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Playboy Buddy Rose Danielson and in order from left to right

I'll field this one... short answer, it was opening weekend, it's New York, and it was an art house theater on the Upper East Side. Everyone sees everything here. Especially when Janet Maslin from the NY Times tells people it's good: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/film/100998happiness-film-review.html Fuck those stuffed shirts, that movie was awesome.

Hopefully no one in the room with him disagreed; that’s a quick way to get him pissing his pants and throwing weak strikes at them for hurting his feelings.

I read parts of that DEAN review to my wife - she thought it was especially awesome that he recognized the feminist dynamics of brutal graps shit.

They missed an opportunity to have this in a hell in a cell and rebrand it as a faraday cage for the match.

This is a fun one. William Regal, Randy Savage, Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Bryan Danielson, Greg Valentine Edit: this was VERY hard. Tier two: Jon Moxley, Wade Barrett, CM Punk, Claudio Castagnoli, Stan Hansen, Finlay

Whatever the rumors are about the Hurt Gentlemen refusing to do business, Lashley sold his ass off for Liona. Also, he looks like he's having the best time. Excited for the trios on Saturday, though I wonder if MVP is up to it. He moves like a three-wheeled shopping cart.

CM Punk named Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, Terry Funk, Eddie Guerrero, Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes as the six greatest wrestlers of all time. The Natural: 1. Bryan Danielson, 2. Bret Hart, 3. Kenta Kobashi, 4. Eddie Guererro, 5. Terry Funk and 6. Hiroshi Tanahashi. Honourable mentions to Mitsuharu Misawa and Ricky Steamboat.

Mistico/Mansoor was a fun 5 minute opener. Olympia debuts with a Pure Rules win over Viva Van. Viva got an entrance, was digging her theme music. Shibata/Matt Mako was nice in another pure rules match. Beast Mortos squashes Alan Angels. Yuta & Marina over Aleah James & Man Like Dereiss was solid. Lance Archer beats up Beef and other dudes backstage. Satnam Singh comes out to the Jarrett/Lethal tag theme to squash CPA in a minute. Yuka Sakazaki over Janai Kai in pure rules was short but fun while it lasted. In the main event, STP retain the trios over AR Fox & The Kingdom. Show flew by with a bunch of matches in just over an hour. Elgin was the champ there and I believe helping run it in some way, but suffered a neck injury in a work accident outside of wrestling in Dec 2024, so he hasn't wrestled since. I personally loved his brief Impact run in 2019-2020, he says nowadays that he was cleared of everything, but it's too late for anyone to care about bringing him back.

Apparently Tony Khan was asked about Brody and Hangman's "leftist views" or whatever the question was and Khan basically said "that's who these guys are and I want everyone in AEW to feel like their voice matters." I love this guy.

Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Eddie Guerrero, Jon Moxley, Arn Anderson and Sid. First four out are Great Muta, Sting, Razor Ramon & Ricky Steamboat.

It's cool that the fairly recent explosion of newly available footage has probably contributed to guys like Piper and Valentine moving up on a lot of peoples' lists.

Danielson, Flair, Liger, Misawa, Terry Funk, Negro Casas.

Using this double post for something else.....my top six wrestlers of all time are (in no particular order): Eddy Guerrero, Ricky Steamboat, Jushin Liger, Ric Flair, Akira Hokuto, and Hiroshi Tanahashi. -- My top, not the top. These are the wrestlers I've enjoyed watching the most over the years. Manami Toyota, Vader, El Hijo del Santo, and Rey Misterio, Jr. are next on my list.

