I remember being pretty stoked to get UFC IX and the fucking disappointment of it, what a damaging show that was. They probably would have been better off not releasing that one on home video. Just act like it didn't happen. 

The police stepped in and almost shut the show down, they were threatening to arrest fighters if they used closed fists in their fights. With Shamrock and Severn both having as much UWF/UWFI experience as they had they should have worked out a worked bout where they could have got out of there looking good and built up a 3rd fight somewhere where the sport was legal(Severn having lost the first bout and being in his hometown obviously would have had to go over). Instead we got them dancing around paying paddycake for an hour.

Aug 6, 2023 2:49:56 GMT Baker said:

A few months after getting online I also took my first foray into the world of Japanese wrestling with a comp tape literally called Intro To Puroresu and the 1994 Super J Cup. Duh. Every Japanese wrestling noob of that era started with either the 94 J Cup or the 1995 IWA King of Deathmatch tournament. 

This is absolutely correct and I was an IWA 1995 King of Deathmatch guy. Because hardcore was at its height, I skipped past All Japan/New Japan completely in favor of FMW stuff after the IWA Tourney. I mean, it sounds insane, but I don't think watched a single Misawa match during this period. 

Also, will sound insane, but I don't recall ever coming across the term Puroresu back then. Obviously, I must have, but my brain must have just skipped past it not knowing what it was? Everything was just Japanese Wrestling in those days, in my memory.

My ECW White Box experiences were kinda bad, just because I couldn't find a consensus of best shows back then. Time decides that and it was all too recent, so it was kind of a free for all of me checking the ECW catalogue for cool sounding matches, usually gimmick matches, and they'd be on so-so events (thinking about Heatwave '94 right now). So the comps really were the best bang for the buck. Sabu Smashing Tables one of the greats ever made.

It's funny to think about those days, checking out EBAY for cool compilation tapes (always 3rd generation rips of a tape that had seen better days because the guy you were buying from was trying to make a little business doing this sort of stuff), no bank account, barely an income, going to Te-Amo Cigar stores because it was the local place for me to get a money orders. I obviously wasn't going to send a check, no debit card for PayPayl. Converting the little cash I had to money order so I could send it to a shady guy in California promising to send Best of Onita on VHS after receiving the money. What a time to be alive. So happy the next generation had YouTube from day one, pretty much. 

Aug 6, 2023 2:57:25 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Baker's one lone time to try to rent a UFC tape being UFC IX the worst one ever makes me sad. I'm sorry bubba.

Really shows how tenuous lifelong interests and everything is, really. Like, if the fellas rented UFC 6 instead, Baker man might have become a huge UFC fan. It was just luck of the draw on a single day in the mid-to-late-90s.

Aug 6, 2023 1:35:00 GMT Kilgore said:

Keep looking at this hoss. This gotta be one of the hardest pics ever taken. A cowboy video store. Dude has the Betamax prominently on display because it's higher quality than VHS and he's trying to make it work. You know he was selling it hard. "I'll tell you what, buddy. Rent Car Wash on Beta and I'll throw in a free Stetson. Now you can't beat that." This could be Neo Zeed in another life.

Lonesome Dove on Beta FTW!

Aww man. Kilgore bringing the goods again. I botched the quoting tho.

I wasn't a New/All Japan guy either. But I didn't go the hardcore route like you. Instead I was a Michinoku Pro guy. I was into that go-go-go cruiserweight style back then. Plus it was more "American" than New or All with Kaientai as these ultra charismatic pure heels. And now that a lot of those guys were in WWF I felt like I was scouting them. Forgot to mention I got a Michinoku Pro comp some time in 98 as well.

See, in the places I frequented Puroresu was the term knowing smarks used. "Japanese Wrestling" was for rubes and noobs. I used the two terms interchangeably for years until you set me straight. Now I don't bother calling it Puro(resu) anymore because it really is hoity toity.

Oh man. Money Orders! OK, so I had no idea what a Money Order was when I started doing this in 97-98. Pretty sure I did have a few bucks in a checking account, but my mom kept an eye on it so I wouldn't be able to skim for something so frivolous and gauche as wrestling tapes even if I wanted to. First time or two I sent straight cash wrapped up in a piece of paper  (even I knew to keep it covered in some way). Then somebody smartened me up to the whole Money Order thing. It was a godsend.

I had a white box Sabu comp too. Not sure if Smashing Tables or Sabu: All Across America. Maybe both?

Nobody ever took my money without sending SOMETHING in return. But that "something" was not always worthwhile. Some tapes were borderline unwatchable. Others crossed that border. Went off McAdam when he sent me an unwatchable one (SMW I think it was) AND the wrong Memphis tape. Then I switched to some guy named Brandon in Oklahoma for my Watts UWF needs.

