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  1. Today
  2. The story of Brutus and Hulk falling out is interesting. Hearing everyone's side of the story makes me think Hulk just was getting tired of what was a mostly one-sided friendship and having to deal with the new wife who didn't take shit was his "fuck it, I'm done" moment. Whatever you think of him and his career, it was nice at least to see that Brutus seems to be in a good place and is happy with his life. It does make Hulk kind of look like a dick that he seemingly has no interest in burying the hatchet with the guy. It's not like he has to worry about Brutus hitting him up for a job in the biz at this stage of the game.
  3. Bruv vs Shibata ruled. TK gonna wild out and do Shibata/Okada rematch on a random Wednesday or Saturday and it will also rule. Side note, Matt Sydal replacing Yuter for the CMLL match is hella random. Should be Shibata replacing Yuta altogether in BCC.
  4. Johnny Smith/Wolf Hawkfield vs. Takao Omori/Tamon Honda (AJPW Tag League November 28, 1997) In the spirit of Opening Day, let's use a baseball metaphor and call this is a second division tilt in late summer. You don't see it so much anymore, but back in the day there was a sort of informal ghetto in the baseball world. There were eight teams in each league, and some of them were out of contention in April pretty much every year. Washington. The Phillies. These teams comprised the second division. We have a similar divide in the World's Strongest Tag Determination League every year. Let's be honest: We're all super involved in how Giant Kimala & Jun Izumida are going to do, but there's no danger of them winning it. We have four plausible teams and six also-rans. 1997 was a big year for Johnny & Wolf, though. They opened the tournament by stealing a point against Misawa & Akiyama, and they turn out to be clearly the class of the second division. They finish with 10 points by beating the obvious jobbers, coming through in some tough ones, and managing two draws. The lowest first division team has 14; the best losers have 6. Smith & Hawkfield were positioned somewhere in the middle. The match is . . . you know, it's fine. Not as good as the Headhunters one. Smith's standard limb work looks great, and Omori has a couple of hot moves. There's a transition off a spin kick that's real nifty, but Omori had every opportunity in the world to be a puroresu superstar and wasn't, so there's a ceiling to what you're getting. Honda has body language problems. He's got no physique, but he's deceptively large. It's deceptive because he's always looking at the ground like he's speedrunning Goldeneye. I gather that he figures it out at some point - the NOAH people are very fond of him - but he's a whole lot of nothing in this one. This, I suppose, is why you keep Johnny Smith around. In a "Braves vs. Pirates in August" kind of tag match, he fills the time better than most until his goon partner can land a body press. Another two points for the moral victors of the tag league.
  5. Yesterday
  6. You've all missed the greatest second generation wrestler in Japanese history, Mitsuo Momota.
  7. They’re somewhat similar. The Gotunda location is the original and smaller. I went to the larger, newer location in Shimomugero when I went in 2017 (and am pretty sure I saw Masakatsu Funaki eating there). Just depends on where you are and your timing. Same menus at both spots.
  8. So obviously we have to go to Ribera. I see there are two locations. Which one is better from a pro wrestling history & memorabilia perspective?
  9. This is slightly clipped, we get 24 minutes out of 30. I was disappointed with the match and so I had to watch it twice, but sadly I still am. I think Jumbo is the one to blame here; Terry is so much over than him and the crowd doesn't buy his matwork, especially because he doesn't do anything to effective or special. Funk sells, but nothing really good happens until they start throwing bombs in the last 10 minutes, which is understandable but all the limbo work goes out of the window in an instant. Funk is saving the match with his selling and the way he kicks out from Tsuruta's near falls, we get a predictable time limit draw before Terry can come back and bring his experience to the table. ***
  10. This wasn't a masterpiece, but a perfectly enjoyable main event and also a bit better than their previous bout. Inoki wants to block the lariat this time and immediately goes for Hansen's arm, especially because it's taped; the gaijin is overwhelmed by this attack, but dishes some violent shots to Inoki's neck to keep some control. Hansen gets to look good once again, because this time Inoki is saved by the ropes when he eats the lariat. We get another count-out tease, before Inoki's impressive brainbuster from the apron for the 3.1 pinfall, once again Hansen looks strong even in defeat, as Inoki also had to resort to a rare top rope dive to desperately put him down. Quite impressive how this match had like 1 big move and a couple of bumps only and yet everything made complete sense. ***1/2
  11. Another really good Fujinami match, he was so versatile in 1980 and could adapt to any opponent. Here the matwork takes a step back, as Hara hits hard and Fujinami is not afraid to change his strategy and do the same. Once again, they go back to Fujinami's forehead wound, so by the end of the match he's bleeding a ton, but he dishes a lot of punishment as well and is not afraid to push a boundaries a little bit, like kicking Hara while the opponent is at the ropes. This only lasted 12/13 minutes, so there is zero downtime and everything looks so solid. Hara is a big threat and so Fujinami goes back to what he knows best, submitting his opponent to win the match. This was different than what the New Japan Junior Heavyweights were and would become, but it worked really well ***1/2
  12. One of the more underrated and under-discussed matches in RINGS. This was worked in the realistic house style that RINGS adopted during the late 1997-1999 period, and the result was a very fluid match with incredible grappling and counterwork by both. This match asks for some patience and attention to detail for a 14-minute match, but the award is a very good technical battle between a SAMBO specialist and one of the best shoot-style workers from UWFi and KINGDOM. Lots of nice reversals and a good finish where Ilyukhin catches Kanehara off-guard. This looked like a modern MMA contest in some ways. Ilyukhin was really good, and his name doesn't get mentioned enough in terms of great shoot-style workers. The same applies to Kanehara. ****3/4
  13. I was a little hasty. Meek Mill isn't accused of rape at this time. He just is a Diddy associate who allegedly engaged in acts with him. With all the stuff still coming out, I don't know why WWE would want to risk it.
