FLIK
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Posts posted by FLIK
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Yeah more or less. It's about 1/3 TNA guys, 1/3 former TNA guys and 1/3 random indy dudes and ex WWE guys like Chavo & Chris Masters.
By all acounts it seems to be much better booked and have higher production then TNA proper. The debut show got something like 14 million viewers in India or some crazy # like that and has been really succesful so far
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Wow, so after a freakin decade on & off Vince Russo is finally gone from TNA?
Really ? Russo is gone ? It sure took some damn time. Get rid of Hogan and Bischoff, hire some people who know their shit, and maybe there will be some hope.
They aren't ideal but a Biscoff & Hogan led company would be such a step up from whear they're at now it's not even funny. Bischoff atleast has a few good years to his credit as opposed to Russo who's done nothing worthwhile since he left WWF 13 years ago. Like the worst year of WCW with Bischoff in charge isn't even in the same universe as Russo booked wrestling on the crap scale.
I have no idea who these people are who "know their shit"
Supposedly Dave Lagana might get the new head writer slot but nothing's been announced yet. He's a former WWE writer, worked for ROH for a couple years, got hired by TNA a few months back when Russo originally got demoted and has been helping with Ring Ka King.
It's pretty sad when I can't even think of someone in reserve who would be a great booker to bring in.
They've got Dutch Mantell working on Ring Ka King too so that's another posibility.
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From the latest show, there's a few guys still who you could compare with Chris Jericho's world tour career progression
Jack Evans pops to mind as being pretty similar
PWG/ROH/Super Indys = SMW/ECW
Dragon Gate = WAR
AAA = CMLL
He'll prob never have anything that = WCW/WWF but still.
Also, pretty sure Kamala had been wrestling for a # of years before he got the Kamala gimmick. Wasn't particularly good but he'd been trained and had worked a bunch of places by that point.
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Was there a previous thread on people's wrestling watching habbits? For example, I used to stick to only one project at a time -- if I started a wrestler comp, I kept watching it until I finished before starting another one. I've gotten over that and am now into watching entire seasons of one promotion (currently on '89 NWA and starting 90 WWF soon) while mixing in discs from various comps.
I thought there was a previous thread on this issue, but I couldn't find it.
I think this is the one you're talking about
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I'm surprised you guys didn't bring up Missy Hyatt since she's admited to being diagnoosed with body dysmorphia and talked about how that's the reason she had so much plastic surgery over the years.
What ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder
She's done so many interviews & junk over the years that I can't remember which one it was she mentioned it in. I want to say it was in one of her columns on wrestling observer or one of her podcast aperances on the site whear she talked about it but i'm not 100% on that.
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Anyone remember when it was WCW switched over to using the custom made entrance music? Mr Bang Bang, They Call Him the Natural, Simply Ravishing, Here Come's Johnny B Badd, Don't Step to Ron, etc...
Watching early 92 stuff the songs they're using now and overall producion are the dirt worst so it'll be a welcome upgrade.
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New Japan, which was super popular in Italy in the early 80s on television during a boom period, but also a period where the television featured some of the biggest worldwide stars on a regular basis, failed in an attempt in that market a few years back.
In other words, if the product is good, it'll export well. If it isn't, it won't. It's not about culture.
You're ignoring the bold part as he def emphasised that them having a large crop of big name US/foreign talent played a big part in them being able to succede outside Japan.
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Of the ppl he does shows with regularly I enjoy Vinny, Meltzer, Storm & Dr Lucha, even enjoy the segments with Granny most weeks. I liked the After Dark spin off show he did with Karl Stern too but that was mostly for Stern & his guest. Despite being an abysmal interviewer most of the F4 Daily guest are good enough to carry things and make them worth listing to as well.
The Todd Martin shows are unbearably bad and a lot of that is due to Alvarez being at his worst on thear. Constantly trolling & arguing for the sake of it and talking in the most annoying manner possible & randomly screaming for no good reason.