Aug 6, 2023 3:20:59 GMT Kilgore said:

Aug 6, 2023 2:57:25 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Baker's one lone time to try to rent a UFC tape being UFC IX the worst one ever makes me sad. I'm sorry bubba.

Really shows how tenuous lifelong interests and everything is, really. Like, if the fellas rented UFC 6 instead, Baker man might have become a huge UFC fan. It was just luck of the draw on a single day in the mid-to-late-90s.

Isn't everything?

Any of you guys get the ECW tapes put out by Pioneer? I had Heat Wave 98 (it was my first time watching the full show), Anarchy Rulz, and possibly one or more of their Best ofs/comps. It was just cool to see ECW tapes in mainstream stores at the mall. The little promotion that could had made it big.

Since an earlier line about one of my lone MMA experiences got over I shall now recount my entire history with MMA...

Best I can remember my intro to MMA came when I got into the Apter Mags in late 95. They were hyping a UFC show real hard. I think it was called Ultimate Ultimate? Still remember there was a guy named Oleg Tartarov or Tartakov on that show. Great name! Think Dan Severn, Tank Abbott, and some guy named Dan or Dave Benetieu were on it as well. That show got so much ad space in the Apter Mags I feel like I'd have rented it if it had showed up at Blockbuster or West Coast.

Then around 2007 I watched one of Brock's first fights (maybe his first?) at a bar with a bunch of guys from the old 90s gang. At least two of the Three Brothers, for example. Plus a lot of non-wrestling fan friends from that era who my brother still hung out with. Anyway, Brock had his opponent (whose name I can't remember) on the ropes. I had Lesnar ahead on points (lmao as if I knew anything about MMA scoring) when he got trapped in a flash submission and had no choice but to tap.

Then there was some MMA fed on Fox(?) about 10-15 years ago. It wasn't UFC, but one of the minor league outfits. Remember seeing a guy named Matt Finch or Mark Fitch who the commentators put over real hard as an amateur wrestling All American at Purdue.

At some point, probably on the Fitch/Finch show or maybe on the undercard of Brock vs. ?, I saw an MMA guy doing a vampire gimmick. I swear this happened! Because I remember him being Russian rather than the expected Romanian.

Any of this ring a bell with you guys?

Aug 7, 2023 0:16:16 GMT Baker said:

Any of you guys get the ECW tapes put out by Pioneer? I had Heat Wave 98 (it was my first time watching the full show), Anarchy Rulz, and possibly one or more of their Best ofs/comps. It was just cool to see ECW tapes in mainstream stores at the mall. The little promotion that could had made it big.

I bought Barely Legal ON DVD, of all things. The event predated ECW PPVs being available in New York (Wrestlepalooza '98 was the first), so I never got to tape it as it aired. The DVD revolution had come upon us in the meantime, so DVD was the format I bought to fill that void. I hated it. Generic music added. Total precursor to watching ECW on the WWE Network. It just didn't feel like ECW. Never bought another Pioneer. 

I have a few of the Pioneer ECW releases. While they may not have been the full ECW experience, they weren't too bad.

I have Anarchy Rulz 99 from Pioneer, and watched that one like crazy (I know the event is being discussed in the Hardcore Theater thread, but it really was ECW's best PPV, IMO).

My favorite of the Pioneer ECW releases is the best of the Dudley Boys. It features a lot of great stuff of them in ECW (their match against Spike and New Jack at Guilty as Charged 99 was a great, fun, brawl). It also features their match and pre match antics of It Ain't Seinfeld, which is really the best moment of the Dudleys getting the crowd riled up on a commercial release (Heatwave 99 doesn't have shit on It Ain't Seinfeld😁). And the emotional farewell from their last night in ECW before jumping to the WWF, which was a cool little sight to see. It also had the one night return to the Elks Lodge in December of 2000.

I found a used copy of the UFC 9 DVD at a Goodwill a few years back, and bought it, just to see how bad the main event was. On paper, it would sound like the greatest fight ever (Shamrock and Severn going the full 30 minutes, 24 minutes and two bonus 3 minute rounds), until you realize what lead up the fight being like it was.😂

Aug 7, 2023 15:22:05 GMT Leper Messiah said:

I have Anarchy Rulz 99 from Pioneer, and watched that one like crazy (I know the event is being discussed in the Hardcore Theater thread, but it really was ECW's best PPV, IMO).

It was really the best wrestling pay per view there ever was in history of wrestling. I don't even care. 

Aug 7, 2023 0:16:16 GMT Baker said:

Best I can remember my intro to MMA came when I got into the Apter Mags in late 95. They were hyping a UFC show real hard. I think it was called Ultimate Ultimate? Still remember there was a guy named Oleg Tartarov or Tartakov on that show. Great name! Think Dan Severn, Tank Abbott, and some guy named Dan or Dave Benetieu were on it as well. That show got so much ad space in the Apter Mags I feel like I'd have rented it if it had showed up at Blockbuster or West Coast.

