SirSmellingtonofCascadia

If Impact! - fucking IMPACT! - is still alive in some form, AEW will have to die a spectacular death before I believe any rumors of its demise.

I have special requests that are not hard boundaries, but gentle suggestions. I would REALLY like to see: - Random WAR six-man tags - UWFi (but not the Albright/Vader/etc. tags) - '70s (Austrian) CWA - Early-era NOAH, but not if it's a stiff chop/head drop type of deal in the style of its founder. - As much non-Stampede '60s - '80s Canadian wrestling as you think it is worth seeing. Vancouver! Montreal! Maritimes! I have a Leo Burke-shaped hole in my knowledge! - Australia in the '70s, though I legit don't know what, if anything, survives from this time. Anything that you think I should see from these eras/territories/promotions would go far in filling the many holes in my pro wrestling experience!

I'm in if @Gordlowand/or @thee Reverend Axl Future are in.

You're saying he stole Dustin's gimmick? SMH.

"If that egg-suckin' dog dies, he dies!"

I wish I looked that good now, much less at 68. Damn.

Every time Boyd Pierce pronounces "Ugandan" as UGANDIAN, an angel has its wings ripped off and stuffed down its celestial throat.

I assume most of that Khan-and-Steph speak is for the sake of investors because WWE has like zero growth potential outside of pro wrestling, and pro wrestling is not exactly on fire right now as a form of entertainment, especially in this fragmented market.

I saw some clips of this online, and unfortunately, they led me away from watching the whole thing. Some of those exchanges looked REALLY choreographed. I also don't get off on dudes actually chopping the shit out of each other as hard as they can anymore. I'm part of the Bret Hart school of "we're only supposed to be pretending to hurt one another, not actually hurting one another," I guess. I feel like AEW is interesting in that there are some workers who I believe could have awesome matches to my liking, but they tend to value pace, athleticism, and stiffness over everything else. Not to say that WWE seems to be better, at least on a small sample size. I don't ever watch that, but my wife was flipping channels and stopped on Smackdown on Friday. She ragged on the neo-Norse tag team that was on (their act was goofy, tbh). That stuff looks REALLY choreographed, in a way that I think is way more apparent since I stopped watching. Then we watched a Ruth Goodman show on the Knowledge Channel and wondered whether some of Goodman's crafting and sewing is worked or not. I guess what I'm saying is that Ruth Goodman might just be an elite worker.

Baby Doll was great on this panel.

This seems about right. I love the idea of Dr. D-as-Austin being a massive babyface in 1985, but it probably wouldn't have happened.

This is an interesting thought. If you drop 1998 Steve Austin into 1985 WWF, is he as big a star, or does the era + the territory's traditional fanbase still having a large influence on the product prevent Austin from being the star that he was thirteen years later.

I think the combination of Last Action Hero bombing and Jurassic Park being a massive hit where the CGI was the star probably kicked this off. In fact, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, local newspapers, etc. at the time noted that it might soon be a trend to computer generate your stars instead of having to pay Arnold and work with and around him.

It's obvious to say, but Mid-Atlantic's survival rate is sorta staggering compared to other territories. They could have put any number of permutations of guys on this thing. JCP probably needs multiple panels if they can get 'em on.

