Comments that don't warrant a thread

[Guest Kenta Batista]

I have searched the internet and could not find the answer to this question:

 

Why are there trophy ceremonies after matches in Japan. I can understand if it was a tournament held, but the champion wins a match and not does he walk out with his belt, but a trophy? I was watching AJPW and Hansen cam in during a trophy ceremony and started wailing on Baba and others and just acting like a mad man. Streamers were all in the ring and hanging from the roof...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwuMVx_iTBY

 

 

I saved that one in my favorites because of the craziness at the end. Start the video at 7:00

[ohtani's jacket]

The flower ceremonies and trophy presentations are just part of the work. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say they pinched it from sump. At the end of every tournament, the sumo champion receives multiple trophies and prize money from sponsors. You sometimes see Japanese wrestlers get "prize money" in envelopes and those big fake checks from sponsors.

[jdw]

I actually think someone in the last few months (possibly Dave) pointed to the origin of the tradition in Japan.

 

John

[WrestlingPower]

It was in his NTV/All Japan article from March. It was left over from the Sharpe Bros. days where they used trophies instead of tag belts. Even though belts came later, the trophies continued as part of the ceremony.

[Indikator]

Why should a CC/RWTL LEAGUE winner get a title belt instead of a trophy?

[Kronos]

Here's some randomness that shows a bit MMA doesn't get respect amongst certain people: I was listening to NPR today, and they were doing their geography quiz. The city they were mentioning had a clue about the next UFC show being held there. I paraphrase, "If you don't know what Ultimate Fighting Championship is, think about the movie Fight Club. You've about got it. You can choke, kick, and stomp -- but you can't bite or gouge eyes."

 

Ummm, modern MMA is not like fight club at all, aside from the fact that two guys are fighting in front of people. Rules are very strict, and in some ways it's safer than pro rasslin to my mind. . .

 

 

(I know, I know, of course they're not going to be supportive of fighting sports on NPR -- but still, misinformation only breeds ignorance.)

[Indikator]

That is actually the argument UFC has to deal with in Germany. It's the usual argument against wrestling or MMA over here. I have heard it way too often, almost every article repeats it sheepishly. And then I read that wrestling in Canada doesn't seem to be highly regarded compared to Japan.

[NitroFan]

Australia is the same. On the extremely rare occasion it gets mentioned somewhere there's always the Fight Club comparisons flying around.

[El-P]

Same thing in France. MMA is refered to as barbaric and anything goes like it was 95 or so.

[tomk]

I've watched enough UFC to have little sympathy. It doesn't matter how regulated the rules are, if your own advertising campaigns pimp it as modern Roman gladiators and fight club come to life you really can't get upset when the media portray it that way.

[sek69]

I've watched enough UFC to have little sympathy. It doesn't matter how regulated the rules are, if your own advertising campaigns pimp it as modern Roman gladiators and fight club come to life you really can't get upset when the media portray it that way.

 

I honestly think it's the cage that gets people thinking negatively. You've got over 100 years of what most people considered combat sports (boxing and wrestling) taking place in a ring, and most people's only exposure to cages would be in the wrestling context where it gets hyped as the most violent thing in history. It really does look like human cockfighting if it's you're initial experience watching it.

 

 

It's one of those no win situations I guess. Either you have matches in a cage and have all the violent negative connotations, or have them in a ring and have people think it's just another fake thing like wrestling.

[Dylan Waco]

Was watching the Flair HoF induction speech again and he says Jamie Noble is(was?) an agent. Is that true?

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Yes, they made him an agent for cruiserweight matches because they felt they needed at least one who wasn't in his 50s. Are steroid-related butt infections covered under his employee health insurance?

[Cox]

He might have lost the agent job when they decided to can the cruiserweight division, though. On that Raw booking sheet from a few months ago, he wasn't listed on there as an agent, I don't think.

[sek69]

So I'm on vacation in Panama City Beach, and the drive down here took us through Atlanta. I was hoping to see an exit for Badstreet, but no dice. I hear it might be the baddest street in the whole USA.

[Kronos]

So I'm on vacation in Panama City Beach, and the drive down here took us through Atlanta. I was hoping to see an exit for Badstreet, but no dice. I hear it might be the baddest street in the whole USA.