At some point, probably on the Fitch/Finch show or maybe on the undercard of Brock vs. ?, I saw an MMA guy doing a vampire gimmick. I swear this happened! Because I remember him being Russian rather than the expected Romanian.

Man it's nuts the old UFC 1 has turned 30 years old this year. Think about that, the same year as The Sandlot, which was set 30 years further back in time in 1962, those kids in that movie were talking about The Babe calling his shot from 30 years before their time 1932 like he was Paul Bunyan tall tale Hercules immortal god. I wonder if they would have felt the same about the Bambino if they were able to all watch every game of his on Youtube or if they would be like kids today shitting on Tupac for actually not being very good at all and maybe kinda sucking even compared to lil booty wayne x 69 or whoever kids listen to these days.

The Ultimate Ultimate is an interesting one. It falls into the category of the early days bare knuckle no rules no weight classes and one night single elim tournament 8 men enter but in the end... there can be only 1. That's fucking pay per view jack. The Ultimate Ultimate was in December 95 and was the UFC's "All Stars", they brought back all of the best guys from the previous 7 tournaments for the best of the best, and it had at the time the biggest purse for the winner of the tournament something like $250,000(all the others were like $100,000). But what made that show interesting to me was that it was really a turning point, there were no jobbers in that tournament so there were no brutal knockouts, every fight was technical battle of skill between experienced pros, it was the first UFC where it felt/looked like a real sport of strategy and not a toughman contest with motherfuckers just getting killed bare knuckle. I think every fight went to a decision but all the fights were good/interesting. Dan Severn won 3 fights that night to win it all it was his 2nd time to win a 8 man UFC tournament(he made it to the finals of his first one at UFC IV, got tapped by Royce Gracie that was 60 pounds lighter than him iirc).

Severn winning the Ultimate Ultimate got him the title shot against Ken Shamrock at UFC IX(of course he would go on to win the title in a decision). Shamrock choked his ass out pretty gruesomely in their first fight at UFC VI in the main event/superfight when Shamrock was at his peak of most jacked:



Shamrock caught him in a guillotine and almost ripped his head off, Severn tapped out. At that point Shamrock was truly the man. If you want to watch a fun old school UFC show watch UFC VI. One of my favorites. UFC II and III were life changing, if you like Street Fighter II or Bloodsport you should check those out.

The vampire guy was Andrei Arlovski, he was pretty fucking bad ass back then. He would end up capturing the Heavyweight title sometime in 2005 and was way better than anybody the UFC had at that weight class. I thought that whole look/gimmick was great, he lost his belt then the UFC decided they didn't want to push him and didn't want him beating their homegrown heavyweights so they released him sometime in 2007 even though he was on a win streak. He bounced around and ended up back in the UFC and still fights there today, and still is beating young prospects, could easily now be considered a top 5-10 heavyweight of all time. Really awesome career resurgence story of an old timer that had to bounce back from some really bad losses but just fucking kept grinding.

Only adjacent to this thread, but it made me think of us talking tapes again, because I read this article today where some corporate ghoul at Warner Bros Discover said: “This whole idea of warehousing content on Max, on a streaming platform, in retrospect is incomprehensible,” he said, because “a small percentage of titles really drives the vast majority of viewership and engagement, meaning management teams must think about what to do with other programming to properly monetize it.”

This is soulless bean counter language to justify shrinking the availability of their libraries based on the bottom line. What kind of monster refers to making available one of the greatest libraries in American entertainment as “warehousing.” Such a detached word only a psycho would use. 

Scorsese was really cooking a couple years back when he said: “We can’t depend on the movie business, such as it is, to take care of cinema. In the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word “business,” and value is always determined by the amount of money to be made from any given property—in that sense, everything from Sunrise to La Strada to 2001 is now pretty much wrung dry and ready for the “Art Film” swim lane on a streaming platform. Those of us who know the cinema and its history have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible. And we have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly.” 

The Italian-American Nostradamus. Broaden cinema to everything ever recorded, including wrestling, and this is where we're at. I imagine the new owners of the WWE exclusively employ people that think the same way as the Warner Bros Discovery psycho. 

Anyway, insanely, we had it better during the tape (and cable days), and we're not just being nostalgic, because this is dystopian nightmare language by the owners of the second largest media library in the world. 

It really sums everything up, one by one they all realized that there is no money in old shit. It's like the big huge library of old movies at Blockbuster I worked at that nobody ever rented from, the place would be packed full with lines to the back of the store and cash literally overflowing out of the register none of that money came from people renting old movies, it was all Drumline money. I got so tired of people coming to the register asking for that movie. They had like 75 copies and it still wasn't enough. Fuck. People only want to watch new movies that everybody else is talking about. It's weird and bizarre and abstract to actually be into old shit like we are, it's not normal.