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So at what point do you feel the Nation of Domination jumped the shark?

Hollywood Observer: A lot of Oscar buzz surrounding James Franco putting on over 100 pounds to play White Pootie Tang. Some groups protest “do we need a white pootie tang?” Sony exec. Claps back “did we need a black one?” Director Lars von Trier insists “it will be culturally sensitive to the original material of which I am a huge fan.” Developing...

Dudes selling the effects of slamming Andre will always be extremely my shit.

I feel like, once the crisis has passed and if NJPW and AEW start working together, Orange Cassidy and Juice Robinson should form a tag team. They could call themselves "Cassidy & Robinson."

This reminds me of the scene in every James Bond movie where the head of the evil people group is like “anyone who disagrees with this plan feel free to speak up now” and then that person is eaten by an octopus.

In one of the more impossibly cool developments to come out of the pandemic, luchadores are now making lucha libre themed face shields. WANT.

My thoughts exactly. Signed, a former member of legally distinct 2003 local punk band Ghost

Come on now. Vince can't even complete the sentence "sports entertainers are completely safe and are welcome to go to HR with any issues without fear of reprisal" without laughing uncontrollably. Meltzer had a great point a week ago when discussing how WWE and AEW both told wrestlers they were free to stay home, and how absolutely mind boggling it was that, after both companies made that edict, AEW is working with a skeleton crew while WWE still has a mostly full roster. So weird, that. No idea what could cause that, really.

The Mountie would be a little more sinister these days with a bald Jacques Rougeau. Edit: Just realized that Jacques now has sort of a Baron Von Raschke look. Or in other words.. "I'm the Da Baron, I'm handsome, I'm brave, I'm strong. I'm Da Baron, and I apply the claw"

I can't think of a better plan for the 24/7 title than to have Gronk leave with it and never bring it back.

5 seconds before she whacks Shinzaki upside the head with the nunchucks. "I AM THE ONLY GOD YOU PRAY TO" EDIT: Meanwhile, on my TV... Cena riding purple cows in an Experian commercial

I think you may have missed the point?

Yes, I am disappointed he's not wearing the 24/7 Belt.

Posting this here so more people will see it. WALTER vs. Tyler Bate from NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff 2019 was my WWE Match of the Year, gave it the full *****.

I can’t believe they booked Woody Harrelson to play the Mountie in that episode, seems a needless expense! I really enjoyed that episode. Really shone a light on the benefits of getting on Vince’s good side while in the WWF and having a plan B for when you leave.

Saw this elsewhere, and now I'm angry I didn't arrive at it independently: Slippin' Kimmy.

Yuka Sakazaki has the best theme:

Watching the 2014 draft on ESPN seeing everyone getting pumped for Johnny Manziel is just hilarious given how shitty he was

Most recent NBA obsession: Wizards Jordan. He was way better in a Washington than people remember. Before getting hurt, when he was starting the first year he was 24/5/6 on 42% shooting (his numbers dropped because he came off the bench for seven games with a bum knee before shutting it down for the season. Before the injury, he was a legit borderline mvp candidate. He wasn't as good in 02-03, but he was also 40 and coming off knee surgery, and still put up a 20-6-4 on 45% while playing 37 minutes a night and had 3 40 point games after turning 40. If he had taken the urging from Phil to come to L.A. as a mentor in 99-00, and only played say 25 minutes a night, that already great Lakes team could've steamrolled the league.

Lars von Trier with an all timer movie anecdote here. Everybody got very confused.

So Reggie Bennett was good. It seems like she adjusted to her enlargement to wrestle as more of a monster- as I think she was much smaller not that much before this.

Sheepherders and Dibiase and Doctor Death beat the crap out of each other.

This was from Justin Roberts a few years back (around 2014), explaining who Scott Dunlap was and how he got the chance to work as an announcer for WCW. To be honest, I presumed he was the son of a Turner Broadcasting employee or something similar. Meet Scott. He has spastic cerebral palsy in all four limbs. He LOVES professional wrestling. He has since he was a child. He told me that “people with disabilities look at their heroes get beat down and love to see them come back up” and how motivating that is. He loves to see the wrestlers fight through their personal issues as well. He didn’t have a social life in high school, but found happiness in professional wrestling. These days, he turns to professional wrestling for an escape. Scott had wanted to be a wrestling announcer. Through a counselor in high school and then the Starlight Foundation, Scott received the opportunity from Eric Bischoff and the now defunct World Championship Wrestling to be an announcer on two shows interviewing Davey Boy Smith and Ric Flair. Scott was thrilled when that happened and just as thrilled recently when they reunited a couple of weeks ago in Dallas.

