On 12/30/2019 at 7:48 AM, gordi said:

Dragon Gate wrestler "The Speed Star" Yoshino is reportedly retiring next year. If I understand correctly, he's been dealing with a neck injury and nerve damage for a couple of years now and that is the reason he's choosing to retire. 

He missed 2  months back in 2017 due to a neck injury, it was a miracle he even came back and ridiculous that he came back after only 2 months he was expected to be out for 6-12 months. He has been living on borrowed time ever since.

4 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Oh, dear.

Rumor is he got busted for possession of kiddie porn. There's all sorts of info/rumors/speculation on Twitter. And yes, he is Drew Gulak's brother for those who are unaware.

 

There's an investigation going on and some folks have come forward, but wrestling Twitter is doing an admirable job not going all TMZ on this story and actually letting it play out in the legal system.

I asked this over at DVDVR, but want to hear opinions here, too. 

There's always talk of how great Flair was at taking a limited/mediocre/bad worker and carrying them to good matches.

Has there ever been anyone better than Daniel Bryan at taking an uninterested/apathetic crowd and making them get into a match?

28 minutes ago, Log said:

I asked this over at DVDVR, but want to hear opinions here, too. 

There's always talk of how great Flair was at taking a limited/mediocre/bad worker and carrying them to good matches.

Has there ever been anyone better than Daniel Bryan at taking an uninterested/apathetic crowd and making them get into a match?

He's up there, but to be honest you gotta give props to Hogan for being able to get the reactions he got from 80s WWF crowds that usually had to sit through brutal tapings to get to his match. 

 

45 minutes ago, sek69 said:

He's up there, but to be honest you gotta give props to Hogan for being able to get the reactions he got from 80s WWF crowds that usually had to sit through brutal tapings to get to his match. 

 

As someone who sat through one of those tapings, I think there's a difference.  Most of us were there to see Hogan.  The rest of the dudes were awesome too and had fans, but seeing Hogan live was the draw.  Now, it's a WWE show that's a draw.  Fans aren't just bored, they're actively hostile.  Bryan can get them back into a match.

Ricky Steamboat would have to be up there as well. He woke up a dead crowd during his tag match at Starrcade 1992 and turned around a largely pro-Flair crowd at Chi-Town Rumble, to name a couple of examples.

Also Bryan should be getting more props for inheriting the broomstick ability from Flair, he has good matches with guys who don't seem to be able to have good matches with anyone else in WWE. 

Bret Hart in the 80s, when he wasn't exactly a major part of the WWF cast of characters, was involved in quite a few tag and singles matches that started with the crowd not giving a shit and ended with them popping for everything and totally into match 

I know people are gonna shake their head and think I'm crazy but...

For a couple years there, Matt Hardy was a guy I often found to be quite good at making rather cold matches/feuds huge with live crowds. I used to describe it this way: Matt Hardy may not have the best match on any night, but he never had the worst match on any show (I think that stopped at some point, but for awhile there, it was shockingly true - which might also have something to do with the WWE product from 02'-09'). And, in that time, he wrestled just about everybody - including lengthy rivalries with Kane, Snitsky, and others. Now, I'm not saying he's up there with Flair or Daniel Bryan, but considering Matt Hardy was often considered the less charismatic/dynamic Hardy and maintained the same ridiculous Hot Topic look WWWELL past its expiration date, he deserves some credit for keeping fans engaged when a lesser worker could've ended up like Scotty 2 Hotty or The Dudleys or all the other guys who got good responses in 2002 but were clearly getting lukewarm-at-best responses by 05'. 

WTF, does Necro Butcher have AIDS? What happened to him? Meth?

38 minutes ago, Coffey said:

WTF, does Necro Butcher have AIDS? What happened to him? Meth?

Meth and Hepatitis seems to be the consensus. Of course he still bled all over the place, cause you know...

Thankfully his opponent was just Shlak.

Proof that the Harts are just as sleazy and slimy as any other carny rasslin' family.

Slam Wrestling: Hart wrestling family's Calgary restaurant shuts down, owing staff thousands

Bret can easily afford to cut one check and pay everyone his deadbeat daughter stiffed. I don't think he should bail her out to keep a failing business afloat, but I do think he should make it right for all of the workers affected by her lack of business acumen and basic human decency.

Maybe she considered them independent contractors. (I kid, mostly)

22 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Proof that the Harts are just as sleazy and slimy as any other carny rasslin' family.

Slam Wrestling: Hart wrestling family's Calgary restaurant shuts down, owing staff thousands

Bret can easily afford to cut one check and pay everyone his deadbeat daughter stiffed. I don't think he should bail her out to keep a failing business afloat, but I do think he should make it right for all of the workers affected by her lack of business acumen and basic human decency.

That's not Bret's responsibility. She's a grown woman.

1 hour ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

 That's not Bret's responsibility. She's a grown woman.

Don't think the workers and families affected are going to take much comfort in that.

No, it's not Bret's responsibility, but he can easily make it right. 

His daughter may be a grown woman in age, but she certainly isn't one in maturity or behavior. 

2 hours ago, C.S. said:

Don't think the workers and families affected are going to take much comfort in that.

No, it's not Bret's responsibility, but he can easily make it right. 

His daughter may be a grown woman in age, but she certainly isn't one in maturity or behavior. 

So if a knucklehead in your own family does something stupid, you personally will be on the hook for it? Good to know. 

12 hours ago, Dooley said:

So if a knucklehead in your own family does something stupid, you personally will be on the hook for it? Good to know. 

1. Bret is a multi-millionaire.

2. It's his daughter - the fruit of his loins, daddy - not a random family member.

Bret's not obligated to do anything of course, but he is a Canadian hero and if nothing else it would be good PR if he stepped in and made good for the employees left in a lurch, but there might be some business related laws that would keep him from doing that (ie: if he steps in to help the workers he might end up on the hook for all the company debts). It might be different in Canada, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some kind of law like that since it always seems to favor business in those situations.

I'm sure I could google this and find answers, but since my knowledge of Japanese wrestling is pretty limited and this board is full of knowledgeable people, I will ask here!

Whatever happened to Shoji Nakamaki and Hiroshi Ono?

I remember them from the Kawasaki Dream show, and they've popped up in other matches involving Funk and Cactus that I've watched, but did they do anything else in puroresu? 

I know they took a LOT of fucking stupid chair shots to the head in the matches I've seen, so I can only assume they didn't have long careers.

But I'm just curious. Were they always deathmatch guys? Did they go on to do anything of note? 

Appreciate any info!

Nakamaki retired in the early 2000s after spending most of the 90s bouncing from one sleazaresu/ garbage indy to another. He was sort of suposed to be like a poor man's Onita.  

Hiroshi Ono only worked IWA Japan for a few years and never popped up anywhere else. 

Prowrestlinghistory.com posted on their site that they are going to stop updating their supercard listings and concentrate on other aspects. There are a lot of places to find results but that's a shame, having all Wrestlemanias for example on one page was extremely convenient and their's is one of the most readable sites.

That site is still around? I don't think I have visited it in at least 10 years, though 20 years ago, it was a great source.

Is the footage of Jim Crockett Jr's attempted revival of the NWA in 94/95 at the Sportatorium out there and available?

I was just listening to an old podcast I did where we did a "Missy Hyatt fucked a lot of guys" joke and I cringed. I should have went with a "CM Punk was the Missy of the 2000's" but I failed.

I laugh every time ESPN shows the "athletes in other sports doing the Conor MacGregor strut" commercial and include Vince doing his Vince walk as if he wasn't doing that decades before Conor .