Heart Punch

More random musings from yours truly. This time I might even edit them a bit so they make a bit more sense and don't read like message board posts (which, of course, they are)... -I'm working through a disc of World Class from '82 that's boring me to tears, quite frankly. It's mostly focused on Bugsy McGraw, who I've never seen in a good match. His matches at this point are mostly just shtick because he'd been around for like 20 years and he's also working a gimmick where he just does random, goofy stuff for no apparent reason. The kids LOVED him, though. Getting ready to watch a match with King Kong Bundy and Harley Race. -David Von Erich was truly fantastic and would have only gotten better, since he seemed to be the one who not only wanted to wrestle the most, but the one that was willing to branch out from Texas and learn from people outside of his family. Every single match I've seen him in, from squash to main event, has made him look like ever

Actually, I do have one more post left in me tonight. Here's my ballot for the Watts set. If you weren't arare, the Death Valley Driver board is currently running a series of "Best of the 80s" polls where they're putting together DVD sets with all of the notable matches from each territory and sending them out for nostalgic suckas like me to watch and rank. The Watts set was tremendous, as this is what I grew up watching. Definitely a trip down memory lane. The next set is Memphis, which I've seen very little of, so that will be fun as well. I'll finally get to see some stuff that I've only read about in the past and see how Lawler stacks up against the all time greats... Anyway, here's my ballot: 1. Ted DiBiase vs. Hacksaw Duggan (No DQ, Loser Leaves Town, Coal Miner's Glove, Tuxedo, Cage Match) (3/22/85) [BR-14] 2. Dick Murdoch vs. Barry Windham (7/11/87) [BITUSA-13] 3. Ted DiBiase vs. Ric Flair (11/6/85) [BW-8] 4. Butch Reed vs. Dick Murdoch

This is it for the night, I think. I'll try to cross post things to the blog more often. It is why we have it, after all! ROH - Reborn Again This was an interesting show. Obviously booked as a complete filler show the night before the first PPV taping, I ended up liking it more than most shows, because it didn't have that stupid "every match is going to be a MOTYC!' feel that the worst ROH shows do. A laid back ROH would be so much better that I can't even comprehend it. (I'm typically unusual when it comes to my ROH fandom. I like the shows that the fanboys hate and usually dislike the heavily hyped shows. Their product just isn't booked with someone like me in mind. Still some great wrestling to be found if you're willing to st through a lot of filler that just pretends to be great wrestling...) -Haze/Nikki Roxx was pretty awful. The SHIMMER showcases so rarely provide us with something other than minutes filled on a disc. Not sure why they're sti

We're rolling now! Though it occurs to me that I should have posted these in reverse, since they'd make way more sense that way. Meh. -Took me ages to get through, but I've finally watched the IWA 500th show from TLC through King/Scorp. There's some truly godawful wrestling to be found here. The TLC match is just 45 minutes of absolute hell. No one sells a thing, it's just random flip after random flip after random flip after random flip (broken up only by blown spots or people landing on their heads in an awkward manner) and it just drags on forever. I can't stress enough just how brutally bad this is. Don't watch it. Ever. Seriously, if you buy the DVD...skip this match. Trust me. The Conflict of Interest match was nearly as bad, actually. Just a total nonsensical cluster of a match. When the announcers have to put over that none of the participants know the rules to cover the absolute stupidity happening in the ring, you know you're in for a mind scor

Yeah, you'll notice that I tend to save up CHIKARA shows and then watch them marathon-style. So I sometimes go weeks without watching anything other DVDs. So be prepared, as this is probably mostly going to be about everyone's favorite little indy... -Also watched the first disc of CHIKARA's International Invaders, Night 2. Much better than the first night so far, but most of the highlights have actually been on commentary. I loved the bit where Chikarason talks about Sleepy Hollow and somehow mentions that Hallowicked lives in a tree. Chris Hero just flips out for the remainder of the match, including wondering aloud how 'Wicked can review tapes of his opponents if he lives in a tree. Great stuff. You also get a 'Mantis riff on the state of healthcare in the US as opposed to Canada, so yeah...this can't be beat. (Is there any doubt that CHIKARA has the best commentary in wrestling right now? A lot of stuff is played for laughs, but you have guys like Quack who

