Matt D

If anything draws in 2020, is it real life heat?

I know we have some footage of Strangler Lewis. Are there any matches/footage where we can see how he utilized the headlock and built a match around it?

I feel like CMLL has candidates. Negro Casas had the team with Santo, the Mistico team, and the overachieving team with Shocker (mainly vs Ingobernables) and a million trios matches. Likewise Ultimo Guerrero. Or a guy like Mephisto.

Tell them we're not home.

I'd argue that 2010s WWE Main Roster Tag Wrestling is basically broken anyway, with a majority of matches where 2/3rds of the match is an extended finishing stretch.

Something something Houston Footage.

Literally the only Demolition (Ax + Smash) matches NOT worth watching are the Powers of Pain ones. Every other rivalry either has good matches or something you can learn, with the only other real exceptions things like Bolsheviks (just as short TV squash or two), Orient Express (Supertape match where Demos eat them alive), or Young Stallions (Just not much there). These are all 8 minute nothing matches that usually end in a DDQ or double count out. In general, the real value and worth of Demolition is to see how they vary their in-ring act against different opponents (they wrestle the Twin Towers differently than the Brainbusters; they wrestle the Killer Bees differently than the Hart Foundation) , but there's just nothing doing with the PoP matches.

Does anyone know if this audio recording exists? WCW @ Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - March 6, 1992 (5,000; 2,000 paid) Broadcast live with play-by-play via Cable Radio Network by Dynamite D Richard Morton pinned Johnny B. Badd with a roll up at the 10-minute mark Marcus Alexander Bagwell pinned Terrence Taylor with an inside cradle at the 10-minute mark Abdullah the Butcher defeated Cactus Jack via count-out Mr. Hughes & Vinnie Vegas defeated Ron Simmons & Big Josh when Vegas pinned Josh after Harley Race interfered Barry Windham pinned Larry Zbyzsko in a Death Match at the 3-minute mark Dustin Rhodes, Rick & Scott Steiner defeated WCW TV Champion Steve Austin, WCW Tag Team Champions Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton in an elimination match; Rhodes and Austin were both counted out; Scott Steiner was disqualified for throwing Anderson over the top rope; Rick pinned Eaton with a powerslam; Rick pinned Anderson with a clothesline WCW US Champion Rick Rude pinned WCW World Champion Sting in a non-title steel cage match at the 12-minute mark after hitting Sting with Paul E. Dangerously's phone

I don't have a great sense of Virus in the last few years. More of the same really. He's had more indy maestros matches as he's treated a bit more like an old guy. No title run, which is a shame. That means no CMLL singles matches basically. What major footage dumps have we gotten over the last few years? We had the last year of the Houston footage, right? The Japanese handhelds and some 77-83 or so TV we didn't have before. WWE Hidden Gems. German footage 80s-90s. French footage obviously. Some lucha.

All of those first matches back for Bryan were fascinating, just in the decisions of what he kept and what he got rid of, etc. I imagine there's some value in overachieving during the no-crowds era too.

At least they give proper credit to Martin and Kai.

There's some good Loss and Dylan stuff here on Toyota:

I was the voice in the darkness re: Brock. No one listened.

Wait, how often do we just get one fall when it’s not JIP?

Yeah, that was about eight minutes of pure entertainment. He's definitely my kind of heel, always on, totally committed, and able to be both dangerous and credible with his offense and a complete coward when he loses advantage. He was lightning quick when taking offense, like how he was ready for Lawrence's initial somersault, but then he was just as quick to try to dive behind the ref when the tide turned. And the fans responded accordingly. A group of female fans in the front row throwing jelly beans at a heel because he tried to pull the tights to get a pin is the most 1950s Americana thing possible. Thanks for the heads' up.

Will do. Thanks for the heads up.

It’s a great run. Much easier to devour than his Avengers run. Do Kieron Gillen’s Journey Into Mystery after that.

Geez, I think all I did back then was post about comics. https://web.archive.org/web/20051228102744/http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showuser=561

Zack Gibson responding to everyone in that thread about board games is pretty wholesome.

It’s politics and video games and managers at your local Walmart too. What’s important is that people are speaking out and the efforts to clean things up. It’s better to stay engaged and promote reform than to try to find something to love that is somehow pristine. You would think the nature of lies and kayfabe and men in power might make wrestling worse but I’m not sure that would shake out.

I don't have much to add here because I'm so distanced from modern wrestling. When we've talked about separating the artist from the art in years' past, the biggest stumbling block for people has always tended to be personal connection (as in I can't really watch Benoit but I can watch Invader I no problem, and those are both cases where the work actually has a connection to who they are or what they did). This is widespread, in everyone's face, horrific in a different way considering the breadth and nature of the acts and the victims and the people turning a blind eye or protecting this, and it comes at a time where wrestlers and fans are closer than ever. Social media and so many wrestlers coming out of fandom really broke that divide so these are people that a lot of you feel like you know. Moreover, as many of us are older, these are generally people our age or younger which gives everything a slightly different feel than maybe Lawler or Flair, whether it should or not. For those who are feeling terrible about their own reactions, we're all only human. You can't help how you feel but like Jerome said, it's good you're aware of it, and what matters is how you act in response to it. This is the time for the community to vet, for people who are engaged with current wrestling as fans to put their money and watching time in positive places, to foster talents that reach the hopefully (but apparently not) low bar of decency and responsibility. I think that this is a direction a lot of current fans (especially younger ones) were heading anyway, with such a focus on inclusion and diversity instead of just workrate.

I'm seeing coverage places I wouldn't normally see coverage. I half wonder if this might not be the moment it does reach Vince, to be honest. I think we're going to hit Trump's rally and potential protests this weekend and there'll just be so much news it gets drowned out from a mainstream perspective though.

So the 27 minute Thesz vs Ruffy Silverstein match they posted an hour after the Gunkel match doesn't have any thanks/name attributed to it. I wonder if once they digitized one, they just kept going?

Where did this end up? And how do we learn more.