July 2023 Wrestling Discussion

[Dolphman 3000]

22 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I can't even remember the first CZW thing I saw, but I remember my reaction was, "what the fuck is this bullshit?" It looked like some JCW crap. The most low rent looking video production and absolute garbage in the ring. So that's my first and lasting impression of them and it's what made me not even give a shit about the ROH vs CZW stuff until Naylor started recapping the shows he went to on here. My reaction was, so CZW has good wrestling, what did I watch then? And then I see some of the CZW wrestlers involved on some RealPlayer clip or something and even then I thought they looked janky as fuck.

It blows my mind that so many top wrestlers came through CZW. To me, back then, I would have thought it was only a notch above XPW.

Watching back Punk's initial tour of the east coast indies in 2002 is a trip - Zandig stopped booking him in CZW because of the match with Justice Pain, and then 3PW stopped booking him because Meanie wanted him to not work for Feinstein and he said no

His career almost went much differently and who knows if/when he would have got to ROH

[Infinit]

2 hours ago, FourPostMassacre said:

I’m going to skip this and pretend blue Kane is hard work Bobby Walker and he’s spelling it Kain. 
 

Finally capitalizing on that Stang idea after all these years. 

It was actually Hardbody Harrison's idea...who I believe is in jail now.

[Elsalvajeloco]

10 minutes ago, Infinit said:

It was actually Hardbody Harrison's idea...who I believe is in jail now.

You know what? If Jeff Farmer/Cobra can be fake Sting...why not Hardbody Harrison? The bar is already low.

[Infinit]

Pretty sure Hardbody is in jail for sex trafficking...not sure if the bar is that low lol

[Elsalvajeloco]

2 minutes ago, Infinit said:

Pretty sure Hardbody is in jail for sex trafficking...not sure if the bar is that low lol

He wasn't in jail THEN! We cannot retroactively take away Doink from Matt Borne. He committed his crimes before he was Doink.

[matt925]

Wwe is running the chase center in San Francisco for a house show in September. That will be a very interesting test of how hot they are. Last time through the Bay Area they skipped chase, after doing tv tapings there the two previous times through Northern California, with crazy low attendance. Like 3k for raw and smackdown. Very curious how this one does. I’m gonna bring my boys to that show. 

[bobholly138]

On 7/6/2023 at 12:32 PM, Elsalvajeloco said:

Didn't Alabama Doink die in 2016? Either way, time for Alabama Doink II to carry on the legacy.

Yes Alabama Doink passed. But his old fed AWF is still around and their last event a new Alabama Doink walked out. 

Word is it is Bama Doink's kid under the mask. The kid paid HTM for the Patriot gimmick and been working as Patriot in Alabama off and on for years.

 

I want Bama Doink vs Bama Ultimo/Ultimate Dragon vs Bama Brymstone.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Selling gimmicks you may or may not actually own the most carny pro wrestling thing ever. 

I also add that I really want to see how "No, it's okay, your honor...Wayne Ferris sold it to me" holds up in a court of law.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

27 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Selling gimmicks you may or may not actually own the most carny pro wrestling thing ever. 

I also add that I really want to see how "No, it's okay, your honor...Wayne Ferris sold it to me" holds up in a court of law.

Have to call in Tom Brandi as a star witness.

[Zimbra]

10 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Well, it was but there was also a time where CZW had been embraced as the heir apparent to ECW for a little awhile. XPW had that feeling slightly on the West Coast, but the NE was a much hotter and most of the top indy guys were there. California had APW in NorCal, EPIC, UPW for a little awhile, XPW, and maybe 3 other notable promotions (it seemed like all of them were sharing the same folks as well). So CZW could be barely operational, but due to location, have a lot more buzz and opportunities to do stuff.

The NE indies also had a much better infrastructure for producing and selling footage. There was no real RF or Smart Mark equivalent for the west coast so they didn't have that exposure or revenue stream. Finding Rev Pro or EPIC tapes took actual work.

[John E. Dynamite]

2 hours ago, Zimbra said:

The NE indies also had a much better infrastructure for producing and selling footage. There was no real RF or Smart Mark equivalent for the west coast so they didn't have that exposure or revenue stream. Finding Rev Pro or EPIC tapes took actual work.

This is the terrible and undeniable legacy of RF. The phrase "post-ECW' doesn't come up enough in wrestling criticism, and it doesn't just mean a certain style of in-ring product (ROH as a pipeline to WWE for workrate gods under 5'10", CZW as a producer of bloody counter-culture avant-garbage happening at the 2900, etc.). It means geography, and distribution, and brand awareness, and all the ways those three terms came to interact with each other in the ways they did in a mainstream-internet, pre-streaming, pre-social media market.

Edited July 8, 2023 by John E. Dynamite

[Curt McGirt]

Just catching up to this thread: 

1. I've never seen Candido vs. Funk and that is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in wrestling

2. I've never seen the Portal dance-off and THAT is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in wrestling (god, if they showed Joe Gacy sliding on his forehead to Vince...)

