WWF/WWE/ECW/WCW

well, Chris Jericho won a rumble-type match on this week's RAW so guess that means him and CM Punk are at Mania.
When Punk went to shake his hand, and Chris refused it, so Chris is the heel?

I haven't kept up at all.
Last I seen were youtube clips of Punk walking around last summer with the Championship belt and threatening to take it to Ring Of Honor or elsewhere

Yup Jericho is the heel , I gotta admit he is good at being a heel I miss his WCW antics though he has some good mic skills

The thing with CM punk was around last summer his contract with the wwe was set to expire at a ppv , (fueding with cena) long story short CM Punk won the title and walked out with it he was resigned of course but in the meantime there was a match at the following ppv with cena vs punk winner was the undisputed wwe champ.

Please remember ,
according to this chart drawn by Kevin Nash,
all sales were lower when he was not the Champion

mlotek wrote:

Please remember ,
according to this chart drawn by Kevin Nash,
all sales were lower when he was not the Champion

I like Nash, but he was not that big of an equation in the title picture (which is why he was only WWF champion once). Do we really believe that he was a more important champion than Bret Hart or Steve Austin? He was always better in the upper mid-card than he was in the main event. Nash's best ability was on the mic (freestyle, no script needed), in the ring he was pretty one dimensional.

No!
I should have put some smiley LOL faces with my post, as me and my friends were laughing our brains out the massive ego Nash has!
I don't know what was funnier , his ego, or his krappy drawn chart!

and I wasn't so much a fan of his during his Diesel or nWo days, but now when I watch it all on vhs or dvds, downloads, the guy was brilliant.
He was more of an entertainer than captivating wrestler compared to "the small guys who have nice, small matches" like Benoit and Billy Kidman, as he just bulldozed a match,ending them quickly with his jackknife Powerbomb.

I feel bad for him when his knee blew out just as he was stepping into the ring during one of his few matches in WWE in 2002, it was a 8 or 10 men tag match.

Umm, you do understand that Nash was joking with this, right?

mlotek wrote:

He was more of an entertainer than captivating wrestler compared to "the small guys who have nice, small matches" like Benoit and Billy Kidman, as he just bulldozed a match,ending them quickly with his jackknife Powerbomb.

There are only a handful of large and big wrestlers out there who had technical skills. Guys like Big van Vader, Bam Bam Bigelow, Mike Awesome where a rare bread. Others like Kevin Nash or the Undertaker were never good wrestlers in the technical sense, so they relied more on Entertainment and their Gimmick.
Also one has to remember, that Kevin Nash took up Wrestling after his professional Basketball career ended after some serious knee injuries. He played here in Germany, damaged his knees to a point where he just had to stop and after his return to the USA (he was stationed here as soldier for a couple years more) he took up Pro-Wrestling like a lot of other Athletes who's careers ended after injuries (Brian Pillman, Kurt Angle, Ron Simmons/Farooq, Jim Duggan...to name a few) do or did.
Nash injured his knees even worse in the wrestling ring, he blew out his quads a few times in the WCW. It's nearly a wonder he can even walk today.

But he was entertaining while in WCW as part of the Outsiders. Always fun to watch. Before in WWF, i think they pushed him to quick to the top, same with Shawn Michaels or the desperate tries to repackage Lex Luger as American Hero and basically a second Hulk Hogan.

ShadowAngel wrote:

mlotek wrote:

He was more of an entertainer than captivating wrestler compared to "the small guys who have nice, small matches" like Benoit and Billy Kidman, as he just bulldozed a match,ending them quickly with his jackknife Powerbomb.

There are only a handful of large and big wrestlers out there who had technical skills. Guys like Big van Vader, Bam Bam Bigelow, Mike Awesome where a rare bread. Others like Kevin Nash or the Undertaker were never good wrestlers in the technical sense, so they relied more on Entertainment and their Gimmick.
Also one has to remember, that Kevin Nash took up Wrestling after his professional Basketball career ended after some serious knee injuries. He played here in Germany, damaged his knees to a point where he just had to stop and after his return to the USA (he was stationed here as soldier for a couple years more) he took up Pro-Wrestling like a lot of other Athletes who's careers ended after injuries (Brian Pillman, Kurt Angle, Ron Simmons/Farooq, Jim Duggan...to name a few) do or did.
Nash injured his knees even worse in the wrestling ring, he blew out his quads a few times in the WCW. It's nearly a wonder he can even walk today.

