Sublime

I don’t watch WWE but I’m curious, did they explain why WALTER has a new name? He’s been on NXT TV on and off for multiple years so are they explaining this or just treating the audience as dumb?

I saw a hardcore holly/Mordecai house show match it was painful

You’re not really missing anything never watching X8. Flair/Taker is the best match in the card and other than DDP/Christian everything else is forgettable (even Rock/Hogan other than the crowd reaction and a few bits of the match I guess)

Greatest match I saw live was probably JBL/Benoit in a steel cage for the US title but that memory has been tainted. CM Punk/Matt Cappoteli had an amazing dark match I saw that was one of Punks try outs right before being signed and it was fantastic except for the ref kind of botching the end by counting a three while Punk had the anaconda vice locked in. I wish I lived somewhere where Indy wrestling was easy to watch cause I’ve only been to WWE shows and even then would have to travel 4 hours for them.

12:23 which I think is the best time I've gotten on one of these

EVIL (and the rest of House of Torture) is pretty hated but I’m not sure it’s the right kind of heat.

I think there's a good chance that there will probably be at least one angle that could lead to future crossover with the match where KENTA is wrestling on the NOAH side. KENTA's heel nature would lend him to either betray NOAH or cheat to help NOAH win where either could create future crossover options, with the latter opening a chance for KENTA to leave BC and be leader of a NOAH invasion/faction/something.

I feel like the lack of Ospreay on the card is tipping their hand on his chances of winning on night 2. I’d assume they’d want their top champ on this show and really it would make sense to have it on either Shingo or Okada based on the lineup. I feel like the card does the same for NOAHs upcoming Nakajima/Go match cause being matched against EVIL is a terrible thing for a top champ to be doing.

I could see Suzuki as Shibata’s opponent since he’s someone who can do a lot of grappling in a match if they want to keep limiting bumps for Shibata. If any of his students from the LA dojo are in Japan with him I could see one of them being his opponent as well since they’d be someone he trusts being in the ring with. I

The Rey Mysterio conversation has made me think about how trying to judge an overall GOAT in wrestling is nearly impossible because it's such a multifaceted art form that there are so many individuals who are the best at you could ask who is the GOAT Babyface worker (where Rey would have a great resume to be high on someone's list), heel worker, tag worker, tag team, high flyer, brawler, technician, talker, main event worker, midcard worker, job guy/putting someone over, squash match worker, trios worker, charisma, psychology, money draw, working from underneath, deathmatch worker, etc... And pretty much every category would have so much discussion it's crazy. The reason Eddie Guerrero and Terry Funk are guys on my GOAT list consistently is because they would have a good chance of being top ten in a lot of the different possible categories. I think the only way to settle this Rey debate is for @RIPPA to do a March Madness style tournament for every possible category and then one ultimate tournament to crown the GOAT, it's the only reasonable solution.

ROH Summer of Punk is one of my favorite title reigns. It was a lot of fun and the knowledge that he was going to OVW meant that you never knew which match was going to be when he dropped the belt so there was a lot of suspense to each event.

Mysterio is an all time great in ring worker and has excellent charisma but his mic work has never been top notch. If someone thinks he’s the GOAT I wouldn’t think they’re crazy but Liger is a better claim for a junior as GOAT. In my opinion Rey doesn’t match up to the Terry Funks, Eddie Guerrero’s, Randy Savages, Bryan Danielson’s, etc…

Fantastic episode. Dustin's love of wrestling is so deep and it's just great hearing him discuss it.

Has anything worth seeking out happened during BOSJ or WTL? I just realized that I haven’t paid any attention to NJPW since ZSJs title match.

