Paid Members Carbomb Posted November 9, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 9, 2022 13 minutes ago, BomberPat said: Last match I watched was William Regal vs. Edge, Brass Knuckles on a Pole. The gimmick is clunky, but Regal is vicious and makes it a more interesting match than it deserves to be. The finish could have been really clumsy - while Edge is crawling to grab the brass knuckles, Regal pulls another pair out of his trunks and hits a knockout punch. Jerry Lawler lays into JR, saying "I thought you said knux were legal?", and JR replies, "not those knux!". It seems at risk of being a stupid Russo-esque "decision overturned because the New Age Outlaws were put in the wrong dumpster" bit of business, but what elevates it above that is the work put in to make this finish actually make sense. At the start of the match, the referee searches Regal, looking for brass knuckles, but Edge jumps him before the bell - and before the referee has finished searching him. So the audience think they've been shown that Regal doesn't have anything hidden on his person, but actually, it's the exact opposite. Lovely stuff. Ah, I barely remembered that, but I do love it when that sort of thing happens. Nuance in wrestling, especially when it trusts the viewer to get it and not need to be spoon-fed, is one of its best story-telling elements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theringmaster Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 On 11/4/2022 at 11:14 AM, Supremo said: I threw a random episode of Smackdown from 1999 on today, as background noise whilst I worked. Went with one of the very first episodes, headlined by Undertaker and Big Show  vs. The Rock and Mankind in a Buried Alive match. If I remember correctly, we didn’t get the first few months of Smackdown on UK TV and it pained me to read online about all this stuff going on that I couldn’t watch. Can anyone remember when we started getting Smackdown? Early 2000, maybe? I know it’s not a particular hot take but my main thought throughout was how ridiculously rushed all the matches are. That same sense of panicked guys speeding through their spots that you sometimes see on AEW television, when they’re running low of time at the end of the show? That’s every match. It’s crazy. Also, big shout out to Billy Gunn and Jeff Jarrett, knocking about on this show, and then being two of the best things on weekly TV twenty three years later. We used to get Smackdown highlights on the Saturday/Sunday morning highlight shows. This match i remember very well on those type of shows, it joined halfway through.  I think it was around the year mark, If i remember correctly they signed some sort of new deal and Smackdown was added. Friday night Raw, Saturday night Smackdown-The best childhood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted November 9, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 9, 2022 it's a lost art in wrestling - starting with the planned finish, and working your way backwards to ensure it all makes sense. It works in any storytelling medium - even with a big twist ending, you want to give the audience enough information to see it coming, so that either when it surprises them they get that dawning realisation of how everything fits together, or they get to give themselves a pat on the back for figuring it out before the end. One of my favourite matches, and my favourite of the Attitude Era style of overbooking, is Dude Love vs. Steve Austin at Over The Edge '98. Everything is layered and built brilliantly, and all the information you need to understand the match's story is frontloaded - Vince's repetition of "by my hand only" in the pre-match interview tells you exactly how the match is going to end, even if you don't realise it yet. The addition of Patterson and Brisco make the "odds stacked against Austin" story as blatant as it's ever been, while The Undertaker being there as enforcer explains why they can't just all jump Austin or take the exploitation of the rules too far. What really makes it work is the shallow pretense of abiding by the rules - Pat Patterson's smarmy, "I would like to remind you that this is a No Disqualification match..." is superb, and gets nuclear heat not because he's bending the rules but because he thinks he's getting away with it. That the rules introduced by McMahon et al end up backfiring on them is great storytelling. More recently, they did a similar story with Lacey Evans refereeing a Seth Rollins/Baron Corbin match, and just did none of that groundwork to make it make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Fatty Facesitter Posted November 9, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 9, 2022 Currently working through some of the 2001 WWE shows. They don't hold up well apart from a few bright spots from an in-ring perspective. Obviously the invasion business is quite all over the place. This was around the time I followed the backstage news element of the business on a daily basis. Although the quality of the shows was mostly shit in comparison to other eras, I maintain that this was a great time to become a fan. The internet as becoming much more widely used and more easily accessible, backstage information was becoming easier to come by, and the sheer amount of change in the industry - both in and out of WWE - meant that there were always rumours about possible incomings and outgoings, the changing face of the independent scene in both the US and the UK, all sorts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted November 9, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 9, 2022 Somehow never seen this until now: Onita is fairly useless at anything that isn't bleeding, luckily Terry Funk is fucking great at everything. His offence is suitably nasty, he's such a believable wildcard and his over the top cartoonish selling adds buckets of drama and tension throughout. The panic that sets in once the alarm sounds and escalates is pretty great and the ending is perfect. Lovely stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted November 9, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 9, 2022 2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:  Onita is fairly useless at anything that isn't bleeding, While I share in the Funk love, I'm not having that. You don't get the heat, the connection with the audience, that Onita could generate just through bleeding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted November 9, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 9, 2022 37 minutes ago, BomberPat said: While I share in the Funk love, I'm not having that. You don't get the heat, the connection with the audience, that Onita could generate just through bleeding. I was unclear, I meant more in this specific single match - not generally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members quote the raven Posted November 10, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 10, 2022 (edited) Im watching WCW from 1997 i plan on making it though to its death. Its a series of WTF moments currently hogan just lost clean to piper, but didnt even tho his hand dropped 3 times the bell rang. I didnt really see alot of it when it was on....But constant highlight videos made it seem alot better than this.  Edited November 10, 2022 by quote the raven Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Thesz Posted November 10, 2022 Share Posted November 10, 2022 Heads up here folks. The Facebook site Jarret Parsons Entertainment has some fantastic old matches from various promotions. The strap match between Jay Strongbow (God rest his soul) and the (not the real one) Destroyer is fantastic as is some of their The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted November 15, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 15, 2022 There's very few good barbed wire rope matches. This is probably the best. Also probably both mens best matches. Brutal but not gratuitously so, full of great devastating spots that all make sense and a wonderful finish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted November 16, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 16, 2022 I hate Johnny Gargano/Adam Cole NXT Takeover style "epics" more than anything. 30 minutes of shite. But I love 5 minutes of big lads smashing the almighty FUCK out of eachother: Festus>Luke Gallows Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted November 16, 2022 Share Posted November 16, 2022 Also Biscuits and Gravy > whatever shit they're using these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted November 20, 2022 Awards Moderator Share Posted November 20, 2022 It’s not wrestling, but got BBC1 at the moment and the SAS drama they’re showing just started with a credits sequence set to Triple H’s entrance music. Which was not what I was expecting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted November 22, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 22, 2022 (edited) Just saw this for the first time....absolutely EPIC. A classic match with a beautiful story - Kobashi and Akiyama are two tough motherfuckers filled to the brim with babyface fire. Unfortunately they're up against two of the toughest men alive: Vader, who wrestles this match like a brick wall that will punch you in the face, and Stan Hansen, who is basically a wild bull. The story of the match is simple genius: can Kobashi and Akiyama withstand the world's biggest ass kicking long enough to find a single opportunity to win? Edited November 22, 2022 by LaGoosh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted November 22, 2022 Share Posted November 22, 2022 Anyone who has Peacock, a new documentary on Teddy Hart called 'Dangerous Breed' is on. It's quite the watch: Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.