Linus

Masa Fuchi after the splitters left to form NOAH. 36 years old and carried that company for the first year, post-split.

Issue 11 of the ongoing scientific study to prove that Wrestling Can Be Anything dips into the NOW! with a look at the Marvel Comics/AAA lucha crossover, and then travels back in time for a story that involves Nazis, fake Nazis, champion boxers, skyscraper-heisters, and ghoststoppers, as well as finishing up the histories of W*ING & Kevin Sullivan! 44 pages, black & white, 10pt Trebuchet MS You can get a copy posted to your house by sending £3.50 (£4.50 for anywhere outside the UK) through PayPal to [email protected]. Please tick the "sending to a friend or family" box and put your address in the notes so I know where to send it to! Alternatively, you can use the webstore at wrestlingcanbeanything.bigcartel.com, but it costs an extra 50p! I also do PDF copies for £1 each!

Double post! Cagematch's entries for these monsters are all over the place. They list Bob Baragail as working a lot of them in W*ING when he only really turned up right at the end. They undersell Rafael Rodriguez's tenure as Jason considerably.

Working out Puerto Rico history is tricky but Chicky Starr took credit for the gimmick, bringing in Moffat from a New Japan tour to play Jason. Moffat said he hadn't even seen any Jason movies at that time and had to rent them in Japanese while in Tokyo. After a six month run in PR, he took the gimmick back to Calgary.

It was Doug Gilbert, as one of the masked Nightmares with Danny Davis.

I just finished writing a history of W*ING for my 'zine (cheap plug: wrestlingcanbeanything.bigcartel.com) and based it around the various monsters. The first Freddy was Tommy Gilbert in Memphis, and Memphis also had the first Leatherface (Mike Samples). Jason started in Puerto Rico with Karl Moffat under the hood, and The Boogie Man (Eddie Gilbert), Crypt Keeper (Jose Estrada Jr), and Grave Digger were W*ING originals.

It's (almost) Christmas! And what better way to celebrate than with a look at some of the horrible ways that wrestling and Santa have combined, along with more on W*ING and Kevin Sullivan, AND a look at the brief lucha career of Los Thundercats! Bumper 52-page issue! 52 pages, black & white, 10pt Trebuchet MS You can get a copy posted to your house by sending £3.50 (£4.50 for anywhere outside the UK) through PayPal to [email protected]. Please tick the "sending to a friend or family" box and put your address in the notes so I know where to send it to! Alternatively, you can use the webstore at wrestlingcanbeanything.bigcartel.com, but it costs an extra 50p! I also do PDF copies for £1 each!

I didn't get that at all, but who knows in these crazy times? I didn't actually enjoy the NGI much, and not because I'm a lousy tipster, but So Much Fun was a great show with a really hot finish. The Alex Zayne thing is weird, though, because while he can be thrilling at times he's actually not that good, and Blake Christian is far better, but if he wants to earn money for hanging around the Performance Centre for a couple of years, more power to him, I guess.

NGI today at 1pm (a civilised 6pm for us Brits)... who ya got? I’m going AJ Gray...

The main show starts at 1am our time.

Finally someone has juxtaposed the early history of the world wrestling championship with Little House on the Prairie, and you can read about it in WCBA #9! There's also some Star Wars, some Transformers, the greatest wrestling movie never seen, and the story of W*ING hits monster town! All this AND part 1 of a look at the career of "The Prince of Darkness" Kevin Sullivan! 44 pages, black & white, 10pt Trebuchet MS You can get a copy posted to your house by sending £3.50 (£4.50 for anywhere outside the UK) through PayPal to [email protected]. Please tick the "sending to a friend or family" box and put your address in the notes so I know where to send it to! Alternatively, you can use the webstore at wrestlingcanbeanything.bigcartel.com, but it costs an extra 50p! I also do PDF copies for £1 each!

He's asked them to be there before and they haven't turned up, so it turned out all he needed was his friends (whether they're baddies or not, they're his pals).

Yeah, for me the referee is the first responder there and he failed to respond.

