King Kamala

She became famous via the Paris Hilton route. She made a sex tape, then did a reality show, and is now acting in crappy movies. And she has a big ass.

In case, you think I've forgotten. Here's my first real entry of my blog. Today, I'll share a few music videos with some brief comments. Here's the late Harry Nilsson singing "1941" on a 1973 BBC Special. This is an autobiographical song off of his Beatles influenced debut, 1967's Pandemonium Shadow Show. Nilsson is one of my favorite singer-songwriters. One of those jack of all trades artists- he could do it all from whimsical nonsense to schmaltzy ballads to country rock to driving hard rockers to well orchested McCartneyesque baroque pop such as this. Nilsson also produced some of the greatest trainwrecks in popular music history. Speaking of artists who have produced their share of trainwrecks, let's talk about The Beach Boys This is the band doing the title track off their 1968 album Friends. The album is notable for being the last album until 1977 where Brian Wilson would serve as the dominant creative force, writing or co-writing every song on the album. Friends is also notable for being The Beach Boys least popular album to that point, peaking at #126 on The Billboard Albums Chart. This album was just not made for 1968. In a summer of revolution- the young people of America had little use for The Beach Boys, their lush harmonies, and their dopey naivete. And the album was just flat out too weird to be welcomed with open arms by popular radio. You've got the weird basic sex education lesson "When A Man Needs A Woman", "Be Here In The Mornin'", which predates Prince in terms of vocals by dudes creepily sped up so they sound like women by about twenty years, a tribute to an erotic masseuse ("Anna Lee The Healer") and some crappy Mike Love led songs about The Maharishi. Perhaps the most notable track on the album is the bossa novaesque "Busy Doin' Nothin'", a window into Brian Wilson's crumbling psyche. It's a record quite literally about doin' nothing. Even when he was going batshit insane, Brian Wilson still could produce some damn fine pop tunes. Next- Kamala At The Book. I'll book a year in wrestling history and hopefully you'll read it.

Ernest Borgnine reveals his secret to a long and happy life

My next pick was an accomplished amateur wrestler who parlayed his success into the wild, wacky world of the pros. He didn't exactly exude charisma but he won over fans of the AWA in the '80s with his fine technical wrestling skills. Later on in life, he became a well accomplished coach and trainer for both amateur and professional wrestlers. With some of his more notable students being Vader, John Bradshaw Layfield, and The Nasty Boys. I'll be using him as Verne Gagne's young protege in his battle against Nick Bockwinkel and Ric Flair. He's a former AWA Tag Team Champion and was voted Rookie of The Year in 1981 by the Wrestling Observer. With my 38th pick, I'm proud to select... ...Brad Rheingans

I'm glad I'm the only one that doesn't hate '95. It's not one of my favorites like you I always thought it got a bad rap because of the incredibly shitty main event and the shitty direction the company was going in. Of course, you've got HBK/Razor II but you also have the underrated 123 Kid/Hakushi opener and Bret Hart carrying Issac Yankem to a *** match. Barry Horowitz-Skip was a fun undercard match and even Kama/Undertaker was watchable. Everything else (besides the main event) was really too forgettable to be considered truly awful. There's no way anybody can convince me that show is worse than '96, '99, or some of the more recent ones.

I'm not a coffee connaissseur and I think its only available on the Eastern Seaboard but the worst coffee is easily New England Coffee. It seems like the choice of brand for high school cafeterias and third rate hotels everywhere. McDonalds used to use it for their coffee for a while around here before they replaced it with Newman's Own. Terrible stuff. Just awful.

Sting wrestles a young up and comer named Bruiser Mastino. WCW Saturday Night 3-6-93. He didn't get much offense in but I'd say that Mastino kid's got a future in the biz.

