Teflon Turtle

Last year on Halloween, I was raking leaves in a t-shirt. After that, I longboarded around in costume for over an hour. This year = I have already spent a good deal of my morning shoveling snow. What the hell?

I like this topic. I have two stories to share. One is not necessarily "best," but it is memorable and I find it funny. "Best" would probably be the first WWF show I ever attended, around age 4 or 5. I've been a lifelong wrestling fan, and my dad took me to most of the WWF shows that came to our area from the time I started watching wrestling up until I turned 14 or 15. My dad went out of his way to make that first show special, so the older I get the more I appreciate it. It was just a house show, but we got second row seats. Given the time period, it would've been near the start of the Undertaker gimmick...seeing him come out live as a young kid was terrifying, especially being so close to the entranceway. My dad also took a bunch of photos at the show, as best he could. To this day I still have photos of Randy Savage running around ringside (he was chasing off Jake Roberts), and a cool one of his hat lying in the middle of the ring. On to "memorable," without further ado: How Teflon Turtle Got Busted Open Hardway at Over the Edge '98 Honestly, I don't remember much of anything about this event itself other than I was very excited to get tickets to a PPV for my birthday. My dad again. Of course the main event was great, rest of the card forgettable in retrospect. The real fun happened as the show ended. As people stood up and were filing out of their seats in our row, a couple of older women badgered past my gangly-preteen self and put a shoulder in to me to get out of there first. One of them hit me hard enough to knock me backwards - my seat, already raised, caught me from falling over entirely. But: it turned out that there was a jagged metal piece on the underside of my seat's hardware, which unbeknownst to me at the time had pierced one of my calves as I lost my balance. I didn't notice it at first due to the impact of being knocked backwards registering more. But, as my dad and I were leaving the arena, I started wondering why my calf felt wet. I looked down and sure enough, my calf was dripping blood and it was flowing down on to my sock. We wound up grabbing a bunch of napkins from a concession stand to soak some of it up/so I could keep pressure on it while we drove the couple of hours home. I wound up not needing stitches, but had nice little scar from it for quite a few years. (He's hardcore! He's hardcore! )

Yeah...a quick Google search has Vince's net worth at somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.6 billion. Unless he loses literally every penny overnight, him being removed from a creative role in WWE remains a "but the bad guy still won" story.

Usman/Chimaev is now apparently official, Dana White announced it on his Instagram. Kind of confusing how he worded it, but it sounds like the fight will still take place at middleweight.

Looking through that article, maybe one of the more noteworthy things discussed here previously is that there is now a launch date for the new/improved NJPWWorld service: November 9.

My hopes are that focusing on one promotion will help Kelly improve in AEW. I thought most of his pre-pandemic work in NJPW was overall good, verging on great when he genuinely got in to a match that he called live and in person. But, it sounded like having to do a lot of remote commentary maybe burned him out. I have no idea if that's anything beyond speculation. Having to do solo commentary on a show that happened three days ago and half a world away seems like a pretty unenviable task if you have to do it for several years running (never mind not wanting to constantly travel abroad while trying to maintain some semblance of a home life). I don't blame him if he couldn't summon the excitement for it any longer.

Disappointingly lazy marketing. When Hogan went in to the restaurant business, they at least tried "Pastamania!" So...no "WeedaMania?" "VapeaMania?" "BongaMania?" "Tokeamania?" Maybe some brand synergy for One Toke Over the Line-a-Mania, Brother?

I had a similar thought in that Danielson kicking ZSJ's legs after targeting the exposed ribs when Sabre was in the Tree of Woe was something I hadn't seen before, but made so much sense in the context of the match. It says a lot about those two that they can show us new things without having to incorporate tables, ladders, fire, a 900 degree rotation, etc. I didn't watch the whole PPV, but Danielson/Sabre is an easy MOTYC for me. Probably in my top three at this moment. Sabre's "we aren't done" after the match gives me high hopes. Honestly, I'd much rather see Danielson/ZSJ II at Wrestle Kingdom this January over Danielson/Okada II. That's not a knock on Okada, but two of the best wrestlers working today lived up to the hype last night and then some. A second match has to happen before Danielson hangs them up, I think.

It did have a bit of "these two need to redeem themselves after that 'MMA' thing with the gi" feel to it, for sure. Meaty men bumped meat, and it was fun. Also, I think it helped contrast a problem I've had with O-Khan since his return from excursion. There is room for comedy and weirdness in NJPW, but I don't think he's the dude that needs to be providing it. A wrestler of his size and look should, in my opinion, be more about the clubbering than anything else. A lot of the goofier stuff he does should be left behind, I think. On top of that: it may be just personal preference, but he'd benefit more by being more straightforward and taking some of the looser-looking stuff out of his offense. Tsuji continues to cement himself above the rest of the "musketeers." I've probably written it before, but I really hope NJPW is listening to the crowd responses he has been getting. The problem I had with the match with Ospreay is that it felt like the second or third match in a series already. I think some of the spots could've been left in reserve for future matches...unless Ospreay really is getting ready to head out. I like the Bishamon team. It always feels good to see Goto and YOSHI-HASHI doing well in the spot they carved out for themselves.

Somebody hurry up and book Eddie to win another championship so he can kinda sorta have his own version of the Triple Crown. Thank you, goodnight.

"Let's have a bunch of wrestlers and sambo guys play basketball, what could possibly go wrong?" I love it. It's like somebody showed these dudes calcio storico/calcio florentino for the first time and they went "Give us five minutes and some booze. We can top that."

