SirSmUgly

This is a legit question and not a setup for a joke: Are there any good Insane Clown Posse matches (or, if you wouldn't use the word "good," "fun-though-flawed" ICP matches)?

...which has partially ruined my enjoyment of old-school WoS in large part because Breaks is one of my favorite five wrestlers ever. Please tell me that Catweazle hasn't been doing anything from killing family members to tweeting "FOREIGNERS OUT! #Brexit" lately. I can't take that, man. There are wrestlers who I actually like after seeing people add tweets from them too, so Niko is right that having wrestlers on social media works both ways. But man, I already lost my ability to enjoy The Cosby Show and Gnarls Barkley albums over the last couple of years, so the last thing I need to do is to submit myself to greater disappointment by reading Twitter too much.

Being a black wrestling fan is pretty much waiting for people that you are a fan of to let you down. This is why I stay away from Twitter. I don't need to see Ricky Steamboat or Daniel Bryan tweeting that BLM are the real terrorists or some shit. I only have so much left to cling to here. And yeah, I know that if I didn't enjoy entertainers with shitty viewpoints, I'd never consume entertainment, but it's harder for me with pro wrestling because even though they're basically actors, the line between the actor and his or her part is so blurred that it's easy to get attached to wrestlers that you really like. Sometimes I think about wrestlers that have passed that I love and I'm thankful that at least I never truly have to know their views about this stuff. Like, if Rick Rude were alive in 2017, there is a decent chance that he would be tweeting some shit that I would hate, and that would ruin my love of WCW '92 on a number of levels. Fuckin' Twitter.

Enzo should think about it for two seconds, say "fuck the business," and go make money being a hanger-on at parties who guest DJs and shit. I can't imagine that it's worth the money or the CTEs to put up with these fragile dumbasses at his workplace who are so focused on protecting da biz, even if he's also a dumbass.

This didn't have the part with the dude in the front row crying with joy, which is my favorite thing about the win.

The WWE's product (just testing this board upgrade's filter) is probably still as stagnant as it was when I was watching, so there really is no reason to pay for the Network unless you like old wrestling (which I do, and which was the real reason that I paid for the Network when I had it). If they were firing on all creative cylinders, the major shows/PPVs would be enough to drive people to the network. They need to fix their creative process. That last sentence is the most obvious thing that I've written on this board to date.

/mjcry

I don't know if Road Dogg was better off the cuff. Most of his off-the-cuff stuff that I remember, I only remember because he cursed a lot or used slurs. Point me to these good Road Dogg promos that I don't remember, please.

If you really wanted to insult Vic, you should have talked about how shitty Demolition were. I mean, I like them, but I'm just saying that this is how you get to him. Whether or not Enzo is good probably depends on your age and how much/what type of hip-hop you're into. Dude is the perfect hype man. He should be a manager, as others have said, and it's too bad that Vince doesn't utilize them. He should be hype man for Titus Brand wrestlers, really. That whole idea is an idea that should work if they got behind it, but they won't for many reasons. I digress. Enzo is a good mic worker, I think, and his in-ring bumping is all he needs besides that to be a solid managerial type.

Ibra is coming to MLS, apparently. Even with his knee being fucked, I still think this signing is awesome because old man Ibra was banging them in in the Prem last season. He'll find space in the box. Hopefully not against the Sounders, but I'll enjoy watching it.

Enzo has charisma of a sort, so he should go do literally anything that isn't catching CTEs for shit pay and trash booking. I'm sure he has enough connections to get something going in L.A. Anyone with anything resembling a lifeline out of the company should probably focus on taking that instead of on wrestling good six-minute matches on Superstars every week. I'm also sure that the black folks in the locker room think that supporting Trump is enough of a reason to dislike someone, but I'll refrain from going further down that road.

Oh shit, are you a "You Must Remember This" fan too? Though that pod might as well be renamed "Women Getting Treated Really Shitty In Hollywood."

At 24, the key decision-making parts of her brain are still developing. I had two degrees, a job, and a car at 24, but I still did random stupid shit occasionally that I look back at ten years later and wonder about. Plus she's on drugs, so that's not going to help. She's also essentially a battered wife whose "He didn't hit me, I just fell down the stairs"-style Twitter posts are an indicator of some trauma from the relationship. I have much more understanding for her even if she's making terrible choices. Some of that is on her, but some of that is physiology and some of it is being terrorized by a cokehead piece of shit.

I actually did listen to that WTF podcast. She's had a pretty interesting life, actually. Her stories about using Wheel of Fortune winnings to buy vending machines while she got more into wrestling and then did a non-TE reality show to get into wrestling school were remarkable. She seems like a really nice person.

