Your most "Against The Grain" thought on wrestling?

[Chest Rockwell]

Yeah, I remember so that stuff with Angle and Torrie very well. The big return is not quite how I remember it, but I think that probably must be it, and it is pretty fucking great!

[Killjoy_Gee]

Yeah, that's nostalgia for you isn't it! It's a great return, but even his hair hasn't impressed me the same way it did!

[HarmonicGenerator]

In trying to find the segment I was thinking of - which I'm now not convinced ever happened - I did come across this compilation of Big Show chokeslams. Nowt better than a good chokeslam.

 

[eugenespeed]

 

WCW 2000 is one of my all time favourite eras of wrestling.

 

It was swerve after swerve after swerve, stories making no sense whatsoever. It was the ultimate in car crash tv, I used to rush home from uni on a Friday to catch Worldwide. (I was a poor student, couldn't afford satellite).

Was this when Mike Tenay was doing heel commentary exclusive to Worldwide, pretending to pull the strings live on air during matches that were blatantly taken from Nitro days earlier?

 

 

I think so. 

 

A friend of mine later that year got cable installed, so would record Nitro on Bravo for me. I used to watch Worldwide and then Bravo, not having a clue what was going on as they were from two different eras (apparently, I was as clued in as everyone else!) 

 

I think really it was that at the time all I'd really been watching was the WWF, so seeing WCW and then getting the ECW tapes from HMV, it was just something different. 

 

Still good memories though. Worldwide on Five, followed by Only Fools and Horses on BBC, then Friends on Channel 4. 

[Michael_3165]

 

I relly disliked Stone Cold Steve Austin in his run in 1998-1999 and was constantly wishing that Vince would one-up the Texas Rattlesnake. I have always been one for the rules and for respecting authority so for me to have a guy that run roughshod over the boss in the biggest feud of 1998 make me feel nauseated! I was also a mega Undertaker fan in 1997-1999 and whenever Austin one upped Taker I would want to boot the TV across the room.

 

 

I think you identified with Vince because you are an evil boss that's wants to shit on his employees and get away with firing them for nothing and pay them fuck all.

 

I have loved the Big Show throughout the entire time I have been watching wrestling. He's always been one of my favourites. He's great at comedy, and can do being a legit threat when they want him to as well. Sometimes a terrifying combination of both, like the time he smashed up a car whilst crying and shouting 'why doesn't anybody like me?!'.

 

Can anyone remember when it was that he had a surprise return after being off for a while and he chokeslammed about 20 people? One of my favourite things ever, but I can't remember when it happened. I'd love to see it again.

 

Other fond memories include his feud with Eddie where he was fed laxatives and sprayed with sewage (he walked off wet and crying, again).

 

He seems like a really good guy, too.

 

Well I can't deny that! ha 

[Tommy!]

Its a trip in the way back machine for me, to talk about Samoa Joe.

 

I was reading loads about Joe in powerslam and on the net and it was all saying how amazing he was. How real he was. The hype was higher than RVD on an Indy show.

 

I switched on the TWC one day to a ROH show and there he is, bitch tits slapping his belly, mincing about in a tight shell necklace and these short shorts. I remember them as baby blue with a shit white leaf type pattern.

 

I laughed so hard it's untrue.

 

Then I watched more when he was in TNA, and he was good but it was all too similar evey time out. He went through the same stuff every time I'd see him and it just couldn't fulfil the hype. To say anything against joe back then was swimming up stream.

 

I learned to love the silly sod, but I still think he was massively over hyped. It spoilt him for me as I just couldn't enjoy his work with the whole world bigging him up to such a stupid degree, and in some corners with a very blinkered opinion of him.

[PowerButchi]

I started watching Wrestling in January 2000 with Nitro and Thunder which were on Free TV here in Germany. I was so hooked with the craziness. I thought the guy who wrestles "better" (shows the best moves and so on) wins the match. 

 

Anyone watched DSF fits in well here.

[Supremo]

It's already been said, and it's not really an, "against the grain," opinion on here since most of you know what's up, but in the grand scheme of things Dolph Ziggler gets way too much love considering how utterly shit he is. He's lauded as this great wrestler who's under-utilised, but he's dreadful, and I hate that this new push for him leading into Summerslam not only validates the (wrong) opinion that he's been overlooked, but ultimately just means I've got to see more of him since he'll be featured more on the shows.

 

Someone on my timeline retweeted or reposted a thing Dolph had put on social media last week. It was a screenshot of that time he allowed Albert to throw him over the announce table at one of the TLC shows. The one where he had absolutely no control of how he was landing and looked like he could have easily been killed. I think the idea for him posting it was for him to show what huge sacrifices he'd made, or how much he deserved this title shot, or was finally breaking through the glass ceiling or something. Whatever. All I thought when I saw it was how fucking stupid that bump was and what an idiot he is. He sucks. Dean Ambrose deserves much better for a SummerSlam opponent than this chump.

