Post of the Year 2023 starts on Page 6

[wandshogun09]

I watched it in the bog at work. Thankfully because I pissed myself.

Big +1 here. 

[The Gaffer]

Seminal. It's never getting topped. 

[Lenin]

Can't say any more that's not already been said - absolutely phenomenal work and the unexpected pay off at the end was class. To the point that I phoned three mates, none of whom like wrestling or know anything about this place and tried to explain just why it was the funniest thing ever posted. Simply incredible. POTY sewn up within the first month. Brilliant. 

[Frankie Crisp]

7 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

 

 

[Chest Rockwell]

1 hour ago, neil said:

Yeah but add Bernie Sanders into the mix and then they have at most a 33 and 1/3 chance of winning, but Trump has a 66 and 2/3 chance because Biden KNOWS he can't beat Trump with Bernie in the mix. So if you take Biden's 33 and 1/3rd chance minus Trump's 28.5% chance and he has 4 and 3/4s chance of winning. So if you take Trump's 78.5% chance if its just Trump and Biden and add 66 and 2/3'rds percents then Trump has a 145 and 1/10ths chance of winning. The numbers don't lie and Trump will win at US PRESIDENT 2024.

I'll never not love a good Steiner maths reference

[seph]

Wasn't ready for this wholesomeness.

 

[HarmonicGenerator]

6 hours ago, air_raid said:

This one is incredibly tough to take, in a way we should be grateful for the extra years he ended up enjoying when so many people wrote him off many years prior, but it’s so sad that a guy that gave so much to wrestling and had even more to give, and a huge part of my childhood and getting into wrestling, is gone.

Like most wrestlers from the early 90s my introduction to Razor Ramon was looking at SummerSlam 92 trading cards round my mate Simons house. He looked imposing, if greasy. Not long after I borrowed Survivors 92 from Simons sisters video shop, and while the “Flair & Razor” team came across a little chalk and cheese, there was definitely something about him. Though obviously a newer character, he towered over Macho Man and had a believability as a hardcase. His post match threat to “Perfecto” left such an impression on me, that I can quote it verbatim :

“Razor Ramon was double crossed one time before. Ask that chico what happened. If you can find him.”

After some of the other nonsense I’d been exposed to like Hogan and Warrior debating which one of them was going to live forever or Demolition Ax threatening to cut Andre down like a literal tree, this was the darkest, most sinister and yet subtle thing I’d heard a wrestler say. Of course with child’s logic and the commentary of Jesse Ventura fresh in my mind, I thought this meant he’d done something terrible to Tito Santana. I was relieved to find out El Matador was alive and well, though when I picked up the WrestleFest 93 tape, I did see he’d been a victim of The Razors Edge. Razors finish was another reason The Bad Guy got over with me ; right from Survivor Series everyone sold it as lethal, and it was. For years I thought nobody had even kicked out of it, until only a couple of weeks ago I saw Ian’s favourite, “Kona” Crush, kick out after a somewhat delayed pin attempt, from an “international markets only” episode of Superstars. Getting the big guy up was a sight, I can tell you.

