Pro Wrestling

So I want to start this thread by declaring that Wrestle Dream Factory/Yume Factory (the fed of Masashi Aoyagi and Motegi) was fucking awesome. I've watched all the Samurai TV airings from 1997 that I could find and the shows were a blast to watch as a mix of fun, stiff undercard matches that had sleazy dudes potatoeing eachother and about 2 great matches per show. Chaotic karateka vs. wrestler matches, blood, stiffness, hatred and Yoshiaki Fujiwara, this fed had it all. I'm mainly starting this thread to ask about how we can get more Yume Factory because Lynch only has a handful of discs and this stuff is gold. Basically the world's greatest Ersatz-WAR. So that got m…

Guys, new channel on Roku Jarrett Parsons Wrestling has episodes of Memphis Wresting, ICW, Southwest, IWA, Continental, Portland, Vancouver, Atlantic Grand Prix, and more. Not sure if there is anything new there but definitely worth checking out.

Sometime last year, my wrestling fandom was in a state of flux. I wasn't really sure what I thought was good, and there were whole worlds out there I had little to no exposure to. So I set out to watch as many highly rated matches from as many styles and promotions as possible to provide a basis for drawing informed conclusions. Dave Meltzer and Scott Keith are probably the most prolific and well-known match reviewers on the Internet, so I used their ratings as a starting point. Loss' huge list of matches he gave star ratings to was invaluable for providing a different perspective. Also useful were the DVDVR 90s and 80s projects, Ditch's All Japan 90s Project, and the "ma…

Several confirmations that he died earlier today. underrated talker and a pretty damn good monster heel in the 80s RIP

I know that he was a heel until the end of 1978 when he lost the American Heavyweight Championship to Kevin Von Erich on 12/25/78 and he was a Texas Tag Team Champion with Gino Hernandez until Sept 4th, 1978. After the match against Kevin on Christmas night, he didn't wrestle in World Class until 2/18/79 against Bill White in Dallas. Can anyone fill the gaps?

As a new year rolls around, it brings to mind renewed efforts to try to follow the wrestling world at large. My viewing habits over the past year have personally been pretty spotty and I'm finding myself kind of overwhelmed/curious at how others manage even keeping track of what's going on in different promotions all over the world. I know that there is no way to watch everything and I'm not really trying to, but just out of curiosity, how do different people follow stuff in a way that works for them? I guess I subscribe to some YouTube channels and that helps, following certain promotions and wrestlers on Twitter is a help. Any other good resources?

In the internet and social media age now more than ever most of the infamous wrestling shoots have been shared and discussed. Matches like Rikidozan/Kimura, Kitao/Earthquake, Brody/Luger and others have become well known. I have learned about a ton of them over the years but there are always ones that seem to pop up that are forgotten, not well known or not talked about much. I was just wondering what are some of the ones members on this board know that aren't as mentioned or brought up? My two that I'll throw out there are both from Japan, the first from the same company (SWS) that held the card where the infamous Kitao/Tenta shoot took place again had a lesser know…

Good morning. This poll is about historical importance, obiouvsly not about who is a better worker. The comparisons are: 1)Randy Savage vs Mitsuharu Misawa 2)Ultimate Warrior vs Chris Jericho 3)Jake Roberts vs Kurt Angle 4)Akira Taue vs Jeff Hardy 5)Edge vs Rick Rude Thank you very much

I wanted to make a thread about The Big Show, as he's coming to the end of his wrestling career & I feel like he's vastly underrated. Maybe not the best worker or talker there's ever been, but I think he's done really well for himself in wrestling, both in WWE & WCW, as a big man worker. There's not a lot of "giants" left in wrestling nowadays, certain that work as a big - with David Vs. Goliath feuds & the big man falling down spot & whatnot. When I was growing up, there were quite a few of those guys, like Akeem/One Man Gang, Kamala, Big Boss Man, André the Giant, etc. but they're few and far between anymore. Granted his run with Hogan & The Dun…

Facebook Event Page THIS IS THE EXACT ORDER OF THE SHOW, FROM BOTTOM (open) TO TOP (headline) PWE title match: Alex Payne (C) vs. “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams Freddy Flamingo vs. TJ Crawford! Smash Bradley vs. Billy Avery! Troy Nelson vs. CPA (special stipulation match) Sly Stetson vs. Grizzly Redwood (“should only take a minute” says Stetson)! GALACTIC ROYAL! ***INTERMISSION*** Shockwave the Robot open challenge! Yodeling Yohan Wunderschintzel vs. Anthony Greene (mustache match)! Joe Gacy vs. Jimmy Rave! Ernie Osiris/Prince Nana vs. Alex Payne/Shane Hagadorn! Beefcake vs. Green Ant (opening the show)! Fr…

**Note - I had to create a new account (Formerly Lust Hogan) since I wasn’t able to log in using that one for some reason.... So I’m trying to get into lucha and have no clue where to begin. What are books and matches that you would recommend? What’s the lucha equivalent of Hogan/Andre - something easy for the masses to understand? I would like to find some easily understandable matches and then escalate. I would also like to read more about the intricacies of lucha as well. Any help would be appreciated!!

WWE.com has just broke this piece of sad news. 2019 already off to a bad start

Who's watching? I tuned in and the first thing I saw was Kota Ibushi being stretchered out. Also, Shingo Takagi and BUSHI are the new junior tag champions. ZSJ/Ishii up now.

