JHawk

Cena came off looking really bad (I can't answer the steroid question because I can't prove I didn't do it), but that one answer was the only thing that made the show out of an hour-long interview. DYnamite Kid, on the other hand...

Some of the Zbyszko matches were pretty good brawls. As far as solid scientific wrestling, you probably won't find much.

Quite frankly, if a title changed hands and the match isn't readily available commercially, consider it fair game for me. I'd love to see Lawler's win over Hennig in full, for example. Plus any World Class footage.

If that's legit, the only thing really missing is the Hair vs. Hair Match between the Von Erichs and Gino/Adams. I could live with that.

I've never heard of this. What's the deal? Also, I think people complaining about the first match or two on old house shows being soul sucking jobber headlockfests are missing the point. Those matches were usually just filler, as the crowd always arrived late. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was an Australian fed that had the name first. I don't know how that violates American copyright laws, but there you go.

That's the thing that annoyed me about the 619 set. Rey walked around during the bio without the mask and they blurred his face because they didn't want to desecrate the tradition of the mask. My question is what will 24/7 do when the Monday Night War reaches March 1999 and they're forced to acknowledge it?

There's no reason they can't show Wrestling Challenge though since they'd at least show clips of the improtant stuff on Superstars anyway (or even go back to the Championship Wrestling days).

He also works well with Josh Prohibition. Anything those two had is pretty good. Ask him about some of his favorite opponents.

Hadn't noticed.

....couldn't possibly be real, could it? Loosely translated: "I'll take the blame because I'm supposed to, even though my wife's a cunt." I hope that's a fake excerpt.

Like when they just randomly repeated the Muraco-Fuji standup routine? Or showed the same Outback Jack match two out of three weeks?

I forgot how good some of this stuff was. Glad I picked it up.

WCW Power Hour, fall 1990. Paul E. Dangerously: "Maybe the Black Scorpion is Saddan Hussein." Jim Ross: "Don't you think he's a little busy right now?"

Stumbled onto Matysik's web page yesterday (which I'd have saved the link), and in the FAQ he said what tapes he has are what he recorded on the air because KPLR owned the tapes and erased most of them.

At least you guys got spared the match they had on Superstars around that time. Actually, that one was only four minutes, so that would have been the better one to get.

While I want Sylvia to lose as well, he's not losing to a guy with exactly one MMA fight to his credit.

The same guy who posted that in Scott's blog has a picture of Bill Hicks in his sig. Somehow I'm not sure that was a coincidence.

The gig is up, thanks to DDP. This was during the time where DDP was "saying things he shouldn't" on TV, such as giving away the NWA World Tag Team Title tournament, and it led to stuff like this. Paul E.'s reactions make this segment work, because otherwise I'd have probably viewed this as a valuable waste of TV time. I'm still amazed TBS allowed this storyline, but this was pre-Time Warner.

Well, the Freebirds coming in and feuding with the Von Erichs did jumpstart what was a dying territory, so it wouldn't be a completely false angle to take. I wonder how they ignore the times the Freebirds were out of the territory though.

Oh my, was this just an awesome match. Formulaic Rock 'n' Roll Express match, as both guys take turns as face-in-peril, and as such, both men take an insane amount of punishment. Fernandez and Rude also take turns working over the injuries the Express suffered at Starrcade. Even with that, the champions still have victory in their sights before the double team behind Scrappy McGowan's back and the pull of the tights. Unlike the previous Satanico-Koshinaka match where the cheap finish felt out of place in a supposed blowoff, it's clear in this case that the cheap finish is designed to build to future rematches. This being in December hurt its chances of being MOTY, as it was ineligible for most MOTY polls but would have gotten no play for 1987, but this might have been the best tag team match of 1986.

Wow, this is awesome. Morton is Morton, and Lawler shows just how good he was at selling even the most basic offense. Nice touch with Morton stealing Lawler's chain and attempting the middle rope fistdrop. Blatant fast count by Tommy Marlin for the finish, but the crowd goes batshit for it.

I love it. The bell hasn't even run and Koshinaka is beating the snot out of Satanico. This is gonna be a fun one. Then as soon as I say that, the match is officially underway and Koshinaka uses a very non-grudge match-like armbar. Koshinaka works the arm like a champ for several minutes, with Satanico trying several ways to break the hold, unsuccessfully. I mark for the short arm scissors and I don't know why. The most beautiful backslide I've ever seen takes the first fall, and it's all Koshinaka thus far. Koshinaka continues to dominate Satanico throughout the second fall, and nearly ten minutes in I think Satanico's gotten like two moves in. Satanico finally takes control and evens the bout with a beautiful cradle, then wastes no time trying to dish out some of the same punishment Koshinaka issued to him earlier in the bout. It's in the third fall that the match begins to degenerate into the brawl that was expected given the stipulations and the prematch attack, and it's also in the third fall that both men get a somewhat equal amount of offense in. Koshinaka is just on fire, and he's executing roll ups and cradles so well that I thought the match was going to be over about four times before it actually was. I hate the cheap finish on the low blow DQ, simply because they'd been fighting on the floor quite a bit plus, given the hair vs hair stipulation, the DQ just seems like a cheap copout to prevent someone from jobbing clean. You can make an argument that it shows how frustrated Koshinaka had become, and I'd buy that, but it still felt like a cheap finish. Overall, decent in the first two falls, I loved the third fall until the finish. Good overall.

Now this is how you can give away a potentially big match for free and still get money out of it down the line. Race is obviously the favorite coming in, and you can see the frustration as the match goes on because he can't put the younger wrestler away. Of course, the younger wrestler gets the win, and as a result is likely to earn a World Title shot. And it should draw as the challenger has already pinned the champion on TV. Simple storytelling that works like a charm.

Flair worked the leg very well the last five minutes of the match, but when the finish is the figure-four, I felt he needed more than that. I actually thought Taylor, as a whole, was doing a better job working the legs as a whole. Love the match, and maybe it's nitpicky, but over 30 minutes I felt Flair shoud have been on the leg a lot sooner.

This version of Tiger Mask is Misawa, right? This match is actually a good example of how out of touch Americans are with the cruiserweight division. Fans have been trained in the States to think the lighter wrestlers are supposed to fly around for 10 minutes. While there is some of that (this is Tiger Mask, after all), much of the match is spent working on the mat...and the crowd is eating the action up. There are a lot of great false finishes before the finish. If anything, the match wasn't long enough to be considered a classic, but a fantastic display of wrestling from two great junior heavyweights.