twiztor

Episode 1: Marking Territory, Part 1 overall thoughts: this show did not look good. very low rent. bland and basic setup. the chandelier hanging down looked trash-tastic. the show didn't sound overly good. crowd was mic'd way too loud and they chanted all. the. damn. time. definitely an example of the crowd trying to hijack a show. the lack of commentary really hurts an upstart program like this. too many squash matches. Even the guys who won seemed forgettable. there's 16 episodes of this? hopefully this starts to change once we get out of the introductory period. i was rather looking forward to watching these, but i think my expectations were way too high. Episode 2: Marking Territory, Part 2 overall thoughts: a better show this week, although the lack of commentary and overbearing crowd are far and away the worst parts of what's happening. All of the in-ring stuff is decent at best, but it lacks bite. I hope that changes and we start to see some feuds develop, or some interactions between the wrestlers, or something to make us tune in next week. Ah well, 2 episodes down and 10 to go.

the Wrestling Retribution Project (originally the Wrestling Revolution Project) was a planned TV show that also acted as a wrestling promotion. It was founded in 2011 by Jeff Katz (Hollywood guy) using Kickstarter as a revenue stream. Until 2020, it was best known for having upset backers who never received any sort of finished product or updates of progress. I haven't seen this program mentioned on here much, if at all, so thought i'd take a look at what's released. An (the?) idea for this project was that each of the wrestlers would NOT be performing as their more widely known personas, and instead would be portraying entirely new characters, with different attitudes and presentations than what they were doing on the indies. Kind of an "alternate dimension" if you will. A decent idea to keep yourself separate from the PWG, ROH, TNA, IWA, etc. of the world. The Wikipedia page breaks down some of the performers and which characters they are. For the sake of cohesiveness, i will only be referring to them by their WRP character names. 13 episodes' worth of content was taped over one weekend in October 2011. In summer 2020, Katz began releasing the footage onto YouTube, broken down by rough cuts of segments and episodes. It is from these playlists that my reviews will be from. Feel free to join in with your thoughts on the performers, the owner, the episodes, or whatever else comes to mind. My plan is to watch two episodes every Monday night and post some match-by-match thoughts. I don't really know what to expect, but i've wanted to go through this for a year or so now, so it's time to make it happen.

you're correct, but calling what WCW had a "women's division" isn't very accurate. They had a belt (technically 2 belts, if you count the Japan-only cruiserweight title, but you shouldn't) and less than a handful of women's wrestlers. i point that out to say this: WCW should have brought more women in and had a real division. with their talent exchange with NJPW, we could have gotten some good stuff. For as much hype as Madusa dropping the WWF Women's Title in the trash can generated, here's Madusa's televised WCW matches in '96-'97: now here's Sherri Martel's: Luna Vachon only had ONE match in WCW: Slamboree '97 vs Madusa. Jacquelyn Moore also only had ONE match in WCW: Halloween Havoc '97 vs Disco Inferno ok, but surely their (only) champion, Akira Hokuto, must've had her share. let's see: sorry, got all about the research there for a minute. what a waste.

and, for anyone who hasn't seen it, Bloody Elbow interviewed him a few years ago: https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2017/5/1/13376624/ufc-mma-history-just-bleed-guy-interview-body-paint-blood-sport-cock-dog-fighting-mississippi-ladner

so i watched all 16 episodes (via the 4 TNA specials) of Global Force Wrestling "Amped". the overall presentation is low key. the look of the Orleans arena is fine, but there's not much to get excited about. I'm a fan of the six-sided ring, whereas i know many people aren't. The sound (on entrance music, on the handheld mics when in the ring, etc.) is overall pretty decent. The lights were, again, perfectly acceptable. Now that i'm thinking about how to word this, i feel like this phrase sums up GFW as a whole "it's alright" the matches: overall a pretty high quality. there was a lot of talent here, and none of the matches felt rushed. A few were a bit long to my taste, but there wasn't much that was "bad". It was nice seeing them play up the "worldwide" aspect, with Japanese wrestlers (Kushida, Seiya Sanada), and luchadores (Bestia 666, Los Luchas), and the Indian contingent (Bollywood Boyz, Sonjay Dutt). Would've liked to see this spotlighted even more. the tournaments: i love tournaments. Running 4 at the same time was too many. Especially over 16 episodes, you would go a month-plus between seeing or hearing about certain competitors. There were a total of 3 women's matches over 16 weeks. Unacceptable. The World Global Championship tournament finals were extremely obvious from the opening episode- Nick "Magnus" Aldis vs. Bobby Roode. everybody else was fodder. the pacing: these shows were timed horribly. EVERY episode started with a short hype video, followed by an 8 minute match, followed by 15 minutes of videos (sometimes a replay of the opening video) with the occasional in-ring promo, and then a 15 minute main event match, and capped off with a hype video for next week. This was exacerbated for me by watching multiple episodes in a row, but the formula wore itself out, fast. the announcers: Chael Sonnen did a good job of analyzing, connecting holds to their MMA counterparts, and a bit of fan rolled into one. The other guy (Cyrus Fees) was pretty bland, but that's the worst i can say about him. They tried to play up a playful antagonistic dynamic, but it usually fell flat. Not funny enough, not mean enough, and/or not sold enough. The worst part is that the commentary was added later, so they would talk up what the talent was doing now ("you can see him on WWE NXT"). It was off-putting. At one point, Chael spoils the final of the women's tournament (Chael: "from now on you can call her 'Champion'" Cyrus: ".....Yes, that's if she can get by this last challenge") This is also recorded during the time that TNA/Impact merges with GFW or whatever that mess was about, so Cyrus uses each of those names kind of interchangeably. overall, again, this was "alright". i can't imagine how this would have survived on traditional TV. I was ready for this to be over by around episode 12-13, but i toughed it out. I would love to hear Jarrett talk about this on his podcast, similar to his TNA pods. we'll see. P.S. Jeff Jarrett comes out to his TNA entrance theme. On the first chord, i got PTSD. i didn't even know that i had such a negative feeling about it.

