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I like to think Keith Hackney knew Joe Son was a creep when he turned his nuts into a speedbag.

The sideshow person in me really would like to see a Danielson/Jun Kasai one off.

The writers of Rampage are clearly Simpsons fans. https://i.ibb.co/MNw8Mqn/main-qimg-f48244bca1af37b91ce12f9e2d5deaad-lq.jpg

YOOOOOOO

I just remembered this story from the ECW "unauthorized" book. Apparently Fonzie broke his arm in the ring, and either to keep the commission from getting mad at them or trying to get some money in a lawsuit (or both), I dunno, but he ran to a grocery store and pulled a bunch of cans over top of him and claimed he slipped.

I loved Bill Alphonso as the only ref who would enforce the rules in ECW and playing into Cactus Jack's anti-hardcore gimmick. "It is Cactus Jack's CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to be counted out if he wants to be!"

Tommy Young just won the Masters, Wahoo looks pissed, Stunning Steve is happy to be there, Curt Hennig is grinning because he roofied both of Steve’s beers.

The Steph/Sabrina shootout was great. Let her be in the three point contest next year!

Man, I can’t make any excuses for Meltzer anymore. I legit may just unsubscribe from the Observer because that shit is straight up embarrassing. If you’re not aware he lied/was dumb and said at the Vegas thing for Mania that Rock and HHH filmed a segment challenging each other to a match, but they “shelved” it and it leaked. Except, none of that happened. He’s referring to the face to face HHH and the Rock had on SmackDown almost 10 years ago to tease a final match or something between them. I’m not sure what’s more embarrassing - that or the Shibata thing. But one thing is for sure, his writing and thought process are way worse now. I know the joke is that he’s on the spectrum and he might be, but he’s also in his early 60s. He should be sharper than this.

Fuck, now I have to learn how to make Crusader Kings mods so I can make Cetacean Kings.

His part in the Pitbulls/Raven + Richards dog collar match (probably the best ECW match all told -- or at least, the best example of Heyman's six-ways-to-Sunday booking actually working) was great; yelling "You never beat Raven!" in sing-song voice at Tommy, then 911 comes out and finally shuts him up.

Thank you all. Much love xxx.

It's the All-Star Break! Dunk off and the 3 point shootout is tonight! All Star Game tomorrow! Let's check in on the East's Head Coach:

This picture is gloriously random AF.

Tony for some reason pronounces Sonjay's last name like DOOT and my mind (and Excalibur's) immediately went to Narduwar's signature sign-off. He briefly mentions the name, and Tony and Daddy Magic unsurprisingly have no clue (nor would I expect them to). Moments like that are why I cherish the fact that AEW exists.

The number of workers who have worked a grocery store is amazing. There's also the whole Kenny Bolin scamming meat story that it prob best heard by him telling it on a podcast.

Sammy v Jeff was fun. Accidents will happen. If the botch grounds Sammy's game that might be good for him. I remember Dean, on the money as he always was, praising Sammy's mat work from a TV match he was reviewing. I'm more annoyed at the insistence of him being pushed as a babyface. I wonder if Hobbs will be cheered in their eventual match. Brian Cage promo was solid. Very much looking forward to that 6 man. Private Party promo was okay. Not great, but they may figure it out with some reps. How about a few more in ROH too? Mox/Claudio promo was fun. Did Claudio suggest Mox was thinking about Renee's glutes? Slight misfire, but we're all the better for it. FTR v BCC is a goddamn dream come true. Ruby/Angelo/Saraya promos should have been handled all in one segment. Harley rules. She and Saraya need a worker protege. I skimmed the Dustin/Von Erichs squash. Von Erichs need proper reps. Toni/Mariah promo was their usual awesome. They brighten up any show they're on at this point. Amanita v Jay was good solid action. Anna's really tightened up her game in the last year. Huge win and great post match - AEW style! Willow/Kris/Stoke promo was fine. I'm hoping Stat goes heel, but I'm also cool with the two of them dumping Stoke on the way to an AEW tag title win (as posted earlier). I skimmed the 12 man. That's too many ppl. The Acclaimed are bringing Jay and the Asses into their shitty vortex. Still, fun show. I like the commitment to promos on Friday nights. It's a great way to get the 'big stars' in. I wonder if the show might benefit from the vibe Renee being the host, or Master of Ceremonies, might bring? I don't mean a commentator. BTW great to hear Daddy Magic on the call! Rampage baby!