Two observations: First, this should have been tagged "shame." No reason, just, you know, a suggestion. Second, Awesome Kong was must-see TV for me when she was feuding with Kim and Wilde in TNA. That legit might be my favorite thing that the company has ever done, even over the Broken Hardys and the Joe/AJ/Daniels stuff. Kong is also really good in GLOW to the point that I think that she probably has a solid career in TV ahead of her.

Joe being angrier than a motherfucker has always been money on mic and in ring. Except for the Nation of Violence thing, but whatever. Joe and Brock looked like they legit wanted to come to blows. Also, this is why the PG era is good - when people actually get to cussing, it actually has some impact. There was some kid in the front row who was shocked when Brock dropped that S-bomb, like he couldn't believe it and he just knew things were going to escalate. I'll have to see whatever match comes of this someday. The last time I saw Joe this intense, he tried to turn Finn Balor and some random security guy into two matching puddles of grease.

Taking the belt off a stable person who is really good in ring like Lashley to put it on the no-showing, always-in-the-news-for-altercations, mediocre Del Rio is such a TNA move. Call it TNA, call it Impact Wrestling, call it GFW, but it's still the same terrible company with a couple of glimpses of really good stuff every few years.

The nWo Japan theme was used for all the nWo video entrances on the WCW Nitro game, IIRC. I am a sucker for the Nirvana knockoff themes that DDP and Raven had. Love 'em.

Jerry Lawler vs. Nick Bockwinkel I love Memphis, and I've consumed as much of it as possible on Youtube over the past ten years. I've been interested ever since I saw that Andy Kaufman Comedy Central doc in maybe the mid-to-late '90s? I'm from the Pacific Northwest, so I didn't know anything about Memphis as a territory until I saw that documentary, and I was immediately hooked. It wasn't until the magic of the internet made it possible that I was able to see more of it. I have seen this before, and I remember quite enjoying it. I like Bock immediately taking advantage of the lack of rules by throwing a big closed right while he had Lawler in the ropes, and Lance Russell is fantastic here at pointing that out and again pushing the "Lawler is a traditional slow starter" thing that he often pushes, but pointing out that in this type of match against that caliber of wrestler, Lawler didn't have that luxury. While Russell explains this, Bock throws some sweet punches. They're so sweet that he shakes his hand in pain after throwing another flurry. What I don't love is refs who work against the stips of a match, and the ref pulling Bock off of Lawler in the corner is shitty and I hate it. Dude is just getting in the way trying to break up Bock's chokes when they should be legal. It's distracting and irritating. Lance tries to explain that the ref needs to get some semblance of control, and I'm trying to buy it so that I can accept the ref's choices in terms of how he's working this match. Lawler getting control with a desperation headbutt to the nuts is a nice transition. What I like about Lawler in Memphis is that his character is basically that of a regular dude from Memphis who probably won a lot of barfights by punching guys in the throat and kicking them in the nuts and made the transition to wrestling on that strength. He's in his element in a slugfest. Bock is more violent than I think I've ever seen him, which is amazing because he comes off as a technical marvel most times. What works about this match is that in most no-DQ matches today, you get tons of dives off ladders and table spots and shit, but the bulk of this match is no-DQ in a purer form. It's mostly chokes, nut-shots, and closed fists. It's what a no-DQ match would look like if wrestling were a real competition, which makes it so much more convincing. It also makes Bock slamming Lawler on the table outside more impactful because it's more surprising and not overdone, and it comes off like Bock fulfilling a sudden violent urge after tasting Lawler's blood. Anyway, the ref bump brings out Jimmy Hart, and after Hart bashes Lawler and Bock goes for the pin, you can hear some dude yelling NO! NOOOOO! Lawler kicks out, and some old lady is yelling COME ON JERRRRRY and this match is FUCKING LIT, I say. Lawler hits one flying fist, then two, and gets two 2.9s, and then hits a third and Bock just can't kick out. No bullshit, not another five minutes of reversals, just Lawler punching Bock into oblivion. This shit was dope. It was spartan - just punches, chokes, a knee here and a piledriver there, and one slam onto a table - and that's what worked for it. It came off like two dudes just wanted to punch the shit out of each other until someone couldn't get up. It was the sort of violence that there isn't enough of in wrestling. There was no crazy shit, no multitude of dumb or dangerous spots, no thumbtacks, but two wrestlers projecting violence through the way they moved and through their facial expressions. Great match. Now remind me never to make another dumbass bet again, people. Please.