I'm a big fan of SummerSlam '93 as well. I was this close to picking it as my Most Underrated as well. Awful finish to the main event aside, there really isn't much bad stuff on the show. The only truly awful match is Taker-Gonzalez and that only goes about eight minutes. Bret Hart-Doink, Heavenly Bodies-Steiners, and the six man tag are all in the ***1/2-**** range. Even though it was a letdown, Perfect-HBk was still a solid ***ish match and Razor Ramon-Ted DiBiase was decent as well. Hell, Lex Luger and Yokozuna was shockingly watchable until the aforementioned finish. And I'm going to change my Worst SummerSlam vote to '99. '96 was a forgettable, pedestrian affair but '99 didn't have anything nearly as good as HBK-Vader and '96 didn't have anything nearly as bad as the aforementioned Snow-Bossman match.

Mero got picked as Johnny B. Badd rounds ago by drury. And Killer Khan, now that is a steal. One of those guys I thought was picked 20 rounds ago. Awesome pick there, Brooklyn Zoo. He completely slipped my mind. If I had known he was still there, I would have definitely picked him over Pampero Firpo.

Since the question wasn't around when I first answered the questions 11. Most Underrated SummerSlam match? I couldn't make a decision so we'll go with a tie. Both coincidentally are six man tags. First is Tatanka and The Smokin' Gunns Vs Bam Bam Bigelow and The Headshrinkers from SummerSlam '93. On paper, this seemed like a throwaway match and it didn't help that it was given what can be a slot of death at major shows (the second to last match). Surprisingly though, this ended up being a really fun match and one of the better matches of the evening. The other match is Tito Santana and The Rockers Vs Rick Martel and The Fabulous Rougeaus from SummerSlam '89.

Who the hell is up? And with the end of the draft finally slowly creeping by, I'm really curious to see which name guys are going to go undrafted.

1. Favorite Summerslam Overall? 1992, closely followed by '98 and '00. 2. Favorite World title match? Bret Hart Vs Owen Hart steel cage match (1994) 3. Favorite Mid-Card title match? Bret Hart Vs Davey Boy Smith (1992) 4. Favorite Tag Team title match? Edge and Christian Vs The Hardy Boyz Vs The Dudley Boys TLC Match (2000) 5. Favorite Non Title match? Shawn Michaels Vs Triple H street fight (2002) 6. Favorite Segment?: I'm drawing a blank so I'll also go with "fuck it!" 7. Things You Hated Besides Goldberg screwed out of winning the Elimination Chamber? The finish to the main event of SummerSlam '93. A non-finish to the main event of the 2nd biggest show of the year is one thing but to then have an over the top celebration after the non finish- well that's just stupid. Bonus Round! 8. Least favorite SummerSlam overall? I honestly don't believe there's been a truly bad SummerSlam. I'm trying to think but one's just not coming up. Every one has had their moments but if I had to make a choice I'd say '96. 1988 had a lot of crap on it but it's the first one and it's fun in an 80s WWF way. A lot of people will go with '93 or '95 I bet but I actually like both of those cards overall (The main event in both cases drags down the shows reputation IMHO[/b]. '96 just feels flat. Nothing on the show is particularly great or bad. Just really forgettable. 9. Least favorite match?I'm going to go with The Oddities-Kaientai. There have been worse matches than this but this match just pissed me off. To see Kaientai reduced to comedy match fodder, while not surprising at this point in their WWF career, was embarrassing. 10. Most Underrated SummerSlam? I'm going to go with SummerSlam '94. Maybe it's because it was the first show I ordered on PPV but I really dig this card. There's a lot of good stuff here (the aforementioned Bret-Owen cage match, Razor-Diesel, Bull Nakano-Alundra Blayze, the tag team titles match) and the crap is kept short. Even the bad main event and the dumb buildup to it (I believe those segments with Leslie Nielsen may have been where he jumped the shark) can't really ruin this one for me.

Woah- color me surprised by the Colin Delaney and Stevie Richards releases. Especially the latter. I thought Stevie was on his way to becoming a lifer.

