Pro Wrestling

Ok, no idea where to put this. Last night, I had this strange dream where I was basically wrestling Jimmy Snuka, who looked more or less like Finn Balor, and doing the same kind of routine with the entrance and makeup. And I caned him until he bled. NO IDEA WHY. Floor is yours. Or not.

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From the Stone Cold podcast thread: Is the sledgehammer the dumbest foreign object ever? Tiger Jeet Singh's use (or non-use) of his sword may be actually worse but the sledgehammer has been a centre point for the outcome of more big matches so it may be worse overall. If you are enough of a crappy human being to use a sledgehammer it makes no sense to hit somebody in the gut with it or to hold it with your hand and hit somebody in the face in a very obviously fake and protected way. You swing that motherfucker as hard as you can and aim for the head. Of course, you can't do that, because it's pro wrestling, but then why even use it in the first place? If …

I'm taking Junior, obviously. VKM. Mr. McMahon. Vinnie Mac. I'd like to flesh it out. Very interested to see what this thread will produce and if there will be any consensus.

On this week's podcast we're returning to our trial format to debate whether or not Hulk Hogan's actions, throughout the course of his career, have caused irrepairable harm to the professional wrestling business, and we're looking for your thoughts on the subject, considering the following elements: *His appearance on Arsenio Hall and resulting scandals *His run in World Championship Wrestling and role in bringing the company down *His stint in TNA and role in possibly hamstringing another potential alternative To be clear, we are not debating the obvious positive impacts Hogan has had, just whether or not any of the above did irrepairable damage to the business as …

Would really like to hear these alternative live commentaries from 1994, specifically of Wrestlemania 10. Does anybody know if they are anywhere or are they effectively lost forever? I imagine they would have surfaced by now sadly :-(

For this week's podcast (and partly inspired by Slammiversary last week), we're going to debate the Most Useless Major Wrestling PPV show in history, and are looking for your suggestions for this esteemed honour. So what is your ONE pick for the most completely irredeemable, meritless show you've ever seen, devoid of any quality, the one that sticks in your craw, and your explanation on why this takes the wooden spoon. As always the best nominations/explanations will be read on the show (which will be posted this weekend) and you'll be credited accordingly. So which one is it for you? EDIT - The podcast debating The Most Useless PPV Ever and discussing your no…

So I was reading an older thread yesterday about what your "perfect" wrestling promotion was, which I guess was meant to be a vote for the actual promotion/time period that you thought was as close to perfection as possible. But it got me to thinking, what if you could Frankenstein that bitch together and build the perfect promotion from top to bottom. I used my commute home last night to come up with a first stab… I'd start with the 1986-87 Jim Crockett Promotions roster. You got Flair & The Horsemen at their peak, Windham at his best, Dusty & Magnum still around (Dusty mostly for the promos), Luger & Sting representing the next wave, a stacked tag divisi…

What's the timetable on this? I haven't heard anything about it in a while. Any possibility they'd show TV blocks (Worldwide, Pro, Saturday Night, etc) in chronological order, then air the big show they are building to? I know, it's not going to happen, but it would be nice. I just hope they don't start from the beginning with the TBS and Monday Night Wars stuff they've already shown on the on-demand version of 24/7.

For this weeks podcast, we're going to be looking at matches that, for whatever reason, stand out as having the wrong outcome, and would like to get some feedback and hypothetical discussion going on examples that always stood out to you. So, what is the one match you always think about and say "_______ should have won", and why? It can be a case where the guy who lost should have won because it was a critical time for the character or they could have gone in an interesting future direction, or it can be where the guy that won had no business getting the victory for one reason or another. The more explanation for your choice, the better. As always, the best example…

Introduction While I was merely winding up Pete in the other thread, I do genuinely love suplexes. I like all the different varieties of suplex, but I hold a special regard for the vertical suplex. It has been bothering me for a while that some people may regard my love for high spots as being a disregard for structure or storytelling; that, for all intents and purposes, I am a "spot monkey" fan. This is not the case. I want to write this post to clear it up once and for all. If it ever comes up on a show or whatever, I will point people back to this defense of the vertical suplex. I also want to write this post as a way of showing how liking suplexes is not i…

I was asked this doing a podcast the other night and was thinking about it a few weeks ago (or my wife asked me why which made me think about it, I forget). The answer that seems to stick out to me is I love sports. The problem with sports is the team you want to win doesn't get the great feel good moment win in the end. While in pro-wrestling a lot of the times the wrestler you cheer for usually wins in the end.

