08-07-2017, 01:43 PM | #81 |
Fire up Chips!
Posts: 27,456
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NO FUCKING DICK FLIPS
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08-07-2017, 07:36 PM | #82 |
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08-07-2017, 11:52 PM | #83 |
King of Love and Piss
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I'll kill a man if they talk bad about Alexa Bliss.
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08-14-2017, 08:26 PM | #84 |
Fire up Chips!
Posts: 27,456
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12-25-2020, 07:37 PM | #85 |
Fire up Chips!
Posts: 27,456
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2020 check in. It's still real to me dammit
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12-26-2020, 11:22 AM | #86 |
Feeling Oof-y
Posts: 17,138
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We’ve guys arguing about ratings on Christmas Day. TPWW very serious about wrestling.
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12-26-2020, 04:01 PM | #87 |
Shelly Martinez = Ratings
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Ratings are very serious business, evidently.
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06-17-2022, 10:06 PM | #88 |
Fire up Chips!
Posts: 27,456
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i like that Riddle guy. I dont really follow rasslin that much anymore but I like his gimmick that he is a stoner and he forgets to put his boots on.
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06-18-2022, 08:49 PM | #89 |
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I have lost track of what Chad Gable is doing.
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06-18-2022, 08:56 PM | #90 |
Posts: 60,941
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I don’t like what wrestling has “evolved” into. It’s not a evolution, it’s an unnecessary deviation into trivialization. I miss guys calling matches in the ring and making things seem organic. That’s “better” to me than everyone trying to go out there and dance their little hearts out.
AEW sucks. It’s not good television. At its core, WWE has some stuff they do really well, but I don’t know how people can watch whole shows anymore. I hope something they eventually change is the emphasis they put on shows. You can still break them into clips for YouTube, it’s just that the television packaging would be better. I’m hungry for something resembling the wrestling I cared about to come back. I think it will have to come from WWE expanding though. My latest hope is that when the TV deals are up, WWE will want to get as many networks/streaming services on side as possible, so they dig deep and generate more content with a different flavor to it. Maybe they send Cody Rhodes to run a revived WCW or something? I dunno, just a pipe-dream. Maybe a scandal pushes The Rock to create something with Disney/ABC? Right now it seems that he’d just waltz into WWE though. But maybe an Amazon Prime or someone who feels like they miss out on WWE deals next round throw their own hat into the ring? Come on wrestling, something needs to happen. |
06-18-2022, 08:56 PM | #91 |
Posts: 60,941
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Maybe Freddie Prinze, Jr. will actually get his show on the CW Network or something?
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06-18-2022, 10:18 PM | #92 |
RoBOT Reigns
Posts: 9,619
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Much less serious now than before a 43 year old MMA failure was made a World Champion, then injured himself trying to dive into a crowd
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06-19-2022, 01:18 PM | #93 |
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I used to tell myself I really want wrestling to get better. I wonder how much of that is “habit” though? Because I catch myself wondering if I even give a shit. We deserve what we get. Fuck it. Let it all burn. Maybe once the earth is scorched something can grow in 50 years or something?
I dunno. It makes me sad to think I’ve given up. But I might just be stubborn in trying to convince myself that I haven’t. Only genuine joy I get from modern wrestling are podcasts about better times and looking up the history. |
06-19-2022, 01:24 PM | #94 |
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I was fucking wrestling obsessed and would catch fucking Heat and Velocity. Now you couldn’t pay me to sit around and watch it all. I’d go fucking insane because it’s gotten so bad. And we’re all supposed to just pretend that it’s stellar. Have another Young Bucks match, watch Kenny Omega overperform and underdeliver, here’s another weak sauce champion that can’t throw a punch delivering another dramatic monologue that reminds you it’s all fake and they’re not even trying.
Wrestling just gets more and more insulting of its audience. It’s not just WWE either. Everyone wants to tell you that God isn’t real and then pass around the collection plate. And it’s considered bad manners to point out that it’s a cult and it’s not even good at recruiting. |
06-19-2022, 01:26 PM | #95 |
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It’s like community theatre. If you see something that could almost be considered professional, you’re allowed to laud it. But when the old woman with one tone to her voice gets up and puts everyone to sleep, you’re not supposed to say it’s fucking awful.
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06-19-2022, 01:29 PM | #96 |
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Oh, and the critics are “out of touch” and don’t get it. Meanwhile the most popular wrestling on television is the WWE and they’re the only people turning a profit.
