All Activity

Random-ish YouTube video: Audrey Hepburn on Johnny Carson Watch as the conversation sorta veers into and out of obvious awkwardness. People found out eventually that Carson was introverted off camera and Audrey is really quiet. Since this was when Carson was 90 minutes, watch them walk for 10+ minutes. Also, Audrey sounding really Dutch at points (well, that’s one of her native languages)

And this was before Thibs left his players in down 40 in the 2nd half.

Now, I will be the first to admit that we'd probably at BEST be 2-2 in this series, but goddamn has the reffing in the Panthers series been atrocious. My friend Josh, who is a panthers fan even texted me with "I can't even make a choking joke about the Bruins because I don't think we win that game if the ref didn't give that goal." Combine that with the sucker punch and yeah, I don't see the Panthers-Bruins rivalry going away anytime soon. I have a feeling at least once in 2024-25 we'll have a line brawl.

The Flair Paisanos thing would be an amazing thing for some wrestling fed to parody if not for one fed being run by a Ric Flair superfan and the other fed being one that kinda sorta employs Flair At the risk of the Bucks parodying the Paisanos video

Isn't this just his last year as a full time wrestler? Its not actual retirement he is doing as far as I can tell.

The replay featuring Murray staring at Kevin Harlan as he calls the shot is amazing.

Looking forward to Shingo Takagi vs. Henare, Jeff Cobb vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Best of the Super Juniors 31 final. See Tetsuya Naito challenging Jon Moxley at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2024.

C&P from f4wonline.com: Here is the updated lineup for Dominion, June 9th: IWGP World Heavyweight title: Jon Moxley defends against EVIL NEVER Openweight title: Shingo Takagi defends against Henare KOPW 2024: Yuya Uemura defends against Great-O-Khan NJPW World Television title: Jeff Cobb defends against Tomohiro Ishii Four-way tornado elimination match for IWGP & NJPW Strong Tag Team titles: ELP & Hikuelo (NJPW Strong Tag Team Champions) vs. KENTA & Chase Owens (IWGP Tag Team Champions) vs. TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls) vs. Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) Best of the Super Juniors 31 final.

I'm not quite so sure. He managed to move into digital realms with all the CGI monster movies and stay just as cheap, sleazy, and lowest-common-denominator. If it had his name, it was an extension, and if someone is putting out 1000 Gigantic Killer Spidersharks or whatever then there is still a derivative of Roger Corman floating around out there. Hell, if there is EXPLOITATION as CINEMA there will always be Roger Corman. He is the Big Bang for all of it, alongside William Castle, and probably going back a little further the Poverty Row films. You can't bury his influence. I love Roger, so much. Not just the directorial successes, whether I've seen them or not, like The Intruders or The Trip which I've still never watched. All the Poe films, especially The Masque of the Red Death (Fall and Pit were two of the first VHS tapes I ever owned). The Wild Angels, which I own the vinyl of the soundtrack to. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. And his productions? Death Race 2000. Humanoids from the Deep, which my parents took off my Xmas list and bought for me at the age of ten! Carnosaur, which I used my VHS copy of to allow a sampling of for a band's record one time. It's endless. He was the master.

I was just coming in to post that. He had clearly lost some ability to interact but the mind was all there. By the way, the man's voice to me was always pure ASMR. I got the chills every time I heard him speak and wanted to hear him for hours. This, obviously not the same, but still.

Eat My Dust is on YouTube. Silly and dumb but fun. Not to be confused with

Movies today... Francine (Mubi, leaving tonight) - movie isn't about ECW's Francine. We The Animals (Hulu, leaving this week) Karen Dalton: In My Own Time (Criterion Channel, leaving at the end of the month) Started Lover For A Day on Mubi but asshole neighbors are blasting music from their car.

NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 5 4 2024 IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Jon Moxley (C) vs Ren Narita https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8xzswq There is more current NJPW on Dailymotion, but not a lot.