But he was entertaining while in WCW as part of the Outsiders. Always fun to watch. Before in WWF, i think they pushed him to quick to the top, same with Shawn Michaels or the desperate tries to repackage Lex Luger as American Hero and basically a second Hulk Hogan.

However, give Undertaker his due. He may have started out relying on the gimmick to get by, but he improved so much by adding MMA elements to his arsenal. He became much more technical than Nash. Heck, even Kane is more technical than Nash has ever been. I still remember him as Issac Yankem and the fake Diesel.

Also, I'd take Luger over Hogan any day. Hogan was a good talker but he's always sucked in the ring unless he had a good oponent to carry his overrated ass. Luger may not have been all that technical but I would rather watch a Luger match than a Hogan match. But that's just me, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to that egotistical has been.

DallasBlack wrote:

However, give Undertaker his due. He may have started out relying on the gimmick to get by, but he improved so much by adding MMA elements to his arsenal. He became much more technical than Nash. Heck, even Kane is more technical than Nash has ever been. I still remember him as Issac Yankem and the fake Diesel.

I think he was at his best in the late 90's with the Ministry of Darkness and when he was portrayed as a "Demon", while some of his matches were really bad (Wrestlemania XV) he was really entertaining and watachable in the ring. Before he was slow, didn't sell and was stuck with either wrestlers who were past their prime (like King Kong Bundy) or horrible wrestlers (Giant Gonzalez)
I don't think he has become that much better. His last few Wrestlemania Matches are imo completely overrated. It was nothing but "Finisher - kick out, Finisher - kick out, Finisher - kick out - 30 second pause and repeat"
He also needs a good opponent, his best match in my oppinion was with Kurt Angle at No Way Out 2006.

DallasBlack wrote:

Also, I'd take Luger over Hogan any day. Hogan was a good talker but he's always sucked in the ring unless he had a good oponent to carry his overrated ass. Luger may not have been all that technical but I would rather watch a Luger match than a Hogan match. But that's just me, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to that egotistical has been.

Lex Luger was a pretty good wrestler in the late 80's and early 90's in the WCW. He got too lazy and too big with the steroids (same that destoyed Buff Bagwell who was a really great Wrestler when he was known as Marcus Alexander Bagwell)
The thing with Hogan though...Hogan is a good wrestler, he is talented and put out some awesome moves. He showed them in the early 80's in Japan and later during his 1994 japan run, where he had an awesome match against The Great Mutah (even showing an Enzuigiri).
In the US he showed his talent in his first WWWF Run and in the AWA but he soon realized that the crowd goes crazy for the Entertainment, he was one of the first wrestlers to re-introduce Entrance Themes (Were used in the 50's than basically forgotten), his shirt ripping and muscle flexing stuff and his finishing sequence with the Big Boot and the Leg Drop. The crowd went crazy, Hulkamania was born and he stuck with it. Nobody can't blame him for this, the US Wrestling crowd always was more interested in Gimmicks, Promos and the show stuff than the actual wrestling.
But you can't rate Hogan on that, as said, in Japan he actually showed a lot of talent and had some awesome matches.
If you want to name a guy who went big without much talent or wrestling Skills, name the Ultimate Warrior, while i always liked him, he was all Gimmick and nothing else, there are basically only 4 really good matches with him.

ShadowAngel wrote:

I don't think he has become that much better. His last few Wrestlemania Matches are imo completely overrated. It was nothing but "Finisher - kick out, Finisher - kick out, Finisher - kick out - 30 second pause and repeat"
He also needs a good opponent, his best match in my oppinion was with Kurt Angle at No Way Out 2006.

I'm not sure what matches you saw as his bouts with Shawn Michaels were mindblowing. Although more simple, his match with HHH was one of the highlights of the night. Undertaker lost a lot of weight and became faster and more athletic in his matches after the Ministry. That might have been the peak of his gimmick, but his improvement should be obvious to everyone who has followed his career.

