Super Ape

@NikoBaltimore; since you said old puro is a blind spot, I thought I’d recommend you this Showa-era gem; Rikidozan vs. the Destroyer from 1963, for the International Heavyweight Championship. Mainly because Destroyer fucking rules, and his heel work here is an incredible foil for the national hero in Rikidozan.

The governor of Pennsylvania ordered all schools in the state to be closed for two weeks. Thankfully my sister-in-law has stepped in to be a day camp for my kiddo (she has two school-aged kids already). I’m also a state employee, and I’m waiting on a call for my office to be closed; the governor called for employees who either live or work in three counties surrounding mine to self-quarantine, so we think it’s only a matter of time.

Violence is Forever (Dominic Garrini and Kevin Ku) vs. They Might Be Giants (Marko Stunt and Cabana Man Dan), No Holds Barred Match for the Southern Underground Pro Tag Team Championship, SUP’s “Those Who Fear Tomorrow,” 6/2/19 in Nashville. Recommended by @AxB. I’m familiar with Garrini and Dan, via his work in AIW and his comedy work when he takes a trip to PA indies, respectively. I’d consider myself a fan of both, but I wasn’t expecting Dan to be THIS good a brawler. They Might Be Giants with the ironic 80’s pop hit theme music of the night award. This match starts off hot, with ViF hauling in the chairs like this is ECW in 1996, and I’m game. The match starts off as a brawl and stays there. Kevin Ku in particular is a DICK, using paper and lemons as a weapon. One of my pet peeves in a lot of modern tag matches is that pinfall breakups often seem like the guy making the save barely touches his opponent. We don’t have that problem here, as pins are broken by waffling the FUCK out of ‘em with a chair. The match is some kind of Frankenstein’s monster of an early FMW tag team street fight, an ECW “extreme death match” (all the way down to the cookie sheets) and Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne vs. the Nasty Boys at Spring Stampede ‘94. There are no pretty moves here, not even the dives of someone like Marko Stunt, who launches himself like a javelin at Ku in the opening minutes. And you know what? This is pretty fucking great. There is barely any grappling in a heated brawl, and the one apron bump the whole match is an ugly-ass suplex. This is definitely a Southern kind of brawl, from the time spent outside the ring and using some of the familiar modern deathmatch tropes like skewers, to the blood. Part of me wonders if the match would have been better served as a falls count anywhere stipulation, because it almost seems FORCED when everyone gets back into the ring. Some VERY creative chair use, such as a con-chair-to on Garrini’s toes, and wrapping one around someone’s neck and hitting the legs of it with another, adds to the creativity, as does the use of tacks, both on Dan’s flip-flops and as a hazard for Garrini’s feet. The match ends after the mat is peeled back, revealing the wooden born. Ku gets in the ring after Garrini falls out the ring to pull the racks out of his feet. A brief exchange between Ku and Dan, each one showing the effects of a hellacious war, and Ku ends it with a gnarly piledriver onto the wood for the three. Everyone involved look like they’ve just been through hell, which is the aim of a match like this. I will admit to laughing at how tiny the championship trophy is, as it’s awarded to a guy who just had skewers lodged in his fuckin’ forehead. I’ve known about SUP’s status as one of IWTV’s Crown Jewels, but didn’t know how good they were until catching some of that Thursday Night Fox from after the tornado in Nashville. This, and what I saw from that compilation, got me more interested in SUP, and if it’s got more nasty shit like this, without the modern indie tropes that can be annoying sometimes, then sign me up.

Disgusting. And as I said to you before; I’d rather be paranoid than be wrong.

The last thing puro needs is high-school drama-level hand-staring after a kickout.

I will quit watching wrestling cold turkey before I watch any under their banner.

Thanks, I hate it.

Re-reading the blurb on Trips, it appears they’re not demoting him, but putting him in charge of setting up Performance Centers EVERYWHERE. They want him to take over the goddamn world. Well, back to being paranoid.

This, but unironically.

I’m curious as to what this means for NXT as a brand, if it’s going to be shaken up and run by one of Vince’s guys instead of Hunter. If so... hoooooo boy are you poor saps in for a bad time.

sounds like a kindly-worded demotion to me. He ain’t getting the company when Vince dies.

I’m into a lot of that stuff too, though I like comedic tomfoolery a bit more than you do. I like deathmatch stuff, but subscribe to the “less is more” approach when it comes to the kind of bumps utilized (think less Big Japan and more FMW). I’m just starting to dip my toe into shootstyle, but I also dig the “maestro” style of lucha which is basically Old Man Lucha for guys who can’t do the athletic stuff anymore. And brawling is aces in my book. I’m into the sloppy Memphis kind, or the stuff that just degenerates into a deathmatch by default (Foley/Orton in 2004, JBL/Cena in 2005, or Foley/Edge in 2006 being good examples). Now, as for my pick for you, since you like deathmatches, I present Born to Be Wired, Terry Funk vs. Sabu in a no-rope barbed wire match for the ECW World title. It’s one of the first instances of a match of this nature being aired on US TV, albeit in edited form, but here’s the whole thing.

Hey @AxB, where do your tastes lie? I wanna get a better idea of what to recommend to you.

Saw the demo. Guess who’s buying a PS4 with his tax return?

Man, fuckin’ Flye— wait. They just shellacked the Capitals for their seventh win in a row? And are one point away from first place in the Metropolitan Division? And were just determined the betting favorite to win the Stanley Cup?! ...FUCKIN’ FLYERS~!!!!!

I’m in. I have IWTV and YouTube/DailyMotion. I will not under any circumstance use WWE Network, or the streaming services of any company doing business with them (EVOLVE, Progress, WXW, AJPW). Pirated matches from those companies, if they can easily be accessed, are fine. Blind zones; lucha (modern and classic), Showa-era puro (though The Destroyer is my boy), European catch (not modern stuff like WXW or Progress), pre-Hogan WCW or WWF. Honestly, most of everything. I’m not picky. I don’t know if I’d call it a blind zone, but I am interested in shoot-style and Inokiism-based wrestling. I don’t have the attention span for a Kenny Omega NJPW Classic. Please, matches less than 20 minutes if possible.

Battle of the Billionaires made me swear to never give WWE a dime again, and I haven’t to this day. But I shoulda just thrown the baby out with the bath water too.

I’d rather be paranoid than wrong.

PLEASE GOD NO.

I’m not looking forward to having to start a new hobby from scratch once WWE takes over all of wrestling and I can’t watch it anymore.

So this is really bad. https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200302-00000009-tospoweb-fight Akiyama is flying to Florida to talk about having AJPW work with WWE, possibly to help with establishing NXT Japan. The article talks about a “third great power,” specifically referring to a WWE-backed AJPW as a contender against Bushiroad and Cyberagent.

FINALLY.

*points to profile pic* think harder.

Exactly. Even the boneheads in charge in Stamford have to know “too much of a good thing” exists, so they shouldn’t be doing too much of their horseshit “product” either.

I’ve gone over my reasons why I never subscribed to hell and back, but if I were to guess why the sub numbers are low, a lot of it would be on the quality of the current product, and the fact that pro wrestling is just... declining like vaudeville and the circus before it.