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I posted this the other day on my personal FB, after watching my youngest daughter (in Grade 5), at her music recital... School music recitals are set up a lot like indie Wrestling shows: First act was the Grade Twos on the ukuleles. These greenhorns aren’t the best but they delivered a solid opener and their fans are always vocal and supportive. Up next was one of the Grade Five classes doing Green Day’s “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams,” and it stole the show. Included two amazing solos that popped the crowd, huge. Definite MOTN. Up next was the gimmick match: the ol’ Blacklights routine this booker loves so much. Always looks good but the gimmick has been done bigger and better on past shows. Time to introduce a new gimmick for this venue. Semi-Main was a solid tag match (it had guitars, drums, bars and the piano going), that had some good solos but didn’t quite reach the level of Match Two. But my kid was in it so it was my fave, obviously. Main Event was...who knows? This isn’t a Wrestling Road Report! I hugged my kid on her way off the stage, told her I loved her, and I left like any other parent. In true indie fashion, the show ran late and half the crowd was gone before the main. It was probably the promoter or his belt-mark champ doing some BS that involved a nonsensical run-in or meaningless heel-turn, anyway. EDIT: turns out the Main Event was a bunch of kids on the spoons. THE. FUCKING. SPOONS. So indie.

Alexa dodged a gross gross bullet.

He looked so goddamn happy just to be there, it was fantastic. As soon as Slater gave the hint it was him live, I lost my shit

I’d expect AJPW and NJPW will do something as well.

The unofficial beloved title of this track was The Jobber's Funeral March.

That is a very nice looking belt that nobody talks about.

I think the reason Cass was fired is he pocketed the money they gave him for a suit and bought one from the outlet mall.

I picture him eventually landing a kickflip and the story growing to him doing a 900 over time.

For Father's day I got a copy of Rio Bravo and this mother fucker right here: About to hit up that Kino Lorber sale

An idea...instead of just these R.I.P. threads, why don't we do tribute threads where people watch their favorite matches and write reviews? I know it will be hard with some of the older/less well known wrestlers, because of lack of footage, but we pretty much have Vader's entire career on tape. We don't have to go full Dave Meltzer obituary, but it would be cool to go through and read everyone's thoughts on these guys best matches.

Kenny did X-Pac's podcast, and while it covered quite a bit I'm going to lead with the G1 part, to justify putting it all in this thread: -Both he and Kota think it's too early to wrestle one another; they told the office that; he reiterated the desire that they save it for the Dome; office begged, and they relented. (It would be endlessly wild to speculate what he's successful vetoed, since he mentioned he usually gets to do that.) -While he thinks an invading wrestler in the G1 is fun, New Japan's roster is too strong--and people would be angry at being excluded--to accommodate it. Mentions Shuji Ishikawa specifically. -In part, this is because he's a big guy, and he'd like to work a David/Goliath match. Problem is, New Japan really only has Fale, and they're still faction buddies. -That style of match stemmed from discussing Vader, who actually got Kenny his first Japanese work visa. -He reiterates that he lives in Japan now--"I pay all my taxes in Japan"--and so he doesn't really consider himself a foreign wrestler. -He'd like to defend against Naito and Tanahashi. He... half jokes? that the Tana match would be interesting because "he hates me in real life". He sorta walks that back and calls it mutual professional jealousy, and then says they just have different views on wrestling. -There were two "great ideas, that people would have gone crazy over" that he and Okada left out of their match, because they assume--though don't know--that it'll be revisited on a big stage at some point.

B Team: The Prequel

And then Tony died a couple days later

He nails an Ollie, and only and Ollie. The story starts as he nailed a kick flip. Then a Lazer Flip, then a 360 Lazer Flip with a 900 rotation thrown in, then its a full backflip 1080 lazer flip into a frontside manual, and teaching Tony Hawk how to skate. Brother.

As we know, Hogan won a gold medal in vert skating at the X games after Taker dropped him on his head in 1974.

so Alexa reads the board

Dave on C*ss's firing from reddit (tl;dr he blew off a production meeting, beat up a little person on tv, and was an all-around shithead):

Pretty sure Vader and Kobashi go skull-to-skull in that last one.

