twiztor

finished up through ASM 375. i don't have any specific stories to call out, but JM DeMatteis is killing it with his run on Spectacular. Pete's parents have shown up. I'm intrigued where this goes. Mary Jane has taken up smoking. I really enjoyed the whole bit with Jason Macendale, the 2nd Hobgoblin, making a deal with a demon during Inferno, and that ending up creating Demogoblin. Also, the appearance of Spider-Man's Doppelganger (from Infinity War) and how he's the only creation that outlived the crossover. I want to see more of Doppelganger, but hope he's more than snarling mindless attacker. In general, we're seeing a lot more crossovers with other characters (of course, we're a few years removed from "Marvel Team-Up" being replaced by "Web of Spider-Man", so maybe they're just returning to what worked previously. I didn't read most of MTU, so i can't really comment on that part). for example, I didn't realize how often Cloak & Dagger had adventures with Spidey. So many of these secondary (at best) characters are starting to have their own mini-adventures or backup stories (Solo, Prowler, Rocket Racer, Silver Sable. Not to mention the Black Cat and Venom (whose solo adventures start with my next read). But it's very rare to see Spidey cross paths with any of the big names- Iron Man, Thor, Captain America. Interesting. Spider-Man's supporting cast is massive and the fact that they drift in and out of the stories, always close but not always involved, is excellent. i try not to contrast too much compared to when i read all the Batman books 10ish years ago, but my gods, there is a complete different philosophy on how to handle personal relationships. One: Peter has them, Bruce doesn't. Almost any Batman story could be exchanged with any other Batman story, and not much would change. Gwen Stacy died 20 years ago, publication time, and Spidey still pines for her at times. Bruce hasn't thought about Silver St. Cloud since she stopped appearing in his books in the 80s. Peter agonizes about his best friend, Harry Osbourne, and how he can help him through all of his mental and personal issues. Bruce pays lip service to helping his "friend" Harvey Dent, but just ends up locking him back up in Arkham again.

Episode 1: Marking Territory, Part 1 overall thoughts: this show did not look good. very low rent. bland and basic setup. the chandelier hanging down looked trash-tastic. the show didn't sound overly good. crowd was mic'd way too loud and they chanted all. the. damn. time. definitely an example of the crowd trying to hijack a show. the lack of commentary really hurts an upstart program like this. too many squash matches. Even the guys who won seemed forgettable. there's 16 episodes of this? hopefully this starts to change once we get out of the introductory period. i was rather looking forward to watching these, but i think my expectations were way too high. Episode 2: Marking Territory, Part 2 overall thoughts: a better show this week, although the lack of commentary and overbearing crowd are far and away the worst parts of what's happening. All of the in-ring stuff is decent at best, but it lacks bite. I hope that changes and we start to see some feuds develop, or some interactions between the wrestlers, or something to make us tune in next week. Ah well, 2 episodes down and 10 to go.

the Wrestling Retribution Project (originally the Wrestling Revolution Project) was a planned TV show that also acted as a wrestling promotion. It was founded in 2011 by Jeff Katz (Hollywood guy) using Kickstarter as a revenue stream. Until 2020, it was best known for having upset backers who never received any sort of finished product or updates of progress. I haven't seen this program mentioned on here much, if at all, so thought i'd take a look at what's released. An (the?) idea for this project was that each of the wrestlers would NOT be performing as their more widely known personas, and instead would be portraying entirely new characters, with different attitudes and presentations than what they were doing on the indies. Kind of an "alternate dimension" if you will. A decent idea to keep yourself separate from the PWG, ROH, TNA, IWA, etc. of the world. The Wikipedia page breaks down some of the performers and which characters they are. For the sake of cohesiveness, i will only be referring to them by their WRP character names. 13 episodes' worth of content was taped over one weekend in October 2011. In summer 2020, Katz began releasing the footage onto YouTube, broken down by rough cuts of segments and episodes. It is from these playlists that my reviews will be from. Feel free to join in with your thoughts on the performers, the owner, the episodes, or whatever else comes to mind. My plan is to watch two episodes every Monday night and post some match-by-match thoughts. I don't really know what to expect, but i've wanted to go through this for a year or so now, so it's time to make it happen.

