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Zack Sabermetrics Jr

I'm just picturing Victoria setting aside like half her day to film her new entrance. She meets the director and he says "Okay act mean for a minute", "Okay, growl at me once while raising your hand", "Okay pretend like you're looking at a crystal ball." "Alright, I think we got it." And she got like 5 hours of her day back. God, she rules.

We paid off our mortgage this week, a little bit more than 6 years ahead of the original schedule. One less thing to worry about.

Mary Jane suddenly became 100 times more attractive to me Shit - I said the quiet part out loud

"The formula tells me that non-finishers never end matches, therefore I will not go for covers unless I hit my finisher"

This topic inspired me by the late, great Dean's Road Reports and my great friend, NikoBaltimore today. As you know I have Cerebral Palsy which affects everything I do and I get tired four times quicker doing the same thing as someone without. I get stiff quick sitting, standing and travelling so it limits things. My first live wrestling show was in April 2015. Originally it was a Monday and it wasn't a RAW taping so I thought I'd get a shitty lineup. The card was moved to a rare matinee. I kept checking the names listed and Daniel Bryan was there so I hoped the dreaded card subject to change didn't come into effect. To see the GOAT in Daniel Bryan at my first ever live wrestling show meant the world with how much I love him, two days later he was pulled off the tour. The roster then had to go to another show which John Cena and Rusev was on. Shame both weren't there. Bray Wyatt's entrance were an experience as head of the Wyatt Family in April 2015 and as The Fiend in November 2019. Seth Rollins the WWE World Heavyweight Champion was booked for November 2015 but badly did his knee in a few dates before required surgery vacating the belt so we got Ric Flair and Kevin Owens. Cool getting one of the GOATs in Ric Flair. I kept wanting to see Luke Harper but he also injured his knee before the April 2016 house show I went to. Never did regrettably. I got to see Chris Jericho's last UK match in November 2016 for seven years till AEW All In 2023. At the fourth time of asking I finally got to see my favourite women's wrestler ever Sasha Banks in November 2016. At the same show I completed my NXT Four Horsewomen bingo card with Becky Lynch. Missed out on seeing Daniel Bryan in November 2019 as it was the RAW roster and not Smackdown. The last house show I attended was November 2021 was awesome, Smackdown and we had a dream match in WALTER vs. Cesaro. Totally delivered. Other shows were supposed to but it was turned into tag matches involving Sheamus, Finn Balor and Drew McIntyre. WALTER rarely did house shows then, ditto Bron Breakker and Tommaso Ciampa. People who had RAW tickets were rightly pissed. Thanks for reading xxx.

I think Ethan Page could grow the moustache and play an equally delusional Errol Flynn type. What would be great eventually is to have her husband suddenly appear in full deranged muppet character.

God, I'm sorry. Nobody should have to go through that. Are you okay? Do you need someone to talk to?

“Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus”

You just made Matt D's head explode

To be fair, I heard that song like 900 times per month back then and that's NOT including WWE using it. WWE probably figured we may as well overplay this shit too.

Once Ari removes Vince completely, he can be Errol Flynn.

Or the heel could go in the other direction and just go for endless pin attempts after each move, while shouting that analytics tells him that forcing his opponent to kick out reduces their stamina by .75% each time.

