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I would add that the bar for something as or more compelling than the endless Undertaker-Kane CAHOOTS angle is not as high as people like to think.

Where was it originally reported that Patriot pinned Mitsuharu Misawa in a 6-man tag on 5/24/97? That's been accepted as a result for awhile now and footage of that match is a mini-Holy Grail for '90s AJPW, but in discussing the match elsewhere I looked up the result on a pretty seemingly definitive AJPW results site and they list Johnny Ace as the guy pinning Misawa in that match. Still an upset, to be sure, and maybe one that never happened anywhere else. But Ace was definitely higher on the foreigner totem pole than Patriot, having World Tag Titles and at least one Triple Crown title shot to his name. The reason I looked it up is because were debating what the "cobra clutch drop" was that was listed as the winning maneuver--that wasn't a Patriot move, but the cobra clutch suplex was an Ace move. Does this site have it wrong, or have we had it wrong the whole time? It's such an incongruous result for '90s AJPW booking that I almost wonder if it was a misreporting to begin with this whole time.

Rowan had two matches in AEW (plus a run-in on the Brodie Lee tribute show). Other AEW one-offs of note or at least semi-note: Dragon Lee, DDP, Deonna Purrazzo, Holidead, Fallah Bahh, Tully Blanchard, LuFisto, and Kalisto/Samuray del Sol.

Verne wrestled at MSG several times. Guys who I think only made one shot for the WW(W)F do include Tommy Rich, Jumbo Tsuruta, Jay Youngblood, and Billy Robinson.

Well, yeah, Mil Mascaras was stupid enough to have 1,000 masks and thus flooded the market and drove the individual prices down. Santo? The fucker broke kayfabe and unmasked on TV a few months before his death.

First name that came to mind for Ring IQ was Playboy Buddy Rose. One of the smartest workers ever. Highest floor...he's not a favorite here nor is he a favorite of mine, but this screams Triple H. A guy with that look could sustain a push in the Big Two while being mediocre.

"Anti-Hero" is one of my favorite songs of the past few years, by anybody. Oh, and Vicki's always been a trash person and a trash performer.

Nigel is now insisting that he never had to forcibly retire to begin with, for whatever that's worth.

As did C.S. Lewis. And L. Ron Hubbard died the day of the Challenger disaster, so it's not all bad.

Looks like stuff from AJPW's show on Samurai TV which I think started in '97 or so. That was a 1-hour slot showing some different undercard matches and full versions of matches that were JIP on the 30-minute show. That stuff isn't easily found except from a certain Western PA-area tape seller.

That was my reaction at first, but he may have meant the gay stuff which...okay, that doesn't age well. Or really at all. But the actual genius-centric stuff was great.

Yeah, I don't buy the illiteracy story at all. That's more carnies being carnies making a sympathy play.

Except early on he was billed from parts unknown. SF came later.

He's the guy who declared flat-out that Mercedes Mone was #AllElite, so I guess we'll get a hint tomorrow night one way or the other. I asked about him on another board discussing the Sasha situation, because I'd never heard of him. Bix replied to me: "Reporter for DAZN. Better known long term for MMA reporting but has a good track record with his AEW reporting. And DAZN is a distributor of AEW content in some countries, so there's also that wrinkle."

Unless the Saudis just decide to go full LIV/Ronaldo and offer hundreds of millions of dollars to guys to jump.

Ricky is correct. The Chili Peppers would also be in that group--and none of the bands he or I mentioned sounded like each other. The "Homerpalooza" episode of The Simpsons aired in May 1996. It was more about "alternative" than "grunge" but it was still absolutely a thing. Grunge was a subculture of alternative just like NIN's industrial, the Pumpkins' psychedelia/dream-pop, Alanis' "adult alternative"/singer-songwriter/Lilith Fair scene, Green Day's punk, and the Chili Peppers' funk-rock. They were all different but still all under the same larger umbrella as Pearl Jam, and they were all huge in the mid-to-late '90s and some of them huge well into the 2000s. And then there's the alt-folkies, the alternative rap scene, the Neil Young/Tom Waits/Bob Dylan codgers/elder statesmen...my alt-rock radio station played all of those acts. I have to say, when I went through the '90s Yearbooks, my opinion of Raven ended up being more positive than negative. Sometimes his promos and matches were overlong and overbooked to shit but I generally found him to be at least interesting more often than not-interesting. Maybe all the negative comments I'd read from Loss and others in the reviews lowered my expectations, but he was a pleasant surprise in the end.

He was one of the Suit Brigade and would show up in the background for contract signings and whatnot, but Okerlund actually addressed him as "Mr. Dillon" which is one of the very rare instances of him being acknowledged by name. (Another was Pillman's contract signing.)

Superficial though it may be, I can't support ZSJ as a worker just because of his horrible "European Clutch," a bastardization of one of my favorite old-school spots that shows that while he knows the WOS notes, he still can't play the music.

I understand why he did it, but a.) vigilantism still needs to be enforced as a crime, because b.) he endangered possibly dozens of other people and shot the wrong guy.

Corgan was a control freak even before the Pumpkins really blew up. He played most of the guitar and bass parts on Siamese Dream (which was their breakthrough album), though he did at least have the humility to keep Jimmy Chamberlain on the drums.

Well then, what the fuck are we watching for? Isn't one of the criticisms we're levying Tony that he needs to be a boss and not a buddy? Of course I don't want a bunch of toxic miserable fucks back there because that can have an adverse affect on the shows, too, but seriously, there has to be a better way to boost locker room morale and maybe book an entertaining show at the same time. Like, Moxley's great post-All Out promo on Dynamite was a way to accomplish both things. Oh, and the match sucked, too.

Those injuries and departures would be more palatable if Tony wasn't so steadfast in his commitment to "long-term booking" and would fucking pivot once in awhile. Instead we have storylines put on hold forever because of Rey Fenix's elbow or--as it appears with Miro--Malakai Black's absence. Sometimes you have to chalk up the moment as being lost and move on to something else.

Probably trying to get an "in" to see if they can buy it out like they tried the first time they wanted to set up NXT Japan.