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Gregg was right, this is definitely "it's own thread" material. Still one of my best memories as a fan was Survivor Series 96 and seeing the crowd turn on babyface Shawn Michaels and cheer for Sid to kill him and Jose Lothario. https://www.tokyvideo.com/video/shawn-michaels-vs-psycho-sid-wwf-title-survivor-series-96 The eruption when he won. He got 20000 people to eat out the palm of his hands, just an all time performer. Rest in power Sid.

i don't post a lot of personal stuff on here. i'm very private in real life and don't like to share, not even with friends and family. last summer i really realized i had a drinking problem. i wasn't going hard every night, i wasn't blacking out, but i noticed that i was relying on alcohol to deal with life. As in, most nights i'd have 1-2 drinks casually, and on weekends i would have a drink in hand more than i wouldn't. decided to make a change. took a month off from drinking. it was hard, but do-able. after those 30 days i was going even harder and/or more frequently. Tried to go another 30. didn't make it. all of a sudden, i wasn't drinking casually during the week, i was drinking fairly heavily. tried to come up with a new plan. tried "don't drink alone". tried "don't drink during the week". tried a couple other 'plans'. none of them took. i can't half-ass this. it's all or nothing. at the beginning of this year, made an extremely serious effort to quit. it was the hardest thing i've ever done. no physical withdrawls, but it was breaking me mentally. i was consumed by a desire to drink. had a few more stumbles, but made it over the hump. Hit 44 days, then had a celebratory beer with my wife due to an accomplishment on her part. Then i binged for a week straight. I felt awful mentally. Definitely the whole "i'm not mad, just disappointed" vibe in myself. dumped my bottle down the drain. Threw away my Captain Morgan t-shirt. today is day 50. Six months ago, that felt like an impossible accomplishment. Now? i feel good. i still get the itch, but the magnetic pull doesn't feel as strong. i'm still concerned about being out with friends/family and them offering me a drink, but right now i'm getting by with just responding that i'm on a "dry run" at the moment. Haven't gotten any pushback, thankfully. I'm taking this one milestone at a time. Looking forward to 2 months/60 days. But i feel super good about 50 days and wanted to share it with somebody. Much love.

That needle spot was the safest thing in that match. Maybe its just because I work with them every day, but everything else in that match was way more hardcore than getting a tiny ass needle poked through your cheek. I've stuck much bigger ones in kittens e: as part of my job, I'm not just wandering the streets giving random cats injections

It’s actually kinda wild to me that DVDVR of all places has memory holed the fact that Jack Perry is a great in-ring guy. I mean, I realize it’s been a while since he’s been able to show it, first with the suspension and then mostly doing garbage-style Elite stuff since he came back, but we used to have a longer memory than this. He can GO. Danielson/Perry is going to be awesome.

I had the exact opposite feeling. Refreshing to watch a wrestling PPV that’s all action, as opposed to 50% wrestling, 50% commercials. Take a breath when you’re dead, there’s wrestling to watch.

The double LP nature of All In and All Out was good, poetic stuff. All In being held in daylight, bright colors, big stadium, babyfaces mostly win, fun cameos, joy. All Out: dimly lit arena, heels reign supreme, ultra violence, blood, hate. It definitely felt intentional. Cool stuff.

These questions, and more are answered on today's episode of SOAP! (I just dated myself with that reference, didn't I?)

Not sure who was able to do this but cool move given how much a Red Sox fan he actually was

This is the dumbest fucking take. It's a fucking show. None of these guys are claiming to be bar fighters. They're actors / athletes / entertainers. Gal Gadot isn't winning any bar fights but she still wins in Wonder Woman movies. Bob Odenkirk is old as shit and couldn't win any bar fights. Didn't make Nobody any less of a fun action movie. Tom Brady couldn't win a bar fight, doesn't make him any less of an amazing athlete. If you care so much about bar fights go watch bootleg bum fights videos down the rabbit hole and quite using this insane talking point as some sort of gotchya evidence to support your weird grudge.

