Lee

I do post here, but not as much as I used to. You'll never take away my glorious Leicester-esque campaign.

I always called the jobbers "prelims" which I think I picked up from Superstars of Wrestling magazine (Power Slam forerunner) or some such, although I think it was Alan4L who said when he was a kid he called them "weaklings", which is a term I wholeheartedly advocate.

I don't know if this is something I came up with on my own (and it's a borrowed term anyway) or if it was already in parlance, but I've always used "weekend TV" to describe short, one-sided squashes and inconsequential throwaway bouts of questionable quality (i.e. if a match feels like it wouldn't have been out of place on Wrestling Challenge or WCW Pro). I've also fallen into the habit of describing any simple, one-dimensional "larger-than-life" style gimmick as a "Saturday morning cartoon show", in reference to how shows like Superstars in the late 80s/early-mid 90s with their colourful parade of warriors, cackling millionaires, hillbillies, race car drivers, plumbers and garbage men were never out of place as part of kid-friendly TV marathons of Raccoons, Animaniacs, Galaxy High, Real Ghostbusters and Flintstones summer re-runs.

Ah, so you're more of a Davey Richards vs. Davey Richards in a steel Davey Richards fan. Got it.

I believe there's already a Network of UK fans watching the likes of NXT without the aid of Sky Sports...

Followed by the most predictable reactionary comment imaginable. Happy End of Year List season, one and all!

The fuck is "fake MMA"? I mean, as opposed to all this real pro wrestling, obviously.

Not only that, but the Bret feud happened largely because Bret wanted it and they needed someone to put him over on his return. Bret was booked to win the Royal Rumble until Vince Russo opened his mouth on Livewire and caused Vince McMahon to change his mind, and Bret was going into a WrestleMania main event with Shawn Michaels until the fake knee injury forced them to throw Austin back into the mix at the last minute. It was only around that point that they really decided to 'go' with Austin, but yes, revisionist history likes to tell you that KOTR '96 happened and then overnight he was a megastar. Miz might have been my least-favourite thing about that first episode. I mean, I'm sure he was there for the precise description you gave, but I don't want to hear his "WOOOAH!" and "It was crazy!" platitudes presented as if he still is that snot-nosed middle schooler. At least Christian was able to give his "I was watching it as a fan" perspective like an actual adult and talk about WHY something was cool, not just that it WAS cool whilst doing an exaggerated impression of his teenage self.

What always seemed interesting to me was how those early Survivor Series shows tended to be better than most other WWF PPVs of the same timeframe on account of the fact that everyone could split the work and deliver all-action matches, yet very few of the matches actually stand out as being particularly great ('88 20-man tag aside). Plenty of those elimination matches (which I generally love on principal) are all what I'd call good, very few aren't, but I'd be pressed to put more than couple of any kind of Best of list.

I'm reminded of a guy who briefly showed up on the local indy scene for five minutes around 8-9 years ago who wanted to start a DVD/VOD service called Wrestle UK, and since the acronym would be "WUK", he kept going on about the merchandising possibilities of shirts that said "WUK OFF" and "WUK YOU". THAT's the dirt worst I ever heard. Who would even wear something like that? It didn't even make any wuking sense!

Jimmy Rave, BJ Whitmer, Jack Evans and Carnage Crew were all fast-forward material for me in the 2003-2008 ROH days. Worst indy guy I ever saw was probably General Trent Steele but I didn't follow his "home" promotion enough for him to be overbearing, he'd just show up on other local cards or DVDs. Him vs. Playboy Johnny Love was a disaster, but that was mostly down to Love forgetting to kick out, twice. I would go with Championship American Wrestling Khaos for my wrestling fed. My MMA fed would be American Shootfighting Syndicate Just don't book an invasion angle... A promotion started up around a decade ago just an hour up the road from me called Cream of Wrestling. Their logo said "COW - Putting the beef back into wrestling!" And there was me thinking TNA was the dumbest name possible for a promotion...

HONGI!

A true legend of our fair sport returned to American TV tonight: The Great Muta was also there.

How big is the ironic XFL baseball caps market?

Actually, the Real Double J had a follow up single that he debuted with a live performance at the 1997 Slammy Awards. If you'll forgive the cheap plug, here's what I wrote about it in The Complete WWF Video Guide (http://getBook.at/WWFGuide4):

Shield six-mans were usually all really great to the point that a lot of them become kind of interchangeable, but one that stands out for being different is their first PPV match, the TLC match against Kane, Ryback and Daniel Bryan that only happened because John Cena got injured. Absolutely blew me away and highly recommended if you're into those kind of nutty, spot-based matches. Wasn't sure it would hold up but watched it a second time long after that fact and it was still great. I mean, it's Kane and Ryback in a really awesome match, if nothing else that's got to count for something.

Vidic actually came on as an early sub, Phil Jones had to go to hospital for x-rays on his shoulder.

I don't think I've been this sad about the death of a person I never met since, well, since I woke up and read that Randy Savage died. Even at 30 it's tough to accept that your childhood heroes aren't invincible.

