Hustler of Culture

Flair before he takes on Vader. HoC

It would have been good to use the dropkick against those opponents because they were heels and he was a face. It was still a bit out character for the Undertaker and to me it's not worth it when there's other ways to attack those opponents without breaking his character. Although I would prefer if he didn't have a character that limited his moveset in the first place. HoC

Puroresu has had a gaijin vs. natives theme throughout its history, but it usually only has a small term impact because if the gaijin is good enough and connects with the fans, they'll be embraced. Destroyer was the feared, hated gaijin...then was beloved. Funks...hated and feared gaijins, then beloved. Same with Brody, Dynamite, etc. Puroresu is a different psychology that American wrestling. It's more about respect and rooting for one wrestler over the other than it is about loving one wrestler and hating the other. While it's a different animal, world eating champion Kobayashi talked about this in his 30 for 30 documentary...he was not accustomed to the idea of the fans booing a competitor because Japanese culture isn't into that. For all of the talk about how pro wrestling has evolved in the US, the fact remains is that they have the least amount of eyeballs watching wrestling than they have ever had. I don't think you need to have this blatant, old fashion heel vs. face structure in order to draw in the US. And a promotion may be able to pull off a puroresu type of culture in the US someday. But when you muddy everything the fans get less passionate about what they're watching. There's a way to do things that can have the same impact. DK vs. Sayama was a great example and it's why people enjoy it today. It wasn't old school Memphis style heeling. But it was clear that DK was the heel and Sayama was the face. DK didn't do many aerial high spots or even flashy high spots. Even the flying headbutt has a heel element to it. Or watch Eddy vs. Rey at Halloween Havoc. The only aerlal high spot or flashy spot from Eddy is when he does the slingshot somesault senton. And Eddy didn't do massive cheating or underhanded tactics...but it was clear that he was the heel and Rey was the face. HoC

One of the greatest dropkicks I've ever seen was from the Undertaker when he was in WCW. But as the Undertaker it didn't fit with his character. At it's heart it's a babyface move. Heels are not supposed to have any redeeming qualities and a move like a dropkick has the redeeming quality of effort and 'flash' in a good sense. That's part of the problem with wrestlers today using these aerial high spots, if they are the heel it doesn't fit with their character. It's best used for babyfaces or in a place like Japan where there's not really that heel/face structure for the most part. I re-watched Eddy vs. Rey at Halloween Havoc and the biggest aerial high spot Eddy does in that match, as the heel, was his slingshot senton. I think that's what gets lost in wrestling today...the understanding that heels are not supposed to have redeeming values. It's why the Figure Four is a better move for a heel while the Scorpion Deathlock can be used effectively by the babyfaces. The figure four doesn't take a lot of ability to apply and the idea is that the heel would use it to permanently injure the opponent. The scorpion deathlock requires effort from the wrestler to turn the opponent over on their stomach. That effort = redeeming quality. Unless you're a puroresu type of promotion where there's not a defined heel-face structure, those aerial high spots are often unwise. Paul Roma threw a great dropkick, but he made sure to then show off to the crowd and act like 'ain't I great.' Art Barr would do the same thing. But with today's wrestlers trying to use heel/face psychology and the heel doing moves that are more face like and not acknowledging the crowd...everything starts to fall flat in the end. HoC

I don't agree w/ the thinking that big guys shouldn't do aerial high spot moves and that small guys should. It's about execution and the small workers often times get away with lousy execution because the internet fans think it's okay and they tried something athletic and they need to do that shit because they're small. Stealing a line from Cornette...you're better off having a spot with a difficulty of a 5 but with an execution of a 10 than a spot with a difficulty of a 10 and an execution of a 5. Once I start to see moves executed at a 5 or require so much participation that they have a plausibility of a 5 is when it starts to chip away at my interest for the match. Where I start to get into and excited about a match is when a wrestler executes a spot with say increased difficulty (say an 8 out of 10) and executes it at a 10. That's what made Misawa so special, he was consistently executing at a 10 and doing so many very difficult moves to pull off. But he executed them perfectly and made them very plausible. Compare that to a 160 pound wrestler doing a somersault plancha where the opponent waits forever to catch him and then he barely grazes the opponents shoulder. HoC

Bryson at 8/1 odds. Reached 201 mph ball speed with his standard driver during the practice round. Still contemplating using the 48" driver as he was thinking about ditching it but tried it yesterday and it worked well. DJ at 9/1 odds Rahm at 10/1 odds My best value pick for DFS would be Corey Conners. He's at 200/1 odds to win, but I can see him grabbing a top-10 finish here. HoC

