Jul 7, 2024 3:44:16 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Love it!

Also I switched over to my vhs tapes for the full effect, the fucking movie trailers alone make it worth it. I always forget to write down some of these to look up, there is one Christopher Walken movie I need to find. Also Raw Target trailer is epic.

Jesus!

Jul 7, 2024 3:44:16 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Love it!

Also I switched over to my vhs tapes for the full effect, the fucking movie trailers alone make it worth it. I always forget to write down some of these to look up, there is one Christopher Walken movie I need to find. Also Raw Target trailer is epic.

That era Walken is making me think it's either The Prophecy or Wild Side. Loving the Creeping Death breakdown ripoff riff in that Raw Target trailer. 

Jul 7, 2024 3:59:19 GMT Kilgore said:

Jul 7, 2024 3:44:16 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Love it!

Also I switched over to my vhs tapes for the full effect, the fucking movie trailers alone make it worth it. I always forget to write down some of these to look up, there is one Christopher Walken movie I need to find. Also Raw Target trailer is epic.

That era Walken is making me think it's either The Prophecy or Wild Side. Loving the Creeping Death breakdown ripoff riff in that Raw Target trailer. 

This one looks good too, An Occasional Hell starring Tom Berenger. Also always loved the commercial for The Hive video game, unleash the full power of Windows 95! The old UFC shows definitely hit harder on VHS compared to streaming them on Fight Pass, they just don't feel the same without that Vidmark intro/music, the trailers for these obscure straight to VHS movies, just gives me goosebumps. 

I found An Occasional Hell on Youtube but the video quality is so poor it's nearly unwatchable, I think ECW videos on a 1999 computer lab dialup connection had better video quality. Looks like a seriously good movie though too bad none of these are on Tubi.

I watched The Ultimate Ultimate 1995 from December 95 earlier today. This was like an All Star tournament, the 2 year anniversary show of the UFC where they brought back the Champions from III, V, VI, and VII, as well as a few fan favorites and finalists from previous tournaments. One fight that looked oddly suspicious to me on this viewing was the first round fight between Dan Severn vs Paul Varelans. They said that Varelans filled in for Pat Smith on like less than 24 hours notice since Smith failed a pre-fight physical. So the takedown by Severn at the start of the fight just looks really suspicious, like Varelans went down on purpose. Then Severn taps him quickly without landing any strikes. I don't know man. Varelans takes the fight on short notice without any training for the event I think he just took the money and did a job here, possibly thinking he had no chance against Severn anyways so why take the damage. Varelans had done worked match against Taz in ECW like a few months later and Severn was UWFI guy doing worked shoots. Never thought much about this fight until this viewing.

Another fight that really stuck out to me on this one was Tank Abbott's submission over Steve Jennum. He just puts him on his back up against the cage, then presses his head into Jennum's head with all of his weight forcing his head into the fencing of the Octagon so hard it puts a permanent dent into the fence in the shape of the dude's head that stays there for the rest of the show. Just crazy how savage and how different this was from any other submission in UFC full history, the way he used the environment and the cage, the violence of it, this was one of the all time great submissions ever imo. Doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Another suspicious fight to me on this go around was Dave Beneteau vs Oleg Taktarov. They fought once in UFC 6 if I'm not mistaken. There is an awkward moment in the clinch early on where Beneteau is like he backs off a takedown attempt, giving Oleg the chance to go for the exact same rolling kneebar from their first fight. Then a big tough motherfucker like Beneteau taps out to a fucking ankle pull, which wasn't a real submission hold, no chance of damage from this hold it just hurts(I was told by my coach in training back in the day that if I ever tapped to this that I would have to walk my ass back to Texas lol). Very odd fight that felt suspicious. I'm not even sure there were even any alternate fights for this event maybe they just felt like they needed to have a few worked shoots to make sure they got a main event without any injuries.