It's been ages since someone bothered to update our fair blog. Because we're all far too busy lazy to be bothered with such things. It just occurred to me that I still post about stuff on various boards, though, so I might as well co-opt that junk and put it up hear since I'm sure it'll be new to some of you. If, uhh...anyone still remembers that we exist, anyway. This will have a bunch of out of context comments that you won't get and sometimes I'm just slicing bits of separate posts together to (hopefully) make sense, but when has my writing ever made sense, really? I did clean these up a bit and added some new comments. DIRECTOR'S CUT! -I watched the rest of the King/Hero feud comp, including the Loser Leaves CZW match. God, what a match. It's been 24 hours and I don't know that I can put my feelings about the match into words. I routinely complain that I wouldn't put any match from the last 10 years in a list of my all time favorites, but th

I figure that someone should probably mention something about Ric Flair retiring. I'll admit it, I was practically in tears during his HoF speech and again at Raw. Haven't seen 'Mania yet, but I'm sure that'll have the same effect. I can't even begin to tell you what Ric Flair has meant to me as a fan of pro wrestling. I've been watching him since I was maybe five or six years old, so he's been a fixture of my entire life. Can't even imagine the wrestling business without him. At any rate, enjoy some stuff from various points in his career. Just doing this really quickly on a whim, so expect me to go back sometime this week and add more posts with even more matches, angles and promos. It's amazing how much of his work is available online. And rightfully so... Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich (WCCW -12.25.82) Wargames '87 (NWA - Great American Bash 1987) Ric Flair v. Vader (WCW - Starrcade '93) Part One Part Two Ric Flair v. Eddy Guerrero (Ni

Well, the first week of the sublime UWF show on ESPN Classic has come and gone (and by gone, I mean that this week’s shows start in less than an hour and a half as I type this. Procrastination!). I was originally planning to recap individual episodes, but that seems like it would lead to some sort of head explodey, so we’ll just cover an entire week at a time with whatever notes I bother to take while watching the show live. Should allow me to hold onto what little sanity I have left. -First thing I have to point out is Bruno Sammartino on commentary. He could care less about any of this and goes out of his way to disagree with Herb Abrams any time he can. Abrams, of course, was insane. His commentary fully bears that out. -The wrestling is…okay. Or okay-ish, anyway. Mostly squash matches where the job guys get in more offense than you’d really want to see. The main events tend to be decent, if not poorly booked. -Apparently, Gary Keyes nailed Billy Jack Haynes’ wife, because one doesn

AGAINST: Vickie with a mic. FOR: Beat The Clock! FOR: Coach climbing up on the announce table to salute the fans. That's a JBL move. FOR: Is Finlay a face now or something? FOR: Coach pointing out that Finlay's style isn't designed for speed. FOR: Was that a real-time edit? AGAINST: Eight minutes already? This is a bad time. AGAINST: The double shillelagh swerve does get old. AGAINST: Vince? AGAINST: The hell was the point of that? FOR: HBK in the Rumble commercial. FOR: Michelle's pants. AGAINST: Has Kenny missed two spots for interference already? AGAINST: Coach doesn't think Victoria's utterly insane? FOR: Was that an attempt at a Rocket Launcher? Ambitious if nothing else. FOR: Nice kick by Michelle. AGAINST: And Chavo weighs in but doesn't really. AGAINST: Funaki? FOR: Chavo's getting pissed. FOR: Coach isn't doing a bad job. FOR: Chavo countering Funaki's rollup attempt from the corner. FOR: Whoa! 6:02. FOR: Figu

More bite-sized recappery follows! SNME #27 (7/90) We've started getting into the heavily "themed" SNME episodes, which are hilarious for all the wrong reasons. I love how all of the promos through the night tie into the theme, which leads to some really awkward moments. This one is the "Wild Kingdom" episode, where Alfred Hayes and Gene Okerlund go on an "African Safari" and bump into various wrestlers being goofy. Gotta love the announcers randomly stumbling across the Bushwackers, for example, strutting down a set of train tracks as if it's the most natural place in the world for them to pop up. This is far funnier (mostly unintentionally) than it sounds, if you've never seen it. -Warrior vs. Rude is the opening match. This feud goes to show how great Rude was, because this was a really enjoyable match, even though Warrior did next to nothing, except run around like a lunatic. There's a stretch! Heenan took more bumps than he did, actual