Show #74 - 10 February 1997 "The one that leads into Kevin Sullivan feuding with a Four Horsemen member at SuperBrawl. No, not that Four Horseman member. No, not that SuperBrawl, neither." Two more weeks of SuperBrawl build. Woof. No opening reel again this week. We're just jumping right into the show with Tony S. and Larry Z., and also Dean Malenko. He's still Cruiserweight champ, but he is without the gold after Syxx just walked up and stole it last week, if you remember. Eddy Guerrero is his opponent, and he knows something about Syxx stealing belts. Malenko cuts a promo on Syxx before Eddy comes out, and it sucks because he sounds like a robot, but the crowd is kinda into it! I remember almost nothing about Eddy's U.S. Champion run, honestly. These fellas know each other so well that it's probably not possible for them to have a bad match. They do what you'd expect - quick opening sequence with lots of reversals, a couple of very nice moves that rely on balance and precision that the crowd pops for, and Malenko taking control with a power move (in this case, a nice looking power slam). Well, it's not really control for long as Eddy gets right back on top with a backbreaker and then sits in a headlock so everyone can catch their breath after the pacing in the first three minutes. Malenko takes a few seconds to rest, then works up and counters out of the hold with a back suplex. A few more counters, and Malenko hits a nice release German. Hey, this match is a fun little thing, and then Syxx comes out! He tries to get the U.S. Championship from Penzer, but Eddy sees it and grabs it back. He ain't going to the pay windah, since he gets counted out in the process, but at least he's still got the gold! I like that Malenko's irritated with winning that way and sullenly rips his raised arm away from the ref before barely slapping hands with Guerrero and leaving the ring. Malenko can't talk, but he's pretty good with the gruff character work otherwise. DDP comes out immediately after this match with a chair. He is pretty much sick of barely escaping the wrath of Hall and Nash and will sit in the ring until they all just have it out right here and now. Sting and Randy Savage are the ones to answer DDP's call, though, not the Outsiders. They come through the crowd and enter the ring. Circle, circle, hit chair with bat, kick chair over, nudge DDP with bat, fake swing at him, offer him the bat, turn their backs, etc. Yo, the crowd is HOT for this, they want Sting, Savage, and DDP to join up and fuck the nWo up, and I will continue to be bitter that this never happened. Anyway, they leave, then DDP leaves, but the intrigue? It sticks around. Bobby Eaton's jobbing to Konnan tonight in what honestly is a weird little matchup that I'm interested in watching. Konnan starts off hot, but Eaton ducks a corner clothesline and throws some sweet rights, man, they looked great. This is fun enough, even if it's just your-turn, my-turn stuff and Konnan almost blows a leapfrog. He hits a cradle piledriver for three in maybe just a couple of minutes. It's perfectly fine at its goal of establishing Konnan as a dangerous midcarder who can guzzle the guys at a level or two beneath him. We see Luger getting attacked by the Outsiders last week. Nash: WHAT DOES NOT KILL US MAKES US...UNCONSCIOUS! Okay, that's dumb, hokey villainy snark right there. Apparently, Hall and Nash will defend the tag titles against Luger and the Giant at SuperBrawl. Really slow-playing this Steiners feud, huh, Bisch? Lex Luger is here to rack Ron Powers, and as is true every week, I am all for it. I have a strong feeling that I'll be arguing that '95 - '01 Lex Luger is an undeniable asset and an underrated worker from this period when this all ends. Anyway, Luger's got a cast on, and Bisch comes down to cut him off before he gets in the ring. Luger's ready to fight, but Bisch won't let him get in the ring without being medically cleared. I remember this - I think we get a Giant/Outsiders handicap match at SuperBrawl, right? Ah well, we'll see soon enough. Bischoff does some pretty good heeling, but I am so over his heel executive persona right now that I don't enjoy it very much. The Giant comes out while Bischoff talks about how good he is at being an executive, the crowd cheers, and he thinks the crowd is cheering for him. Again, this is good work! It made me chuckle. Also, I've had enough of it! He'll replace Luger in this match. The Giant basically murders Powers and we get a real big chokeslam, which is a fair substitution for a Torture Rack. Mike Tenay interviews the Giant in the ring after the match, and in said interview, the Giant avoids stupid metaphors. The Giant has trust in Lex Luger, the only guy who respected him enough to give him a chance after he defected back to WCW. He has a question for Luger, who comes back down to the ring to answer it. The Giant wants to know if Bischoff's little doctor's note subterfuge is stopping him from wrestling at SuperBrawl, and Luger says no. The Giant seems pretty resigned to wrestling that match handicap, though, and swears that once he wins, he'll be glad to give Luger one of those tag belts