Leaderboard

Just terrible. I could deal with Terry Funk because I'd heard it was coming for a while. But this is so sad. Windham was special because he tried to do something truly creative every week. Sometimes it missed and sometimes it hit, but I always respected that he went big and put himself out there for it. I think that's why he was kind of bullet proof when it came to creative. People respected that he was at least trying his damndest to make magic happen in a business where magic can easily fade away behind commodity. I'm thankful I got to see such a performer who cared that much about their craft. And I'm sad because I know they had so much more to show the world. Terrible news.

I don't know Naylor, but I'm sure I've interacted with him at some point over the years. I just want to say that of all the people I've encountered in the internet, I envy his relationship with wrestling the most. He seems to have seen it at every level, met the heroes worth meeting, and just loves what he loves and disregards the rest. I hope he's doing OK.

I've been trying to put my thoughts together about Terry Funk and I'm having a hard time thinking of something other than, "he might be the best ever." So, I'll say this. I don't think there is a single moment in my life where Terry Funk was on a screen that I was in a bad mood. Terry Funk is on the shortlist with breasts and ice cream, where I don't give a damn what else is going on, these things will always make it better for as long as they are around. Quick story, I was at the Summerslam that was in Brooklyn a few years back. Me and my friends go to the bar to get an overpriced drink. As soon as I get there a very attractive girl walks up, and I look down and she's wearing a Terry Funk t-shirt. In my half-drunk ass mind, I legitimately thought, "This woman may very well be my soulmate." I immediately got into Mr. GQ mode and said, "That's a dope t-shirt." She looked at me, smiled and said, "I don't even know who that is, my boyfriend got it for me." I legitimately went from being instantly in love to a little disgusted in about 23 seconds. When I thought she liked Terry Funk, I was all about her, when she didn't even know who Terry Funk was, I couldn't have been less interested. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've never dated a woman who gave a damn who Terry Funk was, but they weren't out here being posers wearing his t-shirt. That has to be the worst case of false advertising I've ever encountered. My best friend still gives me shit about the time I saw a girl in a Terry Funk t-shirt and just assumed we would soon be married. He swears I was like Ralph Wiggum in that episode where Lisa breaks up with him on television and you could see the exact moment where his heart broke. Basically, I'm saying that I like Terry Funk enough that I saw a woman wearing a Terry Funk t-shirt and just assumed it was a sign from God that she was the woman for me and was caught off guard when it wasn't the case. After typing that, I'm convinced that I might be a crazy person.

2013 was a real bad year for WWE, I don’t know if anyone remembers that time. It was just bland as all hell. Wyatt Family coming along definitely injected some intrigue into the shows. Me, personally, I was obsessed with those debut vignettes. I still watch a playlist of them to this day. The one where a WWE.com “reporter” goes to the Wyatt Family Compound doesn’t even feel like a WWE made segment, honestly. All of those videos are exactly the best kind of creepy and intriguing, but that one was the peak of it (and I think the last one before they debuted? That night, maybe?) 2014 felt like a watershed year for that group and Bray himself. I still question the decision of Cena over Bray at WrestleMania. A lot of positives coming out of that ‘Mania were later undone pretty quickly, but if felt like a fresh start at the time. I could never get into anything he did post-swamp preacher gimmick, but I love love love the Firefly Funhouse match with Cena at the pandemic WrestleMania. Lots of cinematic matches during that time, but that one was VERY different and felt special. A match that is basically a deep dive into a wrestler’s psyche? What??? I have heart problems too, and stuff like this scares the fuck out of me. Last year, I had gotten COVID the weekend I was in the hospital because of heart issues. This hits way too close to home for me. I’m a little shook, to be honest. Rest easy, Windham.

There's a lot of wrestlers who you can look at and say "they should get into acting after their ring career is over." Bray Wyatt left me saying "this guy should really get into directing after his ring career is over." Bray had a really creative mind that shined through with the whole Firefly Funhouse mini-film series that had me really looking forward to seeing what kind out outside/post wrestling creative career he was going to have and it really, really, really, really sucks that we're never going to get to find out what that would've entailed. There was some consolation with Funk that at least he lived a long, full life and got to do all he wanted in front of an audience. There is no such consolation with Bray. He was nowhere near finished.

