of guys on the NXT roster like Neville and Graves (they had a 2/3 falls this week which was really lacking in in that, even though it was sound in other ways). The Bailey/Charlotte vs Rae/Banks match from this week was a ton of fun. Bailey, through body language and working her character, garnered a ton of sympathy, to the point where the crowd was audibly shocked when Charlotte turned on her. I'm not super high on Banks or Charlotte either, though I'm enjoying Banks more as a heel. Maybe the current crop of Divas that just got brought up are frustrating, but there's a half dozen in the farm system that aren't, whether that's due to Del Ray's training or what, and I think it's pretty obvious that since this is Hunter's baby, they're going to be fairly well insulated. While on the topic of NXT, I also think you should go back to last week and watch Harper vs Ohno if you haven't yet, Will. I think you'd really like Harper's stuff in that match.

Wasn't a lot of it hedging against Video rental places just buying the cheaper home version and using it to rent out?

Personally, I'm not too worried about your point because I see how things are shaping up in developmental.

I think she'll be ok.

Billy Robinson!

Are you totally discounting the NXT women's roster or something? I'm not digging for the pics of young Paige meeting Goldust or young Bailey decked out in her Hardy Boyz gear and I'm sure rovert would love to come in and tell you about what's her face. And Sasha Banks isn't great but they still pulled her from Kowalski's school and the indies and I suppose there's some inherent value to Charlotte (and Shaul Guerrero if she's on her way back in).

Grimmas is a guy who should never be referred to by his real name.

I'm in the midst of the lucha set. Masks and missing fingers and/or eyes are awesome.

I think if they offered it, Lawler would have jumped at it though. If Bill Eadie doesn't work, my new answer is Johnny Walker.

Something something Hillbilly Jim.

My new answer is Bill Eadie.

Money in the Bank 2011/Summerslam 2011 is a good 1-2 punch but Night of Champions really just has the Mark Henry win going for it. Honestly Capital Punishment had a Christian vs Orton match and Rey vs Punk so maybe that's better. Either way neither hits the mark I think.

Everyone, this is Kevin and this is his first time in group. Can everyone say "Hi Kevin."