I don’t know why people are mad at AEW for the cage match. They literally didn’t sanction it.

Today marks three years of sobriety from drugs and alcohol. This is the longest I've been sober since age 14, and I'm about to be 37. I never thought I'd make it past 25 and honestly once I hit 25 I hoped I wouldn't make it much longer. But here I am. Doing the best I can.

Aww man. Y’all know how much I’m on record on here over the part 20 years loving and defending Sid, even when internet wrestling discourse was at its lowest, Scott Keith-ian point. Sid, Fucking, Rules. Maybe the most physically charismatic wrestler of all time. Heaven needed fist bumps. RIP to the master and ruler of the world.

Sid needs his own separate thread befitting the master and ruler of the world.

I fucking love AEW. That's all I have to add.

lmao, apparently AEW offered Kevin Kelly severance when they fired him but he never signed and returned the form and they withdrew the offer (also probably because of all the, you know, disparagement he did) So he managed to get fired on his day off and fumble a bag after getting fired. Truly a generational talent in being a dumbfuck online.

Nigel made me tear up. The ending made me tear up. AEW RULES THE MOTHER FUCKING WORKD I LOVE YOU DEAN

As of last week, me and my wife are now completely debt free, as we took care of final bit of this one thing we still had a bunch of payments on, as far as our apartment is concerned, all in one go. Now, I hope I get to enjoy this situation for a bit, but life usually has a way of kicking you in the dick as soon as let your guard down, so I try to enjoy it but not get too crazy with the newly found disposable income (in a few months time, anyway).

I saw a comment online where someone said they couldn’t watch AEW because it reminded them of WCW under Russo and it reminded me that there are just a lot of really dumb people out there.

Sorry to be the guy over explaining and ruining the magic, and I'll stop if you guys want me to. But I think giving away some of the secrets to the super dangerous stuff is putting some people more at ease with the violence. The seat on the chair was grinded down to the thickness / pliability of a cookie sheet or the aluminum trash cans. If you look the bottom of the chair leg had a pink sticker on it. So they guys would know it's the gimmicked one. They also took out the hinges that keep the seat connected to the frame. It was a nasty loud sound. But the seat gave immediately. And the thickness was no different than standard cookie sheet shots. It was just so well done it looked like death. Kudos to the truck for doing the pull back wide shot at the exact right time too. Really added to the effect.

Am I just desensitized, or did the main event not seem as “sick” or whatever as everyone here is making it out to be? Like at no point was I uncomfortable or anything. The only spot that sticks out as truly gross was the needle bit, and even that didn’t land like they wanted to since it didn’t seem like it actually went through Swerve’s cheek. I stil loved that match, though. I don’t think it’s over, since this was unsanctioned and that’s the time when Hangman finally gets his victory (when it doesn’t count for anything). I smell exploding barbwire in our future.

The minute I see the word Cornette I stop reading. Ain't no one got time for that.

Just thought of a great idea: Film a skit of MJF going to pawn shops throughout Buffalo to find his ring Garcia pawned.

Give Eddie a piper's pit segment every week until he's healed

The first time Raw came to Seattle was just after the Ultimate Warrior was fired the 2nd time and they brought in Sid as his replacement. During the taping they were doing some thing for the local crowd presenting a check to a local boyscout group or something. For some reason they send out SID to be the babyface that presents the check to this 10 year old who was there as a representative with his scout leader. Immediately people start yelling for Sid to powerbomb the kid. He looked around like he was contemplating it too.... RIP big guy. Truly one of a kind.

Wow. Having been recently immersed in Sid's 1999 WCW run, let me say that he's great at the art of pro wrestling, and even in the worst of circumstances, he did memorable stuff in promos, skits, and the ring. And Sid dapping what seemed like all of New York before taking out Jose Lothario and Shawn Michaels en route to the WWF Championship will always be one of the best pro wrestling things ever. Iconic.

My cousin is gay, I found out she's having a baby with her long time partner last night. What a pleasant surprise!

