NMB Wrestling Archive

I guess SK is tired of his match reviews getting absolutely dismantled by people who know what they're talking about: over at his blog he unveiled his new format, which is just result-time of match-star rating. Cause you know, explaining your star ratings is so last tuesday.

http://www.armpitwrestling.com/Backstage%20Fights.htm I'd not heard of Eddy vs Hawk before or Vince and Angle playfighting on a plane until Taker choked Angle out. Anyone else heard about these? Which story listed do you find the most entertaining?

I know there are a ton of them... Katie Vick The unsatisfying finish to Angle-Trips The three new guys losing at Fully Loaded 2000 etc. I don't want this to turn into a wrestlecrap thread because there are dozens of wrestlecrap moments that are some of my favorite moments. However, what angle or finish or match made you embarassed to be a wrestling fan? Or, what angle, match, or finish upset ou because of the outcome? So far, I have been watching about 10 hours of NWA tv, and by far, the worst thing this company did in this time was the scaffold matches between the MX and the Road Warriors. Just a horrible idea that was horribly executed. T…

From 1Wrestling: I personally hate signs and wish they'd go back to the old days of darkening the arena, because I think the only reason to hold a sign is to put yourself over as clever when the show is not about you, but I know I'm in the minority, and WWE really shouldn't take away any signs unless they have obscene language. Vince does go on and on about free speech and listening to the fans, but when something is said that contradicts his vision, he snaps. There was nothing on any one of these signs that should have been confiscated, and it can't just be coincidental that around the time they started doing this (the Austin/Rock build to WM X-7), the product star…

I saw this over on WO, and it struck me as probably the best commentary on wrestling by someone in the business:

Courtesy of the Meltz... So, Orton is now on SD!. Good, bad, I don't know.

Use this thread to plead the case for all your favorite tag teams. Ideally, having 64 teams would be the way to go, but if we have less, we'll narrow that down to 32 teams. Have at it. 1985-2005. All American promotions.

Well, it starts in 45 minutes. How the hell are they going to top the emotional rollercoaster that was last night's PPV? Will they acknowledge it at all? As Meltzer has said, between the fallout from One Night Stand, Cena's first RAW match, the next draftee on RAW and Steve Austin's appearance, RAW should be pretty newsworthy tonight. Tonight, and over the next few months, we may get a feel for exactly what Vince thought of the show last night, because if he was terribly impressed by it, we'll see a few changes in the product. Only match announced thus far is Cena/Jericho v Christian/Tomko, which has potential to either further the Cena/Christian feud, or they may use thi…

I think the sort of thing that makes performing worthwhile for the wrestlers, aside from the money, is the ability get inside the heads of a wide audience and connect with them. It's not important if they're loved or hated, but rather that they're finding a way to connect with you on a one-on-one basis. These are the moments that when you think about your time watching wrestling, you look back on them and they have a special place in your memories. For me, it has to be Ric Flair's return to WCW on September 14, 1998, on Nitro. I bring this up because the other thread sort of morphed into this and I wanted to make a topic for this. Flair had been sidelined for months, and …

ECW's ratings at the end, were like this. They pulled in an average of about a 1.0. Heyman attributes the poor ratings on TNN not giving them the freedom they'd relied on over the previous four years, and censoring the product (not allowing wrestlers to "hate" each other), and also on the lack of promotion from TNN. Had TNN understood that they were signing ECW and not just W, then things could have been different. Velocity ratings. This year, it PEAKED at a 0.7, getting around 0.4-0.5 quite consistently. I have no idea what network Velocity is on, but WWE have managed to fuck things up with UPN, TNN and MTV, so I can't see it being difficult for them to get a lat…

I thought that this would be a good topic of conversation, so I'm going to extract it from the Raw thread and make it a thread of it's own.

I know Ricky Steamboat never played a heel in his career. Has Tully Blanchard ever been a face at the national level? I don't know much about his past previous to the Starrcade era so maybe the wrestling historians can shed some light on the situation.

Now I don't know if Galavision has been showing recent AAA shows or is still a few months behind schedule but the past few weeks of AAA has been entertaining....maybe because Konnan was there. Last week I was shocked and amazed that Nicho was working AAA shows against Psicosis in trios matches. From what I could understand it was last weeks show it was La Mafia Tijuana which was Nicho's team up against Psicosis, Hysteria, and Juvi. The match was average at best but the finish was great with Nicho taking the mask from Psicosis, putting it on and doing a cocky pin. Then a week later they had a ladder match with Nicho taking some sick bumps which would normally be con…

I am a classic footage junkie. Whenever an older match comes my way, no matter the participants, I try to check it out. So when WWE Jukebox offered up this match, I gave it a look. Three of the four wrestlers in this match are Hall of Famers, and the Junkyard Dog is in the WWE's Hall of Fame. Despite their reputations however, this match works mostly as a quasi-comedy match. Hulk Hogan is whipped into the turnbuckle, so JYD runs across the apron to protect Hogan from the buckle (a nice move I had never seen before). Hogan later throws Dory into the buckle and Terry attempts the same move, but Dory reverses and Terry inadvertently protects his opponent. Terr…