The hottest topic on (some parts of) the Internet tonight is 1989. So let's go to.. WWF Prime Time Wrestling (10/30/1989) It's a very special Halloween edition of Prime Time with Gorilla Monsoon dressed as Brother Love (calling himself "Brother Hate") and Bobby Heenan dressed as The Genius. Roddy Piper has yet to appear on camera. Match 1: Greg Valentine vs The Red Rooster. Tony Schiavone and Lord Alfred on commentary. Terry Taylor's face run with this name/gimmick was far worse than his heel run with this name/gimmick. Greg Valentine is the right opponent if you want Terry to so some stupid looking strutting. Just remembered that Valentine and Taylor would hold the WCW US Tag Team titles in 1992. At least Greg Valentine's still hitting hard so that's nice. Rooster is on a Survivor Series team with Dusty Rhodes, which is funny if you remember the story of Terry Taylor accidentally burying himself in front of Dusty on the Crockett plane. Greg Valentine threatens his shinguard-aided leglock, so Ronnie Garvin runs out to attack Greg Valentine for a DQ. Gee, I wonder why Ronnie Garvin isn't on a Survivor Series team with Dusty. That's a tough one. More Gorilla riffing on Brother Love in-between matches. From the pages of the World Wrestling Federation Magazine: Hulk Hogan defeated Ted DiBiase recently on Saturday Night's Main Event, then Zeus showed up. Zeus wrenches Hogan's neck. Dibiase puts the Million Dollar Dream on Hogan. Jake Roberts runs out to make the save. Zeus walks away instead of trying to fight a snake. Survivor Series Showdown on November 12th on USA Network! Ultimate Warrior vs Tully Blanchard! Smash vs The Million Dollar Man! Bushwhacker Butch vs Mr. Perfect! Main events in any arena. Meanwhile in Studio B: Roddy Piper is trying to be Bobby Heenan. It looks like Roddy's accidentally riffing on Andy Warhol. Match 2: Tito Santana vs Bob Emory. Got a JCP/WCW enhancement guy appearance on WWF TV. Tito Santana wins with the flying forearm in a few minutes. Schiavone calls it the Mexican Hammer, which, nobody else seriously called it that. Right? Back to Roddy Piper trying to imitate Bobby Heenan. Not sure who the hell their wig person was at this time. Why is Roddy wearing a Ken Patera wig. Match 3: Haku and Andre the Giant vs Mike Williams and Chuck Casey. Vince calling the sign a "poster" makes it sound more prestigious. Arn and Tully join Haku and Andre at ringside. Haku hitting 3 consecutive backbreakers looks impressive. Awesome Haku dropkick. Jesse gets a joke in that we won't be able to listen to The Who because Rock would be dead if Andre squashed The Rockers. Andre tags in and holds Casey for a Haku kick. Andre's elbowdrop is so bad during his later years and he gets the win with that move. Hogan team promo for the Survivor series. "Multi-million Dollar Man" is to Hogan as "Doogan" is to Bill Watts. Jake Roberts standing next to Hulk Hogan is a reminder if you forgot that Jake is tall. Bobby threatens to call Brother Love and tell him what Gorilla's doing. Match 4: Dusty Rhodes vs Joe Cruz. Dusty wins in a few minutes with an elbowdrop. More WCW enhancement guys. Meanwhile Roddy Piper talks about how he stole Bobby Heenan's red jacket a few weeks ago. Sean Mooney reviews the Survivor Series card. Oh yeah, Barry Windham was still around the WWF at this time (he wouldn't make it to Survivor Series). We get some words from Dusty's team. Gorilla has some info if you have a dish or descrambler and you wanna see the Survivor Series. Roddy doesn't get Rick Martel's new attitude. Match 5: Rick Martel vs Mark Young. For some reason Rick Martel scrapped the dancing once he stopped coming out with Slick to "Jive Soul Bro". Mark Young getting some offense in so that this match has a commercial break in the middle. Gorilla namedropping Jamie Farr while mentioning the action is from Toledo. Mark Young with some real Los Gringos Locos level of American Flag