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As you can tell by the time, I couldn’t sleep so I was browsing around reddit. Chris Hero was doing an AMA and he gave dvdvr and Segunda Caida a shot out.

I think I've told this story on here before but over a decade ago I was working a call center job for Dish Network. Dustin called in. It was hard not to mark out. I helped fix his problem and then asked if he was the wrestler (you could tell by his accent he was). He said yes and actually was bullshitting with me for a few minutes. This was before he returned to WWE at one of the cyber sunday/taboo Tuesday deals. Anyhow, I told him how much I liked his match with Vader and he said it was one of his personal favorites too. He told me to keep his cell phone handy anytime I wanted to talk shop. I did get to speak with him 2-3 times after that but sadly his number ended up being disconnected not too long after. Another guy who called in during this time that was cool was NFL kicker Adam Viniteri. I remember telling him he put away my Broncos more than once and he laughed and said "yeah I guess I did". The big difference between Adam and Dustin was that Dustin had to pay for his service and Adam had an agency paying for his.

Not to add unnecessarily to the 'my non wrestling fan girlfriend has surprising insight into wrestling' genre of post, but thought the board would appreciate this one. My girlfriend moved in with me last week for coronaviral reasons, and has never been a TV watcher, so she's generally happy to occupy herself with other things while I watch my usual non wrestling bullshit. But, she's genuinely gotten interested in wrestling and will give it her full attention, even in its current sad, fanless state. So far she's enjoyed Aleister Black and Shotzi Blackheart for coolness reasons, but of all the AEW, MLW and WWE we've watched, her favourite has been Dustin Rhodes. About one minute into his tag match the other night, she was commenting about how gracefully he moved for someone so tall and middle aged, and how everything he did was executed incredibly well. I'm now going to try and find his match with Cody for the weekend. And should probably seek out his Wargames match, which I've shamefully never seen.

Behind the scenes WrestleMania photos from the last decade: WrestleMania XXXI. WrestleMania XXXIV. Rest: https://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemania/gallery/best-behind-the-scenes-wrestlemania-last-decade-photos#fid-40479151

I am watching the New Jack episode now and I will say this, I attended a half dozen shows that he was on in 2004 and he was one of the most accessible guys you could see. New Jack would be on these shows with Cm Punk, Honky Tonk Man, Duggan, Foley, Hero, Joe, and of all of these guys New Jack would be the one that always came over and would chat. @Gorman can verify this story. There was a show at CCAC College where New Jack left one of his weapons (think Wolverine claw with blades coming out the fingers) at the venue. He was a character but I never saw him do anything crazy and he was always extremely nice to me and my crew.

Still remember this. BROCK SMASH. Enjoy, @Technico Support and @DreamBroken.

Nobody home.

I'd show her the Dusty "view never changes" promo, then the Wargames 94 match, then the Battleground match. The Battleground match is absolutely amazing but you need to know the whole Dusty/Dustin backstory to get the full effect. If you want to have some fun throwing the ridiculous side of wrestling in there you can show her the Dusty/Dustin/Nasties bit from the bar before the Wargames match, too.

oh shit!! He talks about the wolverine blade in this show!! It's the same one he left at CCAC!!

Brodie Lee “never yawn in my presence”. Dude, you’re the leader of the Dark Order, that’s going to prove pretty difficult.

OR Tank could at least get New Jack tickets to a 3 Count concert.

Not even a Judy Winslow write off.

Just added by wwe.com. You could tell Brock Lesnar respected Daniel Bryan, as people should for his abilities and allowing Bryan to bring the stiffness in the stomps/forearms to Brock's face.

International Incident.

Let's get some things out of the way in terms of ground rules. Rule 1: I have no idea who these people are and I do not care. I have no background. I didn't look for background. Background be damned. You don't need it. I will refer to the participants as Baldy, Robin, Uncle Heel and Shadow. You will know exactly who is who by watching. Rule 2: The mechanical work SUCKS. They are all terrible. The offense sucks. The bumping sucks. They fucking suck. Rule 3: I give it ***** Absolutely a match everyone should watch. And that's not bullshit. I'm not being cute. You should watch this. I've gone away from doing play-by-play as a review style and it wouldn't do this match justice but I feel like I have to tell you everything that happens because the story needs to be told. It's like a fever dream you owe it to yourself to experience. It's absurd in the best most totally pro wrestling ways that you can imagine. And I emphasize ways. In that in I mean EVERY way. The ring announcer is in a sequined jacket and he's the most normal thing going to be in the ring tonight. Baldy wears a pimp short robe to ringside to get a trophy for probably owning the promotion, who cares. The heels come out with a MARCHING BAND, a banner and a sidekick who looks like ... I don't even know. He's awesome. The heels join hands and dance a waltz. I legitimately don't think the Shadow can see shit in his outfit. He's wrestling in sensory deprivation. Uncle Heel has to walk him up the steps. They also have ring girls with thongs up to their necks. And the referee... When I tell you the referee is my favorite thing I have ever seen, I'm not kidding. Mother fucker is pimping white pants, a red shirt open to the navel, a skimmer hat like he's running for president in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon and a cane. Have I mentioned that they wrestle in a rounds system? Cause they fucking do! Have I mentioned every move is a flying headbutt? Because it fucking is! Have I mentioned Robin gets thrown over the top rope by a man in sensory deprivation and they carry his ass away from the ring? And they show it as it happens in slow mo? Because it fucking happens! Have I mentioned the riot? So with Baldy alone facing two heels, they cheat for a bit as you might expect. And Baldy comes back as you might expect culminating with kicking both the heels in the balls. That's when the WORLD EXPLODES. You've seen the ECW thing where Public Enemy gets covered in chairs? This is that but these people ain't playing. How that poor bastard who was legally blind survived is a miracle. The referee says the good guys win so everyone will survive until morning and they carry Baldy through the crowd (which I sure as shit wouldn't do) and he's Elvis, the Pope and Micheal Jackson all wrapped up in one. Watch this. Now.

