Pro Wrestling

WWE made a nice effort to tone down their style for many years, but it seems like needless risks are creeping up again and have been for a little while. When the bar is so high that a superplex through a table is just a highspot and not a credible finish, there's a serious problem with the style. Ambrose-Rollins was a very good match, but they took it several steps too far. It's also amazing how meaningless weapons shots have become.

I watched the infamous February 1988 episode of the Main Event last night and noticed something rather odd. During the prematch backstage interview with Mean Gene, Hogan is still wearing the old belt (the one he wore at WrestleMania III etc). Then, two seconds later, Hogan magically walks down the aisle wearing the Winged Eagle belt! So this obviously proves the backstage interview was pretaped. VInce and Jesse make no mention of the new belt. Was this the actual on screen debut of the Winged Eagle? If so, you would think the announcers would have at least mentioned it. Very strange to me.

Introduction to Japanese MMA for the Japanese Professional Wrestling Fan Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Carlos Newton (Pride 3) I tell people all the time that this fight is the way I envision the perfect UWF match in a non-worked environment. The mat work is absolutely sublime with amazing transitions and fluidity on the mat. Rumina Sato vs. Charles Taylor (1/15/99 – Shooto) Rumina Sato vs. Caol Uno (5/29/99 – Shooto) The first is one of the greatest submissions in MMA history, something that everyone has tried to replicate but no one has been able to do. The second is the best Japanese MMA fight of the 1990’s, with a complete back story in addition to being on the 1…

So, I'm taping another podcast later this week, and as the one we did for 1994 in this format was a big success, we're going to broach 2000. I'm very interested to see how you folks will break down this year with retrospect, a fairly insane year in the business with a lot to choose from. The idea is that out of everything that happened on a worldwide basis in 2000, what ONE thing (a match, promo, wrestler, angle, feud, theme, company, whatever it may be), epitomises each for you personally and why? For example, in talking 94, we got stuff like: The Good - WrestleMania 10, Misawa/Kawada, pre-Hogan WCW. The Bad - Hogan going to WCW and the change in the product The Ugl…

Who do you side with? I categorically side with Vince. 100%. Arguments here.

I know a thread with a title like that could spark quite a psychological debate, but I know we have some folks here who have some Lucha insight, and I've always wanted to ask a few questions knowing full well there may be no answers so some of these. Why did they spend all last year building to Atlantis/UG for the 80th Anniversary show only to bait and switch at the last possible minute? Dicking over the highest paying crowd in company history doesn't make any business sense. Did someone have cold feet about jobbing? Payoff wasn't high enough? Now that the match is happening (probably....maybe) this year, they wouldn't dare pull it again, would they?

So, with the recent news of Spike choosing not to renew TNA's TV deal, it seems like a good time to do a podcast looking at the story of TNA thus far - the good points and the bad. The direction of the show will be balanced purely based on the feedback given. So what I'd like to ask is, to you personally, what is your one high point and one low point in TNA history. A moment, a match, an angle, a character, a point in time, whatever. Feel free to elaborate on your chosen points, and feel free to add any additional comments about the Spike TV news and TNA's situation itself (I know a lot have been posted in the Cancelled thread, but I didn't want to mooch off that without…

What would you think about debuting Sami Zayn the same way the WWF did with Taz? Now hopefully, Zayn will have a much more successful career in WWE than Taz, but what if they set up Zayn as a special mystery opponent for Bo Dallas at SummerSlam. They already have a little history in NXT, Dallas can't have the streak live on forever, and Zayn certainly would want end the streak to make a name for himself. With SummerSlam being in LA, it's a crowd that would presumably know who Sami Zayn is already, so he would more than likely get a good reaction. It wouldn't even need to be a decisive win, just a quick three-count in an 8-10 min match. It could be a fun way to introduce Z…

