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New York City went on lockdown on the weekend of March 13th. Things were getting crazy. Hundreds and then thousands of people were being infected by the novel coronavirus. A friend of mine had travelled to Brazil in early March and because of getting infected and hospitalized, didn't come back to New York until May. Some other people I knew weren't so lucky. There's this bar I frequent called Rockbar. It's a small space (because every bar in New York is) where guys go and see friends, drink a lot for a cheap price, and have a very sleazy good time. About a dozen people I knew were infected by the coronavirus because they went to the bar that weekend. Four of them passed away in the following month. People became terrified of their own shadows. Mask wearing became common, and New Yorkers would actively shame others for not wearing a mask. Social distancing pushed everyone away from each other. By the time summer came around, though cases started to go down, I knew 6 people who'd lost their lives. Of course, when the virus went down here and in LA, they started to go up in other places, like Florida and Texas. The first wave never really ended, people just decided to live with the risk of the virus - or worse, decided since they hadn't seen any one get sick, it wasn't a threat. But, unfortunately, I knew just how real it was. One of my closest friends was intubated in March. He miraculously survived the intubation and was discharged from the hospital in May. I speak with him almost daily, and he still suffers with long term effects of the illness, but thankfully has mostly returned to his normal life. (Personally, I can't wait to give him a gigantic hug.) By the time 2020 ended, 3 more people I knew passed away. Thankfully, my senior citizen parents both began their vaccination in December, and finished in January. In mid-January. I became eligible for the vaccine in New York and got my first shot. Then Covid came for the rest of my family... My uncle, aunt, and 5 cousins and spouses all tested positive early in February. I lost my uncle Marcos to the virus 3 weeks ago. Thankfully, they rest of the family survived. The morning of February 20th, I saw Drew McIntyre kick out of 3 F5's. I saw him Claymore Brock Lesnar into oblivion and win the WWE Championship. Drew McIntyre fulfilled his dreams that day last year. I got my second shot later on that cold February afternoon. When I started this thing last year, I honestly thought this was something that would be done by the summer. I can tell you, I didn't know if I'd actually finish it. And I honestly didn't know if my $125 bike would actually survive somewhat daily usage for the better part of a year. 1900 miles later, Drew McIntyre held the WWE Championship above his head. I write now, vaccinated and feeling accomplished. Feeling mournful for the 11 family and friends I have personally lost in the last year. But, feeling hopeful for the future. For those of you who have come with me on this voyage, I am grateful. We'll see what comes next, but I have an idea or two. In the meantime, this is your humbled writer, simply saying: Thank you. Stay strong. Wear a mask. When its your turn to get vaccinated, please get your shot. We will get through this, together. -Kelvin

The RIPPA knows that this horseshit is finished

Best member of the Shield.

100% agree with that theory. History is written by the victors. WWE has reshaped the narrative of wrestling history and there hasn't been anyone able to stand up and say wait a minute your cooperate approved re-imagining of history isn't quite accurate. There's a whole generation of fans that have grown up with WWE being wrestling. WWE is the NFL or NBA to anyone born after 2000. To that end, I think a lot of wrestlers from previous generations aren't too thrilled with that. Sting specifically strikes me as someone that held out because he didn't enjoy WWE the machine. And I think his perspective after finally giving in and having such a nothing run there has only galvanized. Big Show strikes me as that sort of wrestler too. No one can tell me in the back of his head it doesn't annoy him that the cooperate approved re-imagining of his career is that he came over from WCW and was green as goose shit and got fat and lazy and had to do a year in OVW because he was such a bust. Joining AEW gives guys like that, that had a history previous to WWE, the chance to take control of their own narrative again. And at the very least try and help bring back professional wrestling as it existed before the Thanos snap (WWE buying WCW & ECW). And by that I mean things like in WWE you are not allowed to talk directly into the camera. Think Harlem Heat in WCW. They talked trash straight into the camera during their entrance. That shit was awesome. But that's become an official banned action. There's tons of shit that were a part of the fabric of pro wrestling like that, that was lost to time because that's not what WWE wants. I feel like that ended up much less coherent than your point but I took a swing at it lol.

