[The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries]

51 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

XPW of course has a built in story but FMW has a lot of interesting routes. Not just the death match stuff and Onita's scandal but the Kanemura scandal, Hayabusa's injury and death, probably other stuff I'm forgetting.

There's also the fact that FMW's money mark killed himself shortly after the dissolution of the promotion so his life insurance policy could pay off a chunk of Yakuza debt that he owed.

[DECEMBER 2020 WRESTLING GIFS]

Thankful that the word out of Japan was that Ben-K suffered a concussion and the injury wasn't worse than it was, but also worried as while digging for more info, the dude seems to have a history of multiple concussions.

And that first unprotected knee to the stomach looked as gross as the clothesline that knocked him out.

[DECEMBER 2020 WRESTLING GIFS]

5 hours ago, Andy in Kansas said:

The funniest part is that they went through all this effort with the projection screens but the finish was Randy Orton hits the RKO for the pin like it was a straightforward house show match or Smackdown main event and NOT a Wrestlemania match with extra production touches. 

[Favorite Wrestling Cards You Attended]

31 minutes ago, DEAN said:

The funny thing is that I figured out wrestling was fake watching Bobo Brazil "punch" Blackjack Mulligan when I was a child live at the Norfolk Scope.

Yeah, that's something I can smile about as an adult, as that comment meant that my Dad watched Bobo Brazil vs The Sheik in Detroit, which isn't exactly the epitome of "working snug" or a match that fits into other narratives of "the preliminary matches are a show, but the main events and championship matches, THOSE are real!"

[Favorite Wrestling Cards You Attended]

Hard to narrow down on my end, but here's an attempt at five, with a few stories I've told a few times here but here goes again:

1. My First-Ever Wrestling Show

Estimating around July/August 1987. I was a few months away from my ninth birthday, living in a small Northern Michigan town called Oscoda. On Saturdays I was glued to the TV watching WWF Wrestling Challenge, NWA Worldwide, World Championship Wrestling on TBS, and so on. But our town was a couple of hours drive minimum from the closest place the big leagues were touring.

 

When my father wanted to talk to me about serious stuff, or just needed to get out of the house to sort some things out, he would go for a drive and take me with him. The slang term he used to describe these drives was "going crazy". One Sunday evening he pulled me out of my bedroom to go for one of these drives, and he picked up a couple of his drinking buddies that lived down the street.

 

He drove to a town that was about an hour away from ours. The drive seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, until he pulls into the parking lot of Ogemaw Heights High School in West Branch, MI, a school off of Michigan Highway #33 surrounded by nothing but trees and fields. The letters on the sign of the high school simply said "WRESTLING". I got super-excited, and at first my father and his friends joked around saying "nah, that's tomorrow night, we're going to bingo tonight!" But sure enough, once we're inside the school we head into the gym and there's a wrestling ring in there. My dad frigging surprised me on a random summer night by taking me to a wrestling show.

 

I don't remember a lot of specifics. I think the league was called Michigan Championship Wrestling. It had some of the guys that I found out years later were part of the final days of the Sheik's Detroit territory, guys like Irish Micky Doyle and Ricky Cortez. And a young Al Snow was part of a heel tag team calling itself the Fantastics (which confused me a little since I had seen the Fulton/Rogers version on UWF and World Class TV by that point) against a tag team called The Flying Tigers. The Fantastics cheated to win their match, but sure enough there was a battle royal at the end of the night, with the final four being the Al Snow version of the Fantastics and The Flying Tigers, and the Tigers got their revenge by winning the battle royale.

 

But the biggest actual name of the show was future WWE Hall of Famer Bobo Brazil, once again defending the "The United States Championship." Bobo was into his sixties by then, but I had read his name in grocery store magazines enough to know that I was seeing a legend in the ring that night.

 

But the biggest smile of the night came when Bobo Brazil came down to the ring. My dad never watched WWF wrestling with me, and would always joke about how phony Hulk Hogan was. He never did it in a mean way because he knew it was something I loved watching, would always be more in a joking manner. But that night, when Bobo came to the ring, my Dad pulled me aside and said the following words..."I used to watch him wrestle when it was real!"

