clintthecrippler
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Posts posted by clintthecrippler
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4 hours ago, odessasteps said:
I kind of agree about the Fabs, but I do like them as heels vs the Guerreros in Houston.
Yeah, I've been watching available Houston footage along the way too and it really is night-and-day The Fabulous Ones in Houston against The Guerreros vs. the main weekly Mid-South TV. Maybe it's the motivation of being in a proper program, the Houston pay days being good, or just having more trust/faith in their dance partners.
Because HOLY SHIT, there is some really intense heat-heavy stuff going on in there where I genuinely feared for the safety of the Fabulous Ones walking out through that crowd after a couple of the angles they ran during that Houston feud.
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1 minute ago, clintthecrippler said:
EDIT: double post
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I have completed my Mid-South Wrestling watch project on Peacock through available 1985 episodes, but thanks to The Wrestling Memory Grenade I am able to continue my journey into 1986 on Youtube, with some Power Pro episodes integrated to boot. Playlist link below:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjGIuyot16AYSIrrA1lAIw45BDrtDvJ9t
I am now through the last episode of weekly TV officially titled "Mid-South Wrestling" the week of March 15th, 1986 with this period covering their initial forays into moving the weekly television to arenas:
Things I'm Loving:
The feud between Jake Roberts and Dick Slater - it's a shame that the Peacock run ends before this feud kicks in, because the six weeks that this is a program is a damn fun piece of professional wrestling that more people deserve to see, with momentum swings back-and-forth almost every week, both competitiors having fantastic in-ring chemistry with each other and a really wild development with Dark Journey punctuated by fantastic Jake promos where he reveals that yeah, he may be a fan favorite but he is still as sinister as ever.
The feud begins in earnest with this episode featuring the TV Title Tournament Finals (yes, that championship is vacant AGAIN).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MkuiSCWv2o
Ted Dibiase and Steve Williams, white meat babyface Tag Team Champions - Dibiase is super-over as a fan favorite in the wake of his return from the Dick Murdoch attack, and Dr. Death joins him by proxy (though the latter is also propelled by the real-life heroics of him and Rick Steiner saving the victims of a fiery auto accident from dying). Both come off much more confident in the way they carry themselves as faces, both on promos and in the "we're good guys, but also ass-kickers" vibe that is so important for staying mega-over in Mid-South.
Koko B Ware - Koko is in as a hot new undercard babyface and getting over both with his pre-match dance routine to Morris Day & The Time's "The Bird", a charismatic plucky underdog spark, and THE MOST DEVASTATING TOP ROPE DROPKICK IN WRESTLING HISTORY - yes, this time period features the infamous finish to his squash against Gustavo Mendoza, and to their credit, this specific dropkick gets referenced on commentary for weeks afterward whenever Koko wrestles. It's very easy to see why in spite of his smaller size, Vince still saw him as someone worth poaching for the WWF later that year.
https://twitter.com/gifapalooza/status/1302767970632990729
The Sheepherders (and the booking of so far) - Butch Miller and Luke Williams have arrived into the area, and the booking of them as a very dangerous force has been masterful, with all of their matches so far being 2-3 minute squashes, including an absolute destruction of the Bruise Brothers (Porkchop Cash and Mad Dog Boyd) sending them packing from the promotion. And their promos really put over how unhinged they are, though you can see small bits of what would ultimately be twisted into the Bushwhacker face persona in a development that NO ONE could have possibly predicted at this time.
Buzz Sawyer - Buzz Sawyer is 5-foot-10 but easily comes off as the most dangerous and wreckless person in professional wrestling at this time despite his stature, and every time he is on TV there is an aura that some major shit is going down, and the booking lives up to that with him almost every time.
The arena TV production - I love and miss the Irish McNeil Boys Club, but if they were going to make this move, so far so good on most points when it comes to their new TV production (save for one thing I'll note a little further down). I would say that as of the beginning of 1986 it is comparable with JCP's syndicated production, and they have just enough chaos and fast-moving show formatting to keep the arena crowds hot nearly every week.
