Southside Jim

John McAdam's brief flirtation with voodoo circa 1998 was incredibly disturbing.

Regardless of what she says or does, I'll always remember Rousey primarily for being transgender-phobic.

I did not know that Ross and Bob Barnett knew each other. Did Barnett try to sell J.R. some lucha tapes with Vampiro?

It's over a year old, but it's very surreal to hear Sean Mooney, on his podcast, giving devout Christian testimonials when he had Ted Dibiase on.

If Vince wants to really fuck with AEW, how come he doesn't order all of his wrestlers to start using the Judas Effect and V-Trigger as "early in the match" transition moves?

All this talk about Steve Williams in the VIce documentary thread reminded me of this "classic:" Dr. Death wants everyone to know that he's "clean" and "feelin' good."

Those of you saying that Russo would have figured out a spot for Dr. Death are missing the point. From the way they talk, it always sounded like Cornette and Ross, at least, always envisioned pushing Doc as he was in Mid-South/UWF/Crockett. Jim Ross: " My gawd, it's Dr. Death Steve Williams! He has answered Steve Austin's open challenge, and now the two are standing face to face in the middle of the ring! This crowd is in shock!" [The Attitude Era crowd is dead silent, as very few of them recognize Williams. A light "nWo" chant breaks out.] Ross: "Four times All-American at the University of Oklahoma! Former Triple Crown Champ-...and now the two men are trading punches! Stone Cold and Dr. Dr. Death are trading punches! Austin with a kick to the gut! STUN- BLOCKED!!! DR. DEATH JUST BLOCKED THE STUNNER!!!! BACKDROP DRIVER!!!!! BACKDROP DRIVER TO THE BACK OF STEVE AUSTIN'S SURGICALLY REPAIRED NECK!!!!!!!! DR. DEATH STEVE WILLIAMS, THE FOUR TIME ALL-AMERICAN, HAS JUST CRIPPLED THE WWF CHAMPION, AND HE IS STANDING TALL AS REFEREES AND OFFICIALS SWARM THE RING!!!!!

After listening to Cornette discuss the Brawl For All, I've learned that there is this really weird disconnect between Corny, Jim Ross, and other "wrestling lifers" that Steve Williams had much more appeal to "casual" American fans than there really was. I mean, he was a great worker, and I love his All Japan stuff up until 1996 when his body started to break down, but to most of the guys in flyover country who attended Nitro parties or went to Raw to hold up signs and sing along with The Rock and Road Dogg's catch phrases, Doc was this guy who hadn't been a regular on North American TV since 1992, when he was doing a weird gimmick where he and Terry Gordy were "occidental otakus" who lived in Japan and obssessed with Japanese culture. "Who's the more legit tough guy" is something that most Attitude fans didn't care about, and to them, Doc was a guy who'd been primarily a tag team wrestler, and having him feud with Steve Austin would have had as much appeal as Bret Hart feuding with former WCW mid-carder for life The Patriot.

As mentioned on Anthony Cumia's podcast yesterday, Lee Fierro, the actress who played the grieving mother who slaps Chief Brody in the original Jaws has died. https://deadline.com/2020/04/lee-fierro-dead-jaws-actress-coronavirus-covid-19-1202901067/

Cannon Films rushed the original Breakin' into production in just three weeks to compete with Beat Street:

I hope it survives, if only because I wanted it to fail due to Vince's incompetence, rather than external forces. If it dies like this, than those WWE documentaries can claim it died due to COVID-19, instead of Vince being an idiot completely out of touch with reality. Instead, Vince can go to his grave thinking "I could have made it as a football promoter, but those damned networks and COVID-19 screwed me over." Vince drove all his competitors out of business, his wife became a Cabinet secretary.... This dude NEEDS to suffer some major league humiliation that he can't spin as being someone else's fault.

I guess I'll ask this here, based on an earlier question. What is the best affordable omnibus of strictly Howard's Conan stories that is currently in print? I'm not really interested in his other characters, just an omnibus or collection devoted to Conan. Everything is in "chronological" order based on Conan's life, rather than publication date, the original texts with none of de Camp's edits.

On the flip side, Misty Blue Simmes' "NWA U.S. Women's Championship" may be the crappiest vanity title from the 80's:

Please tell me I'm not crazy: I distinctly remember that there were two versions of the Great American Bash 86 and Starrcade 86 commercial tapes, with extra matches added to the start of the tape. The first video store I ever frequented had copies of both tapes that opened with the music video intro before cutting to the announcers, while after I moved, I found a video store that had a copy of Bash 86 that opened with Flair vs. Hawk from Philadelphia, and then cut to the intro, and the Starrcade 86 copy opened with Wahoo McDaniel vs. Rick Rude and then cut to the intro. Does anyone else remember this?

What are some examples of feuds/storylines that got blown off in WWF Magazine and were barely acknowledged on TV. Off the top of my head, I can remember from Spring 1988, an article revealing that Dave Hebner had an evil brother named Earl, and Dibiase had bribed him and kidnapped Dave. This got mentioned by Jesse Ventura once on WWF Superstars when they would do one of those "check out the newest issue of WWF The Magazine" inserts during a squash. In 1989, on an episode of Prime Time Wrestling, Gorilla Monsoon mentioned casually that Danny Davis had been reinstated as a referee by Jack Tunney, and had been required to take an oath vowing never to do anything heinous or nefarious in his career again, or he'd be banned for life for a second time, and that you could read about it in the newest issue of the magazine. And probably most famously, after WrestleMania 8, they did an article where Randy Savage burst into the magazine offices and angrily tossed down the "original, undoctored" photos of Randy and Elizabeth lounging around his mansion, which Flair stole and paid someone to doctor the photos to look like it was Flair and Elizabeth together. Am I missing any?

