Pro Wrestling

So, for this week's podcast, we're doing a show based off the old Room 101 television show, where we're looking for you to submit one nomination for a wrestler or wrestling personality from any point in history that has annoyed you so much, you wish to banish them to oblivion for good, the figurative "Room 101", and more importantly, why. You can be as flexible as you like with your pick - it can be a certain period of a wrestler's career (American Bad Ass Undertaker, for example), or if you really dislike someone's body of work you can just toss their entire career in there. You can be obscure as you like in who you choose, it really just comes down to the person (wr…

I would like to map out who came out of which dojos in the 70s and 80s. More recent stars are not the focus of this thread, so if you want to discuss their training, make another one for it. If the worker was not active until after the 1980s, he doesn't count for the purposes of this topic. Sean Waltman counts (pre-1990 pro debut), but Perry Saturn (1990 pro debut) does not. This is just a starting point, in time I want to make this as complete as possible. Where wrestlers completed their training in more than one school, I've listed them as graduates of both. Stu Hart (The Dungeon) Abdullah the Butcher Archie Gouldie Bad News Allen Billy Graham Bil…

When I start thinking about ranking wrestlers, I come up with a few truths that apply to the way I watch wrestling, and whether it's these or a different set of truths, I'd be interested in hearing both responses to mine and what yours may be. (1) Flaws are only flaws if they have consequences. If a wrestler missing a spot or being too giving or not selling long enough or any other claim we make has a detrimental impact on the overall quality of what I think of the match I've just watched when it's all over, then yes, that matters. If it's something that you could say "Well, good wrestling has this thing, and this thing was poorly executed here, so while I enjoyed th…

I know most of CZW has always been pretty bad, but they also seem to have good matches here and there that get lost in the sea of other crap. So I thought I'd start a thread to try to get a list going of all the CZW matches that are actually good. This is inspired by me watching the Dojo stuff on YouTube, which I've really loved.

I'm curious about some of the decision making here... DISC 1 The Real Story NWA World Heavyweight Championship Match ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair vs. Sting Clash of the Champions – 27th March, 1988 NWA World Tag Team Championship Match Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Lex Luger & Barry Windham Clash of the Champions – 27th March, 1988 Why Wait a Whole Year? NWA World Tag Team Championship Match Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Sting & Dusty Rhodes Clash of the Champions II – 8th June, 1988 Russian Chain Match Ricky Morton vs. Ivan Koloff Clash of the Champions III – 7th September, 1988 “I Quit” Match for the NWA World Heavyweight Champi…

Randy was well known over the years for wearing some really colourful attires so thought id ask if anyone have a particular favorite attire that he wore. Alough the question does have a double meaning because I want to wear something for things like comic-con events so after ideas. For me as a kid I always loved his Summerslam 1992 attire he wore One of my all time favourite attires had to be the one he wore during WWE tour of the UK in 1992 against Shawn. My last favourite one has to be the one he wore the night he regained the WWE Title after a 3 year wait, alough not courful like others it was just cool. Cant wait to hear what other f…

So I just took about three weeks running through the Hart Foundation set and a lot of things struck me while watching it. I wanted to wait until the end to see what shook out and what didn't. I'll be starting from Austin vs. Bret at SS 96. This match is great and I love how much Bret puts over Austin, the career midcarder to this point. He gives him more than you would ever guess Austin could get on Bret. This match and the WM match of 97 are really the springboard for Austin's rise. I love watching both and this one you start to see what SCSA could be. Bret gives him the time and opportunity to work his character into the match and makes sure to give back eno…

Cactus's MOTYC 2016 ★★★★★ ★★★★¾ ★★★★½ Shinsuke Nakamura vs AJ Styles (NJPW, 1/4/2016) Will Ospreay vs Marty Scurll (Rev Pro, 1/16/2016) ★★★★¼ Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar (WWE, 21/2/2016) Kamaitachi vs Dragon Lee (CMLL, 3/4/2016) ★★★★ Kazuchika Okada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW, 1/4/2016) Kenny Omega vs Mark Haskins (4FW, 1/23/2016) Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi (NJPW, 1/24/2016) Reviews: Shinsuke Nakamura vs AJ Styles (NJPW, 1/4/2016) It's Nakamura in a big match on the Dome show. Do you really need more motivation to check it out? They play up on AJ's recent back problems which result in a great spot where AJ plays possum. Near enough every nea…