you're correct, but calling what WCW had a "women's division" isn't very accurate. They had a belt (technically 2 belts, if you count the Japan-only cruiserweight title, but you shouldn't) and less than a handful of women's wrestlers. i point that out to say this: WCW should have brought more women in and had a real division. with their talent exchange with NJPW, we could have gotten some good stuff. For as much hype as Madusa dropping the WWF Women's Title in the trash can generated, here's Madusa's televised WCW matches in '96-'97: now here's Sherri Martel's: Luna Vachon only had ONE match in WCW: Slamboree '97 vs Madusa. Jacquelyn Moore also only had ONE match in WCW: Halloween Havoc '97 vs Disco Inferno ok, but surely their (only) champion, Akira Hokuto, must've had her share. let's see: sorry, got all about the research there for a minute. what a waste.

and, for anyone who hasn't seen it, Bloody Elbow interviewed him a few years ago: https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2017/5/1/13376624/ufc-mma-history-just-bleed-guy-interview-body-paint-blood-sport-cock-dog-fighting-mississippi-ladner

so i watched all 16 episodes (via the 4 TNA specials) of Global Force Wrestling "Amped". the overall presentation is low key. the look of the Orleans arena is fine, but there's not much to get excited about. I'm a fan of the six-sided ring, whereas i know many people aren't. The sound (on entrance music, on the handheld mics when in the ring, etc.) is overall pretty decent. The lights were, again, perfectly acceptable. Now that i'm thinking about how to word this, i feel like this phrase sums up GFW as a whole "it's alright" the matches: overall a pretty high quality. there was a lot of talent here, and none of the matches felt rushed. A few were a bit long to my taste, but there wasn't much that was "bad". It was nice seeing them play up the "worldwide" aspect, with Japanese wrestlers (Kushida, Seiya Sanada), and luchadores (Bestia 666, Los Luchas), and the Indian contingent (Bollywood Boyz, Sonjay Dutt). Would've liked to see this spotlighted even more. the tournaments: i love tournaments. Running 4 at the same time was too many. Especially over 16 episodes, you would go a month-plus between seeing or hearing about certain competitors. There were a total of 3 women's matches over 16 weeks. Unacceptable. The World Global Championship tournament finals were extremely obvious from the opening episode- Nick "Magnus" Aldis vs. Bobby Roode. everybody else was fodder. the pacing: these shows were timed horribly. EVERY episode started with a short hype video, followed by an 8 minute match, followed by 15 minutes of videos (sometimes a replay of the opening video) with the occasional in-ring promo, and then a 15 minute main event match, and capped off with a hype video for next week. This was exacerbated for me by watching multiple episodes in a row, but the formula wore itself out, fast. the announcers: Chael Sonnen did a good job of analyzing, connecting holds to their MMA counterparts, and a bit of fan rolled into one. The other guy (Cyrus Fees) was pretty bland, but that's the worst i can say about him. They tried to play up a playful antagonistic dynamic, but it usually fell flat. Not funny enough, not mean enough, and/or not sold enough. The worst part is that the commentary was added later, so they would talk up what the talent was doing now ("you can see him on WWE NXT"). It was off-putting. At one point, Chael spoils the final of the women's tournament (Chael: "from now on you can call her 'Champion'" Cyrus: ".....Yes, that's if she can get by this last challenge") This is also recorded during the time that TNA/Impact merges with GFW or whatever that mess was about, so Cyrus uses each of those names kind of interchangeably. overall, again, this was "alright". i can't imagine how this would have survived on traditional TV. I was ready for this to be over by around episode 12-13, but i toughed it out. I would love to hear Jarrett talk about this on his podcast, similar to his TNA pods. we'll see. P.S. Jeff Jarrett comes out to his TNA entrance theme. On the first chord, i got PTSD. i didn't even know that i had such a negative feeling about it.

ok, i thought of the whitest thing possible and this is what i got. I present to you, "Mayonnaise":

"Super Mario" "Link from the Legend of Zelda" "Samus Aran"

leave it to @The Naturalto think of FSW in a positive light. Love your optimism, buddy! edit: Crowbar on Dark: Elevation ?!? add him to the list with Juventud of Christopher Daniels of wrestlers who've had a televised match for WWF, WCW, ECW, TNA, and AEW. double edit: i just looked at his Wikipedia page, and it lists him as being "the only wrestler to have wrestled matches in WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA, and AEW" good try, wiki.

this is something you either need to accept, or it will eat you alive. i am in the latter group. Rick Knox is the ref for all of the Young Bucks' matches, and once i saw just how often both of the Bucks (or more, depending on the match) are in the ring, i can't stop seeing it, and it actively takes away from every match they have. Something like the cage match vs. the Lucha Bros was the most i've enjoyed a YB match in MONTHS, because normal tag rules don't apply. i fucking hate it. i try not to post about it every month, because i will sound like a broken record, but JFC. if this was an NFL game and one team consistently was allowed to play with 15 guys it would be ridiculous. same premise.