as his partner. Hey, that was a really good segment! Get the Giant away from Kevin Sullivan for long enough, and he brings the mic work. Jacksonville is hot for EVERYTHING tonight. Good crowd. Hall, Nash, Syxx, and, uh, Bubba get out of a limo and walk toward the arena. Bubba wants to beat DDP up for his new buddies, and they're basically like Sure, just make sure you leave time to stock more tonic in the limo to go with our gin, which is your primary purpose for being here. I laughed. The Steiners are probably going to murk poor ol' High Voltage. They cut a promo in the inset while they get into the ring, and the promo is entirely nonsensical, as is the Steiners's way. The crowd is into Scott tossing Rage, but as we cut back to the ring after looking at Harlem Heat and Sherri watching on, Rage throws a great chop block that puts him on top for about two seconds before he eats a release overhead belly-to-belly and a press slam. Faces of Fear wander out to look on while Rick and Kaos are way less entertaining than Scott and Rage just were. Oh wow, it's Public Enemy out to watch the match! Competition is HOT AND HEAVY in WCW! Anyway, this match actually made me want to see Scott/Rage in a C-show singles squash. That's not really a sentence I expected to type today. Rage does a springboard somersault, but Rick catches him in midair and powerbombs him - man, this dude Rage was trying really hard tonight. He eats a super bulldog for three. Yo, that was fun. "Rockhouse" hits, and the Outsiders, Syxx, Nick Patrick, and Eric Bischoff roll out. They head over to the desk, threaten Larry Z., and take over the headsets. Oh man, Randy Anderson's going to come out here and plead for his job with his family in tow, a segment that I vividly remember hating as it happened 25 years ago. There is no amount of Hall and Nash snark that will make this not feel like torture. Nash has read his Dickens (or seen Scrooged, whatever). Bisch reiterates the firing, but then relents and decides that Anderson can get his job back if he wrestles Nick Patrick next week. The family does some shitty acting - Anderson's wife is like NO, YOU KNOW WHAT THE DOCTORS HAVE SAID in a classic soap opera move - and then Anderson accepts and fuck off, WCW. Everyone sans Bischoff leaves for the ring, where Hall and Nash will wrestle Devon Storm and uh, let me Google, ah, that's Ace Darling. They're wrestling under the name The Extreme and coming out to the well-worn, oft-used Hollywood Blondes theme. Hall and Nash jump 'em in the aisle while Larry Z. joins Bisch on color. Zbyszko is irascible and Bisch makes sure to say that The Extreme hail from Stamford, CT as they catch a beatdown. We do get a stereo Torture Rack/chokeslam from Nash and Hall, though Nash's rack is shit, come on man, you see it applied like every week! Syxx is hypeman and interviewer after the match. Nash reads the dictionary, everyone. He understands synonyms. I love Nash's self-indulgent "I read books and also watch the news" promos. I'm a total sucker for them. Hall, on the other hand, is full on Mean Girls about the Giant (basically: Nash stopped growing at the cool stage, but you kept growing into the dorky, awkward phase, Giant). It's hour number twooooo with Tony S., Bobby H., and Mike T. They talk about Bischoff's disingenuous nature. I don't care. Get Bisch out from being all up in the videos. Rey Misterio Jr.! He's been injured, and he's also been sorely missed during said injury. And his opponent is WCW TV Champ Lord Steven William Regal! Truly, this show is now blessed. Regal is unconvinced by the smaller stature of his opponent. He jaws with the Jacksonville yokels in the crowd. In short, he wastes a whole lot of this TV title time limit. Regal versus a smaller opponent is awesome because he smothers the smaller opponent and is a real bully, grinding forearms and boots into his opponents' jaw, and so when the opponent pops up and hits offense, it feels earned and easy to cheer for. He tries to destroy Misterio's arm early on, but Misterio escapes and hits a springboard dropkick. Regal is slightly more convinced of his opponent's abilities despite said opponent's smaller stature. He hits a Euro uppercut, then flexes, then dances around. He's got the dudes right in front of the camera heated. One of those dudes has a shirt on in which Calvin, of Calvin & Hobbes fame, pisses on the letters FSU. Not even the FSU logo, though then again, maybe it's good that a little white kid isn't pissing on a Seminole on his t-shirt. Regal milks this crowd's ire for all he's worth, bailing out, jawing with them, and so forth. He's also somewhat unfocused as a result of this, so he gets countered quite a bit. The timekeeper accidentally rings the bell on a close Misterio two-count, then sounds the bell for the time limit when Rey's got Regal in another pinning combination. This was pretty good for one of Regal's seemingly-endless ten-minute draws as champ. Lee Marshall's calling 1-800-COLLECT on the road in Tampa, Florida, the home of Hulk Hogan and road rash. Did you know that 1-800-COLLECT still exists in the year of our Lord 2022? Wild. The Dungeon of Doom music