Pro Wrestling

JJ Dillon ran a tight ship and did a great job managing egos and protecting his assets while acting as Executive Director of the Four Horsemen. He was happy to replace aging team members who wouldn't put business first with younger and more promising athletes, even if they had family members on the team. If those younger and more promising athletes started getting a big head, they were out the door. Anytime his premiere meal ticket, Ric Flair, dropped the title, he quickly got his client back on track and returned him to the throne. When Tully Blanchard lost the TV title after a record-breaking run, he formed a tag team with Arn Anderson and they were champions within wee…

https://twitter.com/sarahcassi/status/816378718587211776

I'm trying to put together a 1 hour compilation for a comedy podcast of the worst squash matches in wrestling history. Whether it's the fault of the jobber or even the star, I want to include the worst of the worst. Anyone have any candidates?

Who are some of the up and coming or even just generally underappreciated hosses in wrestling right now? I haven't seen them yet Dijack, Rex Lawless and Ryan Rush seem like some possible candidates, along with Jason Bane who never got any love for whatever reason. Big Daddy Walter is one guy who I can't figure out why he isn't signed anywhere. If you got a link, post it!

Anybody watching this year? Here are my bullet point thoughts on Night 1, enjoyed it quite a bit. Night 2 looks even better. Juhin Liger, Soberano Jr., Tiger Mask vs Gedo, Jado, Raziel – What you would expect from the NJPW guys with some spectacular high-flying from Soberano to spice things up. He’s a very talented young luchador and it’s always good to see him get opportunities. Máximo Sexy & Stuka Jr. vs Hechicero & Okumura – Tiger Hattori’s reluctance to check Maximo for weapons is buys. We all know how good Hechicero is. Nice match, it’s fun to see the CMLL guys put together something that’s a little different than what they would do in Mexico. Atlantis,…

Watched this for the first time today and this was just outstanding and I really wanted to see if y'all loved it as much as I did. Total war from bell to bell. One of the few matches where things got so heated that the finish was an afterthought. The match is here: This is what I wrote about it with/pics from: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/ajw-survival-shout-in-korakuen-8191990.html Bison Kimura beat Grizzy Iwamoto with a random german but this wasn't about that at all. THIS. WAS. A. WAR. This match was fricking insane. Bell to bell just absolute violence and war. And it was incredible. The story of the match was the Aja vs Bull feud. This matc…

I watched this match and was a bit conflicted. This is what I wrote on my review: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/all-japan-womens-8221985-wwwa-title.html Jaguar Yokota beat Lioness Asuka with knee clutch backdrop. This was something and must have been insane for 1985. The crowd was nuts for Asuka all match. They started out working the figure four and a leglock along with a keylock on the leg. Really good leg work and lots of awesome facial expressions as you can see above. They did it for a significant portion of time and it didn't get stale one bit. They started going into spots from there with less focus on the selling. That really pained me because t…

I didn't want to derail WK11 thread, so here is my reply to OJ here: It's because my beef has always been more to do with presentational elements (promos, commentary, angles, character work, etc.) than it is to do with in-ring quality. I am not an ideologue though, I'll watch good wrestling from any time or any place. Although I do think on the whole an above average worker in the 80s (e.g. Terry Taylor, Dick Slater) had better fundamentals than an above average wrestler now (e.g. Kevin Owens). But this ultimately comes down to style. As a self-styled "goldilocks fan", I ideally want psychology AND athleticism / cool moves in my wrestling. So my sweet spots…

There was a Shotzi Blackheart vs Thunder Rosa match posted in the Southern Indies thread that made me want to make this post. The match is here: I really liked the way this was filmed. The ring was low enough so the camera could get in the ring. The camera picked up a lot of the jarring between the girls and you could hear various fans in attendance. Since they worked the mat, you got a full in your face view of a lot of the submissions. I felt like I had the best seat in the house and was actually there at the match. I would honestly love to see this style of filming used more. A lot of the Japanese companies like LLPW and FMW used to film this way and I a…

This is stuff that seems to get loathed for reasons that far exceed the intention of the gimmick, segment or whatever. In other words, as lame as it may have been, it probably doesn't deserve to get ranked among the very worst instances of horrific bad gimmicks, segments, angles, things that ruined companies, and whatnot. -ECW Zombie. This kind of got me thinking about it, since the PTBN podcast is at the start of the WWECW brand. I don't know, as lame as it was, it doesn't deserve a lot of the hate I've seen online for it. For one, it was meant as a one-off rib of being on the SciFy Network, and was it much different than Boogeyman running around Smackdow…

Always a fun topic, post them here.

