Dai

I bought a DVD of that very thing a good few years back. Think it was from Famous Mortimer. He had loads of great ones like the heel Doink one, a Papa Shango one, a Jake/Savage comp, an Adam Bomb one. Dont have any DVDs like that any more, so Im just making you aware there is one out there.

Whats the verdict on the Vader Timeline? Vader's RF shoot is tremendous, so Ive got reasonably high expectations for this.

I'm speaking of the actual name. Im just wondering if it was thought up by Bischoff at the same time as the angle, or whether someone else thought of it down the road

Speaking of the nWo, who takes the credit for the actual naming of the group? Id assume it was either Nash, Hall or Bischoff, but I've never heard anyone take the credit for it.

Russo's timeline is a blend of him not remembering stuff from 13 years ago, him being delusional, and him being stupid. Loads of vague answers, so youre left dissatisfied with pretty much every retort he has to all the stupid shit he did that year. Anyone expecting S.O to drill deeper into why Russo thought it was a good idea to put the belt on himself (other than 'Its entertaining'), or any of the other stuff he did will be disappointed.

Was it known before this shoot that Russo worked Jarrett about the Hogan Bash thing? That whole story seemed ludicrous. I dont understand what he gained by not telling JJ that Hogan was in on it. Bizarre. All of that effort to just put the belt on Booker, too.

The other highlight was Russo essentially taking all the credit for the Attitude era. McMahon wasnt a filter, and all he did was add a tiny detail to Russo's scripts here and there.

Angle did an insane, top of the cage moonsault in the SAME match as that Benoit one. Both in a throwaway Raw match, which makes it miles worse. For example, that Jeff Hardy/Edge spear bump from Mania is completley crazy, but at least it happened at Mania. Austin piledriving Angle (of all people) on concrete is unthinkable these days.

You could have a good drinking game with the Russo timeline. A shot for every time he says 'fake' or 'literally'.

Its quite scary how he still believes in the idea of Tank Abbott winning the WCW Title. The logic of the finish of the match (ie, a fresh Tank beats a worn down Sid) is fine, but the entire logic of having Tank as champion from then on is not mentioned at all, and is seemingly not even in the thought process of Russo.

Didn't most talent have the choice of whether to stay and keep their WCW contracts till they expired or potentially take a pay cut and move to the WWF?

Think that was just the elite guys on Time Warner deals, like DDP, Nash, Goldberg, etc. They could have had a lump sum payout and get them off their contract. Edit: Also, paying off all those guys contracts (who were 'sitting out' their contract) would have been a sizable sum, which I dont think has ever been mentioned when talking about WWF's purchase of WCW.

A lot of them went to the Heartland Wrestling Association and were signed to the shittest of shit deals and then released.

So everyone's (bar the Time Warner guys) contract was voided once it was taken over? Was it a case of Kwee Wee having a WCW contract, WCW getting bought out, and WWF actually offering him a shit deal? If thats the case, Im suprised the list of people signed was so big.

I watched Hogan's WCW heel turn for the 100th time just now, and it reminded me about Heenan's "But whose side is he on!?" comment about 30 seconds before Hulk did the deed. I assume WCW didnt feed him the line, so should Heenan have said this just before Hulk did it? I guess its something Heenan would have said even if Hogan didnt turn, but every time I hear it now I think it wasnt a good idea.

Kanyon isnt on the list either. What happened to the guys who didnt make TV, ie, Reno/Jett/The Wall? I watched OVW back then, and dont remember any of them being on there. Were most of them just released soon after the buyout?

Also, what was the process for it just being these guys? Were these the ones WWF chose to keep (Lash Leroux and Kwee Wee make me think not)? I assume WCW, even in 2001, still had a silly amount of lower card guys under contract (the Mike Enos' of the world for example), so what happened to all those guys when it was taken over?

As Im here, when was the last time WWE did a pre-match "Show the wrestlers walking backstage to tense music"? Off the top of my head it was that Summerslam with Foley/Austin/Triple H. Wonder why they stopped doing it, as I thought it really added to the importance of a match.

Surely Lost has the greatest "Time talking about it" to "Actually watching it" ratio of any TV show of all time. The thread on here for it was huge, and even during the last season there was an insane amount of discussion about it. To watch it now, ie, an episode a day average, would not be half as good as watching it at the time. I can remember easily spending hours a week reading about different theories, and Im sure Im not the only one. No show has come close to that amount of discussion.