Not particularly relevant, but this reminds me of a line in Friends where Joey’s feedback from a failed audition is “not believable as a human being”, which is what I think every time I watch Seth Rollins doing character work.

Expendables 4 looks so fucking stupid. I will be the first one in line to get a ticket.

Wooooo! It's on Free TV (in the UK)!!

Matt Hardy revealed who played Leatherface in the TCM match.

One thing I believe in strongly is that while wrestling is the matches that take place in the ring it is not only that, and I think without hyperbole Bray realized that more than anyone else of his generation. He was never a top worker (also not a bad one and as noted I am a harsh grader of matches and the Wyatts/Shield 6 man may be a legit 5 star affair) but I can close my eyes and picture several entrances, promos or even moments (the finger gun pinfall!) that remain vibrant and important. We have a star rating system for matches but no way to try and divine the importance of say the Undertaker's entrance, yet the latter is worth no less because of it. If wrestling is more than just what happens in the ring then Bray was a maestro of those aspects, ambitious and not without failings but singular in a way few ever are. And hell I feel truly awful for those that were close to both him and Brodie, to go through that pain a couple years ago only to have it come back around so soon and similarly is just cruel.

There are a few reasons why I finally stopped watching WWE programming a couple years back. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, was the gross mishandling of Wyatt's onscreen character. I thought the failure to truly see what they had with an athlete as unorthodox and as gifted as Windham was as clear an indictment of their creative process as any. I wanted so badly for Wyatt the character to ascend to the heights occupied by guys like the Undertaker and Steve Austin. He was that prodigious a promo. He will be missed. In addition to his family, who I have already prayed for, I'll whisper a quick one for Erick Rowan, too. This can't be easy, and I hope he's among friends tonight.

I'm so, so glad they brought in Erick Rowan for tonight.

Funk passing was sad enough but this feels like a damn gut punch. I have things to say yet because I could go on about certain parts of his career but it's hard to focus on what to gush about. The Family stuff ruled, Firefly Funhouse and to a degree The Fiend ruled, and man he would have crushed it if he did horror. Maybe I'll expand on things more but I'm mainly just checking out his promos and it never ceases to be mesmerizing. Anyway, here's Bray converting those poor innocent children that time he feuded with Cena. This still gives me chills. And Cena for his part really helped drive it home as he acted like he was devastated to lose these kids he fights for.

I want to see an AEW show put together by someone who’s directed 2700 episodes of EastEnders though.

One of these days, we need to bring back the Hidden Gems section so that someone can create a Best of Dusty's promo days show. Always some great stuff. Here is one that Naylor posted that really shows off all of these parties talents.

Someone earlier posted that they thought that the Authority story should’ve ended with Bray taking control of wwe. My friends and I had a Google doc where we booked that out during the pandemic. No audience. Just us, for shits & giggles. Maybe in a few days I’ll post some of it.

Made my debut in GQ today with an interview with Bryan Danielson! https://www.gq.com/story/real-life-diet-bryan-danielson

I have grievances. We all do. But they need to nail this, for everyone's sake. And I hope they do.

I was pretty critical of a lot of the Bray Wyatt supernatural angles, but a part of me always thought that he was always just inches away from closing the gap from goofy and hokey to fun and interesting. I'm really sad that we'll never see him close that gap, because his talent was so fucking evident that I took for granted that it was going to happen. I wish I spent more time appreciating him for what he was and what he brought to the table than complaining that his home-cooked meal wasn't always Michelin star level. When someone is trying to push the limits like he did, there are going to be some hits and misses. I often get caught up in overanalyzing the things that I love to the point that I don't realize I'm making myself miserable until it's too late. That is how I felt when I heard Bray Wyatt died. When he debuted, even as Husky Harris, I was really intrigued about where he was going to go. He just had something that made you want to pay attention to him. Then The Wyatt Family debuted and I just knew he was going to be a top star going forward. He never reached the heights that I expected, but he had one hell of a run. I just wish he had a little longer.

I have never once thought of it that way but that is so fucking perfect that I'd be shocked if you weren't right.

Forever indebted to Terry for beating the shit out of pedophile Mel Phillips.

