Jingus

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history? In pro wrestling history? Absolutely not. Having seen hundreds of horrific indy matches between undertrained amateurs, lots of people who only watch Big Time Rasslin are seriously spoiled and have no idea what they're talking about when they say "worst match ever". Hell, I wouldn't even say this is the worst match that these two guys had (the Summerslam rematch was way longer and more boring), or even the worst match Taker has had at Wrestlemania (the one with Bundy at XI was just fucking terrible). 2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time? Pretty damn bad, but better than the Great Khali. Seriously. Here's a long essay I wrote at The Pit on the subject: 3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents? Both. When guys like Yokozuna and Kamala are your best longterm opponents, that's pretty goddamn bad. Plus, no matter how fond people are of the original zombie gimmick and the urn and everything, they tend to forget that being a slow-moving, no-selling robot made a lot of his matches just terrible. No jokes about "what's changed?", please, go back and watch, Taker used to move a hell of a lot slower and sell a hell of a lot less.

I think this was my favorite episode of the season so far, even despite all the Patriots jokes which went right over my head. The Mickey drawing was fairly hysterical, as was the satire of the five billion "teacher in da hood" movies. But by far the best was the An American Tail song reference. I just about fell out of my chair on that one.

Hey, I can pass the Post #6000 mark for the third time now.

Yeah, that theme song was one of the baddest of badass entrances ever. Just awesome. This angle happened to coincide right when I started watching the show. In fact, the whole Ministry angle was one reason I started paying attention. Through video games and stuff in my childhood I vaguely knew who the Undertaker was, and associated him with the old gloves-n-hate "Rest In Piece" cartoony gimmick which I just thought was corny as hell. Then I catch this show, and Taker is in his full-blown satanic cult leader mode, and he's tying people to crosses and kidnapping chicks and feuding with this psychotic bald guy who cussed a lot. I thought, holy shit, this isn't anything like that stupid Hulk Hogan crap I watched a tiny bit of when I was a kid and then immediately rejected as being phony and dumb. Even though in hindsight it was all Russocity which made no sense, at the time it felt delightfully weird and groundbreaking, and started me down the obsessive path which I still walk today. They really could've done a better job of relaying the longterm backstory of the feuds, though. I didn't know anything about the long Vince/Austin story, and it seemed like the announcers never explained it. So when Vince turned out to be the Higher Power, I was even more confused. It's something that bugs me to this day, when the announcers never talk about the background and continuity of the company and how it relates to the current angles.

They supposedly did, but Boll still has a bunch of movies in various stages of production anyway. Do remember that this is the same guy who literally beat the shit out of several of his harshest critics. I think this petition is just a cover for Boll collecting the names of everyone who hates him, so that he can travel around the world and personally get vengeance Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back stylez. As to whether I think he should stop making movies? Meh. Anytime I'm in the mood to watch something wretchedly modern-Manos bad, any given Boll flick fits that bill perfectly. And it's not like he's pulling a Paul W.S. Anderson and wrecking the GOOD game franchises, who really cares if Bloodrayne or Postal have their descendents humiliated unto the seventh generation because they got Bolled?

I see this kind of thing all the time. The majority of my friends have either gotten married or had kids over the past few years. What makes it more depressing is that I was sort of the old guy in the group, most of the others were a couple years younger than me. Have I ever been in love enough to get married? Yeah, once. But that one just didn't work out, and I've never felt as deep or strong an emotional connection to any other woman since then. No way I'm getting married unless I'm really damn sure that I've found the right woman. (Years of my parents screaming at each other before they finally got divorced, and their subsequent rocky remarriages to other people, all probably has something to do with that.)

Well there's a morbid coincedence. She died today.

There were also a bunch of random bannings and other mod buggery, and some sort of drama over photoshopped pics of Keith as Hitler that somehow led to the creation of WDI. I think. It's been so long.