I'm glad this got brought up. First, they completely under sold the best part of the segment - the Schiavone confrontation. Which deserved praise far more than anything deserved to be panned/whined about. First, Darby represented the position of Buck-haters which are not specifically Cornette, so I have no problem with that. Even if it was a slight misfire. Yeah, I could've done without the Cody reference, but it wasn't anything to get code red angry about. AEW doesn't pretend their alone in the wrestling 'universe', and I like this. Seems like more than a stretch to suggest he's promoting 'their' match and not his own. Third, Darby has been nearly indestructible throughout his AEW career. He has come back from far worse than the beating received in that angle last week. I don't see it as any stretch that he would return a week later. Besides, 62 year old Sting was clearly still selling the attack, and that's far more important. Further, Dave was mostly bemoaning that Darby didn't address last week's beating. I don't disagree that it would've made sense to make mention, but I didn't walk away from this forgetting it because he didn't. That's what Video packages are for. Darby's strong suit isn't his promo, but he's more than passable, and his passion/anger was enough for me. I liked this segment and it was far from 'pitiful'.

As awesome as that is check what he put today.

Also, Claudio’s “When you’re good, you tell everyone. When you’re great, everyone tells you” was a killer line.

Didn’t expect much from Rampage and so even though it wasn’t great it overdelivered, especially the random ass promos. Sammy-Hardy was reckless and sloppy, but I will say that the botched SSP was a little more complicated than just a blown regular spot. That said, if all Jeff got was a broken nose that’s good because it looked like he had a broken cheekbone and I was worried it could even be an orbital. They really didn’t need to have that GTH after that. I hadn’t even put together the history behind a Rhodes-Von Erich team up. Dustin did all the work, and I suspect the jobbers are students of his. I’ll never complain about seeing Dustin Rhodes wrestle. Aminata-Anna was MOTN. Anna has improved, Aminata has been doing pretty well on her run and I did like that this one wasn’t a foregone conclusion. They maybe could have leaned more into the Queenslayer against an opponent named Queen Aminata. We need an Aminata-Emi Sakura match now. Also loved how the crowd popped huge for Aminata’s big win. Main was chaotic in a not good way. I will say the Gunns have improved a lot over the last 12 months. Having an Acclaimed match without showing Caster’s rap is silly. I’m also now on board the “Acclaimed is stale” wagon. Just casually dropping Danielson-Jun Akiyama at the very end of the show is hilarious. I literally had to rewind as I had stopped paying attention and thought I was hearing things.

Yeah, it looked like you'd be getting crushed by a windmill on the loose.

I've described before that I enjoyed Bischoff's podcast for being a hard, but semi-unbiased look at wrestling(moreso than i ever enjoyed him in wrestling before), but good god, he's really leaned hard into an anti-AEW schtick that is borderline unbearable. He sounds like an anti-AEW Facebook troll. Shame.

Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki, Bryan Danielson vs. Yuji Nagata and now Bryan Danielson vs. Jun Akiyama. Get in! Do want to see Bryan Danielson vs. Tetsuya Naito, Bryan Danielson vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Bryan Danielson vs. Shingo Takagi and Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada 3.

Excalibur with a Narduwar reference and I totally geeked out. (Most likely because I am a geek.)

Fuck this isn't even re-inventing cable. It's literally the original version of Hulu.

He might want to work with someone who isn't going to match, if not encourage, his penchant for injury.

If he decided to fight this, that could be his defense. ”Your honor, I refer you to Exhibit A: my client’s entire season. Now, could any reasonable person say that this performance was enhanced?”

I started a rewatch a few months ago, but stopped because there were other shows on (and leaks were saying 97 wouldn’t premiere until like the fall or winter). Started it back up yesterday, only a little ways through Season 2. Totally forgot Carol Danvers made an appearance in this for Rogue’s origin episode. This shit hits like crack, it’s a total comfort food type scenario for me (this + 90s Spidey). No doubt I’ll be done by March 20th the way I consume content, so I’m ready. I want them to revive all the 90s cartoons and merge the two Earths (pretty sure X-Men/Spidey were in their own universe, with Iron Man, F4, Silver Surfer and Hulk all taking place on another).