*sigh* Don't remind me. Don't remind me. Anyway. Tonight wasn't really for me, but still: - Roddy beat Moxley up bad. You don't strike-battle with that man. Still, match was exactly as expected. - Bobby and Tia had an ultimate shitkicker of a match!!! Bobby just got beat to absolute hell and sold and sold. It was almost like a jobber squash that just wouldn't end. And then, MVP decides to go hard as a motherfucker and just start blasting people. So, it was kinda like: Hangman: "There will be no interference" Schiavone: "You guys can't fight tonight" MVP: Shoot punches guys and shoot breaks canes over them Bobby squeezes (literally) out the win just by the skin of his teeth, MVP loses his temper a second time, they got real real set-up for a sequel. Good job, boys. Excuse me, I meant, BIG MEATY MEN SLAPPIN' MEAT - Thekla got points for wearing actual street fight gear. I didn't pay attention but I heard many, many smacking sounds. Harley Cameron: "We're not just gonna bring the flame, we're gonna bring the The rest was whatever. Mortos bounced off the apron, but they always have the same match. Did Bill call Eddie an immigrant derogatorily? Isn't he like a second or third generation Puerto Rican American New Yorker? Pahtnah, you just stepped in it.

I've never seen it either. Probably being 47 minutes is what held me back. There's another one from the same year and one from '99 up.

“Toybox taken away” = company taken off tv and lots of people probably lose their jobs. So, yeah, he might “fold” to avoid that.

Savage Liger Bret Toni Storm Hayabusa Danielson

Five Liger-sized Lugers, and one Luger-sized Liger. In all seriousness, it’s difficult for me to separate “enjoy/favorite” from “best”. I’ll go with: Barry Windham; Randy Savage; Bret Hart; Terry Funk; Eddie Guerrero; Harley Race. Honorable mentions to: Ric Flair; Vader; Ted Dibiase; Ricky Steamboat; Terry Gordy; Dusty Rhodes

Terry Funk, Eddie Guerrero, Danielson, Andre, Naito, and Liger.

I have way too many gaps in my wrestling watching years and areas (very little Japan, not enough lucha to talk about guys who didn’t have a major presence, and almost nothing from the 2003-2021) so I could never do a greatest wrestlers. But excellent wrestlers who are also were/are my favorites. Sting, Flair, Steamboat, Eddie Guerrero, Funk, and maybe Misterio?

One of my goals for next year is to write more and maybe put out a DVDVR inspired zine. That goal will contribute to a second of getting one of these damn ballots. Speaking of which, I saw somewhere that our very own @onelegbrynnis a voter now. Congratulations!

Maybe 1995 Stacy Dash, but not now.

FYI -- Jon Stewart will be hosting tonight's edition of The Daily Show.

Has he? The indie that runs Toledo, SW MI, NE Indiana had him on the poster for a show....maybe a year ago. I did not attend. I still got Cole as my personal worst. Elgin had some matches I enjoyed at least. His outside the ring stuff sucks but I won't judge his in-ring because of it. I just won't continue to support him in the future. It's like Morrissey. The Smiths are my favorite band. I love his solo catalog to a point. I just choose to pretend he died after making Years of Refusal.

After reading what Cuban had to say, I'm starting to think he's actually helping Torre out. Mark is asking a lot of good questions, and to his point this might be a bigger problem than the buzz worthy story of paying Leonard under the table to circumvent the cap. And it seems like Torre is rising to the challenge every time Cuban brings up some issues and is getting more details. It's like watching Hannibal Lecter talking to Clarice Starling in order to help her catch Buffalo Bill.

Oh man, I thought the visual of Dax and his bloodied nose put a nice bit of sauce on the sell of the PPV tag match. Totally necessary. Taz kayfabing the Roddy/Marina thing felt unnecessary to me. You have a whole aware viewing audience locked in to the unique tension and you try to kayfabe it? I dunno. Yes, Danny is a Death Rider. Pac's injured. Gabe's a part time player. Wait, is there a report confirming MVP potating dudes? My takeaway was how awesome Ricochet's bumping was. That whole segment live made the Hurt Syndicate feel like the Roadies in Chicago. Yeah, give Happiness a second spin. It's a wild experience the first time thru, but the subsequent viewings allow a lot more laughs. Solondz has that unique gift, like David Lynch for example, of being able to switch from heavy intense drama and hilarity without undermining the story. Go back to Dollhouse too. You're ready now. It's harsh but also hilarious.

Akira Hokuto, Aja Kong, Eddie Guerrero, Toshiaki Kawada, Genichiro Tenryu. The rest would change up regularly from Cena to Austin to Taue to Hansen and so on.

