Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[MLB]

Unintentionally funny headline this morning on the rasslin' newz:

"Matt Cardona Says He’s Willing To Have Conversation With WWE Or AEW"

Um, you think he's "willing" to have that convo? 

[...TG]

For the old heads here: Rick Sciaia, an rspw poster, Online Onslaught owner, and WrestleLine writer passed away of cancer this week. He was a good dude, and kept Online Onslaught going on his own until around the pandemic, IIRC. 

[sek69]

10 hours ago, ...TG said:

For the old heads here: Rick Sciaia, an rspw poster, Online Onslaught owner, and WrestleLine writer passed away of cancer this week. He was a good dude, and kept Online Onslaught going on his own until around the pandemic, IIRC. 

Fuck, that sucks. Rick was one of the first people I read to find out about pro wrestling. A lot of the wrestling writers at the time were always doing gimmicks which sometimes got a little too overwhelming, and he was one of the few that just told you what you wanted to know.  

He was only 49, that's like an extra kick in the balls.

[Robert S]

On 7/19/2023 at 3:30 AM, MLB said:

Teddy Hart was arrested again. MDMA and steroid possession in Florida. 

What a pity that the Twitter account "Is Teddy Hart in Jail" shut down.

[The Thread Killer]

11 hours ago, sek69 said:

Fuck, that sucks. Rick was one of the first people I read to find out about pro wrestling. A lot of the wrestling writers at the time were always doing gimmicks which sometimes got a little too overwhelming, and he was one of the few that just told you what you wanted to know.  

He was only 49, that's like an extra kick in the balls.

Between Mike “MiCasa” Samuda getting busted and going up the river, and then Hyatte, DEAN and now “The Rick” all passing away…what the hell is happening to all the OG’s of the IWC?

[SAMS]

Quick Memphis question: 

1980-01-18 Mid-South Coliseum - Jerry Lawler vs Joe LeDuc with the lashes stipulation

1980-01-24 Memphis TV - They are promoting the upcoming match between....Jerry Lawler and Joe LeDuc with the lashes stipulation.

I've tried cross checking the dates of the TV and the Mid-South Coliseum shows at this time but they all appear to be consistent wherever I've looked. This isn't the only example either where the TV appears to be lagging behind the arena shows but I can't identify where the discrepancies stem from.

Anybody able to shed some light on this? 

[SAMS]

Thanks! That would definitely explain it. The 60 min versions I've been watching often have the Louisville Gardens upcoming card announcements and specific interviews for that area so I was assuming it was going to be something along those lines, but wanted to confirm that I wasn't barking up the wrong tree there. I didn't know that the Memphis version was 90mins though!

This probably was going on throughout 1980 but without the Mid-South Coliseum footage to compare against it wasn't as noticeable. After 1981 starts the arena footage picks up a ton so them being out of sync jumps out so much more.

[KawadaSmile]

 

That's wholesome

[WingedEagle]

No idea why this came to mind, but what do announcers and ring announcers do about the bathroom at long TVs/PPVs?  They presumably need to hydrate over the course of the night to keep their throats from getting dry.  If they can last through a long show they're better sports than I am.

[NintendoLogic]

JR and Bruce Prichard have both said the announcers just go in their pants if they have to. However, JR said it was rarely an issue for him because he controlled his fluid intake during the day and just took sips of hot water for his voice during the broadcast.

[Timbo Slice]

It’s also one of those things where if you’re into it, your body doesn’t really think about needing to go until after when the adrenaline wears off. My old baseball broadcasts, I did them by myself and only rarely did I even need to get up between innings to go. Just something you get used to. 

[sek69]

On 7/22/2023 at 5:38 PM, KawadaSmile said:

 

That's wholesome

Everything about this is great, both that they are fans of his and that you know Bryan has tapes of Glamour Girls vs Jumping Bomb Angels matches. 

[KawadaSmile]

Charly Caruso openly trying to instigate some antivax conspiratory bullshit regarding Bronny's (as in Lebron James' son) cardiac arrest makes me wonder - was she that much of an asshole that even WWE was fed up?

[NintendoLogic]

She took her talents to OutKick (the OAN of sports websites) because she felt stifled from speaking the "truth" about trans athletes at ESPN, so it goes without saying that she's a gigantic asshole. However, my recollection is that she had heat at WWE over repeatedly missing call time for shows rather than assholery.

[PeteF3]

Where was it originally reported that Patriot pinned Mitsuharu Misawa in a 6-man tag on 5/24/97? That's been accepted as a result for awhile now and footage of that match is a mini-Holy Grail for '90s AJPW, but in discussing the match elsewhere I looked up the result on a pretty seemingly definitive AJPW results site and they list Johnny Ace as the guy pinning Misawa in that match.

Still an upset, to be sure, and maybe one that never happened anywhere else. But Ace was definitely higher on the foreigner totem pole than Patriot, having World Tag Titles and at least one Triple Crown title shot to his name. The reason I looked it up is because were debating what the "cobra clutch drop" was that was listed as the winning maneuver--that wasn't a Patriot move, but the cobra clutch suplex was an Ace move.

Does this site have it wrong, or have we had it wrong the whole time? It's such an incongruous result for '90s AJPW booking that I almost wonder if it was a misreporting to begin with this whole time.