Going back to the Ultimate Ultimate 95 show this morning drinking coffee, revisiting a very interesting fight that took place in the second round of this tournament. I had this as background noise last weekend and wasn't able to pay much attention to the semis and finals. The one match that I really wanted to sit down and rewatch was Oleg Taktarov vs Marco Ruas. This is such a crazy interesting matchup looking back, Russia vs Brazil, Taktarov was Sambo and Ruas was Luta Livre, hybrid of Muay Thai and Jujitsu style just anything goes. Both guys were identical in size, Taktarov was UFC VI tournament Champ, while Ruas was UFC VII tournament Champ. What a great matchup, but it turned out to be a major dud of a fight. Taktarov bleeds from just a light grappling exchange, he was a big time bleeder. Severn busted him open big time in their fight at UFC V earlier in 1995 and his scar tissue from that fight kept getting ripped open in subsequent fights that year including this one.

This fight turns out to be a big stalemate. Oleg had a special move in a rolling knee bar that he would always go for, he tries it here but Ruas avoids it. Ruas is really tentative and careful but I feel like he lands enough here that he should have won a decision. I think at one point he lands a leg kick that Oleg checks and Ruas hurts his leg and has a slight limp the rest of the fight. Neither guy really lands anything significant they just circle each other a lot landing light shots, but Ruas connects with more and is the more active fighter. But all 3 judges gave it to Taktarov in a weird decision. Supposedly Ruas was so pissed about this that he didn't fight in the UFC again until 4 years later when he was way past his prime. Such an interesting figure/fighter, his UFC VII performance was incredible but he just faded out of the scene. Would have been cool to see a rematch between these two. Taktarov goes on to lose a rematch to Dan Severn in the finals of this tournamment, giving Severn his 2nd UFC tournament victory(and $150,000 prize for winning the tourny, the biggest purse yet in the sport at the time).

Such an interesting tournament. Some suspect fights in the first round(Severn vs Varelans I'm going to say was a work, and Taktarov vs Beneteau 2 seemed really like a work too). I remember reviewing this properly on the old PW back in the day and noting that this was the first UFC that felt like it had evolved into a real sport competition instead of a blood and guts faces of death spectacle. All the fighters had experience and fought smart with technique. There were no brutal knockouts or finishes, really interesting UFC event seeing how it evolved. Watching it again now it's cool to see the dream matchups of Taktarov vs Ruas and Severn vs Tank(Severn just mauls Tank in what has to be one of his best fights). Also Tank's submission over Jennum is an all time great submission in UFC history. 

Caught UFC 8 this morning from February 1996 and watched it on the Fight Pass. Very interesting because this version is the full pay per view broadcast with extra shots that were not on my VHS copy, including a big interview with Don "The Dragon" Wilson interviewing actor Chris Penn(Best Of The Best movies, Reservoir Dogs) at the end. Also one of the shots you hear commentator refer to the UFC as "Mixed Martial Arts" in what has to be the first ever use of that term in a UFC broadcast during one of the interludes.

Don "The Predator" Frye wins the David vs Goliath tournament in another star making performance. He beats a jobber in the first round with a 10 second knockout, but beats a big tough Texas guy in the second round of the tourny with a straight mauling then beats Gary Goodridge in the finals. Shamrock's submission win over Kimo to me has to be his best UFC fight, this was him at the top of his game imo. This was always a fun show.

This far into it I still think Ruas' UFC 7 tournament performance was the best of all the tournament winners, every fight was great and he beat 3 legit tough guys. Ruas vs Remco Pardoel may be another way underrated classic, loved that fight. Also going back to Steve Jennum vs the boxer Melton Bowen at UFC 4 that was also a killer forgotten old school scrap that would have to go in my "Best Of" the early days compilation.

This was probably the end of the prime early days of the UFC. The very next UFC event UFC 9 was a huge mess where they abandoned the tournament format and went with a straight fight card. Damn watching this I really wish we could have seen Frye vs Marco Ruas, though I'm positive Frye would have beat him.

