JRGoldman

There is a barcade in Wilmington DE called 1984, if anyone lives by Philly or in Delaware.

I think Bronson Arroyo of all people correctly said that none of the people who are morally outraged about steroid use (it was Manny in this case) are outraged because a person is going to die at 50 from liver failure, they are outraged because someone hit a ball a little bit farther. The whole thing is just an absurd witch hunt that almost every single media member and baseball employee is complicit in.

It's crazy to think about how great the Whitmer/Jacobs ROH stuff was and then realize that they had even better matches in IWA MS. Whitmer really got the shit end of the stick during his first ROH tenure. He had so much momentum as this walking tall bad ass babyface after the cage match with Jacobs, and then he gets put in possibly the worst stable of all time with the Hangmen 3. I seriously cannot think of anything more boring than Adam Pearce, Brent Albright and BJ Whitmer as no nonsense heels.

I don't think it is worth it. Ox Baker clearly wins the final over the Boogie Woogie Man. 1970s Harley Race is eliminated in the semifinals along with mustachioed Ricky Steamboat. If doing tournaments because the final was set isn't worth it, why do we subject ourselves to March Madness every year? Also, I think you are greatly underselling some facial hair. Magnum TA somehow had a mustache that was a perfectly permed as his mullet. Sam Oliver Bass looked as if he was the offspring of Stan Hansen and a villain from a silent melodrama.

Random thought on the drive in to work: Has this board ever done a "Wrestler Facial Hair" tournament? Because man, I can't decide. There is too much awesome historical facial hair.

Giant Gonzales dressing like hairy Brock Lesnar crossed with evil Abe Lincoln is the stuff of nightmares.

Matt, I'm glad that you feel as though you really got something out of it, I think that is the best thing about reading stuff like this. I second your love for the translation, which is truly a master work. It is really rare that you can read a translated work and get such a clear idea of an author's voice. This book is a very meaningful one for me, and generally has left a lasting impression. I was given it as a Christmas present one year, and reading through it the first time, I found it to be a very empowering read. I think at some point in our lives, we all discover that while we might not have become the world famous, top of our field people and workers we dreamed of being, it is the small things that we grab on to that we inevitably find meaning in that push us forward and give us fulfillment. It's always a bit of a bittersweet lesson to learn, but depending on what it is, what you find in your life can still make us reach those heights that we thought we would in a more public way in our day dreams.

Did I fuck up? I went in and was able to change my team name and stuff a few days ago, but now it says that the league is full.

I don't really think size is a valid excuse for Edge's spear not looking great. Jimmy Jacobs absolutely creamed people with his spear, and the size difference between him and most ROH workers was equivalent or even greater than the difference between Edge and most WWE guys. The problem with Edge's spear is that most of the time at the point of impact he was already on his news, and the momentum would carry the recipient down instead of back,

I would be really in to Vince hand picking Ryback to be the new face of WWE and then bullying the shit out him publicly when he loses and fucks up constantly.

Swans recently said they are putting out two new albums in 2013. From what I understand one is going to be based on the tour they are doing right now, and the other will be studio tracks. I think it means we will finally get a studio version for some of the songs played on the 2012 tours. This is the one I'm most in to:

I think they are trying to get Dolph over with his constant escape from the heel trying to beat him up after the match. Basically Dolph is Tweety Bird and Big E Langston is Sylvester. This is all leading to Dolph getting a training montage of him learning from Hornswaggle, who has previously shown the ability to escape from Carlito through vinyl holes in the wall. We can only hope for Piranesi's sake that it eventually leads to Dolph fooling a bamboozled and smitten Dean Ambrose by dressing up like the Chiquita banana lady. He will then job the US title to Kofi.

Boss Man deserves credit for being one of the few attitude era heels who always managed to get booed, and never crossed over in to "cool heel" territory. Also, at the risk of making this thread one of the most stereotypically DVDVR things ever, he had some pretty fantastic punches.

I must be missing something. Didn't Arenas sign that enormous deal with the Wizards and then was traded to the Magic? Wouldn't that make him not eligible for amnesty purposes?

I have fallen in love with this idea of Daniel Bryan as the modern day Stone Cold going up against Vince and his cronies. He can come to the ring and chug almond milk, and fill Vince's new convertible with vegan ice cream. All the buys.

I love Cesaro, but let's not pencil him in as world champ just quite yet. He is a guy that wasn't even all that over as a singles guy on the indies, where stuff like work rate matters a ton more. I think his ceiling is basically what we saw last night: bringing out the absolute best in an established main event guy who draws way more heat than Cesaro does. I think we may see him in a couple PPV programs for one of the big belts, but I would be pretty surprised if he was on the winning end consistently. I had to laugh last night. I stepped outside for a minute when they showed RVD walking to the ring before the commercial break, and when I got back, Barrett was already bleeding from the mouth.

I have nothing to add to the love, so instead I will admonish the WWE for putting up a tweet calling that new diva a #ringrat.

I can't really speak to Morishima's work against juniors in Japan, but a lot of the back and forth in his ROH tenure against smaller guys was really due to the prevalent style at the time. I think if you look back his size is still a factor. This is clear in the difference between the way he worked most of his opponents versus the way he worked Brent Albright and Claudio during that one weekend double shot. It was pretty markedly different in how much he gave the bigger guys comparitively.

While he isn't as big as the people listed, the size difference compared to most of his opponents probably could throw Morishima in the mix. It's not as if Austin Aries was going to body slam him or anything. He had a couple really great years before he got injured all the time.

Nate Robinson has reportedly signed with the nuggets for two years, four million.

The Mark Henry thread and the physique discussion in here have gotten me thinking: Who is the smallest or least imposing wrestler to effectively be booked as a monster heel? Tazz? Tajiri?

If I hadn't already seen the thread in the sports section, I would've stolen tromataker's gimmick and posted 'gojacks, right?'

Edge was the absolute best guy to win MitB and cash in on Cena. I think you could also make a case that Edge was one of Taker's best opponents and was able to get really different and unique matches out of him. I think Edge had some pretty boring stuff, but he always brought it for big matches. I think it's easy to forget now how over he was as with both Lita and Vickie. Also there was plenty of fun stuff from his tag days with Christian. This is all from off the top of my head, and I am pretty indifferent to Edge.

They watch his body slam challenge against Mark Henry.

When I was in day camp when I was probably 7 or so, I told a counselor my favorite sport was pro wrestling. He told me it wasn't a sport because it was fake. When I told him he was wrong, he took my forearm a slapped it a few times so that it went red. He then told me if it was real the wrestlers would be red and bruised all the time. Later that day my parents confirmed. Fuck that camp counselor.