Leaderboard

Another year has gone by and this is still the greatest WM go home Raw final shot

Stuff that leaps to mind from the old magazines in no particular order: The Crockett-era Road Warriors being ranked the #1 team in the world in PWI forever despite not holding a title Magazines running their own storylines wherein they hand-wring over giving or taking away World Title recognition Wrestling Superstars magazine's Dream Matches. Hogan vs Tyson! WWF vs NWA in a Battle of the Network Stars style competition! A tag tournaemnt where the regular teams are mixed up and the final was Eaton/Morton vs Lane/Gibson! Eddie Ellner's heel act. Dr. Sydney M. Basil Second tier mag (Wrestling Eye? Main Event?) weirdness, like a story about how HTM made a deal with the spirits of the Mississippi Delta so he could keep the IC title. Ads for Champions of the Galaxy wrestling card game. Yeah, I bought that. General anti-Hogan sentiment, in all their kayfabe stories, after Vince cut the Apter mags off

There's a Starman heading to the ring He used to be a wrestler Entertainment's now his thing

Needs to stop hunting around the Texas Capitol.

The big Apter mag up and comer for my era of reading them definitely has to be Reckless Youth.

In general, the last thing anyone ever needs is an "I need everyone to know I do not care about this thing" post. But it's significant. There isn't a single match on the card I care about seeing live. Even the stuff that should be sort of interesting like Becky vs Bianca feels lame because we already had Bianca get her big moment last year and there's a huge difference between, let's say Austin's 98-99 story arc of getting screwed and working to get the belt back and Bianca's. Usually, I like to see at least some of the show while either posting or just hateposting on PWO and making a bunch of frustrated one-liners. I know that it being over two nights was a huge improvement last year but this year it somehow just seems like double the grief. Forget "live." I don't want to see most of this stuff at all, ever, even if some of the matches (but not many) might be technically good. I'll watch the Cody arrival on social media. I guess my point is, in part, that if you told me a year ago that I'd be closely following AEW's product and not even interested in following along for Mania, I would have been very dubious. What a weird place we've ended up in 2022.

You are darn tootin' that I made it out to Mos Burger before work today to try out those insane-looking Kazuchika Okada co-designed "nikuniku" burgers, only available on March, April, and May 29th. The staff seemed pretty delighted to have two big gaijin come in and specifically ask for those monstrosities. I started with the spicy nikuniku, which had burger patties for the bun, then layers of lettuce, sweet Korean style BBQ rib meat (カルビ), lettuce, jalapenos, grilled chicken thigh, and lettuce. Pretty danged tasty! There were a lot of sliced jalapenos, but they were extremely mild. My mouth did not burn. It was surprisingly somehow not heavy eating and I also ate a nikunikuniku burger which had more カルビ but no jalapenos. My friend Juan (of Jaun and Yoko of The Lion Marks website, a very nice guy who has ties to New Japan gaijin staff like Chris Charleton and Kevin Kelly and was the perfect dude to enjoy Okada burgers with) had the "kinnikunikuniku burger" which has cabbage and a soy patty. I'll try to get one of those a month from now. Anyway, even two of those monsters didn't sit all that heavily in my stomach. They came in at around 525 calories each, a ridiculous total of 75 grams of protein for the duo I consumed. They came in a wax paper holder, which is good because they were messy eating. 100 percent definitely worth having gone (slightly) out of my way for. Very glad I got to try them!

Anyone follow DDT enough to tell me how much Deathmatch Judo is out there? I need it all

On the topic of Sting doubles, I'm just sad we never got Stang.

PWI still has me convinced that Al Perez and Wildcat Wendall Cooley are going to be among the stars of the 90s.

One of the few things in this grim version of reality that makes RAF giddy is old (circa 1966-1985 preferably) wrestling magazines. i love 'em. Recently I was gifted a few, and also won a shockingly reasonable eBay auction (I refuse to pay more than $3@): I am in heaven. I just discovered that a really good time frame for my reading enjoyment is that 3 month publishing delay between Hulk Hogan returning to the AWA from Japan and quickly jumping to the WWF - so say, an Inside Wrestling with a cover date of March '84 is still reporting on how HH is going to unseat Bockwinkel because The Fans Demand It, but meanwhile the face, future, direction and reality of pro wrestling has changed forever. It's like a document for an alternate universe. The mags often have an element of innocence to them, in maintaining the kay fabes, but this is almost poignant. Damn, I love these things - now I am going to read "Johnny Powers - Is His Middle Name Violence?" and "The Night The Sheik Burned A Young REFEREE!!!". I am always learning...