"Stay tuned for Arrogance: The Story of a Male Model and His Pimp, next on Lifetime."

I was expecting Nihilist Arby's to be posting that given the build to Mania this year.

There is absolutely no reason to post 5 images in one post - or at a minimum not use spoiler tags

One thing with Brodie, I'm not that sure he's completely mocking Vince each time out. He's a control freak. All the masks and hidden faces, maybe it's some weird Zed and the Gimp situation where he has to be the domineering one all of the time? I'm reaching, sure. I'm almost sure I read in this forum once or twice that DO came off like a weird sex cult or something. If that is the vibe, could Brodie be taking it to the next level and he just wants to control everyone around him all the time because he gets a kick out of having that power? Just saying, Dark Order has been a slow burn all this time. While there's been missteps and growing pains, I think I'm fine giving them some leeway for a month or three to see where they go with Brodie. I'd like to remember Matt Hardy at the start of his broken phase, when the board had a dumpster fire thread about him. It almost feels like another slow burn where everything in the present looks ridiculous but we get to the big picture and suddenly it makes sense. Not saying that it's the same situation and all, just thinking aloud that as this plays out over months maybe we see what they wanted to do with the Dark Order and Lee all along, especially with how they shifted gears and cut some acts like Brandi's group but they've kept DO going and growing. And like Broken Matt, just maybe, fingers crossed, it pays off big time creatively.

I just realized in New Jersey that we went all winter without any significant amount of snow. I didn't even have to break out the shovel this winter.

Ferguson loses the first round of every fight, get dropped, stunned, and hit square on the chin over and over again...but somehow still just overwhelms his opponents. His fighting style is like everything else about him, the more you try to think about it, the less it makes sense.

Stay at home orders means make-up tutorials. Sasha as various wrestlers past and present.

I hope NBK plays in the background for the duration of the New Jack episode.

When you expect WWE Creative to be, well, creative.

What's the youngest someone can appreciate Bunkhouse Buck? 25?

Back when WCW had rankings in the early 90's, and the PWI rankings right up until I stopped reading it, the secondary champ was always at the top of the contender rankings.

I find people just tolerating or flat voting against John because of Cena, who rules, instead of Gargano, who is abysmal, very confusing.

Brodie Lee may be spoofing VKM but when he sat down and asked the yawning guy, "Are you having trouble at home?" I had immediate flashbacks to the terrible boss I had. So while the specifics may be niche to wrestling nerds, it probably does translate to a general audience. Of course, my boss wasn't over six feet with a big beard and a top knot, that's closer to a cult leader look. I think they have to strike the right balance between the two if it's going to work. I personally don't care for taking shots at the competition (if they backfire, it's far more embarrassing than if you said nothing), but I'm happy to watch someone else exorcise their demons.

Pretty sure this was January 2000. Chono and Super J vs Rick Steiner and Mike Rotunda. The match was...not good.

The Boo birds are kinda jumping the gun on the Brodie burial, no? This seemed to start with somebody saying he was mocking Vince again this week as opposed to just playing a megalomaniacal leader. What was the Vince reference I missed? And then complaints about his acting ability? From what I’m seeing that seems like a really weak argument. He’s beginning his run during a clearly difficult time in the promotion, I think I’ll give him a small benefit of the doubt. And continue enjoying what he’s doing. Seems to me week 1 and 2 were pretty fucking great. The vignette this week was marred by bad editing. It wasn’t as good as last week, but it wasn’t bad. And the post match power bomb was brutal and fun - not unlike Archer tossing around Marko. All hail the exalted one.

They should’ve been all wearing Le Champion bandanas. Missed opportunity there.

he's been in a few war games matches. I'd show her the bloodbath of 92 rather than the one where he teamed with Dusty and the Nasty Boys (93)

So it appears they've gone the WWE route with HonorClub now - $9.99 a month gets you access to pretty much everything, including PPVs live as they happen.

Glad to see people still remember and re-watch that Nagata/Yasuda match. I'm not the biggest fan of Nagata in that period myself (I prefer the older, grumpier Nagata of around 2007) but he carried Yasuda to a whopper that night. It's kinda ironic that the best Nagata match ever was his classic with Taue from around the same time---a match which is much less a showcase for Nagata than it is for Taue, and Taue being a guy who on paper has a lot of Yasuda's setbacks in terms of being an awkward, gruesome troll but was a genius at working around his own physical limitations.

I swear to God I thought that was Dusty Rhodes for a second in the middle.

I like how the guy who got stabbed told Jack he wanted to do the Florida circuit like he's Dusty Rhodes working Pak Song for Eddie Graham. Was this motherfucker thinking about selling out every Days Inn across the Redneck Riviera? We don't need further evidence this is the most carnie profession ever.

D-Lo Brown looks like he's a sitcom dad now