That was a really really good professional wrestling show. Super enjoyable, and the hours straight up flew by. Start time was 2 am Japan time, so rather than watching "live" I woke up early-ish this morning and just managed to squeeze the entire extravaganza in before starting work. Chatted through the whole thing with my good buddy who lives in Tokyo (used to post here as The Cobra 2). We synchronized our delayed-watching start times. Hook vs Jericho and Mone vs DMD were the only matches I did not get super into. The former felt more like a TV match for whatever reason (perhaps because I was really kind of hoping for a crowd reaction like the Large William match on Collision) and the latter kind of came off as a crowd killer. But I didn't *dislike* either of those matches or anything. MJF vs. Bruv and the main event both hit me as MOTYC-level and hugely enjoyable. I wonder if it's hard to get spearmint toothpaste green sneakers in Big Bill's size. Or maybe that was the only colour available in his size? Either way, I really enjoyed those sneakers. Needless to say I am fn *delighted* with the way the main event played out. It's good to know I am not the only one who was getting a little emotional watching that. Work started 7+ hours ago and I still have a markout buzz going as I type this out. That had to have been one of the all time great pro wrestling live crowds. They made EVERYTHING better by their reactions. Even the tbs title match, because I felt less alone in not being able to find a way into it. Some of the chants and reactions had me legit laughing in delight. (Edit: and it's fn cool that a couple of "us" were part of that crowd!) I mean, *literally* I laughed out loud, gasped out loud, and I was on the verge of actual tears... From watching a professional wrestling event. That'll do, AEW. That'll do.

I made one for Sting and wanted to do the same for Bryan Danielson. I’ve been a fan of wrestling since a young boy and Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan imo is the greatest wrestler of all time. Bryan Danielson can do it all from match quality (his biggest attribute, what a wrestler), promos, face or heel, comedy, brawl, commentator and authority figure. Still, there are things I wish Bryan wouldn't do. The headbutt charge, the diving headbutt and especially THAT sell he sometimes does. Makes me worry knowing Danielson's history with concussions and neck injuries requiring surgeries. I became a fan of Bryan Danielson in 2004 via Ring of Honor Wrestling. Bryan Danielson as Ring of Honor World Champion in September 2005-December 2006 declaring himself the “Best Wrestler in the World!”, getting the ring announcer to add an extra note when announcing him in the ring and “I have till five!” The greatest Ring of Honor World Champion ever. One of the best world title reigns in wrestling history. Bryan Danielson became Daniel Bryan when he joined WWE making his TV debut in NXT, February 2010. There were setbacks for Bryan, he was fired for choking Justin Roberts with his tie and spitting on John Cena on WWE RAW, June 2010. Bryan was brought back at WWE SummerSlam 2010. After successfully cashing in the WWE Money in the Bank 2011 for The Big Show's WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WWE TLC 2011 (I for sure thought he'd be the first to fail), Bryan started shouting “Yes!” and raising his arms upwards. This caught on big time and outside of wrestling with people doing that. As a baddie, Bryan would shout “No!” back at the “Yes!” chants. I had fun with Bryan and Kane's Team Hell No odd couple as WWE World Tag Team Champions and the funny Anger Management skits/Hug it Out match. Only Daniel Bryan could pull off the Hug it Out match. I woke up to watch Daniel Bryan defeat John Cena cleanly for the WWE Championship in a classic match at WWE SummerSlam 2013. What a way to debut a new finisher, the running knee putting down the biggest name. Bryan went on to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion in the main event of WWE WrestleMania XXX beating Randy Orton and Batista, the fans demanded his inclusion in the main event through protests. Bryan vacated the WWE World Heavyweight Championship due to injury in June 2014 and came back in January 2015. For my 30th birthday that year, my Little Sis’ bought tickets for me and Dad to go to WWE Live, 12th April 2015. My first time at any wrestling show. and Daniel Bryan was there making it even better! I’ll always remember that day. Two days later Bryan had a tag team match on WWE Smackdown Live, 14th April 2015. and was pulled off the European Tour, it would be his last match as he had to retire, February 2016. However Daniel Bryan was cleared to in-ring competition in March 2018! We are so lucky to get this second chapter which reinforced my opinion Bryan Danielson is the GOAT. Daniel Bryan regained the WWE Championship the week of WWE Survivor Series 2018 hitting AJ Styles with a low blow followed up by the running knee. The New Daniel Bryan was more aggressive in the ring, stomping people in the face, killed the Yes! Movement and cutting great promos. The promos chastising people about the environment, consumerism and animal welfare. Daniel Bryan is the planet’s champion and introduced an eco-friendly WWE Championship belt. This was one of my favourite incarnations of Daniel Bryan, maybe #1. Shame it didn't last longer. I turned the air blue watching AEW All Out 2021 live as it was expected Bryan Danielson would debut there but Adam Cole came out. Thankfully Bryan debuted two minutes after. The amount of amazing matches he's had since September 2021-August 2024. I have to single out Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny Omega at AEW Grand Slam Dynamite 2021, vs. Hangman Adam Page at AEW Winter is Coming Dynamite 2021, vs. MJF at AEW Revolution 2023, vs. Ricky Starks at AEW All Out 2023, vs. Zack Sabre Jr at AEW WrestleDream 2023 which is my pick for the best AEW match ever and vs. Will Ospreay at AEW Dynasty 2024. We even got to see Bryan Danielson wrestle in NJPW and CMLL. My dream match for years was Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada and we got it twice at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2023 and NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18. At AEW All In 2024, Swerve Strickland defends his AEW World Championship vs. Bryan Danielson who puts his career on the line. I'm really hoping Danielson wins having never held the belt before. If he doesn't, the end of his full time career but I don't think he'll ever stop wrestling. I can't see him leaving AEW for his bond with Tony Khan either, his freedom to wrestle in other companies and gets to bleed. Thank you for the memories, Bryan Danielson. The GOAT. Hope I get to meet you one day. Thanks for reading. Sorry it's so long. Touch typist.

