Robert S

He makes Earl Hebner look understated when it comes to putting the focus on him. Speaking of World Class refs, I was shocked to see Bronko Lubich take a ref bump (pushed by Kevin no less) on one of the 84 shows. I figured he was like a turtle and would never be able to get up again. Manning and Lubich are literally the "unstoppable force" and the "immovable object".

(diggressing even further) The case of the name of "Germany" in different languages is especially interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany Basically there are 6 completely different origins for currently used names for Germany: (1) one derived from an old high German word; this version is the source for "Deutschland" and is used in most German languages (except English) (2) one derived from Latin / Greek which results in Germany, for example; except in English it's used in south-eastern European languages (e.g. Italian, Greek, Romanian, Russian ...) and languages that derived the name from the English word (e.g. Hindu, Malay ...). (3) one derived from the name of the Alamanni tribe; this version is mostly used in western Europe (Spanish, French ...) and languages that imported this via Turkish (Turkish, Arabic, Tatar ...). (4) one derived from the name of the Saxon tribe; this is basically used by Finnic languages (Finnish, Estonian and smaller groups) (5) one derived from a Slavic term, used in eastern Europe (mostly in Slavic languages, but also in Hungarian; Turkish and Arabic use this term for Austria) (6) one common among Latvian and Lithuanian languages Regarding Nippon/Nihon and Japan: looking a bit over the Wikipedia article this seems to have to do with some complicated interactions between China and Japan and Europeans as early as Marco Polo were using some variations of names used in China. The Nippon -> Nihon change seems to have happened within the last couple of centuries (Wikipedia says in the Edo period, which means 17th to 19th century). Considering that both pronounciations are still in use (60-40 in favor of Nihon) and apparently younger people tend to use Nihon I would assume that 19th century is more realistic than 17th century.

A big problem with this match is that they began with the big spots (the stuff including the moving scaffold or whatever you want to call that). Obviously afterwards they lost a lot of heat.

Any show that has a 20 minute Wrestlecrap segment like the ambulance crash angle can not be great by default.

I thought the most funny thing was that in the gif Trump is beating up the husband of one of his cabinet members or alternatively that he is beating up his number two donor.

That was Otto himself as I don't think I have seen an episode with Michael announcing and I very much remember the "Big Otto" (though I think he only used that term for any kind of splash, charge or senton). Anyway when watching NJPW on Eurosport I somehow got the idea that Liger was the Japanese Hogan as every episode I watched ended with Liger winning in a decisive manner (plus he had the superstar presentation and aura).

The psychology / story behind this was a bit strange. What were the heels trying to achieve here? The finish was "let's help guy A win the match" - guy A kicks out / pinfall is interrupted by the heels - "let's help guy B win the match" - guy B kicks out / pinfall is interrupted by the heels - repeat. I noticed here that Jericho has some cool offense that I don't think anyone is doing anymore. Especially the Tito Santana style flying foreman is a move that some today's babyface should really kick up. Maybe Kofi Kingston as it's a real cool move to lead to a hot tag.

How old is Breaks? The linked article says both 80 and 88. His Cagematch profile only has the year of his in-ring debut (1954).

As bad as this looks on paper this was even worse in execution. It's so funny that while the show ends "We're Not Gonna Take It" is playing in the background. I would guess there were loads of WCW fans back in 2000 who thought exactly that after the segment (and the show) was finished.

As great as the angle way there is the giant logic-hole why the APA and Jericho did nothing while Hebner was terrorized and beaten up. (okay, considering their gimmick you could say that the APA was backstage getting drunk, playing cards and not care about anything going on in the ring)

You would assume so. By the way: I loved that the siblings of a native American are played by a Puerto Rican and a Caucassian. There is nothing more pro wrestling than that.

Any show that allows you to shout "Iran number one" at the TV as a response to a question asked is a win in my book.