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Week 3 is all about the awesomeness of Cactus Jack & his feud with Abdullah. On the 1/18 Saturday Night we get a really good promo from Cactus talking about how him & Abby made up from the week before and were soul mates all while Abby stands next to him eating a picture of Cactus Jack and feeding him the left over bits while he tries to talk. Leads to Cactus Jack & Abdullah The Butcher vs Brad Armstrong & The Z Man in a short but wild match. Abby takes the monkey flip on the floor from Armstrong in one highlight early on. Jack & Abby win but Z man wants more so does a giant out of controll over the top rope dive onto Cactus which is pretty nuts for 92 WCW. Instead of helping Jack Abby runs over and attacks Cactus despite having had no problems in this match and getting along fine, Abby's insane so I buy it. Crowd loses their shit cheering for Abby as they get into a weapon swinging brawl outside.
1/19 Main Event Cactus cuts promo, solo this time on the Ross Report saying they'd again made up and everything was gonna be okay because as long as their were still Ron Simmons & Stings of the world to hurt & cripple him & Abby would forever be bonded. In the main event of Main Event Cactus & Ron have a pretty fun match that ends with Larry Zybysko running in to cost Simmons the match and Abby coming to the rescue. Post match Abby gives Cactus a running shoulder block that sends him falling down a flight of stairs.
I checked future listings and other then a few Cactus vs Abby tags nothing comes of all this as Abby seems to have split in Feb or March which sucks because he could have gotten over huge as a face.
Speaking of shit that sucks, Arn & Eaton win the tag belts off Steamboat & Rhodes in a 30 minute 2/3 falls match that was apparently so great that ubber fuckin heel & Dangerous Alliance member Arn Anderson felt the need to come on TV and say he wished he could cut the tag belts in half and give them to Steamboat & Rhodes because "in a match like that there are no losers". WCW being WCW couldn't wait to have this match at the big January Clash of the Champions show they'd been pusing all month or the big Superbrawll II PPV in Feb, nope, they OF COURSE did it on an untelivised house show.
And Speaking of Superbrawll, in another WCW being WCW move, they haven't had Luger on TV all month (WTF is the story with that BTW?) but are hyping the big anouncement of his who his next title defense will be against for the Clash only they allready aired freakin commercials weeks earlier giving away that it was gonna be Sting vs Luger at the PPV.
Anyways, other highlights of this week saw a surprisingly decent PN News vs Mr Hughes match on Saturday Night. Really enjoyable in a fat guy slugfest sorta way. Only goes a few mins as Vader comes in to help Hughes for the DQ but you come away wishing they'd gotten more time. Larry Zybysko wrestled Ron Simmons which was ok but more notable because I got a kick out of Madusa randomly telling the camera she could out Rap Simmons and Ross on commentary claiming that while Ron is a gentleman he wouldn't hesitate to smack around Madusa if she got in his way. Main event the Austin/Eaton vs Sting/Bagwell tag that's also on the 92 set. Really dug Bagwell getting whiped while Sting is held in the corner and made to watch by the rest of the DA.
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Am I the only one that would like Dave to do some solo interviews on the site w/Bryan just producing?
Yeah, i'd be perfectly fine never hearing Alvarez again actually. He's smart/lucky enough to constantly surround himself with ppl I do want to listen to however so we're stuck with him coming along for the ride.
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Still I can't imagine how anyone could have thought it was good business for FMW going forward to turn over the promotion to a guy who had just been eaten alive for the entire match by the guy who retired with the title.
No, they knew it was fucked up going in but it was Onita's show, he wanted to go out on top and no one else worth a damn wanted the death slot of having to job to him
Still crazy for me to see Tenryu in that setting.
Much less known but Tenryu did a crap load of death match tags vs Onita over the years, really fun stuff.
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Not to derail this totally with FMW discussion, but for how long was Onita the booker? Was he still the guy running it when they got into the Hayabusa/Tanaka/Shinzaki vs. Team No Respect period in (I think) 96/97?
