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I realized what Bullet Club Gold's dynamic reminds me of: Jay White as the only human in a muppet movie.

I saw REM at the Felt Forum for the Pageantry tour (Life's Rich Pageant album) in November 1986. My first real concert, and the day after my birthday.

So y'all remember how I said I'm passing on going tomorrow night? MOTHERFUCKER!

Don't sweat it...every single time I try to type "shot," I type "shit" first Or maybe it's not, brother! All I remember about "The Felt Forum" is that it was host to boxing and Eddie Murphy Raw. "Nothin from nothin leaves nothin. Must've done somethin. Motherfucker punched you in the mouth!"

mustache Apuestas match

Work has kicked my ass the last few days so sorry for the lack of posts. I am working from home tomorrow so I will start to catch back up then

While you're fully correct, I do have to say, AEW did a really, really nice job of having it there during the Daily's Place/COVID-era, so for that reason (and also because it seems like the kinda thing TK would be into, as 'one of us') it does kind of surprise me that they haven't attempted the MSG-style short aisle anywhere yet. Edit - wanted to share quickly while we were on it: when I was little, I thought ECW was way bigger than it was because I caught an episode from I believe the Mid-Hudson Civic Center, and I assumed it was the Garden because of the short middle aisle there, and because their TV aired on MSG Network (kid logic)

For "The Last Stampede" series of matches between The Midnight Express vs Stagger Lee and Bill Watts, I think most of those had either "Cornette wears a dress" or "Cornette has to dress as a baby" stipulations if the Midnights lost. The Midnights lost every match.

There HAD to have been a "loser wears a dress" stipulation at some point in Mid South, right? That just screams Bill Watts.

So I decided to subscribe to IWTV again and I started watching West Coast Pro's last show, West Coast 5. Here are some words about it if you're so inclined! "Speedball" Mike Bailey vs Alpha Zo: Zo is apparently a lower/mid carder who always tries hard but never quite gets there. Mike Bailey is Mike Bailey and all that entails. Fun match with Zo almost getting there but being outclassed by the more experienced Bailey. There's a fun spot on the floor where Baily picks up his wife, Veda Scott (who is on commentary) into a fireman's carry and uses the added weight to drop a double knee on Zo. Bailey goes for the Ultimo Weapon several times but can't get it. Maybe if he didn't waste time doing the karate pose during the setup every fucking time, he'd be able to hit the move. Alpha Zo actually wins but I'm typing this from memory and can't remember what he won with. So hopefully this leads to a Zo push because he's pretty good. Bryan Keith vs Jiah Jewell: Bryan Keith is awesome. He had a tremendous showing at this year's BOLA, including an incredible bout vs Masha Slamovich. You need to check that out. He also had a sweet, albeit short, match vs Hangman on Rampage. I hope more big things are coming for him. Jiah Jewell has a body like 2005 Peter Avalon and works a gimmick as "The Crazy Cajun." This feels like his ceiling. HIs big move is "The Gator Roll," of course, wherein he gets you in a grounded front facelock and rolls around. Feels like something out of Champions of the Galaxy. Match is fine. Keith covers up a Jewell blown spot with a nasty forearm and wins with a Tiger Driver. West Coast Wrecking Crew (Royce Isaacs & Jorel Nelson) vs Calvin Tankman & BEEF: This was an open challenge from the WCWC. Matchmaker Chris Hero shows up to tell the announcer who the opponents are, and I give up all hope that Hero is getting in shape for his return. That's not a bad thing, though, as chubby Hero kicked all kinds of ass on his last indy run. I'm hoping he can recapture that magic. Speaking of ass kickers of size, the mystery opponents are TANK-MAN and BEEF. I haven't seen Beef since the last time I subbed to IWTV (mid-2021), when he worked as "Big Beef" Gnarls Garvin and was all over Paradigm Pro. He apparently still goes by his old name in some places. Anyhoo, this is essentially and extended squash to establish BEEFTANK as the new team on the scene, and it is GREAT. I can never remember Jorel Nelson's last name and keep referring to him as "Jerelle Clark," which is not correct. Chikayo Nagashima, Johnnie Robbie, Rachael Ellering & Unagi Sayaka vs Magenta (Maria & Riko Kawahata), Mio Momono & Sandra Moone: Forgive me, I'm only familiar with Ellering and Moone. Nagashima looks like she crafted her gear from stuffed animals she killed in the wild. This is a fun scramble reminiscent of the days when WCW would just throw random luchadores out there and give them a few minutes to go crazy. Action packed and really fun, but, because of my lack on familiarity with the joshi talent, it was hard to keep track of which team was doing what. Ellering hits a MONSTROUS Bosslady Slam on one of the Magenta team members (FUCK do I love a Bossman slam) and the Johnnie Robbie, who is working a "scumbag" gimmick, I guess, steals the win from her partner. Great match. Masato Tanaka vs Vinnie Massaro: I don't know who Vinnie Massaro is. Apparently he's been wrestling since 97 and yeah, that tracks. He looks like every weekend warrior part time wrestler dad you'd see on your local indy before indies actually got good. You know, when every show was headlined by Jimmy Snuka vs Metal Maniac. Apparently he's the promotion's resident veteran. He's wrestling Tanaka because both are limited, garbage wrestlers. Massaro has gear touting the "Snoring Hammer" and "Snoring Elbow" and I can't tell if that's a reference to the fact that those moves knock you out, or if it means he's boring to watch, or maybe he has sleep apnea. Tanaka looks great for 50. This is made a no DQ match at the start and it reminds me of the time Chris Dickinson wrestled no-talent Matthew Justice and it suddenly was made into a no DQ match because that's all Justice can do. Early on, Tanaka pulls out a chair and I say to myself, "if they start doing unprotected chairshots, I'm out." Tanaka proceeds to throw the chair at Massaro in the most gingerly fasshion and I feel like we're safe. Massaro blades off of this because of course he does. Shortly thereafter, both guys pull out chairs and proceed to have an unprotected chair shot fight and I FFWD to the end because fuck this dumb bullshit in 2023. Massaro wins with a rolling elbow and who gives a fuck? I'm roughly halfway through the show and I definitely recommend checking it out except for that last match.

