SirSmellingtonofCascadia

The Apter mags made Yoshi fucking Kwan look like a bloodletting killer, man. They were these incredible hype machines for me as a kid.

I watched WWF as a kid, but my southern grandma was into JCP/WCW and had cable, so I watched that with her. I loved both of them, so there was no issue there for me. They were different, but I enjoyed the difference, I think. I was more into thinking about all the dream matchups between the wrestlers that I liked in both companies (which was exacerbated by my discovery of PWI and their consistent "dream match" articles). To follow up on what @cwoy2jand @Shanesaid about the Apter mags, I am in that boat as well. I didn't see Lawler wrestle until his WWF run and didn't see him wrestle in Memphis until the Andy Kaufman Comedy Central doc, but I knew all about him from PWI. Same with Bill Dundee. If you had asked me as a kid who Lawler's greatest rivals were, I would have told you they were Bret Hart and Bill Dundee even though I had never seen any Memphis.

Jesus. Fine, take your like.

I still think this company could have had their own little version of the All Japan women of the '80s (in the sense of drawing young women and girls to the product) based around Charlotte/Becky/Sasha/Bayley and other key pieces like Asuka. To me, that is the biggest missed opportunity of NXT.

Tom was competent enough to overthrow his wife and align with her father. Hunter is definitely not Tom. Though the idea of Hunter having his own "Greg" is great and they should have had a wrestler fill that role when they were doing all that Authority stuff.

Trips being Kendall Roy to Vince's Logan Roy is almost as compelling as Succession is.

This would be a better angle than literally any angle in pro wrestling in years.

Most of what USA absorbed is morning/afternoon sports now that NBC/Comcast doesn't have NHL rights. The PL, the Tour de France/Vuelta de Espana, and various tennis tournaments are not going to really go into those primetime hours (or will be heavily edited on cable into one- or two-hour packages while the whole event will be available via Peacock, like they do with the Tour de France). WWE really lucked out with NBC's strategy there because I was sure that they'd try to retain NHL rights and that they'd put those games on USA and pre-empt RAW a whole lot, but nope. (Then again, NBC is willing to use CNBC for sporting events when necessary, so it's possible that RAW would have been moved to CNBC on some nights as a worst-case scenario.)

I would love to hear a Walton/Dusty commentary team. Does Walton no-sell Dusty's crazy or lean into it in an understated way? Now I'm disappointed that it will never happen.

It's a very "American commentator" thing. One of the things that I like about European football is that sometimes, the commentators chill the fuck out and let things happen without blathering on at an all-too-high volume about nonsense. To overlay that onto pro wrestling, it's why I really enjoy Kent Walton as a PBP man.

Her gimmick did suck, but in the ring, she's easy to root for. She's a natural face. Lots of in-ring charisma. Nese is mechanically quite good. That's it.

Ember Moon has physical charisma that Tony Nese wishes he had, IMO.

I think the ECW stuff Bam Bam did is solid, but I don't feel like he ever quite put it together as a singles until then, and he quickly then lost whatever magic he had in WCW after that. This is probably a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I think he was best and most consistent as a tag worker. I like his stuff with Vader, and I think my favorite WWF match of his is probably that tag match with Tatanka against 1-2-3 Kid and Bob Holly. A lot of that is also Waltman being a bump machine and a great FIP, but Bam Bam is excellent in control. I always wondered at Bret loving his matches with Bam Bam. I thought the KotR final was just okay and so was the match in Spain on the Bret Hart collection. I'm sure I've seen them on a random Coliseum Video tape in a different match as well that I thought was inoffensive, but nothing special.

While I am not excited about watching a show that is built around Aldis, Murdock, and Tyus as important pieces, I will give it a shot.

I think I will play a few N64 games while waiting for Kirby, Horizon, etc., to come out this year. Maybe some Paper Mario, some OoT, etc.

I am finally getting back to the Portland set this year. I also need to restart my Nitro rewatch. No modern wrestling on the menu for me anymore now that Corgan's NWA is gutted, but I am pleased that so much old wrestling is so accessible. The other day and for no good reason, I watched a bunch of Bad News Brown squashes. I saw one video that was just a supercut of Bad News hitting the Ghetto Blaster. It was great and so is wrestling when it's done well.

Shut the fuck up already, no one cares. You could always let the shit drop, but you just have to keep responding. Stop responding, then. Clearly, no one gives a fuck about you, your POV, or your weirdo obsessions with certain workers who have clearly heated up more than you have. If it's so funny, just laugh to yourself and move on, goddam.

I almost mentioned the death of Billy Gunn, but that's generally an anomaly in The Rock's career. Also, Billy Gunn was definitely a tag specialist and The Rock's destroying him on the mic was one of the funniest things in wrestling ever, so I am inconsistent in giving it a pass.

I'm surprised that a poster is getting into Sleaze Thread level garbage in here without getting a visit from the Patron Saint of Outlaw Country, Johnny Cash. Seems like jealousy that people are being successful as wrestlers so it's time to tear them down or whatever.

The Rock is probably the most generous main eventer ever, so I wouldn't put him in your list. Cena toward the end of his career took a shocking amount of losses as well. I also think it's worth considering that people tended to come out worse after a feud with Triple H than they did with The Undertaker. Other than Batista and maaaaaaaaybe Danielson, did anyone else come out of a feud with HHH actually looking better than they did going into it? Even The Undertaker could put a guy over while beating him if he wanted (see: Jeff Hardy). HHH had no ability to do that. (I should have started this post by saying that you're not exactly wrong, though. I am not totally disagreeing! But I think there are degrees. It seems like Charlotte guzzles opponents at a Hulk Hogan-like level without being Hulk Hogan.)

Good post, but I don't fully trust you British English speakers, hogging up all the "U"s for your own use, stealing all the "I"s you can to write "aluminium" while we're left with "aluminum." That goes for you too, Canadians.

Speaking of the movies, Spider-Man: NWH did like half a billy without the Chinese box office, I believe, and not on HBO MAX or anything. I presume that "the haters" aren't aimlessly hating.

Yo, Savage killing off Gonzalez was actually pretty great!

Look at it this way: Considering that Redd Foxx died after having a heart attack on-set because people thought that he was just doing his "comin' to join you, Elizabeth" routine, maybe selling like Fred Sanford is actually good selling.