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Post by Baker on Mar 5, 2024 2:29:35 GMT
Car in front of me today near the late, great West Coast Video had an AEW bumper sticker on the back window. =========== Don't get me wrong. I'll own it and then some. But Big Pete calling me out for being a Hollyholic & Billy Gunn Guy got me thinking about how long it took for those guys to get over with me. Took Bob over 5 years and Billy over 7. That's a long time! Bob won me over when he became a Hardcore Superheavyweight. Dude went from a 1/10 to a 9/10 pretty quickly. Billy was more complicated. His case was a mix of absence makes the heart grow fonder, my usual contrarianism, a strong theme game, and memeing the One and Only into being a thing through the magic of video games. Even then I was only a true, blue FAN of those guys for like 2-3 years. After that they were "pretty cool" 5/10-6/10 veterans who were only semi-over with me based on residual good will. Then Billy went to TNA and I decided he sucked again. Because he did. BOBCORE never fell off that hard. Jeff Jarrett is the cream of that crop. Though some would no doubt say cream of that crap. I was a Double J Guy from his first WWF vignette. Only time I turned on him was when he went all Benedict Arnold by defecting to WCW when we needed him most in 96-97. That was messed up. That being said, Double J would surely have been a Top 5-10 guy in the company for me had I watched Evil Empire WCW- Traditionalist feuding with the NWO, Horsemen ally, Mongo partner, then the fun Mongo feud. Oh yeah. I'd have remained a Jarrett fan for sure had I actually watched 96-97 WCW. Mongo vs. Jarrett would have been one of those rare feuds where I thought both guys were cool. Sort of a poor man's Flair/Funk. OK, the poorest man's Flair/Funk. Jarrett "selling out" the second time didn't really bother me. I didn't even care that he held Vince hostage! Guess JJ was teflon by that point. WWF had already won the war and Austin didn't want to play ball. Fine. Let my guy go somewhere he won't bump his head on the dreaded glass ceiling.
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Post by Ness on Mar 5, 2024 3:20:29 GMT
Car in front of me today near the late, great West Coast Video had an AEW bumper sticker on the back window. ===========
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Post by Baker on Mar 5, 2024 3:35:33 GMT
Car in front of me today near the late, great West Coast Video had an AEW bumper sticker on the back window. =========== lol. I popped for it, actually. A part of me will always want to see wrestling thrive.
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Post by Baker on Mar 6, 2024 4:49:13 GMT
Another wrestling reference on Cheers. Hulk Hogan wins again. Woody is impressed. Buzzkill Frasier tells him it’s fixed. Woody assumes Frasier means Hulk Hogan can’t have children. Classic Cheers.
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Post by Kilgore on Mar 6, 2024 4:58:37 GMT
Another wrestling reference on Cheers. Hulk Hogan wins again. Woody is impressed. Buzzkill Frasier tells him it’s fixed. Woody assumes Frasier means Hulk Hogan can’t have children. Classic Cheers. Frasier being the one to try and ruin it is great because my memory of being a kid (comparable to Woody's beautiful innocence) and having an adult being like, "You know it's fake, right?" or "I can't believe people watch this fake crap!" is that guy was always the dumbest guy in the room. So it was sort of an insecure, posturing to seem smart, which is total Frasier. No sitcom ever understood the depths of its characters better than Cheers.
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Post by Ness on Mar 7, 2024 0:02:42 GMT
Tells him it's fixed.
Society just will not wrestling live it down. It's like holding a grudge into your 40s about your parents LYING about Santa.
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Post by Kilgore on Mar 7, 2024 6:28:57 GMT
Have you seen the commercials for Ricky Stanicky? It's a new movie starring Zac Efron and John Cena. I'm really pleased to see a man whose wrestling has really impressed me get such a great role. It's too bad John Cena is also in it. {Spoiler}
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Post by Leper Messiah on Mar 7, 2024 17:13:20 GMT
The only thing that confuses me about the "you know it's fake" person is how many of them watch reality TV. It's like they get upset at you for watching something that pretends to be real, even though you know it's predetermined, while they fully believe every thing they see on a reality show is real, even though you can shot holes in the plot easily.😂
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Post by Shootist on Mar 7, 2024 18:17:57 GMT
Just watched a Bobby Heenan clip regarding the "you know it's fake" topic. His reply was we never told them it was real, "does Roseanne tell you she's not really married to John Goodman at the start of the show?"
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Post by Emperor on Mar 7, 2024 20:33:42 GMT
As time passes by I start to notice that I am gradually getting tired of matches. Matches are boring. Everything's been done before, and every wrestler is exposed far more than they used to be. In the past few years the amount of matches I've been genuinely excited for, as opposed to watching them out of inertia and routine, is quite small. Most of them involve a select few wrestlers: Zack Sabre Jr., Brian Danielson, Will Ospreay, Kenny Omega (in singles), Kazuchika Okada, Roman Reigns. That's not to say I hate every match I watch, but I am skipping/half-watching a lot of matches these days.