Wrestling is the only form of entertainment I can think of that has claimed to evolve by running off 90% of its audience. |
06-19-2022, 01:30 PM | #97 |
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People would watch it if it were good. It’s in people’s DNA to be drawn to conflict. Wrestling is almost a primal example of that. But everyone gets it so fucking wrong by putting so many fucking obstacles between what they’re trying to achieve.
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06-19-2022, 02:11 PM | #98 |
Loque Ja
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06-19-2022, 02:49 PM | #99 |
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06-19-2022, 07:45 PM | #100 |
I am the cheese
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i loved wrestling for decades. its reasonable to say it was the great love of my life. i certainly sacrificed more for it than anything else. but now its like seeing an ex but when you see them not only do you not see what you loved burried under the layers but instead shes become the kind of person the two of you used to laugh at together.
its a betrayal on top of the heart break. you want to miss her but the her she was is never coming back. nostalgia literally means "our pain." im very nostalgic for wrestling. |
06-19-2022, 08:03 PM | #101 |
Best Poster
Posts: 56,910
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It's great that we live in a time where there's literally any wrestling from any era at your fingertips. Don't like current wrestling? No problem. Don't like AEW or WWE? No problem. It's really great.
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06-19-2022, 08:03 PM | #102 |
Loque Ja
Posts: 87,922
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By the end of my rassling viewing I was seeing it as like being in an abusive relationship. You only stick with it because you think of the better times, all that investment you already made into the relationship, "maybe it can change", "it isn't all bad, every now and then it has a moment".....
Glad I finally had the courage to leave |
06-19-2022, 08:39 PM | #103 |
I am the cheese
Posts: 51,062
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youre both right thouvh
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06-19-2022, 10:17 PM | #104 |
Best Poster
Posts: 56,910
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Especially for someone like me who started watching WWF in 87 and had no idea WCW existed until 95ish. I'm pretty sure I saw my first USWA and Smoky Mountain show before my first WCW if you can believe that.
I had NO idea who Ric Flair was when he came into the WWF in 91. But now I can watch all the stuff I missed out on. I still probably watch between 5-7 hours a week including the watchalong. |
06-19-2022, 10:35 PM | #105 |
I am the cheese
Posts: 51,062
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there's not a lot of new out there for me. most enjoyment i get is watching kid's tapes for feedback. and i do enjoy that. its all raw potential. it could become anything. seeing their work take shape over time. that's still interesting to me.
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06-20-2022, 02:44 AM | #106 |
Feeling Oof-y
Posts: 17,138
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Destor, I’ve got just the thread for you.
Have you heard of Chris Arruda? |
06-20-2022, 03:00 AM | #107 | ||
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Quote:
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It’s surreal how technology has given contemporaneous life to classic content. |
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06-20-2022, 05:30 AM | #108 |
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Your disposition and recent Manami Toyota gif have encouraged me to take a stroll through some of Toyota’s stuff. Maybe I’ll get sucked into an actually good joshi cycle?
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06-20-2022, 11:00 AM | #109 |
Hey Mister!
Posts: 54,947
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Mid 80's to late 90's AJW is peak women's wrestling.
It's never come close to that since, and likely never will. |
06-20-2022, 11:39 AM | #110 |
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I’ve seen a fair bit of stuff. I haven’t gone back for a while, so my appreciation is probably going to be deeper. I’ve never really engaged with the “story” of it all as much as I could either.
I started with Manami Toyota vs. Akita Hokuto - September 2, 1995 (The Destiny Climax). I found a good write-up on it too. Hokuto was known for plowing through some insane injuries. She broke her neck off a second-rope Tombstone and continued the match essentially holding her head in place. Toyota always fascinates me to watch because she’s such a pure babyface (to me), but she’s got this scrappy, desperate viciousness and this edge to her that you don’t see from everyone else. Sometimes I can kind of see it in Hiroshi Tanahashi, actually. This is the match where the gif of Toyota doing the springboard crossbody came from. She’s fucking sublime. Watching this (possibly again), it’s pretty obvious this is what Okada vs. Omega wants to be. Now, I’m judging that off the first match in their series, and I liked that match enough even as someone who doesn’t like Omega. Toyota and Hokuto actually do wrestle each with their own “strategy.” It isn’t psychology like you would traditionally see in the West, but I can grab onto it way more now than I may have a decade ago. They’re telling this story that Hokuto is better hold-for-hold. Every exchange (at least where I got to before I got interrupted), sees Hokuto getting the better of Toyota. So then what Toyota does is pick up the speed, run really fast, and KICKS HOKUTO IN THE FUCKING FACE!!! Time after time. She’s kind of being an annoying little shit about it. But she’s even got a table out at this point (which may have happened all the time in AJW for all I know), which also makes me think to the first Omega/Okada match. As I said, I got interrupted. So I’m nor giving a full review here, but I’ll go back and finish it now. Talking about it actually gets me excited for it. |
06-20-2022, 11:55 AM | #111 |
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Hokuto’s powerbombs are so fucking gorgeous. They look like they’re going to start off as piledrivers, but then she fucking snaps them right around and it’s like they’re broken in half, damn it.