No, they aired a "No Holds Barred Match" on the 3/27 RAW where Bret decisively beat Owen, forcing him to submit to the Sharpshooter and then holding the move forever while a gaggle of referees tried to pry him off. That was basically the end of the feud, as Owen transistioned into a tag team with Yokozuna while Bret focused on Lawler/Hakushi/Pierre Ouellet.

With the Audience Network being transformed into a fucking preview channel for HBO Max, NBC Sports Network has picked up The Rich Eisen Show. https://deadline.com/2020/04/rich-eisen-show-nbcsn-nfl-draft-1202904878/

Neither of these War of the Worlds mini-series are very good. The Gabriel Bynre version, especially, features so many unlikeable characters that you end up rooting for the aliens to win.

For most people who want to get back to work, it's more about the fact that we need to earn money to pay our fucking rent, buy groceries, and not have our cars (which we use to get to work) repossessed, not because we believe that people on foodstamps/welfare are lazy bums or something. Believe me, I don't want anyone to die, but I have to balance that with my desire to NOT end up living in an alley and scrounging for food in dumpsters. If you're willing to lose your home to prevent any deaths, than God bless you, because you are made of firmer moral fiber than I am.

Even as a little kid in the 80's, the whole "such and such is a legit tough guy" had no appeal to me. I don't give a fuck if you're a great barroom brawler, what type of worker are you? Jim Ross always blabbing about a guy being a former football player, or going "well folks, if you like POWER WRESTLING, than this match is for you" just made me roll my eyes. Hey Jim, let's get that Jushin Liger guy back out here and see him do some more high spots.

What if...Vince had the idea to do the Attitude Era 13 years earlier? Ravishing Rick Rude: Cut the music! What I'd like to have right now, is for all you fat, micro dick *bleep*, SHUT THE *bleep* UP while I take my robe off and let the ladies see the body they'll be fantasizing about tonight as you slide your three inch cocks into their dry holes and blow your load in less than 30 seconds! Hit the music! --------------------------------- When Bobby Heenan and the Islanders kidnapped Matilda, instead of giving her back several weeks later, Bobby would invite Mean Gene to Tonga and reveal that the Islanders cooked and ate Matilda! --------------------------------- The British Bulldogs would be retooled into a pair of racist, mysoginistic soccer hooligans modeled after Gary Oldman's character in The Firm. --------------------------------- Bad News Brown would be a black militant who would feud with Junk Yard Dog and claim that JYD was an Uncle Tom, cut promos calling out and insulting interracial couples in the audience, and when Koko B. Ware started dying his hair to match his tights, he'd attack Koko for "abandoning his cultural heritage." -------------------------------- The Jake Roberts/Rick Rude feud would see Cheryl turning heel and revealing that she actually did have an affair with Rude. -------------------------------- Demolition would shoot an angle where they refuse to remove their spiked ring masks before a match with Strike Force, and use their costumes to turn Tito and Martel into a bloody mess. ------------------------------- Slick would be portrayed as an actual, working pimp, predating the Godfather by over a decade, bringing his stable of hos with him to the ring. The Twin Towers vs. Megapowers feud would include a match stip where Elizabeth has to join Slick's stable if Hogan/Savage lose, and there would be a WWF Special Report where Mean Gene and a camera crew follow Slick as he takes Elizabeth to some low rent fashion boutiques and forces her to get a slutty makeover. ------------------------------ Jack Tunney would be on every episode, a corrupt, power mad WWF president who feuded with Hogan and constantly signed improptu matches.

You're one of those people who sends Cornette video of every single "invisible hand grenade" indy match to purposefully piss him off, aren't you?

Does anyone remember a indy show angle from circa 1994-1996 featuring Tom "Johnny Gunn" Brandi? I remember reading a post on RSPW, possibly from Jeff Amdur, about it. The angle went like this: The show opens with the announcement that Johnny Gunn, one half of the tag champs, has won the promotion's main singles title. Johnny comes out and the ring announcer reminds him that the promotion's rules dictate he can't hold two titles, and will have to vacate one of the belts. Johnny calls his tag partner to the ring, apologizes to him, and vacates the tag titles. The partner says he understands completely and wishes Johnny good luck in the main event, when he'll be defending his new belt in a rematch against the previous champion. Of course, in the main event, the tag partner turns heel and costs Gunn the title, than cuts a promo about how bitter he is that Gunn vacated the tag titles. I'm just trying to remember what promotion that was. I want to say it was Cueball Carmichael's IPWA, but it may have been Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling as well. Either way, I thought that could be a good angle to rehash in AEW: Kenny Omega wins the AEW title, but Tony Khan tells him he has to choose between the AEW Title or the tag titles. Kenny chooses the AEW title, and a bitter, drunken Hangman Page cements his heel turn and helps Chris Jericho regain the AEW World Title later that night.

Thanks guys!

What are some examples of video games that you were unable to buy, for one reason or another, and then years later, when you got the chance to watch "Let's Play" videos or play the games on emulators or as part of retro collections, you were really thankful that you didn't waste a bunch of money buying it all those years ago? For me, it was the Cinerama games for the Amiga. Defender of the Crown, The Three Stooges, and Rocket Ranger all looked incredible in the promo photos that would appear in Commodore Magazine, but when I finally got to rent the NES ports years later, I was incredibly disappointed that they were all just a bunch of mini-games. Darkwing Duck for the Turbografx 16 is another one. I was such a huge Disney Afternoon fan, and I was upset when my local video store decided to stop renting TG16 systems and games. In hindsight, that game is usually viewed as one of the worst ones ever for the TG/PC Engine.