 

2. ECW's first-ever Detroit-area show

 

One of the rare ECW shows where no RF fancam exists. A year before they started doing TV tapings at the Michigan State Fairgrounds Arena, ECW did a show at the Inkster Recreation Center. This was actually my first live wrestling show since the above small-town show ten years earlier. Me and a friend did not have advance tickets, and only really knew about the show from a one-item line listing on 1Wrestling.com. We were still living in our small town at the time, about a four-hour drive north of Detroit. We decided to make a day trip out of it, and left our town around 10AM and got to Inkster around 2PM. We figured if the show was sold out, we had a day trip in Detroit. We roll up to the rec center lobby and see a woman working a check-in booth. We ask if tickets are available and she said "we don't have any tickets!" We asked if the show as sold out, and she clarified that they don't have tickets because no one from ECW had given them tickets to distribute yet. My friend sees a man walking around wearing an NJPW King of Sports jacket, and assumes he must be with ECW. We ask the jacket-wearing man if he knows when tickets are going to arrive, and he says "I got them, come with me". He leads us to his car in the parking lot, and opens up his trunk. He takes out a batch of tickets, and says they are $20 each. I start rifling through my wallet but am fumbling around through a bunch of 5's and 1's, but he thinks I am fumbling because I may not have the money. And it was at that moment that Pee Wee Moore asked if we had any weed and offered up tickets in exchange for that. We did not have any weed on us though, but the cash ended up in Pee Wee Moore's hands, and I would not be shocked if that money never made its way to HHG Corp's books.

 

Main event was Sabu vs Sandman which was as nuts as expected, including Sandman jumping off the apron to put Sabu through a table only to bounce off of him into the front row when the table didn't break. We also got a good and bloody New Jack/Kronus vs Dudley Boyz match, and to this day I still have my ticket that I had dipped in New Jack's blood on the floor.

 

3. "R.A.W. COMES TO TOWN!" (R.A.W. = "Renegades Alliance of Wrestling") and Terry Funk makes an indie date on the same night as a WCW PPV booking two hours later and 700 miles away.

 

I went to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a small city called Marquette, home to Northern Michigan University. The local celebrity was Mike Shaw (Bastion Booger/Norman The Lunatic), who was a native to the region and retired there to raise his family once his WWF days were over. He would work at a local copper mine during the summer, and while school was in session, he would work nights/weekends as a doorman/bouncer at one of the more popular college bars in town.

 

About once a year, a money mark would try to promote a wrestling show in the area using Shaw as a draw, but would never be more than a one-off. I recall there was one with a local casino that brought in Brooklyn Brawler to work Shaw, and there was another one at one of the area hockey arenas that had a fake Doink and a fake La Parka but somehow had real Meng while he was still under WCW contract. But the most notorious of these one-offs was when "R.A.W." came to town. And when I say "R.A.W.", I mean the Renegades Alliance of Wrestling.

 

The main event was Typhoon vs Tatanka, the semi-main was a tag team match of Sabu/Bruce Hart vs. Brutus Beefcake/Greg Valentine. The promoters rented a frigging BOXING ring from a local gym, which would have been bad enough if it just meant guys bumping on a hard boxing canvas, but they used the boxing ROPES as well, so damn near anything involving running the ropes or climbing the ropes looked like shit, though god bless him that didn't stop Sabu from making three attempts at a springboard bodypress to the outside onto Beefcake, who didn't make any effort to protect Sabu when the rope sagged forward and he went splat on the floor.

 

But this was also the night that Terry Funk endeared himself in my heart forever. The week after flyers/radio commercials for the show started floating around the area and he was advertised as one of the wrestlers appearing, Terry Funk started showing up on WCW TV again. An angle ran that lead to Terry Funk being booked against Kevin Nash at WCW Souled Out 2000...on the same night as the "R.A.W." show.

 

So naturally, my friends and I assumed that Funk would not be appearing on our show. Before doors open, we ran into a friend that worked for the local TV station and was there in the afternoon recording pre-show interviews for the 6PM news broadcast that would air a couple of hours before bell time for last-minute promo. He told us Funk was there (side note: the same promoter ran another town three hours away the night before, and one of the undercard wrestlers has since told me that Funk worked the night before in a falls-count-anywhere hardcore match against Shaw and got Muta-level juice when a trash can spot went wrong, which of course is now a holy grail match for me if anyone recorded it that night), and the plan was that Funk would go out to open the show and then immediately hop on a plane to the WCW PPV, which was in Ohio that night so a quick flight was doable provided weather panned out.

 

The show opened with one of Shaw's trainees - "The Irish Luchador" Billy McNeill who ended up working St. Louis indies for a while and running in the same circles as folks like Matt Sydal and Delirious prior to their ROH days - receiving the "R.A.W. Rookie of the Year" award, and then Terry Funk comes storming out of the locker room and assaulting McNeill and issuing an open challenge to anyone in the locker room, which summons Bruce Hart. Bruce Hart and Terry Funk then do a wild five-minute brawl all over the gymnasium before they end up tumbling through a door to outside the gym, where I assume a car was waiting for Funk. Bruce Hart of course being Bruce Hart, comes back to the ring, and on a show that was in a high school and had been promoted as "family-friendly" immediately starts calling Funk a "chicken shit" on the mic.

