WRESTLING ON THE INTERNET NOT FROM THE NOW

[zendragon]

 

[Dragon]

DDT “DDT X ZEEKSTAR TOKYO SPECIAL PERFORMANCE ~ DDZT”, 26/04/2024

Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship: Unagi Sayaka (c) Vs Unagi Sanshiro

Watch Sanshiro in Unagi drag.

[Cobra Commander]

Bad News Brown vs Macho Man in a street fight from Hamilton, Ontario in January 1989:

later tonight on the WCW Vault: Tully and Ole have a dispute of some kind and well..

[Zimbra]

On 3/26/2026 at 9:04 AM, Zimbra said:

Pez Whatley's shootstyle career

I'm mostly putting these here so I remember to watch them later

So these weren't good but they were bad in a fun way.  Pez is extremely game, which is the A-1 thing you want for a non shoot guy in a shootstyle match. These feel kind of like early UFC fights where you have guys that aren't really familiar with the rules or with each other's styles.

With Anjoh you can tell he has an amateur background and does some pretty neat takedowns, especially a real cool spot where he stuffs an Anjoh armdrag, but doesn't have much to do once he gets on the mat.  Anjoh is happy to settle for rope breaks and throw some chippy shots when they get back up.  Pez is visibly gassed about 3 minutes in and Anjoh eventually gets a flurry and takes him down with a very cool armbar variation

Whatley clearly watched some UWF between the two matches because he throws a knee in the clinch and has learned to pull a leglock in the middle of the match.  Fewer cool takedowns in this one, but more of Nakano smacking Pez in the face.  Pez is once again gassed early, eats two kicks to the head and we're out of here early.

Pez in UWFi led me to JT Southern in UWFi and what I'm pretty sure was Southern's best match ever against Kakihara

 

[Cobra Commander]

Pez was trained by Saul Weingeroff and was around the ICW scene so yeah I could see him knowing how to fight a little.

Out of all the ICW guys... Ronnie Garvin in shootstyle would have had even harder chestslaps (Garvin never ever went to Japan after the early 70s, which was a loss). Lanny Poffo in shootstyle probably could do a little more than Randy Savage, but Lanny is probably also way too smart to avoid fighting martial artists. Someone would have tried putting One Man Gang in a shootfight because of the novelty. Bob Roop would have been dangerous in that setting. Rip Rogers would have tried to win fights by kicking dudes in the balls.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Pez is a guy who was probably born twenty years too late because he is the archetype of  the guys who had some success in the late SEG era/early Zuffa owned UFC. He had an amateur wrestling background and was compact with a good center of gravity. If he could take a punch or have decent BJJ/submission grappling skills, he would have enough success where he might mess around and be a mid tier contender. There were lesser guys in terms of athleticism who were able to make that claim.

[odessasteps]

1 hour ago, Cobra Commander said:

Pez was trained by Saul Weingeroff and was around the ICW scene so yeah I could see him knowing how to fight a little.

Out of all the ICW guys... Ronnie Garvin in shootstyle would have had even harder chestslaps (Garvin never ever went to Japan after the early 70s, which was a loss). Lanny Poffo in shootstyle probably could do a little more than Randy Savage, but Lanny is probably also way too smart to avoid fighting martial artists. Someone would have tried putting One Man Gang in a shootfight because of the novelty. Bob Roop would have been dangerous in that setting. Rip Rogers would have tried to win fights by kicking dudes in the balls.

The Knoxville 5 was a collection of guys you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. 

[Dragon]

AJPW New Year Giant Series 1997 20, 1 

Rob Van Dam and Sabu vs. Stan Hansen and Takao Omori

 

[odessasteps]

 

[Cobra Commander]

the Fabulous Ones point also works when switching camera angles

so here's Tully and Ole having a discussion on World Championship Wrestling:

 

[Dragon]

AJPW Real World Tag League 1997 16 11 

Real World Tag League 1997 match

Hayabusa and Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Takao Omori and Tamon Honda

 

[Cobra Commander]

UWF 3/29/1986:

Quote

We're early into the switchover from Mid-South to UWF (3/22 was the first UWF episode). Bill Watts and Jim Ross have fancy chairs in the Myriad and Bill is telling us about the Crockett Cup at the Superdome. Last week, DiBiase and Doc took on the Sheepherders. Doc hits Victory for daring wave the New Zealand flag in America. Doc keeps beating on Jack Victory and distracts the ref so the Herders beat DiBiase after a flagpole shot to win the Tag Team titles. Eddie Gilbert introduces Taras Bulba and Taras is taking on Dr. Death. Those Doc football shoulderblocks look a lot cleaner than all the spears done these days. Doc wins with the Stampede. Eddie Gilbert looks like a guy who takes a great interest on small planes flying out of Colombia. Bill Watts stooped to chicanery last week and Jim Duggan beat Buzz Sawyer for Dick Slater's North American after Bill Watts switched the contracts. Duggan beat Buzz with the Spear. You see, Dick Slater gave Buzz Sawyer the TV title, and then Buzz Sawyer lost Slater's North American title. Somehow the 1988 WWF was more stringent to certain rules about giving away titles then 1986 Watts was. Dick Slater has some prerecorded comments about this matter. The team of Buzz Sawyer and Rob RickSteiner are squashing Ron Ellis and Perry Jackson. Rick Steiner falling in with Buzz Sawyer explains A-LOT about Rick Steiner. Bill Watts mentions "Rob Ricksteiner's younger brother" losing to an OU wrestler. Steiner wins with a suplex out of the corner. Jim Ross here for WWL, he gave the wrong date for the Hammond show last week. Only $3 for tickets in Hammond, good news for  the Britney Spears family. Lakefront on April 6th, Kids free day. Hey, wonder if the economy sucks in Louisiana. Doc and Duggan have some comments. That ridiculous North American title actually seems fitting for Duggan. Dick Slater and Buzz Sawyer have some comments. Dick Slater has the look of a man who hires bikers to beat the shit out of his business competitors. Dick Slater is scheduled to defend the UWF TV title. But before that, Bill Watts is in the ring to do things. "You gave me your word" "No I said My Word Was As Good As Yours" Got heem. Bill Watts going Edward R. Morrow to ask Slater if he gave the TV title away last week. Dick Slater will be removed by the police as a video of The Bladerunners plays. Sting and Warrior look like they're taking all the steroids around this time. A good move by these guys to add more facepaint. Southwest(?????) got a big show in Bogalusa on April 5th, which is east of New Orleans. Buzz Sawyer will be defending the TV title instead as Bill Watts does his best with logic here. "You wanna play mind games, he might be bankrupt when he goes to war". Guess they're too busy with other impending tournaments to just vacate the TV title and hold a tournament. "If you like it at home, it's much greater in person" (translation: give us money please). I know some AEW fans think Gabe Kidd sucks, but he could steal a little bit more of Buzz Sawyer's "CTE before CTE" mannerisms and it'd seem fresh to most people. Bill Watts telling us this rear chinlock camel clutch ain't no resthold because it hurts. Now, you might think a heel losing two titles without being beaten for them might diminish the titles but, fuck the heels, so. Buzz Sawyer wins with a counter into a powerslam. Dick Slater evades the police to ask Buzz Sawyer for the TV title back, and Buzz Sawyer doesn't want to give it back. Who knew Buzz Sawyer would be an unreliable business partner. They just ran a lot lot of highlights of Sawyer/Peterson before the break. Hammond! The Lakefront Arena! Kids are only free if they're accompanied by paid adults, screw you orphans! Buzz Sawyer and Rick Steiner have some words. Terry Taylor has some words about Rick Steiner and Buzz Sawyer. Sean O'Reilly and Ken Massy take on the Bladerunners. Eddie Gilbert is here to present the Bladerunners. Sting wins with a splash and then the Runners do some weird posing around the ropes. "Coming up next: Korchenko" don't threaten us with a bad time. Eddie Gilbert has a Russian had for Korchenko and Korchenko is wrestling Tracey Smothers. Korchenko wins with a reverse backbreaker. He is truly the chubbiest of all the mid-80s Russians. Crockett Cup on April 19th at the Superdome. Korchenko and Eddie Gilbert share thoughts about an upcoming Korchenko/Koko B Ware match. Koko opens his house show promo by playing a harmonica. The Sheepherders take on... well, their original opponents disappeared and Doctor Death is circling the ring with an American photo. Okay, their opponents are Ricky Gibson and Dr. Death. Simultaneously doing "Evil Russians" and "Evil New Zealanders" gimmicks is a decision. Herders get disqualified after a 3-on-2 attack. Terry Taylor hits the ring to meddle in other people's business. And that's all!

 

[Dragon]

AJPW Champion Carnival 1999

Champion Carnival 1999 First Round Match

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Vader 

The first Misawa vs Vader singles match. 

[Cobra Commander]

Ric Flair vs Tatanka would have been such an amazing match if you put it in front of 2000 of the loudest upstate South Carolina residents you could find with how Tatanka is from JCP country and was trained around a bunch of JCP-adjacent guys and Flair is one of the kings of that area.

[Cobra Commander]

also, every one of these Tamara Murphy Live Event News segments posted by History Of WWE are some real alternative universe things where Sunny/Tammy has a good normal life in the wrestling industry, instead of what happened

although not to be too mean but there is a lot of "high school student reading the morning announcements" energy from 22yo spunky babyface Tammy who totally isn't going to be a heel manager on WWF TV six months later. Mid-90s WWF just had all of the most generic happy babyface announcers ever and Vince was having to work every big TV show because the only babyface announcer with any chops at the time was Jim Ross and they kept firing Ross every few months.