Yeah, WXO was around for about six episodes in early '00. They were supposed to fill the apparently lucrative family friendly wrestling niche. The one episode I saw they were crowing about how there was no swearing, no half naked women, no men drinking beer in the ring, etc. I think it just came at a point when the wrestling market was oversaturated and it just simply didn't have the star power or the talent to compete. I mean who's going to buy into a promotion that's centered around Dan Severn? And Ted DiBiase was involved in an authority figure role and IIRC he played a prominent role off screen. It always seems that these family friendly promotions fall flat on their face. WXO, XWF, that Real Pro Wrestling show on PAX (Though- that was a different beast entirely). I'm sure one could work if done right but so far it doesn't seem like people are buying. Though with WWE toning down their act, we probably won't have to worry about another family friendly promotion popping up anytime in the near future.

I expect this thread will get a lot less responses than the other "Let's Talk About..." threads but it's a topic that hasn't been discussed since...well since these feds went defunct around the same time five years ago. Now let me refresh your memory. After the death of ECW and WCW in early '01, a few federations quickly sprang up and tried to stake their claim as the new #2 wrestling promotion in wrestling. But as quickly they started, they fell apart. Was it too much too fast? Or was it just a byproduct of an increasing lack of interest in wrestling? Were they just not good enough? Where exactly did TNA succeed where these companies failed? Let's meet the promotions, in case you forgot (and it would be easy to) Main Event Championship Wrestling: The first of these promotions to spring up and also the first to go belly up. Not surprisingly, there's not too much information about this promotion. It ran one television taping in July of 2001 at The Venue Formerly Known as The ECW Arena. Curt Hennig defeated Chris Michaels to win the World title at the taping and IIRC, they were building a feud between Hennig and Buff Bagwell (How exciting). Being that the center of the promotion was supposed to be Philadelphia, there were a number of former ECW stars who had not been signed by WWF on the roster. The Sandman, Sabu, and Public Enemy (who won the tag team titles at the first taping) being the most notable. I've been told that footage from the TV taping is available from tape dealers but it obviously hasn't been officially released or aired on TV. X Wrestling Federation: Never clear what the X stood for. I've heard both Xciting and Xtreme. Either one is pretty dumb. Founded by informational guru Kevin Harrington in the Fall of '01, this promotion was run by none other than "The Mouth of The South" Jimmy Hart. It ran its first TV taping at Universal Studio in November '01 with Tony Schiavone and Jerry "The King" Lawler. The taping was highlighted by Hulk Hogan's return to the ring against Curt Hennig. The fed's roster was wrestling's crossroads with washed up talent of yesteryear (Hennig, Hogan, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, The Road Warriors, The Nasty Boys, Greg Valentine, Buff Bagwell, Marty Jannetty) meeting up with stars of the future (A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Carlito, Low Ki) with a few guys who didn't do jackshit (Drezden, Hale, The Shane Twins) and castoffs from WCW and ECW (Juventeud Guerrera, Psicosis, Kid Kash, The KISS Demon) thrown in for kicks. They ran brief, unsuccessful house show tours of the Midwest in December '01 and West Texas in February '02. A national television deal never materialized for the group and Hulk Hogan, Curt Hennig, Jerry Lawler, and "Mean" Gene Okerlund were quickly snatched up by the WWF. After not one but two angles where they invaded other federations (One in WWC in Puerto Rico and one in Memphis), the company died. World Wrestling All-Stars: My personal favorite of the bunch (I ordered three of their PPVs) and probably the most prominent. Started by Australian concert promoter, Andrew McManus in October of '01, the promotion initially focused on areas starved for live wrestling (Australia, New Zealand, The U.K.) and was a mild success in the early days. Like XWF, it attempted to combine established names (Sting, Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Jerry Lynn, Eddie Guerrero,Sabu, Kronik,Juventeud Guerrera, "Road Dogg" Jesse James) with newcomers (Nathan Jones, A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Shark Boy). This promotion really fell apart after their first and only attempt at an event in the U.S. and at live PPV, WWA Revolution in February '02. The show was plagued with no-shows, show killing interviews with WWA President Bret Hart and Larry Zbysko, and just plain ol' crappy matches. The company limped on for another year or two with tours of The U.K. and Australia with dwindling interest before ending in May 2003 when World Champion Sting lost to TNA World Champion Jeff Jarrett in a Unification match. The common thread in all of these- Buff Bagwell. Can we all agree that Buff is The Ted C. McGinley of professional wrestling?