popping in to add a couple recent thoughts, particularly as they compare to older ones: Spectacular #178-#184 "The Child Within" this is a semi-followup to Kraven's Last Hunt, also by J.M. DeMatteis. It is a psychological assault from multiple fronts, with Vermin reliving his childhood trauma, Harry Osbourne regressing into mental hallucinations and reverting to the villainous Green Goblin, and Spider-Man dealing with some deep-seated trauma. Excellent story, and if you haven't read it, i highly recommend it. Amazing Spider-Man #361-363 "Carnage" the introduction to Carnage was done so much better than Venom's first appearance. The character's motivations, the action, the vicousness. This is one of the stories i was looking forward to, and while not an all-time great, i definitely enjoyed it. A pseudo-face turn for Venom, only for Spider-Man to renege on his promise is a really nice touch. looking forward to future developments.

been meaning to post this for ages: this is the AGW Paperweight Championship, the #1 (and only) title in our backyard wrestling "promotion" from 20ish years ago. i am the last (and technically current) champ, with a standing challenge to my fellow alum. the belt has a permanent home hanging behind my basement bar. it is a hubcap we found on the street, spray painted gold, screwed onto a weight lifting belt we stole from our high school. also visible is the acceptance letter from the "Best of Backyard Wrestling" VHS series, which may or may not be something to brag about. we were accepted for their next video, which as far as i'm aware, was never released.

wow, crazy turn of events. what happened with Winn to kick it all off?

i enjoy the Bischoff podcast. I listen to maybe one a month or six weeks, so i can pick and choose which episodes interest me. While Bischoff can definitely be full of shit, i appreciate his unique look through the executive lens, talking about sponsors, and contract talks, and all that jazz. I've listened to a couple of the Jarrett ones (shout out to @BrianS81177who mentioned there was one about WWA!) i agree with the masses, if Conrad is uninterested, then the pod really suffers. Once he gets to just reading Observer results/recaps, it's time to tune out.

RUMBLINGZ~! at the time were exactly the opposite. Benoit told them that he was leaving, WCW put the belt on him to try to convince him to stay. He said he was leaving anyway, so they put the 'under the ropes' thing in to protect themselves when Benoit did exactly what he said he was going to do. who knows the truth. and i don't mean Neidhart.

i half watched WCW at the time, but had mostly moved onto WWF. When i relived those shows a couple years back, 2000s WCW is DIRE. It starts to pick up around September, when Booker T wins the title, and gets pretty good in 2001. There's still plenty of schlock, but the energy around the promotion definitely shifts around that time. That being said, i definitely don't recommend going back to watch it.

if he's cleared by the doctors/commission, then i see no issue with it.

i know this isn't what you were saying, but the thought of the NFL team owners getting together, 1948 NWA style, talking about how they needed to really teach Vince a lesson makes me smile. Shahid Khan: "you know, my son has been fantasy booking pro wrestling for years..."

so THAT'S why they made that <30 rule for NXT!

we're a couple of weeks into the new NXT 2.0 era. how are ratings, and how do they compare to 1.0?

was thinking about this the other day: Juventud Guerrera is the only wrestler to have televised matches for WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA/Impact, and AEW. when you add both AAA and CMLL to the list, that dude's been all over! Anybody i'm missing?

Amazing Spider-Man #301-350 (and all the associated books): these last 4ish years have gone by relatively quickly. There seemed to be a lot of short stories, but nothing insanely memorable. A large part of it dealt with Thomas Fireheart, the Puma, taking over the Daily Bugle to try to rehab Spidey's image. There was also a lot of back-and-forth with Spider-Man and Puma as allies and enemies. Actually, that probably sums up this set of stories as good as anything else: a lot of focus on secondary characters. We see Rocket Racer, the Prowler, and Sandman all continue their heroic turn, and all have their moment to shine, either separately, or teamed up with Silver Sable as the Outcasts. There's another big gang war, with The Lobo Brothers, who are werewolves, out for Kingpin and his second in command, the Arranger. It was fine, but hard to really care about these two brothers from New Mexico or Texas or somewhere. It was neat to see the Arranger take on a larger role and how it effected him (and, ultimately, how it killed him). The lowlight, IMO, was Acts of Vengeance. This was a Marvel crossover, where the villains teamed up and switched enemies. Spider-Man didn't have any more trouble than he does against his enemies, so eventually he faced the big dogs (Magneto and Dr. Doom). By that time, Spidey had gained the power of Captain Universe and, again, took them out without too much trouble. I don't know how the rest of this crossover went, but i thought this portion of it was incredibly forgettable. There was a "Deadly Foes of Spider-Man" miniseries that focused on the villains, particularly the Beetle, and it was pretty decent. We also saw the reformation of the Sinister Six. I liked the Venom stories marginally more than his debut, but they still felt lacking. I didn't expect that when i started this project. Cletus Kassidy debuted as Eddie Brock's cellmate. I'm sure we'll never see him again...... Pete's relationship with MJ is great. It plays a big underlying part of the book without being overbearing. I feel like that'd be a tight rope to walk when dealing with a character who's been unattached for most of his 30 years, but the writers deserve props for that. this also was the beginning of MacFarlane's "Spider-Man" book. i think i'm through 12 or 15 issues, something like that. The art is pretty, but the writing is, well, what you'd expect from the Spawn scribe. I've got up through #375 loaded onto my Kindle- i should hit #365 before my 1 yr anniversary of starting this project (10/24), which honestly surprises me. I'll probably slow down for a bit once i hit that milestone.