Darby/Danielson at Grand Slam is gonna fucking slap.

Fuck. @The Natural being able to watch this in his time zone is making me tear up

Bryan Danielson is the new AEW World Champion. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

And that's where I get angry at stuff like JR telling the story of what Ernie Ladd had to go through and instances of Bill Watts calling Ladd the N word. That's not to be encouraged just because Ladd somehow shook it off after being angry about it. Ladd had to shake it off because systematic racism just didn't stop when the modern American civil rights ended. People believe because we live in this "post racial" society, you can now have free reign to do whatever. Just don't get caught. I think the Mark Henrys of the world find themselves in a conundrum because the world of professional wrestling is a lot more diverse than it use to be. That and the whole "I lived to tell about and have tremendous success" is a feather in his cap. However, you cannot dismiss a certain type of trauma just because you live through similar type of trauma. There is a throughline but also case by case basis. The business doesn't need protecting. The people INSIDE the business need protecting.

It looks like her disastrous Reddit AMA was the final straw for Ronda Rousey: She's apologizing unconditionally and fully for spreading Sandy Hook truther conspiracies. And for what it's worth, it definitely reads as sincere.

In 1984 in New Jersey I was 14 and had just become a huge wrestling fan. I started buying all the magazines and the stories and pictures of Sullivan and his Satanic Army blew me away. Within a year, we had not only WWF on tv, we also had Crockett, PW USA, and World Class. A year later, thanks to U68, we had Watts and that lousy California Championship wrestling. All without cable. But we never got Florida. I didn't get to see Sullivan on tv until he came to Crockett. Over the years he became one of my favorite wrestlers. 9 years ago, Sullivan and Bruce Tharpe were guests on our podcast " Titans of Wrestling." They were promoting the NWA Classics channel with the Houston footage. Sullivan was a blast, and definitely seemed as stoned as I was . At one point I told him my idea that he should be revealed as the "Grandfather" of the Wyatt Family with the idea that he got revenge on Blackjack Mulligan by corrupting his grandson. He laughed his ass off and said he loved that idea. RIP Devil.