I just realised watching Raw last night that John Cena is now a 15 time world champion. One more reign would tie him with Ric Flair's recognised world title reigns, and negate that distinction of Flair's that both WCW and WWE have used to promote him over the years. My first thought is that he probably will. WWE seems to pull out all the stops in order to decorate Cena in any way that they can, as they seem determined to make a star that's bigger than both Hogan and Austin (it's not working, by the way). However, upon watching the little show of respect between Cena and Flair last night, I'm wondering whether WWE will preserve Flair's 16 time record out of respect and…

So as I'm sure a few of you have noticed, I haven't really been around in a while. Part of that is due to my return to gainful employment, which has afforded me less time to dick around on the Internet. But the bigger reason is that I just haven't been that interested in wrestling lately. Then again, I tend to be hot-and-cold with my interests. One day I'm borderline obsessed with something, the next day I hardly care about it at all. But there's always been this voice in the back of my head reminding me "You know, this wrestling shit is pretty fucking cool", and I've started to listen to it. I recently watched some matches on my computer for the first time in months, and…

I'm interested to see who would win this poll here, and what reasons people will give. The emphasis here is on BEST not favourite. Some criteria: - Importance to promotion - Effectiveness at getting over talent - Effectiveness at getting over storylines and angles - Ability to enhance matches with their calls - Voice, can't be underestimated

This came up in the 1998 footage thread and it is something that I am interested to hear the opinions on from people around here. Here are the slam dunks in my opinion: 1. Hulk beats Iron Shiek 2. Hogan slams Andre 3. Montreal Screwjob Beyond that, I think an argument can be made for numerous other moments including Koloff beating Bruno, Snuka diving off the cage, Double Hebners, WM7 Savage/Warrior aftermath, Tyson vs. Austin, WWF buys WCW, etc. Which moments would make your list?

I just finished watching Starrcade 1983 on the WWE Network, as I had not seen it in its entirety in several years. I have a couple of questions that I hope you fine fellow classic wrestling fans can help me with. 1. Both before and during the main event (on at least 5-7 different occasions in total), Gordon Solie refers to Ric Flair as as a 2 time World Champion. However, at that point I thought he only officially held the belt once, from 1981 until losing it in June 1983 to Race. According to Wikipedia (not the best source, I know), there were several unrecognized title changes in that time period (to Midnight Rider, Jack Veneno, Carlos Colon, and Victor Jovica). My …

So, interview with Heyman upcoming. What do y'all want to know? Let's get in there and swing!

Love it. Then again, I always thought the use of IWC and smark were dumb shit as well.

We are all out there. The Heel Fan. We cheer the heel, we boo the face...............but how did we get there? What is your experience? I'll share mine if you will. My father took me to my first live event when I was 8 years old. It was a Tunney show at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1980 (maybe 81). My favourite wrestler at the time was Jay Youngblood. He was to do battle that night against Ivan Koloff. My Dad got us ringside seats and I was in heaven. Just seeing these larger than life heroes and villans that I had seen on my TV screen up close was surreal. At one point during the undercard my Dad tapped me on the shoulder and said "hey look over by the door". I turned an…

Going to do a show on this on Tuesday and was looking for others opinions. I think these are the two best, but are there other contenders? Which of these are better. There is so many ways to look at this.

Recently had an argument on another forum about my dislike of fighting spirit no sell spots - the standard argument, made by many people, seems to be that everyone has specific things in wrestling that rankle them and disrupt their suspension of disbelief, but that these are essentially arbitrary pet peeves - that there's nothing fundamentally worse about a no-sell spot than, say, an Irish whip. Since I always like to believe I'm objectively correct and my opinions have a stronger basis than mere preference () I started thinking about this. I think that a no-sell spot is a fundamentally different class of unbelievable than an Irish whip. An Irish whip is a move that's ph…

