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Too much wrestling


JerryvonKramer

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Guys, sitting in my drawer now I have:

 

The Watts Set - watched first 4 discs

80s All Japan - watched and rated first 4 discs

80s New Japan - not touched

Will's amazing 4 Horsemen set - 4 discs deep

1992 Yearbook - arrived yesterday

1993 Yearbook - arrived today

One or two of the Schneider comps - not touched

2010 MotY - not touched

 

In addition, I have my ongoing WCW PPV reviews with every NWA and WCW PPV ever recorded sitting on my desktop. Great American Bash '96 forthcoming (which might be the best WCW PPV since Spring Stampede '94)

 

I'm also a pretty busy guy.

 

I love my wrestling, but I might have hit a moment of overload here.

 

I'd like to make the All-Japan ballot, but I've found that set heavy going and a bit grindy. I've been burning through Horsemen because I'm a guy who loves angles and promos.

 

I am sort of a completest, I always feel like I want to finish one thing before moving on. Like I feel bad for moving onto the Horsemen with All Japan half done, and I felt bad for leaving the MidSouth set to watch AJ.

 

Question is: how do you watch your stuff? Do you have any pattern? Do you see a whole set through on its own or do you mix and match?

 

For some reason, I found myself not really having fun any more watching All Japan, and the Horsemen set was like just ... relaxing, do you know what I mean?

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I'll give you the advice that worked for me when I felt the same way -- pick one thing and focus on it. The other stuff will be there when you're done. I used to bounce around and it got to a point where I didn't even want to watch wrestling because I didn't know where to start.

 

My suggestion? Put everything else aside, start with the 1992 yearbook and post quick thoughts as you go. There's enough variety to keep it easy to watch without being bogged down in one style. If you like that, do 1993, and so on.

 

I am admittedly biased about this project, but it was the answer to my fan woes, and I honestly believe it probably would be for other people too.

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The yearbooks are a great way to breeze along, because you never bog down with one thing. In your case, it's interesting that All Japan feels like a grind because based on your comments, it seems you liked a lot of the matches you watched most recently. I'd urge you to try and stick it out with the promise that a lot of the best stuff comes at the end.

 

In general, I go through different phases. If I'm working on an 80s set, I try to be disciplined and watch at least a little bit of footage from that promotion every day (I'm currently slacking on that bigtime.) But I go through other periods when I just say fuck it; I'm going to watch whatever I feel like popping in on a given night. In general, I try to remember that it's a hobby and I should watch what brings me bliss.

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I have the same problem, can't even imagine how much unwatched wrestling i've got

Right now my current habits are to focus really heavy on a few promotions but every few shows mix in some random stuff so I don't get too burnt out.

 

The past few days i've been bouncing around, lots of old Leilani Kai matches, early 90's M-Pro, lucha & old WWF, but my main focus is on finishing off later day FMW and 93 joshi.

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OK, mine is a bit complicated. Initially when I started getting comps, I would watch a disc here and a disc there. Then I got organized and started watching sets from beginning to end. Then I got so many comps piling up that it was going to take forever before I got to them, so I took a variation on goodhelmet's suggestion of watching a different comp each day of the week by setting up a rotation system. Me being me, the rotation wound up growing mighty huge. Then I found there were some sets I wasn't getting to quick enough that I wanted to be able to possibly discuss on the board (namely the yearbooks) so I put them in what I call high rotation. I then added some other comps that I wanted to get through quickly to high rotation for various reasons. So now my system is I watch one disc from the regular rotation, then go through the high rotation, then the next comp in the regular rotation. No, this doesn't make much sense at this point. Here is where the rotation currently stands :

 

Regular rotation

Death of WCW

Buddy Rose

Steve Regal

Eddie Gilbert

Tracey Smothers

Great Mutoh

Stan Hansen

Terry Funk

Vader

Kawada

Bam Bam Bigelow

Gary Hart International

Jushin Liger

Eddie Guerrero

Chris Jericho

 

High Rotation :

1992 Yearbook

CMP 2

1993 Yearbook

The Legend of Piper’s Pit

1996 Yearbook

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I steal a match here and a match there. I rarely watch wrestling more than 30-45 minutes at a time. My longest time to sit down and watch is if I watch an episode of SMW. Usually, I wake up about an hour earlier than my wife on the weekends and I get. I'm really inconsistent though. I've never been able to maintain a regular watching habit since the Benoit murders. Now granted, I got married in that time frame and that has just as much to do with it.