As for Hogan, he might have been better in Japan (I never cared for him so ignored most of his career) but that doesn't take away the fact that he was overrated, egotistical, kept younger and better talent down, and overstayed his welcome. He needs to retire and leave Wrestling alone.

DallasBlack wrote:

I'm not sure what matches you saw as his bouts with Shawn Michaels were mindblowing. Although more simple, his match with HHH was one of the highlights of the night. Undertaker lost a lot of weight and became faster and more athletic in his matches after the Ministry. That might have been the peak of his gimmick, but his improvement should be obvious to everyone who has followed his career.

What's mindblowing about a "finisher - near fall, finisher - near fall, finisher - near fall, 30 second rest" match? Both Undertaker - HBK matches followed the same formular and with the WWE booking style you know it won't end befor 20 minutes ,making everythnig seem lackluster and lame, you know that the Tombstone after 10 minutes won't finish the match, the sweet chin music after 12 minutes is too soon. WWE became predictable and those matches are a prime example and of course, they were completely over the top. Usually, a finisher ends the match, weapons, end a match. In that case, both wrestlers bashed each other for 30 minutes with finishers and everything and didn't sell it. It was typical american mainstream wrestling.

Japanese wrestling offered some hard battles that went for 30-40 minutes withouth 30 finishers. Mitsuharu Misawa showed this in his matches against Jun Akiyama and Kenta Kobashi. Those were suspenseful masterpieces. Same in the US Indy scene. CM Punk and Chris Hero once had a incredible 92 minute match and it didn't rely on the same finisher spot over and over again, instead it went high-speed the whole time, lots of moves, incredible stuff.
WWE is boring, predictable and i guess those Undertaker - HBK matches are only loved because 95% of the WWE audience never saw any good NWA/WCW, japanese or US Indy matches

DallasBlack wrote:

As for Hogan, he might have been better in Japan (I never cared for him so ignored most of his career) but that doesn't take away the fact that he was overrated, egotistical, kept younger and better talent down, and overstayed his welcome. He needs to retire and leave Wrestling alone.

Another interesting point. Hogan gets always mentioned when it comes to politics
and how he kept down other guys. Where other wrestlers better? They weren't.
Bret Hart played politics, there is a reason why the Montreal Screwjob happened, because Bret Hart
was all about his title and who he lose it too in his mind. Same with Shawn Michaels in the 90's, there's a reason why the IC and later the Championship Title had to be deemed vacant.
Same with Ric Flair who held back a lot of WCW talent. In fact later in WCW Hogan actually tried to push people, his feud with Billy Kidman for example, it wasn't until Vince Russo booked that whole "New blood vs. Millionaire's Club" to smurf poo so the Millionaire's Club where the Faces, even though they should've been heel.
Every wrestler who was famous was later called egoistical and that he held back wrestlers. Thing is, most of the wrestlers who complain about that are Midcarders who never ever had the chance of make it big. The big time wrestlers, guys like Ted DiBiase, Jim Duggan, Jake Roberts, Paul Orndorff, they always said they were glad when they found themself on
the same card as Hogan as it then (in the 80's) ment a sold out arena and a big paycheck. Greed and Anger goes two ways, especially in the WCW there were a lot of guys who thought they should be on the top, while they never belonged there and then thought it was Hogan, Nash, Sting and the others, holding them back. It wasn't, they were just not talented enough.
Hogan was even responsible for bringing wrestlers to the WWF and into the spotlight. Marc Callaway was a midcarder in WCW until he was casted for a role in the Hulk Hogan movie Suburban Commando, that was created between late 1989 and 1990, he thought Callaway looked impressive, mentioned him to Vince McMahon who auditioned the guy, without that, there would've never been an Undertaker.
Same goes for Brutus Beefcake (who of course by now is a target of many jokes but in the 80's and early 90's he was hugely popular and if it wasn't for his parasailing accident, he would've been IC Champion by 1990 and possibly later got a shot at the World Title.

