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The only two names I've ever seen that were to be Vince's choice in 83/84 if he didn't go with/get Hogan were Kerry Von Erich and going with Snuka. Both wouldn't have worked. It doesn't matter who was available in '85, they would have likely been coming in on the back of a failed national expansion rather than riding the coat-tails of a successful one. 

What's likely to be the least disastrous out of these, and would it have lasted past any possible initial success;

- JCP/Mid South with the best product but not the financial discipline. 

- AWA keeping Hogan as a plus but Gagne as the negative. 

- WWF with Vince's expansion plans but the wrong guy at the front of the spear. 

I imagine JCP would have been the top dog in that scenario, however still needing a bail out, just a few years later than when it actually happened. 

8 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

don’t count cases where a fighter hits the canvas and immediately bounces back up to their feet as official knockdowns

And yet, when it comes to takedowns . . .I feel myself about to go all "That's a mat return Joe" here. They love using the entire abacus to collect up as many That's Not a Takedown, Takedown's together. 

Oppenheimer 

Bit shite wasn't it? Took me three days to watch it. (Friday, Monday & Tuesday). Could hardly ever hear the dialogue with the amount of silly background music in all the conversation scenes. So many scene cuts back and forward in time. I'm not sure there was a single great scene in it, considering all the plaudits it got. The best may have been when they were discussing which cities to target in Japan. Chilling if you imagine stuffed suits selecting life and death in that manner in reality. Not one for a re-watch, sorry Cillian. 

Shocked at that. I don't see that as a slip at all. 

I was pleased I was quite wrong about the Kayla Harrison fighting. Not so pleased whenever I heard her post fight interview reveal to me she is another "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour" type of prizefighter. I guess that's 95% of them, but even so. 

Thought Moicano sounded like an absolute moron in his post fight speech too. I liked his staff talking shit about the apex previously, but this nonsense about first amendment rights? Wouldn't mind seeing Jose Aldo give him one to the liver again. 

Sterling looked fabulous against Kattar. Really glad he hit the ground running at 145. If that extra energy he probably has allows him to continue to be as relentless as this going forward, then this could end up being a very good move for him. 

Both those fall on weekends that I'll be working, meaning spoilers will have to be attempted to be avoided until at least Sunday night or Monday morning. That'll be pretty hard to do for the McGregor fight. 

Did they make the Dustin Poirier fight before UFC 300, during the show or after? 

Alex showed his class in that main event. He's a different level on the feet. If you choose not to wrestle him then unless you earn his respect with something quickly, it's going to turn ugly for you. 

The Zhang fight was weird. I'm very pleased she won in the end because I felt it should have been stopped at the end of the first. The way the 2nd and 3rd went, I thought she was going to be on the wrong end of an unfortunate set of circumstances. Glad she righted it with winning the last two rounds. Crazy toughness by both ladies, Yan for gritting through as long as she did in that sub and Zhang for being knackered, getting dropped and still finding a way to win. 

And boy. Boy oh boy. Max Holloway and Justin Gaethje did Holloway and Gaethje things in that pearler. Two warriors. Holloway looked great in this fight. As good as he's ever been here, against an in form Justin Gaethje. The eye pokes didn't help, I'll say that. But as Max had done the damage to the nose before that, I think that was the main difference. With that nose being fried Justin was always a step behind. But he's Justin Gaethje and he always carries that threat to just change your world in an instant. He showed that by being the first man to drop Holloway, in his career. For Max, in a fight that he was winning every round in, to at the end just give Justin the opportunity to go double or quits for ten seconds? Incredible scenes.

I hope Max fights and beats Topuria, lets Volk and Ilia rematch non title while he then goes up to LW and challenges the champ there. I wish the world for this crazy Hawaiian. It's going to be a much worse place when he's retired. Enjoy this lunatic while he's doing shit like this. 

On 4/8/2024 at 3:36 PM, Supremo said:

Look, lads. You can dislike her if you want, but just know that you’re wrong. Extremely wrong.

 

Like hell I am. I'll go to the grave knowing she's the most annoying, grating announcer I've ever heard. Dreadful. Her and Pat McAfee. An assault on the inside of my brain. 

Main event was bonkers fun. Nailed it. The production is a billion times better than when I last watched anything from the company, yet there are still a few things I don't like about it - which tells you how bad it had gotten before. Improve the ring announcer, colour commentator, less of the CGI entrance graphics and figure out a way to blend the sponsors in better. But Jesus, on the whole there have been vast improvements in the watch ability of this stuff. 