He was head guy in charge up until he retired for the first time in 95. After that he sold the company to Shoichi Arai. Go Ito came in around 91 and was an assistent booker during the Onita years and then head booker from 95 post Onita until sometime in 99 I want to say. Victor Quiones was helping book some as well during 96 & 97. The Team No Respect era was 98 & 99 and yeah that was all Go Ito booking. Fuyuki got power later on in 99 and it all went to hell after that.
For a longer more detailed account go read BAHU's massive 3 part FMW history piece
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Apparently Stephy has her own idea of what a wrestler should look like. Didn't she get rid of Ariel because she doesn't look like your stereotypical diva ?
Yeah I remember hearing that. On a similar note, don't remember which but on one of the billion podcast ex WWE writers have done one guy mentioned that it got pitched to bring in Daffney once as well and Vince was perplexed that anyone could find her attractive at all.
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Names that haven't been mentionned there are the Matsunaga brothers. I mean Zenjo was huge at points, and it has a very long history of being a super successful promotion. And defining women's wrestling.
You can argue Atsushi Onita has a place for doing so much with so few. The guy had no TV for so long, and he made shitload of money and drew shitload of people. Sure, it didn't lasted, but it was impressive while it was going on. I'm not seriously arguing Onita is the N°2 of course, but just wanted to throw his name out there. I don't think anyone accomplished so much with so few cards in his hands.
Yeah, the Matsunaga's for sure. Pretty much the entirety of Japanese women's wrestling is based off what they created. The recent back issue of the Observer they just put up is the one covering the Big Egg show in 94. I'm only a few paragraphs in but allready it's mentioned that when all was said in done they probably made over 8 million from that 1 show alone.
Onita, meh, I love the guy but he was more of a self promoter then a wrestling promoter. He rarely gave a fuck about about doing anything to make anyone else besides himself a star so kinda hard to consider him worthy of even a token mention in a thread like this.
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Week 2
Saturday Night 1/11/1992
Austin vs Bagwell in a 10 minute time limit non tv title match was decent enough. Set up for this is a little head scratching. Apparently a few weeks back when Bagwell got jumped it was because the DA offered him a tv title match and he turned it down saying he wasn't ready so now we get this match just to see if he can last the full 10 mins which he does. They're heavily pushing that Bagwell is Sting's protege which I have no memory of but I guess that does explain why 4 years later Schivaone name droped that those 2 were good buddies when Bagwell got taken out during the infamous NWO backstage assault. The Steiners, Vader, Johnny B Badd & Terry Taylor all get squashes which combined didn't last as long as Austin vs Bagwell. Funny in hindsight to see how much Bobby Roode riped off Taylor later on in TNA for a while. I know Taylor gave him one of his old robes and he was doing a similar gimmick but shit, Bobby even stole his hair cut. They show highlights of Vader vs El Gigante from New Japan at the dome whear Vader shoots off his helmet in Gigante's eyes. Kinda want to track down that match now out of curiosity. Mid show we get a Cactus/Abby vs Z-Man/Pillman tag which is really fun. Post match Cactus accidently whacks Abby with that shrunken head cane he used to carry around that leads to them brawling with each other. Sigh, reason #2 i'm gonna have track down 91 WCW as I was also really looking forward to seeing their team and they're allready breaking up. Main event is the Arn, Larry & Rude vs Simmons, Dustin & Steamboat match that's also on the yearbook. Really good tv match, the kind that made this era so great as you could just throw any combination of the Dangerous Alliance out thear vs the top babyfaces and be guaranteed quality which they'd do on a weekly basis. I think this being some of the first wrestling I was ever exsposed to (became a fan in mid - late 91) is why faction warfare has always been my favorite style of wrestling. I vaugely recall someone earlier in this thread or elsewhear on the board bringing up how overused the Bobby Eaton runs in to leg drop a guy as he's going for a pin finish was and it's been 3 shows in a row whear hear in 92 whear they've done it so yeah they loved the heck out of that one.