We sleep on how useful Lance Archer has been to AEW. He constantly puts over guys all over the place. He always makes them look good. He's not afraid to make other big guys look like a bigger monster than he is. There's no stupid bits that need to try and give him his heat back afterwards. He goes away for a bit and he still has it because he has a cool entrance, look and his squashes are enjoyable. He could have easily have done far less for Wardlow, Page, Miro but made them all look huge. I don't need to see more of him, he's in a just right spot, where I just want to see him kill a guy every few months or so.

Depends on the versatility of the enhancement talent. Two years almost into my mid 90s rewatch, it's clear that a promotion gets the best utility out of the guys who can be both heel and babyface against the respective side they're putting over. I mean I think the number of jobs that Barry Hardy, Duane Gill, and Reno Riggins have done for the babyfaces on syndicated TV and Raw is reaching mid triple digits. It's gotten to the point where they done every permutation including Hardy and Gill teaming as the Executioners or whatever that deal was. That and Reno Riggins, a natural heel, has to now be a babyface and it doesn't work. Horowitz can do both, but interchangeable guys like Mike Bell, Ross Greenburg, Dan Dubiel, Mike Moraldo (the future Ace Darling) aren't that particularly good so the matches are just there. Chris Kanyon has been showing up lately a lot, and he's pretty good. PJ Walker (the future Justin Credible) is good, but he's usually against the heels. There was an older guy (an AWA guy whose name slips my mind) who clearly brought some of his guys he trained, and they were fine. I already talked about Italian Stallion/Gary Sabaugh and some of his guys not too long ago. There was one skinny black dude (not Ron Cumberledge, but a darker skinned dude) who Owen Hart wrestled on one of the shows I watched recently who HAD TO BE one of the worst jobbers in the history of time. It was so bad that they probably shouldn't have put it on TV, but they probably figured no one was watching so what the hell. So it seems like once WWF got outside of their core enhancement talent at the time, the results would be mixed at best. I think it's clear that by 1991, they probably should have revamped the syndicated shows cause the enhancement matches are no longer doing as what they were designed to do: make guys look impressive in a relatively short time. Terrible Doink (Ray Apollo) had an awful match on Challenge with a botched finish no less, and it may have even been with Barry Horowitz. It makes wonder who the fuck was agenting these matches and why wasn't Vince having like some come to Jesus meeting with that person or persons. The overall production of the shows is wonderful (minus some of the news segments with Pettengill, but I can ignore that). However, a lot of the in ring content leaves a lot to be desired. I am definitely in the era where they started to lean more on Raw. Edit - Tom Stone was the AWA guy I was thinking of.