In late 93 I was surprised to hear through the youth club rumour mill that Razor had both turned “goodie” and won the Intercontinental title which at that point still made him top tier in my child’s mind, having been converted by Mania VI. It felt a bit out of the blue, according to Simon he’d just lost a humiliating match to that Lightening Kid we’d read about in Superstars Of Wrestling (later Power Slam). But hey, this was a world where the Narcissist “came out of the sky on a helicopter, powerslammed Yokozuna and pinned him and he’s the WWF Champion now” - times were changing pretty fast. Razor was cool, but I didn’t know if the character would work as a goodie. I watched the Rumble 94 (sponsored by Atmosfear, the video board game) and my fears were blown away. When I thought IRS of Money Inc had actually beaten Razor, I was irate. Like, Warrior losing to Slaughter, Roddy Piper “You’re not going to let this stand??!?” levels of distraught. He won in the end, and that was the match where I knew I was in Razors corner, he was one of the goodies. When I saw my hero Bret Hart shouting “give me a call at the hotel Razor” to him on his tape, that confirmed it. Picking up Razors tape when I didn’t even know he had one out, during a family caravan holiday, was brilliant even though it was murder waiting to get home to watch it. Watching the Adam Bomb match start I thought “How does he win this, he couldn’t possibly give him the Razors Edge.” Of course he fucking could. He was such a massive part of the “New Generation,” I always remember King of the Ring 94 being such a turning point in production (Bret had new music) and Razors little spotlights shaped like razor blades swooshing around were so cool. Did he have shit on the market? You bet, and while I couldn’t afford what people were asking for a Jakks of Razor, I did eventually get ahold of his purple Hasbro to go with the original. I wish I’d seen him wrestle during these years, to the point I started a thread about it not long ago.

Of course, all good things come to an end, and after years of thinking “Why haven’t they given Razor a crack at Bret/Diesel/Shawn” and assuming he’d be Intercontinental champ forever, he was gone. There’s no point recounting his historic jump and the impact it made on the business, everyone knows all that and as I draft this I bet it’s already been posted about, but from a personal point of view I obviously still loved him in The Outsiders. It was a bit weird hearing him announced from Chuluota instead of Miami (when you could actually hear Penzer of course, fucking WCW) and “The Outsiders Edge” was a crap lazy name for his move but he was still Razor, and the nWo was a big reason I used to leave my “tape machine rolling” on Cartoon Network every Friday night. Scott was an absolute treasure on Nitro whether he was wrestling or not - his “scary fingers” walk up the aisle to confront Larry Zbyszko during the famous “That’s not La Parka!!” match is etched into my brain. That whole run is magic, Tony Schiavone yelling “Get in the ring!!” at Fall Brawl when Larry squares up to Hall, right before he gets schoolboyed by Luger, will also live with me forever. The nWo were the assholes and whenever they had a comeuppance, it was most satisfying when it happened to Hall. I was gutted when the Outsiders were split up, delighted for one night when the six man “elite” nWo formed at Goldbergs expense (though that was a lie in the end) and gradually the wheels fell off from anything coherent or interesting for Hall to be involved in, right when injuries and demons started robbing us of huge chunks of his career.

I shouldn’t ignore the WWF return but honestly, it was a washout. The presentation of No Way Out and the build to Mania made me think short term the nWo might be presented as a main event threat, but between the boring trunks, headband and exaggerated Stunner sell, it felt like a weird composite of a bad CAW and a cartoon of the real Scott Hall. We did at least get one decent promo, paraphrasing (to Stone Cold) ;

“I hear… from you… that you’re the toughest S.O.B. in the WWF. Prove it.”

Simple, but effective. I was dying for Scott to be allowed to beat some decent guys from their bloated roster but no, Spike Dudley was all we got. The handicap match was great, otherwise, it’s all best forgotten. As a smarky type at the time, I was disengaged with the reunion in TNA in 2010 as I didn’t want the 90s talents getting spots at the expense of younger guys who’d earned their place at the top of that roster. It wasn’t Val Venis or Nasty Boys levels of “what’s the point” and maybe I’d have appreciated it more if the rub had gone to someone other than Eric Young, but either way I wasn’t “there for it” as the kids say.