As if there was ever any doubt...

Picture perfect form too.

My counter argument is Dynamite was awarded Weekly Show of the Year in 2019, despite being on air for only three months. Observer readers lean a certain way, and that's fine. The voting reflects their base. People read and listen to the Observer and largely agree with Meltzer's opinions. It's the same way most of Cornette's listeners agree with him.

I really don't understand how the WWE/Saudi partnership isn't the winner. That shit is fucking gross.

If DVDVR did awards, I would fucking shoot myself

Christian's brain for Most Improved!

To me, the people who vote on the WON awards are just about as reflective of a diverse audience as here with the only exception being you get to explain your rationale in depth here and there are perhaps more people willing to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. It's easy to dismiss the WON award voting because you're just seeing the numbers being tabulated (same with who enjoys what and what they didn't enjoy on a PPV). So it's just faceless and nameless voting. Now I wouldn't disagree with one of your earlier points that Dave has his acolytes. We already know that's a given. The problem with that though is it's very dismissive of people being able to have original thoughts. That's why I have to disagree with you that nobody here is as influential. Yes, they might not be an outright tastemaker like Dave has been over the years. However, I doubt this is the early tape trading days and the pro wrestling boom of the mid to late 90s to the early 2000s where Dave's influence was at it's very peak. You can go back and read old wrestling reviews from that time period, and you see these are copy and pasted Dave's thoughts and information from the Observer written into these reviews. More importantly, this board has a bunch of smart and well researched people IMO (you definitely will not agree with ALL of them of course on different topics). However, it's hard to say none of these folks can be influential when we have our own favoriting system you can actually see. I would never say people agree with Matt D or odessasteps or gordi etc. because they have avid followers here, a bunch of liked content, and thus those people who gave them a like can't come up with their own personal opinions. Moreover, I wouldn't say there is a WWE bias because I know people openly dislike Dave and/or they cannot stand AEW or AEW fans. To me, if I'm going to give the folks who vote for the WON awards that credit, I have to give this forum that same credit. IMO it's not bias as much as it's what it is: people like what they like. However, if you did the exact same categories here and you didn't have a chance to discuss anything, I'm pretty sure you would come with mostly the same winners and very similar placement for the nominees or candidates with perhaps a few changes in the order. Thus, people would still be heated and upset afterwards (perhaps because they have more faith in "this" system as opposed to "that" system). The only difference is you wouldn't be able to put that on one person. Whenever you're talking awards of any kind, for whatever reason, people seek that validation for the stuff they like. And if the stuff you don't like or didn't like as much wins, you have to come up with a way to discredit that system or it's criteria. In actuality, you should probably just dismiss awards as whole because 9 out of 10 times you're going to have the exact same thoughts and feelings the next time around. Nothing is going to change in a year. In the same vain, nothing really changes here. If someone dislikes Misawa and Kobashi this year, they're probably going to dislike them going forward. There might be one or two people who change their minds because another member recommended something, but it's not going to be a whole sea change on 90s All Japan. This board would suck if people just have different, conflicting thoughts on every subject from one day to another. People definitely have their differing and dissenting thoughts (some more inflexible than others), but for the most part, it's not to the point of aggravation. There is a ton of agreement here. I don't see that as hive minded or anything. It's just that there are reasons people congregate here that are very similar to the reasons people subscribe to the Observer. It might not be 1:1 the same, but still very similar whether or not you love Meltzer or completely hate his guts.

In Soviet Russia, Wrestlemania sign points at you!

