Matt D

Yeah, but Foley was a little more methodological in how he got stuck (though he had some good momentum on that one obviously). This feels like a smoother, crazier motion to me.

Now I kind of wonder if Misfits in Action was a way to try to get/keep the Misfits trademark.

Bonus match 3/27/88: Tenryu vs Hansen: Ok, now this is an interesting one. It has what a lot of people would consider to be a crappy finish which is why it only ranked 24th on the 80s set, but it's really unique for a Hansen match. Tenryu basically starts the match bleeding from the side of his face from the cowbell shot a few weeks before and it's awesome because 1) it's right at the start of the match. He starts the match bloody. 2) it's not the forehead that's bleeding so it's a unique visual and leads to other unique visuals like the blood rubbing off the side of his arm through the match.

1. We finished S1 and the 8 year old was so matter-of-fact about the Darksaber. LIke a "Duh dad, of course it's the Darksaber. What else would it be?" reaction, which again shows how different her Star Wars experience is to anyone born in the 80s. 2. Let me try to make another analogy, because I was thinking about the Thrawn reveal and how it completely took me by surprise even though it absolutely shouldn't have. It was the only answer that made any logical sense knowing what you did about Ahsoka, but it felt like a complete surprise. I'd liken it to Daniel Bryan winning at WMXXX (or pro

Messiah CompleX Secret Wars (Hickman) Annihilation

More of the tag: Look at the struggle at the start on the top wristlock, the way he resets things with a little hop so he can get the space to go up and over. Obviously it's the kip up/headbutt that's more impressive but look at how organic this all is relatively: Is this nuts? This feels like it's nuts to me: If we ever had gotten that heel John Cena tag team run...

This year we picked up HBO Max for August because other TV was very slow that month, caught up on all of the HBO shows we wanted to see (and a few that weren't on our radar). I could see us doing the same thing next year to catch Suicide Squad too.

I'm back on track for the most part. 6/5/89: Mitsuo Momota (c) vs Isamu Teranishi: This is the best Momota has looked as champion so far. Straightforward but compelling matwork where he was in charge. Teranishi had some good strikes (headbutts primarily) and they had an exciting enough finishing stretch. You can get a lot of mileage out of trying for a German in these junior heavyweight matches. Momota was super over in the post match. Bonus match: 3/9/88 Tenryu vs Hansen: Hansen singles matches have three elements to them, like any match but more so. The opening: how does Hansen's o

Running through Arabet Said/Serge Gentilly vs Yves Amor/Georges Gueret quickly with just one gif. This is so nonchalant that it's pretty hilarious. Gueret was a great character who has a sort of Larry the Axe vibe to him: On to Jean Corne & Isha Israel vs. Marcel Mannevau & Claude Gessat which was great. Check out the agility involved here! Beautiful heeling:

Good news is that Hilda is getting a surprise season 2 in a few weeks. Bad news is that Ducktales is ending with this current season. I'm pretty disappointed about that. It's probably my favorite show to watch with the 8 year old.

Certainly things like SpeakingOut or the moves towards unionization are probably more important in a general sense, but from an in-ring perspective, I don't think there's anything that could possibly approach the liberation of decades of footage (300+ matches spanning almost forty years including basically everything that was aired over multiple years of this span) of French footage. It would have been if we had gone from having access to only ten pre-2000 Japanese matches ever to having hundreds. Plus, for instance, we've picked up over 35 new matches from 1957. I'm not 100% sure we had 35 fu

They also have the watch figures. I think the deal with the Hidden Gems was that virtually no one was watching them. You probably get a ratio of 50:1 views for a Liv Morgan documentary vs an episode of PTW or something.

If there was one wrestler who I wish we had more footage of, just one, holding my feet to the fire and having it be one and one only, which is incredibly hard, literally the hardest question I can answer about wrestling, it'd be Pat Patterson. NJPW has cracked down on stuff so I had to take a few matches down, but I'm putting this back up on my burner account because I think it's a different side of him than we usually get to see. He could be a chickenshit heel but he could also kick so much ass.

Definitely something I wouldn't have watched on my own which is the name of the game. Jackson is a product of the ROH dojo (and Homicide) if I'm not mistaken. I have a good working knowledge of Lufisto without actually having seen many matches in the last five years are so. This had some moments of the two of them getting in each other's way. Some frustrating bits of execution stemmed from that, like one of the worst DDT's I've ever seen. Some of the strikes were good and played into their natural physicality but others seemed more wind-up than payoff. That said, there was a lot to like. I thi

I'm far behind here. Back to Hunter/Hayes vs Delaporte/Bollet: Bollet is such a strutting jerk: It takes a special kind of jerk to cartwheel like this and then immediately get stooged: Everything about this is pretty great, both the way they put him in and the fans rushing forth to help: