Pro Wrestling

Finally got around to watching Night One of KOT so I figured I'd post my thoughts on it here since for some reason any attempt I make to post in the Chikara thread at DVDVR is denied. The Colony vs. Team SENDAI Girls I enjoyed this for it was and it suited the setting well as an opener. I'm not a big fan of male/female matches as a rule because they strike me as A. really deliberate attempts to be at the vanguard of a social movement B. creepy exercises where women hating men can live vicariously through the men striking the women. Having said that this was worked well enough where it didn't feel like it slipped completely into either, even if A. is the gene…

Despite being the most popular era in wrestling, featuring the Monday Night Wars & some of the biggest stars ever in Goldberg, Rock & Austin, am I crazy if I think that the Attitude Era did more harm than good for the industry as a whole? Because when I read about people talking fondly about the era, they're always talking about only the peaks, remembering the highs, never remembering the valleys, or the lows. It's always talking about the nWo, or Austin Vs. McMahon, or Foley Vs. The Rock. Where's all the remembering of Beaver Cleavage, or B.B. the nurse? But to me, it's not even really about the talent, or the matches. It's about the long-term implications t…

I've been watching a ton of those WWE Legends Of Wrestling shows on the youtube this past week, and I'm LOVING JJ Dillon on them. He's totally honest and has no agendas. And on a personal level, (as a kid who loved Bruno Sammartino because of the legend and hearing my Mom and Uncle always go on about him)... during the one about the Seventies where it seems like the panel is bashing Bruno..he comes right out and not only defends Bruno as a worker, he points out that the point of the business is drawing money at the box office and Bruno was of course the tops. He then talks about how Bruno taught him when JJ was a ref and breaking in, and how much of a gentleman he is and …

I missed the Sin Cara/Rey Mysterio vs. Rhodes Scholars Tables Match except for the very ending. How was it?

Stunning news from www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk No word yet on if or how the full match video will emerge.

This is a phrase that gets thrown out a lot and I get the feeling it means radically different things to different people. To be fair I think it does mean different things (to some degree) in different eras, but I am really curious what the common perception is of the term or even if there is a shared view of what the term means. To me a mid-carder is someone who is not put in a position to draw, but is not pure undercard fodder either. In the WWE today when I think mid-carder the sort of names that pop into my head are Kofi Kingston and Cody Rhodes. You aren't going to see either guy dropping falls to Heath Slater, but you aren't going to see them main eventing a…

Davey Richards shoot trailer Interesting teaser for his thoughts on the MMA direction & Cornette

The title of this thread is purposely written this way so we don't have to have debates over the name of the style being "shoot style" or "UWF style". This is a style that isn't for everyone, and some matches are definitely easier to get into than others. But what are some of the best matches for people who like more traditional pro wrestling to really get into this style? I can list a few of the more theatrical matches I like, but it always seems like those are the matches the really devoted fans of the style don't care for. I'll post some later, but have at it. I do think it's possible for people who start and hate it to eventually like it.

What are some of the known (kayfabe) weaknesses of wrestlers? For example, they always played up the plane-crash injury and Flair's back as being a weakness. Was the hot shot really played up as Jumbo Tsuruta's achilles heel or is that just one of those little qurks? What are some good examples of a guy always having a weak spot? And were there guys who had no particular weaknesses? Hogan, for example, seemed to have no chink in his armour. He was even more cunning than the mastermind villains he battled and time and again is shown outthinking them (see Summerslam 88 and that travesty 2 vs 8 dungeon of doom match, strangely, both times with Savage).

Hey guys, I'm currently trying to watch as much pre-WWE domination american wrestling as I can and putting together a list of the greatest matches out there and could really use your help with recommendations of any 'must see' stuff from AWA, NWA, WCCW and WWWF (or pre-wrestlemania WWF). So far I've got: 1977-12-11 Harley Race vs Jerry Lawler (NWA World Heavyweight Title) (Mid-South) 1980-05-19 Bob Backlund vs Ken Patera (WWF Championship – Texas Death Match) (WWF) 1980-08-09 Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbysko (Steel Cage Match) (WWF) 1981-03-21 Bob Backlund vs Sgt. Slaughter (WWF Championship – Steel Cage Match) (WWF) 1981-03-23 Jerry Lawler vs Terry Funk…

I didn't know where to put this so I thought I'd start a thread on it. Here on PWO there is a nice system for archiving the debates and threads that really "take off" in terms of number of replies. However, not all threads are designed to generate conversation, but rather to inform, educate or pool the collective resources of knowledge for the collective good. These threads don't tend to be long as they don't generate massive debates, but they often contain useful information. Every once in a while I find myself trawling pages or using the search function to find these threads when I want to check something. Wouldn't it be good if they were collected all together …

Saw Richards and Elgin wrestle last night at AAW in Chicago(land). Awesome show. What I like about Elgin is, he slows Richards down, or at least it seems like it. There's still a couple crazy no-sell sequences from Richards, but it's mostly a competitive hard-hitting match between two pros. I loved the match, though I'm sure it isn't as good as Showdown in the Sun, which I haven't seen yet. Went out to AAW specifically to see the two wrestle, though.

Is it Backlund? Is it Slaughter? Is it Flair or Race? Is it Savage? Do we have any sort of measure of how big a draw Flair was AS COMPARED with, for example, Harley Race? In theory, this data should exist: Race as champ vs. local hero Flair as champ vs. same local hero a few months down the line I would imagine that scenario happened numerous times. I'd be interested to see if there was a correlation of differences there. Did Race and Flair draw the same or did one do better than the other? How did each of them draw vs. Backlund? How did they draw vs. Lawler? Of course, these aren't perfect comparisons -- there are factors other than who is wres…

Rey, Sin Cara, Clay, Kidd, Slater vs. PTP, Puerto Ricans & Tensai - Man, fun trainwreck leading to Brodus planting Tensai on his face. Oops! Now Tensai is out so it is down to the tag teams. Good enough for me. JBL mentions Colon still owing him money. Awesome. From a booking standpoint, I guess they don't care about their heel teams but it was fun seeing the faces clean up on the heels.