Dinosaur Jr. - Take It Back (Official Video) (youtube.com)

Well that came out of fucking nowhere, even if it does tie directly into the Kingston fued. Holy shit.

or being disqualified for using karate in 2024

Not using the tag rope?

Show #154 – 17 August 1998 "The one THAT WAS FATED TO BE BY THE STARS AS THE HEAVENS HAVE FORETOLD BECAUSE EVERYTHING DIES AND NO MAN CAN LIVE FOREVER BUT THE WARRIORS KNOW THAT A TRUE WARRIOR WILL EXIST IN THE HEARTS AND MEMORY OF ALL WARRIORS ACROSS ERAS UNTIL THE DAY THAT TIME ENDS AND A NEW TIME THAT IS IMBUED WITH THE SPIRITS OF THOSE WARRIORS FROM THE PAST SHALL BEGIN *snarl*" Tony S. notes that tonight’s show is the only live wrestling show on this Monday. However, that wouldn’t have stopped me from switching to a taped RAW right from the jump because “Rockhouse” is playing and Bisch is out here pretending to be an airplane while Hogan strums an air guitar. The Giant and the Disciple are out here, too. Hogan does his typical delusional heel drivel. He calls out Goldberg for a title match tonight. Then he notes this: “There’s not one man I haven’t beat.” I see where this is headed. Hey, did Hogan ever beat Goldberg, actually? I’m surprised he didn’t try to politic his way into beating Goldberg in 2004 WWE or whatever. Anyway, what Hogan actually says is that the Giant will face Goldberg for the title tonight and that Giant will hand over the belt when he wins it. I am steadfast in my belief that giving the Goldberg/Hogan title switch away on TV was fine, but failing to follow up by giving Goldberg all these marquee matchups he has on PPV is a dreadful mistake. You give away the hook of a Goldberg title reign for free and then get people to pay for all the never-before-seen Goldberg main event title defenses on subsequent PPVs. Goldberg/Giant should have been on either Road Wild or on Fall Brawl, not on Nitro. Break. Title Card. Fireworks. More yammering about how Nitro is live and not taped. Psicosis/Juvi is our next match. Oops, no, that match doesn't happen. Specifically, no match happens next. We just get Gene Okerlund talking to J.J. Dillon. Dillon teases that Hogan hasn’t beaten everybody (coughWarriorcough), then talks about the War Games match at Fall Brawl for awhile. This War Games is a 3x3x3 matchup. Hulk Hogan (Hollywood), Kevin Nash (Wolfpac), and Diamond Dallas Page (WCW) are the captains. I remember nothing about a triple threat War Games match, but I know who wins already because – accidental spoilers from the past! – Dillon says that the winner will get a shot at the World Champ at Havoc. Nitro Girls routine. Nitro party footage. Thirteen minutes in (not counting commercials), and still no match until… …Psicosis/Juvi, oops, wrong again, I mean Mongo McMichael/Sick Boy finally gets the action going. The most interesting thing about this match is Tony S. and Mike Tenay spoiling the taped RAW and its big title match between Steve Austin and the Undertaker and noting that it’s going very short and ending very unsatisfactorily (Kane shows up; yep, that’s usually an unsatisfactory thing to happen). Then they claim that they’ll actually deliver on a legit World title match tonight. On an old 83 Weeks I was listening to yesterday, I heard Eric Bischoff claim that he didn’t keep an eye on RAW to see what they were programming against him. Here’s where I’d insert the supercut of Jonathan Frakes saying variations of “That’s a lie” if the board was agreeable to me adding YouTube videos. The match itself is a thing that exists. Sick Boy misses a dropkick by a good six inches, but Mongo bumps for it anyway. Mongo wins with a Mongo Spike to end a match that was longer than it needed to be. DDP has an interview with Mean Gene. Who are Page’s War Games partners? Welp, Page teases Warrior as a partner. Page goes on to talk about that whole beatdown he caught before his U.S. Championship match against Bret Hart a few weeks back, and on cue, Bret Hart shows up. Bret Hart significantly outworks Page on the mic, which, uh, I enjoy heel Bret a lot, but that shouldn’t be happening. Page challenges Bret to a title match and Bret’s response is pretty amazing. He lists off all the guys he put out of WCW and then says that the only reason Luger’s not dead in the back is that he's Sting’s friend, which got a chuckle out of me. Bret accepts the match and I’m gonna be honest, I’m rooting for the guy against this cornball Page. One of the most surprising elements of this rewatch has been how strongly I dislike babyface DDP. As much as I love heel Page, I really cannot stand babyface Page. We come back from break and Okerlund is still out here so that he can