Hurling. Beautiful sport that combines baseball, rugby and a prison riot all into one. HoC

For me it boils more down to the wrestler being all about themselves. It's a give-take, take-give business. Not a take-take business. Warrior hurt people and didn't care. He only stopped grabbing people's balls on the military press slam when HTM told him to knock it off or he wouldn't put him over. Sid was far more safe than say Vader, but Sid didn't give two shits and continued to look like shit in the ring and do the bare minimum, collect his money and move on. At least with Vader his dangerous incidents were accidental and he tried hard to put the opponents over. One can be a boring worker, but if they are not trying to be that's a different issue. Or if they are not finding a way to undeservedly get a push, it's completely different. HoC

I didn't like Dusty growing up. Being from NY, I just didn't get the gimmick and I saw him as this fat guy that talked like an idiot. As I got smarter to the business I wasn't buying his super-cowboy type gimmick that he had. As I got older, I started to greatly appreciate Dusty as a worker. I don't think he was a bad worker, at all. I could have done without all of those bionic elbows, but he knew how to work the crowd in a match and was great working main event style which a main event talent needs to know how to work. Then I saw more of his best promos that I missed out on before and understood why Dusty was so great. Particularly when I saw young, heel Dusty who was a bumping freak. HoC

I always looked at Jarrett as kind of a wrestler's wrestler. Much like Larry David was considered a stand-up comic's stand-up comic. He did the little things that the fans don't notice but that the other wrestlers liked when working in the ring with him. They don't want to work with a guy that'll potato them, a guy that has bad footwork, a guy that gets out of position and throws their timing off, etc. And he grew up in the business and was passionate about the business. But that doesn't translate into great matches and drawing a ton of money. And Jarrett seemed to have the attitude that he belonged with the Flair's and Hogan's of the world and that just didn't resonate with the fans. And then he ends up owning his own company and pushing himself to the moon. HoC

I guess that makes you feel better by calling me Brian Last because I pointed out how ridiculous of an argument that a tennis racket loaded with an actual horseshoe 'wouldn't hurt anybody.' But if you want actual legitimate arguments, you could start off with all of the ridiculous stuff that Jim's home territory, Memphis, produced over the decades. From Freddy Krueger to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Bill Dundee spanking Jaimee Dundee to Kamala, etc. While I think wrestling blow-up dolls, doing whatever the Football Field scramble was, wrestling invisible wrestlers and dick bumps is horrible and an embarrassment...treating the modern wrestlers with a double standard to what happened in the past makes Jim hypocritical and it's something Jim has never come to grips with. The same goes with wrestlers who are pro-Trump as the wrestling industry, particularly in Tennessee, has always leaned more towards Republicans and I'd be willing to bet that most of the wrestlers he admired are pro-Trump or would be pro-Trump if they were alive today. I think Jim's problem as a booker is that he never really understood character creation and development outside of the 1970's and 1980's paradigm. Likely because in the territory days a wrestler would come up with their own gimmick and the booker would decide if they want that to be a part of their promotion. But also Jim is still into the idea of the good looking guy with long blond hair = automatic babyface and the not so good looking guy with blonde hair = automatic heel. He would never take a chance on a gimmick like Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Sandman (who did draw in ECW) because it just didn't fit into that paradigm and thus a promotion would lose out on a lot of money by not pushing those guys. He often talks about Jarrett hotshotting Memphis with the Tupelo Concession Brawl as a positive, but I don't see Cornette ever pulling the trigger on something like that. This despite creating a great character in Leviathan and helping get Kane over with his initial booking and the RoH vs. CZW feud which worked great. He doesn't understand television standards today with so many people cutting the chord and why Meltzer always focuses on the demo. I agree with him that AEW is the drizzling shits and is missing out on a lot in terms of drawing more viewers and it's a company that's good enough for a low level TV deal that needed to be backed by a billionaire NFL team owner in order to get on TV...but he clearly does not understand how the ratings work in today's television. I think he has ruined friendships and relationships over fairly inane issues to his detriment. Him claiming that he's responsible for roughly 200K of AEW Dynamite's television viewers is really thinking highly of himself. I don't believe for a second that he inadvertently booked the Montreal Screwjob (nor do I think Russo booked it). Unfortunately, wrestling has always had some silliness to it. I think it's bad for wrestling and shouldn't be acceptable. But it should not be acceptable now or in the past. Regardless, Cornette looks at the past with rose colored glasses while looking at the present with shit-stained screens. Just like he does when Harley Race exposed the business in Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. HoC