Greatest fights of the first 9 UFC events(the prime old school shows, no rules era):

1. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
2. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
3. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
4. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
5. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
6. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
7. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
3. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
4. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
5. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
6. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1

Greatest tournament performances
1. Marco Ruas UFC 7
2. Dan Severn UFC 5
3. Royce Gracie UFC 2
4. Tank Abbott UFC 6
5. Don Frye UFC 8

Possible Worked Fights(with percentage of how sure I am it was a work)
Oleg Taktarov vs Anthony Macias UFC 6(100%, confirmed)
Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4(50%)
Dan Severn vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 95(90%)
Oleg Taktarov vs Dave Beneteau II Ultimate Ultimate 95(65%)

Nash might have a point about Punk. Saw a picture of him standing next to Drew, who to his credit is a pretty big dude by modern standards just dwarfs him.

I've never been a fan of ADR but I love his loved the last man standing match vs The Big Show.

I remember ADR won a lot of fans over on PW with that match.

Bringing this Todd post up from the AEW problems thread.

They had a hugely successful run in the 90s but who did they make into a star? Bill Goldberg

I remember when JR made this point on the 2003 Monday Night Wars doco, my inner WCW fan wasn't happy.

Diamond Dallas Page!

The Giant!

Booker T!

In fairness to WCW, I'd argue their biggest problem was their stars. Namely one guy who was bigger than the company who didn't do the right thing by the company, so much so, on the biggest stage of them all, his final match was against Sting in 1997. I whole heartidly agree with Kilgore, if WCW had the cajones to release Hogan in '98 they would have been better for it.

Of course the damage was done well before Nitro was even a thing. Letting Austin go proved to be the biggest mistake in WCW history and Austin seemed to be on a mission once he was terminated. That lit a fire and the WWF went all in and it completely changed their fortunes.

Austin was the golden goose, and once they lost him it was effectively over.

I'd argue that there was nobody else on the roster that could have gotten over to the level of Goldberg. Sure, losing Jericho didn't hurt but we saw what his ceiling was in the WWF and it wasn't that high. Benoit, Eddie, Steiner, Rey Rey, Stacy, Torrie etc. Same story. They were all pushed, where did the fans in the WWE go?

FWIW, I'm still salty about the disrespect to DDP and the Giant. I can live with Booker because by BATB 2000, the company was on life support.

We need an AI duplication of this, but with Shane Douglas doing the voice-over.

Jul 26, 2024 4:14:15 GMT Big Pete said:

We need an AI duplication of this, but with Shane Douglas doing the voice-over.

Will probably be copyright striked in a hour lol

Awesome promo. Is that the origin of "The Game" nickname?

Jul 26, 2024 10:58:27 GMT Emperor said:

Awesome promo. Is that the origin of "The Game" nickname?

I believe it is. While they obviously have to be careful with cursing on TV, it definitely helped the promo feel a bit more realistic with the few F bombs that got dropped.

Speaking of Triple H, and looking at the current timeline in Wrestling Bios RTW series, there is a weird crossover of HHH being a heel, while aligned with Chyna, whose became a face with crowd. Kind of an odd occurrence that I had forgotten happened.😂

I always thought "The Game" was a dumb nickname but that's a perfect origin story.

The coveted European Championship.

Lotta people rag on it and sure it was disrespected in some situations: Shawn pointlessly winning it and handing it to Hunter, Shane winning it and then giving it to Naked Mideon who might be the only person to hold it who isn't a solid midcard name. Yeah it was always position below the IC title because if they won both (D'lo doesn't count) they always picked that one and vacated the Euro. IC felt like the more serious workhorse belt which is why Benoit got it @ WM2000. But when you compare it to the US title they brought back after the wCw merger... is it really a joke in the grand scheme of things? Feels like it was just a lower card belt. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Maybe it's just one of those internet things we hear often enough that we accept as fact even if it's wrong. Examples: HHH paid dues for the curtain call, Jericho and those other future WWF uppercards held back in wCw, European title was literally shat on, etc.