Dave broke the news that AEW is a real boy, Tony Khan will be running the company. Cody is the first announced signee, others to be announced in the next few days (my read: guys probably want to finish up with New Japan before announcing so we'll probably hear more after Wrestle Kingdom/New Years Dash). Also stated there's no TV deal yet but they have multiple offers already. Selling out All In was apparently the eye opener to some folks in the TV biz that this thing might have some legs. Also mentioned specifically that Jericho hasn't signed but he wouldn't have been doing the things he's been doing on social media where he's palling around with Tony Khan if there wasn'…

Mickey Rourke "The Wrestler" of the Year: PCO 16 Best HOLY SH*T Matches of the Year: -Nick Gage (c) vs Rickey Shane Page (House Of Horrors match) - IWA-MS King of the Death Matches Final -Bobby Gunns vs 'Speedball' Mike Bailey - wXw 16 Carat Gold -'Chin'suke Nakamura & others (Loser Gets Anal Explosion, Weapon Rumble, 5-Way Tag match) - DDT 21st Anniversary Show -Su Yung (c) vs. Saraya Knight (Impact Knockouts Title Falls Count Anywhere Match) - RISE 9: RISE of the Knockouts -Yoshiaki Fujiwara (69-year old self-inflicted 'Hardway') vs Shiro Koshinaka - Draditon Back To The New York -David Starr vs Joey Janela (No Rope, Bar…

I've watched extremely little pro wrestling in the year of 2018. Probably less than any other year in wrestling history where there's footage. Rediscovering SWS undercard and Wrestle Yume Factory matches was just more exciting I guess. I know recently most of my writing has been musing about defunct japanese wrestling promotions and handheld matches and whining about how miserable wrestling these days is so I decided to try and bring something to the table and accentuate both the positives and the negatives. In this thread I'm gonna try to catch up with all the pimped MOTYCs and workers, watch some in-between stuff and try to form a complete picture of what's wrong and ri…

It's getting to be that time of year. So what does everybody have as their current match of the year? I am woefully behind on current viewing but I binged a little bit early in the week. The Darby Allin matches against Zack Sabre, Matt Riddle, and WALTER for EVOLVE were pretty fantastic (particularly the WALTER match). I really loved Drew Gulak vs. Jack Gallagher from the UK tournament but probably not at the tip-top level. Bryan vs. AJ from a few weeks ago was great and that would be high for me. I haven't caught up with much lucha or Japan stuff yet but plan to this week. So. . . thoughts? Recommendations? What has everybody loved this year?

In the spirit of the holiday festivities, I figured we could let go of over-analysis and grading systems for a moment & just free ourselves up to talk about something shallow, superficial, and fun. So what are some instances of your favorite ring gear or entrance attire? I really dug the throwback jersey gear Chris Hero was sporting in his last big indie run. The Jordan-Bulls tribute was especially awesome. The kid in me will forever find all the old Razor Ramon outfits to be cool. That purple & gold - topped off with his chains & greased-up hair - was just slicker than owl shit, man. Even the green & yellow "lemon lime" look (which I'm norm…

Thought I'd get the ball rolling on this. I think Seth Rollins, WALTER, and Johnny Gargano have strong cases off of their match quality alone. Kenny Omega might be having an overall better year than Gargano simply for being booked better. Thoughts?

Good afternoon.. I opened this new topic in which you can compare the historical importance of wrestlers. Obiouvsly the comparisons are about who is the most important wrestler, NOT about who is the best wrestler/worker. For example, Johnny Gargano could be a better worker than The Rock, but in no way he is more important. How much important is popularity of fame in judging historical importance? In the sense, for sure, Big Show is so much more known by people than AJ Styles, but does that mean that Show is more important?  The comparison of my poll are: Chris Jericho vs Toshiaki Kawada Kenta Kobashi vs Jushin …

In what appears to be a part of the Cody/Nick Aldis NWA title swap deal, ROH announced they are going to be taking part in the 2019 Crockett Cup. The NWA is mentioning adding other partners, so it seems like they might be trying to make some kind of super indy tag tournament out of this like how the original Crockett Cup had teams from different NWA territories.

Hi guys, Merry Christmas, I returned opening the comparisons about who is a better in ring performer? The criteria are storytelling, in ring psychologhy, selling, quality of matches, workrate, cleaning in the execution of moves. The comparisons are: Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada Hiroshi Tanahashi vs AJ Styles Kenny Omega vs Kazuchika Okada Bryan Danielson vs Jun Akiyama Yuji Nagata vs Akira Taue Thank you very much

I was watching the Shawn Michaels Unreleased DVD set today and while watching a Rockers match, I saw them attempt a double team STO type manouver that looked awkward to set up and I never had seen them do before. It made me think, what are moves you've seen talent do that ended up not sticking in their repertoire and are fairly forgotten about? I also recalled while pondering this, when Raven during his TNA and ROH run in the ealry to mid 00's he started spicing up his moveset by adding in things like an ankle lock and the X-Pac style kicks in the corner ending with a step up kick which after his summer NWA title run seemed to disappear from his moveset. An…

It's time for the 2018 Hall of Fame elections. This ballot is being sent out to major wrestling stars, past and present, major management figures in the industry, writers and historians. If you are getting this, you are being asked your opinion on who should be inducted into this year's Hall of Fame class. The criteria for the Hall of Fame is a combination of drawing power, being a great in-ring performer or excelling in ones field in pro wrestling, as well as having historical significance in a positive manner. A candidate should either have something to offer in all three categories, or be someone so outstanding in one or two of those categories that they dese…

Several U.K. news sources, as well as Marty Jones and Will O'Spreay on Twitter reporting that "Dynamite Kid" Tom Billington has passed away on his 60th birthday.