interview Raven. Fuck me, all this mediocre talking when WCW specializes in good matches. Horace Hogan, AKA the entertaining Hogan (somehow?!), comes out to verbally shit on Raven while Raven stands there and coolly takes it. Horace cuts a reasonable enough promo in which he wants to beat Raven up for a third show in a row or whatever, and Raven agrees to a tag match: Raven and Saturn against Horace and Kanyon. I should note here that Saturn and Raven are having a match at Fall Brawl in which the winner determines the future of the Flock. Saturn and Kanyon eventually agree to participate in this match, and J.J. Dillon slouches toward Bethlehem waddles back out here to make the match. He adds the stips that if either tag partner attacks the other or refuses a tag during the match, they’ll eat a three-month suspension and that the match must end by pinfall or submission. Hey, it’s High Voltage! Robbie Rage! The other one who’s way less interesting! They’re facing the Boogie Knights, and I am intrigued. There’s sadly no Tokyo Magnum tonight, though. Rage and Wright have an opening in which they trade wristlocks before Wright intricately escapes and hits a dropkick. Wright tries to run and gets powerslammed and press slammed instead. Wright regains control and tags Disco, who either hits a piledriver, or dances a lot and allows Rage to hit him with a lariat, you guess which one of those actually happened. Not-Rage enters the ring, but it’s decent and Rage and not-Rage hit a double-team flying bulldog. This is a pretty fun and competitive match, so of course, here’s Meng to kill these guys off with TDGs. I love Meng, but couldn’t we have sent him in on the Mongo/Sick Boy match instead? I wanted to see where this tag match was going. The crowd loves it, though. They egg Meng on as Meng considers TDG’ing Billy Silverman (he lands on a strong "I think I will" and does it), then pop huge when Meng TDG’s one security member. They pop even more hugely when Meng walks through a mace attack from another security member and TDG’s that guy, too. OK, that ruled, but still, maybe do it in the middle of a different match. Eddy Guerrero is totally directionless right now for some reason. He’s one of the most over heels on the roster. Why isn’t he deep into an angle? The Chavo thing just sort of halted. Wait, maybe they’re giving him something to do; he comes out in street clothes and rolls a wheelie luggage. Eddy’s SHOOTIN’ and actually says what I just said about him being totally directionless now. To paraphrase, Eddy says this: I'm totally directionless right now what the fuck, Bisch, maybe I'll go to WWF instead. Sure, eventually that's an option, but we're still a bit early. We’re entering the worked shoot era that would influence guys like CM Punk to cut some of the corniest promos I’ve had the displeasure of seeing on television. I ultimately blame Brian Pillman. Anyway, Eddy’s like I’M BEING HELD BACK, YO. He cuts a subpar promo because frankly, as great a promo guy as he is, this worked shoot stuff fucking SUCKS and is the WORST. He drones on and on, and I don’t blame him for being boring and shitty. I blame Bischoff for trying to book a non-OG nWo angle that’s edgy, that Harley-riding doofus. I guess this is where the whole lWo thing starts, huh? Anyway, this promo borders on monumentally bad, with Eddy losing his train of thought multiple times and quietly blowing off the Chavo Jr. feud by saying that he actually likes the guy and doesn’t want to get him fired for ranting. This stunk. I think I was okay with Jericho/Malenko basically ending with Malenko inadvertently helping Juvi beat Jericho for the Cruiserweight Championship and then Jericho just being cool with that and winning the TV title a day later instead. It’s weak, especially with Jericho not complaining about direct interference from ref Dean Malenko of all people when that’s exactly what he’d do normally, but whatever. They could have just blown that feud off with the Rey Misterio Jr. return match and it would have been a stronger ending. Or, you know, ending it with Malenko-as-Ciclope winning the belt months earlier. Anyway, any of those endings to that feud are at least decent. On the other hand, Eddy/Chavo Jr. petering out like this is pretty bad. Bisch and his booking team not being able to effectively and definitively end an angle is a real problem. Kanyon/Horace versus Raven/Saturn kicks off hour number two. Raven’s shirt says “Dinosaur Jr.” I don’t know what’s going on with that shirt, but I like it. Saturn and Raven struggle to get along far more than Horace and Kanyon do. Saturn still launches both of them in between jawing at