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SERIOUS SWEAT SESS, TUCKY IT'S BULKING SEASON Also, Gargano-Ciampa stuff.

Lars like someone mistakenly put Bruno in the dishwasher, when he’s supposed to hand scrubbed. Dont read that as something perverted, you perverts. And don’t tell him I said that.

Aaaaand then there's this guy.

... Elias and Braun are what started the whole thread.

Did you suffer a severe head injury like your namesake, or were you born this way?

It's not really that similar at all, honestly. Back in the DDT days, Kenny talked about them moving to the US and getting married in an interview; he's mentioned dating men and women in several "canon" New Japan features and BTE; he suggested newer fans read a twitter thread recapping the whole thing as a "gay love story"; and he's been pretty open about the fact that he likes it that some queer fans see themselves in the story, or at least take some comfort in the fact that it exists. I do think fans extend themselves too far when trying to extrapolate what is real from the fiction, and in that regard resemble more (let's be charitable) ambitious shippers; but if we limit ourselves to the story that's been/is being told, the queer subtext for this angle is pretty clear, perhaps to the point that you'd just call it text, and drop the prefix. Anyway, having said that, it's difficult to say too much about the article beyond "That is the author's sincerely expressed experience, and it's valid". There is no uniform queer experience, and though I'm of the OP's requested demographic, I'm never really comfortable acting as a spokesperson. Similarly, a story having queer (sub)text doesn't mean it's only queer, which is where we get the "Don't label it; it's a universal story of two people who were once close overcoming the wedge they drove between themselves to come back together", which is very classic pro wrestling. I think, fundamentally, that is what the author of the Paste piece is getting at--and I do feel plenty comfortable agreeing here--that the story is important because it is specific without being segregated, inclusive rather than othering.

nowhere else to put this, so here goes. i play and collect a bunch of NES games. not a fan of the Tengen black cartridges, but wanted a Ms. Pac-Man cart, so i frankensteined my own (swapped boards, made a custom label based on the Tengen one). Turned out pretty good as far as i'm concerned.

...you’re a sick man.

Living the gimmick

Ok. I'm ace, instead of gay or bi though. For them to be a crucial step, they'd need to actually come out. This puts them behind folks like Fred Rosser, Sonya DeVille, Mike Parrow and Jake Atlas (making his debut at PWG tonight)

that's Vega? doesn't have the nose. I imagine Keep Calm, Akira Hokuta is still trying to figure out who the guy in the middle is

I see Jacob Fatu a fair amount, he works basically every Northern CA promotion. That dude is something else, I enjoy his shit quite a bit. I get the feeling that he is going to be a GIGANTIC star one day.

Speaking of the dojo (and so soon after the Bryan news):

Those Tengen carts are bastards. When I got into cleaning my cartridges and had my nintendo screwdriver I went to open up my old Pac Man cart and they hide a screw behind the back sticker. Mahfuck. The unlicensed shit uses regular screws tho.

@Francesco, I'm going to agree with you and disagree with you at the same time... Balor has oodles of charisma, in fact, he's probably right below Daniel Bryan in terms of charisma. If you watched him in NJPW he was a great arrogant heel, in WWE he's been about as good a babyface as Steamboat, it doesn't get much better than that. As I've said elsewhere, "The ladies come to see him and the fellas want to be him!" Buried in that cliche is the fact that he is one of the most marketable people in WWE. Men like watching him because he's a good wrestler, radiates toughness and seems like a pretty chill dude that you would enjoy hanging out with. Women like watching him because let's face it, he's a good looking guy. Now, what's wrong with his act? It's simple to fix and Devitt's a smart guy so I'm surprised that he hasn't made this adjustment... Demon Finn needs to work differently than normal Finn. Be it more heelish tactics (my preference), either more mat based or more high flying (doesn't matter which one, just pick one and stick with it), a different basic moveset (probably too subtle for the WWE universe to pick up on), but SOMETHING has to differentiate the personalities to a degree that can be easily understood, otherwise it's a bloody waste of time and Finn in body paint which means nothing. I hate to point to something as silly and simple-minded as Mankind/Dude Love/Cactus Jack/Mick Foley; but damn it, it worked. Even the bonehead writers that WWE employs were able to get across the many faces of Foley to the point where even a child would understand it. Why they can't do the same with Balor has only one explanation and that's that VKM lost interest once he got hurt and went on to the next bright, shiny thing that captured his attention. This is the problem when you have a company run by a 71 year-old man with the attention-span of a chipmunk. The whole "creative has nothing for you" translates to "Vince forgot that you work here."