I should have watched this all in one go. Hokuto is selling her back for some reason, and I can’t remember how. I’m not saying it is a floor in the match, but I’m like “You’re selling YOUR back?! After what Tanami has been through?” I think it would have been such beautiful poetic justice if Hokuto succeeded at putting Toyota through the table on their second go with it. But I might be thinking like an ignorant westerner. Joshi slapping each other in the face is way better than the forearm exchange cliche we see today. Even the way these women go after the hair has got a flavor to it. There’s a simple fucking hairmare that sees a a head spiked into the ground. There’s a point in the match where a trainer is rubbing Toyota’s back. The referee basically dumps them both back in the ring. There’s these instant reaction I have to it that reminds me of how hard these women are pushing themselves for bullshit entertainment, but if it was a deliberate choice…it’s kind of effective for really being this great framing of the joshi mentality. |
06-20-2022, 11:56 AM | #112 |
Hey Mister!
Posts: 54,947
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Her matches against Aja Kong and Toshiyo Yamada are her best work, imo.
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06-20-2022, 12:02 PM | #113 |
Hey Mister!
Posts: 54,947
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That "desperate viciousness" you mentioned is something that a lot of modern joshi stars try to emulate, but none of them do it as well as Toyota.
Mayu Iwatani has moments where she comes close. |
06-20-2022, 12:20 PM | #114 |
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I’ve seen Toyota and Kong a lot. I’m going to have to go back.
I was just thinking about what I love about Toyota. I think it’s something that jarred me when I was younger, because I’m so used to the American presentation of wrestling and the babyface/heel dynamic. Toyota works her ass off, gets tied up, bombed, thrown about, etc. But she never carries herself too sympathetically. There’s always something about her manner that reminds me, anyway, that she picked this fight and she is very likely getting exactly what she wants out of it. And I can think of so many reasons this is smarter than conventional “live and die with me” methods. Firstly, it adds a level of reality. She can seem a little smug at time. A really great athlete would be. It’s also less “doe-eyed.” Whether that would be a choice because she wants herself and AJW to be taken seriously, or if it’s primarily because the reality of a top fighter ALWAYS getting their ass handed to them and acting like it’s the biggest tragedy ever is just unrealistic. She’s got a way more nuanced and engaging persona overall because of it, I think. It also keeps in mind her opponents, making them look good and like top athletes themselves that you don’t pigeon-hole into being a these total assholes for beating you up in the context of a wrestling match. And look — I’m sure the women are aware of the fetishistic quality to whatever it is they can present. I would not put it past a lot of these women to understand that the sadomasochism of a personality that gets so vicious and willing to take as well as give probably made a lot of Japanese businessmen very happy. |
06-20-2022, 12:33 PM | #115 |
Hey Mister!
Posts: 54,947
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Well now they lean really hard into the fetishist aspects, and thats part of why its not as good.
Back then the main demographic was young girls. So a lot of talent had aspired to be wrestlers from a young age, and came from athletic backgrounds. You still get that today, but more often than not, they're failed idols whose agents recommended pro wrestling for their next venture. Admittedy, some of them still do pretty well, as the culture over there leads them to give it their all, unlike the diva search models of WWE, but it still doesn't compare to the AJW era where everyone there had passion for wrestling since they were young. |
06-20-2022, 12:44 PM | #116 | |
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06-20-2022, 04:30 PM | #117 |
Tongue my Fartbox
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Don't watch it now besides the odd highlight clip that might crop up on youtube, got boring as all fuck long ago.
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06-20-2022, 05:38 PM | #118 |
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This is the criticism I hear all the time that strikes me as really poignant. I’ll hear people (many of whom are not people who would engage in the whole online aspect or be considered “hardcore” fans), who say that they just find it boring now.
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06-21-2022, 04:49 AM | #119 |
Feeling Oof-y
Posts: 17,138
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They’re right. WWE is very much just there. Not so much FEDBAD as FEDMEH.
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06-21-2022, 04:58 AM | #120 |
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It’s AEW too. Bring your own excitement, because the shows themselves aren’t going to give it to you.
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