Blehschmidt

Tommy Dreamer tweeted that he talked to Terry Funk on the phone today and that Terry is not in bad health. He said direct quote from Terry. "I'm currently sitting in my assisted living place with my thumb up my ass whistling dixie but I don't remember the words!"

Is there anyone out there still doing a Russian gimmick that they can bring in to feud with Moose and Squirrel?

and then takes a nice long vacation so that Guevara and Santana/Ortiz can get some shine without him.

Finished this the other day and really enjoyed it! Well written, very descriptive, had me laughing out loud more than once, and has me seeking out matches I never knew about. Can't ask for much more! Thanks Phil!!

I just finished the Tom "Rocky" Stone book, and I'm not really sure how to rate it. Formatting wise it is a disaster. There is no time line, it jumps all over the place, the editing is the shits. At one point he is talking about how nice Owen Hart is, and how big of an asshole Bret was in 1994, then he was saying how sorry he was Owen died, like it happened days after Bret was a dick to him in 94. If you can get past that, tt is your typical wrestling book with some stuff that will have you laughing out loud, and some stuff that will have you going "No way in hell that happened." He thinks very highly of himself, but at the same time realizes he was a jobber. it is a very strange dichotomy. But, if you are reading it on Kindle, you really can't beat the price.

I've been watching some Global recently, and Del was certainly over at the "Global Dome!" Always enjoyed the Dark Patriot feud, his team with Bagwell, and his WWF run. Never saw the Japan stuff, but may have to look for it. RIP Mr. Wilkes

Amen to this statement. The minute they (I assume WWE, maybe WCW, I don't remember who did it first) took eliminations out of multi-man matches and turned them into a lazy booking tool to get the title off of someone without them having to do a job, they utterly ruined the concept.

That would have been fantastic.

It quite frankly amazes me how little the folks in WWE see in John Morrison. His LU run was fantastic, and he could be doing amazing things for them. Then again, minus the LU part, I just described half the roster at this point.

All of this talk about whether McIntyre should or shouldn't find a way to get another shot at Lashley, and if he does, how he should do it..... You do realize we are discussing what has probably become the laziest booked company in the history of wrestling, right? The next PPV is Money in the Bank. What easier way to get out of a stipulation you don't want to honor than by using an overdone, outplayed crutch of lazy booking!

This is precisely how I took it. They have plausable deniability with the first explanation, while Vince and his pals laugh hysterically at the bigger girl having a poop themed name that they think no one but them gets.

The paragraph describing the Four Horseman at the beginning of the Flair/Morton section is an absolute thing of beauty @Phil Schneider The quip about wrestling's nuanced depiction of ethnicity/race/culture (I can't remember the exact word you used) also got a laugh out of me.

I absolutely agree with that, and would love to see guys like Darby and Jungle Boy and the like do more of it. I just feel like maybe there needs to also be someone telling Jericho, Cody, and the Bucks that every idea they have isn't gold.

I apparently missed a question during my inital answering, and I'd like to answer it, so I hope no one minds me making another post! Most importantly, what do you think the greatest positive about current AEW is & what do you think is their biggest hindrance at this point in time? Biggest Positive: As Gordi said above, the company seems to respect the fanbase. Something that it has become glaringly obvious the WWE no longer does. Now, obviously a wrestling company can't bow to the whims and desires of the fans all the time or they would lose control of their own product. I get that, we all get that. But AEW at least seems to care enough to try and make changes when it is blatantly obvious that something isn't working. When The Dark Order was failing, they took steps to change it and make it better. When that Brandi Rhodes heel turn and stable wasn't working, they killed it. Babyface Britt Baker, changed it and made a HUGE star. That's just three examples. In the WWE, it seems like ever since Vince had to listen to the damn fans about Daniel Bryan, and then he got a concussion, he decided never to listen to the damn fans again. Even though he's "a really good listener." Biggest Hindrance: I feel like too much of the talents vanity stuff is getting on TV. This was my fear when the company began, and they actually kept it in check for a long while. Sure, little bits would appear now and again, but for the most part I didn't feel it was problematic. Now though, it is starting to become front and center and it's getting annoying. Jericho has become insufferable since the Inner Circle babyface turn, and you can tell that lots of his ideas are being implemented into things. Then on the other side, The Elite storyline has gotten more and more tedious and has begun taking up more time and well, instead of droning on about it, I will just be nice and say that I am glad that Adam Page distanced himself from it!

I totally agree with you about the commercial breaks @Coffey. I despise the picture in picture thing that they seem to be oh so fond of, and I wish they would time shit better so that we would see less of that. I am all for good long matches when it's called for, but Joey Janela vs Alan Angels certainly doesn't need to last long enough to see a commercial break. Striking a nice balance between WWE's 15 matches a show that all go 3 minutes, and every match lasting 15 - 20 minutes is where they need to be. Those numbers that @gordi posted show me that they are getting the times in just about the right place. Now they just need to get the formatting a bit tighter, at least in my opinion. I just feel like the picture in picture thing should actually be something that feels special. Like a "Oh Shit, this match is so good and is going long, we are going to have picture in picture because we love you fans and don't want you to miss a moment of it!!"