[PhilTLL]

I was looking through Cagematch listings because someone asked a question on a match thread years ago, and I just noticed that the night after Starrcade 83, Flair was in St. Louis working 2/3 falls against David Von Erich for 36:00. This fucking guy/era.

[sek69]

On 7/26/2023 at 8:48 PM, PeteF3 said:

Where was it originally reported that Patriot pinned Mitsuharu Misawa in a 6-man tag on 5/24/97? That's been accepted as a result for awhile now and footage of that match is a mini-Holy Grail for '90s AJPW, but in discussing the match elsewhere I looked up the result on a pretty seemingly definitive AJPW results site and they list Johnny Ace as the guy pinning Misawa in that match.

Still an upset, to be sure, and maybe one that never happened anywhere else. But Ace was definitely higher on the foreigner totem pole than Patriot, having World Tag Titles and at least one Triple Crown title shot to his name. The reason I looked it up is because were debating what the "cobra clutch drop" was that was listed as the winning maneuver--that wasn't a Patriot move, but the cobra clutch suplex was an Ace move.

Does this site have it wrong, or have we had it wrong the whole time? It's such an incongruous result for '90s AJPW booking that I almost wonder if it was a misreporting to begin with this whole time.

I would think it's much more likely we had it wrong the whole time. Not only because Johnny Ace was way higher on the totem pole than Patriot, but there weren't that many people who had access to Japan tapes in 1997 so it wasn't something a lot of people could challenge at the time.  Plus it was very uncommon for anyone to pipe up and say any of the established tastemakers of the time might have got something wrong. 

[PeteF3]

The thing is, I don't know where the result came from. The '97 Observers make no note of it, just that Ace's team beat Misawa's team in the Results section. Ace did pin Doc a few shows later in another 6-man tag, a result that Dave made specific and detailed note of as the sign of an Ace push. Patriot was also getting an extra push as part of GET with Kobashi and Ace on that tour, though.

[sek69]

Beating Misawa in a tag would be something only reserved for top guys, which I don't think Patriot ever became. Johnny was always in that "right below the pillars" tier and of course there's always been those Mrs. Baba rumors. 

[MLB]

Mongo McMichael is currently in intensive care being treated for pneumonia. 

[Timbo Slice]

Fuck ALS, man. 

[MLB]

I've been digging through old PWI 500's of late. I'm sincerely dumbfounded that Dean Malenko was #1 in 1997. How in the blue hell did that happen? I thought PWI was supposed to be a mark magazine!  Why all the hoopla over Malenko in 1997?  Dean looked like a glorified referee with some decent technical moves but they put him over Stone Cold and Kobashi! 

[pmo]

It was pandering to smarts essentially as the magazine was trying straddle the Kayfabe line.  Just look at the list compared to 95 or 96.  Dean also had come off a big year in 96/97 getting 3 cruiserweight titles and the US title along with big feuds with Rey, Ultimo, syxx, and Eddie.   Other than the Jericho feud it was his peak.  He was the top American Cruiser, had an established “wrestler” gimmick, and working with those guys above was having a ton of great matches.  So while at time it was a bit odd and people saw through it as pandering, it also wasn’t totally nuts.  Tbh most IWC fans believed Benoit was better, but he buried in 97.

 

 

[PeteF3]

26 minutes ago, MLB said:

I've been digging through old PWI 500's of late. I'm sincerely dumbfounded that Dean Malenko was #1 in 1997. How in the blue hell did that happen? I thought PWI was supposed to be a mark magazine!  Why all the hoopla over Malenko in 1997?  Dean looked like a glorified referee with some decent technical moves but they put him over Stone Cold and Kobashi! 

1997 was a weird year where there was no definitive #1 star in wrestling especially when you take kayfabe into account. Hogan was the top guy in WCW but barely active. Bret and Shawn were injured for large chunks of the year. Undertaker couldn't break away despite being WWF Champion, nor could Sid. Austin wasn't Austin yet. Plus the rise of the Internet was making a pure kayfabe magazine less and less viable, hence the addition of a Ratings Comparison column where they didn't quite destroy kayfabe but more or less legitimately analyzed the business aspects of the Monday Night Wars.

I can't remember where I read this, but I recently saw where one of the writers apparently said that they were seriously kicking around the idea of giving the #1 spot to Mitsuharu Misawa, but it was decided that in 1997 they couldn't sell a magazine with a Japan-based wrestler on the cover, so they went with another smark favorite in Malenko.

[PeteF3]

4 minutes ago, pmo said:

It was pandering to smarts essentially as the magazine was trying straddle the Kayfabe line.  Just look at the list compared to 95 or 96.  Dean also had come off a big year in 96/97 getting 3 cruiserweight titles and the US title along with big feuds with Rey, Ultimo, syxx, and Eddie.   Other than the Jericho feud it was his peak.  He was the top American Cruiser, had an established “wrestler” gimmick, and working with those guys above was having a ton of great matches.  So while at time it was a bit odd and people saw through it as pandering, it also wasn’t totally nuts.  Tbh most IWC fans believed Benoit was better, but he buried in 97.

 

 

Let's be real: despite my rationalization, it was still pretty nuts. If Malenko and Benoit were the two best wrestlers then why weren't they World Champions, you know?