Starrcade ’98 notes: I can scarcely believe that I’ve nearly made it through another full year of WCW television. I can see a light at the end of this tunnel. Oops, the light is blocked now. Hey, wait, is that a train called 1999 WCW coming toward me? Are you ready for some pro wrestling? Or instead, are you ready for Bret Hart, Scott Steiner, and Chris Jericho shilling a live QVC show for later in the week? I sure hope you answered that second one. I forgot to mention that the desk has reported that the Four Horsemen are banned from the arena aside from Ric Flair. Gene Okerlund and Bob Ryder have some further SCOOPZ~ if you ae so inclined to shell out some cash. *shhh* Hush, everyone. We’ve caught a sight of a truly rare beast – a hot opening Cruiserweight match on a WCW show! No, no, hold your voice down. You might scare it away if we’re not careful. Rey Misterio Jr. gets his own entrance theme tonight as he prepares to face Juvi Guerrera and Billy Kidman. Juvi is a dick to the babyfaces, so Kidman goes over to Rey and is like, Let’s fuck this dude up. They proceed to fuck Juvi up, until the point at which Rey mistimes a forearm and he and Kidman throw blows. That loudmouth Juvi gets right in front of them and cheers them on, so they punch him. Heh, that was a pretty good spot! Otherwise, I am not inclined to call this sometimes wild series of spots. Some cool stuff happens, but I’ll save my words for only the coolest of stuff. Some of these spots are contrived, but I’ll do my best to ignore those. Juvi is really funny tonight; he is able to counter an exchange by double bulldogging his opponents, then wearily crawls over to the corner and speaks to the camera: “[in pain, sucking in some air] Whooooo [catches breath, winks]. Don’t worry, I got this. I got it.” I think I’m rooting for Juvi now? I really am a boilerplate normie American pro wrestling fan. The guy with enough charisma to make me laugh is the one whom I want to win. They work this match in a way that there’s not too much laying around for one person while the other two have a one-on-one match. It’s better structured like the early ECW triple threats where it’s worked like a perpetually shifting handicap match. I do wonder why they don’t have more elimination triple threats, which the early ECW ones did IIRC. That’s a better structure for this type of match than a straight first-pinfall-takes-all structure. Triple threats aren’t my favorite match type, to say the least, but this is a good one of those types of match. The crowd digs the athletic high spots, contrived-looking or not. They don’t cheer wildly, but there are a lot of OHHHHs and even a couple of OOH-WAHHHs. Then, here comes Eddy Guerrero. No, please, can we get a clean fucking finish, please? Pretty please? Charles Robinson leaves the ring to remonstrate with Eddy and misses a Kidman pinfall attempt on Juvi. Eddy takes off, slides into the ring, and reverses the pinning leverage with a lariat. Rey runs in and reverses that with a missile dropkick, then sells his knee being injured due to the dropkick, which allows Kidman to win. I can’t express to you how much that finish sucked. Terrible. After the match, Eddy verbally abuses Rey and Juvi alike. Juvi tries to remonstrate with Eddy, but Eddy shoves him down. Why do they always make Juvi look like a punk-ass bitch in these angles? Eddy challenges Kidman to a title match, and Kidman comes back out to the ring and says they can have one right now. Eddy begs off because he’s not in his gear, but Kidman’s like, You’re talking so big, fight me right now, you bum. But I wrote it better than he said it. So here we go, we have match number two of the night. Eddy jumps on Kidman and tries to kill him off quickly. Juvi and Rey are still at ringside, and Juvi tries to help Eddy get leverage on an abdominal stretch, but Rey puts a stop to that. Eddy gets distracted by Rey being so unhelpful to him that he goes outside and confronts him, then barks at Juvi some more. In the ring, Kidman makes a comeback and is only stopped when Juvi distracts him and Eddy hits a chop block. Eddy takes back over and commences on a methodical beatdown. Kidman makes one more comeback with a bulldog counter. He tries a sleeper, but Eddy jawbreakers his way out of it immediately. Eddy unties his boot so that he can slip it off after a Kidman flurry and clock Kidman with it as Kidman charges in. He pretends that it accidentally came off, calls for a time out to put it back on, and fires it at a protesting Rey. That takes a lot of time, so by the time he finally covers, he only gets two. Eddy hits a brainbuster, but