On a recent Good Will Wrestling about past Summerslams, Parv mentioned how terrible the WWF was in 95 and said that WCW, if you looked past the Dungeon of Doom stuff, was a perfectly fine wrestling promotion. Both promotions were near their creative lows in 95 but I personally found WCW, prior to the debut of Nitro in September, to be the most abysmally bad major promotion I can ever remember seeing. The angles were almost all hokey, the presentation was super corny, and the wrestling was worse than in pretty much any other period of the promotion. When you throw in the Hogan/DOD stuff and the many lousy PPVs, I don't see how one can say the WWF was worse that year. …

Not sure if this is the right subsection for a topic like this, but I'm curious about Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) games that only came out in Japan. I know the Fire Pro series set the standard, I've also played the Zen-Nippon series which is pretty good. But the rest of these... I'm not sure at all about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Famicom_and_Super_Nintendo_sports_games#Wrestling Just curious if anyone has played any of the more obscure titles on this list, or if they can perhaps point me to a resource telling me more about them beyond the cursory info on Wikipedia

"WOOOO, Have MERCY!!! The Dude's not feeling a lot of love lately round these parts. That's not groovy, Daddy. So why don't you Kooky cats get to spreading the love of what you dig the most about the weird, wacky, wonderful world of the Pro Wrasslin'?" I'll start with: Facepaint

Very pleased to report that a high profile NWA match will be aired on AXS on September 18 - the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Match between CHASE OWENS and JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER that took place last year in Osaka. It's a great match - check it out! Thank you NJPW.

What are some of those times when you thought for sure the promotion was going in one direction - a direction you didn't want to see them go - and, miraculously, they made you proud by going the other way? For example, I remember watching the instantaneous rise of The Patriot in 1997, and I was so sure that they were going to let him win the belt at the Ground Zero PPV. I marked out hard when Bret beat him (of course not knowing what was coming around the bend). Had a similar experience with Luger/Flair in Feb '90, although I was a much bigger Luger fan than I was a Patriot fan. Anyway, got anything like that?

I've been watching wrestling for over 30 years. I was a pure mark as a kid in the 80's, came back to it in the late 90's in time to mark out for the attitude era while also immersing myself in the "smart" culture, transitioned into my "workrate" phase during the indie boom of the early 00's, and have settled into an "I just want to be entertained again" old man hammock for the past 6 years or so. I've followed the major American feds closely, dabbled in the indies for stretches, cherry picked some Japan viewing, and at one time or another have given every major promotion/style at least a cursory look. I've even take a few brief stabs at recapping/reviewing some stuff. All…

Seems to me that Johnny Ace just has the weirdest career ever, Dynamic Dude in a shitty tag team in WCW, fairly well rated run in AJPW, booker in WCW, exec in WWF/E, on-screen authority figure in WWE, now road agent. Completely weird career progression. Who can even compare?

2015 is here and so far I've seen a lot of good to great wrestling from all around. I want to keep a 2015 MOTY contenders thread at the board I frequent most. This will also be a good place to discuss matches, and to check out matches people might not have seen. Nakamura v Ibushi 1/4/15 This match has been talked about everywhere, So I'm not going to add anything new, but I loved it.

So, for this week's podcast, we're looking to discuss various wrestlers that you think may have been the luckiest or unluckiest in wrestling history, and would like your nominations for these distinctions and why you feel they're good candidates. Obviously it's a career focused discussion (so not wanting to incorporate deaths into this), so whether it's people who you think got a bum deal by bad circumstances repeatedly, or somebody in the right place and time and had a far better career than their skills deserved, we'd like to hear your suggestions on both. As always, the best suggestions will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly, so what do you thi…

On August 29, 2015 in San Antonio, Texas GODZILLA JAX DANE defeated HIROYOSHI TENZAN to become the new NWA World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion. Congratulations to the new champion on a hard-fought victory.

Pete is failing at his job here Yohei Komatsu & Tiger Mask & Jushin Liger & Yuji Nagata vs. Tomoaki Honma & Mascara Dorada & David Finlay & Jay White This was a lot of fun and had more spark to it than a lot of these openers do to me. We had a hot opening with Nagata and Honma firing off setting up their match on 7/23, Dorada and Liger doing some flashy stuff and then it settling down into Komatsu being worked over by Finlay and White. Finlay looks good working over the arm but was off on saving a pin attempt so he is still green at spots. Finish was a lot of fun and mayhem all over with Liger doing a nice senton to the outside and Nagata p…

So I've been bouncing around a lot lately in my viewing, hitting various promotions and time periods for stretches at a time, and one thing that has struck me is not only the stylistic difference in the wrestling and/or booking, but the difference in structural booking, by which I mean, what they're booking to. There seem to be as many variations on the "booking calendar" (if we want to call it that) as there are in wrestling styles. I've also seen this reinforced a little bit in the 1983 Project that's going on over in armchair booking. You've got the weekly episodic style, probably most famous in Memphis, where they booked week-to-week, the TV setting up the Monday …

I have known wrestling was fake since around 1990 or so (age 7). I must admit however, there have been times I was fooled. Name some times you thought something was real but obviously it turned out to be a work like everything else. Here are the 5 examples I thought of. 1. 1991- Jake Roberts unleashes his king cobra on Randy Savage. (I was 8) 2. 1993-Cactus Jacks head has a date with concrete. The Foley/Vader powerbomb match 3. 1995- Shawn Michaels collapses in the ring on raw. 4. 1996- Hulk Hogan turns heel. Ok, not a shoot but with no internet at the time, it was and remains the most shocking heel turn I have seen. 5. 1998- HIAC 2. Iknew the div…