I think Big Show in wrestling attire is the most concerning thing about that image to me.

I think if they could find a way to mix that style with exciting, sensible, long term booking they could make it work. They also need to make sure that they mix it up and not have the same types of styles in back to back segments constantly. You can have the flippy dudes, the Walter types that look like they are murdering each other, the Jeff Cobb types doing cool throws and shit, and you can have them on multiple segments. Just spread that shit out!! I have a buddy who grew up watching WWF and NWA, then morphed into ECW and the Monday Night Wars, then stopped watching all together when Vince bought everything because he thought it sucked. A few years back I showed him the crazy shit that the guys in PWG were doing and he popped huge for it and always wanted to know when I got a new dvd of that "California wrestling" So, I think that kind of athletic style could draw in people, but at the same time you need to surround it with angles and storylines that aren't going to turn those same people off, and will at the same time draw the interest of your core audience. Essentially I think we need someone to book PWG matches, with 1995 Paul Heyman's creativity, 1985 Crockett's angle and storyline pacing, and Mike Quackenbush's eye for continuity. Is that too much to ask?

Before I answer your questions, I want to say that I have been waiting for something like AEW for ages. WWE's product has felt like the stalest, paint by numbers, same shit different week, wrestling company to me for nearly 20 years. Probably since they fucked up the Invasion, and followed it with the never ending reign of Hunter. Sure there have been glimmers of hope with the first One Night Stand, The Summer of Punk, Daniel Bryan, the first few years of NXT, the beginning of The Shield, etc. But they have managed to take everything extraordinary and beat it back to ordinary as quickly and soundly as they could. Ring of Honor was amazing for quite a while, then they lost all of the talent that made them that way, got television and became something else. TNA was mismanaged from day one, and well, we've all seen the "Is TNA the worst company ever" thread. I enjoyed Chikara for a while, then they did that stupid closing angle, things were never the same, and well, we know how that ended. So for years, when it came to modern wrestling, I enjoyed some PWG shows when they came out every few months, watched a ton of older stuff, and viewed everything else with far less enthusiasm. With the announcement of AEW, I finally hoped that we were going to get a true alternative to Vince's monopoly on American television. So far, I would say things have been hit or miss with them, leaning more toward the positive. The pandemic certainly made things harder on them, and makes things harder to judge.But having said all of that, let's look at your questions. How do you feel about the commentary in AEW? Jim Ross & Excalibur specifically. I think Excalibur is fantastic. He has a great voice, he knows the moves, he knows the stories, he knows the right times to raise his voice. As a lead commentator, I have zero issues with him. I know the mask bothers some people, but who gives a shit? It doesn't interfere with his speaking, and it gives him a unique look. Better than Michael Cole and the endless supply of Michael Cole sound-a-likes that WWE seems to have. I love Jim Ross. He is the voice of my childhood. I felt so awful for him when he lost his wife. But, I feel like at this point he is a detriment to the product in his current role. Use him for intimate backstage interviews. Use him for big time main events. I say give him a weekly segment where he runs down the Top 10, and discusses one of the big angles like Gordon Solie use to do on the Power Hour at the end of his career. But we are past the point where J.R. should be calling several hours of wrestling on a weekly basis. Re-energized Tony Schiavone is fantastic. Taz has also been really good in AEW, and I never cared for him in WWE. As for Big Show and Mark Henry, we'll discuss them in a later question, but I certainly don't see the need for more commentators! How do you feel about the ring style or the look of the show/arena? I guess I never really thought much about the look of the arena. It isn't distracting, so I suppose that is a good thing. As for the look of the show, I have to say that it is fucking wonderful to have camera work on a wrestling show that doesn't make me feel like I am going to have a seizure! Kevin Dunn and his 75 camera cuts a second can go right to hell. As for the in-ring style. I mentioned being a PWG fan, so for the most part I enjoy it. There are guys I don't care for, but I think you get that in any wrestling you watch. What are your thoughts about the talent that AEW has been bringing in like Jake Hager, Shawn Spears or more recently, Mark Henry & Paul Wight? I have felt from the beginning that AEW needed to be very selective about which former WWE guys they brought into the company. I honestly thought there best bet would be to go after the guys that the fans felt were being held back, or misused by WWE, in hopes of drawing those eyes to their product, and at the same time avoiding the "LOL TNA" trope where they just brought in every cast off and scrap that fell from the WWE table. I think they have done reasonably well in this. Moxley, Tay Conti, Brodie Lee, Miro, Andrade, and FTR were all good choices. At the time Matt Hardy and Shawn Spears were good choices as well. I don't particularly like Spears, but that 10 gimmick was over in WWE. He just hasn't shown a god damn thing since. Hardy was over as hell with the Broken stuff. HIs creative has just gone sailing off the rails since. On the other hand: Hager, Christian, Billy Gunn, Big Show, Mark Henry... Not sure these were needed. Even understanding that Gunn, Show, and Henry have different roles to play. These signings just have that "Look who we got! These guys used to be stars elsewhere!!" stigma to them. As for the recent WWE releases... I hope to see Tommy End, Buddy Murphy, Ruby Riot, and Iiconics show up. Do you think that AEW relies too heavily on comedy? No, not too heavily. Though I do think they sometimes have guys continue acting "funny" when the situation calls for something different. What about their abundance of factions/stables? This I am growing very tired of. We don't need faction wars, or team challenge series! The Inner Circle has run it's course. I don't need a group with Peter Avalon, Cesar Bononi, and whoever else. The Pinnacle only exists to fight the Inner Circle. QT Marshalls group is cringe worthy, and The Nightmare Factory is literally Cody surrounded by jobbers. The only two needed factions are Death Triangle and The Dark Order and I suppose for now, the Omega version of The Elite. But only until he loses the title. Managers/Valets? As everyone else has said. Taz and Tully are wonderful. Vickie is worthless. The new lawyer guy with Jade is unproven. I like seeing Arn on TV, so I am good with him. I have zero issue with Penelope and Kip cornering each other. Callis is great in his current role, but needs to disappear once the angle is over. Matt Hardy...needs to go back to WWE. How do you feel about the decisions Tony Khan has taken, or how Dave Meltzer seems to give AEW the constant benefit of the doubt where as Jim Cornette will barely acknowledge when something is good? I'll start by saying I don't read Meltzer, and I only care about what Jim Cornette says about stuff that happened before 1997. That being said, i think Tony Khan is doing a good job. However, I feel like maybe he is letting certain people get too much of their own shit on his show. He needs a Pat Patterson type that can help him out, and be a buffer between the talent and management. I have no idea who that would be though. Are AEW presenting the women well? How about the tag team division? The women's division is a tough answer. I feel like they were off to a decent start, and then the pandemic totally fucked them since half the talent was foreign. Hikaru Shida did a wonderful job leading the division for the last year. She was a great champion, and I hope she gets another chance with the belt in front of people at some point. They listened when babyface Britt wasn't working and went with it, and now they've organically created a HUGE star. Imagine if that had been WWE? She'd still be a smiling babyface. If they can lock Thunder Rosa down full time, they will have another potential cornerstone for the division as well. So my answer on the women is, the jury is still out. They are trying, but Covid hindered it too much to give a fair and accurate judgement. As for the tag team division, I think they are doing a pretty good job with it. This Young Bucks reign has actually brought it down, as before that I thought it was one of the highlights of the company. Between Page/Omega, Lucha Bros, FTR, PnP, Jurassic Express, etc they have had plenty of really good tag team matches. So I would call it a win. Is AEW relying too much on gimmick/stipulation matches? Relying on them too much? No Doing them without enough build? Yes 2 Stadium Stampedes, the war games match, the explosion match, and the arcade match are the only one's I really remember. Sure, the explosion match ended badly. The Stampedes were both fun. The war games was good until the stupid ending, and the arcade was harmless fun. My issue is more that those kind of matches need longer builds. But that seems to be the case with the whole world today, not just wrestling. No one has the attention span for shit. In closing: I think AEW is doing a pretty good job of being an alternative to Vince's product. I hope as we come out of the pandemic and they go back on the road, they find themselves and their niche even more. There are certainly still several parts of the product that could be tightened up. For example, I don't think they need 4 shows. If they insist on keeping both Dark and Elevation, they need to significantly cut down the running time on both. I also think it is time to take a look at the over bloated roster and start sending some folks packing. 1 Ruby Riot in the women's division is worth Joey Janela, Luther, Serpentico, and all of Billy Gunn's kids. But, I hope they continue to improve and grow an audience. Because the WWE Monopoly on American mainstream professional wrestling has certainly done more harm than good for the business itself.

Certainly not you, that was fucking terrible. Kross is awful. Gargano, Cole, and O'Reilly have been played out for at least two years, and Pete Dunne can't be expected to carry 4 people.

Got my copy over the weekend! Looking forward to diving into as soon as I finish the book I am reading. If there is a file with links to all of the matches, I'd love to have it!

I am watching some Ron Starr matches from the Los Angeles territory, and I am curious if anyone more familiar with that area knows how big the ring they used was? Because it looks freaking gigantic!!

A buddy of mine watched Heatwave '98 the other day and said Bubba calling the fan a "fat, bald, motherfucker" and telling the girl in the front row that her mother taught her how to suck dick was all still in there.

So, I can tell that the episodes of MLW that are airing on Vice are older footage. Can someone who knows the product better tell me how far behind the Lucha Undergriund stuff what is currently airing on Vice is?

Not even half way into this Grizzly Smith episode and it's just as rough as we expected.