This is me whenever ratings start getting discussed, parsed, analyzed, dissected and/or compared... The Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic used to be more "most embarrassing/repulsive angle or gimmick that a promotion did to draw heat, get publicity and/or make money" but it occasionally devolved to "thing that I don't like that this promotion did", but now I guess it can be "bad thing that happened to wrestling". I mean the Speaking Out movement shouldn't be what is voted on, but rather how a particular promotion dealt with the effects of it. "Fritz Von Erich's fake heart attack" ('88) or "José González's babyface push one year after Bruiser Brody stabbing case" ('89) were the classic ones to me. On the other hand, "Bob Backlund as WWF Champion" won in '82, so it has always been a bit ambiguous. - RAF

Didn’t Baszler (maybe others as well, I’m thinking Pete Dunne) sort of do a version where she’d stomp on the elbow. But this works better as there’s always pressure on the arm. The issue with the stomp version is the gap where the recipient could clearly move their arm.

I'll do more later but want to start like @Spontaneous has, with Match of the Year. My top five: 5. AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan. WWE Smackdown Live, 6th June 2020. 4. #FTR vs. Young Bucks. AEW Full Gear 2020. *****. 3. Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi. NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14. *****. 2. Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito. NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14. *****. 1. Kenny Omega/Hangman Page vs. Young Bucks. AEW Revolution 2020. *****.

Caswell Martin was also great at pro wrestling. Has anyone ever seen this before? So painful looking. Likewise this exact facewash:

I think the safest thing is to completely eliminate legitimate categories like Wrestler of the Year, Promotion of the Year, whatever. Stick to the board classics. Best Punches. Best WCW Worldwide match. Best Squashes. "The Cody Rhodes Award" for worst tattoo.

Why does Sting never see it coming?