tights. Mark Young also got some WCW matches in 1989 (under another name) and he's Chief Jay Strongbow's son. I guess Martel didn't have a manager as a heel after Slick because none of the heel managers really fit Martel or whatever. Martel wins with the Boston Crab. Let's go to another edition of Brother Love. He will be Roddy Piper and his team on with him tonight. Piper, Snuka and the Bushwhackers sure is a foursome. Pretty sure these four all spent quite some time in Portland (and Piper had a Portland feud with the Sheepherders). Brother Love has barged onto Studio B and he is mad at Gorilla. He's also accidentally in the same studio with Roddy Piper. Roddy casually knocks out Brother Love with a backfist. Happy Halloween! Match 6: The Bolsheviks vs Trent Knight and Reno Riggins. Boris gets the mic to sing the Soviet Anthem. Must be a B town if they can't get Nikolai to sing on the mic. Trent Knight! Who brought every NWA/WCW job guy to the WWF in 1989, JJ or Tony? Boris looks a lot more 'developed' in 1989 WWF than he looked in 1983 World Class. Reno Riggins had some WCW matches but worked more WWF. I don't think that Nikolai actually hit the backbreaker on his press into a backbreaker finish but he gets the pin with it. Bobby is back and he tells Gorilla that Brother Love is on the way. Roddy puts a Halloween mask on the unconscious Brother Love. Mr. Perfect is perfect at Ping Pong. This might seem weird, but MJF looks kinda similar to Curt Hennig facially (not hair-wise). I think Hennig is wearing Zubaz or just stripy pants. Match 7: Jake Roberts vs Tony Burton. Not a JCP jobguy. The inset promos during matches might need to make a comeback one day. Jake wins with the DDT. There's a snake drop postmatch too. Brother Love is awake and he is freaking out. And our feature match is: Hercules vs Dino Bravo. Finally a matchup to settle which brand of steroids is the best. So much Wrestling Challenge on this week's edition of Prime Time. Roddy Piper's Heenan wig might actually be a Dino Bravo wig now that I see 1989 Dino Bravo. This Dino Bravo/Hercules match is from MSG for the record. When it comes to the topic of Rick Martel and managers, I think Rick Martel and Jimmy Hart could have been an interesting combo. Certainly more interesting than Dino Bravo and Jimmy Hart. For whatever reason, Rick Martel and Dino Bravo almost never ended up in the same match in the WWF (aside from 2 matches in Canada and several battle royals). But I don't think they had any heat that anybody mentioned. Meanwhile, Dino Bravo has Hercules in a bearhug. Kinda remarkable how Hercules turned face and kinda took Billy Jack Haynes role as a babyface for a year or so considering Herc feuded with Billy Jack. You'd think someone would figure out how to do a bearhug that doesn't leave them wide open for a bellringer to the ears. Herc puts Dino Bravo in the torture rack but then drops him and tries for a pin because.. sure? Holy hell, Hercules could get enough air for a sunset flip in 1989? Bravo counters that sunset flip into a sitdown and gets the pin with his hands on the ropes. Hercules reacts to putting Dino Bravo in the full nelson as Dino celebrated. Our hero! Jimmy Hart gets some action and then flees before Hercules could touch him. November 12th, Survivor Series Showdown! Hercules vs Macho King! Tito Santana vs Big Boss Man! The 3 matches announced earlier. Gorilla declaring "So Long Tully" in regards to him facing the Warrior which is interesting timing. The scary thing about Gorilla's Brother Love outfit... that's not makeup on his face. (joke stolen from the Simpsons). Meanwhile in Studio B. Roddy Piper is calling Bobby Heenan a weasel. Roddy Piper also has some rules for the children for Halloween. Roddy doesn't want the kids to get hit by cars or go in strangers houses or eat candy before going home. Thanks Roddy! This might not be the 1989 that everybody is talking about tonight.