Raven, but Horace scores with a big boot to take control. Saturn is a guy in peril for a minute, but he kicks out of a backbreaker at two and then is saved by Raven crotching Kanyon and tagging himself in to boot. Raven and Saturn function as a team for a bit to control Kanyon; Raven then decides that it’s time to bring a trusty chair into the ring. He sets it up and tries to hit a top rope cutter on Kanyon into the chair seat, but Kanyon blocks it and Raven with a facecrusher into the chair instead. Horace gets a hot tag and goes right at Raven. Horace gets two off a floatover powerslam, then two off a top-rope splash. The match breaks down here and all four men go at it. Raven gets crunched into Saturn in the corner and Saturn topples over and headbutts Raven in the jewels. The crowd pops. People love that spot. Kanyon and Horace get 2.9 on a nice neckbreaker/sit-out powerbomb combo. The crowd was into that spot, too. Kanyon hits an elevated facebuster while Horace gets the STOP sign. Kanyon holds Saturn up for a sign shot, yada yada yada, Saturn hits Horace with a DVD for three. Sorry, I’ve been bingeing Seinfeld lately. What happened in that yada was that Horace whiffed and hit Kanyon instead. Post-match, Raven Evenflows Saturn, then Evenflows Kidman when Kidman tries to call the dogs off. Horace attacks Saturn in solidarity with Raven, and Raven Evenflows Horace. The match was decent, but this whole Flock thing is played out, and I’m looking forward to Saturn disintegrating the whole group after winning at Fall Brawl. The Flock had so much potential, and while there were bright spots for this group throughout its eighteen-ish months of existence, it got mired in the same boring internal politics angles that ruined the nWo. The Wolfpac comes to the ring to announce which three of them will be in War Games. Well, let’s see: There’s Kevin Nash, Sting, Lex Luger, and Konnan. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong. It’s just a group promo so they can get some TV time as the WILDLY over stable that they are. People don't generally say this about 1998 WCW (at least I don't think they do), but Bischoff and his booking committee completely whiffed on the Wolfpac’s popularity almost as much as they did Goldberg’s. Scott Norton faces off with ARRRRRRRR, Pirate Scott Putski! Putski can’t even get his ostentatious Jesus piece off before Norton attacks him. I wonder if Putski won that Jesus piece off a Spanish galleon during a firefight in the Caribbean Sea. He might need to sell it to pay his medical bills because Norton powerbombs him for three in about a minute. The very popular Wolfpac gets a four-minute segment. The very corny and unpopular nWo Hollywood gets another segment longer than four minutes in the same show. Here comes Bisch, Hogan, and Disciple again. I do know that at some point soon, Ric Flair comes back and yells YOU SUCK, ABUSE OF POWER at Bisch while everyone in the crowd goes nuts. That is maybe the only acceptable point at which Bischoff should be down here in the ring wasting my time. Hogan natters on and says the same fucking shit he always says. Something had better happen in this segment other than just these morons cutting shitty promos. Hogan keeps teasing that he’s beaten everyone and says, get this – THERE’S NOT A WARRIOR IN THE WORLD I CAN’T BEAT – before the lights go out and Ultimate Warrior’s voice comes over the PA and says something garbled. Then, aw yeah, why not go straight to wrestling hell, here comes the Ultimate Warrior! Hogan sells shock in the cartooniest way possible, fuck that guy and his shitty wrestling acting. And his shitty movie acting, for that matter. Last we saw Warrior, he was about to be replaced by the much, much, MUCH more fun Sycho Sid at IYH: International Incident. Hogan decides to be cute – “I thought you were dead,” he says to Warrior – and no one who remembers the rumors that the original Warrior died and was replaced thinks you’re funny, you big, bald son of a bitch. This does get a pop since we’re in WWF territory (Hartford, CT), and I am here for a train wreck of a feud, why not? Warrior always takes things too fucking far, and I sort of love that about his work. Hogan tries to get Warrior to join the now by fearfully holding out his nWo t-shirt to Warrior, so Warrior does the “d-d-d-dookie” spot from No Holds Barred. See, I stand by Warrior being so bad that he can be sort of fun. He stinks, but if you’re going to pair him with Hogan in 1998, that’s an acceptable short-term use of him. Warrior says some total nonsense, loses the crowd for a second, but basically is like: See, all these fans remember me! It’s