482 replies to this topic

[Loss]

Fit Finlay vs. William Regal could also be really good, but the downside with these two is that they're not exactly adding cool new moves to their arsenal weekly. Finlay will give you some stiff forearms, Regal some stiff uppercuts, and both can apply a chinlock as if it were real. But you won't get much in the way of highspots or even innovative mat holds.

Finlay and Regal could have a 25 minute match which dares you to be patient and requires you to be passionate about a style that looks antiquated up against today's MMA match.

[Jingus]

Now it's time to decide if (X-Pac) is going to linger in the second tier with the content-to-a-fault Road Dogg, or if he is going to push for a top tier spot now that he is entering his prime years (he turned 28 this month).

...holy shit, Keller is that Prime Guy!

[Bix]

Cole noted that the first Cruisrweight Champion was Brian Pillman in 1991. JBL sort of contradicted him by adding that Chavo Guerrero Sr. was Cruiserweight Champion, too. There was no lineage between Pillman's title and Chavo Sr.'s Junior Hvt. Title. (Note: The term "Cruiserweight" was adopted by WCW shortly after I suggested it in a column in the PWTorch Newsletter as a better, more descript, less damaged name than the previously used Junior Heavyweight or Light Heavyweight terms. Mark Madden then suggested it to someone in WCW shortly thereafter, and it was adopted officially when the title was brought back, replacing the previous Light-Heavyweight Title name.)

Lashley then soared over the top rope onto everyone at ringside with a move that had more grace than anything in the so-called cruiserweight match earlier.

[World's Worst Man]

Wade Keller taking credit for the decision to name the cruiserweight division is gold. Actually, this entire thread is gold.

[Jingus]

Lashley then soared over the top rope onto everyone at ringside with a move that had more grace than anything in the so-called cruiserweight match earlier.

Many of Keller's articles have that one part that makes me go "I tap, I ain't reading this shit no more". I just stumbled onto a new one.

[S.L.L.]

Lashley then soared over the top rope onto everyone at ringside with a move that had more grace than anything in the so-called cruiserweight match earlier.

How dare cruiserweights wrestle something other than the one match I've been told they are supposed to perform over and over and over and over and over and over again with minimal variation since 1996. Why can't they be more progressive?

[S.L.L.]

Also, try wrapping your head around these two pearls of wisdom from tonight's PPV....

I'm all for acknowledging and showing respect toward past champions, but having them come out and wrestle so far past their prime is disrespectful toward current-day wrestlers, even Deuce & Domino.

Foley's showing that Vince always issues receipts, be it because of what he wrote in the book or how he held TNA negotiations over his head for a better deal. In any case, Foley is being treated like less of a special legend than he deserves by far.

[Loss]

After the 2000 Presidential election:

The most entertaining aspect of last night's coverage was Fox News boldly declaring Bush the winner, and then bragging within 30 seconds that they were the first to declare Bush the winner (first by 8 seconds, by the way). Then, an hour or two later, they begrudgingly changed their headline to "race too close to call" with their tails between their legs long after other networks had acknowledged the apparent polling estimate mistake. Of course, every network followed Fox's lead within 45 seconds of Fox's declaration. The egg on the faces of the networks was apparent. Peter Jennings gets credit for being the only anchor openly skeptical from the second Bush was declared the winner.

The whole scene actually resembled many wrestling website battles where the first to report a story brags they were first, the second to report it insecurely/disingenuously says they knew first but waited to make sure it was right because "it?s more important to be right than first," and the third to report it steals it from the first and puts a fake timestamp on it predating the first report and pretends they had the scoop. Then, when the story is wrong, everybody looks bad and blames somebody else.

One thought preoccupying us right now is whether Bruce Mitchell's column on this website on Monday mockingly "endorsing" George W. Bush "because he would be more friendly toward pro wrestling than the other candidates" may have swayed enough gullible readers to vote for Bush in Florida and swing the electoral college in his favor.

Mitchell has been the most influential wrestling columnist for a decade, but now his dripping-with-sarcasm endorsement of Bush may have decided the fate of the entire world! Depending on which 48 or 49 percent group of voters you fall under, Mitchell is either your hero or your villain today (and I share credit/blame for publishing it). Smackdown the Vote may have registered millions of voters, but Mitchell's Take on Monday may have done much more. It may have influenced a few hundred Florida wrestling fans who are too unworldly to notice heavy-handed sarcasm to actually vote for Bush.

[Bix]

Woooow. That's much worse than Meltzer's insistence that the Raw the night before swayed the election.

[Dylan Waco]

Oh come on, he has to be kidding with that last one...RIGHT?