When a horseshoe is used to help weight something down that you can violently swing and hit somebody with...it's a whole new ballgame. He did use the racket to protect himself from marks who tried to attack him. To me, it's one of the weakest arguments from modern wrestlers/fans against Cornette. There are far more stronger arguments to be made against him. HoC

How you cut a promo to provide closure to a feud. HoC

It's pro wrestling...give it a while. Somebody will want to hire Cornette, sooner or later. HoC

Yes, he comes off like a total jerkoff and the joke got old a long time ago and the act that I'm supposed to continue to like it is aggravating. HoC

I don't think people realized that Cornette loaded the racket with a horseshoe. He actually used to split marks' heads wide open with the racket whenever they went after him. I don't get the idea that being hit by a racket that was obviously loaded wouldn't hurt a fly. SMW was a solid promotion that had a slow build to it and really started cooking. Dr. Tom Prichard's best work was in SMW, combined with Jimmy Del Ray...a diamond in the rough from Florida. Buddy Landell got his career back on track in SMW. I think SMW was Candido's best all around work as well and the same with Tracy Smothers who was booked as being a wannabe Italian in ECW. And Cornette doesn't work in the business because he doesn't need the money. I never really got Cornette and his mother angle. It was frankly annoying, go home heat from me. But outside of that he was a master on the mic, knowing how to get his guy over, the babyface over and how to sell people on coming to the arena to watch whomever beat the Midnight Express. HoC

While I can respect the choice of a murderer or a rapist, etc...that's a bit too easy to do and how do you separate Benoit vs. Gonzalez vs. Zumhof? So I want to go with a wrestler that was a piece of shit in the business. Who took advantage of the business at other people's expense and had really nothing to contribute. With that in mind I boiled it down to Hellwig or New Jack. The things that keep me from making it New Jack is that at least New Jack could cut a promo and while it takes no talent to jump off a balcony, it's at least sacrificing himself. Warrior? Nope, nothing. He used to potato people, grab the balls of jobbers when he did the military press slam and just didn't care about anybody but himself. He was perfectly fine with holding the WWF hostage during his title reign at the expense of others who worked for the company and had mouths to feed and futures to plan. He was notorious for agreeing to do a deal with promoters and then holding them up for money right before the show. Just no redeeming qualities to him whatsoever. HoC

ECW was likely to go out of business either way, but they had cash flow issues due to Heyman's reckless business management. However, they were drawing people to shows. Buffalo was drawing 5K+, the ECW Arena was always selling out, they were drawing 3,000+ in Atlanta, etc. Either way, it's not so much about ECW staying in business as much as it is about Stevie becoming a main event superstar in ECW. He does that and now he has much more leverage whenever he decides to go to WCW or WWF. But with his injury, he didn't have insurance and needed to pay for the surgery so he had to take the WCW deal and his career took a couple of steps backward. And with the injury he was far less effective on the mic. HoC

I think of 'what if that guardrail didn't fall on Stevie Richards' neck?' Richards was in the midst of the bWo gimmick which was, by far, the greatest selling t-shirt in ECW history. He has started to develop a persona of the wrestling nerd fan who actually became a wrestler after all of the things he did for Raven, he was just shat upon by Raven and now he was breaking out of Raven's shadow. This was just before it became popular to be a 'nerd.' Instead he gets badly injured, signs with WCW and goes back to his role of Raven's lackey and it effectively kills his career. Had that not happened, perhaps he stays with ECW and becomes a major babyface. The promotion likely goes belly up, but maybe it lasts a few more years and maybe with WCW being bought out, it's looked as the only alternative to WWE and somehow gets more funding to keep the promotion alive. Or perhaps he's such an over babyface with ECW that when the promotion folds he gets a top quality position with either WCW or WWE. He turned into a very good worker and he was really good on the mic, but his mic work suffered when his vocal chords were damaged from the injury. HoC

Oh how I miss wrestler's being able to cut a good, ole fashioned white meat babyface type of promo. Not making wisecracks, not trying to act cool, no catchphrases...just talking about regrets in life and how important this match is to him. HoC

Mike Modest vs. Ogawa. I don't think I've ever seen a top rope fisherman's suplex before. HoC

I just love the intensity here: HoC

This is how you sell and upcoming grudge match...well actually 4 grudge match. $$$$ HoC

It's not my way, it's just not my way. HoC

I love the simplicity of this promo and how effective it is. Heenan acting cocky and confident in his guy. Orndorff running down Hogan and expressing that he's a mean, vicious heel that will do whatever it takes to destroy Hogan. Intense instead of trying to be funny and crack jokes. Gets the point across better and you believe that Orndorff hates Hogan and in return, Hogan hates Orndorff. HoC