Last August on the DVDVR Message Board somebody posted a list of every single match Dave Meltzer rated 4 stars or better. I decided when I saw the list that I was going to watch as many of those matches as I could, and write a bit about them if I feel inspired. So it has been a year, I have 20 files on my computer, and I’ve watched as many of these matches as possible from 1983 through 1992. I’ve since decided that this list wasn’t nearly complete enough for me, and I’ve expanded to watch as many great matches as possible. I've posted most of this on another board, but I think this board will lead to more conversation about the matches. You can find the list here...h…

The Road to WrestleMania XXX: The Good Shit - http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33558-the-road-to-wrestlemania-xxx-the-good-shit/ WrestleMania XXX HUGE kudos to the production crew. Fantastic stage setting and appropriate lighting for a venue that is generally an eyesore for those watching on TV. Tag Titles - Elimination Match The Usos vs. Los Matadores vs. Real Americans vs. Ryback & Curtis Axel Fun match with all kinds of crowd-popping spots, including El Torito getting his shit in. Cesaro was of course the star of the match, continuing his momentum that had been ongoing since CM Punk's abrupt vanishing from WWE. Every time h…

(Disclaimer: These reviews written in March 2014.) Getting ready for NOLA, so here are three matches I've never watched before. Unforgiven 2002 WWE Title Match Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker This won't get a special star rating for me, but that didn't matter. The story both told was very good. Rare is it to see Taker get manhandled. On the other hand, Lesnar had been established as a legitimate bad-ass, wiping through everyone, so it meant something for Taker to manhandle him in return. The fuck finish shouldn't have been on a $35-40 PPV event, but I understood the story here. Undertaker in a September PPV main event that has a fuck finish, leading to a…

A question I've been mulling over in my head recently - a lot has always been made of Flair's schedule as NWA champion, and his ability to make people appear to be viable contenders no matter who they were. I was wondering in general how many of his time limit draws actually made it to tape, considering I've never seen any at all, and I'm assuming the broadway finish was one that got used more than once.

I thought of this when I came across this little gem http://www.buzzfeed.com/sahilrizwan/slow-burn#.jxDYJEKOy Just to be clear, the group which "objected" to the live events is a very fringe, very racist right-wing group that honestly does not deserve any modicum of acknowledgement, much less a genuine response. But clearly, WWE did not want to take the chance. Their show here was a great success, despite the fact that if you account for price differential, the cost of tickets was astronomical. Honestly, forget about being offended, this actually amused me. I genuinely do not remember this happening. I am not even sure if Angle was a babyface or a heel then. But it …

Watching the Russo 98 timeline (available at www.kayfabecommentaries.com) and Russo claims the second bump through the cage was accident. Foley has also always claimed this was an accident many times. Do you believe them? Seems like a pretty mental accident. Foley often tells the story about Vince thanking him and then telling him never to do anything like that again. Surely there would have been an apology of sorts for not providing a strong enough cage if the spot were not planned? Then you have the issue of psychology: how were they meant to get off the cage the second time after the first dramatic fall? Just both climb down? Undertaker was positioned o…

So for this week's podcast, we're taking a page from an old radio show called "Desert Island Discs" and applying it to wrestling matches to try and break down some of the classics with a different perspective. So the question is, if you were being shipped off to a desert island tomorrow, and were only allowed to take 3 wrestling matches with you to watch forever, which 3 would you choose, and more importantly, why? Do you choose the best three matches you can think of, do you try and get a mixed flavour for what you like, or do you go for matches based on personal experiences and nostalgic memories? As always, the best contributions will be read on the show and you'll b…