because I rule. You’re scared of me because I’m the best and you know it. You conveniently forgot that I whipped your ass at WrestleMania VI, you big, bald son of a bitch. What happened, man? You used to be cool, but now you’re a Harley riding cornball who, might I remind you, has never beaten me. He also gets a reasonable zinger in by saying, “Let’s talk about something that he doesn’t know” as the crowd chants HOGAN SUCKS. It gets a pop and some laughter. This Warrior promo goes on way the fuck too long and he winks at everyone by calling the Disciple Hogan’s barber (TBF, the crowd does chant BRUTUS for a few seconds, and this Hartford crowd is just glad to be watching wrestling and seeing some WWF legends). The lights go out and Warrior goes POOF, Undertaker style, while the desk and Hogan and Bischoff act like wondrous assholes about it. If they just looked down, they’d see the obvious trap door cut out of the mat. Maybe they could point it out to Davey Boy Smith while they're at it. This was about as self-indulgent as anything Roddy Piper’s done, but it was watchable, so that’s a start. Don’t get me wrong, though, I am aware that this will end up being a very, very, very bad feud. But it actually started out reasonably well considering the participants. On WCWSN, Curt Hennig told Dean Malenko that Malenko was not Horsemen material. I guess Hennig would know something about being Horsemen material since Ric Flair basically dumped Jeff Jarrett in the bushes to chase Hennig as a Horsemen member. Anyway, that little exchange led to a wrestling challenge between the two on Nitro. We get a break thirty seconds in as Hennig stalls on the outside. Back from that break, we get a perfectly cromulent TV match. Someone in the crowd holds up a WHAT’S ON RAW? sign. Well, Hennig has a neck vice on Malenko, so let me look it up. Well, if it was a match, probably a D-X/Nation multiman tag. But let’s be honest, it was probably a promo. Malenko makes an acceptable comeback on Hennig. Malenko floats over on a side Russian and gets two. Hennig tries a PerfectPlex not long after that, but Malenko blocks it with knees to the gut and ends up hitting a back suplex and trying for a Texas Cloverleaf. It fails because Hennig gets to the ropes, and Rick Rude jumps on the apron to run a distraction. It works, and Rude puts a knee in Malenko’s back and hits a double-axe from the apron to the floor besides. That little bit of offense is enough to soften Malenko up for an immediate PerfectPlex back in the ring that gets a pinfall. Hopefully, this feeds into the “reuniting the Horsemen” angle in a show or two because otherwise, I just saw Malenko get chumped out by Hennig and prove Hennig’s point. I assume, however, that this match will convince Arn that maybe Malenko needs his own running buddies to counter the nWo. “Rockhouse” plays for the 27th time tonight. Scott Steiner comes out with half his body taped, followed by Buff Bagwell and someone pretending to be a doctor. Scotty dodging Rick is tired as fuck. Scotty needs to get away from Rick so that he can fly free already. Rick eventually shows up to respond and, paraphrasing, basically yells that BUFF IS A GIRL AND SO ARE YOU SCOTTY, WOMEN ARE WEAK AND ONLY A FEMALE WOULD FAKE AN INJURY and please, I implore you WCW, end this stupid fucking feud at Fall Brawl already. Chris Jericho defends his TV Championship against Chavo Jr. and Stevie Ray in a triangle match. The desk tries to explain how and why Stevie Ray could just defend Booker’s belt or how Chris Jericho could hit a guy in the head and take his title shot without drawing the ire of the WCW Championship Committee, and I can confirm that they would have been better off not trying to explain the logic to any of this at all. To start, Jericho pretends to ally with Chavo against Stevie. Chavo runs in and gets shoulderblocked while Jericho stands back and watches; when Chavo complains to Jericho, Jericho yells YOUR TIMING IS OFF. That is some true scumbag shit, and I laughed in spite of myself. Stevie is just tossing these dudes around like he’s the Giant. Other than Jericho’s antics and Chavo finally getting wise to Jericho’s antics and dropkicking him instead of teaming up for another attack on Stevie, this match isn’t particularly good. They try to work this in an interesting way with lots of shifting alliances and competing pinfall attempts, at least. There’s even a double missile dropkick on Stevie that is an alright spot. Stevie runs the ref over on a rope run and takes the opportunity to load his fist and hit Jericho. The Giant comes out again for reasons that I cannot grasp and chokeslams Stevie after