Youtube Thread 2000

[The Gaffer]

22 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I think Paul London and (to a lesser extent) Brian Kendrick are quite underrated / not spoke about enough when it comes to the indie/'workrate' style coming to more prominence in the early 00s. When it came to the IWC there was a brief period of time in 02/03 where it seemed London was as popular as Danielson/Homicide/Amazing Red etc. It would be nice to see him turn up in AEW for a cameo.

This discerning thirteen year old Powerslam reader was obsessed with them. Whilst I was a devout Velocity watcher - owing to it being where the Small Boys Played - I'd practically be praying each week in a completely parasocial, unreasonable way that they'd suddenly get highlighted on Smackdown. 

Kendrick - for his part - did look to be on the cusp of breaking out as a sort of lovable underdog act in 2003. Teaming with Benoit and Rhyno against Cena & the FBI at Judgement Day was surely a nod from the locker room if not the office that something was there. He also had that "It's the mid noughties and everything's whacky!" theme tune which must have been licensed elsewhere because it sounds completely ubiquitous: 

 

By the time London had an on screen feud with Billy Kidman a year later - once their tag team split up - I'd kinda grown out of thinking one or both of them should have been in the WrestleMania XX main event. 14 is a very different age from 13. 13 year old Gaffer used the correspondence section of Bret Hart's website a week before WrestleMania XX to implore him to go. 

It didn't help that Billy Kidman really wasn't made for an NWA prestige style heel turn. One of those archetypal "That wrestler, but duller" Ruthless Aggression gimmicks, when strapping a rocket meant cutting your hair, wearing trunks, and having Michael Cole go "We've seen an aggressive streak from this man lately!"   

By the time Kendrick and London teamed together, it came with the deflating knowledge that they only held the belts for about twelve years because everybody backstage took a piss break when the monthly Basham Brothers/La Resistance 2.0 combination they were fighting was up next. Though they were at least a part of that Sorry For December to Dismember ladder match where Joey Mercury's nose got smashed to pieces. 

Maybe things would be different if they were hitting their prime in - say - AEW now, with a wrestling culture whose net is definitely wider for odd, vague gimmicks etc but from their stoned shoot interviews to London's completely stupid gurning during Vince's walk to the exploding limo, my overriding feeling is they they were too unserious for any major promotion to invest the necessary amount of seriousness required for pushing even a silly act. London being a cult hero, early prophet of ROH and Kendrick's TNA run as a sort of weird bloke with inside knowledge was probably their level. 

 

[boyfriend]

Loved doing SMW and fancy a new territory binge. Ideally after something that has complete years on YouTube. Any recommendations?

I seen the Memphis link online. Was tempted my Mid South if anyone knows a good channel? Thanks

[Chili]

26 minutes ago, boyfriend said:

Loved doing SMW and fancy a new territory binge. Ideally after something that has complete years on YouTube. Any recommendations?

I seen the Memphis link online. Was tempted my Mid South if anyone knows a good channel? Thanks

Just run a search for some playlists for Mid South 1984 or 1985, I think the full runs of TV are up there but I couldn't tell you the channels.

For Memphis type in CWA and whatever year of the 80's and USWA for any 90's. Though some TV is incomplete because someone didn't have the video recorder going that morning I suppose.

Edited September 10 by Chili

[Snitsky's back acne]

Speaking of which, its not much of a match and the quality is shit but its The Undertaker vs Freddy Krueger!
 

 

[DCW]

I was watching Mania 19 there.  I had forgotten this, but I can't believe they used pictures of Booker T with his mother who died when he was 12,  him as a kid and then his jail photo in the pre match promo and then still had him lose to H, while King on commentary slagged him off about being a jailbird. That awful delayed pin finish is just salt in the wound. Awful stuff. 

Edited September 11 by DCW

[Sheffbag]

 

[Sheffbag]

Macho Man and Sarah Greene 

[JNLister]

On 9/10/2026 at 2:42 PM, Chili said:

Just run a search for some playlists for Mid South 1984 or 1985, I think the full runs of TV are up there but I couldn't tell you the channels.

For Memphis type in CWA and whatever year of the 80's and USWA for any 90's. Though some TV is incomplete because someone didn't have the video recorder going that morning I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/@RoyLucierWrestlingTerritories/playlists

Playlists for 80 Memphis TV.  Some of the early years are incomplete, but there's about 460 of the 520 or so weeks. There's a few other episodes floating about but this is pretty close to everything that was available on the trading circuit.

The actual original recordings are a complete mess in who legally owns the rights, who physically has the tapes and how much survives. Most of what was on the trading circuit comes from Jim Cornette recording everything on his VCR in Louisville, which is why it's only 60 minutes (the 90 minute slot was only the live broadcast in Memphis).