Edited March 31 by Cobra Commander

[odessasteps]

18 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

a good normal life in the wrestling industry

That’s a jumbo shrimp style oxymoron.

[Cobra Commander]

1 minute ago, odessasteps said:

That’s a jumbo shrimp style oxymoron.

yeah I guess it's easy to think "what if Chris had lived" in regard to Tammy but yeah

now the world where Cornette/Smoky are remains WCW friendly in 1993 instead of steering the Smoky guys into the WWF is a fun what-if

[odessasteps]

Don’t know if Chris and Tammy in the Nitro era locker room environment is much better than the WWF locker room. 

you do wonder if Tammy had a better chance of success if Vince never meets Rena Mero.

[Cobra Commander]

and searching YouTube led me to find Raven Mack posting a video of pro wrestling from this week 40 years ago

 

[Mister TV]

The section of old men, kids eating hot dogs, concession stand workers and the son of Larry Bird & Roger Daltrey being interviewed are golden. Also, Jake in a Cosby sweater!

 

Edited March 31 by Mister TV

[hammerva]

Aretha Franklin kind of knowing what she is talking about was pretty funny to see.  Also we needed a full show of just Jessie Ventura and Bob Uecker 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Having watched a WrestleMania 3 the other day, some things stuck out:

1. Speaking of Aretha, I alway found it interesting that Vince goes with America the Beautiful over the actual national anthem/The Star Spangled Banner. It's also intriguing in that Aretha did the national anthem (a striped down performance sans the choir/background singers unlike WM 3) at the Thomas Hearns vs. Dennis Andries fight on ABC at Cobo Arena a few weeks earlier and did a hell of a job as expected from Aretha Franklin. Both performances were amazing but Vince's over the top pageantry with the very long stock footage of random occuptions and scenery is highly amusing.

2. I love the new selective editing on the Vault version. They have now muted the m word for little people in the Bundy/Littlebrook/Tokyo vs. Hillbilly Jim/Haiti Kid/Little Beaver match but left Uecker making reference to there being beaver all over the place. I also love the awkward pause Uecker makes after saying cause I believe he realizes he stepped way over the line with his little innuendo and tries his damnedest to save it from being even more awkward.

3. Billy Jack Haynes has the most obvious blade grab in the history of blade retrievals. Right as the match ends, BJH leaves the ring to chase Bobby and gets it right out of his tape before coming back into the ring and getting hit by the chain by Hercules. It's up there with some of the later era Hogan and Mid South ones where guys have their gig out for minutes before they actually use it. Obviously the cameraman didn't know what was happening or that they were doing juice in the 2nd match out or he wouldn't have shot it. 

4. Bobby Heenan does such an amazing job hyping up Hogan/Andre even though it's clear this match will be horrendous in terms of quality. He lays out everything beautifully to the point where you actually believe Hogan will lose when with 100% certainty you know Hulk will win. Bobby could sell gloves and socks to a quadruple amputee. In his prime, he was that goddamn good.

5. I bet Aretha would be Meltzer in terms of wrestling history/knowledge compared to the lack of investment in this that Alice Cooper had. He almost drags this whole thing down. Every other celeb gives a damn, and this guy cannot even get his one assigned spot right. If I was Vince or WWF as a whole, I would have edited this fucker off of all Coliseum video releases and every other piece of media showing this match for the future. Just an all around lazy and terrible job on his part.

6. Steamboat/Savage loses something without "Sirius" playing even if it only plays for like a minute and a half. I've been largely fine with the ECW edits cause they (ECW) used an egregious amount of music they didn't have the rights to. That match needs that type of energy going in to watch it.

[Mister TV]

28 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Having watched a WrestleMania 3 the other day, some things stuck out:

1. Speaking of Aretha, I alway found it interesting that Vince goes with America the Beautiful over the actual national anthem/The Star Spangled Banner. It's also intriguing in that Aretha did the national anthem (a striped down performance sans the choir/background singers unlike WM 3) at the Thomas Hearns vs. Dennis Andries fight on ABC at Cobo Arena a few weeks earlier and did a hell of a job as expected from Aretha Franklin. Both performances were amazing but Vince's over the top pageantry with the very long stock footage of random occuptions and scenery is highly amusing.

America the Beautiful was most likely due to Ray Charles singing it at WM2, I can see Vince popping for it and then making it a special Wrestlemania thing. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

How the fuck did they go from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin to Gladys Knight to a very nervous Rockin' Robin who looked like she was about to vacate her bowels? I am guessing their first dozen choices called out or NCNS'd, and they just asked if anyone in the back knew how to sing. Then to have Jesse flat out say she did a terrible job was probably one of the things that has aged even poorer than some of the old school mimimalist wrestling. 

[Cobra Commander]

how long into the trip down the aisle in the cart did Bobby Heenan regret wearing a white outfit that made it easier for people throwing things to try and hit him?