* They’re going in on Wardlow, which I like, though I do have my concerns that they’ve sacrificed so many big men to Cody and Mox that he’ll just end up another big fella treading water in the upper mid-card. Still, you gotta hope for the best and this was absolutely the right result – Jungle Boy can take a few losses and still keep his “up and coming hungry young tiger” aura. Wardlow looked decent, too. I mean, he should, he’s been wrestling for a decade. * Eddie Kingston versus Jon Moxley is turning into THE feud of the year so far, and the best thing is that it’s got a taste of the real to it. Kingston being mad at Mox for going to WWE is understandable, and for AEW fans that’s a babyface move, but the finesse is that Kingston is mad at Mox because he didn’t take HIM to WWE with him. The promos this pair have been cutting are the best I’ve seen in years, and take me back to much better days, storywise. Good work fellas! * Did Joey Janela pull himself off the show because of Covid-19 or because he’s the smartest man in wrestling? I mean, it was totally the right thing for Omega to win with a squash – although he could have killed Kiss a tiny bit more – but Janela saw this one coming. Oh, and I loved Omega’s intro but ditch the sweepy women, Ken, eh? * Don’t interview Orange Cassidy. Less is more. * I LOVE Rey Fenix and the Penagon man, and this was shaping up to be one of their best matches together (I mean, they’ve had some phone-in stinkers so…) but Fenix was knocked stupid halfway through and it’s a mark of just how good he is that they did some major spots with him all loopy. The thing is, though, as they again proved later, the match should have been stopped. He wasn’t in a proper condition to carry on and the refs need to get more assertive with talent, even if it means calling an audible. Sure, Omega versus Fenix would be the better match, but did it really matter if Penta won this? * John Silver is a wonderful, ridiculous man. * Hangman Page looked good but did this need to go – looks it up – oh. It was only eleven minutes? It felt much, much longer. Huh. Anyway, I was half expecting shenanigans here because there’s no way they should be having Omega versus Page at Full Gear. * I am excited for Elite Deletion. If it turns out not to be shot on the Hardy compound I reserve the right to rescind that excitement. * There are some people who will say, quite rightly, that a comedy musical segment has no place on a fighting show. I get it, I really do. But sometimes something happens that should never, ever happen, and it’s the best thing ever (for an hour), and when Jericho and MJF broke into song after some ridiculous dinner banter… well, I wouldn’t have been watching anything else. It was so STUPID and sometimes stupid is exactly what I want. Beautiful idiots. * Britt “Kelsi Roxx” Baker did not look as good against KiLynn King as she did against Red Velvet but she’s still very much improved. * The Bunny is back with her husband. Continuity cop Eddie Kingston strikes again! Now get on the case of why Pac is allowed to sit at home for seven months… * The tag-team four-way was kind of a mess but also kind of exciting and I get that that’s what you want out of these kind of matches. Plus, John Silver got to John Silver. BUT. Alex Reynolds was knocked out. And the referee didn’t notice. Worse still, he lay in the ring for two minutes and no-one checked on him. Then his corpse was revived so the Bucks could do the planned spots and no-one stopped them. Then he had to be rolled out of the ring, where he still almost got landed on. Now it’s easy to apportion blame, so I’m going to. Rick Knox is derelict in his duty here. John Silver isn’t clear, either, because you look after your partner, first and foremost. Plus, it’s a freaking FOUR-WAY so there were two other teams that could have taken those spots and everything would have been fine. It ruined the match and the end of the show for me, and I couldn’t have given a shit about FTR and Tully and a beating and the Bucks winning because Reynolds was unconscious in the ring for two whole minutes. Bad.

I mean, it really is. The lack of interest in NXT-UK means that it's a step down from any random promotion on IWTV at this point.

Plus NXT-UK would be a massive step back for Carter.

RIP Ben Carter's knees.

I'm usually a fan but the second half of that show fell apart from the time the ref messed up the finish of the three-way, and turned into the most self-indulgent stuff I've seen on a Collective-type event since Kaiju in 2017. And I liked AR Fox vs Scorpio but it wasn't even in the top two thirds of matches on its show, which says more about For The Culture than the match itself!

Stream only.