[Guest]

I see a lot of physique complaints here so it's probably worth adding I really like a skinny wrestler. Obviously the offense has gotta look decent, and they are generally limited to either cruiserweight bouts or selling for hours, but I love a proper ribby wrestler, they're my favs to watch in a heavily mat-based match, the best for submissions - remember when Rusev went to the ground and proper wrenched in that Accolade onto lil Kalisto. Beautiful. If the likes of Kyle O'Reilly and ZSJ started gaining loads of muscle i'd probably stop keeping track of their careers - and it goes without saying Spike Dudley is/was the fuckin man, remember watching ECW's difficult second PPV not so long ago and he had this absolutely mental squash match courtesy of Bam Bam where he got chucked from the ring to the crowd - it was fucking insane and better than I made it sound; check it out.

Makes me feel that as a skinny, flexible fucker with An Amount of Charisma (more than O'Reilly anyway) - in another world, I could be a star. Probs the same thing that's factored into Kevin Owens' popularity with the neckbeards but in reverse.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

Although I appreciate the importance of wrestling to evolve and that the standard of athleticism in modern wrestling is awesome, there is a tiny part of me that dislikes the concept of "hybrid wrestlers."

 

Basically a lot of wrestlers, particularly on the indys, are all very samey; they're all positioning themselves as guys who can wrestle, fly, brawl, slap on submissions AND who can strike. Meh.

 

I miss the days where guys had genuine strengths and weaknesses. I want more guys to specialise in areas; solid strength guys, solid size guys, technical wizards, striking specialists, luchadores, high flyers etc, and I want these types to be incorporated into their psychology.

 

Maybe I notice it more because I commentate down under and it's getting harder to actually coax the psychology of a match out of the guys I'm commentating on any given night. It's getting rarer when a wrestlers pulls me to one side and asks me to focus on their strengths and weaknesses compared to their opponents.

 

Again wrestling has evolved and I love that, but there is a part of me that wished for a return to more basic psychology.

[garynysmon]

Hogan is indeed the greatest of all time and any shit he gets for his career up until 2005 is completely unjustified. A legend, the greatest, the end.

Agreed.

 

Following along similar lines, I absoloutely hated the "Ruthless Aggression" era of 2002 onwards. It had echoes of 1995, with all the Attitude era stars slowly slipping away and felt like "After the Lord Mayor's Show."

Being a product of my time, I'm pretty steadfast in my belief that big guys should headline the cards, end of. So the sight of Benoit, Mysterio and Guerrero (even Jericho to an extent) holding world titles was fucking ridiculous to me.

Admittedly, match quality has never been that important to me, with the characters, interviewers and even entrances playing a more vital role. In my perfect world, mid to late 90's WCW had the perfect formula for how wrestling should be. Cruiserweights putting on great matches at the bottom of the card, with the big boys, legends and larger than life characters at the top.

 

Big Sexy was right. Vanilla midgets indeed.

[PowerButchi]

 

 

I started watching Wrestling in January 2000 with Nitro and Thunder which were on Free TV here in Germany. I was so hooked with the craziness. I thought the guy who wrestles "better" (shows the best moves and so on) wins the match. 

 

Anyone watched DSF fits in well here.

 

 

The German commentary was so amazing and entertaining. Mike Ritter and David Kemp made me laugh all the time.

 

 

Bring back Nic Heldt!

[ElCece]

The Bashams. I love them, good hands who actually dressed as a tag team and where solid workers. They had a good look and were a real tag team when there wasnt any around. Two bald bad ass looking men with decent physique, average athleticism and moderate ring work it was Stone cold but double the fun.

 

As I touched upon I think I loved the fact that they where a real actual tag team when there werent any and my stiffie for tag teams has left me with a ever lasting love off the Bash boys

[FLips]

In 1997-1998 Mongo is the best Horseman. Flair and Anderson barely show up, and Benoit is faffing on with Sullivan. Mongo is there week in and out repping them. Jarrett is garbage and Hennig isn't there long.

If not for Mongo and Benoit in that period, the Horsemen would have died a death.

[stevieg1980]

It's always been the Rock N Roll Express for me.

 

From the mullets to the dodgy tights I've never seen them as heartthrobs more trailer park sexual offenders. See Robert Gibson's dodgy eye.

 

I could never see them as a threat to the likes of the Midnights to The Andersons to Doom to The Heavenly Bodies. Their offense looks weak and mostly based around working the arm for an age and the double dropkick as a finisher was just crap. Granted I caught them at the arse end of their run when I started and when the came back to WCW and WWF they were way past their prime and I even went back to watch some NWA and Smoky Mountain stuff and everytime I see them its the same question of how are they a threat when their offence is so bad?

 

And their Bash 91 singles feud is completely hideous. I've never ever managed to sit through it without nodding off.