gets caught going up for a Frog Splash and can’t fight off a Kidman superplex. Kidman can’t do much to follow up and ends up in a leg bar near the ropes, but Rey uses that boot that Eddy fired at him to swing at Eddy and break the hold. I’m somewhat impressed that Eddy’s working this match in jeans and a single boot and still doing athletic spots. Kidman counters an Eddy powerbomb attempt – of course – and comes back yet again. Heenan is generous enough to compare Kidman’s determination to keep fighting to DDP’s. A Kidman guillotine legdrop gets two, but Eddy blocks a top-rope Frankensteiner. Spyder runs out and distracts the ref as Kidman pushes Eddy away from a superplex attempt so that Juvi can crotch Kidman. That’s good for Eddy! What’s bad for Eddy is that Rey shoves Eddy off the ropes when Eddy tries to follow up, and Kidman lands an SSP for the win. I suppose I can’t complain about them putting a new babyface over so strongly even if it is bland-ass Kidman, but man, this lWo angle is a total drag, and it’s dragging down these Cruiserweight title matches. You don’t need to play a hype video for Kevin Nash versus Goldberg right now. We’re already hyped! We purchased the PPV! Norman Smiley on Starrcade. Ah, the world just feels right sometimes, doesn’t it? He faces Prince Iaukea again in a filler match that is acceptable. The fans love the hell out of the Big Wiggle, though. Tony S., in a low voice after seeing the Big Wiggle: “That’s kind of obscene, really.” I mean, while he does that dance, Smiley hits his O-face (not Athena’s diving stunner, an actual O-face), so yeah, it is kind of obscene. The crowd digs this guy because he’s charismatic as fuck and does a lot of dancing, some of it admittedly obscene. Smiley does some more mat stuff, but people want to see the Wiggle and Smiley’s creepy O-face, dammit! The late ‘90s and pre-9/11 early aughts really had the right idea about hitting the nexus between “dumb” and “fun.” The story of this match is that Norman dominates, but he’s too busy smacking that imaginary ass to just stay in control and beat Iaukea, so Iaukea makes comebacks on the regular. Iaukea blocks a Norman Conquest attempt once, but not the second time, and Smiley is able to lock his fingers and score a tap-out victory. This is such a weird show! It’s the grand finale for the year’s storylines, but we are an hour through and have had three matches, one including Norman Smiley working a filler ten-minute match, and we end that first hour of the show on Scott Hall coming down and talking to the crowd about the poor choices that he’s made in 1998, both shoot and work. He’s also notably wearing an Outsiders t-shirt. Hmm… Hall cuts a wandering promo in which he promises to do better in 1999. If only! I’m baffled by the fact that we’re getting Nitro-style feud recaps on this PPV. Now we get a Nash/Bam Bam/Goldberg package that’s played on free television. I just don’t get the point of this except as a time filler. Which, come to think of it, we need for a nearly three-hour show that has so few matches promoted for it. Ernest Miller (w/Sonny Onoo) challenges a fan to a fight on his way to the ring. Said fan is a woman who looks to be over sixty. I acknowledge that this is boilerplate heeling, but Miller clearly has some charisma that he’s trying to unlock in whatever way he can. There are pro-Cat signs in the crowd, and when he says he’s the greatest, a few scattered cheers break through the boos. Saturn comes down, refuses to leave when the Cat gives him a five count, and in fact takes that five seconds to wind up a punch. Saturn drills the Cat, who makes to leave himself. Saturn turns to talk to Mickey Jay, and Miller runs back and slides into the ring to attack…but Saturn turns around as Miller slides right up to Saturn’s boots and then freezes with an AW, SHIT look on his face. The crowd laughs because it was a really funny spot! Miller tries every heel trick he can think of and pretty much eats boots and fists for them until he can get an eye poke in and start choking his opponent. Miller isn’t, like, the greatest (ha!) wrestler or anything, but I remembered him having a lot of use in late-era WCW as a midcard talent and authority figure, and this match is strangely sort of his coming out party in that regard. This is a classic heel performance in which the heel is quite unserious, but still dangerous: Lots of stalling, lots of cheating, lots of misdirection, and the occasional spot that shows that he actually does have a little bit of moxie, as when he steps back on a Saturn double-axe attempt and lands a side kick. Saturn basically dominates, but the Cat gets a little control and, rather than pressing his advantage properly, calls Onoo into the ring to kick Saturn. Miller holds Saturn, but not securely enough. Saturn moves, Onoo kicks Saturn, Miller kicks Onoo, and Saturn DVDs Miller for the victory. I’m going to plant this sucker squarely on the Charming Uniquity list. Ric Flair hits the aisle to chat with Gene Okerlund. Flair basically issues some somewhat graphic threats of violence toward Eric Bischoff. That Bischoff video from the start of the previous Nitro plays again. Weird show, like I said. It doesn’t feel like a Starrcade. Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell bust in on Konnan back in the locker room and threaten him. Lex Luger comes in wearing a fucking FUBU baseball jersey, hahahahaha, and tries to calm Konnan down. That is the first and last time that we see Lex Luger, Scott Steiner, or Buff Bagwell on this show, by the way. Crush and Scott Norton (w/Vincent) face, um, hold up, Finlay and Jerry Flynn? In a tag match? What the actual fuck?! Jerry Flynn got onto a Starrcade? I am baffled. How did the booking committee manage to book this show, with all the talent they have, like this? You can’t give me that Oh well, Bret and Rick Steiner got injured and Sting and Savage are out stuff. They have a deep well of talent. The match is fine, but it’s a fucking Thunder match on Starrcade. And why is Bret still the U.S. Champion? That’s a title match that we’re not having on this show for no discernible reason other than that the bookers just needed to shepherd the belt back onto an injured wrestler who can't work a match. This tag match involves Crush, so obviously, I’m not going to give you a whole detailed recap. Suffice it to say that Scott Norton pins Jerry Flynn with the powerbomb. “Rockhouse” plays as Scott Norton, Crush, and Vincent stand in the ring. In other news, “Rockhouse” is an anti-hype theme now. There are only seventy minutes left in this show somehow. They play Eric Bischoff’s music, and I think, alright, sure, let’s have this match. But no, Gene Okerlund is just going to interview him. Can you believe that they let Bischoff stay in charge of creative for nine more months? He cuts a bad promo that just eats up time. He also gets to mention the Clintons since we’re in D.C., which he thinks is the equivalent of a clever political reference because he’s kind of a dolt. Bischoff is a great salesperson, but he’s all artifice. He managed quite the career out of it, though! Bischoff cuts a promo that is basically that one Grantland article about how broke Flair actually is IRL. It finally, mercifully ends. We get a short reminder of Jericho acting like a dick toward Konnan through the magic of video before Jericho (w/Ralphus, Konnan’s TV Championship belt) comes to the ring to try and win the gold for real and for true. Jericho does some mic work to burn off time. He proclaims not to understand Konnan’s catchphrase roulette, which makes sense because he’s some dork from Manitoba who listens to Cheap fucking Trick like a complete cornball. Just as a true future Florida man would, he also tells Konnan to pull up his pants. I see Jericho’s getting a head start on cutting “dirty, disgusting, filthy, etc., etc., trashbag ho” style promos, and let me be the first to say NO THANK YOU. Then again, Konnan comes down and hits his Catchphrase Roulette, and it does suck. Konnan tries to run with Jericho to start, and I think that maybe they should both slow it down because they’re not exactly what I would call elite athletes. They do after a couple of minutes. We get a Jericho headlock. This match really comes off like a Nitro match more than anything. They try a little bit; Jericho eats some stairs that he set up for a move, for example. But the match goes by oddly quickly for a show with so much filler. Konnan blocks a Jericho Walls attempt, but he doesn’t duck a belt shot that only gets 2.9. That's about it for Jericho's chances; Konnan lands a back kick, a sit-out facebuster, and a Tequila Sunrise in short order for the win in a match that I can report did, in fact, happen. Lee Marshall interviews, and partially bigs up, the Giant on an interview backstage, but the Giant doesn’t like computer geeks (his words!), so it goes poorly for Marshall. Finally, they play ersatz “Iron Man” one more time so that we can get this Flair/Bischoff thing the hell out of the way. The right way to book this match is that Flair murders him in an eight-minute match, no interference, and Bischoff bleeds buckets. Instead, Bischoff gets an offensive move in that Flair sells by falling