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1 hour ago, hammerva said:

I guess the two things I am curious on:

1.  How are they going to butcher the music for some of those promotions.  I mean Grado is going to be so nothing coming up to massively generic music

2. How much of WXW are they going to show?  I mean it will be a funny how much David Starr and death matches they will show on it

Regarding 2: according to https://www.wwe.com/article/evolve-progress-wxw-icw-wwe-network there will be two wXw shows to begin with, Amition 11 (with Timothy Thatcher, WALTER, and Daniel Makabe, as well as Yuki Ishikawa in a non-tournament match) and the women's tournament show Femme Fatal 2019.

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25 minutes ago, paintedbynumbers said:

Classic content to be added monday is WWF Superstars picking up where they left off in 1993.   Not too bad but was hoping for more WCW or some SMW shows. 

You and me both. I was going to ask if anyone knew what the upcoming classic content was going to be, so thank you for that. Personally, more Prime Time or Saturday Night would have been amazing. 1993 Superstars is not exactly the best of times in the terms of entertainment, although we might be getting some of the first KotR PPV qualifying matches (the ones not on RAW, anyway).

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I tried looking for the indie stuff and I can only find it on the front page on the Featured section. I use chromecast and the WWE Network App, so your mileage may vary.

I'm going through the new batch of Superstars (leading up to WM IX) and I remember feeling like it's a foregone conclusion that Tatanka would beat Shawn for the IC-title! Well, I felt the same later on year when Mr.Perfect faced Shawn at SummerSlam, so what do I know?

Also, it's pretty jarring seeing the same matches I watched when I was 16, especially Bob Backlund who was hyped as 43-years old, making his comeback! I'm just about there myself! Jesus H, where did the time go?

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Referring back to the lack of competitive matches on Superstars, it seems '93 is better in that respect than '92 was. There's one of those bad boys on almost every episode since February-ish? Bam Bam vs Earthquake, Big Bossman vs Doink, Yokozuna vs Hacksaw in a knock down challenge and Giant Gonzales vs Virgil, anyone? ...oh, crap Owen vs Bam Bam this week, that should get your attention!

Edited by Shartnado
Good match alert!
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That could be great, but I feel like they will cover the 70s in about 2 minutes and the 80s in 10-15 and will mostly cover the Hart feud, announcing and the heart attack. I want Sam Bass and Quest for the Title stories.

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2 minutes ago, elizium said:

That could be great, but I feel like they will cover the 70s in about 2 minutes and the 80s in 10-15 and will mostly cover the Hart feud, announcing and the heart attack. I want Sam Bass and Quest for the Title stories.

It would be amazing if these Austin interviews had a condensed "Network Version" hitting all the WWE points and an extended cut that digs a little deeper and offered a wider topic range. 

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13 minutes ago, elizium said:

That could be great, but I feel like they will cover the 70s in about 2 minutes and the 80s in 10-15 and will mostly cover the Hart feud, announcing and the heart attack. I want Sam Bass and Quest for the Title stories.

Thats what Lawlers pod is for, I guess. 

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I am aware that the general populance of this board are probably not as interested on the subject of the wrestlers' physiques (I mean not the muscular ones, anyway) as I am (and have been ever since I started watching at 9 years old), but I have some things to say about Jim Powers.

Ok, that probably was enough to drive most of you away, but if someone is still reading, here we go. From '87 to '88 he's neck and neck with his then partner Paul Roma. I thing Survivor Series'88 sees him in peak of his condition. Absolutely jacked. Roma at this point is even more cut, but Powers is bigger.

Then something happens. Slowly, but surely he starts getting a bit more out of shape. By '89 he still looks very good, but obviously not as good as previously. Lack of push leads to lack of motivation, maybe?

By '90 and all the way to '91 he looks nowhere near his peak days. The match in question is not yet on the network, but there is a match against Rude in '90, where even Jesse mentions how he's not in the shape he once was. Roma's physique took a hit at this point as well, but nothing like this.

By early '92 he has gotten back into very good condition with a ripped abdomen for the first time in years. This can be witnessed on the early '92 episodes of Superstars. As the year goes on, you can see him getting less and less ripped and I guess smaller (but maybe not) and by late '92, he looks totally different.