That was what finally sealed the deal for me. And hoping for Red October to continue so I can see the party.

food chain-wise, would a promotion need more enhancement guys for the heels than the faces? since faces can just wrestle heels that are barely not enhancement guys or guys on the way down while heels show up and need to crush a few opponents to get established before facing non-enhancement wrestlers then again... I just watched a Sheepherders JCP match today and thought "these guys would have had an amazing brawl with the Vachons years earlier".. so who knows where i'm at right now

I actually saw one of those Rude in a dress matches from the WMC TV studios not too long ago. Actually, it was two cause he did a squash match early in the show and then came back out with other members of the Hart Family for the obligatory end of the show, 2 out of 3 falls or TV time remaining multiple man match. There was a some weird mix messaging during that Rude/Lawler program. I am not sure if the domestic abuse thing with Rick Rude and his valet predated this, but in other music videos thoroughout that period Lawler slugs the shit out of Rude's valet (or at the very least another blonde woman of similar build around the same time period). I do know that Lawler piledrives Rude's valet and that's the end of her in Memphis. So domestic abuse is wrong, BUT if she "deserves it" then it's totally A-OKAY! Oh and speaking of Cornette, over the weekend I watching some HBO boxing card from 1997. During the first bout or the main event, during Michael Buffer's intros, one of the names that he read off before introducing the fighters was JJ Binns as the WBA representative. For some reason, I remember hearing that name somewhere. I thought hard and then BINGO. I remember hearing his name in the Cornette "In the News" compilation years back where Cornette recounts his (and the boys) run in with one of the local commissioners when Crockett expanded to doing shows in the Northeast. James Binns (Sr. aka JJ Binns) was the Pennsylvania commissioner for wrestling and boxing prior to working for one of the ABC boxing orgs. Cornette's description of him was hilarious and if goddamn Jim Cornette of all people calls you a character, then it must be true. During the broadcast, Lampley and Merchant bring over JJ Binns after some controversial decision or scorecard and Lampley notes beforehand that Mr. Binns is the fellow in the pinstripe suit. Apparently, in researching him, pinstripes is his calling card. He looks like a character from the old Batman TV series. And doing further research, he is an even bigger character than Cornette pointed out. He definitely comes off as a guy who WWF would have hired if they didn't have McDevitt. His story is a biopic waiting to happen. It's a must read: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2007/07/06/the-great-gusto-of-jimmy-binns/

I was having a thought about guys with similar looks and gimmicks and wondered if Magnum TA and Rick Rude ever crossed paths, but cagematch says no. The world probably couldn't have handled that much mustache magnificence in the ring at the same time anyways.

I remember I had a VHS tape of random matches from early-80s Memphis matches and there were at least 4 matches of a young Rick Rude wearing a dress b/c he lost a match to Jerry Lawler. It wasn't something I traded for either. It was a commercial tape that my mom had gotten from a video store. It had the famous match where Savage piledrove Ricky Morton through a table and also the match where Hawk nosold Lawler's piledriver. 12 year old me didn't know what he had. A lot of the matches were clipped to hell but it was still pretty awesome. I vaguely remember there was a cage match where the cage looked like it was made out of chicken wire.

Battle of former NWA World Champions.

Ya know, in all seriousness, I've only been to one Collision so far, but being on a Saturday instead of a Wednesday really does give it a little bit of a different vibe crowd-wise, in two polar opposite directions actually: you've got the young guys in their 20s-40s putting away dozens of $18 stadium beers because it's Saturday night, but I also saw a lot more kids and families than I traditionally do at Dynamite. On the flip side: this was prior to C'mon Man Punk getting fired, so there was tons of people with WWE-branded merch, replica belts, and that sort of thing - should we make it to the casino Saturday, it should be interesting to see whether or not there's been a shift in that at all

Nexstar is the majority owner of it now with Parmount and WBD holding minority stakes in it.

I almost went down too, but money's a lil tight here too, yadda yadda. If there are any tickets left for Collision when I get paid Friday, we might make a trip to 'The Fucking Hills Have Eyes,' Connecticut as Nyla called it last time around.

I was feeling very itchy to go to the Philly show but needing a new car plus not being able to take off on Thursday means I'll sit this one out. It sounds great on paper though I'm sure there will be another one. Though all I'm asking for with game 7 is for the town's sake I'm hoping the Phillies win. Along with a slew of other reasons why them winning would lead to a super fun crowd whereas them losing would be no good.

I’m not a hardcore fan, but Morty’s new voice is close enough to the original that I’ll probably never give it any thought. If I didn’t know they hired a new voice actor, I’d pay no attention to the differences. Split Rick and Split Jerry switching hairstyles was my favorite gag in this week’s episode.

It's quite possible that I was feeling manic from missing a dose of Xanax on Sunday so my emotions could have been all over the place, but episode 2 of this season had me cackling constantly for almost the whole thing. It did feel a little Mike Judge-y in a way in that they had a brilliant premise and a really good 1st and 2nd act of the episode, but then just kind of stumbled to find a way to end it. Even then, the stuff with Jerricky had me laughing pretty hard. They're 2 for 2 this season, although the difference in Morty's voice was much more noticeable this time and he was again relegated to the background. Starting to get some Simpsons vibes though when that show basically became all about Homer and Bart got pushed more to the background. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing in the long run for Rick and Morty, but Morty has been through so much and had a lot of stuff wrapped up for him like the Evil Morty stuff that it might just make sense to put the majority of the focus on Rick.