17 and 18 got the EX-7/8 treatment. 19 went back to numerals. Why didn't they do X-9?

Jul 28, 2024 15:59:58 GMT @ness said:

17 and 18 got the EX-7/8 treatment. 19 went back to numerals. Why didn't they do X-9?

My theory is XVII & XVIII had too many Roman numerals for Vince's liking. Never liked the X7/X8 billing. Get outta here with that weird hybrid nonsense.
=========
The European Title was honestly pretty rubbish. I was hyped for it at first. Had wanted WWF to add a 3rd singles title for 12-18 months. Maybe longer. WCW had the TV forever. Then they added the Cruiserweight. All we had was the occasional Million Dollar Champion or King and even as a mark for those "titles" I knew they weren't "real" championships.

It was probably doomed to fail. European Title? Really? That's the best you can do. Can it only be defended in Europe? I/we thought this for months! And....maybe we were right? I sure don't remember any defenses prior to Summerslam 97. Then HBK laid down for Hunter. Ugh.

It did have some prestige during that HHH/Owen/D'Lo/XPac era. But European Title 2.0 was a fail from day one. Belts are only as valuable as they're treated. The IC Title lost a lot of luster for me in 97. For Kilgore it was a year or two earlier. The European Title was warmish for about 15 months and filler the rest of the time. They could have done better.

Fwiw the best Euro Champ was D'Lo because he did something with it. Made it his gimmick. Even though I ragged on him and his reign earlier, Bulldog would be #2. He was the first. And he gave the new title some credibility. It felt like HIS title if only because he was the only European in the company. Euro 2.0 is largely a 3 year blur. Let's see...Al Snow did D'Lo's gimmick and in true Al Snow fashion it was just a worse version of what had come before. "Great Wrestler" Regal got the belt and promptly proceeded to drop a DUD every time out. Kurt Angle became the first Eurocontinental Champion (D'Lo doesn't count) and DDP/Christian was a fun little midcard feud. That's all I got.

Doesn't get any better than this...



So pure.

Credit to Not That Tom Green, had no idea about this story. It sucks that it took until 2000 when WCW was a reanimated corpse, but I would have enjoyed Mike Tenay giving all the background on Hayabusa back in 98/99 while Hayabusa is mixing it up with Juvi, Kidman, Whipwreck, Blitzkrieg, Hayashi etc.

Gotta be in the running for greatest thing to ever happen during a Kane match (Kane is Spike Dudley for 7 seconds). 

Jul 26, 2024 9:23:47 GMT Kilgore said:

Jul 26, 2024 4:14:15 GMT Big Pete said:

We need an AI duplication of this, but with Shane Douglas doing the voice-over.

Will probably be copyright striked in a hour lol

I was able to catch this before it got taken down, god level post, crazy that technology exists to do something like this

The post title win candid shot in the back will always be a mark out for me. Sure Papa H trying to be in it made it less cool, but I'll never not wanna see them posing in front of those back dock doors. Also always enjoyed that "all the straps" Ultimo Dragon pose guys get when they hold multiple belts in their #killing it phase.

How do you like them apples, Brother?

Jul 30, 2024 1:14:37 GMT Baker said:

Doesn't get any better than this...



So pure.

On that note:
WCW version:




This whole video is great but the first 3 minutes especially gives me chills every time.



So odd to have Flair introduce that video package. Over my vacation I read The Last Real World Champion: The Legacy Of Ric Flair. It's a very detailed chronicle of his career, especially the Crockett years from 1974-88, once it gets to around the mid 90's it's pretty by the numbers.  It went into pretty good detail of his early life and especially his hectic schedule as the NWA world champion. It also tries to clean up his image after his recent controversies the last few years. It does have a "Flair being Flair" spin to it when the author addresses his womanizing and Flair's alleged sexual assault on the Plane Ride From Hell so it could be off putting to some. Still would recommend for any Flair fan.

