El-P Posted October 6, 2018 Report Share Posted October 6, 2018 I enjoy the longer episodes too also. The last few shorter cards one felt very rushed and by-the-numbers. Carlito I couldn't give a shit to begin with, so I'm not expecting much (maybe some stuff about that piece of shit father of his ?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted October 6, 2018 Report Share Posted October 6, 2018 I don't know. I haven't heard the Carly episode yet either. But - on the surface - there should be enough material there to make for a decent show. The Razor ripoff vignettes, an explanation for the origin of the apple gimmick, the lame surname, his increasingly negative attitude backstage, how he went from being viewed as a surefire future star to just another guy in the mid-card, the Ric Flair shoot comments on Raw, and the ensuing program with Flair all happened while Bruce was still there. I'm not sure if they address all that, but I hope they do. And 2 hours seems about right for the short run he had while Prichard was around. The attempt to rejuvenate him in tags with his brother didn't come until, what? A year or two after Bruce left, I think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beast Posted October 6, 2018 Report Share Posted October 6, 2018 Feels like bloom is off the rose. I listened to the 9/11 episode and Conrad listed like 20-30 upcoming weeks of shows and none got me that excited. Lots of PPV recaps and random superstar spotlights like Carlito, Rikishi and Regal, all sound hit or miss. PPV recaps can be good if there's a lot of interesting backstories to the time period, but it sounds like 1 of every upcoming 4 shows is 1998-specific. One that stood out in a positive is a show on both the Hardcore Championship and Daniel Puder. They should consider doing more multi-topic shows as most of the big ones have been covered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cox Posted October 8, 2018 Report Share Posted October 8, 2018 I think they're going back to the 1998 well way too often. Did we really need a show devoted to Breakdown: In Your House? I can see doing the Big 4 PPVs from 1998, but a lot of these shows were inconsequential at best, especially with Russo booking where half the shit that happened on that show was undone within a week or two between turns, not observing stipulations, etc. I usually like the PPV shows but not if they're going to keep going back to 1998 every month. September PPVs in particular tend to be quite inconsequential, so I can see why shows devoted to September PPVs have been bummers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 8, 2018 Report Share Posted October 8, 2018 On 10/6/2018 at 1:36 PM, SomethingSavage said: The Razor ripoff vignettes, an explanation for the origin of the apple gimmick, the lame surname, his increasingly negative attitude backstage, how he went from being viewed as a surefire future star to just another guy in the mid-card, the Ric Flair shoot comments on Raw, and the ensuing program with Flair all happened while Bruce was still there. The Flair shoot interview is addressed in details. The rest, not so much, it's a bunch of factual elements with Bruce rationalizing every step of the stop/start push without ever really giving a thought about why this guy never got over or why the booking never found a way to put him over (and I don't think there's much interesting told in term of context of the company at the time either). The episode to me was as dull and uninteresting as Carlito's career (and work). What shocked me though is how high Bruce seems to be on the guy, talking about him like he had It, like he was some kind of great worker. It's ironic that it begins with Corny thinking Carly was coasting in OVW and ending with Carly effectively coasting for years in the main roster. In the end, the one thing that can explain such a lackluster stint appears to be as simple as this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cox Posted October 12, 2018 Report Share Posted October 12, 2018 The Rikishi episode was fine, I guess. I kinda wish they had spent more time on the Headshrinkers, but this is the week of Conrad's wedding so I can understand if this episode wasn't exactly a priority. But this is at least six weeks now of lackluster shows, so it would be nice if business started to pick up on this show at some point soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted October 13, 2018 Report Share Posted October 13, 2018 I loved the Rikishi show. The explanation of how the Rikishi runs over Austin angle actually happened was great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cox Posted October 14, 2018 Report Share Posted October 14, 2018 They have done so many shows of late about bad late 90's WWF storylines that I think I'm just immune to them at this point. I'd really prefer that they not do a show about every bad 1998 PPV that took place every month. I mean, I don't think any fan was clamoring for the 20 year anniversary recap of Breakdown or Judgment Day, though this is just a personal preference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted October 14, 2018 Report Share Posted October 14, 2018 Every time I see this thread I wonder if someone should finally correct the title to reflect the actual name of the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted October 14, 2018 Report Share Posted October 