air_raid

I'm blocked by Mauro for linking him to the wiki entry for "jacknife pin" in the hope he learns what one actually is. Deserved, obviously.

I know I've said a few things in the past for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of you, Ricky, but I sincerely hope your girl is OK, gets well and gets her career moving again.

Great listen lads. Chase nailed that "2 good years" was in reference to approx 05/06, possibly starting around Turning Point at the end of 04 with the direction starting to get really muddled before 06 was out. Yes, Jarrett on top got boring. But the undercards were always stacked. Also Chase's impassioned summary was one of the best things I've heard on the show and I agreed with every word. Fuck you, TNA.

Nah, the one and only Breaking Point should come nowhere near the conversation for "worst" for me. DX vs Legacy was a good piece of work and I thought the I Quit match with Cena against "IED" version Orton at his psychotic best was truly compelling, my favourite match between the two of them.

It was waaaay too late for Bragging Rights, agreed. The only time they got it right in the first version of the roster split was when they went ages without a draft. Mania 21 felt pretty good in that respect with the Orton v Undertaker and Angle v Michaels matches as both guys had been on their respective shows for a couple of years uninterrupted, but by the time of Bragging Rights there had been so much flip flopping, often just when they felt like it rather than because there had been a draft, nothing felt special. OH MY GOD, these guys are on opposite shows!.... but I've already seen them wrestle half a dozen times.

Unbelievable.

No.

Don't gloss over Rey & Kidman vs Haas & Benjamin, that was superb. Vengeance 2005 was brilliant virtually from start to bloody violent finish.

He was. 100%. The team was Vince and JR plus one additional commentator for each eliminator. King for the first, Sunny for the second, Corny for the third. He went apeshit when Superfly came out as the mystery partner.

There was one time where Jim Cornette said "Its the SOS, and it has claimed another victim" and JR said "What does that mean?" to which Corny replied "I can't tell you, it's a secret." I THINK it would be Survivors 96. As a teen it was lost on me completely.

"Moveset" is another phrase we have to blame games for.

Bret was my first favourite, which means he's my favourite of all time forever. The first tape I saw was Mania VI and I thought he was the coolest motherfucker I ever saw as him and his fat beardy mate crushed the two Russian lads. The next tape I saw was Survivors 90 and he became a fucking hero to me heroically battling the 3 on 1 odds. After that I saw Survivors 92 and thanks to a cracking commentary job by Vince and The Brain I totally bought into the story Bret and Shawn told of the knackered champion against the cocky little shit with nothing to lose. Three tapes in and "psychology" as I'd come to know it was already important to me. Bret was brilliant once you bought into him. People say all his matches were the same but that's utter bollocks. Go watch the three completely different matches he had at King of the Ring, then the Doink/Lawler matches at SummerSlam 93. He told stories. He was often the best match of the night, post-Hogan. He had a knack of turning shit into gold. Maybe it was because he was understated, but I believed in him. He made me believe in him as a hero. When he turned in 97 I was crushed at first, but then I realized I still liked him more than anyone else so just went with it and enjoyed his aggressive anti US promos. I went mental when he won the belt back at SummerSlam as I thought he was getting phased out in favour of Austin, Taker and Shawn, and was gutted when he left for WCW, which I'll say nothing further about lest I cry. He was the best.

^^^^ I've got two of those tapes somewhere in my loft full of magazines, Hasbros, Bend Ems etc but damned if I could tell you what's on them. My favourite memory of being a moronic child in regards to wrestling is the version of Lex' big day aboard the Intrepid which I got told at youth club. Which was "Lex Luger came out of the sky in a helicopter, powerslammed Yokozuna, pinned him and is the champion." I was so excited, the first thing I did when I got home was update Luger's "titles held" in my sticker album with a blue felt tip. Before resuming my nightly quest to learn how to masturbate, obviously.

This is spot on for me, as a show-going fan. From a number of about four companies I've been to shows from in the last 3 years, a single show has probably not passed where I haven't seen at least one match which would have cracked the top 15 of best matches I'd ever seen live between, say 2007 and 2011, something like that. I get as much buzz from live shows as I ever did. Conversely however, I've never had less interest in watching on TV. The only WWE, for example, I've watched since Mania, was Payback round a mate's house. Nothing's getting presented in a way that makes me care about the stakes or about who's going to win, so I don't watch. I used to watch any wrestling on the strength of "good matches" but today I need to give a shit about what's happening and increasingly that's not happening. I'm also watching nothing "spoiled" for the first view as I've stopped caring if I already know the result and will only re-watch a small number of matches that I DID watch unspoiled/live and that were awesome. Match quality from an execution point of view might be in a golden age but wrestling as an interest is losing me. I'll only get excited about matches where I'm particularly supportive of certain wrestlers or invested in the relative importance of the matches or the development/story/successes or failures of the individual wrestlers, and that's basically down to Progress (in person) and New Japan (on telly). There's probably something to be said about infrequency of either shows or big singles matches, the importance placed on the matches and other factors, but there has never been a time in my wrestling fandom where more companies have been churning out "great matches" but I've given a shit about fewer of those matches.

Omega v Okada is nailed on to go time limit draw, just like Tana v Okada in 2013. EDIT : Having said that, I assumed they wanted to save "Kenny finally beats the fucker" for a title match but if he beats him here, it means the next title match can be promoted as the "decider" ... for now, obvs. Naito wins.