BillThompson

Dick Murdoch can go fuck himself I guess.

Hey, just wanted to let you know that after a few non-problematic episodes this one went back to the random stopping and restarting problem we had talked about earlier.

Have to say guys, as much as I do enjoy what you're doing, the way you discuss women's wrestling makes me a little uneasy. Comments that center around the belief that female wrestlers just aren't on the same level as male wrestlers, as far as work goes at least, rub me the wrong way. There's about 6-8 legitimately good-great female workers spread out over WWE and NXT right now. In fact, I'd take those 8 women over the great majority of the male roster as far as ability in the ring goes. You're entitled to your opinions of course, but the quick and easy dismissal of women's wrestling is not an endearing aspect of the podcast.

I'm still making my way through your back catalog. In about twenty seven episodes I'll be caught up to the newest release, can't wait.

In general I go with El Hijo del Santo, and if we're counting Vader's mask then Vader.

As of right now these are the promotions I'll be doing research on for linear world title histories: American Wrestling Association, Extreme Championship Wrestling, International Wrestling Grand Prix, National Wrestling Alliance, National Wrestling Federation, Pacific Wrestling Federation, Ring of Honor, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, Universal Wrestling Association, World Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment, and World Wrestling Federation.

I don't give one iota about that. I'm not a business man, I'm not in the business of pro wrestling, and I don't care about the business side of things. I care about companies trying different things within the format of pro wrestling.

If it's presented in a ring, in a pro wrestling promotion, with two guys doing choreographed moves to a predetermined finish, using pro wrestling training, it's a pro wrestling match. I can get someone not liking it, or even not wanting to ever watch it, or it not being their type of pro wrestling. But I can't get someone saying it's not pro wrestling.

Not much I can say to that, other than I'll take well crafted drama before overwrought Mob idealization.

No, it's not. Most people ask TNA to make a coherent and watchable product. Being different is one way to attain that, yes, but flying to Japan for smark credz isn't going to accomplish a thing. And news site commentators aren't the best barometer for...anything really, but especially wrestling. Same kind of people that whine about Cena's 5 moves or a six sided ring will mean something. Yes, it is. It's something different from them and from the wrestling landscape as a whole. One can argue whether it will make money, be sucessfull, be a bust, etc. Trying to argue that it's not something different is just ridiculous.

I'd take Veronica Mars over Sopranos every day of the week.

It very much is. You can not like it, but it's still pro wrestling.

Whether it fails or not it's something different, it's essentially what we always ask TNA to do and they are doing it. That's why there's a level of excitement behind it, and while I'm not super excited I am willing to give TNA credit for actually doing something different.

For my research purposes I suppose it's important to note that I am very strict when it comes to promotional name changes. I view Eastern Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling as different promotions, same goes for World Wide Wrestling Federation, World Wrestling Federation, and World Wrestling Entertainment. I know this doesn't matter to most, but it matters to me and it's a line in the sand I take into account.

I don't think it's unfair. Andre isn't George Hackenschmidt with absolutely no footage available whatsoever. He has plenty of stuff on tape, even from his earlier days when he was in his prime. That being said I go with Vader, and it's not close in my mind. I like Andre, I think he could be great, and there are matches that show how skilled he was in the ring from a workrate and an execution standpoint. The thing is though that I would take every era of Vader over every era of Andre. Prime Andre isn't as great as prime Vader, and past his prime Andre is light years behind past his prime Vader.

The UWA title mentioned above, that's not the Mexican promotion right, but a different fed?

The ones that I have done, or plan on doing, are: WWE, WWF, TNA, ECW, AWA, NWA, WCW, IWGP, and probably the PWF part of the triple Crown. That's before this topic though.

I've been doing a lot of linear title stuff lately. It's all a bunch of nonsense, but it's fun nonsense. The more work I did on various feds the more I decided I wanted to do all the world titles, heavyweight and tag, to get a good idea of how close we are to having a true unified world champion. So far I've worked on linear titles for the WWF, NWA, WWE, AWA, ECW, and TNA. I'm thinking of doing more but I want to limit it to actual world titles. I don;t think there's any way to actually gauge which titles were legit world titles, but a general consensus, or at least idea, would be nice. So which feds would you say were/are prominent enough for their titles to be considered world titles? (I'm even wondering if AJPW would count since technically the three titles that make up the triple crown are NWA regional titles, aren't they?)

I pretty much hated this match, mainly because I didn't buy a single thing Hashi was doing.

The person I think really needs justification for being mentioned is Undertaker. He spent the majority of his career being average to mediocre, and I'd argue that even at his best he was never a truly great worker.

Having never seen any Bruiser Brody, I'm wondering what the reasoning is behind the pro-Brody camps and anti-Brody camps? I'm sure I'll get around to his stuff sometime soon, and I'm really interested in the shift that seems to have taken place with Brody.

The reason I say Vader over Andre is simply because I haven't seen as much great Andre as I have Vader. I'm not sure if I'd ever be able to see as much great Andre as great Vader, because even if all the old footage of Andre were available I still don't think it would stack up to what Vader had to offer. Vader was a great bumper, had great stamina, could work diverse styles, was a top guy in different parts of the world, had a super impressive variety of offense, and so on and so forth. I'm not taking anything away from prime Andre, because I've been very impressed with the prime Andre that I've seen. That being said, I still feel prime Vader is better than prime Andre, and that not prime Vader completely blows away not prime Andre.

I'll post it in a little bit (either here or I may save it for the magazine), sadly it loses steam after spending a lot of time in the Stampede territory because it eventually merges with the WWF title and takes on that lineage.

Vader, and it's really not close in any fashion.

I also did an AWA and ECW one. I was thinking of maybe doing this for the magazine, depending on what you think.