@Curt McGirt @DEAN @Matt D @thee Reverend Axl Future Matt, I have not seen Blackwell vs Mulligan nor have I seen Ratchke vs Weaver before. In fact, It is probable that catching up on this thread over the last couple of days marks the first time I have ever seen Johnny Weaver or Killer Kowalski in action. I don't think I've ever seen the Dustin vs Vader match that Curt posted. Surely I would have remembered that sick clothesline on the floor and the terrific flip bump Dustin took off of it. Vader has to be one of the all time kings of clubbering. His big inside forearm shots are literally the perfect example of clubbing blows. That being said, the more Blackwell I watch, the closer he gets to Tenta and Vader on top of my personal rankling of masculine behemoth pro wrestlers. I love this call in the Blackwell match: "The big fat man is using his weight to his advantage." "Yes, he is." I loved Blackwell vs Blackjack, and I enjoyed seeing Raschke, too. I think the most impressive thing in that entire video was Gene Mean's astounding curly toupee. My head almost exploded when I realized who that was. I remember Terry Funk telling the story of how Raschke would line up an opponent in the corner and lunge in with the claw, only for the opponent to dodge and Raschke's claw hand to get stuck on the turnbuckle with him unable to break his grip. Imagine getting something like that completely over with the crowd! Has anyone even tried something remotely similar since, I guess, the MasterLock challenge? It was a damned interesting thing to have two claw-centric matches on one TV show. I agree with Curt that the sound on that Kowalski vs Rikidozan match was amazing. Those strikes! They didn't have the sharp crack that we are too used to hearing in the kickpads/leg slap era. It's the dull fleshy thud of bone slamming into muscle. I wonder how they mic'd up that ring. I wish someone could figure it out and copy it. Imagine that sound paired with the sweat-flying visual impact captured by modern lighting and high-def cameras! Then those two Joshi matches that DEAN posted: The first part of Kudo vs Toyoda was like Black Terry vs Wotan without the gravel. It didn't feel like a pro wrestling match fought by pro wrestlers wearing street clothes. It felt like an actual street fight. It was almost disappointing when they got back in the ring and started doing more pro wrestlingy type stuff. If Megumi vs Combat was like two rival gang members throwing down, Kansia vs Hotta was like the two toughest ladies from rival kyokushin dojos settling a grudge. It was like a combination of Tenryu vs Hash with Shibata vs Shinsuke. What amazes me here is that, even if we narrow our focus to something as specific as "90s Joshi brawls" there is still a depth and richness to what we might find. It's also pretty amazing that (unless I'm mistaken) that the second of those matches is from the same card as The Greatest Joshi Singles Match of All Time. Pro wrestling, man... Speaking of which:

I buy pretty much everything on PSN, but Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle is indeed worth it. Now if Capcom could port the Dungeons & Dragons beat 'em ups they did to PS4/Switch/Xbox One....

I honestly think I need to watch this episode again, because there is so much to digest here. I've reached a tipping point where Nacho's story is stressing me out. I just need that dude to find a way out, but I get the feeling that Lalo is going to find him in season 6 and make his life hell. I'm so disappointed in Kim ? This might be a weird observation, but they kinda tipped their hand that she was making a turn with her letting her hair down. I saw someone notice a while back that her hair is always up, but her hair was down for most of this episode. The writers of this show don't waste any movements.

Yeah, very good show. The mystery partner for Dreamer and Rhyno was a pleasant surprise (I won't say who it was just in case anyone hasn't seen the show yet) and Shamrock/Callihan was great. Willie Mack is something else. A guy that fat should not be so damn athletic. Looking forward to next week's show.

That's totally worth ten bucks. It's on my wish list but I can't pull the trigger because I got enough to play as it is. By the way, my first crack at Streets of Rage 2 in over 20 years and I made it to stage 7(out of 8 ) with my five year old. Not as good the second time around with my 12 year old, who felt like he'd brought the family great dishonor by not achieving more with the old man. So a great night for ME.

Honestly, I think it would be better if the doc ends with Schultz saying something with meaning or with regret and suddenly Stossel runs in, smacks him in the face and yells "Payback's a bitch, bitch!" and then runs the fuck out of there. And it cuts to black.

Damn, Bucs don't play the Jags this year. Dolfan's idea playing out with some tackle coming out on Dynamite and throwing the belt in the trash would have been fun.

I hope some random DB tackles him and wins the 24/7 title off of him in like Week 6 or something. Wonder if NFL officials are allowed to make the 3 count like when Heyman counted Cena down.

You mean like getting put in a carpool karaoke video?

Yes, yes we get it - Meltzer is the anti-christ

WWE officials have been unsuccessful in tracking down John for further clarification as they can't see him.

size is a virtue in wrestling. Yoko had like 6 moves and 5 of them could've been a top-tier finisher if he'd wanted them to be. (legrdop, corner reverse splash, belly to belly, uranage, and the banzai drop that actually was). like how even Andre's hiptoss looked devastating. Love the disrespect of the face palm pin cover too. But I could go on all day [and have] about Yoko as an all time Squash Match great.

Someone just shared this with me and it's absolutely gorgeous. The artist has prints available at ianklarer.bigcartel.com

Atom Egoyan Guy Maddin

To me, he totally looks like what I would expect Jacques Rougeau (Jr.) would look like. Von Raschke looks way too distinctive.

JYD counted his own pin in the Wrestling Classic (I guess the ref from the IL state commission was on his smoke break and forgot to go out there for the match), and Monsoon had to make sense of it by saying that there were "judges" ringside to determine that was legal. The fix has been in since then cause that's fucking bullshit.

You'd think Bix would have ground that axe down to a nub at thss point...

Incredible observation...Giselle has now entered the chat.

Very hard to find time to sneak in reading right now, but I've managed some before bed the last few nights and just made it through the first French Catch chapter, and it's so great to see some more context on some of what we've been seeing and to catch names pop up. In watching all of those Petit Prince matches, I had no idea both he and Andre were trained by Saulnier at the same time, and even promoted to debut together. While, the authors have a number of interviews to work with, a lot of what they're working off of are primary documentation, whether it be the few matches that survived, or the training footage, or programs, and I can sympathize strongly with that (not just due to my history background), because that's a lot of how we're trying to make sense of what we're seeing.

Batman was defeated because he couldn't figure out his way out of a maze of shipping containers in a blimp. Sorry, Gotham.