 

As far as style. It's whatever garners my interest. I watched nothing but Dragon Gate from 2007-2008 because I found the shows interesting and entertaining. I honestly don't care about seeing classics or great matches, I'm out for being entertained and having fun.

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Not to keep harping on this, but one thing that works on the yearbooks for me is the context without the overkill of one style hitting you over the head. It's hard for me to hop around because I'm not in the moment of the match, if that makes sense. Watching a yearbook is the closest you'll get to what it was like to be a wrestling fan that year.

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I'm that guy.

 

Right now on Justin.tv I'm watching 85 Mid-South (saw all of 84), 85 NWA (WWW and WCW SN), and 80 Memphis. If I have time after that I catch what other stuff is on this other channel which usually has a lot of fairly random mid 80s Crockett and Florida. I usually watch on the exercise bike, on the laptop. It's a lot to get through but I can watch while other stuff is going on and only half pay attention unless something I'm interested is on.

 

At this stage of my watching life I'd much rather watch whole shows in a season sort of fashion than watch random matches/moments.

 

I'm still thinking of trying my luck with the AWA set when it comes out though.

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If we are just going by dvds, I usually watch about a hour or so a night before bed. It's hard to watch more than one set at once. I was almost done with the 92 set when I got the ECW set and 92 went on the back burner. As for too much wrestling, I probably watch way too much. Raw, Smackdown, NXT, Superstars, FCW, CMLL, ACM with a little bit of TNA and AAA.

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I can probably never get another wrestling DVD again and still be watching stuff in 20 years from now. Just off the top of my head:

 

14 Volumes of SHIMMER shows

A bunch of 2009-10 ROH

Several TNA PPVs from 06 and 07

A couple months of the 1992 SMW season and the whole 1993 season

A handful of SMW home video releases of their Knoxville shows.

A few discs of Will's Freebirds/Von Erichs comp

Will's Flair vs. Kerry comp

Half of Will's Bob Backlund comp

All four shows that make up the UWFI best in the world tournament from '94

TONS of 2CW DVDs (although I don't really count them since I only have them because I help the fed out by burning copies of the shows so they always have them on hand at the merch table at their shows).

 

I'll have the 2011 All Japan Champions Carnival and the 6/9 PPV in my mailbox tomorrow or Saturday. I still hope to eventually pickup KHawk's AWA '82 set, a 5 disc set of the International Fed out of Montreal, and the recent All Japan Sumo Hall show.

 

The only things I make a priority to watch are the Kayfabe Commentary DVDs, and that's only because KC sends me them to review on 411.

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I probably have 500 discs around here to be watched... and I think Dan just sent me something with 20+ discs that's sitting in my mailbox (too tired to wander out there to check after getting home). I have so many non-wrestling discs that my head hurts as well. I have no idea when I'm going to get around to watching Season 1 of the Glades, but a co-worker's significant other writes for the show and I have another friend who likes it, so I thought I'd grab it to check it out. Of course I lust after MLP, so I'll probably watch all those season sets of Weeds that are sitting on the shelf... I think half of which are still in their shrink wrap. And the re-watch of Deadwood is sitting in the DVD player at the moment. :P

 

So I don't have any great advice on watching, other than pick something you enjoy, pop it in, and stick with it. I caught up on the first two seasons of The Mentalist by just plugging away on it, and it's really nothing more than a lightweight, mediocre series that interested me in... well.. nothing more than catching up with Season 3 that was going on last season. :P Something like Justified was more worthwhile in getting the Season 1 set so that I could watch Season 2 when it aired... except Season 2 was spottier than 1.

 

See how complicated this shit gets? :P

 

Pick something you like. Enjoy it. If some folks whose taste in wrestling tends to line up with yours pimp something, give it a go and stick with it a bit because it may be a slow build before it really clicks.

 

John

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The past two years have been pretty hectic for me time wise and financially doing a Master's, beginning an accountancy qualification and starting a graduate programme but still I feel desperately guilty about my set watching. I've been stuck on the NEW JAPAN! 80s set and the Death of WCW set. Good news for tape traders is that this month is the first month I am totally debt free and today is pay day!

 

Still manage to barely keep on top of Raw is the only weekly show I watch on a regular basis. I watch two or three Smackdowns or Superstars in row when I have a spare morning or night. I fell about six months on NXT sadly and keep swearing to catch up. I watch all heavily pimped Indies and Puro.

 

Like people have said as with procrastination the best cure is picking what you want done the just sitting down and doing it especially if your time is at a premium.

