KB8

I go in cycles with my hobbies. Right now I'm not really watching any wrestling at all and my only wrestling-related consumption is reading and talking about it on a couple forums. But there isn't much of that happening right now, either. When I'm on one of my wrestling kicks, which usually last a few months before I get the urge to focus on something else, I'd say I devote around an hour a day on average to watching wrestling, with maybe another half an hour writing or reading about it. I'm too restless to sit an do a marathon watching session at this point in my life, though there have been points in the last few years where I've burned through decent amounts of footage in a fairly short space of time. It depends how much free time I have, really.

I'm currently about twelve different things and that's basically my answer for when someone asks me what I do for a living. "I just do...sport stuff." I'm a PT, a football coach, I do performance analysis for football clubs, work as a strength and conditioning coach, and recently I started doing some exercise therapy for people with dementia. None of these are full-time jobs as I went back to uni to finish my degree (I was a full-time PT before that), and in September I'll most likely do a Master's in sports coaching. So yeah, what I do for a living is "sports and shit." I don't follow or watch the EPL, but Arsenal fans have really (REALLY) had a tough times they last couple of seasons. It certainly hasn't been great, but three trophies in the last five years has been nice all the same. The club has clearly been preparing for life post-Arsene for at least a season now, though, and while I'll always be a little sad that his time as manager ended without the hero's farewell, there's some excitement over where things are headed now. It won't be turned around straight away, but at this point change itself is important. We'll see how it goes (especially if Arteta's appointed as the next manager, which I've thought would be the case for a while).

My two favourite genres of music are probably hip-hop and country music, which...I mean, I'm not entirely sure how that happened but there it is. The country music thing comes from something my old basketball coach had me do (this is about fourteen years ago now). My adrenaline before games was always sky high and I'd always start off really aggressively. Not that I was trying to assault people or anything, but I'd end up in early foul trouble because I was contesting things I shouldn't have been contesting, forcing steals, etc. I liked to get hyped up before games (with hip-hop). He suggested I try to relax instead, to take things a little slower. He suggested I listen to some country music pre-game, and whether it was a placebo effect or Willie Nelson's Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain actually did settle me down some, it worked pretty well. Eventually I branched out and listened to more, and now my basketball days are behind me but my country music days are not. On sports, I follow football (soccer), basketball and football (American). I'm an Arsenal fan so football has been a stressful hobby for a few years now. I've always gravitated towards teams from California for some reason so I'm a Lakers and Chargers fan. That has also been pretty rough for a minute now.

WWF. My earliest memory of anything in my life is watching Wrestlemania 6 with my old man, then at some point after that I remember getting an Ultimate Warrior action figure (my cousin got Jim Duggan) and when Michaels put Jannetty through the window I knew I was all in (an interesting jumping on point for a four year old, perhaps). I followed WCW fairly closely from about 1994 - initially on some channel with dubbed German commentary - until the end, but WWF was always my bread and butter. I stopped paying as much attention to it from around 2002-2004 (Eddie's push brought me all the way back back) and I haven't followed it closely in about a decade, but wrestling and football were obsessions for me during my childhood and early teens, and no promotion gives me that sense of visiting old friends like the WWF does. Even hearing commentary from specific periods takes me back to when I'd record Superstars and The Simpsons on Sky 1 every Saturday, or taking turns with a couple friends to record RAW every Friday (we never got it live over here until 2005). I have lots of fond memories of WCW as well, but Schiavone and Goldberg and Sting and the nWo don't hit me with the same wave of nostalgia as JR and Monsoon and Michaels and Austin. If I'm going to fling on a random PPV or house show as background noise, 75% of the time it'll be from the WWF.