Believe it or not, what is hooking me is the tried-and-tested formula of sports entertainment storytelling. It started with the Bloodline arc in WWE, which spanned several years and after a year-long slump has had a recent boost with the return of The Rock. In the past three months I've watched every mic segment from the following: Drew McIntyre, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, The Rock, Paul Heyman. And I love it. This is stuff I want to watch, not stuff I'm watching out of habit. As far as in-ring goes, WWE is not great, I watch almost no matches, but these guys talking to each other is the best wrestling content in the world right now.
The New Japan Cup, NJPW's second biggest tournament of the year, is happening, and I've never cared about it less.
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Post by Baker on Mar 7, 2024 23:38:42 GMT
The only thing that confuses me about the "you know it's fake" person is how many of them watch reality TV. It's like they get upset at you for watching something that pretends to be real, even though you know it's predetermined, while they fully believe every thing they see on a reality show is real, even though you can shot holes in the plot easily.😂 You don't even need the "reality" disclaimer. Best response is "Do you watch tv? Do you watch movies? You know those are fake too, right?" So... Believe it or not, what is hooking me is the tried-and-tested formula of sports entertainment storytelling. It started with the Bloodline arc in WWE, which spanned several years and after a year-long slump has had a recent boost with the return of The Rock. In the past three months I've watched every mic segment from the following: Drew McIntyre, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, The Rock, Paul Heyman. And I love it. This is stuff I want to watch, not stuff I'm watching out of habit. As far as in-ring goes, WWE is not great, I watch almost no matches, but these guys talking to each other is the best wrestling content in the world right now. The New Japan Cup, NJPW's second biggest tournament of the year, is happening, and I've never cared about it less. Emperor finally coming around to the darkside and admitting sports entertainment is king. You love to see it.
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Post by Kilgore on Mar 8, 2024 9:03:18 GMT
Tallying up No-Pants/Pants numbers and British Bulldog became my nemesis. This was mostly an easy exercise, wonderfully mindless, just going to Wikipedia, looking at a list of Royal Rumble participants and immediately knowing, "Pants Guy" "No-Pants Guy" and so on. Occasional image searches to remind myself of forgettable dudes who had cups of coffee in the WWF and made a Rumble.
But then there was the British Bulldog. This fucker was a pants guy, then he was temporarily a bicycle shorts guy, then back to pants, then he would go No-Pants, but only sometimes, then back to pants, then settled on No-Pants for a while. Then he's a jeans guy. Maddening.
Prince Albert, only slightly less maddening. Sometimes he's a leather pants guys. Other times he's wearing a Steiner Bros. singlet. Then he's going total No-Pants. When were any of these periods? Well, I'd put on the Rumble and quickly find his entrance to see what this asshole was wearing.
Warlord/Barbarian were like this to a lesser extent. Although they kind of have distinct periods as both Pants guys, then No-Pants guys. Although Barbarian would end up going back to pants.
Val Venis made me Google when the RTC began and when it concluded to know what the Big Valbowski would be wearing.
Also had a thought so ridiculous, I made myself laugh. That thought: When did Tazz start wearing pants?
But Bulldog was the most annoying.
Anyway, fun time.
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Post by Big Pete on Mar 8, 2024 17:28:30 GMT
Watching some Maven on YouTube as you do, when this clip comes up.
2:59
What's Hardcore's problem?! First he's stiffing Matt Cappotelli, now he's after some of those 70s kids!
Also Booker T 'WCW' - the disrespect!
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Post by Shootist on Mar 8, 2024 18:08:01 GMT
Tallying up No-Pants/Pants numbers and British Bulldog became my nemesis. This was mostly an easy exercise, wonderfully mindless, just going to Wikipedia, looking at a list of Royal Rumble participants and immediately knowing, "Pants Guy" "No-Pants Guy" and so on. Occasional image searches to remind myself of forgettable dudes who had cups of coffee in the WWF and made a Rumble. But then there was the British Bulldog. This fucker was a pants guy, then he was temporarily a bicycle shorts guy, then back to pants, then he would go No-Pants, but only sometimes, then back to pants, then settled on No-Pants for a while. Then he's a jeans guy. Maddening. Prince Albert, only slightly less maddening. Sometimes he's a leather pants guys. Other times he's wearing a Steiner Bros. singlet. Then he's going total No-Pants. When were any of these periods? Well, I'd put on the Rumble and quickly find his entrance to see what this asshole was wearing. Warlord/Barbarian were like this to a lesser extent. Although they kind of have distinct periods as both Pants guys, then No-Pants guys. Although Barbarian would end up going back to pants. Val Venis made me Google when the RTC began and when it concluded to know what the Big Valbowski would be wearing. Also had a thought so ridiculous, I made myself laugh. That thought: When did Tazz start wearing pants? But Bulldog was the most annoying. Anyway, fun time. Jamal and Rosie were tough to figure out (jorts, cargo pants, baggy jeans?) when looking the the 2003 Royal along with the aforementioned Albert
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Post by Big Pete on Mar 9, 2024 16:27:29 GMT
As time passes by I start to notice that I am gradually getting tired of matches. Matches are boring. Everything's been done before, and every wrestler is exposed far more than they used to be. In the past few years the amount of matches I've been genuinely excited for, as opposed to watching them out of inertia and routine, is quite small. Most of them involve a select few wrestlers: Zack Sabre Jr., Brian Danielson, Will Ospreay, Kenny Omega (in singles), Kazuchika Okada, Roman Reigns. That's not to say I hate every match I watch, but I am skipping/half-watching a lot of matches these days. Believe it or not, what is hooking me is the tried-and-tested formula of sports entertainment storytelling. It started with the Bloodline arc in WWE, which spanned several years and after a year-long slump has had a recent boost with the return of The Rock. In the past three months I've watched every mic segment from the following: Drew McIntyre, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, The Rock, Paul Heyman. And I love it. This is stuff I want to watch, not stuff I'm watching out of habit. As far as in-ring goes, WWE is not great, I watch almost no matches, but these guys talking to each other is the best wrestling content in the world right now. The New Japan Cup, NJPW's second biggest tournament of the year, is happening, and I've never cared about it less. I'm with you and it's something I've been struggling with as well. The issue is that Pro Wrestling has a very different tone than what it had 25 years ago. It's no longer trying to appeal to the MTV crowd, it's going after the Marvel crowd that's into goofy corporately approved one-liners and call-backs to things you may have seen on twitter or reddit. It's not necessarily good or bad, it's just different and I don't think you could just have Jon Moxley beat Shane Taylor in 5 minutes on Collision and get over - now he needs to have a 'good performance'.
Same deal with Ospreay and Fletcher - Ospreay felt inclined to take it another level because he has to be 'the' wrestler. He has to have that 5 star match with Fletcher on Dynamite because that's how he stands out. It's just a matter of will he get over-exposed? The crowd loves him right now, how will they feel in six months time? It seems like Ospreay is only going to be used once a month or so, since he's back in England as we speak, it maybe for the best.
My other issue with 'great' matches beyond over-exposure is other side effects. What does it mean for the opponent, if they put in a good performance, are they going to get pushed or are they just going to get jobbed out? Are we ever going to see a rematch or is it just one and done? Because in sport, there's nothing better than when you see a team come from nowhere, push a top team and make something of themselves. It's really deflating when the opposite happens where they play their best performance of the season, go down and they're just demoralised and not worth watching.
The thing for internationals like us, there's even more incentive to just cherry pick the good stuff and ignore the rest. You don't have to watch live and get to the good part, you can just watch the replay and fast forward. I enjoy watching everything in context, but there's only so many hours in the day and I much prefer talking wrestling than watching wrestling.
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Post by Emperor on Mar 9, 2024 23:56:30 GMT
The thing for internationals like us, there's even more incentive to just cherry pick the good stuff and ignore the rest. You don't have to watch live and get to the good part, you can just watch the replay and fast forward. I enjoy watching everything in context, but there's only so many hours in the day and I much prefer talking wrestling than watching wrestling. My entire pro-wrestling experience is cherry picking. I couldn't watch a full live show, not even a New Japan show, at least 50% of any given wrestling show is not worth watching. The likes of Wrestlemania and Wrestle Kingdom are the exceptions.
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Post by Ness on Mar 10, 2024 0:10:57 GMT
Am enjoying Emperor 's slow descent into ex fan.
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Post by Emperor on Mar 10, 2024 1:00:52 GMT
Am enjoying Emperor 's slow descent into ex fan. Won't be long before I'm one of those Off Topic only posters.
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Post by Baker on Mar 11, 2024 15:47:05 GMT
Watched some Heat & Velocity matches last night and was reminded of that time the WWF Championship changed hands in a comedy match. On Heat. It drew a 6.6 rating. ============= Lionheart 's last post in the Match Review thread reminded me of somebody somewhere once claiming Frankie Kazarian had the greatest record in WWE history at like 5-0. Later I plan on finding out if anybody can beat Sting's 29-0 AEW record. Maybe I'll see if anybody topped Kazarian in WWE. Although you could disqualify Kazarian on a technicality since he did some tv jobs before his brief run as a 'proper' WWE Superstar. Think Aja Kong also had an undefeated WWF career. Did Tiger Mask ever lose in a WWF ring? How about Sid in ECW? This will be a fun project... EDIT: Tiger Mask was 21-0 in WWE. Beats Kazarian. Doesn't beat Sting. Aja was 3-0 in WWF and Sid 3-0-2 in ECW.