I also think that a lot of things get blown out of proportions. Hogan won the Title at Wrestlemania IX and a lot of wrestling fans call it an ego move and a very bad decision. Those are usually North-American wrestling fans, who ignore the fact that there are more countries out there, other places. The WWF got hugely popular in europa beginning in 1990 and of course for us here
Hulk Hogan was a Hero, the ultimate babyface. Him winning the title worked with the european crowd and after the steroid and sex scandals from 1992-1994 in the USA that was the market the WWF focused on. That's why Summerslam 1992 was held in England, that's why Europe got at least 2 months long tours per year and why they later created the European Championship title.
hogan of course should've dropped the title at Summerslam 1993 to Bret Hart, stupid move but i doubt it was entirely the fault of Hogan. The same as later at WCW i doubt it was only Hogan who decided that the nWo should dominate. Eric Bischoff thought the nWo would work for years and years, i think there Hogan was just saving his ass, winning titles, staying on the top, everybody who worked at WCW wrote about how bad this promotion was, that shows were booked while they were running, just read the books of Bobby Heenan, Mick Foley and Chris Jericho.
Hogan acted very intelligent, making a shitload of money, staying on top, who would've worked different? Once you saw that this promotion was doomed, you would grab as much as possible, never caring for anything else. That what Hogan did. Later at his WWE return he worked for the company, he dropped titles, lost matches, brought talents (Lesnar, Angle) over. He did the same before in his short run with XWF.

Quote :

The thing with Hogan though...Hogan is a good wrestler, he is talented and put out some awesome moves

What????

I have never seen the words "Hogan" and "good wrestler" in the same sentence before.

IMO that guy is one of the biggest "stiffs" to ever enter the ring. He makes The Big Show look like AJ Styles or Rob Van Dam. The guy's finisher for decades has been a simple leg drop for cryin' out loud.

Hogan's a great talker and has/had a charismatic personality but one thing he's never been is a "wrestler".

IMO.

tohostudios wrote:

Quote :

The thing with Hogan though...Hogan is a good wrestler, he is talented and put out some awesome moves

What????

I have never seen the words "Hogan" and "good wrestler" in the same sentence before.

IMO that guy is one of the biggest "stiffs" to ever enter the ring. He makes The Big Show look like AJ Styles or Rob Van Dam. The guy's finisher for decades has been a simple leg drop for cryin' out loud.

Hogan's a great talker and has/had a charismatic personality but one thing he's never been is a "wrestler".

IMO.

Well he thinks Undertaker and Shawn are boring while Hogan is good, so I'm going to have to agree to dissagree with this woman.

DallasBlack wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Quote :

The thing with Hogan though...Hogan is a good wrestler, he is talented and put out some awesome moves

What????

I have never seen the words "Hogan" and "good wrestler" in the same sentence before.

IMO that guy is one of the biggest "stiffs" to ever enter the ring. He makes The Big Show look like AJ Styles or Rob Van Dam. The guy's finisher for decades has been a simple leg drop for cryin' out loud.

Hogan's a great talker and has/had a charismatic personality but one thing he's never been is a "wrestler".

IMO.

Well he thinks Undertaker and Shawn are boring while Hogan is good, so I'm going to have to agree to dissagree with this guy.

Not that it matters DB, but just so you know, Shadowangel isn't a guy.

Corrected. Sorry Shadowangel, I haven't been around much in the past several months. Plus women are rare around here and even rarer for them to watch wrestling. Still think you're wrong though .

DallasBlack wrote:

Well he thinks Undertaker and Shawn are boring while Hogan is good, so I'm going to have to agree to dissagree with this woman.

Let me correct this: Shawn Michaels is actually one of my all-time favourites. I would even go so far and say that he belongs into the Top-10 wrestlers who worked for the WWF/E, all-time. Technically he was amazing, he was a great entertainer, could play a Face as great as the cocky Heel. He was great in the 80s with the (Midnight) Rockers, his Heel Turn there was one of the best and he later became a legend and completely deserved to be called this (unlike 90% of all other Ex-WWE guys who get called "Legend")
What i said was that the WWF pushed him way too early into the Main Event scene. You can see the crowd reacting rather negatively to his World Champion Win or his Royal Rumble Win in 1996. People didn't care, what he got is known today as "X-Pac Heat". But it wasn't HBKs fault as the WWF was just desperate to create new stars after 1993/94 so many big stars left due to the sex- and steroid scandals. But even then he was already a good entertainer, showed in the Heartbreak Hotel segments on WWF Superstars in the mid-90s.

