Pro Wrestling

Totally went over my head. The guy deserves his own thread ! Passed away at 58, which is way too young. He was in the first batch of puro tapes I bought, of course, because IWA and Best of Onita. It's too bad he had stayed most of his career in sleazy Japanese indies, as he was a product of the AJPW dojo and trained the great Mr. Gannosuke, among others. A classic old-school disgusting bladecore forehead. He was part of some of Onita's most famous matches early on, and had a great feud with Tenryu in WAR. Can't forget the cult classic match against Dan Severn at the IWA King of Deathmatch. But of course, his crowing moment, one of the most WTF moment in pro-wrestling…

Fell into a rabbit hole of Southwest Championship Wrestling (as you do), and found out that the owners of the footage have a streaming service at wrestlinglegendsnetwork.tv which I hadn't heard of before. It's got a bunch of territory stuff WWE doesn't have ownership of, and while I'm sure a lot of us have the DVDVR sets this seems like a decent place to see stuff that doesn't pop up anywhere else.

Fujita Hayato, who has been battling cancer since late 2018, appeared after the main event of today's Michinoku Pro show between MUSASHI and Kazuki Hashimoto. He challenged MUSASHI to a Tohoku Junior Heavyweight title match. The date hasn't been set, but Michinoku Pro confirmed they're working on his official return. Personally, I think this is great news, and it's wonderful to see Hayato back in a ring.

Has Anyone seen video of Jean Little Dynamite Antone or Brigitte Borne. I collect video and have been searching for video on these two Classic Women wrestlers. I think I have bought everything Jean Antone was in from Steel kittens.com they have the most classic women's wrestling matches I can find besides YouTube. Anyone know of any other sites where you can find matches with these two in them. Obviously Brigitte wrestled in Europe so those are hard to find. I have about 6 Jean Antone matches mostly she wrestle in Tag teams in the ones I have. Looking for singles matches too. Any help? Always looking to trade as well. I joined here because members in here seem to be very …

So I recently got my hand on the biography of Roland Bock, the man who destroyed Inoki so bad the Japanese still put him in Fire Pro Returns 30 years later. The book is in German and was written by the same guy who did the Rene Lasartesse biography, and there are some interesting bits on German wrestling as well as a very deep dive into Bocks psyche. - Roland Bock was born 1944. His earliest childhood was characterized by his mother having to hide with him in bunkers while bombs dropped on the town. At one point his mother had to give him to another woman because she was unable to produce enough breastmilk to feed him due to the general lack of food at the end of the…

Just the dumbest fucking thing ever

Something that has interested me in reading some of the puroresu history translation threads has been notes about what kind of stuff played better on the rural AJPW shows vs the bigger shows. It got me wondering about what the traveling fanbase was like for the company. I know hardcore fans here have no problem traveling a couple hours to see shows when certain promotions come through and would think it’s the same elsewhere. Did the hardcore AJPW fanbase not travel to more rural shows? Just a case of a more regular schedule meaning fewer fans needed to travel to get their fix?

Via 411: Japanese legend Shinjiro Otani has been hospitalized after he was stretchered out of the ring from a serious injury at Pro Wrestling ZERO1’s Sunday show. BBM Sports in Japan reports that the main event of the show saw Otani facing Takashi Sugiura for the latter’s ZERO1 World Heavyweight Championshp. During the match, Otani took a German suplex into the turnbuckle that rendered Otani unable to move. The match was stopped and Otani was stretchered from the ring and taken to the hospital. Tokyo Sports spoke with the match’s referee, Katsumi Sasazaki, who said, “He was conscious. He could hear [his own] voice and he could clearly see where he was. However,…

Not that it was unexpected considering the severity of his health issues, but he confirmed that his in ring career is over due to him having a defibrillator put in. It's amazing to see how things played out for the guy: he went from being HBK's luggage carrier to the GAME-UH to the heir apparent to NXT Dad to having it all pulled away. If you would have told someone five years ago that in 2022 HHH would basically have a no show job with no power you'd have been laughed out of the room, yet here we are.

Well, if we can be sure of something this year of uncertain times still, is that there won't be another Taker match at Mania. I wanted to do this for a while now, and since I'm living in "almost-lockdown" (I mean, why go out when everything is closed and there's a curfew after 6pm anyway), I figured this was the perfect time to revisit Taker's infamous Mania Streak and beyond. And try to decipher what was so special and fun about it, or maybe what was actually pretty bad about the whole thing too, as it's quite a bumpy ride to say the least despite a narrative that would make you think Taker at Mania was always that awesome event it became in the later years. Also, like I…

Kevin Nash just posted that once Scott's family is all together they will discontinue his life support.

