What are YOU watching?

[CleetusVanDamme]

Make 2008 one of your choices, NEWM. The HIAC and Cena/Batista are up there with the best matches in the event's history. On top of that you have Triple H performing one of the greatest carry-jobs of all time by having a quality match with Khali. Jeff/MVP and Punk/JBL were really good, too.

[Reznor]

Top 3:

SummerSlam 89 - An excellent opener with the Harts vs The Brain Busters, an awesome six man featuring Martel, Jacques and Raymond vs The Rockers and Tito, another entertaining 3 on 3 bout with Boss Man, Akeem and Andre vs The Demolition and Hacksaw Duggan, a superb Warrior vs Rude match and an electric main event. The fans don't seem to stop screaming throughout the night. I'm actually halfway through reviewing this for the Old School thread.

 

SummerSlam 91 - It has the match made in heaven and the match made in hell. Which are both great to watch back for different reasons. Other than that there's the LOD and the Nasties smacking the shite out of each other and a miracle of a match between Virgil and Ted DiBiase. Oh and it has the match of the year between Bret and Perfect as well.

 

SummerSlam 2002 - Best match of 2002 (and arguably the decade) from Michaels vs HHH, a good Brock vs Rock main event, a match between B*no*t and RVD that is so physical RVD's usually plastered down ponytail comes loose for the first time ever. Good matches scattered all over the card actually.

I was thinking of this earlier for this thread as I figured no better reason than being the 3 best shows, and those were all my top ones too, but eventually I decided I'd probably have 1992 pipping 2002 into the top 3. In terms of great matches, athleticism, workrate and all that, 2002 would be top of the lot, but for spectacle, all round fun and examples of what was so good about the WWF, it doesn't get any better than the late 80s/early 90s shows. And there's also the nostalgia factor obviously.

 

When I think about it, considering its bandied about as the 2nd biggest show of the year, after the first 4 years or so Summerslam has often been a pretty underwhelming PPV over the years. In the 2000's especially. There's been a lot of good shows for sure, but just as many letdowns and events that could easily have been a whole lot bigger and better than they were. I don't think there's been a year where they didn't have the talent to put on anything less than an excellent show from top to bottom. I'm starting to think there could be a fair argument for the Rumble being the #2 PPV.

[ShortOrderCook]

Make 2008 one of your choices, NEWM. The HIAC and Cena/Batista are up there with the best matches in the event's history. On top of that you have Triple H performing one of the greatest carry-jobs of all time by having a quality match with Khali. Jeff/MVP and Punk/JBL were really good, too.

 

That's a tidy shout. WWE was in decent form at the time, also features a neat HBK-Jericho segment. I wasn't a fan of the Hell in a Cell mind.

[ajmcstyles]

I'm currently watching this ESPN The Wrestler - Scott Hall

 

Part 1 -

[garynysmon]

On my last episode of Raw from 1997, it's taken around 6 months for me to work through an entire year of episodes. Already started downloading 1998 now as they're great.

 

My one observation is the Gang Rulz stuff. I remember being really into all the diffrerent factions at the time, but come December time, it's got really tedious and the DOA are just glorified JTTS.

[aaron]

This year I have mostly been watching $5 Wrestling.

 

Freight Train FTW!

[Professor Paul's Bin]

WCW Bash At The Beach 2000

 

Watched this yesterday for the first time and what a shit show WCW put out. No wonder when the merger happened AOL didn't want them anymore. The show just goes along with some awful matches where far too many are interfered in and just leave the crowd dissatisfied. For example Torrie Wilson comes out, who turns and hits Shane Douglas, but then turns on Buff Bagwell to give Shane Douglas the win and then starts getting off with Shane Douglas.

 

But anyway the show was shit, but this man..

 

 

Is a fucking idiot. I was watching his infamous "shoot" and just felt embarrassed. There is no place for this in main stream Wrestling. I bet a few dozen 30 stone, unwashed obese creatures living in their parents basement thought this was the greatest thing ever. But this was horrible to watch. Tony Schivone, Scott Hudson and Mark Madden just even made it clear they were uncomfortable having to sit through Russo talk utter shite. It seemed like something you'd see on an indy promotion trying to see how much of a shoot they could do but no this was the #2 Wrestling Promotion in North America at the time.

 

Oh and the Graveyard match between The Demon and Vampiro. What a terrible stipulation. Did they ever do another one of these matches? I hope not.

 

I was gonna write some more on this but there is not much to write. It was just shit.