With Undertaker: He is a bad wrestler. He was a bad Wrestler in WCW (there's a reason they pushed him into the Skyscrapers Tag-Team), he became worse as the Undertaker in his early 6-7 years. No Selling, about 5 Moves, that Rope-Walk always looked really bad (there were other wrestlers who did this way better) and even if he later added ONE Submission move and some Punches, he was still pretty bad. From a entertainment standpoint he was awesome though, he was scary and later became even more bad-ass with his Ministry which started out great but was completely smurfed up later (The "Higher Power" storyline was such a bad, bad joke and the Corporate-Ministry was even worse). His promos were great, he had the right voice, the look. Until of course he became the "American Bad Ass Biker", once he had no good gimmick, you could really see just how bad he was. Watch that Wrestlemania XIX match (if your survive smurf poo Bizkit playing his Entrance theme live )

As for Hogan: As i said, he showed a completely different program in Japan.
In the USA he figured out that people go crazy for his Music, for his shirt-ripping and his "Hulking Up" sequence with the Big Boot, the celebration, the Leg Drop. So he basically dropped everything else because he wasn't in need to show it. Crowd goes wild anyhow, like at Wrestlemania 3 against Andre, at Wrestlemania V against Randy Savage (pretty good match), at Wrestlemania 6 against Warrior, against Wrestlemania X8 against The Rock
Actually it was a intelligent move, if you look at how crippled so many other wrestlers, especially the High-Flyers and technical guys are.
There were only a handful WWF Matches and a couple of WCW Matches where he showed what he can. One example is his match against Ric Flair, Halloween Havoc 1994, features even some chainwrestling from Hogan. Another example is his match against Mike Awesome from WCW Nitro 5.1.2000. Another example is a match against Ted DiBiase from some Saturday Nights Main Event and his match against David Schulz from Tuesday Night Titans 3.7.1983. Generally he also had some good matches against Paul Orndorff in the 80's.
But as said, to fully appreciate what Hogan can do in the Ring, you have to watch his japanese Matches.
Against Antonio Inoki (New Japan, 2.6.1983), against Genichiro Tenryu (SWS Super Wrestle 12.12.1991), against Great Muta (NJPW, 5.3.1993) and some others. There he had even a good match against Andre the Giant in 1983, that for that year was pretty hardcore (brawling between the crows, chair throwing) and another rather hardcore match against Abdullah the Butcher in 1982. He also had a pretty good Brawl against Stan Hansen from 13.4.1990, though Hogan botched that Flying Cross Body. There was also a very good, long match against Bob Backlund in 1980.

I'm not saying that Hogan is Chris Benoit or Mitsuharu Misawa, but he is a lot better than most people give him credit for, as they only saw the WWF and WCW stuff (and i agree that 95% of it was very formulatic and boring). Also don't forget that he was already a older guy when he became famouse in the 80's, he was over 30, came from a completely different generation that relied more on Brawling instead of the High-Flying and Technical stuff that started to become big in the 80's with guys like Dynamite Kid, Bret Hart, Bob Backlund and others. Before that decade there were rarely any really technical wrestlers (Guys like Dominic DeNucci or Lou Thesz where the exception)
I too never thought much of his skills, as what i knew until a couple of years ago was just his north american stuff (and seeing him life during some WWF and WCW german tours), then i bought a 3 DVD set from Highspots that only includes his japanese matches and there he worked a completely different style (you can't win the japanese crowd with north american sports entertainment, you either have to be a good Hardcore (like Stan Hansen, Legion of Doom/Roadwarriors or Vader) or technical wrestler, especially as a foreigner. Hogan, unlike many other americans, was one of the most popular north american wrestlers in Japan and for a good reason i would say.

