HumanChessgame

I thought the same thing. Granted I was around 12 at the time and am not remembering everything accurately, but I was completely bewildered at how Luger went from one of the bigger heels in the company to super-face overnight. The over the top patriot gimmick seemed really forced compared to his previous act and he didn't seem as natural in the role as someone like Duggan. Is there any word about whether the Narcissist gimmick was supposed to go longer or of the US Express thing was a sudden change?

If you haven't seen a movie or show that is already out or has already aired then you go into threads discussing them at your own risk. Should you be in a different time zone or not caught up yet, then it's not that hard to just stay out of a thread until after you've seen everything. Talking about what will happen in a future episode, based on either the source material, rumors, or advanced screenings constitutes spoilers, discussing what's going on live or posting about all the plot points in an episode immediately afterwards isn't a spoiler.

I remember seeing him on Jerry Springer or some such show back in the late 90s under some gimmick of "adults confronting people who bullied them as children". He was out there in his ring gear confronting the person that had supposedly tormented him as a youth, who was now all fat and slovenly. He's probably working for Matt Hardy's OMEGA relaunch as I can recall seeing him advertised for some local indies around here before in the past couple years.

I remember going to some random podunk indy show years ago and sitting near some little kids. One of the heels cheated to win a match and then one of the kids went up to a security guard and told him about it.

I stopped watching WWE in late 03 mainly due to lack of interest and just concentrating on following the indies. From early 2004 to sometime in 2010 I also didn't have cable so that kept me from following WWE that closely even if I wanted to. When Smackdown was on UPN I would sometimes put it on as background noise but rarely paid attention and didn't bother downloading any PPVs/Raws unless there was something that really stood out there. I'm pretty sure the pipebomb episode was when I started following WWE regularly again. This thread and other conversations about the WWE from that time span make me realize I remember next to nothing about it and probably haven't seen much of anything from there. Oddly enough, I posted here and on other wrestling boards for pretty much the whole time. What are the essential shows/matches that you all would say define that era? There has been some mention in the thread so far but is there a more comprehensive list of recommendations?

AHS season one started out as a good haunted house story and devolved into what someone (maybe from here?) call a mean spirited soap opera that happened to feature ghosts. Season 2 is a lot better, but the alien gimmick they tried to shoehorn into it just didn't fit. It's still the most solid of the bunch. Season 3 was the biggest disappointment as it had an amazing cast (Kathy Bates is probably my favorite actress) but went even further downhill quickly. I checked out around episode 5 but at that point it had basically turned into Mean Girls with witches.

Can you buy a shirt with a picture of WWE stock on it? That's the real question of how much it's worth.

What struck me the most about Warrior is that he turned into Ron Pearlman.

I'm still a few months behind on NXT so I didn't realize Leo Kruger had been repackaged as some hair band party guy. His original schtick is about 10 times more interesting, but I'm guessing they thought it was too close to the Wyatt's gimmick? Either way, if they're going to use someone with a party guy type gimmick Enzo Amore/Big Cass would be a lot better in the role.

I haven't been this interested in or excited about the WWE since that episode of Raw where ECW invaded. Of course I had to go to work right after that segment and the whole angle went to hell by the end of the show, but I was still interested in the product as a whole. I didn't think I'd ever care about the company this much again, but after last night and tonight I'm really glad to be wrong.

When I saw Steph tonight I thought she had stolen Truth Martini's ROH gear.

I don't have the network and missed the tag match so I can't comment on that. HHH came out dressed like General Kael from Willow. Match was shorter than I thought it would be and Bryan won a lot easier than I thought he would. Shield squash was fun and exactly what it needed to be. JBL's soundbyte about "there goes the attitude era" was great. I've always been a battle royal fan ever since those random ones they'd have on the Coliseum Videos so this was enjoyable. Cesaro looked like a boss at the end and I'm glad they went with him winning. The Wyatts had one of the best entrances I can remember. The match itself was great from a storytelling point of view and while I'm no fan of Cena I have no problem with him winning as the Wyatts still looked strong. The Undertaker has been one of my favorite wrestlers for over 20 years so I'm not trying to take a dig at him when I say he didn't look good at all in this match. While I was watching it I never thought he would actually lose, but did think that he really should hang it up sometime soon before he gets into Flair or Foley territory. Taker's loss didn't bother me in and of itself, but it just seemed so anticlimactic and out of nowhere, especially since the crowd seemed apathetic for most of the match. Afterwards there was just stunned silence from everyone there. The announce team even did a great job selling it as if they were genuninely stunned. I really hope he makes a retirement announcement tomorrow night. Speaking of the crowd, did the audience seem to be miked really low to anyone else? There were times when the crowd was clearly popping, but that much noise just didn't come through. Orton's theme music is even more awful when done live. The main event was decent, but I was expecting them to go the whole Karate Kid finish angle right after the HHH match with Bryan's medical clearance being suspect for the main event. It was booked well and sent everyone home happy. All in all, this was an excellent show. I barely watched WWE from 04-10/11 or so but have slowly been getting back into it and stunned at how solid their in-ring product is these days. This is probably one of the few times I've actually been optomistic about the future. The legends bits all cracked me up, too.