d'oh! i meant to say that i really liked the warehouse setting, with the "broken" windows, dirty mat, and scaffold setup. I thought it had a nice visual appeal. good call out. it was never a viable promotion, nor was it meant to be, but i wouldn't have been surprised if it found an audience on the network and stuck around for a few seasons. It was never going to really catch on with wrestling fans, but again, that's not what they were aiming for. It was fine for what it was, and i enjoyed it, but there's virtually zero chance that it would grow into anything other than "another MTV show" yeah, you'd get the occasional guest reference some '80s wrestling (usually WWF) but the host announcers basically ignored it, along with anything else the musicians mentioned.

i watched all of Wrestling Society X over the last couple of weeks. You remember, MTV's short lived wrestling promotion/show? anyway, i have some thoughts: the first episode was fast, brash, and in your face. i don't mean that in a good way. Lots of stuff happening, but nothing meant anything. the announcers were very offputting and distracting. none of the musical guest commentators ever added anything resembling worthwhile input. The first match was Matt Sydal vs. Jack Evans. it was sub-5 minutes with lots of spots. Actually, i don't know if that's completely accurate. More fair to say that it was 5 minutes of spots with a semi-semblance of a wrestling match. I'm not always against spotfests, but this took it to a whole different stratusphere. The main event was a Royal Rumble style match, but with weapons. Also, there is tables and electrified fencing set up near ringside. Also, somebody brought in thumbtakcs. Also also, once everyone had entered, it turned into a double ladder match, with the two winners facing off next week for the inaugural title. While people are getting thrown into the electrified fencing, there are other big bumps being taken in the ring. The show didn't give you a chance to register what is happening before the next thing is already happening. Anyway, Syxx-Pac and Vampiro win the right to compete next week. Vampiro wins the title, has one defense (against Judas Mesias, in his first and only match for the promotion) which he loses. He never gets involved with anyone else in the company, save Syxx-Pac. i guess that's another gripe i have. Everybody was isolated from everybody else. There was no interaction, no real "feuds", nothing to tell you "WHY". OK, so the first episode pretty much is its own thing. After this, the matches are still spotfests, but not at full speed all the time. Close, but enough so you can actually comprehend what's happening. But after this episode, the crazy stipulations are held back to one (or fewer) per episode. It's still crazy (i'm looking at you, season finale of time bomb cage match AND pirahna tank death match) but more.... subdued isn't the word at all, but i'm going to use it anyway. It's all relative. Also, episode 1 features Justin Credible, and New Jack, and Chris Hamrick, all guys who it leads you to believe will be part of the promotion. Nope. one shots for all of them. the tag team division is a mess. it felt like every team won and lost against every other team. No hierarchy as to who should be in title contention, no feuds (again), and a face/heel dynamic that seemed to shift regularly. Hard to get behind anybody when you don't know when you'll see them again, who they'll be facing, or whether they are supposed to be cheered or not. They tease a tag team title tournament for season 2, but that obviously never comes to fruition. i enjoyed it as a novelty, but 10 episodes of 20 minutes each were definitely enough. Interesting how many future AEW wrestlers are here (Scorpio Sky, Jack Evans, Matt Sydal, Colt Cabana as Matt Classic. I half expected to see the Bucks show up at any moment). Next up: Global Force Wrestling (2015)

i can't agree with this. Wrestling needs both Brets AND Shawns. And Vaders. And Lugers. And all body shapes and all styles and all of everything else too. Variety is the spice of life.