I was gonna continue my "Free Will and blah blah blah" thread today, but what the hell, I would genuinely like to see what everyone thinks, so here are: YOUR 2020 (DVDVR Message Board) Pro Wrestling Awards Emphasis on your because hopefully everyone feels OK with just making and posting their own lists, and nobody needs to compile totals (unless someone really really wants to). Emphasis on your because of the one suggested ground rule, which of course nobody has to honour: To avoid this degenerating into anger and arguments, let's avoid criticising other people's choices. Please. Let's let everyone have the right to their personal opinions. Let's not drive @RIPPA to do something that will make us all sad. I'd encourage, however, quoting people to agree with them or say "I didn't think of that one!" or "I'll check that out!" or whatever. I'd also encourage people to come up with their own categories. El Gran Gordi's 2020 Pro Wrestling Awards: Wrestlers of the Year (Combining kayfabe and in-ring work): Naito because of how insane the reaction was for him at New Beginning last year and how many people were wearing LIJ gear, and how he pushed himself every time he stepped in the ring. Mox because of how he represents so much of what was best about pro wrestling in 2020, working on top for both AEW and NJPW, obviously enjoying being free to be himself, etc etc Cody at least in part to see if anyone really wants to break the suggested ground rule. Go had a pretty great year, too. Wrestlers of the Year (Purely in-ring version): Hiromu: Takes #1 because I saw him vs Lee live and it was amazing. Literally had me on the edge of my seat, watching through my fingers, at certain points. Fenix: Amazing. Hope he doesn't also end up on the shelf for six months, like Hiromu. Ishii: Clubbering! Wrestlers of the Year (personal favourites): Zeus, Lulu Pencil, and Freshly Squeezed Orange Cassidy all made me mark out with pure joy this year.It was a great moment for me seeing someone I consider a friend win the CC. I can't believe that Lulu and Cassidy's gimmicks haven't worn thin on me yet. I smile every time I see them in the ring. Or, you know, on the mat in that little room. Both are proving to be more than just their gimmicks, particularly in Cassidy's case. Matches of the Year: Ishii vs MiSu, G1 Night 1: Clubbering! Dragunov vs. WALTER: Oh Dear Lord, the clubbering! Stadium Stampede: The other side of the pro wrestling coin in 2020. Talkers of the Year: Eddie Kingston: pretty clearly, I'd say. Excalibur: just outstanding all year. ZSJ: I actually prefer his mic work to his wrestling. Wrestlers I most miss watching: Bryan, Banks, Cesaro. Maybe I need to look on YouTube more often. Following AEW week to week, NJPW's big shows and matches, recommended matches from other promotions, and the Clubbering, Wrestling Machines, Secret Santo, and other threads. It's enough. I love all of that stuff. I hate the way WWE film and edit matches so very very much. Can't even be arsed to watch some of the all time greats, recently. My loss, I know. What I'm most looking forward to in 2021: Going back to live shows. Kuuga, who has been my drinking buddy for over a decade now, runs Doutonbori Pro Wrestling. Another guy I consider a friend, Bodyguard, has started up Colega Pro and it looks great. New Japan are on fire right now. Members of my Osaka Pro second family are working on top in AJPW and NOAH... and I haven't been to a show since New Beginning last year. Even when herd immunity is achieved, I won't be able to afford to go and see everyone right away. I'll sure as hell appreciate it when I can, though. Whatever's next for NJPW and AEW. My two favourite (non local indie) promotions, working together. Just the fantasy booking is tremendous fun. Can hardly wait to see where it all goes. Discussion on the DVDVR boards: all of our lives are going to be going through changes in 2021, and the wrestling landscape could end up drastically altered as well. Looking forward to going through all of that with all of you here. Faction of the Year: The Dark Order! Who could have seen that coming, back in the "Dork Odour" days? My #2 is Purple Haze, because of the Osaka Pro connections Most Improved: Jeff Cobb's in-ring work, Britt Baker's character, Hangman Page's character and in-ring work. Really enjoyed watching all three of them grow this year. Most Regrettable Tattoo in Pro Wrestling: Sorry, Cody, it's still Brock's Chest Sword Best Music: Judas: Love the sing-along. Love it. Goosebumps, for me, first time it happened. Kingdom (Cody's theme - Snoop Dog version) Just get a huge kick out of Snoop rapping "holey moley" to a Downstait song about Cody Rhodes. Honestly never thought I'd hear that. Joker by Shonan Kaze (Kuuga's theme) All three of these entrance themes are staples of my workout mix. Objectively, Kuuga's theme is only the second-best theme with the word "Kaze" in the title... but it's a f'n banger: OK. That's enough from me for now, I think. Please list your own awards if you are so inclined!

Man...I have so much to say. I've been in my feelings a bit the last couple of weeks...but I really needed an escape today, and NJPW gave it to me. The spoiler-free thoughts I can offer: night 2 of Castle Attack was the most well-shot, well-directed, well-produced pro wrestling show I've seen in a very long time. At the very least, since the beginning of the pandemic. I felt more during this show than even the last Wrestle Kingdom (though in fairness...my wrestling consumption nowadays is limited to NJPW, the occasional bit of AEW, and old puroresu on Youtube). NJPW is so far ahead of all other promotions in terms of how their camera work complements the action, I have no idea how other companies will ever catch up short of outright copying whatever the NJPW/TV Asahi crew is doing. Also credit to the English announce team. I craved English commentary for puroresu from the day I bought my first "Best of Great Muta" VHS tape twenty years ago. This is not to say the matches were incomprehensible without it; the wrestling spoke for itself even back then. But - there's no denying great commentary adds to the presentation, and this team has been on point for a while. Spoilered thoughts:

Melzer is a reason why AEW became a thing in some form or another whether he wants to admit it or not. He's been putting over Omega and the Bucks heavy before AEW existed. It doesn't bother me that he puts that company other so heavy because I'd be lying if I said I didn't value his a opinion but I don't agree with everything he says. I'm not one of these AEW superfans but I want them to succeed as far as they possibly can and if Melzer putting them over so much helps then I'm fine with it. The same way Cornette burying them every week is helping them too whether he knows it or not. It's been almost 20 years without a second major promotion. I don't watch AEW as much as I'd like to but I'm happy that they are on a major channel that supports them. I'm not into this promotional Tribalism, but I understand it because when I was younger I was all about ROH over everyone else. I'm at the point now where I want every promotion to seceed as far as they can. There are guys every company that I'm a huge fan of even if they aren't used how they should be