 

A really bad habit I've picked up due live tweeting/posting Raw, PPVs etc is having the laptop open when watching on a TV or having a browser open when I am playing a DVD. Resulting probably not getting the benifit out of what I am watching than I would if I gave it my undivided attention.

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Actually, I'll say this too. While on the bike I'm a captive audience of sorts, but even then, if I wasn't dealing with 5 day time limits on watching the justin.tv stuff, I probably wouldn't get to it all. The time limit before it gets taken down makes everything seem more pressing and necessary (and a little more exciting too I suppose).

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I prefer to see it as plenty of wrestling, but too little time.

 

I'm kind of stuck on the AJ set too. I'm in that 87 down period, so I'm powering through to get to the fun 88-89 stuff.

 

Also, Dylan has me super stoked for the AWA set with all his Blackwell talk.

 

After that, I can't wait for Portland to see all the awesome Buddy Rose stuff.

 

After that, I am really excited to see what's out there for a Lucha set.

 

Then there's still a Crockett set down the line which should be a monster.

 

Somewhere in there, I need to get GH's 2010 MOTYC set. I like to keep up on current stuff here and there, and find these comps the easiest way to do so...I'm just usually a year behind everyone else.

 

I have a lot of wrestling around the house, but not nearly as much as some of you guys. I still want more. I just need time to watch the stuff.

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I also got bogged down around '87 in the All Japan set, so I started rotating between Buddy Rose, '89 NWA and the Memphis set. The switch kicked me in the ass, so now I'm motivated again to finish the All Japan set.

 

The AWA set will be another kick in the ass, since that's the promotion that got me into wrestling.

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I, too, have stacks of DVDs and hard drives full of stuff to watch that will probably never get watched. No real strategy, just whatever I'm feeling like or what I'm watching for the next Old School Wrestling Podcast.

 

Being a productive adult and parent also drastically cuts down on my viewing time (and those two weeks last month when I was doing nothing but watching Breaking Bad on Netflix).

 

It's really pretty amazing to think about the vast amount of stuff we have access to now. I take great joy in finding stuff now that I remember only daydreaming about the 80s when I would see it in PWI.

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John, that's the great thing about being able to stream via netflix. I'd probably be in your shoes without it. As it stands now, I've left off somewhere in season 5 of The Shield, and have a couple of movies that I haven't gotten around to watching yet, but that's about the extent of it.

I don't know how huge of a Netflix fan I'd be. Stuff that I really like, I'll end up watching various episodes nearly every year at some point because I enjoy it (Nero Wolfe, Castle, some movies). Stuff that's a big effort to rewatch because you really need to watch all of it (Deadwood, The Wire), I'll attack maybe every 5 years or so. But... I WANT ThOSE DISCS! :P

 

I buy a hell of a lot less TV/movie dvds now than I use to, especially movies. Much more selective there. But I've flipped over to picking off series, especially when they're on sale. I tend to see cheep value in 20+ hours of a show at $19 to $29 compared to a two hour movie at the same price. :)

 

Also with shows, if you catch up and then find the show falls off (The Mentalist was never "good", but got really annoying last year and into this one), you're caught up and don't need to buy anymore of the season sets for years you don't like. :P

 

I know Netflix can accomplish much of the same, often cheaper. I tend now to try to pay attention more to starts of seasons and DVR & watch the opening episodes more quickly. If the show blows, the series setting gets deleted and I move on. Example would be Prime Suspect this year. I loved the UK original series. I like Bello and some of the rest of the cast. I'm giving it a try. It's a decent enough procedural... but nothing really great at the moment. But I'm a procedural fan, and watched more mediocre Law & Order episodes in the 90s and 00s than I care to remember. So I'll stick it through the season and see if it remains passable. The show that took CSI's spot on Thursday, though, end up out of the the DVR rotation after the debut. :)

 

John

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Off the top of my head:

 

70 discs of All Japan Classics still to watch.

Most of SMW's TV run.

1985-1986 World Championship Wrestling.

40 New Japan discs.

20 Dragon Gate discs.

15 NOAH discs.

2002-2004 OVW Television.

The Wrestling Society X set.

25ish random cheap DVDs I've bought on whims from Amazon.

30ish episodes of NWA Hollywood

 

This is before I start buying those DVD sets of ECW, figure out a new contact to start buying more Crockett/WCW from and someone that can get me Mid-South/UWF Television for a good price. This is while also toying with the idea of buying GWF Television, World of Sport Best Ofs and my flirtation with getting into DDT.

 

Wow, I really need to seek help.

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