True, from that point of view is better than 50% of the WWE announcers. On one NXT show I was starting timing the duration between Watson saying anything during matches. I think the average was something like 2 minutes (and when he was saying something he was just stating the obvious).

He will replace Phillips, I would assume. (a) it does not make sense to have two PBP guys on the team and ( Watson is the token black guy on the crew (I know that reads racist, but that is exactly why he is on the team).

According to cagematch the Destroyer here is the Cuban Assassin.

Regarding the Austria deal: there are people who are much more qualified to comment on this (Indikator who posts semi-regularly on this board for example) but here is my interpretation of the thing: (1) From my understanding CWA ran mostly middle/eastern Austria (Vienna and Graz were the most regular stops with long "tournaments", additionally spot shows in smaller towns happened - though "spot show" meant 2 or 3 shows on successive days at the same place instead of 10-30) while Innsbruck is in western Austria. (on cagematch I found results from a CWA show in Innsbruck in 1991, though I would assume this was at most a once a year deal) (2) The shows targeted a completely different audience: US wrestling was starting to get big in Germany and Austria in 93 (mostly among kids), so the WWS tour was a try to make money from that. The CWA targeted a more adult crowd. (3) CWA did not have television to promote their shows so their shows usually targeted local crowds. Cagematch lists the promoters of the WWS as Alex Valdez, Bob Yorey and Peter Hirschler. I have to admit I have never heard or read a single of these three names before, though at least for the last name I found a funny 14 year old post on a German message board (Hirschler sold wrestling shows to local promoters for good money; the deal always included Hirschler's band to play at the event).

Fun match, though not worked the way I hoped it would be (champion working a guy several levels in ranking below him), at least in the second half of the match. It turned a bit too much in HHH vs. the world (Kaientai, APA, Hebner) for my taste. By the way: what was going on with Hebner doing a David Manning tribute peformance here?

Eddie is looking outstanding here, the best I have seen from him in his couple of WWF appearances to this point. Strange that they decided to do almost the same finish as the week before (ref bump, Chyna low-blows and DDTs Jericho, Jericho sells it forever).

The finish made Jericho look very dumb and weak. First he accepted a fast-count from a non-referee as the end of the match and then he had to sell a low-blow and a DDT from Chyna like death.

I have just realized that Jarret and Hall had 9 ladder matches on house shows against each other within 3 weeks or so. You don't really consider ladder matches as a house show gimmick. From what I have seen on History of WWE the only comparable thing is the HBK vs. Hall houseshow run in December 93 / January 94 (they had 8 ladder matches within a months; plus there were two Hall vs. IRS ladder matches, on in Dec. 93 and one in Feb. 94).

I have seen to many ladder matches in my life to get excited about this. The match was solid and except the spot where the table did not break they did not do anything stupid, which I suppose is a plus for an indy TV ladder match. The "RKO OUT OF NOWHERE" spot made me laugh (though I suppose DDP did this version of the diamond cutter before).

Matches like these are the best prove that Liger is one the best of all time and very likely the best Japanese junior heavyweight wrestler of all time. He made Tiger Mask, a decent but not exceptionally good wrestler, look like a million bucks here. Liger not squashing his opponent here to me is more of a story of being a different character in this multi-promotional tournament setting (the character of the junior heavyweight ace to beat by the younger guys, but still a guy who can be seriously challenged - similar as in the first two J-Cups: in 94 had a match with a similar story against Hayabusa and in 95 against Naniwa) compared to the character he portrayed in New Japan at that time (the junior heavyweight ace who wants to prove that fighting all these other guys is below him and that he rather should face heavyweights).

This turned out being much weaker than it looked on paper. SUWA as a heel here did not work half as good as he does in Toryumon and some of the stuff the two here did together did not look all that sharp.

It's easy to see who Hayashi's favorite wrestler was. He should have called himself Pegasus Kaz. Funny that Michinoku Pro did not acknowledge that Hayashi was the former Shiryu. At least they did not show any old clips from him for the introduction and I could not hear the announcers use the name Shiryu.