[Bix]

I've been watching the last two week's of Raw since about 2 p.m., interrupted time after time with newsworthy phone calls about the Benoit situation - either wrestlers or reporters. I've had 15 minutes left in last week's Raw for hours. The stuff going on behind the scenes here is amazing, and when more of this becomes on record, it will make for an amazing story. (I'm not intending to tease things that I can't report, but in this context, I'll just say that there are things behind the scenes - including Vince's day today - that will some day come out as part of the context of this ongoing story that will be fascinating.) Now the NY Times has come out with a major story on the testing policy in WWE.

I skipped the TNA PPV last night because I was two Impact's behind and wanted to watch and review those first, and (mainly) because I had to finish another double-issue of the Torch which went to press this morning. When I have an hour or so - hopefully tonight yet - I'll get it formatted and posted online. Should I do that or finish last week's Raw and this week's Raw first?

I am determined to get caught up on the wrestling shows, but I'm a stickler for not skipping any or watching them out of order (which may be a bad thing at this point), but I think I can catch up this week on all of the shows - including the ROH PPV which has been sitting on my desk in DVD format for two weeks.

I totally totally understand where you're coming from. I literally sit there and look at caller ID and hesitate to pick the phone up even from someone I know will have info because I want to just isolate myself and watch and review the shows I'm behind on, but I pick up and there's always good info exchanges and I learn more. I also just spent an hour reading the latest Observer with the list of causes of death.

I've skipped my annual cabin trip, I've barely exercised (and I love biking in the summer months, but haven't but once since I got sick four weeks ago), and haven't seen any movies or done much of anything socially since this story broke. I have tried to take a full day off once a week to get away from the story, because I have hit that mental fatigue wall a couple times after five or six days of doing nothing but talking, writing, researching, reading, and thinking about this story. Saturday night I spent paying bills, since my cell phone was shut off because I didn't pay my bill and every credit card and other bill was late because that stack of envelopes behind my desk chair was never a priority and turn to deal with. I've been unwinding with an episode of season four of "24" at the end of each work day (at 2 or 3 a.m.) most nights, which is a nice bed time story coming at the same time as news reports of our odds of being attacked this summer! Otherwise, it's been this story every waking minute.

While I'm ready and eager to get back to usual business, the developments in this story just keep coming in every time I think I'll have a break to do it, for the better part of three weeks, something always happens - new newspaper story, new phone call, new indictment update, or something else. I can only ask you to hang in there and know I will get back to regular coverage as soon as I can, although I'm going to have to sneak in a four or five day vacation over the next two or three months at some point, but only after I get somewhat caught up on everything.

Are any of you intrigued by the fact that this Wikipedia vandal had one occasion where he cleaned up vandalism - and it was erasing bad stuff from Chavo's Wiki entry? That's the coincidence that nobody else is really explaining away. Added to the geographical location close to WWE headquarters where a lot of people know a lot of people in WWE personally, it's stil an intriguing story to build conspiracies around.

[Jingus]

Yeesh. Anyone else get Harry Knowles flashbacks where he was talking about what he had for dinnner and who he rode with before he saw the movie he was reviewing?

[Loss]

He reminds me of Milhouse.

[Loss]

What's even more interesting to me is how Bryan Alvarez has surpassed him as the #2 guy.

[Bix]

What's even more interesting to me is how Bryan Alvarez has surpassed him as the #2 guy.

And it's pretty obvious that this absolutely infuriates Wade.

[kjh]

I suppose it depends how you define success Loss, because Wade is quick to point out how proud he is that his website has gotten more traffic than any other wrestling website over the last 3 weeks.

[Bix]

In fairness to Wade...



Of course, the Torch site disseminates spyware, I believe, so that could artificially inflate his Alexa stats.

[World's Worst Man]

The torch website has many more posts than the WO website. Keller posts a lot of articles from other sources and then gives his take on them at the end. Not really quality reporting, but it could explain the greater traffic.

[Loss]

He's probably fundamentally right, but his reaction is a little over the top and heavy-handed.

On a side note, I really think the term "illegitimate son or daughter" is an antiquated term on the level of calling an African-American a "Negro" or a Japanese person "Oriental." There is nothing "illegitimate" about a child born out of wedlock. That child is as legitimate as any other child in this country. This isn't 1957. Labelling the child with something that sounds derogatory or demeaning could affect the self-esteem of many of WWE's younger viewers who were not born in a married household with two parents raising them. It sounds to my ear the same as calling a 12 year old boy a "bastard" because he was born to parents not married. I don't know what the solution is, but I don't believe we all should just go along with WWE in calling this person it the storyline who had no say-so in whether his or her parents were married when he or she was born "illegitimate" in a casual way. It's an antiquated, demeaning term that should be discarded.