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Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4


TravJ1979

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I watched a live IWAMS event from Powerbomb.tv last night. I had a nice little writeup about a few of the matches but I seem to have lost it in the hellish vacuum that is cyberspace.

 

I haven't seen a PPV as it happened since 2001. I subscribed to Highspots and Powerbomb.tv recently to watch a lot of indy groups that my favourite wrestlers work almost interchangeably on. The live IWAMS show reminded more of being a fan as a kid. Watching it live as it happens made me feel like I was in the crowd.

 

The women's death match and to a lesser extent both the 3 way and the tag title matches could be worth a look if you have way too much time to view random matches from random shows. The women's match was more brutal than any women's match I'd seen since I stopped getting LCO-era ARSION or other joshi in the mid 2000s. I hope they didn't get hurt seriously and were paid extra as both a consequence and a reward.

 

I didn't know Ian Rotten still owned IWAMS. I guess it is naive of me to believe that anyone else would book too many young wrestlers to work that many shows for what is no doubt too little money in return. Let's just hope nobody was paid in drugs.

 

I'm currently on a Beyond "Americanrana" 2016. Lots of quality wrestling so far and Joey Ryan too!

 

I have also been trying to watch as much 2016 indy wrestling as I can find online. That seems like a pretty good year to hold as the standard. Initially I picked 2016 as my cutoff point because Chris Hero left for better compensation. I'm watching AAW/AIW/CZW/Beyond as well as the British groups online. I already had the entire PWG and Evolve schedules from that year that I stupidly spent actual money on to have in physical copies. If only I had waited until the Gabe promotions were all exposed for viewing by spiteful FloSlam...I'm just now starting to tire of the Ricochet/Ospreay matchup after loving and seeking out every single interaction they had that found its way online over the past two years .

 

I'm new to shoot interviews but I think I missed their boat of relevance years ago. I think I own four shoot interviews from SMV among the hundreds of other shows that take up too much space. In the early 2000s DVDVR and PWO forums shoots seemed to be important and entertaining supplementary wrestling entertainment. Now that I have access to Highspots and the few on Powerbomb listed I can't really say that they hold my interest at all. I think the overexposure of wrestling podcasts and books has completely demystified the wrestling legends and wrestling urban legends. Younger wrestlers' shoot interviews have very little information and perspective. Older wrestler shoots have far too many lies or faded memories that amount to dead time or substance-less time wasting. I think it also goes without saying that the former ROH owner's brand of shoot interviews are mostly horrible to sit through. How can someone who has interviewed so many wrestlers be so terrible at it? They probably cornered the market on the genre for more than twenty years yet he/they still sound like someone doing their first interview on their first wrestling podcast.

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I'm currently on a Beyond "Americanrana" 2016. Lots of quality wrestling so far and Joey Ryan too!

AR Fox pushed past me to do his balcony dive on Matt Tremont and if you hear somebody yell "I am the table" during the Dijak/Dickinson/Dunn 3-way? That was me.

 

I also had a very pleasant talk with B-Boy about RDA and fill tanks.

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Actually had a dream about pro wrestling last night.

 

I was at a college basketball game (division 3ish school) and one team was made up of WCW's roster circa 91-93. Rick Rude was there and was ejected for arguing a call with the ref. Austin was on the bench and I was heckling him in the stands saying the coach should bring in Van Hammer or Big Josh. He smirked back at me. Paul E was the coach and the opposing coach was Ted Danson circa late 80s/early 90s.

 

after the game I talked with Austin in the stands about Sid Vicious's potential as a main eventer. Then it ended.

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I subscribed to the Observer site for the month and I'm currently reading through the old newsletters, starting from '91 (disappointingly I learned after paying for my subscription that there aren't any from '89, which bummed me out as that was the year I really wanted to jump into. No matter). In a couple issues Dave has referenced someone called The Juicer while recapping WCW shows. I had no idea who that might've been and I assumed he was doing that thing he did where he'd refer to someone he thought was shitty by wittily spinning their name. Like how he'd call the Ultimate Warrior the Anabolic Warrior or the Junkyard Dog the Junkfood Dog. I was racking my brains trying to think of who this might've been. I figured it had to have been someone who was, you know, juiced, but I kept drawing blanks. So I went to Graham's site and checked the results and it turns out there actually was someone called The Juicer! Further investigative journalism revealed that it was just Art Barr doing his Bettlejuice gimmick but changing the name for copyright purposes.