One of the things I've noticed watching the 84 TNT stuff is how shoddily Vince treated a lot of the old 70s stars whether or not they worked for Vince Sr. By 1985 Ivan Putski was regularly jobbing to Iron Mike Sharpe. He even has a loss recorded against Frenchie Martin. We all know the fate of Pedro Morales. Salvataore Bellomo was basically a jobber by 85. The Valiant Brothers, tag champs in the late 70s, jobbing to Uncle Elmer in 10 seconds by 85. Even someone like Rocky Johnson was basically done by 1985. There wasn't so much a changing of the guard as there was a PURGE of the old guard. Over in the NWA, where Dusty had the book things were ok if you were a 70s sta…

Complain about it in this thread. Let FLIK respond to it here. Then, let it be a dead issue either way. I'll keep this posted for one week. So, thear!

I don't necessarily want this to end up like Dean's thread at the DVDVR where almost every post is a youtube link, but with the Okada v. Naito talk in the other thread, Negro v. Casas and the awesome Santo/Villano v. Blanco/Solitaro tag hitting the web this week, and fun novelties like Tajiri v. Finlay and the soon to be Vader v. Necro, I figured this would be a good catch all for discussion on the subject as the year unwinds. As of today my top ten would be: 1. Brock Lesnar v. John Cena - WWE Extreme Rules 4/29 2. Angel Blanco Jr./El Hijo del Solitario vs. El Hijo Del Santo/Villano IV, TXT 2/25 3. Blue Panther vs. Negro Casas, CMLL 3/2 4. Sheamus v. Dan…

This thread is borne out of a conversation between Dylan and Dave on Dave's board concerning The High Flyers and what Dave thought of them. Some of Dave's answers are based on him seeing them live. First, the San Francisco AWA cards I found courtesy of Clawmaster's Results Archive. From these records, it seems the AWA did not appear there until 1982. Here are the cards featuring Gagne and Brunzell in tag action: 6/19/82 San Francisco, CA @ Cow Palace Handicap Match Hulk Hogan beat Nick Bockwinkel & Bobby Heenan AWA Tag Team Champions Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell beat Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Ken Patera beat Ray Stevens dq Pat Patterson beat Alex…

Fans are some times grossed out by wrestlers pumping chemicals into their bodies to get bigger but this is another kind of extreme: Credit: Wrestling Observer Here she was in 2010 looking very cute & youthful on the left:

I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy when I made the statement that WWE may do some bad endings but that the bad finish to the cage match on Sunday wasn't WCW level bad. I did want to lay out the finishes from 1997 – 2001 just for comparisons sake. IF I can get around to it, I will probably do WWE PPV finishes from 2011 and 2012 to see if WWE has a pattern that even come close to the pattern shown in WCW for their last 4 years. If interference happened, I tried to make sure it was noted even if it didn't directly lead to the finish. I used the History of WWE website as a reference to refresh my memory when I didn't remember exact details. At the very least, people…

A lot of different ways to approach this thread as far as replies are concerned. I'm trying to spark debate & discussion but this thread is also going to be my personal playground for compiling my personal list. So, here goes: We've talked about Shawn Michaels & John Cena. We have been critical of others like Kurt Angle or Triple H. I have seen several threads, not just here but on others forums as well, discussing "The List" as it pertains to personal favorites/greatest wrestlers ever. I would like to use this thread to credit or discredit various wrestlers. To hear differing viewpoints on stars of years past and potentially remind me of moments/mat…

This started as the year I was least interested in exploring from the decade. However, now I'm confident this will be the best yearbook yet, and definitely the one with the most hidden gems. What is the connection between Connie Chung and Tod Gordon? What about between the Ultimate Warrior and Phil Collins? Between Kerry Von Erich and Perestroika? Who wins when WCW and GLOW face off on Family Feud? What happens when WWF wrestlers hit late night TV? How do Sam Houston and Rockin' Robin celebrate Mothers Day? Who would say such mean things about Ox Baker? Owen Hart in Europe? Rip Rogers in the Maritimes? What collective considers themselves, quite simply, dynamite? WCW…

Here's the scenario: for the rest of your life you can only watch footage from one decade starting on January 1st in the first year of the decade and ending on December 31st of the last year. Assume you have access to all AVAILABLE footage. If it's out there, you can get hold of it. If it isn't, assume it is lost. Which decade would you go for and why? I foresee this being a straight 80s vs 90s fight, but I don't see a clear winner. 1989 is probably the best single year overall, followed by 1992. There's an argument to say that the 90s subsumes the 80, because almost all of the big 80s stars were still active and you get a whole new generation of talent …

As you may have read, former UWFi broadcaster Jeff Blatnick passed away last week. In an interview with me, Jeff told a great story about how he coined the term MMA during a UWFi PPV broadcast in the early 1990's, then later dragged it out to replace "no holds barred" when he was the UFC's color commentator. It's a good story, but there are some skeptics out there. Unfortunately, I only have the Japanese commercial tapes for those shows and not the U.S. PPV versions. Does anyone have these U.S. broadcasts? Are they available for me to borrow or steal? Do you happen to recall Blatnick referencing mixed martial arts? Can you capture that snippet of footage if so? …

Randy Orton vs. Alberto Del Rio - Really great back and forth match but both guys are treading water right now. Really wished Del Rio would have won but he seems to be in Dolph Ziggler mode right now. Both guys need remakes now.