3. CZW is responsible for Yamakawa having his neck broken by IIRC Wifebeater so that is an eternal black mark right there

[Dolphman 3000]

2 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

This is the terrible and undeniable legacy of RF. The phrase "post-ECW' doesn't come up enough in wrestling criticism, and it doesn't just mean a certain style of in-ring product (ROH as a pipeline to WWE for workrate gods under 5'10", CZW as a producer of bloody counter-culture avant-garbage happening at the 2900, etc.). It means geography, and distribution, and brand awareness, and all the ways those three terms came to interact with each other in the ways they did in a mainstream-internet, pre-streaming, pre-social media market.

I remember the most-downloaded wrestling video on Kazaa at one point was RF's fancam of the Xavier vs. Low Ki vs. Homicide 3-way from 2001 JAPW

I'm sure that doesn't hold up at all, but everyone was desperate for THE NEXT ECW

edit: hey look what I found

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2byoy

[Zimbra]

I'm high so I forgot my second point: Part of the reason XPW succeeded to the extent it did is that Rob Black already had those distribution pipelines and connections in place from his porn shit.  So you could go to Suncoast to buy a tape of an XPW show that drew 50 people.

[Casey]

53 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

I'm high so I forgot my second point: Part of the reason XPW succeeded to the extent it did is that Rob Black already had those distribution pipelines and connections in place from his porn shit.  So you could go to Suncoast to buy a tape of an XPW show that drew 50 people.

Exactly this. OnCue had a lot of XPW tapes, and it’s how I got Hardcore Inception, Baptized in Blood, My Bloody Valentine, etc. I only saw the Big Japan/CZW stuff due to Highspots having a VHS comp called the Big Japan Deathmatch Bible. It’s also how I first saw people like Kawada, Sasaki, Mutoh, etc but that’s not the subject at hand.

I think I only used programs like Kazaa for wrestling botches, MP3s and Sable pictures

[AxB]

When did Smart Mark Video start? Because they did a lot more to keep IWA Mid South in business than Ian Rotten.

[Dolphman 3000]

25 minutes ago, AxB said:

When did Smart Mark Video start? Because they did a lot more to keep IWA Mid South in business than Ian Rotten.

Mike Burns ran Future Wrestling Alliance out of Pennsylvania in 1998 with Mike Quackenbush as his champion, and he started filming other promotions on the side that same year

[odessasteps]

And gave us the still can’t believe it happened of El Hijo Del Santo wrestling in central PA. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

9 hours ago, Zimbra said:

I'm high so I forgot my second point: Part of the reason XPW succeeded to the extent it did is that Rob Black already had those distribution pipelines and connections in place from his porn shit.  So you could go to Suncoast to buy a tape of an XPW show that drew 50 people.

 

8 hours ago, Casey said:

Exactly this. OnCue had a lot of XPW tapes, and it’s how I got Hardcore Inception, Baptized in Blood, My Bloody Valentine, etc. I only saw the Big Japan/CZW stuff due to Highspots having a VHS comp called the Big Japan Deathmatch Bible. It’s also how I first saw people like Kawada, Sasaki, Mutoh, etc but that’s not the subject at hand.

I think I only used programs like Kazaa for wrestling botches, MP3s and Sable pictures

When WCW started to crumble and ECW began to fall by the waste side due to losing talent to WCW and WWF before being besieged with money issues, people started to look for higher ground and were more willing to accept maybe trying something new even if it likely sucked upon further review. FWIW XPW had a strong online presence at the time. Either it was going to pique your interest to take a look or you went and found something else. 

[Gorman]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

And gave us the still can’t believe it happened of El Hijo Del Santo wrestling in central PA. 

I can't believe I got to announce that match. Don Montoya called it with me, one month after his All Japan-inspired 35-minute bout with Quack.

[Gorman]

It’s here! My WCW history book, “King of Atlanta: Who Was the MVP of World Championship Wrestling?” is now available. This is the sequel to the WWF book, “King of New York,” and I am working on the ECW book now.  Hope you enjoy it! Here is the link.

[The Natural]

1 hour ago, Gorman said:

It’s here! My WCW history book, “King of Atlanta: Who Was the MVP of World Championship Wrestling?” is now available. This is the sequel to the WWF book, “King of New York,” and I am working on the ECW book now.  Hope you enjoy it! Here is the link.

Congratulations. You might want to put this in the book thread as well.

[Log]

Never mind.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Log

[Happ Hazzard]

Which wrestler has wrestled the most different opponents? I'd have guessed Jerry Lawler, but looking through wrestlingdata, I found 2 that had him beat.

Lawler has 973 opponents listed. I found 1 man that broke the 1000 mark, and one that has had one more opponent than Lawler. Anyone want to take a guess?

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

34 minutes ago, Happ Hazzard said:

Which wrestler has wrestled the most different opponents? I'd have guessed Jerry Lawler, but looking through wrestlingdata, I found 2 that had him beat.

Lawler has 973 opponents listed. I found 1 man that broke the 1000 mark, and one that has had one more opponent than Lawler. Anyone want to take a guess?

Just from longevity and places worked, I'd guess Ricky Morton. He worked practically every major American promotion/territory plus Japan plus indies for 45 years.