I hope i could clear up some things
Of course i prefer technical wrestling over pure entertainment, that's why i don't follow but rather the independent promotions. What hurts me most is that 3 of my favourite independent wrestlers (CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Amazing Kong) are with WWE and are booked horribly

Sorry SA, there's no way you're going to convince me Hulk Hogan was ever a good wrestler. And I agree with you about Undertaker; he's no wrestler either. I put the two of them in the same "Oaf Boat" as guys like Big Show and Great Khali.

And is "Amazing Kong" the same wrestler as "Awesome Kong"? I loved her in TNA and other independent federations; she actually brought some "oomph" to the female divisions wherever she went. We'll see how she's booked in WWE but with their track record on misusing stars from other organizations, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

tohostudios wrote:

Sorry SA, there's no way you're going to convince me Hulk Hogan was ever a good wrestler.

I don't want to convince anyone, i just state my oppinion and give examples why i have that oppinion. You can see it for yourself, i think a lot of Hogans japan matches are on Youtube and Dailymotion.

tohostudios wrote:

Sorry SA, there's no way you're going to convince me Hulk Hogan was ever a good wrestler. And I agree with you about Undertaker; he's no wrestler either. I put the two of them in the same "Oaf Boat" as guys like Big Show and Great Khali.

Putting Big Show and Khali in the same sentence is a bit extreme.
Big Show was actually not that bad. He wanted never to be a wrestler, but Hulk Hogan saw some potential (Big Show worked as an actor at Hogan's hilariously stupid Thunder in Paradise Show) and convinced him to do some tryouts. At WCW i think he had some good matches and showed a lot of athleticism, top rope moves, Drop Kicks - was like Andre the Giant in the 70's (Andre was a really good wrestler before his body broke down, he started to drink like crazy (108 bottles of beer and even though it was american 'beer' that's impressive) and couldn't even stand without crutches, the ropes or somebody to hold him).
He had a very good Match with Sting at Slamboree 1996. Once he arrived at WWF though he gained weight and became lazy. He's really bad since a couple of years and i don't understand why WWE is pushing him and Mark Henry (a truly horrible wrestler who hasn't learned anything since 1996) so much.
Khali of course is horrible.

tohostudios wrote:

And is "Amazing Kong" the same wrestler as "Awesome Kong"? I loved her in TNA and other independent federations; she actually brought some "oomph" to the female divisions wherever she went. We'll see how she's booked in WWE but with their track record on misusing stars from other organizations, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Yes
I guess ishould stop using the Indynames but that's the names i learned them to know and love (just as Bryan Danielson, i refuse to name him Daniel Bryan). Amazing/Awesome Kong was really great at Shimmer, she had some really awesome matches and for her size, she is agile, does Top Rope moves and is just impressive. The most stunning match i saw was against Wesna Busic at Shimmer 18. Wesna was one of the best technical female wrestlers i ever saw (She's german/croation, wrestled a lot for our german wrestling promotions, so i saw her a lot) until she sadly retired and she pulled off a German Suplex against Kong.
I met her briefly during a TNA German Tour and it was quite intimidating, i'm not that small with 1,70 m but she's 1,80m and has twice my size and let's just say even though she was very nice and funny, i would be completely scared to meet her at a dark back alley.

ShadowAngel wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Sorry SA, there's no way you're going to convince me Hulk Hogan was ever a good wrestler.

I don't want to convince anyone, i just state my oppinion and give examples why i have that oppinion. You can see it for yourself, i think a lot of Hogans japan matches are on Youtube and Dailymotion.

tohostudios wrote:

Sorry SA, there's no way you're going to convince me Hulk Hogan was ever a good wrestler. And I agree with you about Undertaker; he's no wrestler either. I put the two of them in the same "Oaf Boat" as guys like Big Show and Great Khali.