Drew losing the title because he was too busy taunting Punk was good stuff. Drew and Rollins had a good match, got right to the point. They could have achieved the same thing without burying Drew's finish, but hey ho. Still a good time had there. 

The crowd woke up for night 2 which made a difference. It saved the weekend as I thought night 1 was a bit of a stinker outside of the decent Ripley/Becky match. The main event of night 1 would have done Horlicks out of business. 

Snoop Dogg as a semi regular third man behind the desk - ask him! The worst he could say is no, but man, that would be a bit of craic. 

9 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

The Couture’s definitely named their son accurately. Dirty old goat’s at it again.

 

😅 And still using a picture from about 20 years ago for his avatar. 

The fighters, en masse, need to turn down fights that get offered to them for Apex cards. That's just not going to happen though. Just let that call go to voicemail first - find out what they're looking. "A Vegas date? Sorry fella, barred from Vegas by the PD. You know I would if I could. That date in Cali two weeks later though? Sign me up". 

Great post Wand. Not far away now at all. 

Kayla Harrison fighting at 135 worries me. I don't know how she makes that with any kind of steam to last a whole fight. I think she'll need to stop Holm in R1. I hate to do it, but I'm predicting Holm to win this. 

Hope to god Pereira chins Hill. Hill seems like a fella even his mum would struggle to put up with over dinner. I think he'll do it too - I expect this to play out on the feet and Alex to show his class there. 

Can't pick against Zhang. Sure her age is getting on now, but her performances sure aren't showing it. I don't think it'll be here that it's going to start being seen. 

Max and Justin has the potential to be an all timer. You'd be hard pushed to write a fight down on paper that could be better than that, which also you would give an extremely high chance to it being able to reach that potential. I think Gaethje wins it, but Holloway is every bit the live dog. Gonna be a doozy. 

Fucking Bo Nickal on the main card ahead of every fight positioned below it. Mental. I can understand the TV prelims being a prime spot for the other fighters that didn't make that fifth slot, but the Fight Pass prelims aren't. That's where that fight belongs. Figgy Smalls jerking the curtain is mad. Shows the depth of this one obviously, but the order is pretty wrong. 

A winnable fight for Jim Miller on UFC 300 is about as good as you can hope for. I'm 50/50 on who I think will get the W, hoping Jim finds a sub from somewhere though. 

That's a pretty tasty looking card right there. Volkov/Pavlovich is a good pairing for Heavyweight, and that main event has the makings of a great fight. Really like that booking there. 

Big Will Hobbs is in the wrong place and time. Smackdown in the mid 2000's and he would have definitely gotten the chance to try and stand out among a pack of useless big fella's like Luther, Koslov, Heidenreich and that terrible Japanese fella who's name escapes me at the minute. 

Edit: Only just realised the thread is to bring people into the future not place others in the past 😔

8 hours ago, Merzbow said:

WWF may have been losing the war but the roster was stacked, Sid, HBK, Bret and Taker on top with Vader, Steve Austin and Mankind close to them with more greats underneath. Might just be my favourite group of guys in one place at one time.

And a lot of them were all pretty over at around the same time as well. No Ministry of Darkness Taker, or Ringmaster Steve Austin at this point. Good times. 

On 3/23/2024 at 2:05 PM, wandshogun09 said:

Nate Landwehr vs Jamall Emmers is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** here. Admittedly mostly because of Nate The Train but I’ve quite enjoyed what I’ve seen of Emmers as well. This was originally gonna be Landwehr against Pat Sabatini but that fell apart. I was hoping they’d slot Billy Quarantillo in against Landwehr when Quarantillo’s fight on the Apex card the week before fell through but they’ve gone this route instead. This will probably be a better actual fight to watch than Sabatini would’ve been anyway, to be honest. Landwehr’s must see TV. Win or lose, he always goes for it. I can’t remember a dull moment from him since he signed with the UFC. Mad little bastard

Nate the Train is back baby. Fantastic to see it's in front of a live crowd. It's always a spectacle when he shows up. That fight with Onana was something to behold. 

17 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Absolutely zero interest in this then 🤣 it’s actually not a bad card compared to a lot of the Apex ones. 

The Apex is dead to me. Like @Bruce85, first time it dawned on me about this card was this morning, when having breakfast I noticed Dana White saying somebody was getting the boot for biting their opponent on the show. 

16 hours ago, Loki said:

Sycho Sid v Bradshaw

 

That right there is all I really need from my wrestling. 

Stealing from the Onita mention earlier, a 10 man stunt brawl of:

L.A Park, Super Crazy, Penta Jr, Samoa Joe & Kevin Owens.