Too bad. I would have liked to have seen the picture of the last house on the end of Bad Street. . .

 

Damn you, that song is now stuck in my head. . .

[Marty]

So I'm on vacation in Panama City Beach, and the drive down here took us through Atlanta. I was hoping to see an exit for Badstreet, but no dice. I hear it might be the baddest street in the whole USA.

Too bad. I would have liked to have seen the picture of the last house on the end of Bad Street. . .

 

Damn you, that song is now stuck in my head. . .

 

Perhaps Old Lady McDuffie finally got that part of town cleaned up for good.

[jdw]

How did Panter-Villano V finish so high in the WON MOTY poll last year?

 

We thought it was wildly disappointing, was dogshit in the first two falls, and a third largely of Panther's cool 1-2-3 dives... we didn't even get worked up for the 1-2-3 superplexes. When it finished, we looked around asking "Is that it?"

 

All three of use through the Atlantis vs Panther match ran circles around it as a strong old school technical lucha title match. We watched that first, which added to making V-5 vs Panther come across so weak.

 

Was the consensus outside the WON Circle that Panther vs V-5 was all that? And that Panther-Atlantis was the weaker match?

 

John

[tomk]

Panther v Atlantis was a title match which was really deliberately worked as almost a nostalgia match (it was showcase for 25thanniversary of Atlantis' wrestling debut, if memory serves).

 

Panther v Villano V was an actual big stip match with both guys doing overkill spots ( the three superplexes, the three topes) because something was on the line. There is trhe hot counter of the Fujiwara armbar attempt for the finish. The Villano getting toped into chair bleeding out back of head leading to all the spots on the back of the head (including a nasty powerbomb) in first fall.

 

I don't know how high it did in the WON poll. I remember it being top five below stuff like the Flair v Michaels Mania match.

 

Yes, they made him an agent for cruiserweight matches because they felt they needed at least one who wasn't in his 50s.

 

Not just for cruiserweight matches. The idea was that he was a guy who knew contemporary finishes and moves. He's cited as working with HBK giving him his new submission.

[jdw]

Panther v Atlantis was a title match which was really deliberately worked as almost a nostalgia match (it was showcase for 25thanniversary of Atlantis' wrestling debut, if memory serves).

Yeah, and it was great. If one wants to say it was a nostalgia match, so was Taker-Shawn at Mania this year. I don't think either Taker or Shawn looked as good in that match as Panther and Atlantis did in their match... and I actually liked Taker-Shawn as a watchable "spectacle".

 

 

Panther v Villano V was an actual big stip match with both guys doing overkill spots ( the three superplexes, the three topes) because something was on the line. There is trhe hot counter of the Fujiwara armbar attempt for the finish. The Villano getting toped into chair bleeding out back of head leading to all the spots on the back of the head (including a nasty powerbomb) in first fall.

Know it was a big stip match - it was the main event of the freaking 75th Anniversary Show. But the first two falls, other than the tope by Panther, were short with shit mask pulling finishes and then the heel wandering off to the back.

 

The three topes in the third were "cool". The three superplexes really weren't much. But overall, the third fall wasn't exactly off the charts in drama like a great stip match, and the match felt about five minutes early in the drama cycle - one wanted *more* for such a major show's main event, especially with that match going bye-bye.

 

Post match cool, largely because of Panther and how respected he is. But overall, pretty crappy.

 

I can't give it much credit for V taking the header into the arm rest. It basically screwed up the first two falls rather than add drama.

 

I don't know how high it did in the WON poll. I remember it being top five below stuff like the Flair v Michaels Mania match.

4th or 5th. Must have been a lot of shitty matches if that could finish Top 5.

 

Then again, I thought the Flair-Shawn that finished ahead of it was laughable, and Angle-Joe in the cage finished ahead of it and I seem to recall groaning through that clusterfuck.

 

John

[Indikator]

BP vs V5 is only so popular because it was a huge upset. Otherwise nobody would have even talked about it. The match itself is like one of those WWE matches this decade where you think to yourself that they have now included all those things from the independents that you don't like.

 

I like how the match generated a lot of talk. I just don't like it placed on Top X listings

[Dylan Waco]

Panther v Atlantis was a title match which was really deliberately worked as almost a nostalgia match (it was showcase for 25thanniversary of Atlantis' wrestling debut, if memory serves).