There is a fun "dueling promos" gimmick they try a few times where two rivals will be giving promos at the same time - with one wrestler in the ring with Jim Ross and the other wrestler on a side stage with Joel Watts, which comes off really well during the Roberts/Slater feud. A fun idea to let the wrestlers snipe at each other while giving off the pretense of keeping the wrestlers separated from each other and getting physical until the actual match. There is an odd entrance gimmick where they will cut to an entering wrestler as they walk into the ringside area and start their entrance music only then, though I assume that is to shave a couple of minutes of TV time that would be eaten up by showing a full entrance from the corner/side of the arena. I still miss the atmosphere of the Boys Club, but digging the few bits of experimentation they are doing to still make their show "not just another arena wrestling show"
Things I'm...NOT Loving:
Departures - admittedly, something out of their control, and while Dibiase/Williams are stepping up as top babyfaces, Butch Reed leaves the picture very early in 1986 after losing the North American Championship to Dick Slater, and feels very missed when it's apparent that he is not coming back for rematches.
And boy, does Jake Roberts departing for the WWF at the end of this TV run feel like a MASSIVE exodus. His last six months as a face has been an incredible run, walking the tightrope in a balancing act where he is a fan favorite but he still does just enough both in-ring and on the mic to show that he still Jake "THE SNAKE" Roberts. There really is no one like him in Mid-South during this time, I already anticipate that he will be very missed too. But to Mid-South's credit (and Jake's), on the final episode of TV that he appears on, they have footage of him losing the TV title in Houston to Dick Slater, AND then he loses a "No. 1 Contender" face vs. face match to Terry Taylor on the way out the door.
Part-timer Hacksaw Duggan - a common criticism of 1986 Mid-South/UWF is an increasing allowance by Watts to let his talent take Japan tours, which is good for the wrestlers, but maybe not the best development for maintaining a coherent main event scene. This is most evident by Hacksaw Duggan's absence early in the year for a Japan tour, as combined with the departure of Butch Reed, causes the face side of Mid-South to feel slightly off. Duggan spent all of 1985 evolving into THE top roughneck brawling face of the company and the most over person in the company, and as 1985 was closing, had a very heated angle with Buzz Sawyer that just kind of stalls out while Duggan disappears, though he does return to pick back up the Buzz Sawyer feud at the end of this TV run.
Joel Watts on commentary - for how valuable he apparently was in the TV production behind-the-scenes, producing music videos and well-done recap packages, the move into the arena setting just enhances his deficiencies as a commentator tenfold. For a company making headway into becoming a nationally-televised company, he still continues to come off as too rough around the edges for such a spot. I saw someone on here recently refer to him as constantly feeling like he has to "think" about what he is going to say next, and those pauses are more awkward with a slicker arena-based television show. And there's a very cringe-y episode opening where the commentary team is Joel and Bill Watts, and Joel earnestly introduces Bill as "someone that I think knows more about wrestling than anyone else, MY DAD, Bill Watts" in a way that I could see turning off non-Southern audiences.
A major step-down in foreign menace wrestlers - the foreign-menace has been a staple of Mid-South during the previous few years, but boy oh boy, Taras Bulba and Kortsia Korchenko are some of the stinkiest wrestlers to ever grace these rings. Bulba comes off as someone transported 10 years from the mid-70's kick-punch-choke scene of the WWWF, and Korchenko is somehow even worse than that. Maybe Watts felt that he HAD to have foreign menace spots filled (and they start leaning into that aspect heavily with the Sheepherders fairly quickly as well), but if this was the best available talent he could get for those roles, maybe he should have taken a break. And maybe he actually did see the writing on the wall with Korchenko eventually, since he brought in Ivan and Nikita Koloff specifically for the MEGA-heat Russian angle that would occur a few months down the road.
Not learning lessons from Al Perez and Wendell Cooley with new babyface presentations - one of the worst booking decisions of the final part of 1985 was constantly referencing the now-departed Rock n Roll Express when newly-minted hot-shotted Tag Team Champions Al Perez and Wendell Cooley are on TV, and apparently no one learned their lesson when that reign fizzled out, as the mullet-and-mousatched Dave Peterson has now debuted as an undercard face and already comparisons on commentary are being made to Magnum TA, who is currently hot on JCP TV and not ostensbly coming back to Mid-South anytime soon.