  14. That man has looked 70 for the past 40 years.
  15. Let's see, the first that come to mind are Shibata, Mochizuki Jr. and Fujinami's kid. Ayako Hamada is still active, though only in Mexico.
  16. My fav Beefcake match is actually his match against Mr. Perfect at WM6. You could argue Curt was doing all the work, but it still was a highlight of the show (one wonders how the Summerslam match would have been if he wasnt injured).
  17. That shouldn't have made me laugh as hard as it did, lmao.
  18. For sure. David Sammartino and Erik Watts represent. With the landscape changing from the model of the territory where the owner/booker would push his not-so-talented kid to today's big-ass corporations owning pro-wrestling promotions, it's not exactly the same dynamic either (not to mention the much, much bigger emphasis on being actually good). Still. Honestly, if Brian Pillman Jr. was not who he is (and despite the fact he actually wasn't privileged at all during his upbringing, for obvious reasons), there is ZERO chance he gets signed to an NXT deal and pushed after his AEW stint. ZERO. The funniest thing in this is that they change nepo-kids names (see also, Bron Breakker) almost as if it's not as obvious, despite the fact no one can ignore it in today's world.
  19. Sakaguchi's kid never got anywhere either. I wonder if this indicates that the business is more meritocratic in Japan, but there are plenty of second generation washouts in the US as well.
  20. Interesting. I had no idea about Misawa having kids either btw. I was thinking about Sumo wrestling, which inspired a lot of how pro-wrestling functions in Japan, where you actually have quite a bit of wrestler dynasties, but it doesn't seem it has really worked the same way in pro-wrestling, to the point Shota Umino being the son of a famous referee really stands out as an exception. Hashimoto's kid really never made much strides. Of course you had Hana Kimura. Out of the top of my head, I really can't think of anyone else in the current scene.
  21. I think it's at least partially because wrestling in Japan has traditionally been presented as more of a sport and you hardly ever see family dynasties in non-worked sports. Also, Japanese athletes tend to be more secretive about their private lives, so their children don't really grow up exposed to the business. After Misawa died, it was reported that wrestlers who had known him for decades didn't even know he had children.
  22. Months after the fact, they haven't run any PPV since Coke-a-Mania and every "big" event has now been turned into tapings for their "TV" show. What a wonderful dumpster fire this entire thing has been. Meanwhile, Court Bauer got 20 Mil.
  23. Best memory, Taz was on the Low Blow version of WCW roster. When that was dissolved and Low Blow took over WWF, Taz went undrafted and somehow was not put on the Free Agent list.
  24. Ronda Rousey throwing Vince and his croonies under the bus is my favorite news bits of the week.
  25. Irony aside, it will probably only get worse now that you'll get entire families where both the father and the mother are pro-wrestlers, especially in the case of the really weathly ones in WWE. And it's really not just a pro-wrestling thing at all, really, it's all over the map. But anyway, the point I was making with that list is that the nepo-babies all came through the WWE system, while the non-nepo babies come from the indies. The one thing that I find fascinating is that it actually hasn't really worked that way in Japan. I have no idea why. Lucha libre is basically mafia level shit. Big time US pro-wrestling has way more than one royal family (although you could say that WWE really has become the Samoan mafia too lately). Still, I think a study on a very large timescale would be super interesting. Even by the standards of the time and the promotion, he was a weak-ass worker. Valentine did all the work and he would do a stomp or two and a bodyslam. Gotta love the fact he really believes he "proved all his detractors wrong" when he got back in WCW as the Disciple. The level of denial is insane.
  26. I miss the days when the big stars were all self-made men like Terry Funk, Greg Valentine, and Kerry Von Erich. Pro wrestling has pretty much always been infested with nepo babies. Which is to be expected as the most reliable way to gain entrance to a closed society, which wrestling historically was, is family connections. By the way, Beefcake was a perfectly serviceable worker before the accident. Not great by any means, but decent enough that he could team with the aforementioned Valentine and actually bring something to the table.
  27. Yup. Try "no one" actually. Fun fact, all big men singles match participants in Mania this year that came through the WWE system are nepobabies : Rock, Roman, Jey & Jimmy Usos, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes. And pretty much all of the others are products of the indies (Rollins, Owens, Zayn, Gunther, Styles, Knight, Drew), basically. Dunno what that says about the WWE developmental system.
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