Dark was good tonight but, according to cagematch.net, it was recorded on December 28th, 2021. The best match was Frankie Kazarian vs Kaun because Kazarian is so good and Kaun can supply the offense for Kazarian to sell. Tay Conti and Shalonce Royal was the second best because Royal is so weird and great and took Conti's eventual assbeating like a queen. Kiera Hogan and Nyla Rose was the third best match since Nyla gave her a ton. Emi Sakura did the Freddie Mercury stuff, which was awesome. AEW WAS AWESOME THREE AND HALF MONTHS AGO!

️️️️️

I loved that magazine. The highlights were Terry Funk winning one of the swimming competitions by punching someone while underwater, The Road Warriors destroying everyone in the weightlifting competition, Macho Man leading the WWF to victory in softball and the final obstacle course race between Flair and Hogan with Flair winning. And don't forget about when PWI broke down the original fake Sting plot where the Horsemen had Barry Windham impersonate Sting so that Sid could win the title. They talked about how they bribed Sting's tailor who was broke into making Windham copies of Sting's tights, Windham being upset at JJ for telling him to lose some flab in order to better look like Sting and I quote, "one of Flair's numerous girlfriends in the Atlanta area was enlisted to apply Sting's face paint to Windham."

He sneezed.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2021655333/ Beau was interviewed by the Library of Congress about wrestling culture in Appalachia.

Good lord, you ARE old.

That’s an amazing card from March 1979; includes involvement from WWWF, AWA and Crockett.

That was as fun a Monday evening program as I can remember. I really admire this company's s'uh'low push of Abadon. Ppl were ready for her ascent, at least, by the Baker bout, but they've wisely let her find her way. And she will no doubt, one day, reap the benefits of this. So too the Acclaimed. I felt a bit of the butterflies at that intro in Austin. (Great crowd there @JLowe!) They're gonna be fucking huge! Getting Caster ready for that spot, rather than shoving him along, is quietly brilliant (at least compared to how the clumsy competition have been doing it for far too long). These kind of small things are what make TK a truly intuitive booker-man. Moriarty too, he's good but he's getting more and more ready, and looking like he's gonna be a major player one day. Dug seeing him here with Serpentico. SO too the Penta squash. Rocky Romero has been a lot more fun in the US than I remember him being in more recent (pre-pandy) NJPW (dug this and last week's Impact battle with Edwards). QT's talents are too often overlooked by the haters. Speaking of Hayters - Jamie looked fantastic as usual. Now that's a finisher - nothing silly, just bring 'em down right on their goddamned heads. There is nobody on this roster I want to see strapped with gold more than she. Also, @DEANknows the score on Brandon Cutler, and I think everyone else either does too or is learning. That guy is fantastic! Frankie rules too. Fun show. Also, Excalibur is a much stronger commentary lead for Sexual Chocolate and Son-of-a-bitch-Paul Wight. But no disrespect to (the excellent modern day Mean Gene) Schiavone, if I have one request here, as always, it's where r the promo reps? With or without Skeevone, we need to be regularly getting to the bottom of some of these undercard folks motivations and beefs. And shout out to the excellent Rache Chanel! Can we get her a contract already? But Instead of 'Rache Chanel Is All Elite' can it maybe be 'Rache Chanel is Honor-able'?

Reckless Youth was the Al Perez/Wendell Cooley of the 90s in that respect.

Semi-related, they absolutely ran a story about how Ted was afraid of dying in the ring because that's how his dad went. Speaking of action figure feds and tying in to the Sting/Windham discussion with @cwoy2j...I ran the Halloween Havoc storyline but my twist was, coming out of it, dressing as Sting drove Windham crazy and he kept working as Evil Surfer Sting. I was a weird kid.

PWI would always go to bat for the WWF having Intercontinental Tag-Team titles. As a kid I was into that idea and thought it was so logical. I mean, the NWA had a bunch of tag-teams and had a secondary title for the other guys to fight over. Why wouldn't the WWF do the same?

Is anyone else having trouble loading this thread? I’m only seeing like a dozen posts about the go-home Raw for Wrestlemania. Hmm.

In the pages of PWI Lex Luger/Lugar seemed like the most unstoppable force in wrestling. The hindsight opinions on Luger's drawing and in ring ability, no matter how accurate, can never erase the power and glory the Apter mag words/photographs suggested of this young stallion. Powers, Roma, Hercules puns initially unintended. The cover that comes to mind when I think of the Apters is the 'Who is the Best in the UWF?' We didn't get UWF in rural Ontario, but this feature unleashed the imagination. Within a year I was awfully perplexed by the image of Ted Dibiase on said cover versus the man I was seeing on weekly 'Maple Leaf Wrestling (our recut version of 'Superstars of Wrestling')'. Where did all that money come from I would wonder aloud?