Now I REALLY want Matt to review Ospreay vs. Speedball. DEAN would have loved that match, btw. He'd have called it postmodern masterpiece.

You say that as if 75% of this board isn't married to that.

This is by far the best MCU TV series they've made and it's not even close. Both season 1 and 2 so far. I think you could probably credit Hiddleston for a lot of that, but literally everyone is bringing their A game and story wise, it is constantly dropping bombs like the end of Infinity War. I cannot wait until next Thursday night.

Spoiled by living in WWE's home market, but: - Austin-Bret, Survivor Series 96 (Honorable Mention HBK-Sid on the same card) - HHH-HBK-[Name Redacted] at Mania XX. - Bayley-Sasha at Takeover Brooklyn - Cactus-HHH at Rumble 2000 Those are the best matches. The best live experience was the story I've told a few times here. Summer 1993, I got to see WWF live at the James L. Knight Center. Had decent seats as there couldn't have been more than a thousand people there. It was headlined by Yokozuna vs. Crush for the WWF Title. Quick Googling said they were running this to build up Yoko(!) to face off against Luger at SummerSlam, where Lex was the heavy favorite (lol). Anyway, the match ends as it normally did. Crush getting beat after a Banzai Drop. But the crowd had been restless throughout a pretty lackluster show, and essentially turning on the whole face/heel dynamic. This was one of the first times, I'd head a crowd vocally cheering for the heel. Yoko did his post match victory gimmick where he hit the Drop again on the face to make him seem more scary. So he did and I guess he was bored too because the crowd face popped BIG for the second drop. And he started actually talking back, breaking character because Yoko did not speak a word back then. The crowd was cheering "ONE MORE TIME... ONE MORE TIME..." Yoko: "Yeah?? You motherfuckers want one more???" Us: "YEAH!!! ONE MORE TIME!" Yoko: "Fuck yeah. Let's do it." Crush (who'd been selling) sees Yoko going up and says "Rod, what are you doing?" Yoko: "These fuckers want one more, so we're doing one more!" Crush: "ugh...fine." BANZAI!!!! I'd been a fan for years long before (see my Mania thread for the "Slick looks like a cricket!" moment to see when I became a fan for life). But this was the first moment I ever got to see behind the curtain and see the characters become the performers. Brian rolled out of the ring and got out of dodge quickly after that third drop. Rod stayed around and shot the shit for a couple of minutes with us. That was the best moment I've ever had as a fan.

That was a plus in Loki season 1 too. You didn't know what the overall show would even look like until it was over.

I want to remind everyone that he went to Central Michigan University. Antonio Brown was as good as any wide receiver ever. That caliber of player does not end up at Central Michigan on accident. He was crazy long before the NFL. He might have picked up some CTE along the way, but the outlier for his entire life are the sane years.

That guy's always had heat with me because my dyslexic brain first processed his name as "Beef Stew" Lou Macaroni, and I thought "that's great, go for the double food pun", then I realized it was "Marconi", not "Macaroni", and I've held a seething grudge for like 28 years. Damn you, "Beef Stew".

Shit, now I want them to pair up one of the youngsters with Flair to do a "My Favorite Year" angle.