hits, and it's a real crapshoot whenever that happens. Then, some other music hits before we go back to the DoD music. Fuckin' Craig Leathers. Kevin Sullivan comes to the ring along with Jacqueline and Jimmy Hart. Ah, now, um, Maverick Wild come out to the music that hit early. I had to Pro Wrestling DB this guy. Anyway, Jacqueline fucks him up outside the ring. It's not Chyna-level good, but it still rules. The crowd pops huge when Sullivan tosses Wild back outside and Jacqueline slams him. I approve of Jacqueline-assisted Kevin Sullivan squashes. Anyway, double-stomp, three, and that ruled. Jackie throws a forearm at the defeated Wild for good measure. I, like Ted Turner, am a fan of athletically-built women beating up male jobbers because it fuckin' RULES and is always entertaining. Someone yells TASKMASTER YOU SUCK while he tries to cut a rampway promo after the match. I don't give a shit about Sullivan's Woman problems. He name-drops a bunch of people in the wrestling business because HE'S A SHOOTIN'. It sucks. I mean, it really sucks. Well, he does have a line about Woman - er, Nancy - coming from a community, but he and Jackie coming from the neighborhood. It would be a good line in isolation, but this whole thing blows. Then, when Jimmy Hart cuts in to talk to Taskmaster, he says "It's Kevin tonight." Yo, fuck off with this shit. Jacqueline cuts a shitty promo where she repeats the community/neighborhood line, but I'll accept it because she comes off as legit ready to fuck someone up most of the time. Recap of last week's show-ending angle. They go ahead and straight-up replay far more than necessary of this thing, believe me. I guess Hugh Morrus has left the Dungeon? Did this happen? Did I forget? He comes out to his own nondescript guitar-led music, and he'll face Alex Wright. They work with some pace. I will give Morrus credit because he's got the body type of someone who ate all the pies, but he's not one to get gassed super-easily. This is a really fun little five-minute TV match with lots of counters and dodges and a botch from Alex Wright (that he almost saves) when he trips off the top rope. Morrus follows up on this whiff with a powerbomb and a No Laughing Matter, so it works just fine; Wright's beaten because he went high-risk and failed. Benoit and Mongo are in the ring when we come back, their opponents tonight being Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Jeff Jarrett with the jobber entrance. I think I know who will be taking the fall here. Chavo and Jarrett beat the fuck out of Benoit to start. It's awesome. Finally, Mongo sticks a knee in Jarrett's back as he runs the ropes and turns the tide. Mongo tags in and hits a nice powerslam, then tags out so Benoit can lose control and Chavo can get a hot tag that no one cares about. Jacksonville, this is when you stop reacting? Chavo has a really good hot tag segment, but Debra distracts Jarrett outside the ring. She buzzes around him, checking on his health and the state of his gear, and Chavo eventually finds himself in a two-on-one situation. Mongo hits Chavo with a Tombstone - why the fuck would anyone take that move from him? - and gets three. Then he notes that Debra is spending her time obsessed with Jarrett and gets pissed. Arn Anderson and Ric Flair come down so the whole group can cut a promo with Mike Tenay in the ring. This Horsemen/DoD feud has been going on for a year or so now to no end. It's got to be one of the shittiest long-term feuds from this decade. Benoit vocab check: ideologies, alienated. Mongo gets cheap heat by shitting on the Jags, which is funny because he and Debra both throw up the L at he same time. These two are funny as fuck. Debra vocab check: fastidious, which she uses for some truly awful wordplay w/r/t Sullivan and Jacqueline. Was Debra a regular In Living Color viewer back in the day? She loves to drop an "I'm not one to gossip, and you didn't hear this from me" before shitting on someone, which reminds me of Benita Buttrell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfG-gD2ILrg (the board isn't really much for embedding video after this latest update, sorry). Piper and Hogan have a parlay. Piper's in the ring, Hogan's on satellite from Hollywood, supposedly. I tune most of this out. Wait, Piper calls Hogan bald, I noticed that. You know that shoot hurt that man. Then he goes back to talking about his kid and shit, accuses Hogan of being a GAY just like Eric Bischoff, and then won't shut the fuck up at all. Hogan responds. I continue eating this Ritter Sport bar with cornflakes in it. This is some delicious-ass chocolate. Piper rants about OJ Simpson and then mentions Dennis Rodman? It's total nonsense. He finally shuts the fuck up and leaves, and this crowd full of bums eats it up. I take back my praise for their consistent popping. Can't get hyped for Chavo on the hot tag, but cheer this trash. My comments about this show are the same as last week's, with a lower score on it because it had more shitty Hogan/Piper/Bischoff garbage ruining the show, with a bonus "too much talking from Kevin Sullivan" complaint. 3.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