On the ROH tv show aired here Jay Lethal is doing some commercials for one of those payday loan places. I don't know why (maybe it's the way Lethal always strikes me as incredibly corny in his promos) but it strikes me as funny for some reason. Perhaps it's something to do with hierarchy of advertisement spots from promotion to promotion. WWE has guys shilling national corporations, I remember TNA had someone doing ads for some insurance company, and ROH guys are doing check payday loan ads.

lol @ Waltman dressed formally but still wearing the bandana.

I'm not opposed to it being re-made with some of today's effects but jesus of all people Rob fucking Zombie? How does he keep getting to direct movies? Lords of Salem looked like shit and made, what, $100 in theaters? Lords of Salem was actually pretty good. I watched it out of boredom expecting utter crap since all of RZ's other movies have been terrible, and I was surprised at how...non-offputting this was. It's not a movie I'm going to watch multiple times and it kind of fell apart in the final act, but it was by no means bad.

I was trying to find their TPI match but this was all I could find on youtube-

He and Sean O'Haire were the two guys from the NBTs that I thought had great potential and was really glad when they put the two of them together and were seemingly getting a push over Stasiak and GymTrack. Of course then WCW went all cattywampus and he kind of got lost in the shuffle. Palumbo was one of those guys who had talent but kept getting saddled with lame gimmick after lame gimmick that never went anywhere or were really given a chance to catch on. I'm wondering if he would have been more successful had he come around a few years later when there were less big guys around and found a better niche then.

Cool, I didn't realize you knew them personally. Glad to hear they're such good guys. I've dug most of what I've read from both of them so far. I didn't get into Keene's zombie books so much, but that genre is really oversaturated and not something I'm all that big a fan of. Speaking of which, Joe McKinney's zombie outbreak trilogy is really good (especially the second book). They all take place in the same universe but are totally separate self-contained stories. Didn't realize there was a Ligotti tribute out there, I might have to check that out as well. I like weird stuff as long as it's not just weird for the sake of weird.

Some people have mentioned Brian Keene and Richard Laymon, their books aren't high grade literature but if you want something that's the equivalent of an ultra-gory slasher/survival horror flick, they're a good way to go. Keene's book Urban Gothic is one of the most unsettling books I've read (think The Hills Have Eyes in an urban setting) in how descriptive it is. Richard Laymon's Beast House series is in a similar vein. JA Konrath writes detective/serial killer stories and horror novels under his alias Jack Kilborn and there are a few crossovers. The modern day Lovecraft moniker is something that gets thrown around a lot, but Thomas Ligotti is about the only person I can think who approaches him. There are some graphic novels based on his short stories that are also highly recommended. I was pleasantly surprised with Doctor Sleep. King's recent short story anthologies have been quality, but I'd all but given up on his novels (especially after how horrid 11/23/62 was) but this was a solid read. I agree with the unimposing antagonists and that's something that a lot of his recent output has had in common - at no point do the protagonists seem to be in any -serious- danger.

My parents got me the graphic novels, probably under the impression that they were for kids. I was around 8 at the time and was also blown away at all the graphic content. When I saw the first two movies in the theater I was probably one of the few people in there that saw how they were kind of going for something in between those comics and the cartoon. I still have those 4 graphic novels among the rest of my books. One of these days I'm going to go about tracking down the rest of the series.

I figure this comes up often enough in various threads that it might be worth its own. Someone posted about the fake Razor Ramon...I know he went to Japan for a bit, did he do anything else? Speaking of people who went to Japan, whatever happened to Cobra/Fake Sting?

I've seen rumors about this all night but had it confirmed by people I know in RVA who knew the band. Total bummer. He was an incredibly creative guy and a real innovator.

Someone mentioned wrestler's court? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n4zMT8c5_g

I've never seen- The Shield The Wire True Detective (though based on overwhelmingly positive reviews I'm going to try this at work next week) The Sopranos (I'd watch an episode here and there while waiting for Six Feet Under/Oz and it never interested me) Trailer Park Boys Downton Abbey Any Dr. Who series Any medical drama show other than House True Blood and Game of Thrones I both managed to watch the first season of and thought were awful.

Rock and Coach once again, from one of the funniest segments