Ramsey

I think Nintendo Logic and I nailed the Cliff's notes version of the fall of the company from the national power they were at their height.

Ok, in 1999 Giant Baba passed away and Mitusharu Misawa (the ace of the company at the time) took over as President. He and Mrs. Baba classed almost immediately. She wanted to keep the company old school as her husband had while Misawa wanted to modernize the look and the booking style. Things got worse and worse until finally, after many political battles between the two, Misawa announced he was leaving the company to form Pro Wrestling NOAH and taking nearly the entire roster with him. The next day (or somewhere close) the office staff of AJPW also left. Basically the company was left with senior referee Kyohei Wada, Masanobu Fuchi and Toshiaki Kawada. The kicker was that the tv deal that AJPW had since its inception in 1972 followed NOAH leaving them nearly dead.

That was the beginning of it. That was the FIRST mass departure. AJPW has sustained a thousand cuts on it's way to be a "super indy" in Japan as opposed to the strong #2 company in the country.

As much as I love 90's AJPW (and that love is deep and filthy) I get just as much joy out of the 70's and 80's. 70's AJPW has the great NWA champs (Race, Brisco, the Funks) working with the top guys and participating in the tag league and Champions Carnival. The the 80's give you the rise of Hansen and Jumbo, the Choshu invasion, etc. Just rock solid stuff across the board.

This is the second Bill Dundee reference I've seen in this topic. I heartily approve. The world would be a better place if more people tried to be more like The Superstar.

Adding to this, the six man tags between Jumbo and Co. and Misawa and Co. in 90 and 91 were fantastic. Unified Tag title matches were often on par with the TC matches for quality. Enjoy! I'm a huge AJPW mark.

Allow me to clarify...."wrestling needs more MEMPHIS fireballs."

Wrestling needs more fireballs.

Gotta be. I thought the same thing. I wonder where the face/heel split falls between those two. They both have the "mean girl of NXT" thing down. I'm not sure who has the most face potential out of the two. Also, does Nak drop the strap to Bobby or do they wait for a "a certain portly knock out artist" to take it off him. Bobby is about as exciting as a glass of milk in the ring but a run as a chicken shit heel champ could work in the short run.

There still isn't anyone at Asuka's level and they booked themselves into that mess. Nikki Cross stealing the title by interference would make better sense at this point. It would have a built in rematch AND two face challengers (Ember and Liv Morgan) waiting in the wings.

I haven't watched Raw in two years. That would get me paying attention again. Count me in.

This is probably the least interesting TakeOver in recent memory. The onyl match that I think I care about is Tye vs. Young and that's just because I'm waiting to see how(if) they pull the trigger on a push for Tye with some wins. AoP doesn't really interest me. Roode is run until his music stops and Nakamura as been phoning it in for weeks. Seeing how a certain new knockout artist potentially mixes into the main even holds some promise I guess. I hate not being interested in a TakeOver as I usually love the shit out of them.

I started a podcast a few months back. It's posted on Soundcloud as I do them. I finally created a Facebook page for it today and will be posting a pod this weekend. I'd love to have the DVDVR checking it out and (hopefully) enjoying it. It's called "The Land That Wrestling Forgot: Idaho's Only Professional Wrestling Podcast." I'll post the the previous shows there as well. I hope you'll all check it out! https://www.facebook.com/nowrestlinginidaho/

Ya know, I don't think I've told anyone here to fuck themselves yet. I almost feel like I've missed something.

Welcome aboard, man. This is where "men of a certain age" discuss wrestling, movies, comics, and the various other pursuits that keep us wrinkly man-babies. How do you feel about missile dropkicks? How about Davey Richards?

That is indeed how it works. Thus, in my team management list I have two Bullet Clubs listed.

So, I've always wondered, do you HAVE to sign a legends contract to get into the HOF or is it an optional thing?

Just finished Okada/Omega. That was a great match. Overall, I was incredibly entertained. This is the most I've enjoyed an Omega match ever. I'm still not crazy about his character work but his in-ring work is world class. Also, let's put to rest the "Okada isn't very good" nonsense. It takes two to tango and those two tangoed their asses off. There were a couple of spots that made me cringe (the dragon suplex and the missile dropkick) but over all everything seemed to make sense given the fact that it was Omega and it was the biggest NJPW show of the year. Greatest match of all time? No...that's just dumb. 6 stars? Matches don't go to 11. 5 stars? Not quite in my book but close. Obviously way early to start the match of the year discussion but, unless 1989 and 1994 come back and combine in a single magical 2017, it'll be in the discussion.

He and Ziggler will have a great run as "let's put the two curly headed guys out there first."

On my podcast this week (shameless plug) I talked about the amount of daylight between the title and the upper mid-card in NXT. With that said, Tye is a better draw than Bobby Roode. Aries would have been better too.

So, let's say you were dumb enough to jump in the ring from the front row. Would you really wait until Big John Studd was in the ring?

Roode/Nak is surprisingly tone deaf booking by NXT standards. Nak has slowly been drained of what made him cool as hell when he first showed up (see his series with Joe) and Roode is as interesting as a glass of milk once his intro is over. This is the main event no one has been clamoring for.

Y'all know Japan is going to happen at some point too.

The Joe/Nak series definitely didn't set the world on fire quality wise. This was the best of the three and that's not saying much.

Adrian Street and Miss Linda are still together and they met on 1969. Mind you, they only made it LEGAL in 2005, but still.