So I completed The Collective and watched all ONE HUNDRED AND ONE matches. Here's a list of TWENTY that I'd recommend (the ten with asterisks are those I'd really recommend): GCW: Jimmy Lloyd's D-Generation F Tre Lamar vs JJ Garrett *Calvin Tankman vs Cole Radrick SUP: Swing Of The Axe *Daniel Makabe vs Lee Moriarty Jake Something vs O'Shay Edwards GCW: For The Culture *JTG vs Trey Miguel *Calvin Tankman vs O'Shay Edwards *AJ Gray vs Dezmond Xavier *Lee Moriarty vs ACH Glory Pro: Are Ya Wrestling, Son? ACH vs AJ Gray GCW: Joey Janela's Spring Break 4 Rickey Shane Page vs Orange Cassidy *Jonathan Gresham vs Lee Moriarty *Tony Deppen vs Alex Shelley Freelance: I Don't Think We're In Chicago Anymore Isaias Velazquez vs Lee Moriarty BLP: Threat Level Noon Gaytanic Panic vs Stunt Doubles Besties In The World vs Violence Is Forever Jake Something vs Warhorse GCW: Josh Barnett's Bloodsport 3 *Tom Lawlor vs Homicide Women's Tournament Final *Jon Moxley vs Chris Dickinson PPW: Trapsoul O'Shay Edwards vs Suge D

So it's The Collective day... I usually watch this stuff with a bunch of friends and we end up tired and hating each other by the end, but this year it's just me and I have forty-eight years of hating myself so here's hoping!

* Two massive slabs of meat, colliding in a HOSS FIGHT, is a hell of a way to start a show, and I LOVED THE SHIT out of Brian Cage versus Will Hobbs. I’m also into the inevitable Hobbs turn. I’m on the fence about Ricky Scaggs no-selling Darby Allin’s scary face. * When TH2 were Los Gueros del Cielo in AAA they were really fucking great but that was five years and several injuries ago and I’m not sure what you should do with them, really. Angelico is still great as a whacky lucha submission guy and there’s still some value in Jack Evans being a crazy man, but it just didn’t work against FTR. * The Young Bucks watched TV backstage exactly how wrestlers should do. * That “weenies” shirt would have been great if they hadn’t pointed it out at all. * Dog collar matches can be tedious things but the TNT title match was GREAT. Yeah, I’m not sure Cody needed to win but I’ll let it slide because everything around it was cool. From John Silver to crimson masks and use of the chain as more than a prop, I loved this. And I’m sure there’ll be a reckoning from Brodie at some point... * Greg Valentine is made out of stone. * Kenny Omega is NOT AT ALL SCARED of tag-team wrestler Adam Page. * Big Swole and Serena Deeb were on completely different pages, especially at the start and the finish, when it looked like they banged heads bad. They need to decide what they’re doing with Deeb, too, because she’s just kinda there on reputation and that’s okay but also not okay? * Jon Moxley is the king of promos, putting over the importance of a match and the quality of his opponent, and he makes it so COOL. * It’s a shame that we are where we are and that the other team couldn’t send in some congrats to Jericho - I would actually have popped for noted monster Vince McMahon appearing - but the celebration, including the match (you leave my ponderously slow Luther alone!) and aftermath, was lovely. Jericho is a GOAT and has pretty much dictated his own terms for two thirds of his career and I have something in my eye. Fuck Clownico.

Issue 8 of your favourite funky fact 'zine continues the stories of W*ING and the worst comic book ever produced, and also brings you the short history of the Man with the Bionic Arm, the lucha killer, the greatest moment in WWF history, and psychedelic meditations on World of Sport wrestling! All this and a bonus Bonanza piece! 44 pages, black & white, 10pt Trebuchet MS You can get a copy posted to your house by sending £3.50 (£4.50 for anywhere outside the UK) through PayPal to [email protected]. Please tick the "sending to a friend or family" box and put your address in the notes so I know where to send it to! Alternatively, you can use the webstore at wrestlingcanbeanything.bigcartel.com, but it costs an extra 50p! I also do PDF copies for £1 each!