Top ten in no real order: Eddie Guerrero-probably my pick for GOAT Terry Funk Okada Dustin Rhodes Andre the Giant Vader Fit Finlay Bryan Danielson Shinya Hashimoto LA Park The thing that’s great about wrestling is that all of our lists are going to be different and all will probably be correct ( if someone put idk…Tiger Ali Singh on their list I would have to say that’s incorrect) and most of our lists will change all the time I easily could have put Tanahashi or Foley on there and felt fine with it. A part of me wanted to put Kenny Omega on and a part of me want to smack myself for thinking it. Wrestling is such a wonderfully interesting and varied art form that arguments for GOAT or even just great can be nearly impossible. I left Bret Hart of my list because there’s a voice in my head that said he wasn’t even the best Hart that’s Owen and both thoughts have a lot of fun weight behind them. When wrestling is great it’s just a really cool medium. Sorry for the long rant.

Danielson has a ton of dream matches, vs Darby, Okada, Ibushi, Naito, Shingo, WALTER, Dragon Lee, Rush, Dunn, Keith Lee, LA Park, the list can go on and on. CM Punk/Omega probably qualifies. That's not counting ones that probably will never happen like Young Bucks/New Day, Roman/Okada, Big E/Shingo and Omega/Lesnar

Jinsei looks legit terrifying

I think the firing of Bray while the Fiend was still a top merch mover says some of the people on your list even aren’t safe. Roman, Becky and New Day are probably the only 100% safe people. I’d have say Charlotte if there wasn’t the stuff about her being a problem being reported/leaked

Most of my response wasn’t directed at any one individual and not you really at all.

It does seem to be pretty common for the women wrestlers (especially Charlotte and Sasha) though, strange almost like @Stefanie the Humanis correct or something. Stefanie is always a welcome voice to this board, in part, because of the usual un-checked misogyny around here, but you all keep chasing her away whenever she tries to stand up and say something meaningful, instead of reflecting on your own behaviors and attitudes and implicit biases. Some of you may be old but you're not grown. I just saw someone use the term "funbox" to refer to the anatomy of Benchoff's wife and, joke or not, that shit is disgusting. This place, and wrestling fandom in general, can be hostile, intended or not, towards non-male individuals. I don't think most of the people here are bad or anything I just think not every one has 1) addressed their internal implicit bias and 2) think about the difference between the intent and impact of their statements.

Football players had to take outside jobs or side hustles back in the day. My dad used to play basketball against a team of Packers who would “barnstorm” during the off-season to make money. It helped fuel his hatred of the Packers and make a vow to never step foot in Lambeau field (which he held even when my brother in law bought tickets for me and him to go to game as a birthday present, I had to go with said brother in law instead) also Ray nitschke was a super dirty player whom my dad held in particular contempt

Lets see Ibushi's Shoulder, Naito's knees x2 (G1 and beginning of year), Ospreays neck, Hiromu's pec, Okada's back (but he didn't miss time really), was Yoh's injury this year I don't remember, plue the COVID cases and Ibushi getting pneumonia.

That was an interesting night.

G1 Finals spoiler

I don't disagree with this and it seems like this has been the plan to make the tag belts be more important since Naito completed the double gold. It's just another symptom of the staleness of the pandemic booking I guess, since this year it's been so focused on GoD/Tekkers with some LiJ thrown in. I'd probably feel different if the tag division had more participation outside of tag league. Part of that is certainly hurt with the travel restriction since I'm sure FinJuice would have gotten more shine if they were around. I think Naito/SANADA should basically be a full time team going forward for a while maybe change into Naito/Hiromu at some point, to help keep the miles on Naito down a bit and give SANADA something meaningful to do since he's never gonna be a top guy. I'd like to see Ibushi and Tana reform the GoldenAces when Tana drops the US belt too to give Ibushi a break from being in the title mix. I'd be more ok with Cobb and O-Khan running with the belts for a while if Cobb hadn't knocked it out of the park with his year so far with the Okada feud and the G1 push in general, he looks like a true main eventer and him against Shingo for the big belt would have me really interested. Dangerous Tekkers have been one of the bright spots of the past nearly two years of NJPW but unless they get some new faces to go against they need to move on. The tag scene is definitely in a better spot than the days of War Machine/TenCozy/GoD matches but it's gotten stale now too.