Vader vs. The Boss/Guardian Angel in 94 is such an underrated HOSS feud. If that match happened today, everyone would be going crazy over it.

Ron Simmons also looked damn swagger with that belt. I didn't mind it one bit.

Oh yeah, the "shoot Vader shoot" fund on rspw. #oldman

Even if Simon Gotch is an asshole: Simon > Enzo

It always got in my crawl when someone would say Vader was a great big man. Vader was a great wrestler period. Hearing of Vader's death when I woke up, I cried. Growing up he was so important to me. Being a big fat child and generally an outcast, pro wrestling was the place I could feel validated. A place where being like me was an asset. Vader was what I wanted to be when I grew up. Not only was he big and powerful. He was agile and had great stamina. I lived and died with how he was doing in wrestling. I still can't watch the Summerslam 96 match without getting furious. I ordered the show and felt robbed when Vader did not win the title. I know he had a lot of struggles the last few years. I got to talk to him one night on Facebook and he seemed so happy to know how well his fans thought of him. Its a shame WWE refused to recognize him when it would have meant the world to him. It really makes me angry he never got that moment. But I think its more important to celebrate his life than dwell on anger. I'm sad he is gone, but my faith tells me he is at peace. That he is no longer plagued by physical and mental pain.

Vader should have gotten a title reign for that...and fuck Shawn Michaels for not dropping the title to Vader at Summerslam '96.

I think he could be great in the CM Punk-esque commentator role.

I have seen the elementary school music teacher book herself a solo in the middle of an act and wondered WTF she was thinking. Like we all crammed into this airless gym to listen to HER play for a bunch of kids. Shitty Booking!

Now I know what two puds have me on ignore

Hey I've got an ideal! Lets totes go to the mall! Doot doot doot

DVDVR #176 (That is from IYH: Cold Day in Hell - the match that the Vader/Shamrock gif comes from)

Ha, I was at my niece’s dance recital last weekend, and the dance instructor was in the main role of Snow White. I thought, “Damn, she’s booking the territory to put herself over.” Turns out the girl who was supposed to play the role broke her foot at the last minute.

After the admin meeting...

I met Simon a few weeks ago at an Indy card here in Virginia. He was really personable and super nice to everyone. Obviously that doesn't mean he's a great guy to work with but I had a great interaction with him. He talked at length with anyone who wanted to chat with him.

People here were on the "Kurt Angle isn't that great" train in about 2002 once his philosophy clearly became "get all my shit in at top speed." I like Kurt, but he was way better when his opponent or the match type broke him out of that mold. His matches with Steve Austin in 2001 are an example of this. I feel like Kurt worked that garbage match with Shane at 2001's King of the Ring and decided that it would form a template for his matches. Maybe they wouldn't be filled with plunder, but they would be bomb-fests worked at above-average speed. Don't get me wrong, I like bomb-fests, but Kurt wasn't Steiner Brothers-level elite at them or anything.

The story of how it got to be a Winged Eagle rip-off is pretty interesting. Apparently WCW had a different design in mind, but they only had a very short time frame to get the belt made, so they rushed Reggie Parks. Reggie just modified the WE design just slightly enough to make it a different belt, but you know what it's based off of. It's generally regarded as the least-liked WCW heavyweight belt design. I don't believe that the original design has ever been shown publicly.

i don't want to see anything happen to Bryan either but I feel like if Brie is cool with it then who am I to say? Brie said "Daniel, go live your dream" and he's doing it.

Watching Table for 3: Sting is talking about how he would cower in the corner as Vader lifted him off his feet with every punch. Leon: "And you were the stiffest pretty boy ever." Sting: "That's nothing compared to your smelly gloves in my face!" Page: "I felt bad for anybody stuck in a corner with Leon. . ."

Vader is my favourite wrestler of all time. He’s powerbombing angels in heaven now.

God fucking dammit Other than Eddy, Vader was my favorite ever. Even knowing this was likely to happen the last year or so, it still hurts.

I think we are missing important details here. Like was it #1 or #2? Like if he just left a gigantic loaf in there that wouldn't flush AND broke the door down or something

That result pleases me.