This fricking board and its relationship with Chrome.

Considering his long-standing wrestling partnership with Terrible Ted, I wonder if Stu Hart believed in the right to arm bears.

This board hates Chrome even more than it did before. I really need to just view this site in Firefox already.

Don't know if Haystacks can carry Kenny to something good, TBH.

If a) I really enjoy the game and will do anything constructive within it just to have some goals while I play, and b) there aren't any online-only trophies, then I'll be right on that! @Craig HFrontiers was half-off for Switch and like forty percent off for PS5 at Walmart, which is how I ended up getting it. I think it's still on sale elsewhere, but maybe not there anymore.

Bill Watts is basically early-era-RAW Vince McMahon and Jim Ross all wrapped up in one on PBP/commentary. Random political jokes and treatises? Check. Random asides about athletes from other sports? Check. You'd think that'd make his commentary unlistenable, but it rules. I don't know how he pulls it off. Even when he's exhorting his audience to rally around ol' Ronnie Raygun because his wife from Eastern Europe barely escaped the Reds or whatever, it's somehow almost charming. Of course, he hasn't said that while Tony Atlas is a fine athletic specimen, Watts shouldn't have to seat him at his Waffle House or anything like that yet, which would be much, much less charming. I've said it before, but I must reiterate how much fun Mid-South is from week to week. I've seen most of the big matches and angles, but never weekly. I'll have to revisit the Duggan/DiBiase Tuxedo Match in the context of the weeklies. Anyway, I've been bingeing the hell out of this show lately, and while I almost wish that I had to wait a week to see what happens next, I also am pleased to be able to go at my own pace. On another note, I like to think that in kayfabe Bourne's "Multiple Doinks" strategy that he used against Crush was because he learned from JYD's "Multiple Stagger Lees" gambit on 11/23/82's show.

What I've heard and read is basically this, and that the range of feelings about this goes from "interesting, but bad" to "flawed GotY because of what it's trying to achieve." I don't think there's ever been a good fully-3D Sonic game, so I'm excited to find out if Sonic Team finally figured it out after 25 years.

I bought Sonic Frontiers for PS5. Could be my personal GotY or Sonic '06 or anywhere in between. Let's find out!

But seriously, Tim Storm would have been a legit great reveal in that spot.

11/16/82 Mid-South show is just as awesome as the previous week and the gorilla suit incident. Duggan really picked up the character work these past couple weeks. So has DiBiase. They'll hopefully be able to carry things while Matt Borne figures things out. I am an absolute sucker for Stagger Lee/Midnight Rider/Mr. America-style angles.