 

It may not have been a proper match, but Terry Funk cemented my fandom forever that night by still showing up on the same night as a WCW PPV booking, when everyone would have understood if he canceled off the show.

 

And yes, the promoters really did say "R.A.W. Comes to Marquette!" on the flyers/posters promoting the show. In January 2000. When WWE RAW was red-hot.

 

4. IWA-Mid South Something to Prove - front row for Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher. I can be seen freaking out multiple times on video. To this day, that match is still the closest I have ever felt to experiencing "BIG FIGHT" euphoria and delirium. One of the most epic wrestling weekends ever. Caught overnight flight on Friday night out of Los Angeles, landed in Philly Saturday morning. Went to the IWA/CZW double-header at ECW Arena with friends, then we drove together to NYC Sunday morning for Puerto Rican Day, the ROH show, and the first ECW One Night Stand. Then caught a 7AM flight Monday morning back to Los Angeles and was at my work desk by 10AM Pacific time. I had no vacation days with work at the moment, hence me not being able to take Friday and Monday off and missing Hardcore Homecoming and having to make the whirlwind weekend. I was drunk the entire time from Saturday morning flight landing to Monday morning flight returning with maybe eight hours of sleep total for the entire weekend. WORTH IT.

 

5. Joey Janela's Spring Break 2019 - I was at G1 Supercard in MSG, and getting really nervous about the timing for taking the train from NYC to Jersey City and getting there in time for JJSB. Okada vs Jay White took the ring at MSG, and as much as I wanted to see an IWGP Championship change, I couldn't help but pull the trigger on bolting early for Spring Break. I speed-walk from the Jersey City train station to the GCW Collective venue, and as I walk in the doors, Rich Paladino is in the ring starting the countdown to going live on FITE TV. I literally could not have timed my departure from MSG better.

 

And my departure from MSG meant I got to Spring Break in time for what was the main draw for me that evening. My first non-WWF wrestling as a kid was Jim Crockett Promotions 1986. Throughout many years of attending WWF/WCW/ECW events in the late '90s, and Wrestlemania weekends and numerous independent shows in the 2000's, I still had yet to see the Rock N Roll Express wrestle live. I finally got to cross seeing them off my wrestling bucket list with Spring Break that night, and on top of that, it ended up being a damn fun "passing the torch" match with LAX/Ortiz & Santana/Proud & Powerful. Seeing Ricky Morton live hitting every move crisply brought me great joy that evening, and I 100% lost my shit when Morton hit a perfectly-executed Canadian Destroyer. And the post-match where RnR presented their bandanas to LAX...I still have yet to actually cry while watching live wrestling, but that may be the closest I have come.

 

I missed the IWGP Championship changing hands, but I honestly would have been much more bummed out if I had missed the Rock N Roll Express tearing it up that night.

[Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown]

I also think just having that year doing Japan and indies helped AJ Styles wash away some of the "TNA stink" as if he went straight from TNA to WWE I am not entirely sure the buzz for his debut is there as much, or WWE may have felt compelled to send him to NXT first for rebuilding. 

[DECEMBER 2020 WRESTLING GIFS]

That Sinister Minister botch is hilarious (looks like the tube accidentally hit his shoulder when he swung) but I am thankful that with that much glass shattering in his hand it didn't end up being a repeat of when the fireball blew up in his hand during his ECW days. 

[The Old School Questions thread]

Now that I think of it, I dont think I have ever been clear on how exactly Fritz Von Erich transitioned from "evil German Nazi heel" to "beloved son of Texas that loves Jesus Christ, Texas, and his kids." Does anyone know the Cliff's Notes on that?

[NOV 2020 WRESTLING PICTURES]

4 hours ago, Pete said:

Wasn't on the image I saw. Absolutely would've kept it in if it was there...

I was more or less being sarcastic, as I just can't imagine any scenario where any wrestling publication, even during his in-ring heights, backing Paul Jones as a World Champion-caliber wrestler. From what little I've seen and things I've read, he 100% seems like a guy you could have hold a regional territory belt, but not higher than that.

[NOV 2020 WRESTLING PICTURES]

Why did you crop out the part that said "NOTE: This advertising space paid for by Paul Jones"?

At least I assume that was part of the original publication for whatever that was.