I doubt any of you would actually play this but I thought you might appreciate the tribute to a lot of the older wrestlers. Legends of Wrestling The wrestlers included in the various sets: Road Warrior Hawk Road Warrior Animal Jimmy Snuka Harley Race Nick Bockwinkel Gorgeous George (with valet, Cherie Dupre) Nature Boy Buddy Rogers Giant Baba King Kong Bundy Ted Dibiase Johnny Valentine Greg Valentine Bobo Brazil The Sandman Jimmy Valiant Johnny Valiant Nikolai Volkoff Iron Sheik Frank Gotch Killer Kowalski Ox Baker The Destroyer Playboy Buddy Rose Red Bastein Mil Mascaras Hacksaw Jim Duggan Sabu Don Leo Jonathan Cowboy Bob Orton L…

... go here. Now, as goodhelmet and I were saying online, this wouldn't be nearly as funny if it were anyone but Kevin Nash, but he's always prided himself on being so cool, and just recently, he said that to be a star in this business, men had to want to be you and women had to want to fuck you. Considering that his fan club has a dozen members and they're all middle-aged housewives, I think this is hilarious. The guy has almost filled his karmic void after killing WCW.

Another random year that had lots of good matches because of Bret and Owen being in the top spots and the Clique working with each other and being motivated. Drug-induced booking at the 1994 Royal Rumble! Bob Backlund turns heel! Vince is acquitted of all steroid distribution charges! Wrestlemania X has two great matches! Lots of stuff here. One of my favorite memories of the year that often gets overlooked when discussing this time period is Marty Jannetty and 1-2-3 Kid's huge upset over the Quebecers on RAW for the tag titles, in what I recall being an excellent match as well. And of course, I'll continue and continue (and continue) pimping Bret/Kid from RAW as a g…

Apparently WWE is trying to stack Smackdown in order to make it attractive for another network, but can it be saved? USA isn't likely to devote another night to wrestling, and Smackdown is hamstrung by the fact that it's on UPN and even the highest rated show on UPN has extremely shitty ratings. It seems like half the midwest US doesn't even have a UPN affiliate, or if they do, it's a small no-power station you gotta live next to the tower to pick up. I'm thinking that moving Cena and the WWE title to Raw and delaying the decision on a Smackdown champion is somewhat of a safety valve. I think if they can't get a network by the end of the summer, they're gonna pull …

In the same vein of the thread yesterday, and with the ECW PPV coming up, I thought it may be a good idea to revisit what's largely considered ECW's best year. Now, I was never a huge fan of the company, although this is the time period I can most tolerate for the company. The shining moments were Mick Foley's promos. I am not a fan of the Guerrero/Malenko I've seen (I've only seen the 2/3 falls match) nor of the Rey/Psicosis match, but there may be some things I've overlooked. I will say that the approach they had to wrestling in the 1995 climate was brilliant, but it doesn't really look all that impressive a decade later. So, this would be a good opportunity for those w…

It's out early at Wal-Mart and I wanna talk about it. Having bought it last night, I'm only three retrospectives into the set so far, but from what I've seen, this is a great buy. Fifteen stars are featured, with each one getting a fleshed-out retropsective dedicated to them. Because of the HoF ceremonies of the past two years, in addition to some of the bio pieces Confidential used to run, there's a lot of familiar ground covered in these. Still, they're packed with a great deal of vintage footage and bring back a string of memories for anyone who grew up watching this era. The selling point of the set is, of course, the full-length bonus matches. By all accoun…

PWI: The first Raw star to be drafted to Smackdown is Chris Benoit.

Here's my list of the several things that jump into my head:[li] The slow turn of Batista against HHH.[/li][li] Jeff Jarrett being told that he can't use a guitar, so he used a chello.[/li][li] Matt Morgan promising to "never show his face in OVW again" if he lost. So, he now sports a mask.[/li][li] "Fallen Angel" Christoper Daniels: X-Division Champion[/li][li] Paul London: WWE Cruiserweight Champion[/li][li] The Royal Rumble match. I didn't know who was going to win but I knew it'd be down to Batista and John Cena. Except for the botched finish, I'd say it went off pretty successfully, even without Patterson.[/li][li] John Cena & Bradshaw's brawl at Judgment Day.[/l…

So does John Cena getting drafted to RAW (and presumably the WWE championship moving over as well) combined with the switch from Viacom to USA mean that Smackdown's all but dead and the split is over?

Who would be the best source for New Japan Classics footage? I am interested in compiling several tapes/discs worth of matches from NJ classics and will probably go through Lynch but if someone else has better vq, I'll give them a shot.

I love my feedback, I really do. Got two pieces of completely differing feedback on my rant on why they shouldn't push Triple H. For those of you who missed it, here's the snippet: Here is the response I got from one reader. After explaining to the guy that with Christian insanely over, Jericho turning heel, and Edge's guaranteed shot, you've got a nice set of fresh PPV main events waiting before you even factor in any SmackDown draftees, I read the following e-mail from another reader: I was merely using crowd reactions as a basis for my argument, and this guy used kayfabe to pretty much call the booking committee out. Anyway, I wanted to pose …