CMLL trainee Warrior Jr, also known as Black Warrior Jr was announced as having passed away at 24. No cause has been officially mentioned, but there were rumors that he suffered some sort of severe spinal injury back in August and since passed from that. What makes this notable is that his father Black Warrior is the nephew of Blue Panther and he was married to one of the daughters of Negro Casas, making him related to two great lucha families. He was only 24 years old, and had two children with Omii Casas.

My first book is out on Amazon! I cover 100 of my favorite bloody matches. From Wrestlemania to a Junkyard in Mexico. The art is incredible, and I am really proud of the work that got put into it! https://www.amazon.com/dp/173494594X?&linkCode=shr&tag=hybridshoot-20&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_shr&creativeASIN=173494594X&camp=213733&creative=393177&linkId=1333786b5c004c6428b89748a01a79ae

As suggested by bubba @DMJ, let's reminisce remarkable feuds that didn't quite make it to the top of the card, usually revolving about a secondary title For instance, Miz vs Ziggler has been one of the absolute best feuds of the 2010s. Mizanin basically put on some of the best promos, segments and in-ring performances of his career there, and Ziggler likewise was on a roll as a babyface. Honestly his best work ever. It truly felt like the IC title peaked then and there, and it neve really came close to reaching that height. I would also like to give Cesaro/Sheamus and Ishii/Honma as great feuds.

Due to popular demand, there it is. A topic dedicated to dunking on this fool. Still cannot believe he gave Zelina Vega a promise ring.

This remains a fantastic thread and here's my contribution to it:

I haven't thought much about this yet but 10 years ago I would have laughed at this and said 90s WWF, but now I'm not so sure. The 80s has: Slaughter's great run from 80-84, plenty of very good-great Backlund title matches, Ken Patea''s 1980, Greg Valentine vs Tito, Savage vs Tito, Savage vs Steamboat, Hogan has a ton of good-very good matches, Andre is a God, Savage is at his peak, Piper is awesome in 80s WWF, Terry goddamn Funk comes in for a good run. While they might have stopped having 20+ minute classics after a certain point, there are still a ton of awesome sprints and brawls that are worth your time in 80s WWF. It wasn't the dead in ring promotion you'd he…

Let us use this thread to reflect upon the amazing acting of Talented Thespian Adam Copeland. For example, while he was from Toronto, I really believed that he was from Florida when he was a babyface.

Alternatively, how much is Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor Stemming from the discussion in the "Comments that don't warrant a thread", I thought that maybe this topic indeed warrants a thread, so there it is. So, just to contextualize: this week, GCW had a show which saw a tag match between EFFIE and Allie Katch going up against Matthew Justice and Mance Warner. This match had a spot in which Justice, tied against the rope, had his belly slashed by Allie, who was using a pocket knife. It is as sickening as you can imagine. Then, it came to me: how effective is this, even? Not just as a storytelling tool, but as a spot, or even as a promotion stunt…

Was requested to spin this off, so have at it!

Years ago, I remember a common discussion point being 'if you could only watch the matches of one wrestler, who would it be?' This is slightly different: If you could only watch wrestling before or after 1996, which would you pick?

I was aware that Art toured with NJPW as American Machine in 1994 shortly before his death, So after searching online a bit I can't seem to find any of his matches there. Did any of them ever air and has anyone on here seen them before?

Firing up Capital Combat 1990 on Peacock in honor of Sting returning to Washington DC on AEW this week. They are cheesy but I still miss those old WCW PPV openings.

Does anyone have a complete list of all the officially released NJPW & AJPW compilation DVD's such as Mitsuharu Misawa Midori No Hakobune?

As lockdown has given me a shedload of free time, I decided to watch all the Wrestlemanias in order. I've been posting my individual match reviews in the PWO database, but I thought it would be a good idea to get them all together here with some additional comments about the events themselves and I'll do a top 25/50/whatever off my all-time 'Mania matches once I'm nearly up to date. This is still a WIP, but let feel free to drop comments/feedback. 1 - 15 Spoiler Wrestlemania: "The Greatest Wrestling Event Of All Time!" Tito Santana vs The Executioner Santana has always been an underrated favourite for me. He has such a …