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Post by Ness on Mar 11, 2024 19:48:03 GMT
Watched some Heat & Velocity matches last night and was reminded of that time the WWF Championship changed hands in a comedy match.
On Heat.
It drew a 6.6 rating.============= Lionheart 's last post in the Match Review thread reminded me of somebody somewhere once claiming Frankie Kazarian had the greatest record in WWE history at like 5-0. Later I plan on finding out if anybody can beat Sting's 29-0 AEW record. Maybe I'll see if anybody topped Kazarian in WWE. Although you could disqualify Kazarian on a technicality since he did some tv jobs before his brief run as a 'proper' WWE Superstar. Think Aja Kong also had an undefeated WWF career. Did Tiger Mask ever lose in a WWF ring? How about Sid in ECW? This will be a fun project... EDIT: Tiger Mask was 21-0 in WWE. Beats Kazarian. Doesn't beat Sting. Aja was 3-0 in WWF and Sid 3-0-2 in ECW. Are you talking about Halftime Heat? I feel that's cheating.
Was there another?
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Post by Baker on Mar 11, 2024 22:51:17 GMT
Ness Yeah, I meant Halftime Heat. Since Ness DQed Halftime Heat, I decided to find the next highest rated episode. It was 3/7/99 with a 5.1 rating. Show featured the famous Acolytes/Public Enemy mauling and Kurt Angle debuting in a segment with Tiger Ali Singh. Hey, I remember the Angle thing! Means I probably saw Acolytes/PE as well. Ratings fell off hard in 2000. Started the year still getting 4s. Ended the year in the 1s where they'd remain for the next few years as the 1.1ers strike again.
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Post by Baker on Mar 11, 2024 22:57:59 GMT
Just found out Pete Gas became a paper salesman. From the Mean Street Posse to The Office. What a legend.
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Post by Ness on Mar 11, 2024 23:00:43 GMT
Just found out Pete Gas became a paper salesman. From the Mean Street Posse to The Office. What a legend. Always fascinated by "shoot jobs". People used to make fun of Justin Credible for being a manager at Target, over I think toys. Fuck's homeboy supposed to do for money?!?
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Post by Baker on Mar 11, 2024 23:06:23 GMT
Down a Pete Gas rabbit hole. Reading his Reddit AMA now. Steve Bradley was apparently supposed to play Joey Abs but he got mono. Terrible timing. Sucks for Steve.
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Post by Ness on Mar 11, 2024 23:08:09 GMT
Down a Pete Gas rabbit hole. Reading his Reddit AMA now. Steve Bradley was apparently supposed to play Joey Abs but he got mono. Terrible timing. Sucks for Steve. SHARE!
And if you find anything on Rodney post it too.
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Post by Kilgore on Mar 11, 2024 23:48:30 GMT
Just found out Pete Gas became a paper salesman. From the Mean Street Posse to The Office. What a legend. Always fascinated by "shoot jobs". People used to make fun of Justin Credible for being a manager at Target, over I think toys. Fuck's homeboy supposed to do for money?!? That was Shane Douglas! Who didn't get hired by the WWF after the 2001 collapse and didn't get paid $250K his last year in ECW. Man had a family to support! Every shoot interview he's like, "I'd scrub fucking toilets to put food on the table for my family if I had to!" Justin Credible worked as a cook at the Olive Garden.
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Post by Baker on Mar 12, 2024 0:47:23 GMT
Down a Pete Gas rabbit hole. Reading his Reddit AMA now. Steve Bradley was apparently supposed to play Joey Abs but he got mono. Terrible timing. Sucks for Steve. SHARE!
And if you find anything on Rodney post it too.
www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/6bjh5o/im_pete_gas_ask_me_anything/ This is how Pete responded when asked if he ever took the Stinkface... "I didn't take it, I was lucky! Rikishi did it to Rodney because of his haircut, thought he needed to teach him a lesson. I took many splashes and never caught a hint of ass, but Rodney took it a lot - one time his face had a little brown on it haha."
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Post by Kilgore on Mar 12, 2024 1:02:25 GMT
Is there a definitive list of people that took the stinkface? Because there should be.
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Post by Big Pete on Mar 15, 2024 17:24:13 GMT
Excalibur: Okada with a dropkick! Taz: Got a beautiful dropkick, man. Tremendous dropkick. Reminds me of Hardcore Holly, Bob Holly. Similar style dropkick. Schiavone: Great call, man. Ness how can you hate somebody who reminds the industry of a former ECW legend, Hardcore Holly?
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Post by Ness on Mar 15, 2024 19:16:46 GMT
Did Okada debut and that was a legit line from commentary or is it hopeful thinking? I'm all for Okada being a BOBCORE influenced worker.
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