to the floor. NOPE. Why in the fuck is this even a remotely competitive match? Flair selling for Bischoff offense at all is bad, but Flair BLADING after Bischoff crashes Flair's head into the railing is ALL WRONG. I f I had to, I'd blame Flair for that spot. Knowing him, he probably insisted on blading because he has a strange understanding of pro wrestling sometimes. Flair summarily comes back, but this is just not the match that it should be. Oh look, we get a ref bump because Flair elbows the ref away while punching Bisch. How necessary. It feels like it is all too common for WCW matches to have ref bumps in them at this point. Flair must have Luger-type metal plates in his elbow because Charles Robinson has been out forever. He’s been out so long, in fact, that, get this – GET THIS – Curt Hennig’s worthless ass has plenty of time to run down and hand Bischoff some knucks while Bisch is in the Figure Four. Bischoff loads his fist and punches Flair, then squeaks out a pinfall victory when Robinson finally comes back to consciousness. MINUS FIVE STARS Also, please, somebody, anybody, Schiller, you dumb bastard, please fire Eric Bischoff already. I’m pleading with you. Ahem, no no, I’m totally composed, why are you asking? We get a Giant/DDP feud recap followed by their match. I have confidence that this match will be solid. Page isn’t a small guy, so he finds a way to backdrop Giant to the floor. The Giant is a hell of an athlete, man, especially when he’s trimmed down. The Giant tries to punch Page, but Page blocks it with a trash can that is, um, sitting in the middle of the front row? OK, sure. Page’s dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging doesn’t keep him from eventually getting caught, nor does it keep the Giant from trying to destroy Page’s knee. Because the Giant is so big, whenever he drops a limb across the knee, it just hits different than if other people do it. The Giant drops another elbow across Page’s knee and grapevines the leg. This is a solid match. It’s not amazing, but it’s decent. Page basically tries to fire up and gets crunched back to the mat by the Giant. It’s an obvious, but effective philosophy for this thing. I do think it was a mistake not to have Page’s opening run of offense go on a bit longer, though. The Giant does a boring bearhug that Page tries to make interesting by selling it even if Giant doesn’t bother to really work it. We get some more Giant control, and when Page slips out and tries to hit a Diamond Cutter, Giant pushes Page away and hits an absolute BEAUTY of a powerslam when Page comes back to him on the rebound. What a sick move that was. The Giant covers, but pulls Page up at two. Did this man learn nothing from fucking around at Starrcade two years ago and giving Luger the space and time to beat him? The Giant needs to drop the bearhug from his arsenal. He has all this dynamic looking offense, and then also this shitty bearhug. Page bites his way out of the bearhug, but tries a sunset flip that gets stuffed…and the Giant lifts Page up and hits a choke backbreaker. Sweet fuck, man, what a move! The Giant is my favorite MOVEZ~ guy ever, maybe. In his WCW era run, he consistently did these insane-looking power moves, a lot of which were visually creative. Giant casually goes to work on the Giant, but DDP hits a DDT out of a beal toss attempt. Page covers, but the Giant presses Page out of the pinfall and onto the ref. Bret Hart hobbles down and tries to hit Page with a chair shot while the ref is out, but Page dodges and the Giant takes a gross chair shot to the head, unprotected. No need to take that shot, especially on a show this poor. Even that chair shot only gets two, but Page lands a couple of top rope lariats and then calls for the Diamond Cutter. Page goes up top one more time and dives, but he dives right into a Giant goozle. The Giant manages to ignore Page desperately kicking him in the junk and hoists Page up top for a Super Chokeslam. You know what comes next – I’ve been waiting this whole feud for this to happen – as Page reverses the Super Chokeslam attempt into a falling Diamond Cutter and scores a victory. This was easily the best match on this show so far, and I’m not sure that it was remotely close. I suppose that Eddy/Kidman is a distant second, though I do have an affinity for Saturn/Cat. They re-run the same Nash/Goldberg promo from earlier before the main event. Yes, this would be a more appropriate place to run it, but you only need to run it once. That is, unless you’ve made a hash of booking this show and need to fill time. Michael Buffer brings Kevin Nash and