[NOV 2020 WRESTLING PICTURES]

Finally finished my first-ever watch of the 10-hour AJW Big Egg Wrestling Universe after slowly hacking away at it throughout the last week. I am loving that Akira Hokuto's reaction after winning the tournament isn't a triumphant "I won, I am the best" but an exhausted "I won, I never want to do that again...EXISTENCE IS PUNISHMENT"

 

[Survivor Series XXXIV - 11/22/2020]

Seeing them together in the ring during that final segment, I never realized until now how much I wanted to see a match between Jeff Hardy and Savio Vega, and how much it would still probably rule in 2020.

[NOV 2020 WRESTLING PICTURES]

I know objectively that's a real photo, but it really does look a photo of the other three that Virgil photoshopped himself into so he can fake the autographs of the others, sign it himself, and then sell it at conventions.

[NOV 2020 WRESTLING GIFS]

I REALLY wish more of that heel "Big Daddy Ritter" run that JYD had in Stampede got out there, the small trickles we did get it seemed like he was a natural even in that role.

[2020 STUFF ABOUT SPORTS MEDIA THREAD]

5 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I hate linking to the Post but

 

Even though I would be dismissive of it anyway, but sports really is the biggest proof that should blow up every "COVID is a creation of the media" myth that exists.

Are ratings for news networks and engagement for streaming services up? Sure.

But all of those news networks are owned by larger umbrella corporations that would undoubtedly trade 500,000 extra viewers for their news divisions every week to get back the greater revenues come with sports arenas and stadiums, concert halls, movie theaters, and theme parks being filled shoulder-to-shoulder, and the resultant additional engagement with sports that would trickle down to television viewership.

[Wrestling What Ifs]

14 hours ago, BobbyWhioux said:

actually, upon further reflection, without the fireball (because there's NO WAY that survives the jump to the "New Generation") I think Gilbert probably goes the same route as the Bushwackers and becoming a sanitized babyface.

If Gilbert lives to see the Attitude Era, on the other hand...

I could see Gilbert having the dreaded "solid hand" tag in mid-90's WWF, but no way is he sniffing main event, and MAYBE an opening match on an In Your House type PPV putting over someone that the office has genuine plans for.

As a heel, he would be in that Skip/Rad Radford realm.

As a face, he'd be in the "Aldo Montoya/Bob Holly/tag team partner of the 1-2-3 Kid but taking the pin" circle.

If he was still alive in 96 I could see him being brought in as part of that wave that brought Tracy Smothers, Tony Anthony, and Bill Irwin into the fold of being given some sort of gimmick, winning his first TV match over a jobber, and then immediately back to putting people over.

And as you said, given how bad the drug scene was in mid-90s WWF, he might have been a casualty there anyway.

I also can't imagine him not running afoul of the Kliq at some point either. If he had as much trouble as he did navigating the politics of JCP and 89/90 WCW, I can't imagine he would have fared too well the first time he butted heads with Shawn and Kevin.

[2020 UPCOMING MOVIES DISCUSSION]

On 10/27/2020 at 11:51 AM, (BP) said:

“Hi Freeze, I’m Batman.”

Still my favorite co-opting of an otherwise brutal scene from Hardcore:

 

[RIP Tracy Smothers]

6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Oh man. Go to the 32 minute mark on that video. Smothers has been warned if he won't wrestle the Meanie he'll have to pay a $5000 fine. The ref starts counting and Tracy bursts out of the entrance, slides into the ring... and slides right through the opposite rope, hitting the barrier with his face. He has the announcer claim that he's going to slam and military press the Meanie, then says "in Nashville, Italy, and Czechoslovakia we settle things in a manly fashion" and challenges him to a dance-off. Earlier on he claims British citizenship and offers Cesaro five whole dollars to forfeit his title. The whole thing is a riot (pardon the pun).

I just watched the first one here where he claimed his European ancestry and warned the crowd that if he hears a "USA" chant, EVERYBODY DIES and i had to pause because i am still having giggling fits and suppressing tears of laughter just from that one. 

[WWE Network Conversation]

On 10/14/2020 at 6:47 AM, Shartnado said:

Network has added Timeline episode featuring Yokozuna. Sadly, the matches are exactly what you'd expect, with no surprises. It just got me thinking (again) that it really took me a good while to appreciate him as a worker and this was mostly due to the presentation.

The whole character probably would have worked a great deal worse without them, but for a teen-age Shartnado the sumo gear, hairdo and lame theme music were poison. If he had say black trunks, the beard and hair he had in '95 (and in NJPW), a heavier, more threatning version of his theme and stayed in his '92 weight and mobility, it would not have taken me well into the 2000's to appreciate his obvious talent. He probably would not have been nearly as over, and most likely never been the WWF champion that way. But hey, appeasing one particular Finnish wrestling fan's sense of aesthetics instead, would probably been a worthy trade-off.