Personally, I used to put in the same kind of work for my Awards ballot every year that I used to when I filled out my Gillette MLB all star ballot. I haven’t done an awards ballot in a few years, but I do put in the same kind of work for my HOF balllot these days. On the other hand, most of my March Madness voting here was mostly who do I like better. ?

I started up a 2020 Awards thread in huge part because I'm genuinely curious to see how much opinions here might diverge from the ones at the WON. Another thing is this: I wonder how many people put real thought into their awards ballots vs how many people who would like to put real thought in but are pressed for time so end up mostly going chalk so they can at least get a ballot in. I'm sure some people literally keep a notebook on this stuff. On the other end of the spectrum, when I did my post on the WON awards in this thread, the one with all the blue text, I just had the reddit thread with the results and a random wrestling site listing the winners open in my browser and I did a fair bit of cutting and pasting. I tried to come up with some "alternative" candidates, but I didn't think of Lulu Pencil until after I posted it. I remember loving one of the Mox vs Darby matches but I couldn't remember if it was 2020 or 2019... It's not like I had a couple of days to really work on it and do research and stuff. I wanted to contribute to the discussion while it was ongoing. So I can imagine that kind of stuff also lends itself to results being a bit same-y and predictable sometimes. Maybe people who've been busy with other stuff and didn't have time to watch everything might have felt safe going with "obvious" choices like The Bucks, Omega, ZSJ... if they still wanted to get a ballot in. Similar to how a washed-up vet with a great pedigree will often make the pro bowl or the all star game over a younger player who is obviously better but hasn't been voted in before. That being said, the WON results mostly seem very reasonable to me and a fair representation of pro wrestling in 2020. It's not like Mox and Omega and Bucks and ZSJ are bad choices! And I'd still very much like to see everyone's personal lists.

Belligerent Mean Gene was a true gift. God knows how many drinks deep he was here.

"Stay tuned fans as we'll learn if Manami Toyota can successfully murder herself. We'll see after the break!" (Poor Toshiyo Yamada took that monitor right to the eye and nose. That HAD to suck.)

(not sure where to post this, there does not seem to be a Star Trek thread and I think this fits better here than in the documentary thread) I have recently watched the Star Trek Deep Space Nine documentary they did in 2018. They did a pretty good job and had a funny thing going on during the credits where Nana Visitor (Kira in DS9) is arguing with the producer of the documentation Ira Steven Behr (showrunner of DS9 in the later years) about stuff they did not mention or cut from the documentary. But that is not why I am posting this. The last pre-credit scene is René Auberjonois (Odo in DS9) reminiscing about how in his obituary he now won't be described as being best known as Clayton Endicott III from Benson, because even though that was a great character, he was a nitwit, but rather as being Odo. While he was saying that, he was near tears. Auberjonois died about a year after the documentary premiered so I guess something like 2 years after the interview was conducted, but I guess by that time he knew that he was near the end of the road and I suppose Behr knew so as well (Auberjonois died from lung cancer). The documentary also featured quite some material with Aron Eisenberg (Nog in DS9) including an emotional interview excerpt near the end. Eisenberg died a couple of months before Auberjonois from heart failure and wasn't doing physically well either for quite some time, so that might also have been a concious choice.

I voted Shingo for wrestler of the Year. I thought his matches were a bright spot last year on some rough NJPW shows. His G1 was stellar and I thought his Never Openweight matches were all bangers. I thought Moxley's title run was weak in ring aside the Kingston feud. I'm not a huge AEW fan though, I have never even seen a single episode of BTE. I find them to be irritating. Most improved has to be Reigns. His heel turn is must see stuff and I think anyone who dreamed how great a Roman turn could go are just as impressed. Show of the year, I thought Revolution was a good pick. I only watched the Dynamite before it so this was a big introduction to AEW for me. I think Wrestle Kingdom Night 1 and 2 were great too. Double or Nothing was fun. I only watched Bucks-FTR and Moxley-Kingston from Full Gear. Summer Struggle in Jingu was fun minus the KOPW match, wwe was rough most of the year. Worst match of the year, The Fiend has had so many. The knockouts rumble at Slammiversary was rough. That said, Edge-Orton from Mania was the worst to me. They had the benefit of recording that and be able to see it and realize how meaningless their match felt. They both had a much better edited match at Backlash.

Like Edge did teaming with Hogan in 2002.

Final thing on the WON.. as said We've had March Madness here which is our own equivalent (and much more entertaining) version of Wrestler of the Year (or arguably Most Outstanding Wrestler). There were years where WWE midcarders like Cesaro made deep runs. Rusev made the semis or finals one year. We had a luchador make a deep run. Bayley vs. Sasha was a finals. New Japan wrestlers have made deep runs. independent wrestlers have made deep runs. i don't believe this voting body is as slanted as the WON voting body at all and that would prove out with additional categories. Also, for the most part i think the winners were fine. AEW had a monster year. Mox and Omega had great years. The promotion overall has been on fire. None of my posts are anti-AEW. it's the best promotion i regularly watch.

Had to call Xbox Live tech support about an issue with one of my Xbox 360 consoles (caused by the massive outage a couple days ago). The customer service guy was great to deal with and spent almost an hour with me while we tried various things to resolve my issue, so I thought he was outstanding - up until the point where he said "Hold on. I have to look something up. Been a long time since I tried to solve an issue on a RETRO console" (emphasis is mine, not his). Sigh. That's it. I can't live in this world anymore. If we have to live in a dystopia, could we not at least live in one where people appreciate the greatness of the 7th generation? Actually, I'm planning to buy another retro 360 today. I set up a second game room for some of my older consoles (360/PS3/Wii and the backwards compatible games) and am going to buy another limited edition 360 for the room. Prob going to buy a LE Halo: Reach 360 (the silver slim model) or the Star Wars 360. Maybe both. "Both" is the more likely answer, actually. I have cooler stuff for the 360/PS3 generation. The Wii hooked up right now is the limited edition red Super Mario Bros. anniversary edition. The PS3 is one of the metallic red LE's they released in Japan. I've got a lot of limited edition games box sets, fighting sticks, rare-ish X360 face plates, etc. Didn't buy that sort of thing for the 8th generation. Mostly just own the vanilla consoles and controllers, and most of the games are digital.

Great picture.

The guy who does the recaps of these shows on the WON site is so freaking bad. The Yano match was the right mix of silly and serious and the whole ending sequence was actually pretty cool and dramatic and the guy makes it sound like it was Goldberg-Undertaker.

You’re talking about plot, which is fine, but I’m talking about bullshit in terms of character arc. The end of the story HAS to be about her coming to terms with reality and letting him go. That’s the whole point of the story: She couldn’t let him go and, as a result, made a terrible emotional decision that hurt a lot of people! The truly heroic thing for Wanda here isn’t beating Agatha or FrankenVision—it’s realizing that she has to move on and letting Vision go. That’s the type of fundamental, A to B character growth that stories are supposed to deliver. But if it all culminates in a big “Oops, my bad about Westview, but at least I got my man back!”...That would just be incredibly wrongheaded. In that ending, the core issue—the inciting incident of the whole story—is left unresolved; she hasn’t dealt with her grief, she’s just figured out a way to make the security blanket she conjured up permanent. Her A to B character growth is from “Living in the Hex with the fake Vision she created to deal with her grief” to “Living in the real world with the fake Vision she created to deal with her grief.” Not exactly powerful stuff. Unless the plan really is to slow burn a Wanda heel turn (and I don’t think it is), there really isn’t a worse outcome for her character than getting to “keep” her Vision. I’d like to think Marvel is smart enough to not bungle a pretty basic storytelling beat like that, but they have been known to try to have their cake and eat it, too, with this sort of stuff. Used to do that shit with Tony Stark, like, every other movie.