4/20/91: Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs Furnas/Kroffat: Just four minutes of this but I'm not used to seeing these guys with this level of VQ. Dynamite has slightly longer hair than usual and was moving around ok in there, though Johnny was taking the bumps, of course. Kroffat's beat on to start but eventually gets a fairly hot tag to Furnas who pretty much wrecks Smith. Smith gets to survive the power slam and belly to belly but falls to the frankensteiner. Not a lot to see here but the overall match was probably pretty good. And that brings to the end of this part of the journey. I'm on to 87 NJPW next. UWF guys in NJPW year 2. The return of Choshu. By the end of the year, the debut of Vader. Who knows what else? I suppose I should some some things up. Super Generation Army vs Tsuruta-gun: Hierarchy is the name of the game. They ran so many of these but they were all interesting and enjoyable for the combination of mathematical hierarchy and the sliding, shifting scale. In a lot of ways, despite the heart and fury and fighting spirit, it was mathematical. If you have Kikuchi against Fuchi, there's a ratio of offense Kikuchi could get relative to Kikuchi vs Taue or Inoue or Jumbo or Kobashi vs any of these guys. That, to me, feels different than Revolution matches of 89-90 which were a little more about the numbers game and coming back from a deficit. This was more about hierarchical cycling until you got to a point where the math would allow a comeback. That means you get a very different match if Inoue's in there instead of Fuchi or Kikuchi instead of Kobashi. But like I said, the math shifts. Taue in mid 90 is different than Taue in mid-90. Increasingly, guys like Kawada and Kobashi are able to legitimately chip away at Jumbo more. Fuchi and Inoue are more of a threat to 1990 Misawa than 1991 Misawa. And then there are wedge points, whether it Tsuruta-gun taking out a leg on a table on the outside or Misawa's elbow or Kawada's kick redamaging Jumbo's ear. You can see them experimenting with new spots and segments (the combo Jumbo/Taue tandem moves, Kawada's slam on the floor, the aforementioned table/rail/chair knee destroyer) in TV and HH matches which all builds to the 4/20 match where they put the pieces together. The Pillars: I think I last did this at the end of December 90. In short, they all advance. Taue finally figures out how to work big. HE was getting there in the back half of 90 at times but it's pushing up against Kawada that really opens things up for him. Hansen or Tenryu leaned down upon him trying to encourage him to push back up but Kawada was a stinging hornet forcing him to lash out. I wouldn't say that Kawada himself has a lot of particular growth. I'm not saying he was already the package he'd become by 90 but he may plateau, with the situation around him being the main thing to change. Kobashi is endlessly experimental. He picks up a bunch of new moves and, because he's positioned as more important and higher on the card, for him to fire back like he does is a little less absurd. And Misawa grows increasingly into his Ace role to the point where I would have fully believed him beating Jumbo on 4/18, even though the end result felt right and satisfying and appropriate. The trajectories were clear. I still kind of like Kikuchi best though. The Foreigners: The story of the back half of 90 was the hosses. Absolutely. Even to the secondary goofs you got in the RWTL like Land of Giants. By April 91, you start to feel the tide turning a little bit maybe. MVC may have lost the titles to Hansen/Spivey but Hansen/Spivey seemed somehow more beatable than Doc and Gordy. I could see a local team beating them more easily, basically. Jumbo won the title once more. Jumbo won the carnival. The main events started to shift from having Hansen or Doc or Gordy in them more to others. If they were a bridge, we were heading towards the other side of it. Kroffat and Furnas were settling in to be more than all-spots guys; a hint of Kroffat's character was starting to shine through. Cactus Jack was a disappointment. Foley would bump huge but not come off like a threat and his best stuff was dumb comedy. He was starting to figure out how to put it together by the end of the tour maybe. Ace was figuring out how to assert himself, balancing his positioning as more of an All-Asia tag spot guy with his relative size. Slinger was tiny in comparison but also a useful third man to square off with Ogawa (who I didn't mention but we're just starting to see a real spark from) or Kikuchi. He had his role and played it well. Black and Deaton and the Blackhearts were ok mid-card tag guys as you needed people to put the Super Generation Army over and they had size and could hang. The Undertakers and Land of Giants were pretty painful to watch on the other hand. We had a little bit of Dean Malenko and the 91 version is so much more fun than the 97 version. A nice dynamic opponent for Fuchi. The Carnival: It was just nice to see a bunch of singles matches from random opponents, just like it's always nice to see weird pairings in the RWTL. In this, like the RWTL, it's great we have the handhelds we do. It gave us a bunch of match-ups we'd never have gotten otherwise and you do learn a lot from all of them. I think that's about it for now. I'll watch 87 NJPW. I'll watch a bunch more SWS but then I'll be happy to come back and at least finish 1991 AJPW at some point in the future. For those following along, thanks for doing so. It's tough to get on the treadmill some nights but this is a big part of why I can manage it.

Holy fucking shit. That was both an awesome episode and entirely unexpected. Soooo….uhhhh…now what?

But then how can anyone look utterly shocked at getting a 2.9 off a move that never gets anything more than a 2.9? Think of the drama we'd be missing.