He definitely marked out and said your punches rule and probably compared them Dustin Rhodes or Terry Funk.

Okay I am totally watching Happiness again now. I went back and read the Ebert reviews too; he put it as like number six on his best film list for that year even. MVP will be fine if he just punches people directly in the face like last night. Seriously felt unwarranted. I bet Tony chewed them out later. Or because he's one of us just marked out completely.

I found out last night on FB that Damon Dash's daughter is seeing Hook. There was a photo and everything.

It's Adam Cole or Michael Elgin. Never liked either but Adam Cole comes across as a really good fella outside of the ring whereas Michael Elgin definitely isn't. Elgin it is. Fuck him.

Kawada, Vader, Liger, Kudo, Rocco

3/16/89: Minoru Suzuki vs Tayayki Iizuka: Handheld. Most interesting thing here to me was the fact that they didn't both have black trunks. Maybe this was to differentiate from UWF. Maybe it was to be better on TV. Maybe it was to match AJPW where guys were obviously color coded, but it was surprising. It made it easier to keep track of them tough as it was mostly just scrappy matwork. Suzuki won it with a nice rolling takeover armbar. 4/19/89: Super Strong Machine/Takano vs Goto/Sano: This let the new champs flex a bit. First half was primarily just mat/chain wrestling, with some overlap but mostly Takano vs Sano and SSM vs Goto with a slight advantage for the champs. Match opened up in the middle with Takano and Goto just headbutting the hell out of each other. Goto got the advantage and they were able to press a bit but never for long. Takano got revenge with headbutts of his own later. Takano and SSM just had size and experience. That's not to say that Goto/Sano didn't have a nice late flurry including a Sano dive and top rope sunset flip but they had to wrestle a perfect match and they had one miscommunication where they crashed into each other. Finish had Takano jamming Sano on a victory roll for three. Maybe a little unfocused at times but lots of energy and a fresh pairing with clear hierarchy. 4/19/89: Inoki/Choshu/Fujinami vs Vader/Rheingans/Sawyer: This time Inoki and co attacked to start, double suplexing Vader, who ended up on the outside and threw a fit. We come back to Choshu vs Buzz and Choshu refuses to get outwrestled. Fujinami comes in and refuses to get suplexed, but Rheingans demolishes him anyway. They really, truly were treating him like Robinson or even Rick Steiner/Brock just the way he was owning the mat with even a guy like Fujinami. They worked him over with a while with Vader squishing him in the corner and dropping him on the rail on the outside out of a press slam on the floor. But he ran into an armdrag and things sort of went back and forth from there for a bit. Inoki held off Vader until he hit a headbutt. Choshu was able to push him back with a dropkick but ate a lariat. They leaned on Fujinami more. But he finally got out of Rheinghans' submissions. It was very back and forth. Vader got lariated by Choshu and enziguried by Inoki but he caught Fujinami's body press off the top. Rheinghans ate a Fujinami dropkick and Inoki got him in a cobra twist into a roll up. Lots of finishers by Inoki this year. Again I'm appreciating the Power Elite matches while we still have them. Rheinghans and Sawyer were a refreshing change to Bam Bam and Morgan. News: It was Arakawa's retirement match so that makes sense. UWF scooped up Funaki (who had been wrestling in the UK and that Inoki hoped would be the next Fujinami) and Suzuki. Glad he got that Inoki match I guess. Fujiwara shocked everyone by not signing back with NJPW so people don't know what will happen there. Dave was insufferable in all of his write-ups of the matches in the last few posts. Fujinami gives up the title since Vader beat him in a non title match and it'll be decided in a tournament on the big Dome show where they debut all the russians, and Inoki will be facing a judo guy (that's below) who was a Soviet olympic medalist. 4/24/89: Fujinami vs Vladimir Berkovich: I was really worried about these tournament matches because they are all short, basically five minutes tops for the first round. And I thought it'd screw with the crowd since very few NJPW matches go this short and for all of them to go this short has a feeling of "fake." But they're actually all kind of great in their own way and end up as tangible, believable sprints. This had a US vs USSR vs Japan theme with Brad and some 84 US medalist (not looking it up) out with the Americans. The Soviets had some other guy with crazy eyebrows too. This was a bomb fest. Berkovich would hit a crazy suplex. Fujinami would hit a conventional one. That was the match really. But the fans totally bought into it. Fujinami had amazing pro wrestling credibility. He made pro wrestling feel like a legitimate fighting form in ways few others