17 years ago today ... Edit: scientists discuss this. http://www.newsweek.com/ornithologists-react-time-randy-johnson-hit-bird-pitch-440184

Wrestlemania 7 is not poor, my friend. Rockers/FOF, Hart Foundation/Nastys, Warrior/Savage, Hogan/Slaughter are all at least good (and some much better than good). Perfect/Bossman is fun too, and the blindfold match is at least memorable. One of the better Manias ever. Mania 20 is pretty good too, with Christian/Jericho being the highlight. I think 7 has more good/memorable stuff though.

For total amount of historical data, I give it to Yohe for the Strangler Lewis book, for subject matter I'll go with Pure Dynamite, as Billington was one of my "don't miss a single match" guys and watching him live in little joints in Seattle and Portland was amazing. However, for being remarkably well-written and by far the biggest bang for the buck, Liam takes it with his Pillman book! I've written and edited a whole lot of books, and being somewhat egotistical, I break down other books into three groups: (#3). I'm glad I didn't write that! Covers about 90% of stuff. (#2). I could have written that. Covers about 90% of the 10% that 's left. (#1). I wish I had written that! In this case covers 99% of the rather minuscule 10% that was left. Finally, I don't even assign a number to this group because they are so rare, but these are "I don't think I could've written that on my best day!" I don't give that shit up very often, but Liam's book floats between there and #1 depending on what sort of mood I'm in. Well done, my friend, well done, indeed!

I think the most amazing thing is that, somehow, Nikki Bella eventually became really good.

Why can't they just rest AJ until WrestleMania? Would it be so terrible if he missed a couple weeks of house shows?

And because the Jays stink.

You guys act like there were only shitty models during that era, but there were some good wrestlers too. I agree, though - there were definitely more shitty models than good wrestlers. In AJ's book, she talked about how frustrating it was to be passionate about wrestling because that was seemingly used against her.

Resume. But NJPW officials will scout if anyone interests them. Eventually they want to open up their American expansion fed. I also remember while back Kidani said he would be open to a womens division for both Japan and U.S.

I pointed out in the merch thread wearing a Golden Lovers shirt in public could have people think you're advertising your love of golden showers. BTW, you know you're too drunk when a German dominatrix won't piss on you because she feels like she'd be taking advantage of you. It was New Year's '99 into 2000 with former members of Monster Magnet in Red Bank, NJ.

I enjoyed the Bull-Fit gimmick at the end of his nxt run.

I did like his stuff with Alex Shelley in TNA. I'll give him that.

Some of the developmental guys have been posting their work out regiments today, this is some crazy shit. and now I want Lars to be Braun's surprise tag partner at Mania. Braun/Lars steamrolling motherfuckers into the summer would satisfy. Shit they even have history.

Less reckless than Seth Rollins.

I forgot he was nearly blinded in that feud so wrestled with an eyepatch. He's always been crazy. Anyway, here's Ghetto Hogan in crisp HD glory

The one Morishima match where Bryan attacked him straight out of his entrance and timed it perfectly to get up on the guard rail right at the part of Final Countdown he usually get up on to the ropes to was fucking amazing. I mean, the whole match and feud were great but that was something man.

I think that NJPW has a bit of a problem with Jr. divisions in general. Problem being that Hiromu is more over than anyone else, by big margin. Lesser problem, but problem nonetheless is that Bushi is probably also in TOP 5 as far as reactions and merch goes (when he enters the ring they often show some people from audience wearing his masks while I don't really see, or at least don't remember seeing, it for other juniors). He is essentially a pin eater, but still is more over than many semi-protected guys in other factions. I remember in last BotSJ he got strong crowd support when facing Suzuki-Gun juniors and not playing a heel for once. And from what I recall year earlier his main event with Kushida was considered a success in terms of attendance. But either way it is easier to justify non-push with Bushi, because Hiromu is better and is in the same faction. So why is that a problem? Because both Jr. division are built in very simplistic manner: champion(s) is on big shows and is rotating challengers. If you give a long run to Hiromu (which he totally deserves and should get) then everyone else will struggle to get over since Juniors only really have BotSJ to build themselves up. Case in point, what Kushida is up to? Is he also moving up to heavyweights? Would make sense since they clearly have no space for him in Juniors division. When was the last time that Junior got a special singles match? I don't really remember and it is happening now with Ospreay (who is champ either way) only due to injury. How often Juniors get feuds that are more than "I want your title" feuds? So easy answer for NJPW here was to make Hiromu/Bushi a tag-team and give some space for other Juniors to get themselves over. But is any other Junior getting himself over? From the looks of it only Scurll is having some momentum due to being involved in Bullet Club drama. But now Jr. Tag division is having same exact problem. Ropongi 3K might be good, have their own hype man and get strong booking, but reality is that neither of them is as over as Hiromu or even Bushi. On one hand they are clearly being pushed and built-up as Aces of Jr. Tag division, but on the other hand audience doesn't really care because they want Hiromu/Bushi. So they do this 3-way thing where they try to protect everyone, but I'd argue it isn't doing any good to anyone either. Furthermore it is even harder for Jr. Tag teams to get themselves over since all they really have asides of championship matches is Tag Tournament which gives a team, at most, 3 matches. Oh, they also might get to face Taguchi/Young Lion in opening matches. That will make them look strong. Alternatively we have Naito who lost title match at WK, but still is heavily featured on each card, has something to do and at the same time is giving enough space for other heavyweights to breath. Or how KES managed to get few, relatively speaking, decent tag teams to destroy to build themselves up for a rematch with Evil/Sanada. Or how few years ago Tanahashi managed to keep himself busy with Devitt and newly created Bullet Club. tldr; NJPW needs to change how they book their Junior divisions or Hiromu will continue overshadowing everyone else. Alternatively they can push him down into trios division...