Abadon is getting better in the ring.

meanwhile in the replies, Bagwell tweeting at Scotty Riggs about a reunion

No offense to Shelton, but that is just not close enough. On another note, I've mainlined a bunch of Portland and '92 WCW SN and now I think that most free TV matches should be two-out-of-three falls. They offer so many variations that allow for finer gradations between main eventers, upper midcarders, midcarders who are on their way up, career midcarders, and jobbers.

I was so inspired by this that I did a quick edit putting the theme in Scarface.

Barry Windham was the GOAT Galoob figure since he was about the only one posed like he was actually doing a move.

I see no reason to doubt that. Perez was silky smooth. Sounds like the industry soiled his spirit (tho, I don't know any facts of the matter). Pro Wrestling Plus here in Canada would feature Continental Wrestling from time to time. My pals and I all thought we were pretty fuckin cool when we'd list the somewhat obscure (regionally) Wildcat as one of our favorite wrestlers. Like knowing a really cool band that nobody had heard of (outside of NY and pre-internet) like ESG.

Briscoes cutting promos in a gazebo you know they built themselves while Mark sucks down what I hope is a tub of Cool Whip.

I wish they'd just release it on N64. That's the only console I own.

Hell yeah, man. I don't know if it was a matter of Luger just understanding the power of magazine covers and made himself available to Apter whenever he could, or Apter understanding the power of a muscular dude on the cover to sell magazines. Probably somewhere in the middle. Luger was anointed the next Hogan so fast and was all over those mags. I had that issue of PWI. Really, if you look at DiBiase's face, he's pretty nonchalant about grabbing that trophy. Like his heart's not into it. Like....he's maybe already filthy rich, doesn't need that thing, but is just half heartedly playing along!

Love how not only is Mark just randomly eating in his promos for no real reason but eating stuff that clearly makes it even harder for him to be understood. "Worried about cementing their legacy. Bitch I cement driveways and get paid for that shit" ?

I love the FTR theme because it sounds exactly like the kind of opening music that a regional promotion would have had during their opening credits on ESPN, which matches their whole vibe including the awesome font on their tights.

Abadon looked really good in her match, Penta worked a great squash, and Jamie hit the brainbuster. Really, all I needed was the brainbuster for this to be a good episode.

"LA Knight" (Come on, that's fucking Eli Drake) and MSK versus Imperium was good. Not enough GUNTHER beating the fuck out of people, but it was good. Ivy Nile is teeny. Tiffany Stratton is really good for someone who is having her EIGHTH match. Ivy Nile looks good for someone who is having her 16th match. Sarray has had 632 matches. Let's get these kids together. The bro country guys who are accompanied by Fallon Henley looked fine against Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde. Mendoza and Wilde were heels but wrestled it like faces. It was perfectly fine. Wagner and Heyward I don't remember ever seeing before. That was some WWE wrestling they did. So it was fine. I await their IMPACT! debuts in two years. (Yeah, that was hateful.) Joe Gacy and Draco Anthony was good. Everything on this show is good. Nothing is great. It's like 70s WWWF where they didn't want too much heat in matches because they were afraid of riots. Oh man, reading cagematch.net, I didn;t realize that Nikkita Lyons was a WOW alumni. She was trained by Selena Majors. That's awesome. Oh geez, a fucking triple threat match. So stupid. Roderick Strong laid it in, at least. That was a lot of goofy spots. I blame Shane Douglas, Terry Funk and Sabu. (I AM PEE PAW!)

Uh oh.

Acclaimed dropping ED EDD AND EDDY rhymes in the double-2 like it ain't no thing.

I just ordered the first PPV I've bought since WCW. - PEE PAW DEAN.

That's a damned Supercard if I ever saw one. Also, down there in the fine print, I found The Missing Link.

I'm perfectly fine with this. I can understand why they don't want it for the regular season with the timing of having so many games, extra minutes for players in the middle of a grueling season, etc. but the playoffs deserve a special accommodation. Everyone is going to cite the Bills/Chiefs game but the same thing happened with Chiefs/Patriots and Patriots/Falcons in recent memory, it was a few years coming and should have changed after one of those games.

Always a good time to post Bo Jackson ending Boz's credibility as a football player

I remember PWI did run a story creating a backstory for how Dibiase became the Million Dollar Man. He used an inheritance from one of his family members dying. I can't remember if they explicitly said it was from his dad dying in the ring but I think they shied away from that and just said it was his uncle or something like that. They tied that into his heel run in the UWF too.

Yeah, me too.

Flair and Windham in a footrace, pummeling each other with the batons! I absolutely remember the Sting/Windham story. You know your promotion is having issues when a magazine is writing better storylines and explanations for your angles than you can.

Oh man, stay for the end.

a WWE T-shirt worthy of being sold in a place that sells the T-shirts that Spencer Gifts won’t sell.