Emi braining Karen with the Freddie Mercury broken mic stand would work nicely here.

A billion different things happen on AEW TV every week. It would not have been hard to carve out 1 minute for a couple of weeks to sell Emi’s Mercury fandom and Wembley dream, then book a 3 minute match on Zero Hour. And I don’t even know that she necessarily needed to have her own match. But some kind of spot of the card. If I was booking the show, I 100% would’ve had a goofy Planet Jarrett tag of some kind where I could run in cameos from cult favorites on the roster to get them on the show and just have fun. Emi doing her Freddie thing and bumping Karen Jarrett would’ve popped me, and probably 80,000 people.

During the Chainsaw Charlie days, my friends and I were driving up to Vancouver BC from Seattle to go to a WWE house show. As we cross the border, one of my friends starts frantically yelling at me to pull over so I do. He says he saw Mick Foley and Terry Funk go into one of the customs offices. We go inside and I hang back a bit because they were being delayed crossing the border (presumably because they had a barbwire bat and chainsaw in the trunk of their car lol). Anyway after several minutes, they finally turn around to leave. I don't wanna bug them because they've just been dealing with customs and are no doubt stressed out. My friend has no problem bugging them and approaches both to ask for an autograph. By this point it was pretty well known Foley was a nice guy IRL but I have to admit to being somewhat surprised when Terry Funk flashed the warmest, brightest smile I had seen in years and put his arm around my friends shoulder while Foley signed the autograph. This was pre-smart phone, the internet wasn't near the behemoth it is now. Both guys could have blown him off or even been rude and hardly anyone would ever have heard about it.

a likely 5 hour show and we can't make room for Kris v Emi?

I dunno, if I'm disappointed about being left off the card, I don't know how I'd feel about having to fly to England and work a ten-woman tag that's probably capped at five minutes with entrances cut since there's two title matches on an hour-long pre-show that will need a bulk of the time, plus the main card that needs to be hyped since the purpose of the pre-show is last minute buys, plus you're also tacking on a men's battle royale. The time doesn't add up. Not sure how anyone would feel about getting thrown on as a pity booking. Strikes me as a WrestleMania pre-show booking while an eighth of the crowd is actually in their seats and everyone is out buying shirts. The better solution would have been "book the women better so they have more than one match on the show, and also maybe put Emi Sakura on TV more often so her feelings aren't hurt", but that would require a time machine, and I've already complained enough about how the women are used that I don't need to go into it.

His goodbye to NXT promo is straight babyface Dusty. A face version of the original Bray character would have been epic,

I get & agree with the sentiment that there's dozens of women I'd personally rather see. But sometimes there's things you can do like this to just make one of your performers feel loved. Like there's no reason they couldn't throw a quick 10 woman tag on Zero Hour. Wrap it around a captains gimmick where Emi does her deal and Mako Itoh does a dueling singing deal for her side. Like no, based on how Emi has been positioned on TV, it doesn't make sense to feature her. But sometimes doing that kind of thing just because boosts morale. Like people see that the people in charge just care and it makes everyone feel better about the place they work. Not meaning that to come of as a rant. Because I get it. It's hard to disagree with Emi not being on the show. But I also think a gigantic show like this there deserves to be a pre show get a bunch of people on deal for the men and the women. You have 2 title matches on the pre show already. Throw on a quick women's 10 person tag and a men's battle royal. Show the love to as many people as you can. And maybe they do announce two more Zero Hour matches on Collision. Who knows.

People cared deeply about him, people who likely needed something to care about, and he did nothing to wrong them. You can argue that the intrigue around his last return is what started to turn things around for the company, all the little Easter eggs. I thought the endgame of the Authority angle should have been Bray taking over the company. He was babyface Dusty Rhodes waiting to happen and now he never will. You have to feel for his family and his fans.

This may be retrospect but we could be pretty harsh towards him on here. There was a lot of "...and then the bell rang" talk but I thought dude could work, he just got saddled with bad creative at times, and you can point that in many directions instead of just his. No matter how you feel about him he was part of the hottest runs in wrestling in the last 20 years. Anyway, this is way too young and way too sad. RIP.