On a recent Jim Cornette Podcast on MLW Radio, with guest Lance Storm, they were talking about the pro-wrestling attitude era & how it did damage to the industry long-term. Short term, or as they called it hotshotting, it was super hot & was drawing big numbers but long term, well, we can see some of the lingering effects still to this day. Anyway, one of the issues brought up that I thought was interesting & would make a good discussion was how they mentioned that pro-wrestling in general used to be more about an emotional investment. In the characters, in the stories. You would get drawn in by the story of the match & would care because you knew the …

Hello all, This is my first topic so don't beat me up too hard! I was thinking about ring announcers today, so I would like to get some input on who everybody's favorite ring announcer was/is. I will go first by giving my top 3, along with a short description and favorite call by each announcer. 1. Dr Tom Miller (Greensboro/JCP/NWA) I loved everything about the late great Dr Miller. His booming voice, authoritative tone, enthusiasm for the product, and rapid fire delivery. How he referred to the Horsemen as the "dreaded Four Horsemen." My favorite call by Dr Miller occurred when he announced Dusty as the new champ at Great American Bash 1986, after Big …

Bored at work earlier, started thinking about the potential for cool and unheard of facts about a 50+ year old company like WWE. Everyone knows the obvious stuff, but what about the not so obvious? For instance, did you know that: - Apart from Buddy Rogers (who was awarded the title as the inaugural champion), Randy Orton is the only man ever to have become WWE Champion without actually winning it in a match? TEchnically, a case could be made for Shawn Michaels, since the match was stopped by the referee on Vince McMahon's orders, and the title was basically given to Michaels. There was also no clear finish to the match or any indication that somebody won or lost…

So i've decided to create a project on some of the best brawls of all time and some that maybe arent so great but are at least fun.I think eventually i'm going to make this a comp. I've limited this to mainly NA matches with the exception of a couple of Japanese matches that have American wrestlers. I have a pretty big list below and i'm looking to compile at least 150 matches. Definitely need suggestions on some Puerto Rico stuff and some southern stuff that i dont have listed. If there's something glaring that i'm missing please let me know. I'm also limiting this to the 80's onward. I know there's a lot of stuff i'm missing especially from indies and the like so any su…

Dylan suggested I start a topic, so here it is, Here's the list, feel free to mock afterwards, or to move this to its own thread if it spawns any actual discussion, 50. Akebono 49. Seth Rollins 48. Dolph Ziggler 47. Zack Sabre Jr. 46. Chessman 45. Adam Cole 44. Cedric Alexander 43. LuFisto 42. Hechicero 41. Masato Tanaka 40. Mark Henry 39. Rey Escorpion 38. Tomoaki Honma 37. Kevin Steen 36. Emma 35. Tyson Kidd 34. Shaun Tempers 33. Volador Jr. 32. Mark Briscoe 31. Kazuki Hashimoto 30. Christian 29. Averno 28. Roman Reigns 27. AJ Styles 26. John Cena 25. Fuego Guerrero 24. Alberto del Rio 23. Shinsuke Nakamura 22. Jay Briscoe 21. Biff B…

I was thinking about this during the HHH debate podcast. You don't really hear of wrestlers throwing their weight around backstage in WWE anymore. Is it the system WWE has created, with no effective alternatives for disgruntled staff, and the brand taking prominance over any individual as a draw? If he could have, would Vince have created this system thirty years ago? Is this his greatest achievement? I'm spitballing here, but would like to hear if anyone thinks any wrestlers still have clout, play games to keep opponents down etc and all the dirty little games that HHH and many others are/were accused of in the past?

Who are some wrestlers who you thought were better when you saw them live compared to when you watched them on TV? I've only been to a handful of live wrestling cards in my lifetime, but I'd have to say The Big Show is much better live than on TV. He makes me yawn on TV, but the two times I've seen him live, his massive size and how he carries himself won me over. The first time I went to Nitro, I had seats near the top of the upper deck and Show still looked like he was 10 feet tall and 900 pounds. When I saw him at Raw a few years ago, those open-handed chops he delivered in the corner echoed throughout the entire arena. Even in this day and age when wrestling f…