What are you watching (Wrestling Wise) over Christmas

[The Reverend]

Just a little thread as we're coming up to the Christmas holidays. With no need to go out and a severe lack of decent TV this year (shocker!) it'll be time to crash out in fronr of the box and catch up on some Wrestling instead. THought we could share what's on our viewing list and maybe do some reviews too. For me it'll be:

 

The new 50 years of WWE DVD

Wrestlemania 29 (I haven't watched this since the night)

The Heroes of WCCW documentary

Memphis Heat.

[AshC]

I'd argue there's plenty of need to go out!

 

Might chuck on some Men on a Mission squashes after the pub though.

[LariatTom]

I'm hoping to reward myself for doing university work by watching a couple of shows. Top of the list will be finishing the PCW shows from earlier in the year that I haven't seen, which I believe is just the Supershow 2 weekend and the anniversary show. I've also got the Ligero/Ego Dragon set from Southside which I'm looking forward to watching.

 

If that doesn't get me working, not a lot will.

[Kaz Hayashi]

Just a little thread as we're coming up to the Christmas holidays. With no need to go out and a severe lack of decent TV this year (shocker!) it'll be time to crash out in fronr of the box and catch up on some Wrestling instead. THought we could share what's on our viewing list and maybe do some reviews too. For me it'll be:

 

The new 50 years of WWE DVD

Wrestlemania 29 (I haven't watched this since the night)

The Heroes of WCCW documentary

Memphis Heat.

 

 

The WCCW doc and Memphis heat are both really great. I love territory docs, I'm looking forward to getting hold of legends of mid south.

 

I've been watching raw 02 and 03 recently and will continue I think

[Vamp]

This reminds me, are they doing another Christmas RAW this year?

[Forrest]

I was watching WCW from the start of Nitro, but I hit Uncensored 1996 and the idea of watching that Street Fight between Sting, Booker T and the Road Warriors for a THIRD time makes me recoil in horror. I've been watching odd Japanese things on Youtube, like FMW and Pancrase. As well as that, I've alternated between the Highest Flyers, ECW Uncensored and War Games DVDs when I'm in bed. I still watch Superstars and Xplosion but it's mainly on in the background and if I hear something I like on Review-A-Wai, I'll watch bits and bobs of Impact. To be honest, my interest in watching wrestling is really low right now.

 

Vamp, they are! It's Good Santa vs. Bad Santa!

 

 

It got a better build than most of the TLC undercard.

[aaron]

Definitely watching This is Progress "Selection Box"and listening to WO Best of 2013.

 

Depends what gets put on to the trackers really. If nothing grabs my interest it'll likely be a random old Rumble and Pac vs El Generico matches.

[rohpete]

Bought the 2013 Futureshock Boxset the other day so watching a show a night very enjoyable up to now 11 shows in all for 45 quid so decent price to

[zep81]

Going to watch the For All Mankind DVD i got recently.

[The Gaffer]

Going through that 20 best episodes of Raw thing they released in the U.S. recently. Old Raw is my go to on YouTube when I'm bored or eating something in front of the laptop and whilst it's entirely watchable quality, seeing that stuff on DVD is poles apart. For some reason I convinced myself through years of dodgy DVDs and YouTube that the Attitude Era looked all dusty and came complete with tracking lines and weird sound blurts like the commentators were suddenly dunked in a fish bowl during Too Much Vs. Al Snow & Scorpion but it's sharp, top DVD quality stuff. Really weird seeing such old shows like that. You can discern much more easily the lurid signs in the crowd - about two thirds of which have something to do with 420 - and the whole thing comes off like remastered depravity.

 

I also have this massive CZW Vs. ROH collection downloaded. I know virtually nothing about indie wrestling so I am really looking forward to getting stuck in to that stuff. Bound to be a healthy mix of good, bad and ugly.

[KingOfMetal]

Kaz, I don't think the Legends Of Mid-South set has a doc on it.

 

I've got the Best Of MSG set to watch and might download the new Triple H set. Still waiting for a BluRay rip of the Goldberg set to surface

[Mr Butternut Squash]

What I have been/will be watching over the Christmas season;

 

Somebody's posted up loads of Smoky Mountain TV from 92-93 onto Youtube. I started watching it from episode fifty or something. It's awesome. Love the cast of oddballs and the squash matches and the random wrestlers showing up who I never expected to see. I'm at the time when Beautiful Bobby Eaton comes in and joins Cornette and his Heavenly Bodies (Stan Lane and Tom Prichard). They're an excellent little unit, look sexy as fuck in their majestic robes and ring jackets and have one of the

They enter a threeway feud with the Stud Stable (Jimmy Golden, Robert Fuller, Dutch Mantell) and the older, ridiculous looking, but still awesome Rock n' Roll Express. The groups have loads of brawls which leads to the Rock n Rolls bringing in Arn Anderson as a third. They all have a clusterfuck of a No DQ trios threeway match which includes Gibson and Lane throwing fists at each other whilst hanging from a basketball hoop and the latter falling right off the fucking thing. Later on there's a bit where the Bodies tar and feather poor old Ricky Morton which sets up a "loser of the fall leaves town" match between the teams. Stan Lane eats the pin and Cornette brings in Butch's favourite The Gigolo Jimmy Del Ray as his replacement. I'm not too familiar with Jimmy but he's looked class in some of the squashes, rolling out powerbombs and spinning ddts and shit. The toothless, ginger, gyrating, spreadeagle legged man is an odd but fascinating sight.