Now both members of Well Dunn are dead. Any classic matches or memories y'all wanna share?

Have at it.

FIgured this would be timely. Omega vs Okada is getting greatest match of all time praise from some. Others didn't like it at all. Whether folks agree on Omega vs Okada or not, we can all agree there have been some fucking awesome matches at the Tokyo Dome over the years. What was the best match you've seen at the dome. If its different from the best match, whats your favorite Dome match ever?

Just got my ballot. Here it is in full. It's time for the 2016 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 …

UWF Training Center commercial from 1987. https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLzUe-EuTVgmpqyXackBSpPAMW_GtcVt8_&params=OAFIAVgC&v=-siIkcBiDmI&mode=NORMAL

So 2016 is finishing up. Who has thought about year-end awards like wrestler of the year, match of the year, etc. . . I'm still thinking on certain topics but rewatching a lot of stuff from earlier in the year, trying to figure out what stuck out to me the most. Where do we think wrestling is headed in 2017? And what has 2016 personally meant for everyone as a wrestling fan -- what did you all do this year? I know for me that my girlfriend and I finally got out to a few shows, met some very nice people including some from this board, and started watching more wrestling more regularly than I ever have.

Consider this a companion piece to Loss's ambitious tackling the 80s thread. Anyone else who is catching up on 80s sets (Brad?) could post their thoughts in here too I guess. As mostly everyone predicted I didn't even try to start sticking to the original schedule, so my plan is to work through Mid-South, Memphis and New Japan alternating discs every time. So all the disc 1s, then all the discs 2s, etc. I'll try to slip in matches whenever I can. I'm officially skipping on Texas. The territory doesn't hold much interest for me. I may see if I can track down the top 10 matches at some stage, but it's low priority. I'm going to start with Mid-South. I've alre…

I thought I'd keep a MOTYC for 2016 list here. 1/1/16 CMLL Kamaitachi vs Maximo Hair vs Hair 4 1/2* 1/2/16 PWG Timothy Thatcher vs Drew Gulak 4 1/4* 1/8/16 Free Lance Wrestling Mustafa Ali vs Isaias Velazquez 4 1/2* 1/4/16 NJPW Nakamura vs AJ Styles 4 1/2* 1/16/16 REV Pro AJ Styles vs Zack Sabre Jr. 4 1/4* 1/16/16 REV Pro Will Ospreay vs Marty Scurll 4 1/2* 1/20/16 aired CWF Mid-Atlantic Cedric Alexander & Mason Maddox vs. Smith Garrett & Chet Sterling 4 1/4* 1/21/16 aired NWA Smokey Mountain Toby Farley vs. Tristen Ramsey 4 1/4* m 1/23/16 NJPW/CMLL Volador jr/Mistico/Tanahashi vs Ultimo Guerrero/Memphisto/Okada 4 1/4* 1/24/16 NJPW/CMLL Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi…

I just signed back up with NJPW World again after my last go round ended because my former bank kept freaking out that a company from Japan was trying to access my debit card. I see they have an app for IOS/Android now, but the description is in Japanese only. Is it an app like the WWE network app or like the CMLL app that just embeds links for their live feeds?

Anyone watched this yet? Probably going to check it out before Raw. It's on YouTube, here's the link if anyone is interested. Ratings weren't great so not sure if there will be a follow up. https://youtu.be/_bGACe1dgoQ

It's that time again. What are yours? Considering that I accomplished absolutely none of mine in 2015, I want to think about it a little bit more.

Well, WWE. http://www.carlbeijer.com/2016/10/notes-on-wrestling.html Nothing terribly subversive so far. In fact, most of the analysis is Shoemaker-esque (he even cites Shoemaker at one point). But it has the potential to be interesting.

Wrestling like all art forms is a difficult thing to debate with others. Some will claim it's all subjective and every opinion is fine, while there seems to be some objective value (most people will say Flair-Steamboat series are great matches, for eg.). There has been some arguments in threads in the past where people don't seem to know how to debate wrestling. People seem to get really upset if you feel their opinion is not true, or attack the person or use the argumentum ad populum. So... how should we debate this fine sport/art?