Pro Wrestling

Another PPV buyrate report came out from WWE, showing a continuing downward trend. It's pretty much at the point now where only the Big 4 shows get any kind of significant buyrate, and that's more for the name than anything else. I think WWE is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs with scheduling too many PPVs in a year period. There was that stretch where there were like 3 PPVs in a month's period leading up to December to Dismember which would pretty much guarantee a shitty buyrate even if it wasn't the worst show of the year just due to the audience being totally burned out and/or not being able to afford 3 PPVs in a row. I've always believed the monthy PP…

I was thinking about the "time honored tradition" of a wrestler leaving a territory or promotion being "jobbed out" and whether the jobbing hurt their debut/initial run in a new territory/promotion. Meaning if a guy was buried so badly on the way out that it really affected how much they were over in the new territory. The first name that popped into my head was Rick Steamboat in 1989. He was treated so poorly his last year in WWE, including doing a humiliating job to HTM and getting squashed by Kamala and the like around the circuit, that you have to believe that it was a factor in the Flair/Steamboat program not drawing that well and Ricky struggling to get over …

It's shocking that it took like 5 years for someone to get a "American Idol bad audition" type gimmick, but I caught Jillian on SmackDown doing her version of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" and it just cracked me the hell up. I think part of me was just shocked they gave a female an actual personality trait beyond the generic broad and interchangeable roles the "divas" always get.

Lex Luger & Barry Windham v Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard - 04/20/88 Fucking beautiful in every sense of the way. Anderson and Blanchard are detestable heels here, relentlessly giving Lex Luger a much-needed shitkicking and working their damndest to do the same to Barry Windham. Windham is a one-man face in peril/bump machine/character extraordinaire here, transforming from lovable whitebread babyface into hated heel ready to conquer the world in the span of 15 minutes. Luger's not exactly the best seller in the world, but he's more than competent here, and all the character motivations make sense with the angle and don't take away from the match in the sligh…

I've watched very little lucha libre in my time, and I am wanting to get more into the lucha scene. So, here's my question: What lucha libre matches would you / have been rated as a MOTYC? Any era is fine, 60's / 70's / 80's / 90's Also, considering the list, who would I contact in getting this list put on a DVD?

This thread can be used for any amount of comparissons / differences. Here's a question I've always asked, but have never found a clear and precise answer to my question. Here's my question: How can Japanese wrestlers take continous punishment (head drops / huge bumps onto unprotected concrete floor) over a long period of time (like Misawa / Kobashi / Kawada) and never require the kind of surgeries that WWF wrestlers receive (like Benoit / Austin / Edge / Rhyno / Holly / Taylor)? Is it conditioning, actual wrestling knowledge......or what?

Tournaments like Top / Best of the Super Juniors, RWTL, Champions Carnival, G-1 Climax, etc, how are they determined? Is it a point system, most wins, etc?

I remember about four years ago, Dave wrote a "History of WWF" series. I think this may have been around the time Mr. Wrestling died. Does anybody know the exact dates? Because I know I have the issues (because back then I had a subscription) and would like to scan them to be able to read them anytime without going through a pile of issues. Also, recently there was a history of WCW piece. I only have parts 1 and 2, and I wonder if anybody else could point me out for how long did it go, and where could I get the rest of the series. Wink wink.

Silly wording aside, a shame that we don't get to see the ladder match re-match. Oh ... and DESTRUCITY!

According to the WON, it appears like the WWE Revisionist History Machine is going to end up crediting Michael Hayes as the architect of the boom period, mainly because Kevin Von Erich's memory is shot (cocaine is a hell of a drug). This seems to be shaping up to be the winner of the unintentional comedy award for 2007. You've got a two disc set coming out about a company who you don't want to mention beat you in one of your home markets and did a lot of things copied by the WWF, and the sole surviving member of the founding family has basically turned himself into Reverend Jim from Taxi. Not to mention the Heroes of World Class DVD already covered the same story a…

Top Lucha Stars ever It would be interesting if there's been an update to the 1993 list Tamalie posted, and also where Perro might have moved to since then. John

Edit -- This is in the wrong folder, isn't it? Can someone please move it if it is? I was working on this in my blog but never ending up putting it here. Since I'm one of the top Benoit fanatics on the web, I thought I'd do this to celebrate my favorite wrestler. I also hope people will find it interesting in seeing some insight into what type of matches I like as Benoit's stint in WCW covered a lot of ground. I'm already second guessing myself on lot of these matches. The first 2 are absolute locks though and will be definite frontrunners for an overall list someday. Next up, will probably be New Japan. As some may remember, I once did a top 30 favourite …

And there is now officialy little reason to watch ROH anymore. Samoa Joe is leaving after the British shows in March. They've lost Joe, Dragon, Ki, Lethal, Punk, Shelley and Gibson in the last 18 months. They haven't really replaced them. Happy days, with Delirious as the new top star. The Briscoes will likely be gone soon, and ROH shows were already looking really thin on decent talent without the Japanese imports.