“Michael, you have to cut 18 different local promos about why you’ve been forced to wear a dress”

We went very quickly from both LCS looking like sweeps to both needing seven games. Baseball is funny like that. NLCS Game 7 tonight is a coin toss - there's no picking a sure winner. You hit or you don't; you throw strikes or you don't; your bullpen collapse is simultaneously the other team's "these guys never quit" heartwarming comeback. It's all random and all relative. I've seen the Phillies hit 11 dingers this postseason in person, and felt the stadium shake. I adore my ragtag millionaires Philadelphian ball club, and I have my World Series tickets for Game 3; the only question left is whether I'll be using them on Monday, or if I'll be receiving a refund of said purchase instead.

Hiddleston and Hamill on the screen at the same time? Holy shit sign me up, and I usually hate Stephen King adaptations.

And from that article - why Bob Levy is the best

Despite me thinking this video disappeared, well I was wrong… the 18 minutes of Michael Hayes cutting local promos for the UWF is still on YouTube

This is cinema

The Great Muta's daughter is...

Until our trip to Spirit Halloween yesterday for the kids’ costumes I hadn’t realized there was a Killer Klowns from Outer Space merchandising bonanza going on this year. Very weird to see those silly scamps now being represented as much as Freddy, Jason, Michael, and Chucky. There was also quite a bit of Mars Attacks merch.

Ok so that spoiler is a running joke from the show just to be clear!

I like who we seemingly trades a cranky straight edger, for a lovable stoner

Still waiting for the tag match between Private Party and Top Flight to see which one of the Young Bucks upsetting teams is the best?

Pretty sure Terry Fuck works in a different profession than wrestling

So, every time this thread gets bumped I always think about whatever match it is that caused it to be bumped and then say to myself “…nope, the parking lot brawl is still my favorite AEW match ever” And I wonder why that is, and I think it’s because more so than any other match in company history it captures the essence of AEW: Daily’s Place during the pandemic, Best Friends who are the heart and soul of the promotion, the irreverent humor with Sue and the van, no ex-WWE notables, and the grittiness / reality of doing it all in one cut So yeah it’s still my favorite. Dunno what’s going to top it. Rosa/Baker, Pac/Cassidy and the Bucks/Omega/Page tag are also kind of like this to me and round out my top 4 in some order. Then probably Danielson/Suzuki.

Big bonus points for the Champions of the Galaxy reference. What did you think of Tankman? I definitely am impressed more often than not. I am not a fan of Massaro.

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that I noticed the same thing about Parnell. Other than the drunkenness of Intergalactic TV, I don't think I've heard anyone have as much fun as Chris Parnell was having. It's probably the most un-Jerry he's been on the show. I wouldn't want to see them do that again so hopefully they keep it as a one off.

you can tell Cruz is both a legit Astros fan and very self-aware because he's trying to curse the Rangers out of spite and he knows the best way to do that is to put his personal support earnestly behind them.

I had to press play to find out that Hayes wasn't wearing a dress.

So after years of rebranding the company as Impact, they are now rebooting it as TNA?

Tbh I really feel like Wardlow is just another title defence at this point. Hobbs is the bigger long-term project, one of the guys who I might buy eventually going over MJF.

Tbh I'd be no on Callihan, but I'd probably want to do everything I can to keep Jon Moxley happy so yeah I guess.

I'm all in on a BCC/HOB feud. Black showing up out there to beat down Danielson was good enough, but them showing back up throughout the show to seemingly start a program with them and/or FTR. The only thing I didn't like was that the heels should have stood tall at the end to make us anticipate the faces trying to get their revenge, but I guess they needed to set up the bit with Moxley and Cassidy. I also thought it was kind of out of character for HOB to ally with Starks and Bill instead of taking them out as well. Speaking of Starks and Bill, they were really shining in the tag match. I'd always written Bill off as a stiff, but he's really put it together as of late. I like how no matter how hard Claudio and Yuta battled back, Bill was just too big and Starks was just too crafty for them. It's good to see Miro back, but I think he should have won quicker and more decisively. Eddie's promo in the back was the best part about that whole match and segment. Willow/Statlander was probably my favorite match of the night. Both of them looked great here, even if that avalanche DVD was a bit much to kick out of. I'm really glad it looks like they aren't turning Willow heel as well as everything about her just has natural face energy.

DPW getting its roster pruned by WWE? Oh hell yeah. They’re a real promotion now.

I think he could have a future but unless he was being used on ROH, with no more dark he's probably better working indys and travelling the world for a bit.