Stevie has laid out both his opponents with that loaded fist. This leads into a bad finish where Jericho distracts the ref so he doesn’t see Chavo get to his feet and break the ten-count; Jericho stands up after Chavo falls back over, and the champ retains by double-countout. Yuck. Bret Hart is back out to defend the United States Championship against DDP. These fellas are going to have a good match almost certainly, and they start off hot with Page winning a suplex for two and almost catching the Hitman in an early Diamond Cutter. Hart bails and Page follows and just destroys the guy outside the ring. Bret gets killed when he’s back in the ring, too, but the Hitman kicks out of a pinfall attempt after a vertical suplex and manages to hit Page in the junk and drop him with a Hot Shot. Tony S. continues to remind everyone that RAW is bait-and-switching their main event, which I guess must have worked because Nitro is in week two of a three-week streak of ratings wins. That’s the good news for Nitro. The bad news for Nitro is that after tonight, the show will score only four more ratings wins in direct head-to-head against RAW until Nitro is cancelled. Whoopsie! So, Bret starts to pour on the offense, mixing in his 5MoD along the way. This is a good control segment because Bret escalates it steadily, and with each kickout that Page scores, Bret gets more frustrated and more vicious. Eventually, he whips Page as hard as he can into the corner and Page crashes out of it face-first; then, Bret crushes Page with a piledriver and throws a fit when that only gets two. Page fires up almost out of nowhere with fists and then goes up top and hits a diving clothesline for two. Page chases a pinfall with more offense, getting two off a pancake. I’m waiting for the ref bump that I know is coming, and of course, a reversed Irish whip smashes Page into Nick Patrick in the corner. Bret loads his fist and then combines two great moves. First, he pulls a Rock (vs. Ken Shamrock) and hides the knucks in Page’s tights just in case, and second, he fakes a competitive match by pulling an Ernie Ladd (vs. Magnum T.A.) and pulling a dazed Page on top of him so that he can kick out at two. The combination of these things probably sets up Page to lose on a technicality. Let’s see if that’s what happens. Bret locks on a Sharpshooter, but Page gets to the ropes; Page hits a Diamond Cutter, but can’t capitalize. Page looks for another Diamond Cutter, but Bret declares that Page clocked him with knucks. Patrick checks Page’s tights, in fact finds the knucks, and calls for a DQ. I would normally bitch about this, but as I love both the finish to Rock/Shamrock at the ’98 Rumble and Ladd/T.A. on whatever episode of Mid-South TV that Ladd won the North American title on, I’ll admit that I enjoyed this finish. We’ve made it to the end of another show, almost. Michael Buffer is out here to introduce the Giant (w/Dizzy “The Barber” Zodiac) as he comes to the ring to face Goldberg. These fellas start out by trading meaty soupbones. Giant body slams Goldberg, who is like RAAARGH FUCK YOU and does it right back. This match is already great. Giant is irritated about being slammed and decides to serve Goldberg an extra helping of soupbones. Giant hits the best-looking side Russian on this show, sorry Bret, and then instead of covering, lets Goldberg get back to standing. Goldberg tries to fight through a couple of headbutts, so Giant dumps him outside for the Barber. Goldberg easily fights off Barber, but is jumped by Giant. The ref just lets these dudes double up on Goldberg, but Goldberg slips out of the back of a Giant posting attempt and posts Giant himself. Giant gets in the ring and meets Goldberg on the apron, then suplexes Goldberg back into the ring. That move barely fazes Goldberg, who is up first and then hits a spear. The Disciple/Zodiac/Barber/etc. jumps in to draw a DQ and is immediately speared and Jackhammered. Scott Hall runs in to attack Goldberg, but Kevin Nash runs down for the save. Nash clears out Giant and grabs Hall from behind, but Goldberg lines Hall up for a spear at the same time, and yada yada yada, Nash gets up from eating a spear and gets right in Goldberg’s face as the show ends. I just wanted a clean finish between Goldberg and Giant, but that match was pretty fun, as I knew it would be if it involved these two. There was way too much Disciple interference, though. This show was poorly paced, but there were spots of fun, Goldberg/Giant was good until the end, and I didn’t hate the Warrior promo, so that’s something? Yeah, it’s something. 2.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