The Fabulous Ones - whoops, I mean, "The Fabs" - Steve Keirn and Stan Lane are brought in as heels, and for some reason, just seem out of place in Mid-South. That out of place feeling seems amplified by them working very methodically as heels, almost more as if they were on the 1986 WWF house show circuit instead of one of the hottest in-ring promotions in the country. There's a very "going through the motions" vibe to their work here. Even a "dream match" against a special-appearance making Rock n Roll Express comes off as a letdown, though admittedly the promotion adopting JCP's "Tony, we're out of time" gimmick for that match didn't help either, even if the match got a fair amount of TV time prior to that.
And no, I don't know why they are only referred to as "The Fabs" here either, both on commentary and on TV graphics.
Things I Am Neutral On:
Terry Taylor - Terry is back after his aborted JCP run, and picks right back up where he left off as the "good-looking heartthrob" of the main event scene, with the push meter jacked up to 11. I still think he more than holds his own bell-to-bell, but because these are Youtube postings sourced from VHS TV recordings, we also now have localized house show promos, which are a fun addition for the most part...EXCEPT for Terry Taylor. I feel like I am turning on him every time he gets mic time during these localized promos, as he comes off as 70s Bob Backlund but with a tan, nice hair, and a suit, delivering "I really hope I win and appreciate clean competition" but with someone less earnestness and less intensity than even Bob at his most milquetoast, with no fire or urgency at all. I'm kind of mad that we're still a full year away from him turning heel. Thank God he still delivers for me once the bell rings at least.
Eddie Gilbert - Gilbert definitely hones the "Hot Stuff" gimmick even more, being moved back into a wrestler-manager role but at one point he becomes the ONLY heel manager, which means there's a few episodes that border on the verge of becoming "The Eddie Gilbert Show", and a little bit of "Hot Stuff" goes a long way, a lot of "Hot Stuff" walks precipitously on the edge of burn out, the nadir of that so far being an episode where Eddie has a proper match against Koko B Ware, THEN manages Kortsia Korchenko in a match, and THEN manages...
The debut of the Blade Runners - the one episode of 1986 Mid-South on Peacock spotlights this, the historic debuts of Sting and The Ultimate Warrior as yet another Road Warrior knockoff tag team. Commentary does a good job of putting over how massive The Blade Runners are (I think Sting might be one of the few people in history to get less jacked AFTER he entered the wrestling business), though again undercuts by blatantly referencing The Road Warriors on commentary. And boy are boy, both men are rough around the edges. The Ultimate Warrior lives up to his later reputation by coming off as dangerously unsafe, just dumping guys from slams with no regard for protection, and honestly, at this time, Sting isn't THAT much better. Warrior fucking off to World Class and Sting getting placed in a tag team with Eddie Gilbert may have honestly been the best thing that could have happened for his development as a performer.
The Masked Superstar - The Masked Superstar is a welcome addition both in-ring and on the mic as an ally with Dick Murdoch to fight Dibiase and Williams for the Mid-South Tag Team Championship, but again, Mid-South being a part-time gig between Japan tours for him rears its ugly head, but this time Mid-South has a solution - just put someone else under the bodysuit and mask and call that person "The Masked Superstar", keep him off the mic, and then reveal that there are TWO "Masked Superstars" upon Bill Eadie's return from Japan, with the idea that when the match is Dibiase/Williams vs Murdoch/"Masked Superstar", you won't know which Superstar it is. A sound idea in theory, but unfortunately, the person they would select is Kelly Kiniski, who is competent but very visibily does not have the presence of Bill Eadie and feels off even if you don't explicitly know about the switch. This would incidentally, be Kiniski's final run as a wrestler, as he initially planned to take a break from wrestling, but has gone on record in recent years as saying that the first time he had a weekend at home with his family after beginning a Monday-Friday regular job, he knew he was never going back.
And the last couple weeks of this run of Mid-South Wrestling, we have had very hard sells for the upcoming Crockett Cup tournament at the Superdome to the point where it really does feel like a Crockett/Watts joint promotion, and Bill on commentary alluding to a "name change" to reflect our growing stature as a "national" company as opposed to a "regional" company. That will come with the next week's of TV that I watch, and I think I'll check back in here in a few months with how that rebrand is going so far.