Thought there was some fun stuff here. I'm actually pleasantly surprised to read a Hogan interview that seems pretty down to earth with no huge lies.

The Rockers & Tito Santana v The Rougeaus & Rick Martel - Summerslam 1989 I don't know why I've never watched this match before. It may be the 1989 WWF MOTY, even topping Hogan/Savage at WM V and a lot of the Arn/Tully v Rockers tags I've seen. Martel is a fucking genius in this match, as he keeps taunting Tito Santana and running away, but all of the wrestlers involved here are so capable that the action is constant and fast-paced, regardless of what's going on. This match is wrestled in a *true* Southern style, perhaps more than any WWF match I've ever seen, with the heels constantly distracting the referee and cheating like mad, working two face-in-peril se…

Mike Graham is a tremendous douchebag, as has been stated previously on other boards, but people are totally no-selling the creepy molester uncle vibe he gives off. His little segments completely derail the CWF shows every time. I don't know what made them think "Hey I bet people would love it if we interrupted all the neat classic wrestling to watch some dipshit give himself a verbal beej for 5 minutes". After watching his RAW debut match on the 11/25/96 Monday Night War, I'm convinced there's no way Rocky Miavia would ever survive the initial stages today. Absolutely no hint of the charisma that made him famous, a horrible look/gimmick, and a finisher right from …

A few days ago, I said I would do an in depth review of Eddie/Rey from June 2005 opposite The Rock/Austin WM 17. Not sure this is really going to match that promise, but after just rewatching Rock v. Austin it is my attempt to explain why I prefer Eddie/Rey and think it's as good a candidate for the best match this decade as anything else. First off as a said before, the Eddie v. Rey match is basically their feud self contained to a single match. In a sense that is a grandiose idea, BUT Austin v. The Rock is really the career ups and downs of Steve Austin contained within a single match at the biggest show of the year. For that reason alone, it's a more ambitious …

From Meltzer's update today: Sounds like they're bringing someone back, but I may be wrong. Let the speculation begin.

So recently purchased this set; I wanted to watch the matches again, there were some matches I actually hadn't seen, and the VQ on a lot of the stuff was better than what I already had. Some of my copies of the matches were still on VHS. Anyway, thought I'd write about the matches and discuss whether they still held up. It'll be constantly updated... DISC 1 1980 - Bob Backlund vs. Ken Patera (No DQ) (5/19 - Madison Square Garden) (WWF) 1981 - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter (Alley Fight) (4/21 - Madison Square Garden) (WWF) This match is all about the blood and the heat. If you like those, you've got them in droves here. The match is otherwise not…

Thoughts as they come to my head Body Language in wrestling. Here's a topic that I think should be talked about more but isn't. Why? Because it's very hard to. Sure there are obvious body language signs but often times there aren't. They can hit us square in the face but we'll still don't know what hit us. Someone can mention to their friend how they knew someone was nervous/confident/attracted to them/happy/sad/distant or magnetic. Ask them how they know this and they'll say "I don't know." Obvious or subtle, it's something that's very difficult to describe which is amazing for something that hits us so hard. We'll see this in wrestling as well. Someon…

This would not have happened 6 months ago.

Meltz: All this talk around the net makes me really want to see a Shawn/Taker singles match and program. They haven't wrestled each other in nearly 10 years so it could still be fresh. And yes this is 2007. Oh and I know it's bizarre, but this might be the most over Shawn Michaels has been in his entire career. Again it is 2007.

Over on DVDVR's "comments that don't warrant their own thread" topic, someone posted this: What's up with this? Was it an angle gone awry? A "cocaine is a hell of a drug" moment? Seems out of character for even heel Captain Lou to go all Abdullah the Butcher on someone. Also, Albano got fired? I just figured he retired for age/heath reasons.

RAW got a 4.0 this week, courtesy of Meltzer. That's a pretty high rating, especially with no post-PPV bump and nothing particularly unique being hyped. I haven't been following the ratings much at all lately, but I'm curious if they've been hitting around this level and staying there, as that's a really impressive number. I'm also curious what you'd attribute the number to.

Credit for the typing out goes to The Decemberists. The idea for 'shoot' X-Division matches is one of those ideas that's creative just to be creative. I don't see how it can work within a regular wrestling promotion. It would be one thing if it was a promotional concept and all the matches were like that, but mixing 'shoots' with works almost never ends up well.