Putting Big Show and Khali in the same sentence is a bit extreme.
Big Show was actually not that bad. He wanted never to be a wrestler, but Hulk Hogan saw some potential (Big Show worked as an actor at Hogan's hilariously stupid Thunder in Paradise Show) and convinced him to do some tryouts. At WCW i think he had some good matches and showed a lot of athleticism, top rope moves, Drop Kicks - was like Andre the Giant in the 70's (Andre was a really good wrestler before his body broke down, he started to drink like crazy (108 bottles of beer and even though it was american 'beer' that's impressive) and couldn't even stand without crutches, the ropes or somebody to hold him).
He had a very good Match with Sting at Slamboree 1996. Once he arrived at WWF though he gained weight and became lazy. He's really bad since a couple of years and i don't understand why WWE is pushing him and Mark Henry (a truly horrible wrestler who hasn't learned anything since 1996) so much.
Khali of course is horrible.

tohostudios wrote:

And is "Amazing Kong" the same wrestler as "Awesome Kong"? I loved her in TNA and other independent federations; she actually brought some "oomph" to the female divisions wherever she went. We'll see how she's booked in WWE but with their track record on misusing stars from other organizations, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Yes
I guess ishould stop using the Indynames but that's the names i learned them to know and love (just as Bryan Danielson, i refuse to name him Daniel Bryan). Amazing/Awesome Kong was really great at Shimmer, she had some really awesome matches and for her size, she is agile, does Top Rope moves and is just impressive. The most stunning match i saw was against Wesna Busic at Shimmer 18. Wesna was one of the best technical female wrestlers i ever saw (She's german/croation, wrestled a lot for our german wrestling promotions, so i saw her a lot) until she sadly retired and she pulled off a German Suplex against Kong.
I met her briefly during a TNA German Tour and it was quite intimidating, i'm not that small with 1,70 m but she's 1,80m and has twice my size and let's just say even though she was very nice and funny, i would be completely scared to meet her at a dark back alley.

Yeah, I'd be afraid to meet Kong in an alley too; she'd beat the crap outta me. I think that's why I like her; she brings credibility to every female division she belongs to. Hell, she could probably beat the hell out of some of the men in some federations.

I really miss the original ECW.

Before they finally scored a national show on Spike, they used to be on the Sunshine Network in Florida and my Dad would tape the weekly shows and send them to me.

Those shows were great! You never knew exactly what was going to happen but you always knew whatever it was, it would be violent and bloody! This was when either Taz or RVD or even Mikey Whipwreck were champions. Who else but Paul Heyman could make people like Mikey Whipwreck or Spike Dudley "credible" wrestlers?

Everyone who is anyone went through ECW back in the day ( kinda like when I lived in Tennessee and everyone went through Lawler's Memphis Wrestling Federation). You name the wrestler, odds are they did a stint in ECW.

tohostudios wrote:

Yeah, I'd be afraid to meet Kong in an alley too; she'd beat the crap outta me. I think that's why I like her; she brings credibility to every female division she belongs to. Hell, she could probably beat the hell out of some of the men in some federations.

She at least doesn't seem misplaced when put against some guys. She and Erika (Aja Kong, Amazing Kong took the Kong name as a tribute to her, a famouse a japanese female wrestler) won the HUSTLE Tag Team Champion title and even though Hustle was more of a comedy wrestling promotion, they where the only female Team there.
She was also involved at Ring of Honor in a 6 Men Tag Match with the Briscoes against Sara Del Rey (another really, really talented female wrestler) and Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli (who both recently signed with WWE, got completely stupid new names (Claudio is now Antonio Cesaro, sounds like a 70's porn star to me and Hero is named Kassius Ohno, some guy at a wrestling board joked that Hero will turn heel, become a muslim and will be known as Muhammad Fuckyes ) and that was a very good match.
Kong really looks like she could destroy everyone, unlike a lot of other female wrestlers, especially those WWE Divas and the TNA Knockouts are a joke. Shimmer does feature some great wrestlers who despite not being big and muscular are just intimidating through their moves and kills. Like Cheerleader Melissa and her "Curb Stomp" move or MsChif, the Black Metal loving demon who created moves inspired by the Tekken video games. Two of my absolute favourite female wrestlers.