I'd like to see an athletic big man start wrestling like Khali because analytics show that for every inch in height past six feet, any move that takes you off your feet offers a 7.4% greater chance of failure. Maybe they show a sizzle reel of One Man Gang, Kamala, and King Kong Bundy whiffing on second-rope splashes while dude explains the numbers and why he subsequently will only be throwing punches, stomps, and an occasional body slam or lariat from now on.

Listen, its really gross for me to even speculate on the health of someone I've only ever interacted with here literally decades ago, but I have ADHD (as evidenced by the way I oscillate between half my posts sounding like Keith Lee, and half of them sounding like Shit Ric Flair Would Tweet When He Is Drunk . Woooo ! ) and I definitely know the classic Vyvanse-and-Caffiene when I see it. I don't think anything illicit is happening, and I think the whole blow meme is or will soon reach a point where it's becoming borderline slanderous - again, absolutely none, zero, of anyone's business but his own, but I think a lot of people need to look at themselves and realize there's a non zero chance they are giving a dude a hard time for some shit that ain't his fault, and for being really, really passionate about something we all love

It's right up there with Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry for an ending you didn't see coming.

"Do we have anybody on the roster who can pass as a fake Ultimate Warrior?"

I don't know if I said it here, but I honestly believe that his Hall of Fame plaque should say, "None of you had any idea Antonio Brown was crazy while I coaches him." It should be the first line and I'd be 100% OK with it being the only line. It literally says everything you need to know about Tomlin as a coach. Antonio Brown would have been an easy 1st ballot hall of fame receiver if he didn't piss Tomlin off by live streaming in the locker room. One other thing about Antonio Brown. He's legit the only receiver who I thought could have challenged some of Jerry Rice's numbers. I read some article at his peak and they broke down the stats and he was the best receiver in the league by far by every metric. He was the best deep threat, the best in short routes, the best intermediate route runner, the best down the sideline, in the seam, and across the middle. There was nothing he could not do... except act right.

Top hat and fishnets... that is all

something from Cabaret

Halfway through, I realized the episode almost felt like a season finale.

Fat Spanish McGirt. ;).

I read it somewhere, maybe here, that Mike Tomlin should be considered one of the greatest coaches of all time for keeping AB's crazy in check for as long as he did

It's like being the second best Michael Jordan. The bar's really high, man.

This legit saddened me to read - I really loved their Jane's Addiction sound-alike

I’m sure someone has typed or talked about it before but 1989 WWF had a “JCP in exile” underbelly which wasn’t just enhancement guys Arn, Tully, Dusty, Windham, Garvin, Powers of Pain, Bossman in mid-88, Bushwhackers, Schiavone, JJ and then almost all of those guys are out of the WWF by 1991 (except Bossman, Powers, and JJ)

Not counting attending my first show and a bunch of pay-per-views, I think the coolest things I've seen as a fan were when the World title changed hands. I've witnessed four of them: Steamboat beats Flair at Chi-Town Rumble Yokozuna squishes Hogan at King of the Ring 93 Kane beats Austin at King of the Ring 98 Moxley destroys Punk at Cleveland Dynamite (August 22) I also have to mention the Undertaker-Mankind match at SummerSlam 96. Not only did it result in my dad's outrage against Paul Bearer (Dad wasn't a big fan, but that got him), but two of my friends, "Handsome" Frank Stalletto and "Beef Stew" Lou Marconi, served as Undertaker's druids.

The one I seem to remember being used repeatedly is this one. This is the match line-up, but they definitely used it more than once on the show itself: (There's something to be said about Tony being able to run one of these matches again 20+ years later.)