 

I hope you've all enjoyed my fable.

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I hope you've all enjoyed my fable.

 

Yes, it was pretty funny actually. I can understand the sentiment too. The Juicer…. Only WCW. Not to mention he had rape charges on his ass (don't correct me on the legal details).

 

Damn, when you think about it, the splash from the top rope is the seediest move ever. It's either a tribute to Snuka or to Art Barr. Ugh...

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Here's what I don't understand - how did Vince wipe out all the territories with a TV product that looked so mediocre until the Superstars/Challenge revamp of fall 86? People say he won because he had the New York media and the glitz and the glamour and big stars - I don't totally get it. Now, the TV presentation once Superstars and Challenge started, sure, that stuff would still look great today.

 

 

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In the end, most of the major territories did themselves in through a combination of different factors. The pre 1986 WWF TV product wasn't really that inferior compared to a lot of places, like the AWA for example. Plus, the the quality of the Saturday TV wasn't a major factor in their success. What really mattered was WWF had the mainstream hype no other territory could match. Remember they were on MTV, and SNME debuted on NBC in May 1985. Hulk Hogan was on the cover of SI right after Mania. Still, it was a gradual process, and the South wasn't a much of a draw for them until the Austin years of the late 90s

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In the end, most of the major territories did themselves in through a combination of different factors. The pre 1986 WWF TV product wasn't really that inferior compared to a lot of places, like the AWA for example. Plus, the the quality of the Saturday TV wasn't a major factor in their success. What really mattered was WWF had the mainstream hype no other territory could match. Remember they were on MTV, and SNME debuted on NBC in May 1985. Hulk Hogan was on the cover of SI right after Mania. Still, it was a gradual process, and the South wasn't a much of a draw for them until the Austin years of the late 90s

That makes sense. It's just like, people talk about how you just couldn't compete with Vince's product when he got it on TV in your area, but they were still taping in Allentown or Poughkeepsie, it wasn't that amazing. Now once they made the big upgrades with Superstars and Challenge, yeah, they totally changed the game, that TV was beautiful and made everything else look minor league. But that's almost 3 years into the expansion.

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I believe Memphis was the only territory that actually got paid for TV, although the station did cover production costs in Portland. The arrangement in most territories was that the station would give the promotion TV time for free in exchange for a cut of the house show revenue. The WWF coming in and paying for TV time completely changed the game.

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Lets see Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays...

 

Aside from PPVs and occasional instances of having to switch dates, have there ever been regular Flagship TV on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays?

 

Smackdown was Friday from 2005-2015 before moving back to Thursday and eventually Tuesday.

 

If you count TNA Impact, it was on Wednesday for a year or so at one point. They went Saturday (04-06) to Thursday (06-10) to Monday (2010) back to Thursday (2010-2014) to Friday (2015) to Wednesday (2015-2016) and back to Thursday (2016-present)

 

Other than Sunday Night Heat, I guess Sundays are saved for PPVs.

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I believe Memphis was the only territory that actually got paid for TV, although the station did cover production costs in Portland. The arrangement in most territories was that the station would give the promotion TV time for free in exchange for a cut of the house show revenue. The WWF coming in and paying for TV time completely changed the game.

Not entirely a U.S. territory, but the Puerto Rico territory -- WWC gets paid by WAPA for TV. That's one of the main reasons they're still around today despite the fact that they haven't drawn a decent house in about 15 or so years now.

 

Lets see Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays...

 

Aside from PPVs and occasional instances of having to switch dates, have there ever been regular Flagship TV on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays?

Also for what it's worth, WWC has been on TV in Puerto Rico on Saturday and Sunday morning for decades now.

IWA when it was around in Puerto Rico also aired on Friday midnight before making the transition to Saturday and Sunday morning like WWC.

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Lets see Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays...

 

Aside from PPVs and occasional instances of having to switch dates, have there ever been regular Flagship TV on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays?

Smackdown was Friday from 2005-2015 before moving back to Thursday and eventually Tuesday.

 

If you count TNA Impact, it was on Wednesday for a year or so at one point. They went Saturday (04-06) to Thursday (06-10) to Monday (2010) back to Thursday (2010-2014) to Friday (2015) to Wednesday (2015-2016) and back to Thursday (2016-present)

 

Other than Sunday Night Heat, I guess Sundays are saved for PPVs.

*face palm for Friday night Smackdowns (as well as WWECW and original NXT) and Sunday Night Heat as a weekly show*

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