ok, i thought of the whitest thing possible and this is what i got. I present to you, "Mayonnaise":

"Super Mario" "Link from the Legend of Zelda" "Samus Aran"

leave it to @The Naturalto think of FSW in a positive light. Love your optimism, buddy! edit: Crowbar on Dark: Elevation ?!? add him to the list with Juventud of Christopher Daniels of wrestlers who've had a televised match for WWF, WCW, ECW, TNA, and AEW. double edit: i just looked at his Wikipedia page, and it lists him as being "the only wrestler to have wrestled matches in WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA, and AEW" good try, wiki.

this is something you either need to accept, or it will eat you alive. i am in the latter group. Rick Knox is the ref for all of the Young Bucks' matches, and once i saw just how often both of the Bucks (or more, depending on the match) are in the ring, i can't stop seeing it, and it actively takes away from every match they have. Something like the cage match vs. the Lucha Bros was the most i've enjoyed a YB match in MONTHS, because normal tag rules don't apply. i fucking hate it. i try not to post about it every month, because i will sound like a broken record, but JFC. if this was an NFL game and one team consistently was allowed to play with 15 guys it would be ridiculous. same premise.

popping in to add a couple recent thoughts, particularly as they compare to older ones: Spectacular #178-#184 "The Child Within" this is a semi-followup to Kraven's Last Hunt, also by J.M. DeMatteis. It is a psychological assault from multiple fronts, with Vermin reliving his childhood trauma, Harry Osbourne regressing into mental hallucinations and reverting to the villainous Green Goblin, and Spider-Man dealing with some deep-seated trauma. Excellent story, and if you haven't read it, i highly recommend it. Amazing Spider-Man #361-363 "Carnage" the introduction to Carnage was done so much better than Venom's first appearance. The character's motivations, the action, the vicousness. This is one of the stories i was looking forward to, and while not an all-time great, i definitely enjoyed it. A pseudo-face turn for Venom, only for Spider-Man to renege on his promise is a really nice touch. looking forward to future developments.

been meaning to post this for ages: this is the AGW Paperweight Championship, the #1 (and only) title in our backyard wrestling "promotion" from 20ish years ago. i am the last (and technically current) champ, with a standing challenge to my fellow alum. the belt has a permanent home hanging behind my basement bar. it is a hubcap we found on the street, spray painted gold, screwed onto a weight lifting belt we stole from our high school. also visible is the acceptance letter from the "Best of Backyard Wrestling" VHS series, which may or may not be something to brag about. we were accepted for their next video, which as far as i'm aware, was never released.

wow, crazy turn of events. what happened with Winn to kick it all off?

i enjoy the Bischoff podcast. I listen to maybe one a month or six weeks, so i can pick and choose which episodes interest me. While Bischoff can definitely be full of shit, i appreciate his unique look through the executive lens, talking about sponsors, and contract talks, and all that jazz. I've listened to a couple of the Jarrett ones (shout out to @BrianS81177who mentioned there was one about WWA!) i agree with the masses, if Conrad is uninterested, then the pod really suffers. Once he gets to just reading Observer results/recaps, it's time to tune out.

RUMBLINGZ~! at the time were exactly the opposite. Benoit told them that he was leaving, WCW put the belt on him to try to convince him to stay. He said he was leaving anyway, so they put the 'under the ropes' thing in to protect themselves when Benoit did exactly what he said he was going to do. who knows the truth. and i don't mean Neidhart.

i half watched WCW at the time, but had mostly moved onto WWF. When i relived those shows a couple years back, 2000s WCW is DIRE. It starts to pick up around September, when Booker T wins the title, and gets pretty good in 2001. There's still plenty of schlock, but the energy around the promotion definitely shifts around that time. That being said, i definitely don't recommend going back to watch it.