1. How often did you buy the weekly PPVs? More than the monthly PPVs? Less? I've never once paid for a TNA show, so... 2. What were the benefits of the weekly PPVs compared to the monthly ones? Drawbacks? The best attribute of those shows was just how unpredictable they were. It seemed like Anything Could Happen In TNA, with all kinds of surprises and random people showing up. They also put a bigger emphasis on creating new stars, rather than the current trend of constantly pushing WWE castoffs. Plus, a weekly show with no commercials meant that they could devote a lot more time to the matches. 3. Do you think a promotion could ever successfully use the weekly PPV format? Maybe. I've heard tell that some company in Puerto Rico made money that way. But on a national level? I doubt it. PPV is expensive to produce live, and I currently the paying audience just isn't there to support such a venture. Seems like every non-WWE pay per view over the past decade has always been a failure anyway. 4. What are some of your fondest memories of that era? Oh christ, I could go on forever. Aside from Sonny Siaki and Michael Shane, the entire X division was really badass. Ron Killings' title reign was great shit. Anything that Raven or the New Church ever did. The ECW "invasion" angle which was actually more true to the original company than anything the WWE's revamp has ever done. And some of the most fun to be had were in the preshow Explosion matches, where you'd get an amazing mix of indy guys from all over the continent, many of whom went on to (relative) stardom in ROH and other places. 5. Do you think the weekly PPVs have any impact ( no pun intended) on TNA today? The only similarity is that some of the same people still work there. The shows are otherwise totally different.

This. You weren't around for those days, Cheech, and a lot of the people who were probably still harbor some ill will towards Monsieur Keith. This is the best question so far.

This. They've gotten much worse over the years. Also, the quickest way to ruin an announcer is to force them to adhere to the corporate script; look at how WWE puppet Joey Styles is so much lamer than original ECW Joey Styles. The most annoying part is that Tenay and West could easily become ten times better IF THEY'D JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP SOMETIMES. As bps and countless others have observed, there's no need to repeat and expound upon what we're already watching. I know it's hard to resist the temptation of constantly running your mouth; I spent five years doing play-by-play commentary, and just shutting up and allowing the dead air to roll on forward can be kinda nervewracking. But often that's what the situation requires. I've yet to meet the person who said "you know what I hate, it's how Ross and Lawler never talk over interviews and angles in order to explain what's already going on".

I think Storm's thick southern accent will keep him from ever being a world champion. Jarrett sounds like a bonafide Yankee compared to Storm. But he's a perfectly competent old-fashioned brawler type and does decent midcard comedy too. I also wish I had a way to upload video footage online, because I've got a hilarious tape of James performing the most pathetic "superkick" in the history of wrestling on me. I'd seen him knock people's heads off with that damn kick, so when it was coming at me I put my hands up to help cushion the blow... and his foot slowly tapped me on the belly button.

So... do we pour one back in now?

Which is odd, considering they are Hollywood writers. Of course, unlike 99% of writers, Matt and Trey are also executive producers on everything they do, so they never have to worry about getting fucked out of royalties or anything like that.

Meh. Wasn't feeling this one. Part of that may be due to the fact that I don't give a shit about viral videos and barely recognized anybody they were making fun of. I also didn't find the "friend, buddy, guy" thing to be funny at all, it was like one of those Al Gore "Super serial!" moments that I didn't even laugh the first time, let alone when they kept driving it into the ground. Was kinda surprised that they didn't take a single shot at the Hollywood studios themselves, and instead just blasted the WGA nonstop.

Except that's completely not what I said. I wasn't even talking about local pollution, the item under debate is GLOBAL warming. I was talking about end-of-the-world doomsday scenarios, and I just don't see a coal-burning power plant or something similar having that kind of impact. And where did I ever say pollution is good? You're making me out to be like a villain off Captain Planet or something here. Of COURSE localized pollution hurts that particular area. Nobody's debating that.

I'm not really a conservative, but I'm not a global warming disciple. So to make me believe it and care about it, you'd have to prove all of the following things, with hard factual evidence, beyond a shadow of a doubt: 1. The planet really is getting hotter. 2. The increase in heat will negatively affect humanity. 3. It's getting hotter fast enough that significant effects will show up within, oh, the next century. 4. Humans are causing this and it's not a natural phenomenon. 5. There's actually anything we can really do to stop it. If you could provide undeniable numerical data to prove every one of those, then I'd care about global warming. Until then, not so much. Can people negatively impact the environment? Of course. Just look at Chernobyl for one good example. But no matter how widespread or long-lasting the effects are, almost all pollution usually ends up staying within the localized area. If you pollute in New York, it ain't gonna reach Australia, and vice-versa. I simply have a hard time believing that humans can permanently change the environment of the entire globe with anything short of widespread nuclear warfare or something similarly apocalyptic.

I've never used any sort of torrent, file sharing, or anything like that and have no idea how to.