I was sick for awhile, but I'm back! Now I can finish this up and forget my shameful belief in the innate goodness of one wrestler's character and its ability to overcome a jaded audience and a septuagenarian whose breakfasts consist of cocaine and Red Bull and whose moral compass spins wildly, as though it too had been hit by an earthquake, plunged through a waterfall, and entered into the Land of the Lost, never to be seen again. Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras vs. Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody One of the many wrestlers whom I don't really appreciate like most connoisseurs of the pro graps do is Stan Hansen. I've seen a considerable amount of his AJPW stuff and I've seen all of that random late-career WCW run he had in the early '90s. I mostly don't get it. Add to this match two guys who I think kinda suck from what I've seen in Mascaras and Brody (I've never seen Dos Caras wrestle because Mexico is one of my particularly big blind spots), and I'm just going to try to get through this one without picking up my phone and playing Threes while giving the match a quarter of my attention. There are a couple of things that might be interesting if they played out over the match, a couple of threads that don't really get picked up and woven into any type of narrative that I can tell. Dos Caras winning a test of strength by lucha-ing his way out of it and then getting a quick small package attempt on Hansen is a nice way to set up a story about a clash of wrestling styles that the smaller men actually use to overcome their size disadvantage, but like two minutes later, Mascaras is going 50/50 with Brody on a shoulderblock anyway. Mostly, a bunch of stuff happens, but there's not really an extended heat section or a big face comeback or a sustained opening flurry by the faces (there's kinda one, but not really). Everyone gets a few moves in and momentum changes on a dime and Brody does some shitty kicks and bearhugs. This is a weird match to review in that it's not good, but it's not bad in an interesting way. It's just there. It's a match without any purpose that I can see except to have four guys in a tag match that the fans really wanted. Maybe I just don't get AJPW tag match structure from the early-'80s or something. Also, not to be a movez guy, but most of Brody's offense in this match was tying his opponent up in the ropes. I give Brody credit for being a big star and ostensibly making very good money while not really doing much of anything. He was like WCW-era Kevin Nash before WCW-era Kevin Nash in that regard. Eddy Guerrero, Satanico, and Mocho Cota vs. Lizmark, Latin Lover, and Solomon Grundy The Imperial Death March as entrance music is a great idea, almost worth risking the inevitable lawsuit from Disney here in 2017. I'm a huge Eddy G. fan off the back of his WCW and WWE work, but I've seen maybe five or six of the more important matches in his AAA career. I've seen Lizmark and Latin Lover, but I'm not sure that I've seen any of these other guys. Anyway, there are numerous cuts in and around the ring as the first fall starts with heelery and mayhem. Solomon Grundy wanders around the ring a lot trying to get the refs attention only to get kicked out when the ref sees him - in all that time, he could have saved the Latin Lover's groin from a pummeling directly. There's a lot of cheap heel cheating and ballshots, but it's all done at what feels like a glacial pace, and none of it is particularly interesting. I'm feeling that my lack of experience with trios matches and my general dislike of Lucha tropes are combining to fail me here, because this all feels interminable even in its chaos. The heels get a fall with a double Camel Clutch or something, I think? It seems like they got a fall. There is more random arena brawling as the match goes to break. Yeah, we're back for fall number two! There's still a lot of heel chicanery and cheap-shotting everywhere, and it's totally uninteresting to me. There are a lot of chokes, eye rakes, and shitty double-team punching flurries. Mocho Cota and Grundy have a face-off, and then instead of something interesting happening, there is another heel punch flurry after Eddy jumps Grundy from behind. Like, how can one match have a bunch of stuff happening and yet be so fucking boring? I didn't think this was possible. After about forty years, the faces finally start stringing together offense. Grundy does a fat man elbow drop, which is my favorite thing to happen in this match by a long way. Eventually, the faces get the pin off a Grundy side slam, I think. Maybe? There's more action and Satanico gets beaten up for a bit. Then Satanico gets pinned and Latin Lover chases Mocho Cota into the crowd. Then everyone starts fighting again. We get a cut and then the third (and final? Please, please be the final) fall begins. Satanico is bleeding a lot somehow. In the new best spot of the match, Cota is talking shit into the camera in a close-up and gets booted in the face in mid-sentence by Latin Lover. That shit was hilarious and someone should steal that spot. But I'm going to be honest, this fall does nothing for me either. This is easily my least favorite match of the bunch because it went on forever. At least Brody/Hansen vs. Caras/Mascaras was over after like ten minutes of non-action. I'm aware that my understanding of wrestling tropes really only extends throughout the United States and Canada. I long had a hard time appreciating Japanese wrestling, and even with the benefit of having something that's more available and accessible like modern New Japan, it took a long time for me to enjoy stuff like the drawn-out strike exchanges or even fighting spirit (which, considering that I grew up watching Hulk Hogan Hulk up, should have been something that was easier for me to understand). When it comes to Mexican wrestling, I can get bloody strike-fests just fine, but trios matches in particular have always been outside of the scope of my wrestling sensibilities. Something about the structure or the tropes just don't connect for me. Heck, I watch LU now, but I tune right out when a trios match comes on. Combine that with the lack of context for what was going on in this match, and I personally kind of hated it. I await Matt's response so that he can tell me why it was good (and I fully accept that this is probably a "me" issue and not a match issue). But yeah, for me, there weren't enough Solomon Grundy elbow drops to make this enjoyable. This has been a loooooooong post, so I'll add the last match in one final post after this.