 

Kevin Sullivan is fucking hilarious. He's some mental cult leader type and has Adam 'Nightstalker' Bomb and Tazz (!) as followers. His segments are gold, especially the one where Mantell gives him a 'word association' task and Kev comes out with the most random shit imaginable.

 

One of my favourite parts of the shows are the promotional spots for the upcoming tours of school gyms. Something about the bloke who does the interviews warms the cockles of my heart when he appears.

 

 

He has a silly little moustache and a permanently po faced demeanour. When he holds the mic to the wrestlers he tries to look tough and cool like a bouncer or something. He looks more like a he should be a reporter for Brass Eye. The interviews themselves are great because everyone could talk and guys like Morton, Cornette and TRACY SMOTHERS casually toss off some of the best promos I've seen all year. I couldn't stand Smothers at first. Just some loud, obnoxious, blowjob babyface that waved around a confederate flag. But nah, mate. I fucking love Tracy Smothers. He's why I'll always hate scripted promos. All of his interviews consist of worn out good ol' boy cliche's, every one of which he botches by jumbling up the words. But it doesn't matter because he's full of fire and passion and he means it . . maaaaan. It's exactly what a dumbass redneck should sound like. (As opposed to the other SMW rednck variants like the Stud Stable/Ron Wright/Dirty White Boy's 'sleazy redneck', Bob Armstrong's 'kung-fu redneck' and the, um, 'redneck redneck' of everyone else). Smother's is class in the ring too. He's feuding with Dirty White Boy and the two had a fantastic chain match which is the best SMW match I've seen yet.

 

I should also note that Bob Caudle and Dirty Dutch are an excellent announcing team. Ducth does a great job of being firm but usually fair and rarely goes full on heel.

 

I might go back and start from the first episode sometime over the holidays if they remain on youtube. I'm going to try and get hold of some of the later stuff one day too. Chris Candido and Tammy have just turned up. The Gangta's, early Jericho, PG-13 and heel Ricky Morton are all things I want to see.

 

- - -

 

Also currently watching bits of All Japan Women shows from the late seventies that someone is posting on the tube. The completely bonkers world of 80's AJW is one of my favourite things ever but the 70's stuff isn't really any good to be fair. The matches have little flow and play out a bit like rookie matches with constant rope running and LOTS OF SCREAMING. It's not something I usually notice, but shit, it's like the girls were told to screech as much as they can when on the offensive. It's quite unbearable but kinda funny too. I've pretty much given up on it although I'll continue to watch the Yumi Ikeshita matches. Cool. As. Fuck. she is. But, honestly, she would get better in the 80s as well.

 

I've got some nice torrent collection of all the notable NWA/WCW TV matches before the Nitro era which I'll watch the odd match from here and there too. I really haven't seen enough post-88 NWA for my liking. From what I've watched of it so far, Terry Funk vs Eddie Guerrero, Lex Luger vs Michael Hayes and Pillman vs Arn have been excellent little matches. I also enjoyed Pillman & Z-man vs The Wild Samoans, where the Samoans did a hilarious job in winding up the bigots in the crowd.

 

So, yeah, I'll be dipping in and out of that stuff. I can never stick with one thing at a time. I still haven't finished me classic All Japan viewing or the DVDVR 80s Memphis set. I haven't even started the 80s Mid South and New Japan sets. I'll have to get some more Portland/Buddy Rose in there as well. I've got the first few years of ROH on my hd too but that can fuck off.

 

I might be a bit chubby come new year.

 

 

edit: turned out longer than I thought, fucking hell.

 

 

 

 

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[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

Watching the Christmas Raw later, then planning to watch whatever Blurays I get for Christmas over the course of the next few days and weeks

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

I'm a grinchy bastard, so I'll be missing the Christmas Raw- two things I dislike- hokey Christmas themed shows (I even dislike Christmas specials of the Simpsons) and pre-taped wrestling shows. Funny thing is, I love Christmas as a holiday, I just hate the sickly sweet "wholesome family fun" angle that I'm sure Raw will take.

 

As for what I'm actually watching, today I'm watching WWE Payback. I really enjoyed this entire PPV live, can't wait to re-live it.

 

Also, lately I've been watching a lot of 90's wrestling, so later I'll watch Wrestlemania 12 and Summerslam '96. Might skip the Ironman match though as I've seen that roughly a million times.

[Kaz Hayashi]

Cracking post butternut, I also came across that channel too. It's awesome. I also picked up a set which I need to start on.

 

In regards to the legends of mid south set, I didn't realise it didn't have a doc. I've not actually read up on it in regards to a synopsis, only seen advertisements for it and always assumed it would be a doc with a bonus disk with matches. Ahh well, I'm sure it's still a corker.