* I could watch Ricky Starks and Darby Allin wrestle all week and while this feud is build on flimsy foundations it’s keeping my attention. I also like seeing Darby fall off high things. * KiLynn King getting attacked by Nyla Rose during the pull-apart night mean that another of Dark’s best kept secrets might make it into the main show. * That pull-apart. Wow. I’ve usually got no time for them but there was a savagery about this one that I loved, and this is where having the wrestlers at ringside works in your favour. I am SO excited for their Dog Collar Match and the commentary team did good work putting that in context, that they’re really rare (they didn’t say they’re seldom good but fingers crossed, eh?) And I know it’s not the usual wrestling promo but I really dig the way My Chemical Rhodesmance builds his talkies. * Jim Ross. Again. I’m sick of him scoffing at Excalibur or Tazz using the correct names for holds, and being overly concerned with the physical attributes of the women. Get rid. Tony Schiavone wasn’t even there, was he? Pre-tape and night off! * I’ve no interest in Private Party as singles wrestlers (slightly less than I have in them as a tag, to be fair) and even less in Matt Hardy as a straight veteran advisor-type. Broken or nothing, lads. * I know mileage varies WILDLY on Luther (from me who likes him to everyone else who hates him) but I’m over the moon Jericho gets to work with one of his best buds on his anniversary show. It is as it should be. * I don’t know who Billy Mitchell is. Don’t make me do homework. * Britt Baker had the best match of her AEW (and possibly whole) career, and as much as I’d like to give the credit to one of Dark’s best kept secrets, Red Velvet, Britt more than held your her side of the bargain. Frankly, if a couple of months off through injury result in this level of improvement then bring on the ouchies. * People were surprised by how good Bryce Remsburg was on the mic, and understandably because who even watched <redacted>, but he was fiery and ace here AND in the right. * Jon Moxley versus Eddie Kingston is the feud we didn’t know we wanted but it turns out we’ve been waiting for our whole lives. This is where Eddie’s family makes sense, a bunch of guys he throws into battle to do his work for him, even if he makes them think they’re getting the rub from it. The Butcher blew up by the end but he’s such a watchable big man, and in another era would have made a decent living playing a monster in FMW or W*ING. * I get that they’re in a ratings war, and it makes for decent, newsworthy TV, but there’s a slight scent of hotshotting about the booking. I mean, that’s fine if Tony K has plenty in his locker but you do slightly worry. * In all that hotshotting, they still can’t find room for decent women’s storylines. Hikaru Shida got namechecked by Cody but where was she this week? Where was anyone other than Britt, Brandi, Anna Jay, and Nyla?

Some thoughts on this weke's AEW Late Night Dynamite and AEW regular night Dynamite... * Benjamin bloomin' Carter has SUCH an upside to him, and ever since my pal Pat (who works for Channel island World Wrestling) told me about him, and then I saw him, like, a week later, I've taken him on as a personal vicarious project. I'm so happy for him, and so blown away by him, and I can't imagine how Pat must feel. His match with Scorpio Sky was SWEET and I loved the way Jericho put him over - in fact, the way Jericho put's EVERYONE over, by saying how he hates them because they're so good. Yay Ben! * How good is Anna Jay? She's, like, a year in and made Brandi Rhodes look like a million dollars. * I don't know what the hell happened during the opening tag match on Dynamite but it was a MESS. I go easier on Janela than most but he was as bad as the rest, with only Sonny Kiss probably coming out of it without too much blame (and that because he's so green). The second coming of Miro has been weird so far and I want them to fix it. * Continuity Cop Kingston got his shot at the title and then him and Mox HAD A FIGHT. Eddie cut the promo of all promos, and the match was SO good, exactly what you want from these guys, like nothing you'd see on the other side. And Eddie lost without really losing, too, so it keeps him alive. Such good booking, and entirely on the fly after a late Covid-19 thing from Lance Vance. Now Eddie's got to sort out the Allie situation... * The whole FTR thing so far has been SO flat, despite Tully's best efforts, and I wish they'd just let them wrestle. * Talking of tag-team clusterfucks, the women's tag just fell apart, and you can most of the blame on Ivelisse who's wrestling like she's permanently concussed. Diamante deserves better, frankly, and there are a dozen enhancement women who are more worthy of a spot on Dynamite than Ivelisse. Shida's also looked a bit off, and Thunder Rosa being so constantly good is making her look like a weak champion. I'm sure there's an easy fix but I'm not sure what it is. * Considering he used to play a man who only made that one weird sound in WWE, Brodie Lee's promos are amazing, even if you do expect him to throw in a FUCK, like what he does on BTE. Speaking of, this week's BTE was hilarious, and John Silver's character from that show bleeding over into Dynamite is brilliant. OC losing the title fight didn't hurt him, either, because he's not supposed to be a top, top guy, and that's fine. * "Oh, that's not a real pocket" * Fuck Jim Ross. Week after week Excalibur has to cover for him, and even Schiavone did it this week. Taz is so good with both those guys on Dark and it's time for Ross to quietly disappear.