Danhausen might be one of those fringe cases where it makes more sense for him to stay independent and keep a bigger chunk of his merch money.

I think I’m a sicko. That main event is my match of the year.

I've been waiting to see a post like this for a long time. For as much as the death of the territories is blamed on Vince in mainstream media, the writing was on the wall by the early 80s. Cable and syndication were huge factors, but really, the territories wouldn't have survived neoliberal capitalism at all. The deregulation that started with Reagan led to Ticketmaster, Live Nation and other corporations of that nature having a stranglehold on live event production. A lot of the territories were responsible for making and distributing their own tickets, and with venues being independent entities, it was far easier to keep prices down. You hear a lot of stories from those days that include ticket prices, and often you hear $10 for ringside, $5 for general and kids in for free, as an example. Ticket prices now, for the most part, are higher than the inflation rate. Considering that the cost of living (a disgusting phrase, as an aside) has skyrocketed since the 80s and wages are wildly suppressed, a lot of people are simply priced out of live events on the whole. The same salary that enabled a family to go to weekly wrestling events in their town from the 50s through the 80s has turned into a salary that gets you through the gate once a year. Frankly, I think there are a hell of a lot more wrestling fans out there than we think. It's just that it's impossible to meet them where they're at. Also, for as awesome as YouTube, streaming and downloading is, it has a large responsibility for how homogenous wrestling has become worldwide. I would've killed to have those options when I was a kid, even though wrestling was all over the dial in the 80s, anyway. But, do I wish that the cat could be put back in the bag? Most definitely. I love Japanese wrestling as much as the next guy, but I don't think that most wrestlers and fans really consider that those styles came into being through a very specific booking philosophy AND a completely different culture, especially All Japan. You can do the moves all you want, but doing a tope doesn't make it lucha, ya know? The sameness of wrestling is really, really similar to the commodification of the American suburbs. They ALL look the same and it's so depressing. Our big cities are old enough that they can retain a lot of their character, but if corporate America had its way, they'd look like the suburbs on steroids. What really sucks is that capitalism is so pervasive in our lives, we do it to ourselves. Take, for instance, Giulia's entrance on NXT this week. Not a knock against her, but she's already got her "entrance" and it's all branding, even if it means that she had to something illogical like turning her back on Chelsea and Roxy. Almost EVERY wrestler does this, and even though it largely started in 2000's WWE, workers are doing this in their first match in front of 27 people. It's just become the thing you do, whether you should or not. One of the many reasons why I love Eddie Kingston is that he powerwalks to the ring looking to kill the motherfucker in front of him, rather than pausing on the apron to do some pose. So many wrestlers can't turn the branding off, even if they're about to walk into a War Games or a barbed wire match. I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. Capitalism sucks and needs to die. P.S. - As capitalism dies, it turns to fascism. If you seek its monument, look around you.

At this point, the only thing I want to see about Vince McMahon on my tv is that he was found guilty and will spend his last days in prison.