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That "well he looks fat but he also looks strong" comment reminds me of when WWE were doing the gimmick of Heath Slater getting destroyed by random WWE legends for weeks on end, and my roommate at the time that was never a wrestling fan until he started living with me in 2005 was seeing a lot of those folks for the first time and his comment on Vader was shockingly accurate:
"He looks like he smells bad"
The only other comment I remember off the top of my head was when Sid was the legend of the week during that angle:
"This looks like Heath Slater getting beat up by his stepdad"
And he was also frightened by Bob Backlund still seemingly having crazy old man strength and seeming way too into cranking in the cross face chicken wing on Heath.
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Not that I needed more reasons - as if main eventing against Hogan and Flair, making Mick Foley's career with their series of legendary matches, calling Dusty Rhodes an egg sucking dog, putting ECW and Sabu on the wrestling map, and brawling with Steve Austin after calling Jim Ross an "Okie ASSHOLE!" wasn't enough - but Terry Funk fully cemented my fandom of his forever one Sunday 23 years ago in Northern Michigan.
I shared this story a few years back in a thread about my favorite live wrestling experiences. Thank you Terry for making the town that night even though you were also needed somewhere more important.
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R.A.W. COMES TO TOWN!" (R.A.W. = "Renegades Alliance of Wrestling") and Terry Funk makes an indie date on the same night as a WCW PPV booking two hours later and 700 miles away.
I went to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a small city called Marquette, home to Northern Michigan University. The local celebrity was Mike Shaw (Bastion Booger/Norman The Lunatic), who was a native to the region and retired there to raise his family once his WWF days were over. He would work at a local copper mine during the summer, and while school was in session, he would work nights/weekends as a doorman/bouncer at one of the more popular college bars in town.
About once a year, a money mark would try to promote a wrestling show in the area using Shaw as a draw, but would never be more than a one-off. I recall there was one with a local casino that brought in Brooklyn Brawler to work Shaw, and there was another one at one of the area hockey arenas that had a fake Doink and a fake La Parka but somehow had real Meng while he was still under WCW contract. But the most notorious of these one-offs was when "R.A.W." came to town. And when I say "R.A.W.", I mean the Renegades Alliance of Wrestling.
The main event was Typhoon vs Tatanka, the semi-main was a tag team match of Sabu/Bruce Hart vs. Brutus Beefcake/Greg Valentine. The promoters rented a frigging BOXING ring from a local gym, which would have been bad enough if it just meant guys bumping on a hard boxing canvas, but they used the boxing ROPES as well, so damn near anything involving running the ropes or climbing the ropes looked like shit, though god bless him that didn't stop Sabu from making three attempts at a springboard bodypress to the outside onto Beefcake, who didn't make any effort to protect Sabu when the rope sagged forward and he went splat on the floor.
But this was also the night that Terry Funk endeared himself in my heart forever. The week after flyers/radio commercials for the show started floating around the area and he was advertised as one of the wrestlers appearing, Terry Funk started showing up on WCW TV again. An angle ran that lead to Terry Funk being booked against Kevin Nash at WCW Souled Out 2000...on the same night as the "R.A.W." show.
So naturally, my friends and I assumed that Funk would not be appearing on our show. Before doors open, we ran into Eric Ingles working for the local TV station who was there in the afternoon recording pre-show interviews for the 6PM news broadcast that would air a couple of hours before bell time for last-minute promo. He told us Funk was there (side note: the same promoter ran another town three hours away the night before, and one of the undercard wrestlers has since told me that Funk worked the night before in a falls-count-anywhere hardcore match against Shaw and got Muta-level juice when a trash can spot went wrong, which of course is now a holy grail match for me if anyone recorded it that night), and the plan was that Funk would go out to open the show and then immediately hop on a plane to the WCW PPV, which was in Ohio that night so a quick flight was doable provided weather panned out.
The show opened with one of Shaw's trainees - "The Irish Luchador" Billy McNeill who ended up working St. Louis indies for a while and running in the same circles as folks like Matt Sydal and Delirious prior to their ROH days - receiving the "R.A.W. Rookie of the Year" award, and then Terry Funk comes storming out of the locker room and assaulting McNeill and issuing an open challenge to anyone in the locker room, which summons Bruce Hart. Bruce Hart and Terry Funk then do a wild five-minute brawl all over the gymnasium before they end up tumbling through a door to outside the gym, where I assume a car was waiting for Funk. Bruce Hart of course being Bruce Hart, comes back to the ring, and on a show that was in a high school and had been promoted as "family-friendly" immediately starts calling Funk a "chicken shit" on the mic.
It may not have been a proper match, but Terry Funk cemented my fandom forever that night by still showing up on the same night as a WCW PPV booking, when everyone would have understood if he canceled off the show.
And yes, the promoters really did say "R.A.W. Comes to Marquette!" on the flyers/posters promoting the show. In January 2000. When WWE RAW was red-hot.-
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14 hours ago, AxB said:
Netflix has a documentary about OVW coming out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY9CISx70Oo
There is the trailer. I think Al Snow might have been working the producers on how big of a name he is, and his respect level within the business.
Also, Hollyhood Hailey J is apparently a garbage person IRL, and it looks like the show is using her as a top babyface character.
EDIT: damn double post.
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14 hours ago, AxB said:
Netflix has a documentary about OVW coming out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY9CISx70Oo
There is the trailer. I think Al Snow might have been working the producers on how big of a name he is, and his respect level within the business.
Also, Hollyhood Hailey J is apparently a garbage person IRL, and it looks like the show is using her as a top babyface character.
My first thought when I saw that trailer was "God I hope my friends and family that know I am a wrestling fan don't see this on Netflix and start asking 'have you seen this?'" and start asking for my opinion like I am actively watching and saying shit like "oh, you're a wrestling fan, you'll like this show on Netflix!"
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LOL the whole "when is PWG going to start streaming" debates are happening again and I am sitting here thinking "you know what. PWG should just go the opposite direction. Don't videotape the shows at all. No live streams. No iPPV on tape delay. No Blu Rays or DVD. Strictly enforce the 'no video recording' request. No video at all ever because FUCK IT ALL AND NO REGRETS."
EDIT: Fuck it. Go further. Lock the cell phones. No photos or live tweeting during the show. No one outside finds out what happened until after the show is over. The only photo evidence is an official PWG black and white zine that gets distributed at the next show 13-26 weeks later
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2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:
Oh god... Verotika. Me and my buddy watched that one night. We could not possibly drink enough. And I mean, we had a Misfits cover band for over a decade, but that shit...
EDIT: Whatever happened to that vampire western with him in it that was supposed to come out?
"Death Rider In The House of Vampires" - I swear it had a few horror festival screenings a while back but still no official distro since either on physical or digital media. I havent heard a peep on that either in a while.
Congrats on not dying from alcohol poisoning during your viewing of Verotika.
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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:
I have a hard time believing Danzig let ANYONE co-write anything involving his participation.
As someone who saw that movie (VEROTIKA) at the Los Angeles premiere, I can confirm that is 100 percent a pure unfiltered "vision" perpetrated on the audience by Glenn Danzig. If anyone did try to give notes or suggestions, they were very much NOT listened to.
One of the greatest movie going experiences of my life. The laughter within the theater started 2 minutes into the movie and was pretty consistent throughout the whole movie. Made even more hilarious by the fact that Glenn was there in person for a Q&A and it was his birthday too.
Happy Birthday Glenn Danzig! Your present this year is everyone in the room laughing at your movie.
EDIT: I also would be stunned if this was a union production.
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56 minutes ago, odessasteps said:
That's a weird angle, given Lawler doesn't drink.
But it did give us the "Jake pretends to relapse before his one-on-one match against Lawler, stumbles and staggers into the ring where multiple officials are out to the ring expressing concern, only to hit the quick snap DDT when the bell rings" angle which was some awesome pro wrestling bullshit.
Of course it would have been better if Jake didn't relapse again and then do that while shoot drunk on the indies for the next decade.
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On 8/2/2023 at 9:38 AM, elizium said:
Night and the City might be the best movie overall, but I wouldn't really say its a wrestling movie. The wrestling is mostly just a MacGuffin to get the plot moving.
The last sentence is pretty much true but I love that during the wrestling-centric part of the movie there is still the dynamic of "gritty REAL wrestling" vs. "SHOWBIZ wrestling" just proving once again that the arguments today of "modern wrestling vs. how it USED to be" are literally as old as the professional wrestling industry itself.
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1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:
Oh, I'm there. Taylor as champ makes more sense than the out-of-nowhere Brad Armstrong title reign, even if I'd rather watch Armstrong a thousand times over.
'85 Mid-South has been some struggle TV for me, and I am slow getting through it.
The Brad Armstrong reign is still weird to me. I loved the upset victory (with an incredible finish), but then they did NOTHING on the week-to-week TV with him. No hint of a program or feud. They just occasionally trotted him out to remind everyone he was the North American Champion until he loses to Dibiase in the spring and disappears almost like it never happened.
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16 minutes ago, odessasteps said:
Matt wrote an article for me years ago putting over 1984 babyface Terry Taylor.
For me his run in 1984 and first half of 1985 works simply because in Mid-South they do such a great job presenting him as a "fighting from underneath scrapper" IN ADDITION to being the heartthrob babyface. He's not flashy and his promos don't exactly have fire, but the booking is masterful and from bell-to-bell he fits the part for me during that time frame. The fans being on-board for that ride do a lot of heavy lifting for me too.
Though I'll be a happy man if I NEVER see that goddamn "Freeze Frame" video ever again.
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@Cobra Commander as someone who's very deep into my own Mid-South Wrestling watch project at this point, for me 1984 was very watchable from start-to-finish, other mileage may very most depending on how much you can tolerate plucky underdog babyface Terry Taylor, who I don't seem to mind as much as @SirSmUgly did (warning for you now as you continue your watch @SirSmUgly his push goes much harder the first half of 85). Second half of 83 was a bit of a slog here and there for me, but once the Midnight Express arrive towards the end of the year and the Magnum/Mr. Wrestling II protege angle begins, it's off to the races.
Mid-South for me doesn't really start to show signs of sputtering until summer 85, with the Rock N Roll Express departing for JCP, The Snowman being the nadir of Bill Watt's efforts to "replace" the Junkyard Dog, Ted Dibiase starting to be gone more due to increasing Japan bookings, The Nightmare as North American Champion and the Al Perez/Wendell Cooley tag team push, but even then the rising cult favorite status of Jake The Snake Roberts and The Barbarian with the McNeill Boys Club audience, Butch Reed's push as an NWA World Title contender, the Hacksaw Duggan "blinding" angle, and a very awesome feud between The Fantastics and Bill Dundee/Dutch Mantel (if Watts was so keen on getting the tag belts quickly to a "good looking guys" team it should have been to The Fantastics instead of Perez/Cooley because that feud was damn fun) keep things engaging enough even as other misfires are happening throughout the rest of the card.
And in October 1985, things pick back up and all hell begins breaking loose with Dick Slater and Buzz Sawyer coming to Mid-South, the former with Dark Journey to feud with Butch Reed and the latter with a HEAVY heat angle to jumpstart a feud with Hacksaw Duggan that leads to some WILD house show matches, Lord Humongous becomes a stand-in for an injured/departed Barbarian to feud with Jake Roberts that has some fun twists, and Eddie Gilbert truly begins to find his way as an obnoxious shithead in the "Hot Stuff" persona after a rocky start as "The General" and a weird Tweener period where he flirted with being a heartthrob babyface.
Oh, and on the most recent episode of Mid-South Wrestling that I watched earlier this week, a man with the nickname of "Captain Redneck" turns the below screencap into a prime candidate for one of those "Images That Precede Something Horrific" social media threads:
I am bummed that the run of Mid-South episodes on Peacock is ending soon after this, but thankfully the remaining January/February 1986 episodes of Mid-South after they move out of Irish McNeill's seem to be on Youtube, and the full run of the main weekly UWF TV episodes seems to be on Youtube as well, so I'm planning to keep this running through that transition as well.
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Awesome find brought to light by Rob Viper on Twitter this morning:
Rookie year JOHN CENA working second-from-the-top underneath a lucha minis main event at WPW Anaheim Marketplace parking lot lucha show in 2000, coming down with his tag team partner to Inner Circle's "Bad Boys", taking lucha armdrag spots and doing a "fake an injury" heel spot. Link here timestamped to the match.
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10 hours ago, Ace said:
Sabin's flight was cancelled. So it was Wayne/Oliver/Starboy Charlie vs Kushida/Shelley/Moriarty.