So many knee jerk reactions out there but honestly, it wasn't really that great a show. A good one, sure. A very good one at times. Maybe a top 10 'Mania so far, but certainly not a patch on X-Seven. Needs some hindsight and clarity before making a claim like that though. Cesaro winning the battle royal with a bodyslam on Big Show was my favourite thing of the night, but that match sucked until the Fandangoing, got good with the Kofi non-elimination and was pretty great once they got the dead wood out of it. I wish we'd seen the entrances though. I loved how entertaining Hogan, Austin and Rock doing practically nothing was. I did suspect Ric Flair or Shawn Michaels might come out too but I guess if you're going with the big three, that's it. Shame there wasn't a super shot at some point with Bret, Bruno, Dusty, DiBiase, Warrior, Jake, Cena, the Kliq et al in there, but I loved the Hogan/T-Piper/Orndorff callback. And DANNY DAVIS~! Stephanie was a terrific heel all night long but I just can't bare to look at her or listen to her. She's good but, ugh, just go away. Shield six-man would have been better with the Wyatts, but I can't complain about the Old Age Outlaws putting the young guys over like that. I like the Bray Wyatt character but I'm not sold on him in the big matches yet, he's only really been good against Bryan and in Shield six-mans. Cena was his usual self, getting his head smashed against the ring apron then later coming back with headbutts. No words. Undertaker-Lesnar was mulch but fuck, the post-match reaction was astonishing, like Koloff beating Bruno. Not sold on people saying it was a great finish because nobody expected it, but that's a generation of kids growing up on Vince Russo's booking for you. Obviously we don't have the details yet and presumably it was Undertaker's last match, but man does that finish ever make Brock jobbing to Triple H last year look beyond dumb. I figure their hand was forced here but yeah, there were so many better choices to end the Streak. Roman Reigns, Cesaro, Bray, hell, Cena... Davey Richards... so many choices. Oh, and Bryan Danielson won the title in the main event. So that's good. Hoping for a SummerSlam double-header with The Shield vs. Evolution and Bryan vs. Lesnar now.

Our 1997 edition of the Raw Files has just recently become available from Lulu (paperback) and Amazon (Kindle) so here's the spiel: 168 pages! • The formation of the Hart Foundation! • The rise of 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin! • The emergence of The Rock! • The ECW invasion! • The fallout from the Montreal Screwjob! • Classic promos fully transcribed! • Exclusive 'Shotgun Files' mini-book included! Click to order in paperback from Lulu.com! Click to order on Kindle from Amazon! ------ We've also got the 1994 edition available through to Sunday night (March 9th) for just 99c on Kindle, so for anyone who's on the fence or has fallen behind on collecting them, here's your chance to grab one on the cheap and see what all the fuss is about! 102 pages! • The New Generation takes hold! • The madness of Randy Savage! • Tatanka's ill-advised heel turn! • Vince McMahon's obsession with Roseanne Barr! • Kanyon and the Hardy Boyz as jobber talent! • The rise of the 123 Kid! • Bob Backlund crossfacing chickenwinging everyone in sight! Click to order in paperback from Lulu.com! Click to order on Kindle from Amazon!

I actually liked Diddy Kong Racing way more than Mario Kart 64, and I've been a pretty huge fan of the entire MK series since the original. A great action puzzle game that rarely gets mentioned in these things but is still great to play is Wetrix:

Haha, that was the intention! Get the best guys we could to make up two teams. Shawn was split down the middle for time spent as a heel and face during the era the book covers, but the babyface side was pretty top heavy so in with Camp Cornette he went. The back cover has some "co-captains", although the guy who laid it out didn't put the right teams against each other like we intended. I think we had Savage & Perfect vs. Lawler & Austin, 123 Kid & Jannetty vs. Goldust & Mankind, Ahmed & Crush vs. Gonzalez & Borga, and Adam Bomb & Doink vs. Mantaur & Bastion Booger. I'll post it if I can figure out how to make it smaller. Volume 5 is going to have a King of the Ring theme so the back cover will have a tournament bracket based on actual matches in the book, covering the post-Russo/pre-WWE years (1999-2002).

I know he Raven did it in a lot of his matches, including against Jericho at Halloween Havoc for a nearfall, but man was that whip reversal into the Evenflow ever sweet.

Forgot to throw this in here, on special offer until late Sunday and our last special offer for a while (if you're buying any of stuff from Lulu, use the code #decktheshelf to get 30% off): Volume 3 is now on special offer until December 15th, just $1.61 / £0.99 for the Kindle version from Amazon, and it's the last special offer we'll be running for a while. COVERED IN DEPTH: • Every WWF VHS release from July 1993 - June 1996! • The ascension of Steve Austin! • The death and rebirth of The Undertaker! • The return of The Ultimate Warrior! • The rise of the Kliq! • The aborted push of the next American hero! • The collapse of the tag team division! • The Hart brothers tear their family apart! • The inaugural WWF Divas! • The wrestler who was half-man/half-bull! • The worst WrestleMania ever! • IRS STILL chinlocking everyone to sleep! STARRING: • Bret Hart! • Shawn Michaels! • The Undertaker! • Lex Luger! • Owen Hart! • Davey Boy Smith! • Razor Ramon! • Diesel! • Yokozuna! • Mantaur! PLUS: • Full reviews of each and every tape! • Alternative wrestler biographies! • Exclusive artwork by Bob Dahlstrom! • The 37th Annual Volume 3 Awards! • Star ratings for every single match! • Plus much, much more! 346 page paperback edition available from Lulu.com Kindle from Amazon (worldwide link) - http://getBook.at/WWFGuide3

Steen keeping kayfabe even with Steve Austin was hilarious. I also loved the sarcasm in Austin's voice when he pretended to be surprised about Jacques Rougeau not washing his hands after using the bathroom.