World Wide 1/12/1992
Much better show then last week. Really good Steamboat vs Eaton match to start the show that ends in your usuall DA run in brawl. Big Josh squash was decent enough for a 1 min match. Austin & Madusa cut a pretty good promo, they go all over the place focusing on upcoming matches vs The Steiners, the tag at the Clash and the Steamboat/Rude/Madusa angle but they keep it all tied together well enough. Speaking of Madusa, Missy Hyatt each week is constantly running her down which is allready getting annoying. Had they actually had any altercation yet byt this point? Missy also gets in a line about running off all of Jason Hervey's ex girlfriends which was amusing but makes no sense unless you actually knew they were dating. Main event is Austin vs Hammer for the TV title, don't know what we did to deserve 2 weeks of Hammer main events but this actually wasn't too bad by his standards. They kept things really simple & formulaic and don't go too long so not much of a chance for Hammer to be exsposed. I gotta say, until he actually gets in the ring, Hammer is a pretty cool lookin dude, I can see why he somewhat got over and they were high on him for a bit.
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Started WCW 92, some good shit to kick things off.
1/4/92 Saturday Night was great at building the upcoming Clash and every segment had a purpose. Starts out recapping a Dangerous Alliance beat down on Bagwell & Sting from the previous week leading into Rude & Dangerously coming out. Paul threatens to make Sting into the new Magnum TA only his tragedy won't be accidental. Rude then squashes a jobber but that's only an excuse for Steamboat to come out and cut a promo on comentary. Seems I joined things right in the middle of the angle w him & Madusa. He says him & Dustin got Sting's back and if Rude want's to step up he'll be glad to beat his ass...not in those words
. Larry Zbysko squashes Larry Santo which is just an excuse for Ross to hype the Larry/Rude vs Sting/Steamboat Clash match. Really refreshing to see anouncers ignoring the action but still keep the focus on the star involved, so many times today they'll ignore a match and talk about random shit or someone elses match making the guys in the ring look like insignificant chumps. Larry Z gives Larry S a brainbuster post match causing him to be taken out on a stretcher and just to be a dick Zybysko tips the stretcher over on his way out. Terry Taylor comes out to kill a jobber, cool superfly spash & gut wrench powerbomb from Taylor neither of which I would have exspected him to bust out. Match is just an excuse to have Taylor quit the York Foundation post match saying he wants to go it alone, smashing York's computer and for some odd reason telling the fans to screw off too. Weird since if they're gonna keep him heel why not stay w the Foundation? God, I was 8 when I first saw this and haven't seen it since until now but I still remember the exact angle that set this up with the computer giving Taylor bad advice and York getting pissy he wouldn't listen. Did not recall the part whear York basically promises to fuck him if he'll stay in the group however, surprisingly went over my young head. As a random aside, i'd forgotten hot hot Terri was even back then, damn. Sad I jumped in right as they're breaking up as I was actually looking forward to revisiting the York Foundation, makes me wanna go track down the 91 footage for that. Anyways, moving on Van Hammer squashes a jobber named Paul Lee which has to be some weird rib on Heyman. Cactus Jack's out for commentary to hype the Falls Count Anywhear match. He runs in for a short brawl post match and they do a rolling DDT spot down the stairs which sounds cooler on paper then it was in execution. Amused that Foley looks nearly identical today as he did back then right down to the sweats, flannel & tennis shoes. Gotta respect that. Mr Hughes squashes two scrubs in a handicap match while Ross hypes up his newly formed team w Vader who's gonna be fighting the Steiners at the Clash. Taped Sting promo vowing to put Rude in a cast of his own. WCW Magazine report w Bischoff airing highlights of the Pillman/Liger LW Title change from what looks like a house show. Main event is the awesome Dustin Rhodes vs Arn Anderson match that's on the 92 yearbook set or atleas the first 20 mins of it. They run out of tv time so you've gotta tune into World Wide to see the rest.
