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babylonianfrost

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About babylonianfrost

  • Birthday 12/30/1973

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    Tennessee

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  1. On a completely unrelated note, I feel like I should second the love for McKay's Used Books. Between the stores in Chattanooga and Knoxville (and to a lesser extent, Nashville), I feel like I've spent entire weeks (and paychecks) there over the past 25 years. *also, awesome Patreon show last week as well...
  2. He was still pretty muscular/defined by early '80's professional wrestling standards in Georgia in 1981 and 1982. I always recalled Solie occasionally touting the bodybuiding contests that Sullivan apparently competed in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FY96-ZPv4c
  3. *in and my point remains the same. Since he's in I don't see why Invader shouldn't be at all. I haven't looked in some time, but there's an asterisk next to him with a brief explanation of the circumstances, isn't there? I was generally against voting him out not out of some sort of "loyalty to workrate" or any of that crap, but because he was voted in and the feeling that voters were being asked to essentially change history (perhaps not the best wording admittedly, but I believe it's close enough) left a bad taste in my mouth. I admit that I felt the same way when confronted with Titan's campaign to edit him out of any archival footage (though I don't believe they still do that). He was voted in prior to his reprehensible acts. Should he be held as any sort of a standard bearer for the product? God, no, but there's at least a significant difference to me for his extant placement in the HoF and putting an already-known murderer on the ballot. Benoit wouldn't go within sniffing distance of the ballot today and, as noted earlier, putting Gonzales on the ballot would open up a can of worms with the wrestler/historian/journalist voters that I can't imagine that Dave wants to deal with (especially given that he was fairly tight/as tight as anyone was going to be with Brody as well, wasn't he?) On the other hand, Snuka is on the ballot and - as the VoW podcast reminded me - Mondt went in by fiat, so...yeah, hypocrisy.
  4. Damnable internet. The one time I wasn't being sarcastic online...You're on point that Fuller was a great talker, especially in his Memphis stuff in the late-'80's/early-'90's. As to the topic, I saw someone mention Dick Slater earlier and I'll second that. Barring brief flashes here and there (some UWF here, a JCP promo there, a few random Hardliners matches elsewhere), I've rarely found Slater to be more than "good." People have talked him up occasionally, but he never connected with me.
  5. Who do you feel was a better promo than James E. in Smoky Mountain? Without pulling up the roster and relying solely on a few names I've watched recently -- Fuller, Wright, Sytch, Pritchard and Sullivan. Don't get me wrong, when Cornette chose to focus on a particular match and the surrounding issue he could be really entertaining and effective. But way too often it seems like he's more interested in hearing his own voice and trying out material for a radio or stand up show. Bob Armstrong was better. The one consistent quality that I've noticed about Armstrong from Georgia through Continental and into SMW is that he is the go-to man for getting an angle across, even ones that he isn't involved in in some cases. I'd actually put Armstrong in the top five promo guys that I've ever seen, but I grant that that's a personal opinion. Heel Ron Wright was a great deal of fun; I'm not sure that I'd call him better than Cornette, but I can certainly see the argument. Fuller...okay. I'd actually put Dutch Mantell over Sytch, Wright, Pritchard and Sullivan, just for the promo prior to the nine-man/three-way tag between the Stud Stable, the Heavenly Bodies and the R&R Express/Anderson.
  6. Seeing Rood's early GCW stuff as a fairly generic babyface backing up Wrestling II and Pez Whatley against guys like Zybysko really open my eyes to just how infinitely better he was as a heel. If I had seen him in 1983 and never again, I would have assumed that he'd gone the way of a lot of other random territory mid-card babyfaces and disappeared; I've never seen his Crockett work but it's astonishing just how good he was, comparatively, even by the time he was in Memphis with Angel. I literally can't recall any part of any Rood GCW match that I've seen; in fact the only thing of any significance that I do remember of his time in the territory was his illegal count of Wrestling II over Zybysko during their feud over the National title. Turning heel gave him a massive charisma infusion.