UFC never should have gotten rid of the Sumo wrestler and the ninja from #1.

There's not that many businesses where on your first day someone hands you a bunch of Soma and whispers "This will make it easier" Pretty much just 1) "comfort women" 2) "Wife of Uday Hussein" and now 3) "Employee of publicly traded company TKO/WWE/UFC that is heavily marketed to children and young men."

The Bucks shaved off their heel moustaches, and instead now have long Soul Patches... like Sting does. I bet they dress up as Sting at some point in the next three weeks.

Swerve is as cool as the otherside of the pillow, Hanger looks like a man who ownes multiple "free mustache rides" trucker hats, you hear dem boos? that's for turning your back on Hungie Apparently Dave is big mad darby said mean things about his sons. Loved the ECW style run ins in the main event, Taven may never be a star but he's a very solid meat and potatoes style good hand

You also forgot Sting wrestled Glen Jacobs before he knew what the hell he was doing. I've seen him do that better. That one looks like some freaky kama sutra shit cause his ass hits him dead in his groin and also looks like he powerbombed himself.

is Ultimo Dragon still involved in wrestling? i feel like he's due for an AEW appearance. someone alert @CoachTonyK

I'll take the Liger sized Lugers as well, just gotta get the jump on a few of them while they're trying to get their shirts off.

Shotei with a metal plate. LEGAL

Annnnnnd it's not just the whole "a guy with some issues is a guy who is probably going to shoot the place up" stereotype. It's everything else, too. All the toxic horseshit that society puts on you as a man. Now, disclaimer, society puts an equal, if not greater, amount of shit on women, too. But talking about guys right now...a man is supposed to not be vulnerable, to be able to take care of shit, to not complain, to not talk about feeling awful, or lonely, or anything like that. A man is supposed to provide and never complain about being needed all the time. I'm not supposed to be a self-loathing mess who is amazed I got through the day and somehow have a half decent life that I'm not so sure I deserve. I'm really happy men's mental health is gradually something people discuss seriously and without stigma. In general, I just hope we can evolve as a human society to understand that men don't need to be some certain way. And women don't need to be some certain way. We're all humans and we're all different, and expectations and comparisons rob us of joy and make life horrible. Anyway, thanks for writing what you wrote, and thank you to all you lunatics for being bros. I'm right here with you.

It's not just this it's her whole ouevre. She's been in enough movies that it feels like she should have at least improved by osmosis or something but she hasn't and I think that's neat.

Not even mentioned in that was at one point - he when asked about the fans of Oakland being upset his answer was along of the lines of "But there is still a team in the Bay!" Yeah - because As fans notoriously root for the Giants too

Look... it's possible everyone knew everything. It's also entirely possible that no one knew anything. The WSJ has a thorough editorial process and phenomenal writers and investigators on their staff. So what they write down is usually deeply researched, vetted repeatedly, and edited to be concise and precise. I'd advise to take things said on a 4th tier news network by a friend of someone who's been gone for 5 years, with several full shakers of salt.

I hate to bring it up, because it sounds stupid - it sounds doubly stupid on such a badly male-skewed place as this - but I was just thinking last night how, if there is any double standard in the world that is actually unfair to men instead of women, it's 100% the mental health domain. All the other double standards that exist, women definitely take the L, let's just get that out of the way. But men...well, women may get labeled more frequently as crazy, it's certainly meant more as slander towards them as a gender, but FSM help you if you tell someone you're struggling and you're a dude. "Active shooter" "dangerous" "violent" "lone wolf" etc., and those are probably the nice ones you may hear. Granted, the VKM sewer parade elsewhere does justify quite a bit of the worst of it, but...oof, if there aren't a lot of us bearing the brunt of the pieces of shit who get away with the worst. And there might be a sniggering stereotype of That Old Dude Down the End of the Bar, which we all cringe at and hope isn't us someday, but hey, that guy is probably feeling lonely, or feels broken, or is an addict, or might even be experiencing all of the above. Maybe you don't want to talk to him, or immediately get involved in whatever is dragging him down, but he's not alone. He is all around you. He might be you already. And most of us aren't remotely the dangerous kind of struggling. We're just struggling. We're just broken. Sometimes all you want is someone to acknowledge that it's OK to be broken. I'll put the rest in spoilers, for a variety of reasons. Ahead there be Dragons. Hopefully if you read the above, you can gauge just a teensy bit of difference between now and how I behaved here 20+ years ago. I'm glad this place still exists.