I still dissagree with you on Undertaker. Yes, he is no technical wizard. However, for a guy his size and no wrestling background he is pretty damn good. Better than Diesel, better than Kane, better than Big Show. Also, to say he is bad is to disregard what his opponents have said about him. Shawn, HHH, Angle, Orton, and others have had nothing but positive things to say about working with him. If he was really that bad then big names like them would refuse to work with him. Think the Nasty Boys. They were so bad and careless in the ring, many tag teams refused to work with them and you never hear heard any postive things from people who worked with them. With Undertaker, a majority of his peers have nothing but good things to say about him. It's obvious Undertaker does nothing for you and you don't like his ring work, that's fine. But you will never convince me that he's no good, the outside evidence does not back you up on that as far as I'm concerned. However, let's just agree to dissagree on this because neither of us will change our opinion on Taker.

For the record, I enjoy technical wrestling too, much more than big guys punching, kicking, and power moves. While I'm a big Undertaker fan, the wrestlers I admire most are Jericho, Angle, CM Punk, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Eddie Guererro, Ziggler, Daniels, Benoit (my favorite wrestler until his horrible deed), and the like. Big Show, Kane, and Taker are the only big guys I enjoy watching-and that is dependent on their opponents.

tohostudios wrote:

I really miss the original ECW.

Before they finally scored a national show on Spike, they used to be on the Sunshine Network in Florida and my Dad would tape the weekly shows and send them to me.

Those shows were great! You never knew exactly what was going to happen but you always knew whatever it was, it would be violent and bloody! This was when either Taz or RVD or even Mikey Whipwreck were champions. Who else but Paul Heyman could make people like Mikey Whipwreck or Spike Dudley "credible" wrestlers?

Everyone who is anyone went through ECW back in the day ( kinda like when I lived in Tennessee and everyone went through Lawler's Memphis Wrestling Federation). You name the wrestler, odds are they did a stint in ECW.

I hear ya, Toho. I don't think anything will ever come close to the "magic" that was ECW. It wasn't just the brutality & violence, because Big Japan & CZW were WAY worse/better. It was the total package(not Luger). You had the technical wrestling of guys like the Triple Threat, the luchadores, the insanity of the Gangstas & Public Enemy, the drama of the Sandman/Dreamer/Raven fueds, the bWo, Cactus Jack's promos, RVD/Jerry Lynn, HEAD! HEAD! HEAD! World Champion Mikey Whipwreck!?! As Joey Styles so eloquently put it "OH MY GOD!" & in the history of wrestling has there ever been an example of the audience being as much a part of the show? Not just the times when the matches left the ring, but the characters in the crowd(hat guy & the fat nun-dude come to mind), the chants & taunts, "fans bring the weapons" matches, or Sandman's entrance! Several of us roadtripped up to The Arena for a show in 96 & in my near 43 years only a handful of concerts match that experience. It was a pilgrimage.

ECW came on SportSouth at 2 a.m. on Fridays & was must-see TV. It wasn't unusual for us to have 15-20 people gathered at one of our houses to watch "evil wrestling" as the uninitiated called it. I turned dozens of people, many non-wrestling fans, onto ECW. They wouldn't have known who the Rock was if he was sitting in the room with them but they could name all the Dudleys. It always saddened me when ECW guys would jump to WWE or WCW. They were giants of The Arena but were now jobbing out to ass clowns like Buff Bagwell or Van Venis.

Oh, by the way, you know you watch too much wrestling when you can't drive by an accident scene without sticking your head out the window & yelling "EC-dub! EC-dub! EC-dub!"

I flipped over to our local ABC affiliate to watch the Daytona 500 and they're showing Ring Of Honor TV I guess due to the rain delay. This is typically on at 1:30am so I never see it. So far I'm really impressed. Good promos and spectacular in-ring action.

So far the only guys I recognize are Jay Lethal, Steve Corino, Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin.

tohostudios wrote:

I flipped over to our local ABC affiliate to watch the Daytona 500 and they're showing Ring Of Honor TV I guess due to the rain delay. This is typically on at 1:30am so I never see it. So far I'm really impressed. Good promos and spectacular in-ring action.

So far the only guys I recognize are Jay Lethal, Steve Corino, Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin.

I've been meaning to watch some ROH on Youtube. I guess I really need to see some of it. After all it is the organization that has given us two of the most exciting WWE wresters in quite some time: Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson) and CM Punk.