Until Dawn is a fantastic game. I don't like horror, really, but I quite enjoyed it.

Even Breath of the Wild has towers. Towers are a thing, man, I'm sorry. HZD for real is worth the three hundred bucks, though. It's my favorite game of the year.

It's about three (ha!) years late for me here, but I'm obsessed with Threes on Android. I was actually searching for SPL-T, which I played at the Indie Game exhibit at Seattle's MoPOP, when this game came up as I searched. It's sooooo good, man, like so good. When you have two twenty-fours on opposite sides of the board and only a space or two open and you work them around to match up with one another and clear like five spaces for more tiles...so good. I just read that someone beat Threes by creating a 12,228 card, which I will never do in my life, but that's fine. I have an impossible dream to shoot for here!

I mean, goddam did I lose that bet!

Terry Funk vs. Rick Martel I love heel Terry Funk and I love babyface Rick Martel. Maybe nine or ten years ago, I finally got around to seeing a bunch of Rick Martel as AWA Champion and that, along with his work in late '90s WCW, really upped my estimation of him as a worker. In other words, this is a match with two guys doing what they're best at. Martel getting fired up and kneedropping Funk's cowboy hat (which should have been black for full effect) while Funk throws a temper tantrum BEFORE THE MATCH EVEN STARTED was another sign that I was in for a treat. Funk as a heel is just so good at getting a fan excited that he's getting his ass whipped. He goes all bowlegged and wobbly and begs off and bails out of the ring and argues about closed fists and illegal punches with the ref and generally has no fucking shame and will look like a real chump to the fullest effect. There is nothing likable about him, and he makes sure that even his clowning doesn't come off as comedic, but as the actions of a real jackass. Martel has immense physical charisma as a face and was really miscast by Vince in the late '80s and early '90s. I was just talking with Victator about Jeff Jarrett being somewhat miscast as a heel for most of his career, but I think this applies to Martel, who is amazing both as a young, fiery babyface here and as a vet seeking redemption in mid-90s WCW. Anyway, the match is typical in structure - face comes out fired up and makes the heel look foolish, heel bails out and stalls, heel eventually gets the upper hand by cheating, face suffers before firing up and going into the finish. In this contest, these guys are the Form of the Good for that typical match structure. Some other things I really liked: Martel trying to throw tons of fired up jabs at Funk for the first six minutes of the contest. Funk bumping like a maniac. Funk trying to get the upper hand with a handshake, Martel trying to punch him instead, and Funk pitching a fit and flicking Martel off and then shaking hands with the ref to show that he was on the up-and-up just three seconds after his temper tantrum. Martel working headlocks like he was trying to squeeze Funk's head off his neck like it was a pimple. Funk doing a piledriver outside the ring. Terry Funk piledriving dudes onto things other than the ring mat is an instant pop from me because as a kid, seeing Funk do that to Flair on a table was like one of my defining moments as a young fan. Funk in general getting more desperate as the match went along. I repeat my earlier point here, but I love that when Funk is vicious, it comes off as a desperate and cowardly sort of viciousness rather than badass enough to get me to want to start rooting for him. The finish is perfect too because it cries out for a rematch. I think the one minor flaw that I have with this match is that Martel's comeback before the finish should have been just a bit longer. 2.9s are overused as a strategy to get crowd pops, but this could have used a couple as part of a longer Martel run of offense at the end, which I think would have made the finish even better since Funk's cheating at the end would have come across as even more desperate and unjust. Two matches in, and I have to give Matt some love for picking matches that are actually interesting watching. I thought I'd get a flurry of Razor Ramon HG or Danshoku Dino matches or wrestling Ninja Turtles in CMLL or some other such stuff (which I would have deserved for betting against the WWE machine, to be honest).