For TV: Friday Night Lights Justified Oz The Wire Party Down Californication Lost Parks and Recreation Battlestar Galactica Kingdom

I struggled with a lot of joshi for about fifteen years, but ARSION was a cracking little promotion that I jumped into towards the end of the GWE project, and through that Jerome's girl Yoshida became one of my absolute favourite wrestlers. The more minimalistic style of ARSION with the quasi-shoot trappings really just hit the sweet spot for me (I haven't seen much post-2000, but as mentioned it sort of moved away from what made it so unique after a little while). I haven't watched more than a handful of matches from current joshi promotions since current was 2006, but I'd guess that if you're digging Stardom then you shouldn't have much issue jumping into the heralded AJW stuff, the Dreamslams, Big Egg, etc. Personally, ARSION was so fun to me because it was different from the 90s AJW/JWP that I had a hard time getting into. It doesn't sound like you'd have that same issue, so I guess...watch, like, everything?

Fairly sensational turn of events, this.

This crowd doesn’t even care enough to count along with the timer anymore.

Okay, that Bryan/Angle bit was pretty fucking cool. The 2006-er in me sure got a kick out of it.

How many times has Ziggler skinned the cat already?

Well...it was better than Wrestlemania! (maybe?)

I’m late to this as I had the Smackdown replay on in the background last night, but man was that Carmella segment fun. I don’t think I’ve seen her work more than two matches, but her stuff out of the ring has been really fun the last few weeks. I’m now of the opinion that she rules and I will not be swayed on this.

Hey, this was a really nice, spirited little contest. The stand-up was sharp and clean and I dug Naruse playing underdog. He sold getting knocked around pretty well and I loved how he used the ref' to drag himself back to his feet after the penultimate knockdown. Nagai hurled a few mean leg kicks but still wasn't the full crowbar Nagai that I'm used to, as it was crowbar Nagai that was my first introduction to Nagai way back whenever. They sure telegraphed Naruse catching that high kick, but to their credit they threw a curve ball and switched up the finish nicely. Not spectacular by any means, but definitely fun and a super breezy nine minutes.

Kind of a poor man's Eastern European grapplefest, but a fun one and with another few fights under his belt Todorov could be really good (I'm sure I've seen later Todorov fights, but I don't remember anything about them). Gotchev had a bunch of nice throws again, almost setting them up via bearhug before heaving Todorov over and practically onto his head. At one point he hoisted him up, walked around the ring and hit a body slam. I'm not sure what Todorov's discipline is, but he had a killer harai goshi and once or twice he almost tied Gotchev up in suitably RINGS fashion. Finish was really cool too. There's something about a shoot style STF that's just aesthetically pleasing.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone to bed (where I’m evidently unable to sleep anyway). A big name or two is absolutely going to RAW at this point. Surely. Charlotte and Styles?

I've seen Carmella no more than about four times but I'm assuming she's always been this fun? Because between this and last week she is craaazy fun.

Kurt Angle is surely due the sack after this. He's getting absolutely Brooklyn Nets'd on these trades. Joe has more of a knack for making these scripted promos come off organically than just about anyone in the company. When the fuck did that happen? (EDIT: yeah, what he asked)

This is tonight, then? Cool. I have a shit ton of work to do so I'll be up until the wee hours anyway. I'll probably give it a watch and see what's what.

I read that earlier as well, and it's easy to make the connection in hindsight, but yeah...that was total Shawn Michaels big feud melodrama (with good acting).

I'm not so interested in what's overrated, but based on Dave's tastes (and most people know what they by now), I wonder which match he's given 5 stars to is the one you'd least expect him to. I'm not anywhere close to being in the loop with modern New Japan - or even Dave's star ratings - and by all accounts he's given a bunch of those matches in the last few years 5 stars, but it's kind of interesting looking back and seeing things that are sort of perplexing in hindsight. I mean, the Kyoko/Toyota broadway sure isn't for everyone, but that's a match you can just see Dave raving about if for no reason other than the cardio display. Are there any that come across as major outliers based on his pretty obvious preferences?