Okada literally is a rainmaker.

Me too. They're both guys that I'm confident can look decent or better with really good workers who put the match together. But I have no clue if either of them are capable of putting one together themselves.

There is a non-zero chance that this is another scheme for Thiel to harvest the blood of the young, so he might actually be interested in this.

https://hotteebrand.com/nicnot?s=hanes-5250&c=Black&p=FRONT

I was there live for both of these and had a much better time at 2000. My seats were way better, but goddamn, I got to see most of the people I liked (NO FUCKING UNDERTAKER) but I do feel like some of it was at the expense of having a regular one-on-one singles match anywhere on the card that wasn't Terri vs Miss Kitty. This show was fun, and a show with three or four good matches (ladder match, main event, Jericho/Angle/Benoit, I liked the hardcore match a lot for what it was). I had floor seats next to the entrance aisle. The main event of 12 was torture to sit through live. Shawn and Bret were probably my two least favorite faces in the company. No falls during the match just fucked up the entire concept of the match and the drama around it. We ended up walking around the building and seeing how far we could sneak down to get near the ring. 12 had one match I gave a fuck about and that was Taker/Diesel. One good match and one match where two guys I wasn't a fan of basically jerked off in the ring for an hour plus. I was in the goddamned nosebleeds here.

I remember when that was coming out thinking it sounded stupid. Then over the past 20 years got a full run out of cheap bins. Read it and damn it is one of the best things Marvel put out in the 80s.

Congrats to Liam as "Crazy Like a Fox" was voted Best Wrestling Book in this years WON awards

Sabu is a million times better and more believable than the Young Bucks. What in the fucking fuck?

The Aristocrats!

Because he looks like HBK. Problem is that he did the Van Terminator. Did anyone see the table where Wolfe was lying on for while? Wolfe bled at least a pint of blood on that thing.

Almas should have put her on his shoulder so she could continue to get in Drew's face.

Someone on Twitter basically described the Ohno/Lars match as “getting Lars ready to challenge Bruno” match

Only saw the opener last night and will try to get caught up on the rest. My big takeaway from the opener: Lars Sullivan is an ugly, ugly man. Pro wrestling ugly.

If they were to give Sullivan a submission finisher as well, it should be the Kona Crush.

Undecided how I felt about the show. Lars/KO was really fun with both guys coming out looking like beasts. Black/Dream was decent, but had at least two moments where a guy with a striking gimmick kicked his opponent in the head and had it no-sold. Women's match was fine, but Ember was the worst choice of winner. Nigel highlighting all the times she'd come up short previously just screamed "our champion only has the belt because Asuka went to the big league" Drew/Almas was MotN. Really great showing from both guys. Really convincing nearfall. Loved the spot where Vega failed to down Drew with a rana, he puts her on the apron like a gentleman then catches an Almas tope with a big forearm to the face. Really excited to see where they go with Almas as champion. Main Event was really fun. So many nutso spots. Thought the 3 Sanity members were the stars of the show, real Dain showcase, but everyone in the match played their role. Cole was the least impressive, but I'm not sure if that was because they were playing up that he was an opportunistic coward or because he's just not very interesting

Going to this show. Haven't seen NXT in months. Excited to see Eric Young. And the kid in me is so stoked to see War Games. But mostly? THE FUCKING THEME SONG IS FUCKING POWER TRIP THE GREATEST METAL BAND ON THE PLANET. Literally the single best WWE theme in the company's history. Watching the last episode of NXT and they had clips of a bloody Flair and shit scored to Executioner's Axe and I haven't so viscerally marked out to wrestling solely because of music since RVD coming out to Pantera.

No roof robs me of the image I had in my head of a feral Nikki Cross climbing up and trying to find a way in the cage to get in on the carnage. Add me to the hating the pinfalls stip and hoping they book a classic War Games finish.