Anyone have Mania from last night? Anyone at all? I've looked in every corner of the damn internet for this show, and it seems like it doesn't exist online. Doesn't have to be a download, streaming video is fine too.

How do you unlock these rar files? I can't quite ever seem to get them to work.

link plz Any other stream links would be much appreciated, since most of them crap out sooner or later, it's better to have several available.

Dude, they're doing Anglemania VII tomorrow. VII. I'd say your influence reaches far beyond anyone's imagination.

I agree that 18 should technically be considered part of the modern era, I think Invasion was pretty much the end of Attitude. Hell, I'd go one further and split up the Federation era into two parts, with 1-8 called Hulkamania and 9-12 being "the New Generation", as they tried to sell it at the time. Now, before discussing this, I'm gonna disqualify Wrestlemanias 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 17 because I think there's easily enough good stuff on all of those shows to keep them away from the dreaded Worst Ever name. So, a discussion on the rest... Hulkamania era Even though most of the matches weren't terribly good, I don't think the very first Mania should really be under consideration here. It was sort of experimental, and it was a hell of a lot shorter and less boring than the two Starrcades which predated it. A lot of people say that 4 is mind-numbingly long and loaded with crap matches, but I'm a mark for tournaments and loved Savage's fight up the ladder for the title. A lot of people forget about 6, which was almost literally a one-match card; I just watched that one yesterday, and besides the main event, there's not much worthwhile there. But all of these pale in comparison to the overstuffed loaf of shit which was Wrestlemania 2. I don't think there was a match on this whole card which broke the three-star mark, and the main event was the worst of the era too. It was painfully long with way too many utterly pointless, really shitty matches which had no place on a card of this magnitude. New Generation Not really much of a debate here, is there? While I doubt that many people consider Wrestlemania 11 dear to their hearts, it was merely a perfunctory and forgettable affair compared to the "what the FUCK were they thinking?!" dumbassery that everyone loved to hate, which of course is 9. As was pointed out in the 24/7 thread, there were no matches worth seeing here, and there were about a hundred different ways this bad-even-on-paper card could've been booked differently to make it better. Hogan's offensive title win here was just foreshadowing the ridiculous political shit he'd pull in WCW soon. Attitude There are a couple of contenders here. 13 was a REALLY bad show with a shitload of REALLY bad matches, and quite possibly the single worst main event match that Wrestlemania has ever seen; however, it still had Bret/Austin, which is enough to knock it out of the bottom spot. 16 was shockingly bad too; with the fun storylines, awesome roster, and unstoppable momentum they had at the time, they sure did manage to turn in one horrible headscratcher of a show here. But these pale in comparison to the Russocity which is 15. That was a show with no great matches, and only a couple which were even good. Rock and Austin went on to have better matches almost every time they faced each other after this, their effort here was imho their worst PPV match ever, just a listless by-the-numbers brawl on the floor with no real psychology and plenty of run-ins. Aside from that, this show had NOTHING, aside from a bunch of crappy matches, utterly nonsensical angles, and the even-worse-in-hindsight spectacle of Big Bossman being hung by a noose from the rafters. Just fucking terrible, complete garbage. EDIT: after writing this post, I popped in 15 just to remind myself of how bad it is, since I've kind of been on a Wrestlemania re-watching streak here recently and I haven't seen this one in years. One thing I forgot which is worth mentioning: an entire Wrestlemania announced by Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler, back when they were at their very worst. Yuck. Modern Era This is where things get difficult for me, because for the past seven years, Wrestlemania has been consistently really good, with at least a couple of blowaway matches on every show. So my choice here would, if happening in any other era, probably not even be on the list. I'm gonna go with 19. I just never liked HBK/Jericho and Brock/Angle as much as everyone else, and with all the other matches it seemed like they cut all the good matchups' time so that the bad ones could go much longer. HHH/Booker was especially fucking annoying, one of the worst examples of pointless burials which Hunter ever dished out, and man think about the ramifications of THAT statement. Another thing which bugged me was the weird lighting; I don't know what the problem was, but the first half of the show just looked wrong. It's not really a bad Mania, but I just didn't think it was as good as all the others from the past few years.

He supposedly had some attitude problems, even by wrestling's standards. And Cornette did mention that he was kinda lazy, hated getting hit hard in matches, and often just didn't feel like leaving the house.

Well holy shit, wassup Salty, good to see you again man.