It took me a while to appreciate Yokozuna too. Even as a 14-year-old Michigan kid who was still several years away from being on the Internet, the whole "foreign menace" thing was super played-out and corny to me and more of a turn-off than a hook. Outside of the deal where he squashed Duggan and left him with "internal injuries", Yokozuna at the time was never someone I truly bought as the guy that should be WWF Champion and dominating everyone else on the roster.

It also didn't help that he was WWF Champion at the same time that Vader was WCW World Champion, and was straight-up destroying people every week on their television to the point where I was legimately wondering when I was going to see someone die on WCW Saturday Night. I definitely recognize how great of a worker that Yokozuna was now, but in the moment, he paled as a "monster heel champion" in comparison to Vader.

[2020 INDIE WRESTLING]

I really want to WANT Pillman Jr. to succeed as it would be a feel-good uplift to the overall story of his father, but man, every time I start to get into him, he'll say something incredibly eye-rolling on Twitter. He's not the stupidest wrestler on Twitter, but I would say he is a solid 7-out-of-10 on the "Is his Twitter as stupid as Flip Gordon's Twitter?" scale.

When I saw that reveal of him being the source of that super-gross after-the-fact DM, I 100% said to myself, "that checks out."

Also, what Logan Stunt did would have been gross and stupid no matter who he did it too, but to do it to a frigging GEAR-MAKER that likely has plenty of friends in the locker room is some 9-out-of-10 Flip Gordon (though admittedly, unless there's something I don't know about, Flip is an idiot but he's not a creep to women, so replace him with the wrestling sex pest of your choice for this analogy?).

On the topic of COVID and The Collective, I don't blame anyone in live entertainment for taking a booking, and trying to make a buck to keep paying the bills, but there's enough risk even with just a well-managed one-shot booking. A big three-day, 12-show weekend where dozens of wrestlers are coming in from different regions of the country, and a number of fans are traveling in from out of town, that's honestly just a recipe for disaster, and I genuinely hope that things play out to where this ends up remaining a "scare" instead of becoming a "tragedy".

But sadly, you also know that when WWE tries to do Wrestlemania in Tampa again at the stadium next year, at least half the guys that took the booking this past weekend will head to Florida anyway for The Collective 2021.

[AEW - OCT 2020]

5 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Indie show, but check out this superstar pop.

 

The fact that the pop/response was that loud in spite of the building only being 30 percent capacity and everyone wearing masks made it even more impressive. 

And whether its 2021 or 2022, I really hope someone runs that building again when we are able to do full capacity shows, that building's acoustics sound like it would be 80s Crockett-level insanity with every seat filled. 

[OCTOBER 2020 WRESTLING GIFS]

4 hours ago, Eoae said:

 

The spot where that GIF freezes really needs a "and Ricky Steamboat as RICKY" sitcom title card.

[OCTOBER 2020 WRESTLING TALK]

9 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

To add to this, I've heard (probably in that same Hall shoot tbh) that X-Pac was the 'can/can't work' bar back then. 

I recall that Owen Hart was also in that small group of wrestlers they trusted to find out the answer to "do we have something here with this guy?" I believe both Kurt Angle and The Rock were placed in dark matches fairly early on with Owen, whose positioning on the card was probably a bit too high at that point to "work dark with green guys" for any reason other than testing out someone they thought could be a future star. 

[It's Clubberin' Time!]

7 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

The shit I find reviewed on Segunda... This is a match set outside in a cage, no ring, just two guys waffling each other for five minutes. The chairshots are really disgusting and uncomfortable and the video is dim for about a quarter of it, but it's just so fun. Everybody has a Southern accent and is yelling some shit and the cherry on top is Jeff G. Bailey coming out at the end to yell and stomp. They even work a moonsault into this! My favorite part is the drop toehold into the cage though, so simple and so violent.

I am shocked I haven't seen someone like WWE, TNA, or AEW steal Shank's entrance for one of their outdoor/parking lot brawl-type matches.

I loved how short and violent this was, and the wonky lighting actually made everything seem more violent and dirty to me. I do wish it wasn't a "first man that leaves the cage wins" match but appreciated that they only did one tease of the door opening prior to the finish, and at the end of the match, the winner walked out after knocking his opponent out with a big move to cap off an appropriately violent brawl.

[AEW Dynamite - 9/30/2020]

8 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Kingston introduced Butcher as "Kris Zellner's favorite wrestler."

Just a clarification, it turned out he said "Griselda's favorite wrestler", a rapper that has a new album out this week with a song called "The Butcher and The Blade".

I heard "Kris Zellner" first also, and so did a lot of other people on the Twitter timeline.