Erick Rowan being there got to me. One can only imagine what he's going through, first Brodie and now Bray.

I haven't seen the last few shows, we cancelled our subscription after the last PPV for all the obvious reasons any reasonable person might not want to pay £10 a month for Dark. But giving Kiera Hogan vs Lady Frost two minutes is a glaring example of where they've gone wrong. Sure, maybe it's too much to ask that we get competitive Claudio or Aussie Open matches regularly, but why give so little time to two women who are slotted at a level where they should be going back and forth and having to struggle for the win a bit? I know the answer is that they're taping before Collision, but it totally ruins what made the first few episodes of studio ROH unique, where nearly everyone got time.

Here’s a hidden gem for everybody

No. I have a friend at the local Fox station who got free tickets. Haven't broken it to Har that he's not going. He's not really a WWE fan*, so I think he'll be fine. And, honestly, I don't think this particular show would be right to be his first WWE show. *This week, he had to bring in three items that would show his class (1st grade) something about himself. One of the items was his Orange Cassidy figure. His teacher was like, "Oh, you like WWE?" and he had to correct her that no, he likes AEW. He did watch this past Wrestlemania and really enjoyed it. He's just never latched onto WWE like he did AEW.

I'm trying to think of matches that had more "irresistible force vs. immovable object" energy this century than the first Shield/Wyatts match. Cena/Lesnar at Extreme Rules 12 is the only one in the neighborhood from WWE I think. The first Omega/Okada match maybe?

That Wyatt v Sheild match might be the best US six man ever. I've been watching some of his promo's on youtube and wow. He was something! Way too young

I'm not a fan of the Fox thing, but did Wayne forgive him? People keep saying that, but I don't recall any interaction between them. Darby forgave him and they hugged, but did Wayne? I thought he just stood there bleeding, glaring at Swerve. I may be wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb5qMORnJMA

What an abysmal 48 hours in the wrestling community. My condolances to all his friends and family.