Taurus is really great at pro wrestling.

I know Craig touched on this a couple months ago but I would love to see the dark side of everybody coming back 5 years later. Don't think they would do it but there's so many questions about the unintended side effects. As for the episode if we're getting high-quality stuff from this show imagine how well done the rest of the shows will be. We're in for a super fun year, folks. I really am withholding temptation to use the Orson Welles clapping gif but damn was that worthy of it. And yeah Vision's line about grief was top notch. Whoever wrote that deserves a raise.

Get an Adblocker dude. Couldn't stand the Internet without it.

I figure y’all will get a kick out of this. My 6 yr old tricked my wife into letting her watch the first several episodes of WandaVision, so I was trying to give her (very high level) background info on what happened in Infinity War/Endgame with the snap and such. When I explained that the people who disappeared came back five years later in the same place they were when they disappeared, she immediately asked, “But what would happen if they built a city or something where the person was?!?”

Jericho drew a big crowd in Sturgis, brother.

Unless it's being a contrarian asshole, I legitimately cannot fathom not liking John Silver and wanting to see him succeed.

If we only count the legal votes, Bunkhouse Buck wins Most Underrated in a landslide.

Looking forward to the pages of navel-gazing and three paragraph non-apologies after the arguments over why "1996 Battlarts" isn't a valid contender for Promotion of the Year.

I just read a theory that Vision bought the lot in Westview because it was a nice little town, but it looked so depressing when Wanda drove through it because it was devastated by the Snap. It isn’t something they will likely address, but it makes perfect sense and is now head canon for me.

Bret is my all-time favorite. He was the first wrestler I saw as a kid that hooked me and I've been a fan ever since. But Kobashi holds a special place with me also. I didn't learn about the All Japan 90s matches and early NOAH ( I didn't have a computer until 03) until the early-mid 00s when I got into ROH and saw Joe vs. Kobashi. Kobashi stood out to me the most because he had Bret level selling and could take an ass whopping and a strong emotional come back that made you cheer for him until the final bell. In Feb 2006 when I was 16, I was diagnosed with cancer. It was a rough time for me. Being a high school student that played sports, I had a job, a pretty fun social life and all of that stopped in an instant. My only real outlet was wrestling and I spent countless hours, months at a time in bed watching all the wrestling I could get my hands on. Then in the summer of 2006 when I found out Kobashi was diagnosed with cancer, it hit me pretty hard. And on days when I didn't feel like being here anymore, I would think of Kobashi and it would give me inspiration because I knew like any Kobashi match, he would get his ass kicked but he'd eventually make a strong come back. I had my last chemo treatment in Dec of 2006 and I've been in remission ever since but I was still cheering on Kobashi because he was still in the midst of it. And less than a year later, he made his come back, gave the burning hammer to cancer and then came back in the ring. And when he came back to wrestle, that's when I truly felt like I beat my cancer. And that's my story for Kobashi appreciation.

My daughter called me this morning from the DMV and told me that she passed her behind the wheel exam! She's now a licensed motor vehicle operator! Her voice beamed with pride. It felt good to hear her excitement about her accomplishment. She passed on driving herself to hang out with me this weekend, though. Highway driving still intimidates her, but she'll get better as she becomes a more confident driver. That's okay though. Dad will be more than happy to continue his chauffer duties until then.

Your shtick is lame.

Why, though? Do elaborate.