Vs

Onita, Tajiri, PCO, Jon Moxley and Mark Briscoe.

That'd be a bit of fun there, and probably fairly doable as well. 

Jeff Jarrett and Dustin Rhodes could do a bit of good 'ol blonde hair blading and I'd expect it to be great, yet hasn't happened yet in AEW that I'm aware. 

Rush Vs Rey Misterio would be a belter. 

Danhausen & Orange Cassidy Vs Khali and Mark Henry. 

I still think of guys from that 80's/90's era of wrestling, that I would now be close to in age or older than they were at the time, as looking way older then than I do now. That may or may not be with merit.

I don't know why, but if you told me that I looked substantially older than 1994 Brian Knobbs, which I am, I'd react like you just took a shit on my doorstep. 

If I was put as looking near as old as '91 Hogan I'd probably go as far as just taking a header off a bridge. 

This all despite me possibly looking older than both the fuckers anyway and not being able to deal with it. 

32 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Looks like Mox might be injured which might be why the tournament makes no sense at the moment as it looked like BCC would have been the focus of it.

Ah right ok, that would explain it alright. Otherwise I'd have been expecting FTR Vs BCC to happen again in the final or semi final. Mox finally gets his holiday it seems. 

6 hours ago, JLM said:

So BCC beat FTR then aren't in the tournament? That's a bit of weak booking there. 

On 3/16/2024 at 11:05 PM, wandshogun09 said:

Well fuck. Not sure how to feel about this one…

 

I'll tell ya how to feel about it Wand. Not good, not good at all. For further clarification, see @David's post. 

Disappointed Aldo decided to come back. If he had fought on, instead of retiring it would have been different - he was still hugely competitive. However actually retiring and then coming back - it rarely works out does it? He should have got the title fight before leaving, off the back of his three fight streak at the time. When he didn't and they paired him up weirdly against Merab? Baffling stuff. 

Coming back now, because he still has that itch, that's fair enough. But have some bloody fun with the match-making. Pairing Aldo with Jonathan Martinez, could be a fun scrap on paper but it neither makes Martinez a number one contender, nor does it do that for Aldo.  Plus, Aldo is as likely to lose that as he would be to win or lose against say Figueiredo, Chito, Cruz, Yair, Ortega, Volk, etc. An old guy, or a top guy - should have been the options. 

That was a fun Dynamite. They're on a real roll lately. I couldn't give a fiddlers about Mercedes Mone - she's one of the most overrated wrestlers of the last decade in my book. But if she's got a sweetheart deal, and helps get more attention for the women that are programmed with her, then fair fucks to her. I'll probably skip a fair bit of it though if I'm honest. 

The new Elite are cracking. I wasn't even sure Okada spoke English but he was great taking the piss out of Marvez. Speaking of the funnies - Samoa Joe kicking yer man off the ramp? I howled at that. 

I thought Joe Vs Wardlow was pretty decent - it was what it was going to be. They played it like a sprint and I enjoyed it to give Joe another solid title defence. 

Jericho will have Hook killed stone dead by the time he's finished with him. You can absolutely feel him sucking the heat out of Hook already. 

Christian Vs Edge being in Toronto makes lots of sense, but I'm very surprised Kingston Vs Okada is happening on the same show. Thought that would have been on the PPV for sure. Okada beating Kingston on the TV then defending against PAC at Dynasty maybe?

This tag tournament, do we know what format it's going to take yet? Part of me thinks they should go the Continental Classic route in some way, with a group stage. 4 groups of 4, winner of A vs runner up of C etc. If every top team is in it, the whole thing could be a barn burner. 

Forgot to mention earlier, that takedown from Petr Yan in, I think, the 2nd round? That was a thing of beauty. 

Can't get into Will Ospreay at all. It's all just too much . The incredible moves that he is hitting 6, 8, 10 minutes into a match should be ending it. They look like they should kill people on the spot. Then the match lasts another fifteen minutes. I just don't give a shit. I love a sprint as much as the next guy, but that's what it should be - between 4 and 9 minutes, this style might work ok for me. I was down on his match with Takeshita, and the Fletcher one was no different. An amazing spectacle surely, but beyond completely absurd. For wrestling, that's saying something, when it's all nonsense anyway. The crowd love it to death, so I'm clearly in the minority, but it doesn't work for me, bruv. 

The change in graphics and the set were very much welcome. The new song is shite though. Win some, lose some. 

I liked the opening segment in that it was different to 4 out of every 5 weeks being Jon Moxley opening the show for a 20 minute match. Varying the formula is the right idea. 