  7. I've been watching some of the 1982-1983 shows lately and Flair was a semi-regular on the shows to point of acting as guest commentator with Solie on occasion, as least into April (which is as far as I've gotten in the most recent go-round of viewing). He may not have shown up as much as the regulars like Sawyer, Rich, Orndorff, Anderson, etc., but he was by no means a stranger and did some of the Ohio tours as well as Omni shows, if the promos are any indication. Wasn't Barnett booking/scheduling the champion at this point? He had a vested interest in having the world champ on his television and lord knows Flair must have been happy to get nationwide exposure on the superstation.
  8. Well...I suppose that since Bob Geigel was acting president of the NWA at the time and he had ownership in the Central States territory along with Race and I think Sonny Myers (as well as the St. Louis Wrestling Club, which seemed to be Kiniski's primary locale for headlining bigger shows in the early-'80's and was regarded as some sort of "gem of the NWA" based on more than one interview that I've read/heard), even if that's not entirely true, there are still strong enough connections to warrant the discussion of a possibility.
  9. The WWF set is a bizarre one compared to the later ones (Steve Travis? Johnny Rodz?), so excluding it is probably for the best, though I swear to god that the Brisco/North-South and boot camp matches will finish higher in my final '80's tally - assuming ww're still doing that - than most. I participated in all of the sets barring the NJPW and AJPW ones. I will probably go back and touch on those later but at this moment...I just don't feel enthusiastic enough about them to work my way through them. Maybe it's the lack of english commentary (which is a pathetic rationale, I grant you...), but I just didn't feel up to tackling them. My favorite so far is Mid-South, I think. The work and the angles are all so strong overall (barring a couple of excruciatingly long matches...Terry Taylor's representation on the set comes to mind) that it eclipses the other sets for me. After that, comes the Memphis set, although to my surprise the AWA set may take its spot. I knew Bock and Hansen would be great, but I never thought I would enjoy Greg Gagne even as much as I did and Brunzell and Blackwell were revelations. Memphis was probably more consistent though with a higher number of different quality workers going through...I don't know. Call it Memphis, then Minnesota. World Class would be my number four. The matches were overall good but there were always little things (often involving the deification of the Von Erichs through commentary or through excessive face referee annoyances) that keep me from loving it wholeheartedly. I do love me some Freebirds though, and while the Embry stuff wasn't unforeseen (I had ESPN in the late '80's), it was fun to relive. The Other Japan set was somewhat difficult for me. When my favorite things are the IWE and the novelty gaijin matches, that can't be a good thing but I admit to never liking Maeda's UWF that much and I wasn't really the fan of guys like Kido and Fujiwara that some are, just because of personal taste. That reminds me, I need to get off my ass and post my AWA rankings actually....
  10. He was a face in Georgia prior to his entrance into the WWF, wasn't he? I seem to recall some specific WWF/TBS promos with Okerlund where he "turned", more or less.
  11. What was the deal with that anyway? Given that Superstars was hardly a live show and VKM was sitting RIGHT THERE doing commentary with him, I assume that line had to be okayed. I remember McMahon saying something after Piper went off about how Atlas was re-embracing his heritage and made some comment about Piper & his kilt then Roddy backed right down. It struck me as odd then and it still is one of those weird meaningless things I still wonder about. Was it pre-emptive against some imagined horde of people watching Savoldi's ICW who might care about Tony Atlas or something?
  12. I think this was alleged to be one of Vince Russo's big booking ideas when he very briefly returned to WWE in 2002. Given that it's Russo we're talking about it's certainly believable, but it could also be one of those exaggerated stories that his opponents used to bury him as his ass hit the door on the way out of the company. Wasn't the story there that Russo had some kind of lingering contractual entanglement with the WWF? That he showed up for work and pitched the very worst storylines he could think of (and when Russo is trying to be bad, whoa, just imagine) so that they'd quickly terminate his contract so he'd be free to go work for TNA, where he did show up soon afterward. I actually always thought the whole Russo to WWE thing in 2002 was to somehow get him out from under Hogan's lawsuit stemming from that Bash at the Beach fiasco in 2000? Perhaps I'm wrong or reading too much into it....
  13. Not sure if I need to wait on this or not, but access to the trades/shills and the projects/lists folder would be much appreciated.
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