El-P

This pro-Vince bias is hilarious at this point. Anyone not realizing that Verne made Hogan a star is delusionnal as fuck. Vince made Hulkamania as much as Hulkamania made Vince. And yeah, Riki Choshu in the 90's blows pretty much all these guys out of the water anyway.

Sabu = Greatest things ever, the icon of ECW. Crowd ate it up. Then. "Oh, fuck Sabu because he's not showing up !". And the crowd ate it up. Then. Sabu's back, handshake, he's the greatest thing ever. And the crowd ate it up. Heyman could do whatever he wanted. Did we mention 911 yet ?

Heyman tricked people into thinking the Public Enemy were a big deal and that Taz was the baddest motherfucker alive. If that's not mastery over crowd and producing, I don't know what is.

The sing-along catchphrases was one of the worst thing that happened to pro-wrestling. "What" being the absolute worst. It killed promos for years.

That's a pretty interesting point. For the influence of 90's All Japan on 21st century US wrestling, the crowds could not have been more different. A Tokyo salaryman in 1994 and a US student from Orlando in 2016 are indeed two very different people. There's no reason why they would react the same way. The indy workers of the 00's aped AJ (often for a lot of wrong reasons) as the indy crowds evolved from the ECW mold. They were at the same place at the same time, maybe having watched the same matches, but ones were workers, others were just fans. As the workers didn't really work like Misawa & Co, they also didn't work in front of the same kind of audience Misawa & Co did (at all, on every degree). As the indy mentality and tropes slowly sneaked their ways into the mainstream, there's no reason why a big WWE crowd would act like an All Japan crowd from the 90's when they see Nakamura for instance, or when Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn are having their "indiffied" matches. There's absolutely no link between the two kind of crowds.

That's exactly what they are doing with the Network. WWE fans are submerged with hours of programming.

Cinema & TV series are not pro-wrestling. They don't work the same. So, culture shift on a whole don't affect something as major and diverse as cinema and something as low-brow and minor and specific as pro-wrestling the same way.

This has nothing to do with pro-westling. TV series/cinema analogy just don't work.

(Game of Thrones sucks)

This. Today, what I want from pro-wrestling is basically Lucha Underground. This is the most fun I had watching current pro-wrestling since I was following ARSION (through buying tapes) in the late 90's/early 00's.

Yes. But still. It was a crowd not happy but a business decision who shat on an entire show and did a "smart" chant akin to people chanting CM Punk in WWE just after he left.

When the people chanted "We Want Flair" in 1990, was that one because of Gabe, Heyman & Russo too ?

They filmed some Total Divas in Paris ? Interesting. Wonder where they went. Well, probably not in the places I used to go.

Jeff Jarrett vs Jeff Hardy (NWA title match - TNA 09/08/04) Jeff Hardy being treated like a megastar when he really had not been anything but a stuntman tag champ in WWF was really the first occurence of TNA making themselves look like WWE fetichists (there had been the D-Lo push, but it was more filler). Add the fact Hardy really looked poor in the few matches he had to that point, the last weekly PPV, and you got all the recipe for a wimper of a match. The entire PPV had been quite bad thus far too, easily the worst in months. Begins with an endless brawl involving security during the introduction, because this is so intense, you see, the biggest match of TNA, of Hardy's and Jarrett's career. I don't get Hardy at all. I know I'm not the right audience, but still. He should never try to punch. The thing is, he looks sloppy and works like he looks. I can't think one thing he's particulary good at. His flying looks pathetic compared to most of the X div guys. His striking is awful. I guess he can get sympathy from the girls. He does idiotic moves modifications (the Hardys & Edge, damn them). This was a complete nothing match, one of Jarrett's worst (after he had some really good stuff a few months before), with crappy pacing, going nowhere during an endless Korakuen walk brawling sequence leading to Hardy hitting his finisher so Jarrett can kickout (ah ah). Then Hardy kicks out of the Stroke (surprising somewhat, Jarrett can be carnier than this). Then a figure four with zero preparation of course. Then Hardy doing a sloppy looking crab. Run-ins from Dusty, Russo. Guitar shot. Even for a Double J Special, it was bad. Jarrett looked his old bad self from late 03 and Hardy looked like crap. This is a sad ending to the weekly PPV era, which had some good stuff buried in there.

ADR = all time GOAT if true, You don't call him El Patron for nothing. I wonder who took the others finisher though. (can't wait for the Alberto Youshoot V2.0, he was such the clean family one in version 1)

Mental picture of three ways between ADR, Paige & Eva Marie.

Announcing that the complexion of the match has totally changed.

I agree, and it usually makes me laugh which is surely not the intended reaction. Thirded. One reason the Austin vs Bret match is so great is that they really didn't work it that way.

Agreed. To me it's Sid's hour of glory. He never look more like an actual star than on this night. I love the asshole NYC crowd too here.

I haven't seen it in ages, but yeah, that's what it seemed to be the last time I watched it. Wasn't blown away at all.

I thought it was about promotions you only wached as it happened. So, I have to add : AJPW 80-90s NJPW 80-90s Doh ! FMW, from start to finish (well, until the Hayabusa accident let's say) UWF/UWF/UWF I/RINGS, shoot-style heaven and that sort of things. Zenjo 90's, when the women were better than most men JWP until the curse crashed them down : see above, with that underdog feel (and those dead crowds at points too) And of course, I forgot, my beloved Lucha Underground.

I thought about that bit quite often during that thread. It never gets old to me.

Alert. Parv is now quoting himself. The current revisionism about Meltz is the best though. I'd guess pretty much none of us would be here today without the evil snowflake culture and nerdy breaking down of matches and angles. But I guess some people believe in transcendance in pro-wrestling analysis.

I want to reevaluate Giant Gonzalez. Not actually. But I like the idea. I loved his droning music in WWF.

That's the Meltzerian history you're refering too. The one of "official good work". The "workrate history", in essence. Just saying.