That 6-man main event was incredible, one of the closest vibes to a classic glory days Michinoku Pro/Toryumon 6-man from back in the day that a modern indie match has pulled off in a long time.
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I am at the stage of my Mid-South Wrestling watch project where I hit this episode, and Ric Flair vs Ted Dibiase can never be posted enough for the few on here that have somehow never seen this.
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10 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:
WHAT THEY HAD A REMATCH OF THAT?!?! Is there a link?!
EDIT: The fact that I was unaware of this match a year ago is either me being a complete wastoid or y'all falling off. Shame, shame, know your name.
Sadly no free link yet for the full match, it was two "NJPW Strong" branded shows that aired as PPV's through the NJPW World service (no idea why these shows were extra cash), but below is a highlight reel
though looking back on this, the tag match the night before that was Desperado/Jun Kasai vs Jon Moxley/Homicide may have been wilder, no highlight reel for that floating around though.
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5 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:
HA! I was fooled by the header at the top too. Then I looked around at the crowd and the spot and said "this is a Tennessee storage facility not Korakuen"
Wow, thats on me for reading too fast. I did not catch that your link was for the 2022 match, and NOT the Korakuen Hall rematch from last week, which was also frigging bonkers.
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2 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:
That is straight-up an IWA-MS match with a New Japan lion logo on the mat. Amazing.
And a hot sold out Korakuen Hall crowd to witness it!
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6 hours ago, HarryArchieGus said:
Omega kicking out of Ospreay's One Winged Angel at 1, and the incredible reaction it got live in the arena last night, was a personally defining 'why I love wrestling' moment.
I normally can't stand the modern trend these days on the indies of having an emphatic "fighting spirit" kickout-at-1 spot, but this may have been one of the best versions of that spot ever, as I can buy an adrenaline rush hitting of "he really hit MY finish on ME? THAT MOTHERFUCKER!"
I have loved that both of these matches have been way more HATE-fueled than I was expecting. And last night we somehow got dangerous AJPW 90s-era head-droppy stuff AND Sgt Slaughter/Iron Sheik spots with the Canadian flag standing in for the American flag in the same match!
Aside from the "Don Callis just waltzes back to the ring with impunity" shenanigans - which ultimately I wasn't as angry about by the end of the match since ultimately Will still had to EARN the victory after that went down - this honestly was one of the most perfect wrestling matches for me ever.
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On 6/21/2023 at 2:28 AM, Dolphman 3000 said:
Had no idea Borne was so influential to Mick Foley
Cagematch says they only wrestled one-on-one once, and I'll have to try and track that down
2/19/1995
Cactus Jack vs. Doink The Clown - No Contest (18:46)
PCW - Event @ Packard Music Hall in Warren, Ohio, USALooks like they were on opposite sides of a bunch of tag team matches while both were in Dallas 1989 during the World Class to USWA transition.
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4 hours ago, Sparkleface said:
The Watts purchase absolutely would have made sense if he had just done the syndication network.
I may be misremembering, but I have in my head that a large part of the UWF purchase being such a financial disaster was that the vaunted "UWF syndication network" that was so attractive turned out to consist mostly of zero-income time barters and in a significant numbers of markets, full-on time buys? And that JCP didn't find out about that aspect of the syndication network until after the sale?
As far as Magnum TA is concerned, one alternative timeline scenario I never thought of until now. Let's say Magnum stays healthy and conquers Nikita in I QUIT II at Starrcade 86, and then they have him beat Flair for the NWA World Title in December in Greensboro or Atlanta, but it ends up being a quickie change (as most Flair title losses resulted in back then), is the UWF purchase potentially salvaged by having Magnum be the one that beats One Man Gang for the UWF Championship instead of Bubba, and you build to Magnum vs Flair rematch at Starrcade 87 to unify the belts with Magnum being victorious?
WWE ROSTER PURGE - 9/21/23
in WWE PROGRAMMING
Posted
While I do feel bad for the folks getting released, I definitely got an "ALL THE STARS ARE HERE!" vibe as more and more NXT/Performance Center names got added to the list.
https://youtu.be/R7246Q15uCA?si=PRcltVMQzthU_aFP