In '93 Superstars, he's obviously off juice, as he's noticeably smaller and lacks the previous definition, despite getting his bodyfat back down. Of course pretty much everyone in WWF shrunk a great deal from late '92 to early '95 for obvious reasons, while Paul Roma was in an insane shape in '93 WCW.

Of course Jim totally changed his physique to that of a powerlifter by '95 as witnessed by his WCW run.

I guess this is only fascinating to me, but if you want to witness what going down cycle and going off cycle does to your physique, that is a pretty good example!

I suppose the moral of the story is not to go ON cycle in the first place, but this was very interesting to see unfold over the years.

Sorry for the long rant.

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4 hours ago, Shartnado said:

I have some things to say about Jim Powers.

Jim Powers is one of my favorite job guys. He always had that jacked up look that got over in WWF, so i was always expecting him to be a big star. Of course, i was like 10 at the time, so what did i know? 

Thank you for your analysis about his physique. when i've rewatched the older stuff from this timeframe, i'd recognized that his physique changes a few times (noticeably the steroid trial and the wcw run) but never made a timeline in my head over it.

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WWE Network put out two gems recently by airing Untold for Sasha/Bayley Brooklyn and the Timeline highlighting the feud between Bret and Owen.  Both were amazing to watch for different reasons.  Sasha and Bayley basically go over their timeline leading up to their Takeover Brooklyn match and it was nice to see that no matter how bad they are as heels (in the best way) the women behind those personas seem like the sweetest people around.  It's also nice to see just how much all this still means to Sasha and considering her sabbatical previously I'm glad that things are coming up Milhouse for her.

As for Bret/Owen it's not exactly treading new ground but it was nice to see their feud encapsulated in a 40 minute piece.  I kind of wish they had it go to '97 when they formed the Hart Foundation but it's not a big deal.  One thing I never saw before was a promo with Bret and Owen together again in '94.  If you didn't know better it seemed like Owen was happy to be back with  Bret.  But the words Owen chose was a great piece of foreshadowing for the turn at the Rumble.  And the best part is that they ended saying while Bret won the battle Owen won the war.  Considering how they presented things they had a helluva case for that.

Edited by NikoBaltimore
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On 8/24/2020 at 5:32 PM, twiztor said:

Jim Powers is one of my favorite job guys. He always had that jacked up look that got over in WWF, so i was always expecting him to be a big star. Of course, i was like 10 at the time, so what did i know? 

Thank you for your analysis about his physique. when i've rewatched the older stuff from this timeframe, i'd recognized that his physique changes a few times (noticeably the steroid trial and the wcw run) but never made a timeline in my head over it.

I dug up the Rude vs Powers match on 90's episode of Superstars. Apparently, Jesse did NOT critique Powers' physique, as I said, but I figured out the explanation for that.

When I saw the said match back in the day, my mom was also in the room and as I mentioned to her that Powers is gaining weight, she replied that "yes, they said that " , and I thought she was talking about the commentary  (I thought I had missed it). But as I rewatched the match it occurred to me that she was not talking about the commentary, she was referring to Rude's pre-match spiel. So she thought the "fat,  out-of-shape..." was referring to the opponent, not the audience.

Mystery solved. Sorry for giving false information about Jesse bodyshaming someone on air. That didn't happen.

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On 8/24/2020 at 6:24 PM, NikoBaltimore said:

WWE Network put out two gems recently by airing Untold for Sasha/Bayley Brooklyn and the Timeline highlighting the feud between Bret and Owen.  Both were amazing to watch for different reasons.  Sasha and Bayley basically go over their timeline leading up to their Takeover Brooklyn match and it was nice to see that no matter how bad they are as heels (in the best way) the women behind those personas seem like the sweetest people around.  It's also nice to see just how much all this still means to Sasha and considering her sabbatical previously I'm glad that things are coming up Milhouse for her.

As for Bret/Owen it's not exactly treading new ground but it was nice to see their feud encapsulated in a 40 minute piece.  I kind of wish they had it go to '97 when they formed the Hart Foundation but it's not a big deal.  One thing I never saw before was a promo with Bret and Owen together again in '94.  If you didn't know better it seemed like Owen was happy to be back with  Bret.  But the words Owen chose was a great piece of foreshadowing for the turn at the Rumble.  And the best part is that they ended saying while Bret won the battle Owen won the war.  Considering how they presented things they had a helluva case for that.

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Just finished WWE Untold: Bayley and Sasha Take Over: Brooklyn. It's a great companion piece marking the five year anniversary of the most important WWE Women's match ever. I got choked up watching it. I particularly enjoyed the insights into their entrances, the match itself and after it. A brilliant ***** match. I will say I'm in the minority preferring the Iron Man rematch at NXT TakeOver: Respect. I gave that the full five as well. 2015 was Sasha's year, amazing to think she was only 23. Thank you, Bayley and Sasha Banks.

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Finished the new batch of '93 Superstars today and saw a few interesting things.

I totally spaced out on who did Tatanka beat to qualify into the King of the Ring tournament. Yeah, it was Giant Gonzalez and it was a super weak shove  (just barely at that) the ref for the DQ. I would have liked to see more of that match, actually.

Seeing Crush vs Michaels in another qualifier was odd, but made plenty of sense in a kayfabe matchmaking sense. You would think that the booking committee would just jump at the chance to possibly have Crush vs Doink or Perfect vs Michaels in the opening round. Alas, the double count out eliminated both men. Hence the next opportunity went to Mr Hughes and Kamala. I guess a time limit draw is different, since Doink and Perfect had three opportunities to find a winner in their matches.

Smoking Gunns made their debut and finished the match with a super swank backdrop into a sitout powerbomb! I saw Midnight Express do this and people were asking why isn't this move done more frequently these days? Yeah, seriously! That was awesome!

Adam Bomb also made his debut. A big, tall, agile monster doing really cool stuff for his size and time period. How in the hell did he not get over neither as a heel NOR a babyface, until the Wrath -days in late '98? Seems odd to me.

I guess that was it for now.

Edited by Shartnado
grammar, as usual
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11 hours ago, Shartnado said:

Smoking Gunns made their debut and finished the match with a super swank backdrop into a sitout powerbomb! I saw Midnight Express do this and people were asking why isn't this move done more frequently these days? Yeah, seriously! That was awesome!

Their finisher at the time was actually a backdrop into a piledriver, it was just taken poorly. That said Meng and the Barbarian used a backdrop into a powerbomb, just not a sitout powerbomb.

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That is such an outstanding tag team move it should be used by somebody even today. Even the Gunns didn't use it all that much, since this was the first time I ever saw them use it. I've seen a picture of it before in a magazine, so I knew backdrop into a something was part of their repertoire. Gunns as babyfaces did use a bunch of nice tag team moves, but that pretty much disappeared once they turned heel.

I'm not sure if Wrath and Mortis did something like that too, or was it Meng and Barbarian doing it to Mortis that I recall?

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Wrath and Mortis did a neckbreaker/ sitout powerbomb combo, so nevermind, but that was really cool too. Fullers using backdrop-powerbomb (or piledriver?) in the 70's must have been quite groundbreaking for the time. Although, I guess absolutely nothing is all that groundbreaking, as Matt D shows us tim and time again that pretty much everything was already done in the 50's.

Going back to Jim Powers for a little bit, I watched more '87 Prime Time to see the beginning of Young Stallions and their short-lived push. Matches were ok and all, but I watched them mostly to try and compare Powers and Roma physique-wise some more.

Roma looked absolutely magnificent already at this point. Powers has a wider upper back, but Roma beats him in thickness. On the front, Roma has Powers beat in pretty much everything. Not by a huge margin, mind you, but it's still noticeable. I'm pretty sure Powers did improve from '87 to '88, where as Roma, I can't see where he could have improved his physique from this condition?

Makes me wonder how it must have felt for Powers to constantly share the camera time with someone who is just that much more jacked and ripped than he is? Given how aesthetics are so important in pro wrestling and people usually have big egoes, I can't imagine it feeling good. If it ever happened to me, I know I'd hate it. I have read that the two didn't really like each other, so there might be something there.

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