sevendaughters

I haven't seen him wrestle but is he actually 'talented in the ring' in a 'can work a match on the road that is mostly called at the time' or is he 'coordinated and not horrible and can meet timings and base a bit and do some smoke and mirrors spot work'? Legit question, doesn't matter to me either way.

I'm in favour of progressive taxation and have maintained that stance as I have gone through the tax brackets. I like public services, healthcare, and infrastructure spend. They add up to standard of life.

I'm not Scottish though, so this is moot. I do hope that the Scots see sense and leave us cunts behind.

if you're earning 100k in Scotland you're paying about 37k tax, which I don't think is unreasonable at all.

Presume some of you have but I recommend the Lapsed Fan's coverage of the whole Benoit thing.

I've not watched him since, but it hasn't stopped my enjoyment for occasionally violent and hard-working guys. Nearly all of them haven't killed members of their own family, just themselves.

My WWE fandom was on the wane because of the Invasion and general dislike for HHH, but I would still gather for major PPVs and popped for WM20. This certainly didn't help, and considering in latter years how everyone important knew how it happened before Raw aired is, in my mind, probably the darkest indictment of Vince.

47 minutes ago, air_raid said:

The funny thing is, there's no hard and fast rules to what can and can't be a well-contested and exciting "proper main event" or title fight by what time constraints, completely dependent on setting, style and the wrestlers involved. When I was a workrate pervert in my early 20s I used to think less than 25 for a main event was ripping off the public - that was clearly bullshit. Then I went through a spell where I acknowledged a 5 minute match could be great, but you shouldn't do it for a marquee title match or main event, then Lesnar vs Goldberg at Mania Sunny Logo proved me wrong. Shortly after that, my long-held belief that the 60 minute match was an outdated novelty was shattered when Omega vs Okada at Dominion gripped me from start to finish, then a year later they constructed a compelling piece of work that went even longer. 

Of course, this is entirely subjective and depends on your viewer's attention span and willingness to dedicate X number of minutes a time to professional wrestling. A lot of people might not be able to maintain excitement for long periods (oo-er) and even those of us that can, can probably only do it for certain promotions, wrestlers or combinations.

well, quite. NJPW have been exclusively doing 30-35 minuters (I think nearly all of their big shows in Japan have adhered to this in 2022). I am happy for them to be exceedingly brief or unexpectedly long. But right now I just expect the same length and patterned approximately the same, building to the callbacks/reversals/finisher spam epic dance. Tana-Moxley had a little of that, but it was 18 minutes of intensity rather than stretching it out with garbage and florid drama.

thought Tanahashi-Moxley was great and I hope NJPW are looking at this and thinking (remembering?) 'oh wow you can do a big time main event with all the emotions and have it under 20 min'.

Am still a physical media or death kind of guy. Well, not strictly true, I have Spotify Premium because I travel a lot.

I've had to come up with rules though.

- Vinyl - only if I really really love the record and have some history with it. Nothing new. At the point where I am going to Discogs a few.
- CD - only if it isn't on streaming. There's still a world of weird 80s/90s/00s releases that never saw streaming or vinyl. Store these in a wallet.
- Books. Am starting to move books on after reading unless they're life-changing. I also buy a lot of books for work, but they sit in my office.
- DVDs. Again, can store a lot of these at work. My tastes are pretty eclectic and often the things I care for don't appear on streaming. But I'm a member of a couple of good torrent sites and libraries with extensive choice, so I don't have too many.

Not against streaming or cloud or digital files. My pal had a system where everything he downloaded could be accessed through his TV and I should sort that out.

Naoya Ogawa - for a guy pushed hard in New Japan, the finest match I've seen of his is against Dan Severn in North Richland Hills, TX from a 1999 NWA loop tour when he was the champion. Real man-sized stuff, the wrestling of Bill Watts' dreams. Ogawa turns up in his gi and they have this grappling match that more rugged and American than a UWF/Rings type match. The match isn't historically significant, I don't think it is terribly influential, and it has a flat ending, but the actual work in the match is very good and suggested a type of wrestling that could have emerged in the uncertainty of MMA hoovering a portion of the wrestling audience.

I quite enjoyed this week's aside from the overplayed Cornette-Russo thing as I guess I haven't really consumed any of the plethora of shoot interview material on the BFA. Some of the source material is questionable (as an avowed Meltzist I think excerpts from Bruce Prichard's podcast should be treated as a take rather than gospel) but it was entertaining in a way that the Benoit and New Jack episodes weren't. Godfather has a good attitude about the biz, you can see why they liked him in WWE. Team player. Was also conflicted: I don't really like Vince Russo but he claims he concocted this as a way of ensuring Bradshaw got beat up. Not sure being crowned 2nd toughest midcarder in the locker room counts as mission accomplished but it is never not satisfying to see that KO punch from the final. These aren't great documentaries but they're competent narratives that seem official. I guess that's what matters.

Dana goes Inoki, time is a flat circle

I never saw this thread first time around. I love Liger: his UK stuff, his seminal early 90s junior run, and his post-tumour grumpy bastard fun midcarder stuff. Heck I even love shit MMA Liger. I am fairly sure that I was sat next to him at a Rev Pro show when he and some of the NJPW travelling staff came and sat up in the balcony. He was laughing along with everything and seemed to love Dave Mastiff.

Genuine question not designed to take away from Liger at all: how much of the credit for innovation that he and the other J Cuppers get should be shared with the AJW girls from around the same time?

6 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Pardon my ignorance, I know nothing about Blue Lives Matter.
Had a quick look and its about tougher sentences for people who kill police officers? Or have I misunderstood? Why is that bad? 