14, 2018 I've requested it multiple times. Come on admins, do some admining Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 14, 2018 Report Share Posted October 14, 2018 Lackluster does not even begin to express the latest few episodes, and the Rikishi one is yet another. They just fly over everything from the Head Shrinkers to the Sultan in about 5 minutes, as it's basically less about Fatu than about the Rikishi gimmick. Then you have Bruce not being able to say what the fuck the word "rikishi" means, which I find really embarrassing. Talk about living in a wrestling bubble and having zero respect for the culture you're turning into gimmicks. As a sumo fan, I've never cared for the gimmick anyway. Always liked Fatu as a worker going back to the Shrinkers, but the fact he was never over more than being a fat guy doing a poor sumo cosplay dancing and shoving his bare ass in the face of his opponents says a lot about how much the Attitude Era sucked. Yeah, that show is badly, badly cruising, and the shorter format actually hurt it quite a bit. Not sure I'm gonna bother for a lot longer at this rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 20, 2018 Report Share Posted October 20, 2018 It's funny that the main theme of these fall of 98 PPV's shows is that despite the product being hot as hell, the product really wasn't very good at all. There are gonna sell the Survivor Series 98 as some kind of "great story", although to me it's the beginning of the end. Interesting btw that more often than not, Bruce refers as a match "telling a great story" when infact he's talking about the overall booking, not the inner workings of a match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted November 13, 2018 Report Share Posted November 13, 2018 I am a big William Regal fan, so I listened to this past week's episode. I found it pretty bland and unremarkable, really. Maybe because most of the information that was presented is already out there from the interviews Regal himself has done on the Austin and Jericho podcasts, I don't know. Maybe this show has fallen off or maybe it has settled into a tired routine, but it really didn't seem to have any spark to it, it was like Conrad and Bruce were both just going through the motions. I used to listen to this show because it made me laugh and I'd occasionally learn something I didn't know. Aside from the details about Regal passing out during his first meeting with Vince McMahon (!?) like I said, this didn't really cover any new ground, and I think I laughed twice in the three hour show. It''s kind of sad that at this point, Eric Bischoff is doing Prichard's show better than Prichard.  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted November 13, 2018 Report Share Posted November 13, 2018 I was disappointed with the Regal show. It was boring, and that has nothing to do with the subject matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted November 13, 2018 Report Share Posted November 13, 2018 Agreed. It feels like they've been in a rut for awhile, and I've only been dipping in & out - whereas I used to never miss an episode. I've actually built up a backlog of episodes for only the second time in the show's history, and I'm really not all that motivated to wade through this whole slew of 98/99 PPV cards to get caught up. I doubt I'd be missing much. Bruce's strength lies in his bullshitting and storytelling, but there's just zero fun to be found in these things lately. It's fallen into full-on formula mode - mainly with Conrad reading results, and Bruce punctuating it with a brief response of some sort. I did check out the entire Regal show though, and yeah. It was disappointing. But that's mostly because I'd already heard most of the material directly from the man himself. So hearing it reiterated in secondhand bits & pieces just left something to be desired. That being said, at least it had Bruce telling a few stories about Regal. So there's that. I'll probably go back to stockpiling them in case I ever convince myself to give it another shot. But it's fallen way, way down the pecking order for me. The format or the material could use a shakeup. I don't know that I ever need to hear Bruce talk about anything that happened in 1998 ever again. Get out of my life with that shit already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted November 13, 2018 Report Share Posted November 13, 2018 Well, I have been skipping the lastest ones and you all sure are making me save three hours of listening with this one. Yeah, I feel this has fallen into a tired formula, which was gonna happen eventually anyway, but listen back to an old episode now and the differences are striking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDuke Posted November 14, 2018 Report Share Posted November 14, 2018 Yeah I stopped listening to this show as well. Episodes are too long about things I am not interested in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted November 17, 2018 Report Share Posted November 17, 2018 Unless any strong feedback, not interested in this week's show either. Can't bear to listen to them waxing poetics about how "great storytelling" Survivor Series 98 was. It was the first event that put a real dent in my WWF fandom back then, where the booking of the big swerve was more important than the actual pro-wrestling (the entire card pretty much sucked as far as in-ring action went). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted November 17, 2018 Report Share Posted November 17, 2018 Meh. I don't expect there to be much in the way of new stories. They've already covered SOOO much Austin, Boss Man, Rock, Russo, and 98 in general. If you'd ask me beforehand, I could have sworn they already covered this show. Surely they'll at least retell the Jerry Brisco story for the 500th time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted November 17, 2018 Report Share Posted November 17, 2018 7 hours ago, El-P said: Unless any strong feedback, not interested in this week's show either. Can't bear to listen to them waxing poetics about how "great storytelling" Survivor Series 98 was. It was the first event that put a real dent in my WWF fandom back then, where the booking of the big swerve was more important than the actual pro-wrestling (the entire card pretty much sucked as far as in-ring action went). Yeah, I agree with you. During the Regal episode when they previewed the SS98 show, Conrad was talking about what a great show it was and was praising the "storytelling." I almost fell off my couch. I can actually remember ordering Survivor Series 98, watching it and thinking the show was shit - especially the stupid "swerve" ending. When a show is so bad you can remember how much you hated it 20 years later, you know it sucked. This episode of STW is doubtless going to end up as the ultimate example of Prichard's tired old "We were telling a story!" line. I can live a long happy life without ever hearing that line again as an excuse for crappy matches. 17 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said: Meh. I don't expect there to be much in the way of new stories. They've already covered SOOO much Austin, Boss Man, Rock, Russo, and 98 in general. If you'd ask me beforehand, I could have sworn they already covered this show. Surely they'll at least retell the Jerry Brisco story for the 500th time. You and others who have mentioned this are right - STW seems to be permanently stuck in 1998 and are mining that year for every last pebble. It seems to me like they are running out of content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruiserBrody Posted December 2, 2018 Report Share Posted December 2, 2018 Three hours on Christian?!!?! Who could care that much? WWE refused to push him for much of his run. Oye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted December 2, 2018 Report Share Posted December 2, 2018 I had it on in my ear buds while I was at the gym this morning. In a word? Brutal. It's another episode that is mostly Conrad reading results - in such a monotonous & repetitious manner that he trips up and reads some results as if Christian "beat Christian" more than once. And it just goes totally unnoticed. There's A LOT of retread from the Edge episode. Fairly fitting, when you think about it, that the conversation KEPT drifting back to what Edge was up to at the time. The episode *does* manage to zoom in on Vince's fixation with Christian a bit though. It's another one of his bizarre hang-ups with someone's physical features. And the fact that it follows Christian for his entire career is just baffling. On Christian's literal last night with the company in 2005, Bruce even tells a story of approaching Christian backstage and pondering if maybe his career with the company could've turned out different (and more successful), IF ONLY he'd have cut his hair back in 2002 like Vince had asked. Christ. They just keep harping on & on & ON about cutting his hair. Vince & co. were definitely bitter and butthurt over Christian a) not cutting his hair when asked, and b) letting them know that anti-American heat is boring and generic. Oh. And apparently I'm the only one who saw some entertainment value in the Spirit Squad gimmick. It's a guilty pleasure, if nothing else... Kind of interesting to hear that the Page/Christian program was a case of trying to do something with 2 guys that "Vince had given up on." Makes total sense, and it's something you hear about lower-tier feuds from time to time. It'd be pretty cool to try to go back and track rivalries that perhaps started out that way but actually ended up getting one or both guys over with the boss - or the audience - or even both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted December 3, 2018 Report Share Posted December 3, 2018 I enjoyed the Christian episode. It got me through a long and rough work day on the road. Even when I was calling bullshit on things, I was engaged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted December 4, 2018 Report Share Posted December 4, 2018 Crazy how much I had fun listening to this one year ago and couldn't possibly give a flying fuck these days. The latest reports sure don't give me any urge to check any of the current show. Is anyone still keeping up with the Schiavone show ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted December 4, 2018 Report Share Posted December 4, 2018 Only for the ECW episodes. Tony seems to express a genuine joy watching those shows. Everything else consists of too much Conrad for my taste. His humble bragging about owning guy's gear, his annoying frat boy friends, the constant 8th grade level dick jokes, etc. is just not my thing at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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