 

Match card

- WCW Crusierweight Championship: LT. Loco Vs Juvuntud Guerrera

- WCW Hardcore Championship; Handicap Match: Big Vito Vs Normal Smiley & Ralphus

- Wedding Gown Match: Daffney w/Crowbar Vs Stacy Keibler w/David Flair

- WCW World Tag Team Championship: Kronic Vs Chuck Palumbo & Shawn Stasiak

- Kanyon Vs Booker T

- WCW United States Championship: Scott Steiner Vs Mike Awesome

- Graveyard Match: Vampiro Vs The Demon

- Shane Douglas Vs Buff Bagwell

- WCW Heavyweight Championship: Jeff Jarrett Vs Hulk Hogan

- Kevin Nash Vs Goldberg

- WCW Heavyweight Championship: Jeff Harrett Vs Booker T

 

Actually the best moment was seeing Booker win the title, it meant alot to him you could tell and at least it gave the crowd one thing to go home happy about. Other than that it was just shit.

[Accident Prone]

I'm getting through the bulk load of dvd sets i ordered from SilverVision. The Hell In A Cell collection is fantastic and the Shawn Michaels 'My Journey' set was so rivetting that even my non-fan GF (who appreciates it but, at the same time, mocks the sillier aspects of it all) sat down and watched the whole bloody thing. Just finished Punk's DVD set; the documentary portion is the best i've seen since RAFOECW; not too concerend about the matches seeing as i've seen them all very recently in other sets/shows. Edge's 'Decade Of Decadance' set was a nice trip down memory lane and has some great matches but is easily the weakest that i have watched thus far.

 

Still got the Bret Hart, Rey Mysterio (the second, better one), Elimination Chamber collection, Best Of Raw & Smackdown 2011 and both Eddie sets to go. Should be a good'un.

[2Xtreme_lives]

Got the Stone Cold & CM Punk Blu Rays to work through

 

And watched the old UK Revival: King Of England show last night

[Mr Butternut Squash]

Apart from current WWE all I watch at the moment is classic All Japan Women. Joshi's not everyone's cup of tea, largely thanks to the psychology and structure of the matches which would look alien to a WWE fan for example, but the novelty of good ladies action twinned with the copious amounts of the stuff on Youtube has lead to a new obsession. 90's AJW is a different beast to 80's and the matches were generally of better quality. The 80's stuff is still great though and one thing it has over the 90's is its biggest star; the crowd. Different atmospheres work for different reasons but AJW's crowd of almost entirely pre-pubescent schoolgirls may be my favourite wrestling audience. They make every near fall on the big babyfaces sound like life or death. The wails of dread whenever somebody's getting stabbed up with scissors or the deflated moan when one of their heroes get pinned really heightens the drama of a match and is what I love about wrestling the most. Sadly the schoolgirls disappeared in the 90's thanks to the Crush Gals retiring from AJW (they had a crazy stip where all the girls had to retire at the ripe old age of 26) and generally bad business decisions. Just gonna dump some thoughts on my favourites along with some info and video links which may or may not be helpful to anyone that's interested just cos I'm not up to much atm . .

 

 

Chigusa Nagayo

Part of the legendary Crush Gals tag team who were MAJOR stars in Japan, top 10 records and the lot. Chigusa was the stand out of the team (Lioness Asuka was her team mate) and feuded with the monster heel Dump Matsumoto. This culminated in the hair vs hair match which is one of the greatest matches (and post-match) I've ever seen. Chigusa is astounding in her ability to draw sympathy from the crowd but can also appear as tough when she needs to (she's actually terrifying IRL). Again, the crowd; the sound of thousands of children crying their eyes out as Chigusa - who had all the odds stacked against her and still ends bloody and viscously beaten - is getting her head shaved is quite harrowing and something I won't forget too soon. It's easy to see why it briefly got AJW thrown off TV.

 

If there is only two joshi matches you'll ever watch make sure it's Hokuto/Kandori (which is great for completely different reasons) and Chigusa/Dump:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G-Cv_HjSmw

 

(Atrocious Alliance. Dump in middle, Condor Saito to her right and young Bull on the left)

 

Dump Matsumoto

The dominant monster heel of the 80's. She and her leather clad Gokuaku Domei crew literally tore shit up for much of the latter part of the decade. You know what you're getting with Dump; liberal weapons use, non-stop outside interference, hilarious no-selling, unprovoked attacks on referee/commentator/cameramen/fans and a general air of chaos. EVERY time. And I love it. I don't think I've seen any other heel that has such a perfect balance of being relentless and scary and funny as fuck all at the same time.