Reflecting on Halls career, I can’t help but be impressed by how warmly the original Razor Ramon run is remembered considering he was only on the books for four years. His influence on the industry is actually still understated, because for every fan that knows how his jump and the nWo changed the business, I bet there are 2 or 3 that don’t know he gave the Crow inspiration idea to Sting, with words like “be like Taker, but not like Taker” on top, changing Stingers career, changing WCWs landscape and indirectly leading to WCWs most lucrative PPV of all time, Starrcade 97. His mind for the business was brilliant, just my two favourite stories from his brain while inebriated in a car with his buddies, telling Kev “Man, why are you doing that leapfrog? You’re the biggest guy in the company, let them run into you.” And telling Shawn “That kick is your most over move, that should be your finish.” He was self aware enough, as Chris Jericho is fond of telling, to know when the other guy needed a win more than him. When he had a two match feud with Hector Garza on Nitro between PPVs, he let Garza upset him the first time so there was a little intrigue next time and a reason to fight again, and for him to take Garza more seriously. That was Scott Hall, equally adept at being dangerous or playing the clown. He was a guy that at the time we all thought we appreciated, but only in retrospect do we see how multifaceted his talent was. Much like Jake Roberts, if his skill with the nuances could have been harnessed for creative, the wrestling landscape would have been a better place. He was never a World Champion in the big 2 but he’s beloved and lauded more than many who were. The cliché of “he didn’t need it” is maddening, and there’s an argument that maybe he deserved it. Sadly the best time for this to have happened, WCW in early-mid 98, was right when his personal life kept taking from his wrestling career. Such was Scott.

As a man… He had demons, and he was capable of being absolutely horrible to people that didn’t deserve it at times. But as Scott himself was fond of saying, the last perfect person that walked the Earth, they nailed to a cross. He was generous professionally as you’ve read, he seemed to care about his fans in the years that he was gifted back, and he really cared about his friends. Even when he had his own problems to deal with, he wore Syxx’s T-shirt every week on Nitro when Sean was out with his neck injury, to let him know he was thinking about him. He never lost his sense of humour, repeating his famous “can’t wait to kick out of your finish” jibe to James Storm when he arrived in TNA, just like he’d said to the Dudleys 8 years earlier. There’s more, much more, that you can read in various places. As I’ve learned over the last couple of months even a story as oft told as Scott Halls has so much more to it than is commonly known.

It’s simultaneously too long and less than I might have written and no doubt less eloquent and fitting than others will manage, but maybe that IS the most fitting tribute of all ; imperfect prose mourning the profoundly and proudly imperfect. It’s from the heart and with actual tears in my eyes I say goodbye…. to the Bad Guy.

@air_raid's tribute to Scott Hall.

[SuperBacon]

5 hours ago, Cannibal Man said:

He's coming back against Rollins and he's doing the fucking dive, he's doing the biggest furthest dive he fucking can and he's going to be head to toe in that clobber for cunts who are too thick to get into the army. He's going to fly. Fucking "Whooooooooosh!" he's gonna go. Metres, Clive. The cunts going metres. I can manifest this. I can make it happen with thought.

"Fucking "Whooooooooosh!" he's gonna go."

I have been laughing at this so hard, the cat thinks I'm dying and is freaking out.

[Thunderplex]

18 hours ago, Butch2000 said:

Oh fuck off. Over the 14 years I've been on this forum it's always been you moaning about shit relationships like Queen Shit. But I assume you have the reading ability of faeces, turds can't read, as it's 10 pages of funny dating anecdotes. But sadsack has to sadsack, as it's all about Pat. Derail a comedy thread to moan? Pat.

Talk about sport? Pat.

Bored to death of people who only speak about their own furrow, weirdly accuse people of gaslighting when pointed out they only give a shit about themselves. And fucking depressing?

 

That's Pat

 

 

 

I bet you love a wake

Edited April 5, 2022 by Thunderplex

[air_raid]

This is a superb wrestling joke that people who don’t go into Chippy Tea (psychopaths?) will miss. Scroll up for context.

 

[Carbomb]

+1

[Onyx2]

3 hours ago, air_raid said:

This is a superb wrestling joke that people who don’t go into Chippy Tea (psychopaths?) will miss. Scroll up for context.

 

Despite reading it last night I ONLY JUST got that! V. good.

[Onyx2]

DOUBLE POST! YIPPEE

Edited April 8, 2022 by Onyx2

[Chest Rockwell]

I don't get it 😒

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I don't get it 😒

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wVePNkjlE