June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804755 As someone who's probably never seen a prime Bruno match what 2-3 would you recommend? From the recent Bruno Collection on the Network: 3/7/77 - Bruno vs Ken Patera 8/1/77 - Bruno vs Billy Graham (Any match with Graham is pretty good)
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804759 I read a lot of guys on the internet and in the dirtsheets (as well as wrestlers' autobiographies) where they called Bruno an average or mediocre worker. I disagree and I think he is fucking awesome. I could watch him wrestle for hours. It is very tricky appearing like a superman in the ring without fatiguing the audience or ultimately sucking out all the heat from your matches. Bruno mastered that trick his entire career, including his late 1980s matches. Meltzer wrote that as far as selling tickets in the same territory for the longest time, he is the greatest draw in history, and I am not surprised. No one has ever personified the ace role the way Bruno did. You could tell that he absolutely owned the WWWF. I would love a podcast episode dedicated solely to him.
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804762 I would love a podcast episode dedicated solely to him. Jericho just did a 2 hour podcast this week with Bruno at his favorite restaurant . Great listen. Seriously this man needs the full dvd treatment. https://player.fm/series/talk-is-jericho/bruno-sammartino
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804766 How fucking hard is it to write BAYLEY as A HAPPY PERSON? That's the whole problem right there. The issue with WWE. They got 20 or so "writers", and apparently, none of them are worth shit. As much as some matches can be great these days, the booking, sorry, "writing" is dumb, uninteresting and overall, pretty awful (going back to the "art" argument, if we judge WWE by its stories, acting, dialogues, it's barely above your classic 90's porn in term of quality). Has been the case since WWE became what it is in the very early 00's. No one should "write" Bayley. They should just let her be, and work around that. Easy as fuck. "Creative writing" is the worst thing that ever happened to pro-wrestling. (again, we can credit, at least in partly, Vince Russo, who was the first non pro-wrestling guy "writing" pro-wrestling TV)
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804767 that is the thing I don't get. I really don't mean to imply that I would be better at it or to be overly critical of other people's work, but the flatness of WWE's writing on the whole constantly baffles me. Sure, they set up all kinds of hurdles for themselves (3 hours of raw... etc...), but with so many writers and soooooo many resources, there just doesn't seem to be an excuse for this. I assume it is more a problem with micromanagement of writers and of the product more than anything because I just can't believe that there aren't talented writers that are passionate about and understand wrestling that can put together something better than what we USUALLY get.
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804775 What is baffling is with the average quality level of TV series these days, they are so behind the times on about every level imaginable. That's why Lucha Underground, with its B-movie/comics/pulp aesthetics and a guy like Dario Cueto looks a zillion times more relevant and cool, whatever you may think of the actual quality of the matches (of course no-one seems to be watching it either, but that's another issue)
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804780 Looks like we're getting two years of WWE ECW soon as well. That rules. It'll be a shame to wait for a while for the years it was actually good but I haven't seen those original, weird 2006 shows since they aired, pretty much.
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804790 I read a lot of guys on the internet and in the dirtsheets (as well as wrestlers' autobiographies) where they called Bruno an average or mediocre worker. I disagree and I think he is fucking awesome. I could watch him wrestle for hours. It is very tricky appearing like a superman in the ring without fatiguing the audience or ultimately sucking out all the heat from your matches. Bruno mastered that trick his entire career, including his late 1980s matches. Meltzer wrote that as far as selling tickets in the same territory for the longest time, he is the greatest draw in history, and I am not surprised. No one has ever personified the ace role the way Bruno did. You could tell that he absolutely owned the WWWF. I would love a podcast episode dedicated solely to him. This podcast is 3 hours of Bruno talk, all about the recent Network collection. Beat that Y2J! http://placetobenation.com/mount-olympus-summer-2017-sammartino-the-legend-lives/
June 22, 20178 yr comment_5804797 What is baffling is with the average quality level of TV series these days, they are so behind the times on about every level imaginable. That's why Lucha Underground, with its B-movie/comics/pulp aesthetics and a guy like Dario Cueto looks a zillion times more relevant and cool, whatever you may think of the actual quality of the matches (of course no-one seems to be watching it either, but that's another issue) I agree on this. I am way behind on Lucha Underground, but I love it. I bought the first two seasons on iTunes right before they came up on Netflix. It is such a different thing to me. There are lots of pieces of that I don't love or that are really inconsistent, but the sum far exceeds the parts. They are so outside the box and - as you point out - culturally wired in and current that I can't help but love it. I also saw Dario Cueto (or the dude who plays him, more accurately) on a commercial for one of those companies that comes and cleans up after disasters (I think that is what it was for).
June 24, 20178 yr comment_5804953 One of the MSG shows is missing. When I click on the 12/79 show, it brings up one from two years earlier instead.
June 24, 20178 yr comment_5804954 One of the MSG shows is missing. When I click on the 12/79 show, it brings up one from two years earlier instead. The 79 show works fine for me. The 12/77 date is very similar, sure you didn't click on the wrong one.
June 24, 20178 yr comment_5804971 Positive. When the card starts it says it's from 12/77 on top. I'm using an Amazon Fire TV stick so it could just be limited to that, unless it's been corrected by now.
July 4, 20178 yr comment_5806150 Did anybody see the new Ride Along last night? It was actually really funny. Sheamus is actually pretty humorous, and his relationship with Cesaro is fun to watch, the way they bicker back and forth.
July 6, 20178 yr comment_5806265 Another MSG show from 1977 appeared, and the WWE Network News site (who normally is right about these things) says the July dump is set for the 10th with WWE ECW and perhaps some WCCW stuff.
July 6, 20178 yr comment_5806331 Forbes: Massive WWE Leak Exposes 3 Million Wrestling Fans' Addresses, Ethnicities And More
July 7, 20178 yr comment_5806392 Watching the MSG shows it hit me, is there anyone in wrestling who deteriated as fast as Billy Graham? In 1978 he's still Superstar looking like the guy Hulk would crib 90% of his gimmick from, but five years later in 1983 he's Kung Fu Billy looking like he's in the end stage of a terminal disease.
July 7, 20178 yr comment_5806403 Mike Von Erich after surviving the toxic shock syndrome would probably have him beat. I read a rumor once that Billy injected himself with Clorox on a bet.
July 7, 20178 yr comment_5806431 Has WWE secretly added extra footage into the Attitude Era Raws? I could have sworn the April 13th 1998 episode ended like the TV version was but now im seeing a extra 8 man tag match featuring DX & Kane vs LOD, Austin & Undertaker.
July 7, 20178 yr comment_5806440 A few have bonus footage that was for the live crowd after TV ended, might have been that.
July 7, 20178 yr comment_5806441 Also I've noticed that several of the Old School shows that have gone up have the "presented in the best condition possible" disclaimer. I wonder if that means they are going through the archives seeing what shape the oldest stuff is since I've always heard the WWWF collection doesn't go much past 1975 or so in any kind of usable shape.
July 7, 20178 yr comment_5806452 WWE.com: WWE 24 - Kurt Angle: Homecoming on WWE Network to feature Dixie Carter
July 8, 20178 yr comment_5806505 A few have bonus footage that was for the live crowd after TV ended, might have been that. The extra bits have been on there for a few years but I didnt notice that one before. I think there is another one that got added like Austin destroying Vince's Wheelchair and Shamrock & Shane getting Stunners.
Create an account or sign in to comment