Quiet as kept, for a guy who was missing for whole chunks of the Monday Night Wars, he was a central figure for one of the most historically important episodes of Raw ever: The March 17, 1997 go home edition where Bret Hart loses his mind and goes on a tirade after losing a cage match to Sid for the WWF title. You could tell they're going in a totally different direction from the last few years since Raw had been in existence. If you had been watching Raw since 1993 and WWF programming for last five years, it seemed like something from a different planet. They were starting to become dead serious about turning the company around. Not only does Bret start his heel turn but you see the shades of grey component, which would be frequently overused over the next several years. Here? It's masterpiece TV cause it had never been done in this manner after the territories went down. The six weeks before had set the stage cause you had Shawn winning the title back at the Rumble only to lose his smile, which set up the awesome Final Four match to crown a new champion. That in turns leads to Bret losing the belt to Sid the next night in Nashville after winning the aforementioned match. What looked to be the continuation of babyface Shawn Michaels as the top guy ends up with four or five guys vying for the WWF title and making the company infinitely more interesting, especially with the emergence of Steve Austin. You have the long time stalwarts in Taker and Bret, but you have this sort of outlier in Sid who is a vestige of the past but still very relevant. However, the most integral thing is EVERYONE is going after the WWF title. That's the story. Hence, Undertaker interfering in the cage match on the behalf of Sid (his WrestleMania opponent) and Austin interfering on the behalf of his mortal enemy for the past six months Bret Hart (Austin's WrestleMania opponent). Instead of just chilling backstage and watching on the monitors, each guy has a major stake in who wins and tries to ensure that they get to challenge for the WWF title at WrestleMania. Austin had won the actual Rumble match under somewhat dubious means, but Shawn vacating the title meant he necessarily wouldn't be getting a title shot at Mania. Since he didn't win the Final Four match for the vacant title, he wasn't guaranteed anything other than a match with Bret. And because Austin's interference doesn't work in the cage match, it's bittersweet cause he does screw Bret but doesn't get the title match at WrestleMania. However, the man who loses out the most is Bret Hart cause (1) Austin won the Rumble after being eliminated by Bret, (2) Shawn vacated the title and was out indefinitely thus meaning Bret couldn't avenge his loss at Mania the year before, (3) he lost to Sid the next night after the WWF title win as Sid was suppose to get the shot at Thursday Raw Thursday against Shawn, and (4) a month later in the match to win the title back Austin and Taker kept interfering in a match destined to stop people from interfering. This gives us the greatest moment in Raw history up to this point and probably still top 5 or 10 ALL TIME. AMAZING STORYTELLING. I say all this to say....Sid's "I DON'T KNOW SHIT, CRYBABY" is a monumental gem for both unintentional and intentional reasons.

Sid's promo skills are severely underrated. Whatever (often nonsense) he was saying, don't worry about that, just listen to how he sounded. The when and where he'd switch from whispering to shouting. Like a "Psycho" trying to stay composed and under wraps, only serving to make the fury worse when it finally unleashes. Can't remember who around here said it, but they said it best: Sid wrestles like he comes from an alternate dimension where wrestling is actually real. There's no hesitation or hint of inauthenticity. Sid never even entertains the idea that there is a fourth wall to break, let alone break it. Moves, words, whatever, few people capture the aura of being a wrestler like Sid did.

Sid might be the best squash match worker of all time, and if he's not the best he's at minimum in the top three. What presence.

This sucks. I'm pretty sure that infamous(probably forgotten by now) "Steel Davey Richards" quote was preceded by me saying we should have more Sid just power bombing fools and fist bumping fans. And I don't mean this to shame any of the current wrestlers in WWE or AEW, but if you dropped prime Sid into either company he'd instantly be the baddest most awesome dude in the company. It's not that he's a better wrestler or anything. It's just his whole look. He just popped off the page. Kinda like the Ultimate Warrior but more relatable? I dunno. Long live the master and ruler of the world. PS. Fuck man even that catch phrase. Like how is a master or a ruler different? They're not really, but only Sid would feel like you need to know he was both.

Its worth noting that Austin & Rock in their primes only had one combined reign that went longer than 4 months, and that didn’t stop them from becoming two of the biggest stars of all time. The actual length of a title reign means very little. It’s about making the most of what you’re given, and Swerve did that with his 4 months, unequivocally. Just based on tonight’s performance alone, I think he ensured that this won’t be his last world title reign.

How can you not be romantic about pro wrestling?

Driving 6 hours to Cardiff for Dynamite/Collision, then a few days staycationing before travelling to London for RevPro (ZSJ vs Hechicero ) then All In the next day. Week off work for a wrestling holiday! I probably will cry over the BD/Swerve match regardless of outcome.

Imane Khelif, now unburdened by trying to win her gold medal, has decided to sue.... pretty much everyone for calling her a man. https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40819583/imane-khelif-files-complaint-due-abuse-gender-paris-olympics

tweet from Brian Solomon: so imagine that accordingly

To be clear I am strongly in favor of him signing with WWE because the inevitable endpoint of his indie career is he and his wife creating some kind of insufferable burlesque/wrestling concept show and we can't allow that to happen.