It was created as a kneejerk response to Black Lives Matter, a movement based in not wanting policemen to target, beat up, and kill young black men. To make out that policemen are the victims in this equation makes you (the figurative you, not you) , I am sad to report, a racist shitbulb. 

if the next stage of WWE is Full Sail Grad David Lynch with "symbolism" and Sons of Sons of Anarchy then it's a hard pass from me. As one-offs they might be a creative and amusing distraction (I didn't like them) but wrestling is a live art. If I want filmed fight scenes then I'll watch films.

That said Edge-Orton was so bad that it became the Kafka-esque nightmare than Wyatt was shooting for. Benoit Suicide references? My god. Axioms of taste destroyed.

10 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Yeah but this is the same guy who said of the Gulak/Bryan match 'I guess Bryan has been watching Zack Sabre Jr matches' (or words to that effect)  

Obvious Danielson worked matches like that for ages but it did seem patterned closely to a Sabre match than usual, probably because he had someone in there on his approximate technical level. Whether right or wrong, I don't think his analysis of that match means he can't make a fair extrapolation on the viewing stats.

I was looking at an Aubrey Sitterson map of the wrestling territories with illustrations of the top guys in each and realised I never heard of Larry Kasaboski. What's the scoop on him that I can't find by looking at Wikipedia. Be descriptive.

2.16m says Alvarez, "a record low without sport or major competition, no PPV bump"

4 minutes ago, mim731 said:

Respectfully, would you mind posting a source or link to this story of the cancellation?

https://www.njpw1972.com/73438

1 minute ago, King Pitcos said:

Why did you choose this one of all shows to dip back in on?

hahaha good question. I haven't been avoiding on principle or anything. Been really busy for quite a while and limited my viewing to a couple of promotions, but I found myself free after a rough patch and just wanted to watch some current wrestling and my pal uploaded it to a shared drive. I'm not a WWE fan in general so anyone should take my opinion with a pinch of salt.

Bryan v Gulak was a good Young Lions style match with the kind of intensity I like. It wasn't mind-blowing but I don't think B PPV openers ought to be. 

Tag cage was a deathless purgatory, a dirge of midcarders and no one looked cooler coming out than going in. The Usos spent literally 15 minutes lying down on the apron. 

Black v AJ made no sense really, the work was okay, but don't get having unused ringside guys in a no DQ and then using them. Undertaker looking more like Bette Davis with each passing moon. 

Hated the handicap tag. OK it was an angle, but what a waste of everyone's time. 

Main event booking was great, I thought. Match layout less so, with the Riott Squad break-up not getting much air and altogether too many time gaps after Shayna slept someone. You might think she's the wrong person to put over but she was convincing as a brute and that's all I ask. 

I didn't see the rest. First WWE PPV since WM34. I give it a D. 

This might not be what the question is asking but the pre-match handshake. I like the work in the ring to be a reflection of the characters and the general tenor of the feud. You can set that up in this easy gesture. Babyface offers and heel waves away, quick sporting handpump, ref gestures for both to shake hands and both refuse, pull in and kick to start the match...there are dozens. New Japan do a similar thing with the reactions to breaking from being tied up against the ropes early on. Okada's playful little slaps a particular favourite, saying "I don't need to fuck you right now" in one simple bump-free move.

Enjoyed Corgan going Jack Tunney.

20 minutes ago, Pier Six Brawler said:

Did Dave get a divorce? When did that happen?

Not entirely sure but there have been definite audio allusions to it over the last 12 months.

the lights go out. 36 iron-faced dancers shuffle onto the stage in spotlight. atonal wailing is heard over the PA

ASININE COMMENTATOR: ....Graves....is that.....?"

'Dance of the Earth' from Rite of Spring plays at aeroplane-taking off volume

ASININE COMMENTATOR: ...IT IS! THE ARCHITECT OF THE ATONAL HIMSELF

Stravinsky takes in the certain applause of 15000 Rumblemaniacs when the countdown behind him starts from 10

ASININE COMMENTATOR: we could see The Soviet Firebird going to Wrestlemania!

countdown hits 10. a gigantic effigy of a dart slides down on a wire from the roof and takes out Stravinsky. EMTs check on the Russian maestro when one of them starts clearing house. He rips off his paramedic outfit to reveal...

ASININE COMMENTATOR: GOOD LORD! IT'S DARTS BEST DRESSED MAN ROD HARRINGTON!
COREY GRAVES: well this just took a turn for the violent

Harrington makes it to the ring, and thanks to the contemporary layout of Rumble matches, Heath Slater, Aleister Black, and Jey Uso feed for Harrington's big three moves. You all know what they are.

24 MINUTES PASS

ASININE COMMENTATOR: we're down to the penultimate spot and nobody's ever won from this! who could it be?

the lights go out and dry ice fogs literally the entire building

ASININE COMMENTATOR: we can't see anything at all here...but I'm getting word into my headphones...it's the Tokyo mastermind himself Shoko Asahara!

despite being on their own network the show is taken off air and replaced by Bob Ross painting a bucolic scene for 16 hours

My only complaint is that the prominence of the Rock'N'Roll Express, which I assume is just a temporary run, does simultaneously support any claims of nostalgia telly and make the NWA look a little bit bad given their age and their general physical shape. All respect to Morton (whose promos have been fine) and Gibson (whose t-shirts have been strange) as HOF guys who are still out there (I enjoyed their match against Bryan Alvarez and Tom Lawlor) but they shouldn't be on belts and they definitely shouldn't let Morton within a sniff of Sweet Charlotte The Ten Pounds Of Gold™.

I enjoyed the little promo-off between Ricky Starks and Zicky Dice. Neither are draws for me but you don't learn to get better on the mic by not talking.

Tim Storm is currently the best promo in wrestling even though when he gets mad he looks like the angry human in Ren & Stimpy.