Yeah, and it was great. If one wants to say it was a nostalgia match, so was Taker-Shawn at Mania this year. I don't think either Taker or Shawn looked as good in that match as Panther and Atlantis did in their match... and I actually liked Taker-Shawn as a watchable "spectacle".

 

 

Panther v Villano V was an actual big stip match with both guys doing overkill spots ( the three superplexes, the three topes) because something was on the line. There is trhe hot counter of the Fujiwara armbar attempt for the finish. The Villano getting toped into chair bleeding out back of head leading to all the spots on the back of the head (including a nasty powerbomb) in first fall.

Know it was a big stip match - it was the main event of the freaking 75th Anniversary Show. But the first two falls, other than the tope by Panther, were short with shit mask pulling finishes and then the heel wandering off to the back.

 

The three topes in the third were "cool". The three superplexes really weren't much. But overall, the third fall wasn't exactly off the charts in drama like a great stip match, and the match felt about five minutes early in the drama cycle - one wanted *more* for such a major show's main event, especially with that match going bye-bye.

 

Post match cool, largely because of Panther and how respected he is. But overall, pretty crappy.

 

I can't give it much credit for V taking the header into the arm rest. It basically screwed up the first two falls rather than add drama.

 

I don't know how high it did in the WON poll. I remember it being top five below stuff like the Flair v Michaels Mania match.

4th or 5th. Must have been a lot of shitty matches if that could finish Top 5.

 

Then again, I thought the Flair-Shawn that finished ahead of it was laughable, and Angle-Joe in the cage finished ahead of it and I seem to recall groaning through that clusterfuck.

 

John

 

08 was the worst year for match quality this decade.

 

Very little from ROH worth watching. TNA was awful as its ever been. Japan has been down all decade, but seemed really down last year. WWE which had been very good for a few years prior really only had a few really high end bouts and they were tv matches that no one outside the biggest smarks remembers (Bourne v. Chavo, Bourne v. Rey). So really last year was a pretty weak year for match quality overall.

 

Having said that, you aren't the biggest fan of a lot of the matches that I have really enjoyed from this decade - a large number of which smoke a lot of things I've seen you give favorable reviews in the hundred nights of WWE thread at tOA - so it could be a "different strokes" sort of thing more than anything else.

[jdw]

There isn't much that I put over in that thread as Match of the Year Candidates. The overwhelming majority of what I put over is in context - good for what it was.

 

Hogan-Orndorff in Exhibition Stadium is a good Hogan match that hits a big match aura in that setting. In the same setting, Steamboat vs Jake is a horrifically shitty match.

 

But I'm not pimping Hogan-Orndorff as being remotely close to Choshu & Yatsu vs Jumbo & Tenryu.

 

It's similar to what I'm doing above. I don't get Panther-Villano being rated higher than Panther-Atlantis.

 

People are reading too much into the WWF Thread if they think I'm pimping the stuff as the be all, end all of 80s wrestling. It's pretty clear that I think other stuff is better. The points of the thread are:

 

* there were some good WWF in the decade, some of it that got overlooked

 

* there was a fair amount of good WWF matches that didn't make the DVDVR set

 

* there was a fair amount of shitty WWF matches that made the DVDVR set for some reason

 

* My view of WWF matches doesn't exactly line up with the results of the Poll, and I wanted to walk through why

 

There are some other sub-points that pop up while running through the matches, but those were the reasons for starting the thread. Not to compare matches in the 80s to stuff in the 00's.

 

John

[Kronos]

Last night, I started disc 2 of the Freebirds v VE's. I'll tell you what -- say what you will about Michael Hayes having a distorted view of his own importance, but the man could deliver a promo! He's gold everytime he's on screen. And Gordy is just dumb-sounding enough to be fun. Roberts I could do without -- so far, he's easily the least interesting of all 5 guys in the original feud, for my $$ -- and that's saying something when Kevin is in the batch.

 

But cheesus crust, do I love World Class. The superhot crowds alone make it worth watching, even if the rest of it weren't so damned entertaining. "No more Freebirds! No more Freebirds!"

 

What does the "PS" stand for anyway?

[ohtani's jacket]

Purely Sexy.

 

My personal feeling about the Panther/Villano match is that people wanted it to be a great match because it was Panther losing his mask.