If I did a list, Spartacus, Breaking Bad and Lost would be the Top 3. Season 3 of Spartacus is let down by too many average characters in the show (compared to the S1 and S2 cast). The less said about those pirates, the better.

After someone mentioned/recommended that Film 4 Studio Ghibli marathon a few months back, I recorded a load of them, and started watching them yesterday. My plan is to watch them in date order, which means I started with The Castle of Cagliostro. Bear in mind that I havent watched any of these sort of films before. This was from 1979, so I assume the more recent films I watch will improve on the visuals. That said, this was still a lot of fun. It has a pretty basic story, and I was slightly creeped out by the relationship between the princess and the "boss" (until the end, when he left her there). Solid stuff.

Flicked it on last night, but the first thing RF said was "What are your memories" (of the first time they met), so I switched off. Will give it a proper go today, as these Face Offs limit the amount of brain dead shit RF asks. Cant possibly see this being bad, though.

Is there really that much sleaze and pricks about in this era of WWE? Compared to the past, it seems a million times better (but far less interesting) than before. Because of that, and the short time she was there, Id say most of her answers with regards to WWE wrestlers was pretty truthful. For example, when one of the questions was "Is Kofi a bastard?", I doubt she's being hugely political by saying he isnt. No doubt she was minding her words, but she didnt even bury any TNA wrestlers either (apart from Bully, IIRC).

Amazing Kong's Youshoot is tremendous. Ive had her RF Shoot downloaded for ages but never watched it (which says it all about RF Shoots, I guess), so didnt know what to expect going in. She's a great talker, and is naturally funny. Oliver does another great job with his back and forth banter. Lots of interesting and funny stuff throughout. Highlights include her doing a Hogan sextape impression, and actually demonstrating with SO her favourate sex position. Recommended.

Can anyone point me in the direction of some good Vietnam war documentaries? Have seen a few small things about it, but hoping someone knows of a few great, in depth ones.

Anyone else watching The Returned on C4? Has been very good so far. It has some very Lost-esque 'mysteries' to make you think about, which is definately a positive. Its probably the first show since Lost where I actually think about certain things/mysteries from the show at random times, even when not watching it. Good stuff.

Can someone elaborate on Luger's switch back to WCW in 1995, specifically his contract? Am watching a Roundtable, where Bischoff says he offered Luger "less than 20%" of what he was making in WWF, hoping that Lex would decline, but instead he accepted the offer. Bischoff then says he never got back to his WWF pay level for his entire run. Hayes made the 20% comment, so the story seems to be pretty valid. Why would Lex take that offer instead of the WWF offer? And surely theres no chance in hell of Lex making crap money during the 97-00 golden age of WCW, right?

I'm not gonna lie, I'm obsessed with those people.

 

- Earliest sighting I know of was in the front row (obviously) at No Mercy 2001.

 

- That time you mentioned where Hardy was stood with them in the crowd is the only time the woman has ever smiled

 

- She appears to have had more plastic surgery each time she appears on TV, to the point where she can no longer close her mouth properly

 

- The dad seems to enjoy the produce much more than the mum & kid, he danced merrily to HBK's music at WM25 or WM26 which was lovely stuff

 

- There is no pattern to where they appear. Like the luminous shell suit couple always appear at shows in Ohio, with the occasional big ppv elsewhere thrown in. My research has shown these fuckers appear at things as minor as TV tapings or b-level ppvs in Illinois, New York, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Nevada, and others all over the country.

 

- Over the past year the kid has started wearing a bluetooth headset during the show. Tosser.

 

Told you I was obsessed.

To add much more intruige to this case study, Ive just spotted them near the front at Clash of the Champions XXXV. Dont know if you have the show, but I spotted them when the nWo made their slow entrance at the end of the show. The women is taking pictures, and a very young boy is being held by the dad. Them being at a show in 1997, and a WCW show at that, is pretty shocking. Will post a picture later.

This gives you a prety good look at what they are (plus a disgusting arm shot taken by Masada):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4qKZcSItFE

Ive seen the TOD, so will be looking foward to your review. Were you keeping up to date with the news on the TOD? If so, do you know why Tremont was there but wasnt in the tourney? Also, any news/rumours on why one of the Semi's gimmicks was embarrassingly poor looking (one trolley filled with weapons)? Looks like it was thrown together at the last second.

edit:

Also, I watched the main matches of this show a few weeks back. The main thing I remember was these guys:

scaring some kids during their exntrance, and almost getting into a fight with one of the kids dad. That sort of stuff always gets bonus points with me. Shame they are all 5'5 skinny kids, though. Im sure they 'beat up' something silly before the fight, too, even though I cant remember what.