Not meant to be political, simply to point out that the ECW spirit is alive and well in Philly. It is naturally within the Philadelphia soul. You can hear it. 

Pretty sure this was mentioned in 2021 when the interview happened, but as I lack the memory prowess of Baker, I can't be positive. It is Paul Heyman going into detail about music rights in ECW. I stumbled on it a couple nights ago, found it interesting, was thinking about it again tonight, so I figured I might as well post it.

Via NoDQ.com

During an appearance on the Squared Circle Pit podcast, Paul Heyman talked about ECW using licensed music without paying for it…

“We actually had three different types of deals in ECW regarding music. One, which is the easy one to talk about — they’re all easy to talk about. The easiest one to talk about was there were several labels; Tommy Boy Music was a sponsor of ours from the very early days. There was another label in New York. I wish I could remember the name of it and I should and I have no excuse as to why I don’t remember the name of it, but there was another label in New York that had some real avant-garde music with some great up and coming artists and they would always provide us — Gerald Cosloy I believe was the President of the label and they would provide us with music and we also went out of our way — the very early days of ECW, we featured ‘Slam’ by Onyx and we had written rights to that music. We had Jeru the Damaja, we had Three 6 — we were the first television show to ever feature Three 6 Mafia and we had cut a deal with the band and the label so we had deals like that. We went out of our way to find up and coming artists that we knew we could feature. We did have rights to White Zombie, we cut a deal for that. There was no money involved. It was a publicity deal and a rights exchange, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That was the first type of deal that we had. The second type of deal that we had was at times with playing the music video and intercutting the ECW action with the music video. So we would get, you know, certain rights to run the music video along with the ECW footage as long as we didn’t use the music live which we ended up doing anyway, and the third one which was like what we had with Metallica or certain other — Natural Born Killaz for New Jack and a lot of [the other] music. We just gangsta’d it. We just stole it. That’s who we were. We were a, no pun intended — all puns intended for the name of our first pay-per-view; we were a Barely Legal promotion. We were gangsters. We had no money, first of all. We were in the most hyper competitive environment in the history of sports entertainment/pro wrestling against two billion dollar companies and we had no money. All we had was balls, bullsh*t and bravado. So, we would say, ‘Hey, Sandman’s gonna come out to Enter Sandman by Metallica’ and he did, so when we would get these cease and desist letters from the labels or from the publishers, what are they gonna sue us for? We had no money. So come and sue us. You can probably stop us with a court order, but then they’re gonna have to pay their attorneys to go into court and file an injunction and then serve us which we’re pretty good at avoiding servicing for a while.”

Pretty sure the label he couldn't remember is Matador Records. Anyway, love the three different types of deals and Paul E. still remembering very specific artists (I particularly love the Jeru the Damaja mention who he used as the backbone of a PE extreme music video). "We were the first television show to ever feature Three 6 Mafia" is such a Paul E. being a hype man for ECW thing to say, he'll just always have that in him. Things not quite as rogue as originally thought with the rights, but still pretty rogue. 

Just got done watching Wrestling Bios video on WCW's highest rated PPVs, and when talking about SuperBrawl 3, he mentions how 2 Cold Scorpio has became somewhat underrated in modern times. And never really thinking about it, he kind of has. For a heavyweight kind of guy, he was really mobile in the ring, and could do a lot of high flying moves with ease. And had a decent amount of charisma as well.

I wonder if he's become underrated and somewhat forgotten about because of so many high flyers that exist today, along with how underwhelming his time in the WWF was (the only memorable thing about the Flash Funk gimmick is really the theme).

Found out D'Lo Brown & Reckless Youth were friends growing up in New Jersey who would go to shows together. They made the 90 mile trek to Baltimore the night Ron Simmons won the WCW Championship. Ace Darling may have been part of their clique as well. That part was unclear.