were able to. And he won this by getting the last of the suplexes and then locking in a headscissors with the arm barred (I think) which Berkovich just couldn't escape from. 4/24/89: Buzz Sawyer vs Victor Zangiev: This was all Zangiev. He's super theatrical and dramatic and plays to the crowd and is excited when things go his way. Total star. They had matching blue singlets which was kind of funny especially as both were more or less bald. Buzz was great in reacting but he really didn't get month. He was protected on the finish though. After getting schooled, he rolled out to talk to Brad and the olympian. Then he immediately came back with a bridging German. Zangiev kicked out but Buzz thought he'd won and was distracted so that Zangiev could hit the German on him. Post match Brad got in everyone's face. 4/24/89: Choshu vs Hashimoto: This was awesome. Just a great five minute match. Super chippy. Obviously Hash (who we haven't seen. He's been in Memphis teaming with Hickerson. Feels totally unnecessary for him to take another trip given his skill/size, but whatever) carried himself with an attitude and obviously Choshu was going to meet him more than half way. They had just a really nasty exchange in the corner with Choshu elbows and Hash headbutts. Crowd popped huge as Hash hit a spin wheel kick on the first lariat and survived the second. Choshu survived the DDT as well. Finish was shocking as Choshu went for the Scorpion and Hash rolled him up, really using his size to keep him down. Big upset. I had been spoiled on it which is a shame, but I was trying to figure out what was round 1 and what was round 2 in the footage. 4/24/89: Chono vs Vader: Chono tried but this really didn't go well for him. He got pounded around the ring, press slammed. When he tried something like floating over a suplex, it didn't quite work. He went for a German and Vader landed on him with a squish. Then Vader came off the top with a splash and really squished him. I wouldn't say he made an impact (but Vader made an impact on him). 4/24/89: Bam Bam Bigelow vs Salman Hashimikov: This was NOT a tournament match (to protect Hashimikov overall) but it was still very short. It was a cool match though as Bam Bam hit stuff steadily for a few minutes, as if Hashimokov couldn't figure out how to deal with a giant, agile pro wrestler doing dropkicks and what not. But then he was able to heft him up and plant him and hold him down for three. It was all built to extremely well and put over Hashimikov huge because he was able to defeat Bigelow by absorbing a few things and hitting one huge power move out of nowhere. 4/24/89: Inoki vs Shota Chocohishvili [Different Styles]: One of my favorite Different Styles fights I've seen. Part of it was that Shota was a judo guy and not a kickboxer so it gave them more options. Some of it was just the drama though. Of course Inoki's weirdo Martial Arts title was on the line here. There were no ropes here but no moves seemed off limits. Inoki did quite well the first round, hitting a belly to back and defending himself. But things really opened up with the second round as Shota hit a urinage type move, that started as a Saito Suplex but landed with just one arm controlling him. You'd recognize it if you saw it but it's a move that was almost never done in NJPW at this time. And Inoki came out of it with only one arm (worked to give the finish cover but effective). He got tossed around with just one arm for a round or two until he stared using the leg kicks and all of his other tricks and that had Shota rocked. But Shota, unlike others, didn't back down. He pressed his advantage and started tossing him on the mat and Inoki couldn't make the count. Pretty shocking stuff and Shota left with the title. 4/24/89: Jushin Liger vs Kobayashi: Liger's debut. They actually namedropped Yamada a few times though they seemed unsure if it was him. But noted that instead of just winning a junior title, he wanted to give young people dreams or something like that. It still came as a surprise to me, but it shouldn't have because Yamada was such a well known entity and he was the only guy doing shooting star presses, etc. This went double most of the tournament matches I've seen so far and frankly, while Kobayashi is a great opponent in general, he was TOO good, and he took too much of this. All of his stuff is credible and he's dogged, but this was just too 50-50 and had a lot of Liger working from underneath. Every time he did hit something, it was big and explosive and over the top and he was great at working the crowd and projecting like a star. But for a debut like this, he probably should have had Sano or Goto or someone. Kobayahi and even Hiro Saito were going to wrestle too even. The look was obviously still developing too and I kind of miss Eye of the Tiger or the Rocky Theme or whatever he was coming out to before. But it all worked out anyway I suppose.