Downloaded the FWE iPPV, because it had a few names on it. Carlito vs Morrison, RVD vs Dreamer and Matt Strikers debut was enough for me to spend the 0 pence on it and have a look. Its all kinds of fun. The whole card was filled with ex-WWF wrestlers, of the last 2 to 5 years. People like Chris Masters, Maria, RVD, Carlito. Basically the regulars that pop up. Really enjoyed it even if the camera work was shoddy. Matt Striker tore it up at his first indy booking. He came out cut a promo doing the old "I'm not a sports entertainer, now I'm allowed to say 'wrestler', I'll say 'Japan' if I want to" etc. But you could sort of tell he wasn't doing it in a bitter way. He seemed like he needed to do a "fuck WWE style promo" after his attempts at thanking WWE for employing was met with boos. From what I saw of it, he was much better than he was in WWE. I think the sacking has humbled him a bit, so his arrogance and fairytales didn't come out every 30 seconds like when he was doing PPVs regularly. He was back to the Matt Striker who we all thought was half decent in ECW. I wouldnt be surprised if TNA snaps him up. You wouldn't think it, but he looked like a proper star in his waist coat and shirt compared to the job club looking pair that was doing commentary with him. And it got even worse when Katie Lea Burchill turned up. She sounded pilled up. She cant talk worth a shit at the best of times, so why is she on the headset? For a woman who supposedly talks several languages, she cant seem to string a sentence together. She called the Van Daminator the "Van ... chair".

 

The other thing was RVD and Dreamer did a late 90s style weapons brawl which was way better than anything Van Dam has done in TNA. Rob Van Dam's been on the sunbed, has dyed his light brown mop that he had in TNA to the darker brown that he had in his prime and his gut appears to have disappeared. Its almost like he didn't give a shit about TNA or someone in WWE has had a word. Or both. He moved like the RVD of old as well. And as someone that hasnt really rated him, its not saying much. I've always maintained his shitness in TNA was a mix of always being a sloppy sod and added to not caring about and not being protected by the agents like Al Snow and the other jokers they have. His matches used to always be so planned that I cant see how he cant get to the standard he used to be at in WWE. He does all the same moves he did. Give him a good road agent and he'll still do his old stunt shows. He did all his trademark spots, so he should be decent at Money in the Bank. If you liked RVD in 2006, nothing much seems to have changed since then. Dreamer was the same as ever, but the match itself was enjoyable for an indy show.

 

Carlito and Morrison wrestled as well, which was pretty fun. They both looking in super shape. You think these two will be back in WWE soon. They look good enough for it. The main event was a Royal Rumble style match featuring most of the roster that had already appeared. Masters was there, Dreamer, a few indy wrestlers and the like. I was watching it casually, interested in the happenings and then STONE COLD ET came out and began eliminating people and dropping wrestlers with Stunners. I didn't know what was going on. Madness. An unexpected gem if there ever was one. Check it out.

The House of Hardcore show, featuring most of these guys is also available to download. This show has the Steiner Brothers, and also Scorpio facing Morrison, which sounds more appealing to me.

Started watching a unique 'shoot' with Vader from KC. Its Vader and Sean Oliver watching matches and talking about them and other stuff surrounding the match. This came out a few years back, and I dont think theres been one released since, so I guess it flopped. This one is not helped by the fact there seems to be a fat guy sitting by the camera, whose heavy breathing you can hear throughout. Has been decent so far, but Vader is always great to listen to. May carry on watching it while having the relevant matches playing on youtube at the same time, which could improve the viewing.Also watched the Nash/Waltman RF shoot, which was pretty dull. After enjoying the Dreamer/Raven one, I was expecting this one to be similar to that, ie, focused entirely on the Kliq, the nWo run, the 02 nWo run, the TNA run. As with most RF shoots, it was poorly structured, had shit questions, and wasnt helped by the fact Nash was getting more and more pissed throughout. Something like Waltman talking about his suicide attempt should have been great to watch, but was ruined by Nash's drunken crying and rambling.

He took a back first drop from the top of the old WCW ramp in a match with the Nasties in 95 which still turns me ill when I see it. Its a ridiculous bump.

Jesus Christ Dai, it's only been one episode. Every quote you posted there will be impossible to verify until we've seen at least three or four episodes.

- Earliest sighting I know of was in the front row (obviously) at No Mercy 2001.