so i wrote this post in that big roman reigns thread and it got lost in the shuffle, probably because the thread had been going on for a while. i think there's a really important discussion to be had in there, so i'll repost it here: "i have something to add re: the recent argument on babyfaces getting booed... i think this is one of those areas where the modern internet has changed everything for good. it's damn near impossible to be a pure babyface or heel anymore, because it's easier for the minority opinion to make itself known thanks to social media. football writer mike tanier had this to say about the recent allegations of peyton manning using HGH: …

hello, figured i'd try my hand at a normal wrestling thread for once! this one occurred to me because of how often i see guys like steamboat get bashed for having "no charisma" by people raised on WWF/E. that sounds obviously silly to those who've seen his crowd reactions at his peak & heard how those within the business viewed him, but he really wasn't a good WWF-style promo and that's what most fans seem to think that term means anymore. so, PWO, who else would you point to as interesting examples? i think tito is similar to steamboat in this regard. he gave fine fired-up babyface promos earlier in the 80s, but hulkamania killed that entire style and he w…

Evolve 58 Zach Sabre Jr vs Will Ospreay Evolve 59 Ricochet vs Will Ospreay WWN Supershow Thatcher vs Callihan Sabre Jr. vs Chris Hero

So, for this week's podcast, we're going to evaluate different gimmick match concepts throughout history in search of the one that, whether it be through its convoluted nature, a propensity for generating absolutely awful matches, or being a concept that is utterly horrid on paper and in practice, is the absolute worst ever devised, and as always, we're looking for your opinions on the subject. Which match concept did you dread the most or feel was utterly useless, and why do you feel it's the worst one ever put on a wrestling show? You can be as broad or obscure as you like in your nomination, and as always, the best contributions will be read on the show and you'll be …

From WWE.com: http://www.wwe.com/inside/axl-rotten-passes-away

I was going through a very old thread on Classics where people were debating Shawn's place in the WON Hall of Fame. Someone did a Gordy list on him, and mentioned the Bret-Shawn feud as a defining feud of the era. It was countered by people - I think one of them was jdw - saying that it was mostly a "rivalry", as their matches were mostly a series of infrequent, disjointed matches, with no real rhythm to them. A match in 1992, the WM 12 main event, and the Survivor Series one. As such, it could not be classified as a feud, much less an epic one. That leads into a larger question: how do you distinguish between the two terms? If they just had one-offs at infrequent in…

Daniel Bryan taking this new test that revealed lesions of the brain that normal tests did not lead to an interesting discussion on the Talking Sheets mid-week Round Table. I would love to continue and flesh that out even more here. With this new test, shouldn't the WWE give that test to everybody who has had some concussions, just to be sure? Even if that risks forcing a lot of the roster to retire? Isn't the heath more important? To go along with that, how far can a wrestling promotion go to protect wrestlers. Should diving headbutts, back bumps, etc.. be banned? Should styles be changed or schedules be changed to avoid major issues like Bryan had or Benoit or A…

Meltzer this week called Danielson's retirement the greatest moment in the history of televised wrestling. In the Meltzer megathread, there was some debate/conversation on the idea and how people felt about it in an "apples and oranges" kind of way when comparing something so genuine to the typically fictional/plotted nature of wrestling. Take this however you will, but what in your estimation is your favorite "worked" moment in wrestling history? Is it an exceptional TV match? A phenomenal angle? A longterm storyline fulfilled? An interview? A tournament? A particular episode that perfectly encapsulates the format? Even just a single move or action? It's a broad ques…

Hey guys I started a Puerto Rico wrestling history group on Facebook. We've already got a good number of members and have seen some cool discussions. I'm hoping with the page to learn more about the history of wrestling on the islands. https://www.facebook.com/groups/456473817891680/

To me the greatest feud of all-time. Of course I was 16-17 at the time and Bret was my favourite wrestler, so I might be biased. The two big matches are completely different and two of the best in WWF/E history. They had their all-time great moment at the 97 Rumble when Bret came out, while Austin was alone. The promos were great and everything was hitting on all cylinders. The purpose of this thread is three-fold. 1) Is this the greatest feud ever, if not what was? 2) Favourite parts/memories, etc.. 3) I will be joining Jason Mann on Wrestlespective podcast to do the IYH match and talk about their feud, so if you have any questions for the show you can leav…