Stiva

Watched this out of curiousity and it just...upset me on many levels. Obviously, Bret is in bad shape, Terry Funk is Terry Funk in the Year 2000 and there's nothing too wrong with the work. It's plodding, Funk runs through his crazy old man spots and that's that but everything surrounding it is just awful. An nWo beatdown, two old guys in your TV main event, David Flair in general. It's been years since I've seen end of days WCW and it's even more depressing than I remembered. Over on WWF TV, you have blazing hot crowds, guys like The Rock and Foley putting together electric segments and, in about, 3 weeks, they're going to rob WCW of 4 very good hands. Just a sad indictment of what's to come. Nash's powerbomb through the stage looked suitably nasty though.

A great way to end a great show. I blow hot and cold on Sasaki but enjoyed a lot of what he did here, considering he was laying it in as hard as he could. Tenryu is my man though and he was great here. I loved him selling the rights to the jaw with a fantastic glazed look. Like you would have when rocked with a huge right and you're struggling to figure out where you are.

Black Suit Liger beats the crap out of Kanemoto like he's Venom-infused Spiderman, destroying some poor bank robbers.

I enjoyed this but it definitely had it's flaws. I think Miho has this really good, fiery babyface charisma but man, Maekawa really made this difficult to get through. Her inconsistent selling of the leg was pretty annoying, especially when the finishing stretch involved her using the bad leg to kick Miho into defeat. There wasn't a progression, as much as she was able to fire back at full strength because it was coming to the end of the match. Still, definitely a decent little match and I hope to see where Miho goes from here.

A match that really sums up HHH before he was working with over babyfaces; heatless matches, really boring on offense but a big bumper. I thought this was a good Show performance, probably better than it deserved considering the shitty finish but the pieces are in place for 2000 WWF going forward and it gets better from here. As an aside, I was wondering why we had no Nitro matches from this date, then checked the card to see a ton of Lethal Lottery Tag Matches that barely went longer than 3 minutes. WCW were gone by this point.

I enjoyed this and, like said, found it really engaging for its length. The second crowd brawling spot seemed a tad superfluous but the in-ring work and story were both excellent. I thought Miho was the standout as young girl trying to make an impression and show herself off but all 4 were really good at their roles. I agree that Maekawa's offense was pretty poor throughout but I thought she showed some good work, kicking about Miho and she cut a good pace herself down the stretch. Fun tag match that also set the seeds for the future at the end.

I ended up being disappointed by this which was unfortunate. Largely for two reasons; it went too long, I'd say and, despite the big spots landing great, the hurricanrana to the outside kind of felt like the move that should finish a guy off, or at least lead into the finish from there. And the crowd brawling was pretty terrible; it was the old "guys walk through crowd holding the others head" with very little in the way of intensity or, you know brawling. Looking at Honma as a WOTD candidate, I did think both guys were good here, despite my criticisms, and Honma had some great moments. His selling of the suplex in the crowd was fantastic and the plancha over the boards was beautiful but the match, as a whole, just didn't really click for me.

Kind of feels like the two best trainees in school having a showcase match which, I guess, it sort of was. Spanky's entrance is fantastic and I thought he was the stand-out here. Dragon's strikes look good but Spanky is leaning into them all and making them look like killer blows. He's bumping around like he's getting launched around a wind tunnel and I loved his dive where he just throws himself at Dragon at high speed. A decent little match that, maybe with hindsight, shows that these two are going to become fantastic workers.

Nice little opener to PWO2K as I'm trying everything to see what I'll stick with going forward. I won't try and repeat too much of what others have said but I agree that Mr. Mexico has a great look but he was sadly overshadowed by his fellow rudos here. I thought Zumbido looked fantastic; he was getting awesome height on his bumps (the bump over the turnbuckle was incredible) and cut a great pace and smoothness on offense. The third caida was a great chaotic finale and, for what this had to do, it was fine.

Yeah, I can imagine a WWE-produced Broken skit coming off as po-faced as the Wyatt/Orton House of Horrors match. Or whatever it was called.

http://globalwrestlingnetwork.com/ So, they have their own On-Demand service with, it appears, the full run of TNA ready to watch, along with some classic stuff and a slot for "Indy Wrestling" but there seems to be nothing up there yet. It seems like you can actually watch the last year or so of TNA without signing up so go wild, I guess? The main point of interest will be in what they can throw up in the classics section. But, don't worry, there's still some TNA-ness to the launch of this. Their site appears to be unsafe - showing up a non HTTPS url and they advertised the launch of the network on Instagram with a picture of Hulk Hogan.

The Dungeon of Doom fit the old campy horror aesthetic well. Well, at least The Yeti and Braun the Leprechaun are the stuff of nightmares anyway.

The opening tag was fucking wild! Everyone was bumping like total freaks from the first bell; Big E's spear straight into the cell was an insane bump to take in the first minutes of a match and it only got stronger from there with awesome moments. Woods eating the chair, The Usos swinging off with kendo sticks like they were hitting for home runs and then shit talking Kofi, the handcuffs and continued kendo beatings, guys getting punched in the ear, the ridiculous uranage onto Woods' knees that looked even nastier because it was sloppy, just some violence ass violence and an awesome performance from all 4 guys.

This looks fantastic and has also reminded me that I need to catch up on a TON of Exile on Badstreet eps.

Norman the Lunatic was an underrated painter.

Yeah, this is what I hope for, extending a bit further to European/Canadian/Mexican territories that all have presence and build to matches on super shows down the line. Something like WWN or Powerbomb.TV would be great too. A centralised hub where you have access to all the promotions, their shows, promos etc and a live stream of any big events. Ive now set myself up for disappointment having said all this.

I think a wrestling version of RateYourMusic may be more manageable. User ratings and reviews for albums/singles/EPs/etc that are tallied up and put in lists, customisable by year, genre, what have you.

Gallows and Anderson absolutely have to work as their Southpaw Regional Wrestling gimmicks.

Like, wasn't 85% of The Shield's appeal is that they'd have awesome tags with the other good teams/units of the time? Who is there for them to work with in 6 mans that Ambrose and Rollins wouldn't work as tag champs anyway?

The idea of WWE-written drama with WWE workers taking roles is making me laugh so much that I want to see that over any unearthed footage they have in the vaults. Having said that, I'd be down for them finding a way to post some classic ROH stuff, even if it's just select Joe/Styles/Bryan matches

Heenan is, maybe, my favourite wrestling personality of all time. So quick on the draw and while people, rightfully, speak of his chemistry with Monsoon, was there anyone he didn't have chemistry with? In the WWF, anyway. Prime Heenan was able to be plugged in with anyone, in any situation, and throw out perfectly timed comedy that would have any seasoned comedian in the world impressed. That's before you mention his ability to rattle off fantastic promo after promo, the excellent managerial work and, as recent unearthed finds have shown, pitch-perfect, chicken shit heel in-ring work. I could go all day but I think this is my favourite, under heralded Heenan moment. It's worth it for Vince cracking alone but the razor-sharp delivery, the timing and the crack in his voice at "He's alive!" would be the work of a master in any profession, never mind pro wrestling.

I'm glad; I haven't watched the death throes of WCW for years and Thunder being uploaded can give me the full experience one more time.

I find it hilarious that they'd run Cena/Taker as a quasi-nostalgia match at Mania, 10 years after they should have ran it as a huge money making program.

As a man who has a friend called Adam Cole, I was incredibly disoriented when I saw that name trending this morning until I clicked onwards and found out. Basically, I'm annoyed because I thought my friend's business had taken off in a huge way and now I'm already against everything he does because he unwittingly deceived me this morning.