Goldberg out for the main event. Buffer declares that though Nash is originally from Detroit, he’s got so many accolades and accomplishments, he is a CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. Why that is funny to me, I’m not sure, but it made me laugh. Maybe the disconnection between being a wrestling champ and a true citizen of the world? Maybe the seriousness with which Buffer said it? Who knows. Goldberg comes out, and the crowd prefers him to Nash based on their pre-match preening to the crowd. The aggrieved Nash fans do get a faint GOLDBERG SUCKS chant going. Goldberg fights out of a headlock by back suplexing Nash, so Nash takes a walk. The Goldberg fans start a louder NASH SUCKS chant. This is a plodding match that doesn’t feel like a big match, even with the hyped crowd. Maybe because I know there are a bunch of run-ins on the way, that’s dampened my own feelings toward this thing. There are a couple cool spots, though! Nash does his boot choke spot in the corner, and Goldberg just powers out of it by shoving Nash backward. They fight over submissions on the mat before we go back to some decent clubbering that isn’t the top-shelf stuff that I enjoy so much. Goldberg hits a spear about five minutes in and signals for the Jackhammer. Nash hits a desperation low blow while Goldberg tries to hoist him up. Nash hits a side slam and, man, this just isn’t doing it for me. I would have preferred a Page rematch that Page wins, I think. I have time to ponder this because we’re just marking time when Goldberg isn’t doing explosive offense. Nash lands a nice short-arm clothesline as I say that, so I should give him a little more credit. They trade two counts before Goldberg hits a superkick that looked pretty stiff, as Goldberg’s superkicks often are, so I have learned. Goldberg gets another two count, lands a wheel kick, and here comes the bullshit gaga. First, Disco Inferno runs down and eats a spear to give Nash time to breathe. This match is apparently no DQ according to Heenan. Um, did they say that on television? Did I miss something? Bam Bam runs out next and attacks Goldberg. Goldberg handles him, but as the ref and security are focused on getting Bam Bam out of there, Scott Hall runs down dressed like security, tases Goldberg, and leaves Goldberg ripe for a Jackknife that ends both his title reign and his winning streak. Let’s just say that I am underwhelmed. That did not feel like the main event of your biggest show at all. The big question after this show: Will there ever be a good WCW PPV again? If so, when? I’m not asking for a great show, though that’d be nice! I’m just asking for a good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtWy1-aq2tk&ab_channel=NJPWWORLDOfficial from NJPW Strong Ali v Lio Rush Matt Vangrieff v Adrian Quest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFDLuvrdn-4&ab_channel=NJPWWORLDOfficial COBB v Archer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77wAjruMW0&ab_channel=NJPWWORLDOfficial COBB v ZSJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18KjGZpzihs&ab_channel=NJPWWORLDOfficial Bucks/Perry/Kingston angle and post match promo

Am I miss remembering or did WCW do Flair heart attack angle back in 92 as well? Also cool how Norman Smiley goes from jobber to getting a bit of a push by just getting himself and his dancing over

JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST, maybe quit shit-talking Jamal Murray, guys.

Liked the set up on the main with Aussie confronting Reina and Gambino. I was a little confused as I assumed Gambino and Reina would be tagging, not bringing in another mystery partner. Animal Instinct make a pretty good team and they had another decent match with the champs. When Americana came out solo, I knew the jig was up lol Nice match between her and Penelope and I look forward to Penelope getting her hands on Abilene. Poor Team Spirit. Them girls just need to hang it up at this point lol I thought Ariel would be secretly sabotaging Top Tier but instead she’s gonna be fighting for her freedom with a match against Coach instead and lol at a “freedom match”. You gotta love WOW Dreambroken called it with the Tormenta reveal as Aussie’s partner. Perfect partner to go up against the likes of Chainsaw and Reina. Wonder if this is a new start for Tormenta.

Peace be yours, Papa Roger.

Man, Shane got rocked on that spear.

I see someone finally met Lady Masako.

Mark and Tom go by the Billington Bulldogs on the indies and during their stint in MLW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO5Uef_qs50 plus any match where Savage starts knocking out refs