I've not been dying about Okada when I've seen him in the past, but I don't get the complaints here. I thought the crowd reaction to him coming out was fantastic. The instant the coin dropped, they gave him a star's reaction. A big moment. I didn't know he was coming in for sure, or when. I think this might get me on board with Okada, immediately showing a willingness to change from the formula, go heel on arrival and straight away it opens up a pile of doors. He'll beat Eddie, get draped in gold and has tonnes of interesting directions to go in. Yeah, good move I think. 

Wardlow got heated up so that Joe can get another quick Hook style mini feud before dropping the title to Swerve in April. That's grand by me. Wardlow had that promo a couple of weeks ago that was his best to date, but let's not get carried away here - he's no youngster. He's 36, he's about as good as he's probably ever going to be, and they have kicked his leg out of his leg already on more than one occasion. Wardlow wasn't being built up with that promo and the win at the PPV to actually be placed at the top of the card going forward - he's not at that level. Hopefully he loses to Joe and then turns on the group he's with and goes in a new direction. Path is clear for Swerve v Joe in a month's time. Then Swerve wins - because if he doesn't then he's going to miss his boat as Khan is going full steam with a long reign for the Essex boy come August. 

Serpico Vera had nothing for O'Malley in the end. One man has improved quite a bit since their first fight and the other is much the same fighter as he was then. Granite tough, but Vera got a bit of a pasting here. Broken orbital or something maybe? That cheek bone was a mess at the end. I'd rather see O'Malley v Merab and Topuria v Holloway next if I'm honest. 135 is way too deep to be putting on ice because O'Malley fancies dicking about. 

Cool Dusty P does it again. Back against the wall, looking like it was all going to hell in a hand basket, and he finds that extra gear that so few have. Incredible. You could see the weight fall off his shoulders in the seconds after the ref stepped in. 35 now, been in war after war, but Dustin told us there that he's a long way from done. I dunno what's happening next in this division - Islam not being booked against Gaethje threw everything up in the air - but I'm well on for Dustin against the winner of Oliveira/Tsarukyan or a third encounter with Gaethje. Benoit Saint-Denis will be back. He's only getting started. I could see him going on another smashing streak right after this. He gave Poirier as rough a night as those other guys at the sharp end of the division. The exciting fights for BSD next are endless. 

MVP Vs Holland was a real damp squib I thought, but then I wasn't expecting much different. Did nothing for me this one. 

Jack Della Maddelena showed improvement again against Gilbert Burns. Another changing of the guard type fight. It's no easy thing to stop Gilbert, and I thought this should have been stopped earlier than it was too. Calling out Shavkat as well. The balls on him. He's Jackie flat nose for a reason. 

Petr Tan displayed how difficult this division is against Song. For a man like Yan to have been on the skid that he was, when he showed here that he hadn't been slipping - the depth is incredible. Further proof as well to how difficult Merab is for anyone to handle. Yan looked sharp as a tack here. Yan Vs Figgy Smalls please. 

Jailton Almeida learned you have to make some attempts, once in a while, to actually win the fight. That first round, sure he didn't give Blaydes an inch, but fuck me. I dunno if he threw more than three strikes or ever tried to work for a sub. That KO by Blaydes was a harsh lesson for him - with these big boys, don't be fucking about. When you have someone where you want them, at least attempt to put an end to it. 

I kept to my promise from a few years ago - I forego all Kaitlyn Chookagian fights these days. 

This win over RDA is definitely one of Gamrot's better wins. So much of his record in the UFC I feel has a bit of an asterisk beside it. He's at a lofty ranking in the division with a fair bit of fairy dust. He needed something like this, where there was really no debate about it when it was over. Despite that, RDA really hurt him early, but couldn't capitalise on it. There's a bit of work for Gamrot to do yet I feel though, If he was to fight Islam, Oliveira, Gaethje, Poirier and Tsarukyan again, I don't know that he would be coming out of that better than 2-3. Which is no bloody position to be negative about, but that's the best I think it would be. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't beat any of them. He shouldn't have got the decision against Tsarukyan. He has very good wrestling but I dunno if he lives with those other men unless he progresses that wrestling into something with a serious finishing threat at the end of it. Over five rounds - the tippy top Lightweights usually find a way to get to you if you don't do so first. 

Phillips Vs Munhoz was a tonne of fun opening up the TV prelims. Phillips looked fantastic here. A litmus test for him that he passed with flying colours. He's in with all the Gremlins now at this point, but you know what? I think he'll handle it. Any amount of fun fights from here out for him. Rob Front or Jonathan Martinez would be bags of craic.