1000% this. NJPWWorld is getting an update soon, but people would constantly complain about video resolution. I'm sitting here going "Are you kidding me?! Watching puroresu in low-res is almost the only way it feels right to me. I started off on bootleg VHS tapes. That's my pro-wrestling equivalent of a cozy blanket." There's a part of me that still can't believe it's possible to watch stuff like New Japan in high-res. It still feels like I shouldn't have access to it, if that makes any sense. There's that "generational sea change" concept again.

Eh...barring another pandemic, the last 5-6 years of wrestling history have shown us that a lot of the wrestlers have options. Even if this winds up being the beginning of the end for AEW (I don't really think it will be, but who knows for sure), it's not "WWE or bust" for AEW's biggest names. Honestly, it's probably just as likely that if AEW folds, Kenny and the Bucks call up New Japan and say "Hey guys...remember that U.S. expansion that stalled out when we left and COVID hit? How do you feel about making some money?" Things would just sort of reset to 2017-2018 when Kenny and the Bucks were the biggest names in indy wrestling and worked NJPW, in my opinion. Might be made more difficult by New Japan's lean years during the pandemic, but it's not unimaginable that something could be worked out.

Folks, I think an important thing that may have gone overlooked in all of this chaos is that CM Punk taught us all something. Just in the last week or so, talk around CM Punk has led us to discussions about pegging and dom/sub relationships. CM Punk has - perhaps however indirectly - helped us learn that the DVDVR forums may be the most kink-friendly pro-wrestling community on the internet. And that makes me a little proud. Now if I can be serious for a minute: I have said it before in connection with this issue and I’ll say it again. All Punk wound up doing was prove Hangman right. On the other hand, this has all been wildly entertaining and I want to see this saga take more crazy twists and turns. Punk back to WWE! Maybe this is how we finally get Punk vs. KENTA, but it happens in a New Japan ring and KENTA goes over. If this timeline is going to be borderline intolerable and insanity-inducing, the downward spiral can at least do us the courtesy of entertaining us on the way to the bottom.

I got you - I was just coming to post about it: MJF is mostly in character, but still entertaining. And y'know...say what you will about Cole's wrestling, but between this and his video gaming stuff, he never fails to come across as anything less than friendly and personable.

Favorite AEW promo...probably the first time MJF told the story about the antisemitism he faced growing up. From the 2/23/2022 Dynamite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAf6epYTUAM&t=7s. An awful lot of that promo - minus the football - hit very close to home for me. It was raw, emotional, and it riveted me to the spot. At least for me personally, it had some interesting ramifications. And maybe it's time to get this out of the way: MJF has leaned so hard in to the heel shtick on TV, at public appearances, etc., that when he pulls back the curtain on himself (or if he wants to make it look like that's what he's doing), it still means something. He gets that where a lot of wrestlers don't. So when he delivered that promo, I bought in. I had to ask myself: should I, or any other Jewish wrestling fan for that matter, really continue to boo this man? I realize that out of character MJF will speak up against antisemitism and racism, but we're supposed to suspend disbelief as fans...cheer the faces, boo the heels. This promo blurred the lines for me in a way I didn't really have to reconcile with before. MJF succeeded in making me feel something using wrestling as the medium, which is the whole point of the enterprise. Now of course, MJF went back to despicable heel tactics shortly after he cut that promo. But: it showed what MJF's path towards a face turn would be, and served as a reminder of the fact that there's a real person under the character, which a lot of wrestling fans have forgotten in the social media era. Even without what it meant to me personally, I feel it to be a very effective promo. It gave that feud deep personal stakes that most feuds don't get to any longer. MJF clearly and emotionally explained why that match should matter.

Edit: double post. Sorry!

I'll stick with the spoiler tags too:

Nope, no excursion for Fujita yet. They did something a little different with him where TMDK essentially adopted him in to the stable without him having officially graduated from Young Lion status yet.

Pretty good card overall. I'm glad I didn't skip the undercard tags. The crowd really seemed to be enjoying the TMDK vs. Ishii/Kingston/Taguchi/Tana match. Something in that one for everybody.

I'm still playing a bit of catch up here. So at this point I think it's getting safe to say that ELP/Ospreay is one of the better matchups in modern pro wrestling. Those two seemingly can't have a bad match, or even a good match. Everything they've done against each other in the last few years has been great, and the match from this year's G1 was no exception. It built off of their encounter from last year (which I and several others on the board recognized at the time as having an incredible finish), and brought a tremendous amount of energy out of the crowd and the announce team. So far I've only watched the English version, but I don't think I've heard KK and Chris get that in to a match in quite a while.

I'm catching up on the G1 after spending a few days away. I think if NOAH and NJPW don't smell money in future Kiyomiya/Narita and Kiyomiya/Umino matches, there's a problem. Both matchups were really enjoyable this G1 (Kiyomiya's match with Tsuji was fun too, so we can throw that in I guess), but gave the distinct impression that all of the wrestlers have more that they can show against one another in an even higher-stakes environment.

So between Kaito Kiyomia’s matches in the G1, and some of these DDT match announcements, I’m contemplating a Wrestle Universe subscription. Anybody else on the board have that service/do you find it’s worth it?

Great Naito/ZSJ match from today's show. The excellence of their rivalry continues. Without spoiling anything, off the top of my head it's probably Naito's best match so far this year. I bit on a bunch of near falls and the finish wound up being brilliant.

Sitewide moratorium on discussion of the deliciousness of takoyaki. Can't have any octopi getting concerned for their safety. Anyway...since I should say something relevant to AEW: I haven't been watching much of the promotion this year. However - last night I caught the hour-long Cole/MJF "bromance recap" video that AEW put up on their Youtube page. Amazing stuff. If anyone reading this is in my position of not having kept up with AEW, track that video down and give it a shot.