 

(Boss)

 

Bull Nakano

Probably the most famous joshi star of all thanks to her stints in WWF/WCW. She's the most striking looking wrestler there's ever been so she's not easy to forget. Started out in Dumps crew before replacing Dump as the lead heel of the promotion once Dump left during the transition between the Crush Gals era and the inter -promotional boom period of the 90's. She didn't have the charisma of Dump but she was a better 'worker' and a real graceful mover for someone her size. And, ahem, whilst I always suspected that there was a pretty face under all the freakery I was still surprised to learn that during the mid-80's she was HOT.

 

My favourite Nakano matches are the chain match vs Shinobu Kandori and the even more violent cage match vs Aja, which is up there with Flair/Morton as the greatest cage match I've ever seen.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i99nPWsz7-Y

 

(The Dangerous Queen)

 

Akira Hokuto

Generally regarded as the best female wrestler of all time. I agree. She had a charisma and intensity about her that only the special ones have. She also had a tremendous looking spinning heel kick and the most viscous piledriver you'll see. She happened to invent the northern lights bomb (her finisher) and the sitdown gutwrench powerbomb too. I don't know a word in Japanese that isn't 'arigato' or 'origami' but it's easy to tell that she was a great heel shit talker and had a sense of humour to boot. She was a key player in the inter-promotional wars between AJW, JWP, LLPW etc. and her feud and match with LLPW's Kandori is legendary (the best match on the best wrestling card I've seen - Dreamslam). But the reason that she's my fave just comes down to the fact that . . um, she's so badass. Obviously the knowledge of her numerous injuries help - she completed a match with a broken freakin' neck - but it's the way she carries herself; even when surrounded by giants like Bull or Aja, she's the alpha female, as highlighted by her days as leader of the LCO stable. Throw in her awesomely frenetic wresting style, a cool as fuck look (in her post-Wham! days) and the GREATEST ENTRANCE MUSIC OF ALL TIME (I'm making a lot of big statements it seems, but believe me, this is the truest) and I'm sold.

 

clicky (starts off fairly slow but stick with it. Hokuto went into it with an injured arm/shoulder which is why she sells it huge)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w1byzpTuiw

[PowerButchi]

They used to show a load of Dump on the precursor to Tarrant on TV, Clive James on TV.

 

Here's some.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AsZM5Y7KrQ

[Mr Butternut Squash]

Ha, that's great. Thanks.

[TheShowOff]

Top 3:

SummerSlam 89 - An excellent opener with the Harts vs The Brain Busters, an awesome six man featuring Martel, Jacques and Raymond vs The Rockers and Tito, another entertaining 3 on 3 bout with Boss Man, Akeem and Andre vs The Demolition and Hacksaw Duggan, a superb Warrior vs Rude match and an electric main event. The fans don't seem to stop screaming throughout the night. I'm actually halfway through reviewing this for the Old School thread.

 

SummerSlam 91 - It has the match made in heaven and the match made in hell. Which are both great to watch back for different reasons. Other than that there's the LOD and the Nasties smacking the shite out of each other and a miracle of a match between Virgil and Ted DiBiase. Oh and it has the match of the year between Bret and Perfect as well.

 

SummerSlam 2002 - Best match of 2002 (and arguably the decade) from Michaels vs HHH, a good Brock vs Rock main event, a match between B*no*t and RVD that is so physical RVD's usually plastered down ponytail comes loose for the first time ever. Good matches scattered all over the card actually.

 

And Trish Stratus looks beyond hot.

[iamthedoctor]

I myself have been doing a wrestling marathon since late last year where I started from the year 1998 from the Royal Rumble 1998 and watch every Raw from the PPV up to the end of the year and watch all the PPVs as when they aired. Ive basically given myself 3 hours on a Monday, Wednesday and 6 hours on a Sunday to watch whatever I can.

 

Im now up to August 1999. Last night I watched Fully Loaded 1999 followed by the Raw the next night and the first Raw in August but its been a real pain not watching Heat as I forgot just how many important things they did back then. In fact the only time I have watched a Heat was when they put the King of the Ring Qualifying matches on and Austin went crazy on people after he found out who the greater power was.

 

With today being monday Ill be watching the final two Raw's leading up to Summerslam and then Wednesday it'll be Summerslam. It will be sad in a way because its been really fun plastering through two weeks at a time but with the debut of Smackdown they advertised for August 26th ill only get to watch one week a night after this. I dont really want to skip it because its a important show and I did watch the debut show as it was a one off but I guess Ill have to wait and see.

 

So has anyone else done a similar marathon?

[TheShowOff]

Still don't think I've ever seen BATB2k in full. I'll always remember having a WCW magazine in Cyprus in 2000 reading all about it, and thinking it looked fun. I also remember how great the photography in that magazine was.