1/5/92 World Wide starts off w a short in studio segment w Tony Schiavone & Missy Hyatt. Scared for a second thinking they were gonna have Missy on the whole show as having heard her do comentary before she's one of the worst in history but thankfully they only have her on for a few mins in between matches while Tony calls things solo. The finish to Arn/Dustin was pretty great w it turning into a big chaotic brawl w Dustin/Steamboat/Windham/Simmons vs Arn/Larry/Austin/Bobby. Rest of the show goes downhill from thear. Cactus vs Arachniman sucks, Bagwell vs a jobber sucks worse. Never thought about this before but was the reason they spent so much freakin time hyping that Bagwell was from Sprayberry Highscool a rib to make fun of him for not going to college? I don't actually know that but come on, he's the only guy in the entire history of wrestling to get his HIGH SCHOOL credentials hyped up, WTF? Maybe they just liked saying Sprayberry? It's here I notice that Tony calling things solo = so not as good as Ross calling things solo. Don't want to be too hard on Schiavone here tho since he was still a pretty great anouncer during this time frame and on this show he had crap material to work with. Main event is Austin/Eaton vs Big Josh/Van Hammer which completes the trifecta of suck because they had the bright idea of having Hammer work 85% of the match. Only good thing that made it somewhat bearable was Madusa spazzing out at ringside and running aorund a million miles an hour.
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There are things I don't get though.
Why the stifling scripting?
Why the blandness?
Is this all coming from Vince? He was still fully involved personally in the late 90s, is he still? I mean he's known for being very hands on, but there's very little of his personality in today's product.
From what i've heard a lot of ppl say you can blame a lot of the change on Steph getting made head of creative in the early 2000's
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Don't have much to add to the current conversation but i'll say that while today's crop of guys are def more on the bland side, I have no problem telling them apart and actually don't think the "clone" talking point is as valid as it was a couple years ago.
It's tough for even dedicated fans to pick out the differences..., not to mention the arrivals of the "one name" Latino/Puerto Rican contingent of Hunico, Epico, Primo and now Camacho.
I can remember 1 guys got braids & one guy doesn't for the team with the girl and 1 guy is big and 1 guy is small for the team with the bike but which one is Hunico beats the fuck out of me
I liked the Rumble a lot this year, much better then 2011's show. I only watch a handfull of WWE shows a year now and this is the only 1 that's always a 100% lock for me. Nothing was blow away great but I enjoyed every match on some lvl atlest and thought the Rumble match itself was one of the better one's they've had in a few years. Not a lot of star power but it had a lot of fun/cool/memorable moments and they kept the action moving so it rarely draged which is all I really want out of the match.
Guess I just haven't seen the right match but I don't get the love of Dolph Ziggler, he's good but i've never seen him on the lvl that most others seem to. He always comes across too forced to me, like he's trying too hard and just rubs me the wrong way. I thought the cage match was the best thing on the undercard. Besides the idiotic "never had a girlfriend" talking point they're trying to push I didn't find the announcing that bad either.
Funkasaurus = best thing possible that could have EVER happened to Brodus Clay's career. He's gonna be able to milk this shit for life Honky Tonk man style if he wants to, so so so much better then being generic big guy monster #47 on a roster full of them.
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no matter who won the Rumble, that match is going to be, at best, the #4 or #5 match at this year's Wrestlemania
Yeah I was thinking a lot about that. If it were up to me i'd have him face Bryan for the belt, storm out at the begining of Mania, challenge him to fight him in the opener saying he doesn't want to wait then beat him in like 30 secs w the brogue kick. That shit would have way more impact then having like a 8 - 12 min semi competitive match mid show like they'll probably get otherwise.
Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 3
in Megathread archive
1st thing I thought before watching that video is Wolfie D & A children's sock puppet seems like an odd pairing.
1st thing I thought while watching the video is Nise Brody didn't buckle his seat belt. Click it or ticket kids.
Good song tho, did make me want to hear more.