Yeah, 1985 Jake was already legendary Jake, which my cut-off sentence was trying to get at. I really wish that his late '70s/early '80s Stampede run was laid out everywhere so I could see him work there. Heck, I wanna see JYD in Stampede, too. That promotion is an important connective tissue that I would kill for curated video of. I'll YouTube around and see what I can find. That crowd completely died when Barbarian confronted Humongous and then they both jumped Jake. I let out a "fuck you" at the screen that has only recently been used a few times on my WCW rewatch (mostly at the end of PPV main events). The Dundee heel turn seemed sort of random and out of nowhere, but this has been a solid feud so far! The little person wrestler rocking Dundee's pink jacket was great (as was Dundee doing a cartoon tumble trying to chase him and get it back). I mean, the Fantastics should be tag champs right now instead and not in this mid-card feud, but you can't fault any of the guys in the feud. It also gives Mantell a little direction, as they sort of had him here and there, mini-feuding with Reed and doing other stuff when he's a solid worker and talker and probably needed to come in to Mid-South with more focus. This is valuable, and it'll keep me watching to the end of '86. Thank you so much. I'm interested to see especially the Fantastics/Sheepherders stuff. I feel like one of the few who wasn't impressed by their feud in JCP a couple years later. Maybe it's because that feud came off a Fantastics/MX feud that might be my favorite tag feud ever, so it was sort of a letdown in comparison for me.

I want an OG United Artists faction; Toni teams up with Serpentico doing a Douglas Fairbanks/Erroll Flynn swashbuckler gimmick where he’s swinging around on random ropes into walls.

I meant the Blue Meanie. But that might be what I was thinking of. Lord at the end... I haven't seen someone promoting Kazaa since forever.

Thoughts on Just Another Night Before wrapping up the ECW shows, I discovered this hidden gem. So instead of a slickly produced 2001 pay-per-view, we go back to ... a single-camera shoot in a Pennsylvania high school gym with Stevie and Meanie doing the Fargo Strut? I feel right at home! Indeed, they were our Steel City wrestling tag team champions at one point. They also did the Fargo Strut later in the night with Cactus Jack, who held the Steel CIty heavyweight title and also won the tag belts with Meanie. JT Smith attacked partner Joel Hartgood because he was unable to learn the Tarantella dance. Fun fact: When I was a little kid, my siblings and I were in an Italian dance group, and the Tarantella was our big showstopper number. For a house show in Glenolden, this card was impressive: Cactus-Bigelow, Sabu-Scorpio, and Raven-Douglas. Sandman was the MVP for caning Bad Crew and Hartgood at the beginning of the show, beating Axl Rotten and showing him respect in the middle, and forming a beer-soaked alliance with Douglas with the intent to get the ECW title off Raven at the end of the night.

Enjoying the Toni Storm vignettes, but one pet peeve I have about them is that silent films did not have inter-title cards after every bit of dialogue. 90% of dialogue would be conveyed through acting and context clues. Most would attempt to have as few cards as possible, as they break up the flow of the movie. There were no character one mouths some words > card > character two mouths some words > card.

A late Vince Russo-era WCW Nitro live from my hometown seemed an impossibility, but here it was. My friend's dad had box seats to the arena, so he assured me early on that we had seats. The day of the show, my brother and my cousin and I were shopping around downtown, we swung by the arena to see the big WCW trucks unloading equipment and the like, and while we were standing there, a number of wrestlers showed up and were walking across the parking lot, behind metal fencing: Rick Steiner, Kevin Nash and everybody cheered and yelled at them, in order for them to turn around, wave, nod etc. Tank Abbott showed up and everyone went silent, one kid was like "Shhh, he's dangerous" which I thought was quite funny, my brother looked around like 'I'm not scared' and yelled "Tank Abbott!" Tank turns around, glares, stalks over a few feet then yells "Did you all come here to see Three Count dance?!" to massive cheers before going in. My cousin, after this bit decides there's no way he's missing out on this (Because it wasn't my sky box, I didn't feel like I could invite him and my brother) and buys two tickets for them, basically last row, back of the arena seats. So we hung around near the arena, followed Jeff Jarrett around for a bit until the hotel security guards shooed us away, got lied to by Dave Penzer ("Is Bret Hart gonna be here?" "Oh yeah, everyone is here!") and just about half an hour before the show a big guy in a suit came up to us and asked if we had tickets and were sitting together, and I was like "I'm in a box, but they're sitting together" and he hands my brother and cousin a pair of tickets "Compliments of Mr. Goldberg". So my friend shows up and I'm up in the skybox with him (TERRIBLE seats that are adjacent to the entrance so you can't see the screen which is an absolute necessity at a Russo-booked show...the main event was Goldberg putting Midajah through a table backstage shown on said screen) and I scan the crowd for my brother and cousin and they are DIRECTLY behind the announcers desk for the show. All night long they are on camera (If you watch that show...and I don't know why you would, for a show with Sting, Rey Mysterio, Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, PCO, The Great Muta etc. etc. it is a TERRIBLE show...there's a kid directly behind the announcers who does the RVD pose for the cameras, that's my cousin!), they almost got run over by the Harris brothers doing a run-in, a chunk of table almost hit my brother (Though for him, the most memorable part of the night was when the one kid came up to them and told them that ICP was going to be there and if you chanted ICP's name all night they would come out and bring you candy like some demented Juggalo Santa Claus, I guess, and the kid kept chating ICP all night even though they were not there). My mom remembers later that night, checking on my cousin who was wide-awake and staring at the ceiling and he said "Best night of my life Auntie Liz!" I saw said cousin this past summer, he's married with children now, and 23 years later, he stil brought up that night and how he was telling his daughters about it.