I'd give the worst champion moniker to Michael Elgin (who thank god has gone away from wrestling).

I'm 100% MJF loses to Mistico and honestly 99.9% he's losing to Briscoe too, what a weekend. Then he'll probably fuck off for a little bit for his honeymoon I guess. I hope his wife likes tack holes.

As someone who peruses the board between midnight and 0600 most nights, there does still seem to be a slowdown in the wee hours.

FWIW I've had the board acting rather slow again for stretches the past few days, generally on between 10PM and midnight eastern. For example I counted to about 20 before this topic loaded up after clicking on it. It does yo-yo more (sometimes it only takes a few seconds) and is better than it was before, but it has definitely backslid a good bit. EDIT: And the 5 minutes after I post this the board is loading instantly, just about as fast as it has ever been. I think this means if I just post whenever it slows down it'll work perfectly forever >_>

I owned it on dvd and watched it with my now wife very early in our relationship. I guess the fact that she didn't run screaming was a good sign we were meant to be together.

Thanks Natural! Wouldn't be much of a road report in my case though - London ON is just a two-hour bus ride for me. I'll be boarding said bus in about ten minutes; nothing eventful happened on the way to the bus terminal.

Yep, that's Raven. For those who don't remember/never read the reviews (which you still can, you lazies) he would make long (longer than the endtime Dean stuff) reviews of shows he went to and videos he watched while rambling about his life and low-income culture and attitudes and reality in America. Plus, a total alkie, so I loved him. Think a white dude with dreads and glasses chugging off a bottle of Old Crow in between whatever slag beer was at the gas station, talking about his job as a painter -- an actual house painter, not an artistic one. I say all this with total love because he rules and I'm very happy to see his state today, especially his sobriety. EDIT: Oh, and it seems like I cannot stop doing with wrestling shows, I forgot about DEAN~!3 until the last two matches. Goddammit, I need to start setting alarms. Anyway, the maestros match was ethereal and epic and unexplainable if you didn't see it. It smoked the other ones from the other shows and was a true piece of wrestling glory. Then Mad Dog and DEMUS DEMUS DEMUS (you have to love a heel who comes out chanting for himself) came out and had... a very short match with a disappointing ending and no blood. Well, they can't all be winners. Personally, I really want to see the clusterfuck cuz the rest sounds just kinda just there since I already watched the Collision stuff.

I somehow got this and Wrestle Dream as a two pack for £25 on Triller. That's barely more than a pound a match!

Movies today.... Bad Axe (Hulu, leaving on 9/18) - 4.5/5 stars China Moon (Criterion Channel, leaving on 9/30) - 3/5 stars Nell (Criterion Channel, leaving on 9/30) - 2/5 stars The Long Walk (saw in the theaters) - 4.5/5 stars Drinking Buddies (HBO Max, leaving on 9/30) - 3.5/5 stars

With the Internet nowadays, you have to question how many even bought the comics that they're complaining about. Between people just hot taking off panels and other people's posts and people reading via other means, it feels like it'd be nearly impossible to discern what the opinions of the actual paying customers are.

When I was in high school I saw Happiness as a third wheel on a date with my friend and her boyfriend and it went so, so, so badly.

At this rate, it would need to be absolutely PPV quality. People have rose colored glasses regarding Clashes. The reason Clash of the Champions and SNME worked is because TV back then was 90% (or more) squashes. Getting non-jobber matches on free TV was mindblowing back then. Today, Dynamite frequently features a more stacked card than any Clash outside of Clash 1.

If they're countering SaudiMania, AEW should be really petty and revive the KURT RUSSELLMANIA name that WWE threatened to sue PWG over.

The um, preferred term is non-verbal. Probably fairly obvious why the other fell out of favor.