[Chili]

I've made my way through 1984-1987 of Memphis Wrestling and I just wanted to once again bang on about how absolutely wonderful the weekly host Lance Russell is. I enjoyed every random clip I ever saw him in, but watching it all in sequence and following everything, it shows how vital and important he was to that territory. I can't properly explain what it is that makes him work. Sometimes he doesn't take stuff a heel says very seriously and you'd think that would be a negative, but he has such an approach of incredulity about the behaviour of the villains in the territory that it completely works. He's biased as fuck, always palling about with Lawler or whoever on set, but he's such an affable personality that it never clouds your opinion or his lack of neutrality. His likeability but also earthy realness is a big selling point. He knows about 10 wrestling moves but again, it doesn't matter because he's such an engaging presence with a real genuine air of believability to him. His reactions to heel turns or big angles feel genuine and without any prompts. He's especially great when a big brawl happens, not going over the top, merely sounding more like an extremely disappointed Grandad. Poor Lance just wants to host his 90 minute studio show without a hitch and go for a round of golf after. After watching a solid 4 years of the weekly Memphis studio show, Russell is easily one of my favourite non wrestling personalities ever. There's not one segment he's involved in where he isn't great... Christ Chili, why don't you bloody marry him.

Also in one of those mad passage of time comparisons, I was trying to think of how much passed between Lance & Dave Brown starting as a duo and when Russell retired in 1997 (obviously there was a 5 year gap when he was in WCW). Basically when they were first paired up, The Beatles were about a week away from releasing Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, and by the time they wrapped up, Bret Hart was going to get screwed and the first GTA game just came out.

...and breathe.

Edited Sunday at 08:53 PM by Chili

[JNLister]

My favourite Lance Russel thing is that he made a point once a year for a big angle to tell the audience "If you only come to one show this year, make it this one" and it usually sold out. And it worked because he only did it once a year.

[Devon Malcolm]

On 9/9/2026 at 3:41 PM, wandshogun09 said:

Speaking of German channels showing wrestling, was it RTL2 or something like which used to show Attitude Era WWF? I vaguely recall seeing Raws from 99 on there, which was a godsend because we didn’t have Sky Sports for a bit back then.

RTL and for a while Vox had some WWE. Vox used to show the smaller shows (Superstars and Shotgun Saturday were they, at that time?) but also used to show 'exclusive' matches we didn't get over here. Fond memories of them censoring chair and weapons shots and then having shampoo adverts where the women were topless. In the middle of the afternoon.

[JNLister]

On 9/16/2026 at 11:11 PM, JNLister said:

 

The actual original recordings are a complete mess in who legally owns the rights, who physically has the tapes and how much survives. Most of what was on the trading circuit comes from Jim Cornette recording everything on his VCR in Louisville, which is why it's only 60 minutes (the 90 minute slot was only the live broadcast in Memphis).

 

[Chili]

8 minutes ago, JNLister said:

 

A pathetic fucking nerd and thank god he was.

[Sheffbag]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

RTL and for a while Vox had some WWE. Vox used to show the smaller shows (Superstars and Shotgun Saturday were they, at that time?) but also used to show 'exclusive' matches we didn't get over here. Fond memories of them censoring chair and weapons shots and then having shampoo adverts where the women were topless. In the middle of the afternoon.

foreign analogue satellite was awesome for wrestling

RTL/Vox - WWE

DSF - WCW including PPV's, dubbed over in German but still had English commentary under it which you could make out

Galavision - AAA on a Saturday afternoon

[BomberPat]

the comparison I've long made with Lance Russell was to Terry Wogan on Radio 2, that sense of warmth and familiarity to the point of feeling welcoming and almost cosy is a massive part of why I think Memphis wrestling worked as well as it did. Wogan famously, when asked how many listeners he had, always answered "just one" - because he always spoke as if he was talking directly to one person, not to a mass audience. I think Lance Russell had that same approach. His other charm is that he's a TV host transplanted into this mental, dangerous world, and all he wants is to keep everything running smoothly - I don't think any announcer has ever done a better job of selling an interruption to the scheduled show as something that genuinely upsets the apple cart; his anger at Jimmy Hart taking time to do a promo when Lance is trying to do a piece to camera or lead into the next match is fantastic. The polar opposite of the modern wrestling, "promo at the start of the show sets up a main event match" approach.

Since I started doing commentary myself, I realised immediately that I will never be able to do a big Jim Ross/Joey Styles oversell job and phony excitement, and that it would sound incredibly forced and phony if I tried to. What I can try and emulate, and who I'm far more drawn to now, is Lance Russell and Kent Walton, because what I get out of their commentary is credibility. Above all else, neither of them ever feel like they're trying to sell me something.