in which i gotta write about thirty minutes of 1990 All Japan, oy. What's a boy to do I'm never sure about announced attendances for house shows, but geez, the streamers and the crowd reactions lead you to believe this is happening in front of thousands, rapt, brushed up on it, here for it (edit: yeah this looks like sold out Korakuen). It's pound-for-pound the biggest post-Tenryu all-natives lineup and everybody's real grateful about that. They think Fuchi's a star and I'll agree. There's two kinds of Trios Matches con Fuji, ones where he's got a fall guy to crack open like a bushel of crabs, and matches where Kobashi has to fill (and rise above) the role. So we get that established early, but it's early enough in the longer game of the 1990's that Fuchi never comes across as the obvious fall guy, which is good because he isn't and the crowd isn't treating him like one. So this is an Akira Taue match. And it's better for it, no question. The best parts of this match are seeing how everybody matches up -I won't go as far to say that all classic King's Road tag matches are just amalgamations of the singles pairings therein, but you know what I mean. Taue vs. Misawa is the most underrated matchup of the (...math...) six Four Corners matchups. Probably my second favorite behind the obvious. And that's the best part of this one for me. Perhaps it isn't the exact same stuff they were working in their brilliant 1995 series of singles n tags, but I couldn't tell you one thing they're doing differently. I love it. The Misawa vs. Jumbo segments certainly have their gravitas, but they exist in their own world. Maybe because they're their own feud at this point, maybe because the crowd realizes neither is eating the fall. It's still top-shelf. I forgot how great Jumbo's bodyslams are. It reminds me of every great French restaurant I've been lucky enough to eat at where the best thing on the menu is the bread. The long-ish heat from Jumbo + Fuchi on Kobashi is (good) filler and rank-establishing. Or role-establishing. But it is filler, it never drags but there's a sense that they're padding this one out just a little bit knowing there's no TV show gonna clip their Indian Deathlocks. Still, it does what you want it to do. They REALLY work Kobashi's knee knowing that the sympathy will flow as freely as anything. The initial chants when the bell rang had the crowd audibly preferring Fuchi to Kobashi. Ten minutes later when Kobashi is in a Fuchi half-crab, it's a different story. Like it's supposed to be. And dear God do I love the very, very, VERY particular sound of All Japan crowds booing top-card natives. It's such a different cadence. It's so different than the tone they use to boo gaijin, monsters, outsiders, undercard shitheads. It's so incredulous, so much more a personal affront. It's the "Taue drops Misawa's throat over the top rope" sound, but all three on the de-facto heel side get it easy on this one. It's crazy to me how quickly they all figured out their personal formula once the core came together. Maybe not Kobashi, who's still a high flyer here hitting gnarly topes (edit: holy fuck that was actually a Taue tope) and getting rocket launched to the outside, but everybody else is entirely themselves. Misawa's superman elbow as the solution to every problem is fully-formed and used to great effect. Taue and Kawada are so violent with each other they can barely stand it. It's a whirlwind of kicks and sumo harite and scream and struggle that OF COURSE they eventually fall in love. It doesn't feel like they even spend a lot of time in the ring together as the legal men. They go as hard as they can and realize that the FEELINGS they are FEELING are TOO STRONG. Too fukken TRUTHFUL. God damnit, 90's AJPW is just French cooking. It's cheating. It's duck breast and butter and mise en place and butter and shallots and snails and salt and butter and don't even get me started about how they tortured and murdered a goose and how much we hate ourselves for loving it (not that Misawa bumps that hard here). You know exactly what the fuck it is. Your understanding of pro wrestling is built on it. It's like writing about a bootleg of a Ramones gig post-Rocket to Russia. Maybe nobody's ever heard this particular show, but we know the songs and we've got a copy of It's Alive and every great critic has written tome after tome about why the vibe, why the _performers_ in themselves are a pantheon among pantheons, the DEANs and the Christgaus and the Meltzers and the Lester Bangs and they're right and you've known they're right and have been basing your understanding of the artform around these other people already being correct in their reverence to it since your mom was getting you a box of that four-step acne treatment that didn't do shit for anybody. You have to find the little bits hiding in there to praise if you want to have anything interesting to say. Fuchi stooges a little harder and goofier near the end than if it was taped. The double-team moves that stand out belong to Taue/Jumbo and Misawa/Kobashi. Taue over Kobashi HAS to be the finish, and it is, and that's great. Not the early version of the Backdrop/Neckbreaker Drop combo, just Taue by himself finishing the job. This match is like ordering the best thing on the menu and expecting to be bored by it and then going UH. DUDE. THERE'S A REASON THIS COSTS MORE MONEY. Except it's entirely free. Akira Taue is Steak Au Poivre. Rough around the edges... that's the entire gourmet-ass point.

Yep he signed the autograph and said stay out of jail kid. Then the next time he said you staying out of jail kid?

He doesn't have to be your favorite wrestler to recognize that anyone who puts their body through the WWE meat grinder as part of a grand goal to entertain us for a couple hours a week and dies at 36 with a young family behind is a tragedy. The quality of his work is immaterial. I don't think I liked much he did on screen from like 2016 on, but this is a top five hardest hitting wrestling death for me, and it's pretty sad that's actually a category. As for his on-screen legacy, I think his career will be remembered more fondly than it was received in real time due to his tragic death, but no doubt first-run Wyatt Family was an all-time stable. He also maintained a "shit's about to get real" aura well into his career. The lights going out in the 10s is up there with Taker's gong and Brock's guitar screech. In a promotion with more creative leeway, it's easy to imagine he would've accomplished a lot more.

How about "along with Emi"

I think it’s great that Ospreay realized that all the bruv’ing annoys people and is now leaning all the way into it. That’s called being a worker, bruv.

I was in the building for that. It was not fun.

I always So there's this movie called Kissing a Fool which is notable for being Produced and Starring David Schwimmer in 98. Written by one James Frey notable for his fabricated Memoir A million Little Pieces. The Plot involves a man having his best friend trying sleep with his girlfriend. Roger Ebert's review states that "none of the characters behaves at any moment like any human being we have ever met". find myself coming back to that line when people act nonsensically in wrestling like Nick Wayne instantly forgiving AR Fox, this is the stuff that I consider "business exposing" in 2023

And I can't.

That's...that's all?! WTF? Studios showing sports teams how to really be greedy.

I just realized that Jericho/Chav is ELBOW VS. ELBOW~! Anyway: