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I always catch myself thinking about the "Lost Generation" of US pro-wrestlers who existed after the demise of WCW/ECW and before the NXT talent raids. Like, I don't think we realized what was happening during those 18 years of WWE dominance and TNA futility. I don't think we realized it was a period in wrestling history when things were not the way they were supposed to be. Even (especially?) die-hard fans were so pessimistic about the whole thing that we just assumed wrestling wasn't ever going to be cool again, the UFC took all the legitimacy away, Benoit took away all the joy, the demise of WCW took away all the creativity, and somehow our favorite thing deserved to be portrayed to the masses as a largely stupid and childish form of entertainment. That's why I think it's really important to remember and celebrate the generation of wrestlers who peaked in that era and never got to make the millions of dollars & fans that they would have in any other. Off the top of my head, Homicide, Nigel McGuinness, and Chris Hero are the big-name indy superstars that come to mind but after that first tier comes a bunch of bigger what-ifs. Alex Shelley, Super Dragon, Eddie Edwards, maybe not headcases like Low Ki and Davey Richards. Really entertaining guys who would have gotten over as midcard acts, like a hypothetical 2002 ECW run with the Spanish Announce Team, or 2009 WCW running an odd CHIKARA tag in the first hour of Nitro. Who's to say an edgy rival doesn't counter-program the Cena era and doesn't do a Gage-esque short run with a deathmatch guy? I think the rawest deals went to the "sports entertainment" type guys who worked a real solid style but weren't flashy enough to win over spotmark indy fans, i.e. BJ Whitmer, Adam Pearce, Xavier, etc. Or European guys like Jody Fleisch who would have, at the very least, been able to garner a decent following with just a little US TV exposure or bigger US indies that could afford to fly them in. Or, here's a shocker, every woman who was in that first wave of SHIMMER talent - it is bullshit that people like Lacey or LuFisto never even had a chance to be famous. A majority of the PWG founders + early regulars had to eventually say "fuck it" and fall back on their day jobs, and I'm pretty certain time has already dimmed the glory of their deeds. Not to mention global talent like the cursed 3rd Generation of the NJPW dojo, the heavyweights that failed to inherent the throne of NOAH, and the dozens of luchadores who would have done a better job with the Sin Cara gimmick than Mistico. I guess what I'm saying is, this board was built on the discussion of monopoly-era indies and international wrestling so talking about these guys is second nature to a lot of us. But the rest of the wrestling fandom is pretty darn clueless. Don't allow these past decades to become the Dark Ages. Tell the children all your tales of B-Boy, "The Turkish Delight" Murat Bosporus, and Osamu Nishimura, or we will live in a world that will forget them.

Fucking hell Tommy Dreamer why don't you try to be the Innovator of Silence from now on.

So I had a ticket to sell because my friend couldn't go and I found a buyer. I sold it through stubhub and had no idea who bought but I knew when I got to the show, I'll be seated next to that person. I get to the show and for the whole night, that seat is empty. I thought maybe that person missed the show too. I get an email last night saying "the ticket was put to good use" and it's a picture of the fan dressed up as Dusty Rhodes! That guy was over big time everyone last night.

I found his 30 for 30 interesting because they allow him to tell some of the public nudity stories like they’re hilarious anecdotes, but the animated re-enactments make it seem pathetic and sad. Ric’s responsible for his own dumbass decisions, but it’s troubling how much Richard Fliehr was enabled and encouraged by an entire industry of people that needed him to be Ric Flair in real life. It wasn’t just promoters protecting an asset. He was a sexually aggressive problem drinker being egged on by younger wrestlers who treated partying with him like getting a Ribera jacket.

Wow. Tommy Dreamer. You may never want to speak to a camera or microphone again.

Really late, so just some random ass shit I like Hirsch because she's only about a foot taller than my six year old daughter. JR calling FTR "RTF" was pretty funny. Ready To Fuck, I guess? TK just mad flexin' on ya as the announce crew lays out next week's shows. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Like an 80s infomercial. Two days after "PPV Quality Raw." I give up trying to worry about whether Cody is a heel who thinks he's a face or is just IRL a big lunkhead who doesn't 100% understand pro wrestling, but having another person distract your rival so you can hit him from behind is not a face move. Good to see Cody back in time to soak up that Latin American Heritage Month shine, though ? Men of the Year and all the MMA meatheads in the ring needed to dial back their "WE'RE HEEEEELS" mugging about 75% Shit, did they say "shit" enough on this show or what? Shit. Does Windham Rotunda show up in two weeks to put the Dark Order back together, and then fight with Adam Page for their souls down the line? I'm fine with Gunn Club as top the top heel faction on the Youtube shows. Don Callis' heel stooging is A++++++++ and I love it Punk with some great lines. "Lambert is like Bobby Heenan plus a lot of Affliction." "Last time I saw two well dressed people fighting like this was a family reunion." Tony: You can be friends with a girl! Punk: We'll talk about that later. Really digging the logic of Andrade firing Chavo. Fun little angle. I love Hobbs' "extra in a Salt n Pepa video" gear.

Super stoked to see two talented "what happened to that guy?" indy dudes getting a shot on Dark: Elevation. Santana & Ortiz are up against former Chris Hero protege & elbow lunatic JT DUNN and a man currently going by the name of Avery Good, which is a great stealth pun on his former name of A Very Good Professional Wrestler. You might remember him as CHIKARA standout, the Old-Timey King of Swing DASHER HATFIELD. I hope they get a decent amount of time.

There shall be no more Johnny Gargano slander in this thread. Failure to comply will be met with severe consequences.

Vince ain't your average boss. He helped cover-up a murder. A little cock twirling ain't no big thing to him.

I can not wait for next week. Give me full on ROH style dickhead Bryan Danielson, give me fish hooks and spitting in peoples mouth, “I have til FIVE referee”, give me elbows to the head, surfboardin and cattle mutilatin’ Bryan Danielson.

I indeed went to be at halftime I am old enough to realize that if I stayed awake - I would be miserable and infuriated and the next day would be shit because I didn't/couldn't sleep That ending shows exactly why I did. Now I am miserable and infuriated but I got a decent 7 hours.

"Most charismatic guy in Undisputed Era" has to be the textbook definition of damning with faint praise.

The movie or the device? Unfortunately I was into high school already when Hook: the Movie came out and of course, being a twat I was like "NOOO. That's a BABY MOVIE. I'm A MAN!!!!!! I want boobs and and/or Jackie Chan ONLY!!!!" Which was dumb. But also means I have no nostalgic connection with it, and I don't think I ever did see it. Now, the device. Useful as fuck. For, like, almost grabbing things, but only if they're below you? Can't be beat.

Around that time they did the same with just about everyone they repackaged, mention their "real"/former name on the first appearance and then the nickname became their ring name. Curt Hennig/Mr Perfect, Davey Boy Smith/British Bulldog, Kerry Von Erich/Texas Tornado, Ricky Steamboat/The Dragon. They didn't do it with Smash/Repo Man I would imagine because it was two complete gimmick characters, but also they never refenced Hawaiian Crush as the former Demolition Crush despite him using the same name so it might have also been because of the lawsuit over the Demolition name and gimmick. I've never seen Barry Windham's debut as the Widowmaker which is in this this timeframe so I don't know if they acknowledged him as Barry Windham, former 2 time tag champ, son of Blackjack Mulligan etc. He did it at WM6 as well, asking Gorilla if he knew "Perfect's old man, the Ax". It confused me as a new fan of American wrestling and I thought Demolition Ax was Mr Perfect's father for quite a while.

I can't blame Terri for this. If every woman goes to court for every time some dude harrasses them, our entire justice system would collapse because we don't have enough lawyers, judges, courtrooms, etc. Seriously, I'm not a woman, but I have enough close female friends to know that this shit happens to almost all of them fairly regularly. It's like racism. I'm not saying every time someone claims racism, that it is credible, but as a black person I know that I don't have nearly enough free time to file some sort of complaint every time it comes up. I have no idea how or why anyone on earth would think that a 50+ year old man trying to force a woman to touch his spinning penis is funny, especially after you sober up and have time to think about it for more than .1 second. Tommy Dreamer thinking it's all OK roughly 20 years later is fucking infuriating. You know the craziest part of this entire thing is to me? The fact that not only was their boss on the plane, but the boss' wife was on the plane, and they did all this bullshit any way. Can you imagine whipping your dick out on a plane with your boss?

During KotR 93, Bret and Perfect have an argument about who has the tougher dad after both advance in the tournament. That's basically the crux of their match because it's a goddamn tournament and you don't have storylines attached to every match. You just come up with them on the fly.

He looked ROUGH by 1991. So somebody probably had to dress him by that time and point him in the direction of gorilla to head out to the ring. Don't do drugs, kids.

I figure Dreamer's next appearance will be on a podcast with Bully Ray and Tyrus complaining about how the liberals are ruining wrestling

Apparently they don't like his double ponytail either

It is kind of funny that RVD was one the most reasonable one in this piece and yet his persona right now is this pot guy having crazy sex parties with all of his "friends". But at least RVD knows that his world isn't the real world. Things most wrestlers haven't figured out

I actually caught this episode on Youtube and have to agree it was way worse than it has been made out to be in the past. This was "'80s rockstars at their darkest" type shit, but in 2002. Drugs, depression, sexual harassment, general shit-headery. Tommy Dreamer is a 50 year old man who's been in the business for over 2 decades and is still the biggest mark going for his hero-worship defence of Flair in this episode. Sean Waltman and RVD went up big time though.

So… given Dark Side of the Ring, we’re all in agreement that Flair isn’t the guy for Andrade and that Khan should open the Forbidden Door to MLW to get Dario Cueto, right?

Chioda came off like the dork whom the cool kids let hang out with them every so often and goes out of his way to kiss their asses because he thinks he gets to be "one of the boys".

I hate that argument. Just ask the Michael Jackson accusers or Martha Hart. It sucks and it doesn't bring justice, but eventually, you realize that the money is all you're going to get. For fuck's sake, Heidi Doyle herself said as much right on the show. As @Casey mentioned, the Bucks and Kanyon were close when the Bucks were just starting out. Kanyon actually worked some of their backyard shows. There's definitely some weird moral relativism going on in wrestling. Christ, even Terri said something like, "if I went to court every time I was harassed, I'd be in court my whole life." After all that shit, she was essentially agreeing with the "boys will be boys" crowd. Jesus. "I wouldn't say he was trying to rape somebody." Dreamer is a fucking idiot. Ric Flair forced a woman to touch his dick. That is sexual assault. Full stop.

I think you can kind of see RVD as the interview happens realizing pretty clearly 'oh this is actually too fucked for real life' and not changing how he spoke but giving that context, Dreamer was abysmal and you would almos think 'didn't he have anyone to tell him to shut up?'

So back in the day, was Kurt not good enough to live up to the legacy of Larry Henning, and that's why he was first name Mister, last name Perfect?

Please don't encourage Pete

That sounds totally on brand for WWE.

I doubt there's gonna be any major repercussions to anyone over this doc, to be honest. All of this was public knowledge and long lampooned in both books and WWE sponsored media for years. WWE definitely won't care. Would Impact fire Dreamer? I doubt it. AEW seems to be a little more sensitive to Twitter outrage but they also used Mike Tyson ya know so who can say. Not defending any of the comments but I do wonder if these guys were aware how traumatized the flight attendants were? If they were just being asked about some crazy plane trip and decided to shoot the shit about the boys being the boys and didn't realize how fucked it sounds to people on the outside of the industry then it gives some context to their attitude. Of course, it shows how toxic and poisonous the wrestling industry is but the hundreds of dead people also showed us that a long time ago.

Be sure not to mention NXT when and if you call him!

A lot of millennials dealt with quarter life crises by becoming rockabilly tradespeople. I see it in barbering a lot. For example:

S&M ring gear aside, the way they dress outside of the ring perfectly lines up with most new butchers I've seen. Hipsters isn't the right word for them, but it's the only thing that comes to mind. It's another one of those jobs that younger people have started moving back to and it's lots of people with beards or fancy mustaches, large gauge rings, sleeves of tats, suspenders, etc.

This isn't the only New York show they'll ever run. And Penta and Fenix only won the belts two weeks ago, and haven't defended them once yet. Give them a chance to have an actual title reign for a bit.

My interpretation was that Butcher and Blade were (are?) mercenaries with a butcher shop being the 'front' business where you go to contact them. So while they do actual butcher work, its the way they launder the money from the illicit business. The characters are a little muddy in that they have added in S&M apparel (especially Blade and Bunny) and the association with the Hardy Family which its unclear if Matt is paying them or vice versa like how he is explicitly taking money from Private Party.

Cage was also close to Kanyon and Kanyon was one of his favorites, hence Cage doing the "WHO BETTA" thing as a tribute to Kanyon.

The Young Bucks were supposedly one of the few people Kanyon came out to in private before he went public with his sexuality, and in their book they talk about him a little. How they booked him in their (to steal a EWR bit) "backyard to small" indie promotion, and he also apparently admitted to Matt Jackson that he was attracted to them but Matt told Kanyon that he was "exclusive to vagina".

After looking at the Insurrexion PPV card I have a big question: Undertaker was headlining with HHH on that show. So Undertaker, renowned locker room leader, wasn't called upon by JR to try and help calm down these motherfuckers? Or was he knee deep in it too?

If he can get to headline Rampage before the year is out, that would be great, assuming any injuries are healed and he's completely ready to go

Modesto Aledo vs Bob Remy For all the big crazy spots we've seen, this little stuff still might be my favorite. He can't get out of the hold so he positions his own foot in a way that will give him the necessary leverage. Look, I haven't seen every match from the guys who really take it to the mat these days, but I've seen a few, and I feel like what we get more are big, sweeping ideas and counters and limb targeting. I wish they'd work these really fine bits of technique into their act. Which isn't to say I also don't love this stuff too. Aledo was so good in there. The trip is great. I love the speed on the sunset flip. I love the awkward angles that make everything seem more organic.

He’s 1992 Tito Santana. He’s shined up with a slightly new gimmick and in front of the right crowd could have a big moment or win and be credible, but he’s there to put over new heels.

am i doing this right

RVD talking about slipping stuff in peoples' drinks and basically suggesting it lead to rape definitely came off as him realizing and admitting something that was status quo among the boys was actually fucked up and wrong. Flair always came off as unrepentant because he was probably used to never being told no and always getting his way (or being too out of it to realize he couldn't always do that). Terri's comments about being told to "just no sell it" were really disheartening and made you think about all the inappropriate behavior that just had to be shrugged off by a lot of people. I actually thought JR came off as a bit of a yes man who most likely knew what was going on but tried to cover his ass and claim ignorance.

Carson Wentz doing his Unvaccinated Inspector Clouseau every week is going to be spectacular TV.

Brian Cage uses the Flatliner, and Kanyon was likely referenced on commentary, because he was one of the many who trained Brian Cage.

Oh yeah, that reminds me of my favorite line from the night. JR: "Some call him a blister on the ass of life" (referencing MJF) CM Punk: "Wow, ho oh, we got it like that here on TNT?"

Disappointed Regals kid isnt named or Ernie Morcambe or Eric Wise ….

If only Foley hadn't objected to "Mason the Mutilator"! I can just hear Vince's pronounciation in my head: "MEWWWWWW-tee-lay-TORRRRRRRRR"

The first time someone told me about drag races I very naively thought they were super into drag racing with like, ya know, cars. They were telling me that there was even an Australian scene and I was thinking, well duh, Mad Max. I'm not very smart...