I like this topic. I have two stories to share. One is not necessarily "best," but it is memorable and I find it funny. "Best" would probably be the first WWF show I ever attended, around age 4 or 5. I've been a lifelong wrestling fan, and my dad took me to most of the WWF shows that came to our area from the time I started watching wrestling up until I turned 14 or 15. My dad went out of his way to make that first show special, so the older I get the more I appreciate it. It was just a house show, but we got second row seats. Given the time period, it would've been near the start of the Undertaker gimmick...seeing him come out live as a young kid was terrifying, especially being so close to the entranceway. My dad also took a bunch of photos at the show, as best he could. To this day I still have photos of Randy Savage running around ringside (he was chasing off Jake Roberts), and a cool one of his hat lying in the middle of the ring. On to "memorable," without further ado: How Teflon Turtle Got Busted Open Hardway at Over the Edge '98 Honestly, I don't remember much of anything about this event itself other than I was very excited to get tickets to a PPV for my birthday. My dad again. Of course the main event was great, rest of the card forgettable in retrospect. The real fun happened as the show ended. As people stood up and were filing out of their seats in our row, a couple of older women badgered past my gangly-preteen self and put a shoulder in to me to get out of there first. One of them hit me hard enough to knock me backwards - my seat, already raised, caught me from falling over entirely. But: it turned out that there was a jagged metal piece on the underside of my seat's hardware, which unbeknownst to me at the time had pierced one of my calves as I lost my balance. I didn't notice it at first due to the impact of being knocked backwards registering more. But, as my dad and I were leaving the arena, I started wondering why my calf felt wet. I looked down and sure enough, my calf was dripping blood and it was flowing down on to my sock. We wound up grabbing a bunch of napkins from a concession stand to soak some of it up/so I could keep pressure on it while we drove the couple of hours home. I wound up not needing stitches, but had nice little scar from it for quite a few years. (He's hardcore! He's hardcore! )

The live crowd was going crazy for the opening sequence starting with the MJF-Juice match to the Kenny Omega appearance. I haven't watched the televised show but everyone was loudly cheering for MJF to accept The Acclaimed's help and booed when he turned them down. Then the backstage Joe segment got another huge pop from the crowd. It's unique and it's working. So many different motivations, not being sure who you can trust, some touches of "my enemy's enemy is my friend". It's like a common battle royale storyline arc extended into full-blown angles for the World Title program.

Why? The other commentators probably get to go. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'm sure JBL will be stepping out in Berlin, with a hearty HEIL to every German fan he sees. This isn't art school where some people just can't get in with their portfolio of work; this is pro wrestling commentating.