Volk Han v Sotir Gotchev (12/19/92) I was pretty hyped for this and I'm happy to report it didn't disappoint. I don't know how many worked fights Gotchev had, but I'd assume this was only his second (after the Kopylov fight). That he can throw guys around with aplomb goes a ways to making you forget about the bits where he obviously looks inexperienced. Han was Han. All of his wrist manipulation stuff looked awesome; the nasty wrist lock thing, the crazy standing armbar, and best of all the way he used it to grab Gotchev in a sort of dragon sleeper before dropping him with an elbow to the chest that looked like a fucking Kill Bill execution blow. He did this thing later on where Gotchev was on all fours and Han grabbed the arm, drew it underneath Gotchev's leg, planted his foot to keep that leg in place, then pulled upwards like he was trying to hyper-extend the elbow under Gotchev's own thigh. Basically this had about four things to add to the running list of Volk Han submissions I'd never seen anyone do in a match before. It wasn't quite like Gotchev could slam Han at will, but Han was clearly having trouble with him, and when Han would try to roll upon landing Gotchev would just drop him super awkwardly on a shoulder or elbow. It actually led to Han using a decent amount of his rope breaks, but of course in the end he found a way to deal. I'm not entirely sure what it was - could've been a choke, could've been an armbar, could've been a bit of both - but it looked like it hurt and every bit the Volk Han way of submitting someone. Really good bout. Dick Vrij v Herman Renting (12/19/92) This didn't start out great, but it got better as it went and by the end it was about as lively as you could hope for between these two. Renting is never really aggressive in his fights and sometimes he'll outright stand in the corner as if he's waiting to be hit. I don't know if he's gassed or what, but you can imagine how compelling it is. He started this like he actually intended to do something, and you may not have bought him actually hanging with Vrij, but you maybe bought him being able to grab a submission if the stars aligned. Vrij was pretty much coasting for the first couple rounds, but they got a bit chippy with each other and some little cheapshots were thrown. Last couple rounds picked it up. Renting kept retreating to his safe haven (the corner), but Vrij is not the guy who'll let you rest on your laurels that way. In fact he probably kicked him harder. Akira Maeda v Chris Dolman (12/19/92) Pretty listless main event, at least until the last forty seconds. Lots of tepid stand-up. At one point they wound up clinched in the corner trading slow knees to the body, like they were doing assisted knee raises at a Body Combat class. Maeda's leg was taped up heavily again and they drew attention to it a few times. Crowd picked up on it when he'd back away clearly favouring it after Dolman's probing kicks. Set up to the finish was pretty telegraphed, but the finish itself was surprising.

I'm surprised he went with the full five stars for the ladder match. Gargano/Ciampa was right up his alley for sure and that one's not surprising, but even judging by car crash ladder match standards I thought it probably had too many moments of slow climbing and reaching from two feet off the ground. I actually enjoyed the ladder match, which makes it the first one in a while, but that's because I was invested in a winner (I really wanted Dream to win). I don't think it would be nearly as fun on a re-watch, but you know, whatever.

The Afa match from MSG is about the best broomstick match I've ever seen. It's pretty much 90% Murdoch working shtick around a guy who brings mostly nothing, but it's my favourite shtick reel ever. The 9/22 and 10/14/85 matches against Reed, where he gets to work extended holds, the DiBiase feud has him working more brawls, the 7/11/87 Windham match is your old school title match similar to the Reed defences, then there's the 6/13/87 Dr. Death match (all of those are from Mid-South). The DiBiase double turn angle on Mid-South TV is great. It's been ages since I watched most of the New Japan 80s set, but there's lots of good Murdoch on that. Not everyone was so hot on the Murdoch/Adonis team, but his appearances later in the decade during the six-man tournament and his singles with Inoki were great fun. The Fujiwara match from dying days PWFG isn't exactly shoot style, but it's two old guys working their magic with the crowd on strings.

Ranallo somehow hasn’t really bothered me on NXT despite being mostly terrible and probably worse than he was on the main roster, when I literally found him intolerable and had to mute certain matches. I can’t explain how he hasn’t broken me yet, but he hasn’t. Maybe I’m better at tuning him out at this point.

Wasn't the Like function a necessary inclusion with the board update, but Loss basically disabled it so as to prevent folks "hunting for likes" or...whatever the terminology may be? Re: recognising people from avatars, this place peaked avatar-wise during the GWE when we all had avatars to match whichever wrestler we were the high voter on and someone (Ackerman, maybe?) wound up with an avatar of Kodo Fuyuki covered in beans.