Well sort of...but my point was, at least with Marvin, you'll get the satisfaction of him saying something stupid in response to our snide remarks.

The worst thing about Jericholic82 is unlike Marvin or various other crappy posters, he seems blisfully ignorant of our snide remarks. He just comes on here once or twice a week and does a flurry of posts without really paying attention to what else has been said in the threads he's posting and disappears until his next appearance.

Campbell just seemed kind of grouchy and really snarky when I met him. Looking back, he was probably just having a bad day and the hundreds of nerds asking him about an Evil Dead IV for the thousandth time and trying to one up him with lame jokes. I wasn't really taken aback by it though and would see him again if he was doing a signing somewhere else. Dude tells a lot of interesting anecdotes. The only specific thing I remember though was my brother asking him something about the somewhat obscure Sam Raimi/Coen Brothers collaboartion Crimewave and Campbell favorably comparing it to Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. It was befuddling because those two movies couldn't be any more different. The latter's an indie romantic comedy and the former's a black comedy homage to Three Stooges shorts (not to mention a really terrible movie)

2. Bravo was allegedly murdered by members of the mafia. Most believe his murder was related to his alleged role in illegal cigarette smuggling in Canada after his retirement. 3. I've always wondered about that bit. I guess I could see it pointing towards a future feud but Dusty was on his way out in November '90 and was resigned mostly to jobbing to DiBiase or Savage. I've always wondered why they just didn't have him job cleanly. 4. I could have swore that Beefcake and Valentine had a house show feud after WrestleMania III but it looks like they only fought a few times in the Summer of '87. Beefcake mostly faced Johnny V in house shows while Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo fought The Rougheaus. They did

Am I the only one who thinks Bruce Campbell would have been a bigger star if he was around in the '40s-'50s? I mean I don't think he ever would have been a huge mainstream star but he would have been a solid B movie actor instead of being reduced to mostly Z grade affairs (Alien Apocalypse, anyone?) I met him once. He's funny but he's really kind of a jerk. Like his characters I guess. Can't say I blame him for being a jerk though.

Bart totally slipped my mind I was thinking of drafting him as Mike Barton with his as yet undrafted tag team partner in AJPW about 10 rounds ago but they didn't really fit my promotion. Good pick at this stage.

Aronofsky's going to be fine. He's got The Wrestler coming out sometime later this year or early next year. Now if that's as big of a bomb as The Fountain then he has reason to worry. And has there ever been a more jarring transition for a director then going from The Fountain to The Wrestler? Maybe Sidney Lumet going from Equus to The Wiz or William Friedkin going from the Al Pacino gay serial killer movie Cruising to the Chevy Chase comedy about arms dealers Deal of The Century

I think Downey Jr is just trying to spark a friendly, competitive feud between the two franchises. I don't see anybody from The Batman cast biting though.

That's my favorite Hitman promo period. He was surprisingly good at being a hot-headed, goofy heel during that U.S. title run.

My next pick is another superstar from World Class Championship Wrestling circa the 1980s. He also managed to score some success with Pacific Northwest Wrestling, Southwest Championship Wrestling and Maple Leaf Wrestling. He was a legitimate childhood friend of The Von Erich Brothers and was trained by Fritz so naturally I'll be using him as Kerry and Kevin's trusted ally in their war against Gary Hart's ruthless stable. While he wasn't as charismatic as The Von Erichs, he was certainly a very solid wrestler. He's a four time former NWA Texas Heavyweight Champion, a former WCWA Tag Team Champion, and former WCWA Six Man Tag Team Champion (with Kerry and Kevin). With my 37th pick in The All Time Wrestling Roster Draft, I'm proud to select... ...Brian Adias