RavishingRickRudo

WOW ... what a piece of shit. I have no idea where to start... um... him thinking Vince is logical is pretty damn funny... I guess wrestling was never around before the WWF saved us all - thank GOD for that. I don't think I could take watching wrestling in the back-alleys and smoke-filled bars... What. A. Schmuck.

David is cooler than TONY FN DANZA? ARE YOU HIGH?!

That isn't 100% confirmed yet. Fedor couldn't fight Cro Cop because of an injury, so Nogueira took his place. Noguiera beat Cro Cop to win the "interim" title and a guaranteed title shot (or Unification depending on how PRIDE plays it). Noguiera can't fight Fedor, so Cro Cop - being #3 contender (and a big draw) - will take his place. Since Noguiera is guaranteed a title shot, he fights the winner of Cro Cop vs. Fedor (the winner, thus, will have the PRIDE title). Why the "Interim" title was made, I don't know. It was pointless. But they had to give the winner "something", I guess. Maybe they were copying what the UFC did.

Spoiler (Highlight to Read): There's a point in the film were Louis meets a trickster vamp who belongs to a theatre troupe of vampires. This one is very clever and out-wits Louis and generally gets the best of him. Blah blah blah. These vamps kill Kirsten Dunsts character, Louis gets mad and kills them all. He lights their caskets on fire during the day and as they pop up he cuts their heads off with a scythe. His final murder is the trickster where he cuts him up diagonally through the chest with the scythe. It was a different direction than how Anya died, but it was in a similar (quick) fashion. I can't help but think that there have been other references to IWV before in Buffy...

I'd like to bring up that it was MIKESC who brought up Puro - where Bionic Redneck (the resident "purofan" in this thread) basically shrugged it off. Mr. Z then added to the point. Tawren said "Just a note-people who only watch WWE and bitch about people loving puro are just as bad as people who only watch puro and bitch about people watching WWE." to which you replied with your puro rant. Infact, the two "puro" guys in the thread (Rey, Bionic) didn't even bring up the subject _at_all_. Mr. Z and iB also made reference to K-1 (for whatever reason). So really, the bad comparisons here aren't the fault of the puro guys at all. Just thought I'd point that out.

Was Anyas death an homage to Interview with the Vampire? I was watching that flick the other day and Louis kills the Trickster Vampire in a very similar way.

I'm saying it's ridiculous and nearly impossible to compare the two in this day and age. Hmm. 1 on 1. 2 on 2. etc. 3 count. 1 fall. Count out. DQ. Submissions. Pins. Suplexes. Drivers. Slams. Hmm, looks and sounds the same to me. Maybe if you're talking about UWF-i, or RINGS, or something where the rules are modified and the objectives are different. But me thinks you're just generalizing. If we look at the crowds....American fans want non-stop action. Selling and slow, methodical submission-based style matches mean shit to them for the most part. So are you saying matches should be judged on their pace? I dunno bout that. It seems kinda silly. The elements of a match are the same. There's a universal standard. "What is good". You can use the same standard to judge them. I break it up into 2 big parts - Technical and Artistic. The are sub-sections to these two parts. Technical has performance and execution of moves, it's difficulty, the transitions between, workrate, pace, "smart" work, etc. Artistic is telling a story - how one tells that story is through SELLING, psychology, expression, etc. You can find these things in all types of wrestling. They want offensive moves and flashy spots, and they want it now. If they don't, the "Boring" chants come, like they did with Hardy/Christian last night. Disagreed. Fans wouldn't even be chanting boring had they not been encouraged to do so by the WWE. That practice was on it's way out the door before "that" happened. Fans can still 'appreciate' a slow(er) build - as long as it is a constant build. That's the same with Japan. If there is an issue, if the two wrestlers in the ring are ones the fans care about, they can take as long as they want (within reason) and it won't matter - Hogan vs. Rock is an extreme example of that. Conversely, if you throw out two no namers who fly around at 100mph the fans won't be too pleased. Besides, there is a way of incorporating quick pace and flashy spots and still being "good". It just takes EFFORT. I know, it's a crazy concept and has to do with the "finer points" of wrestling. Forgot, have to have low standards to appreciate bad wrestling... Meanwhile, the Japanese fans are entirely different. They appreciate the classic submission-style match and seem to actually kind of appreciate it a little more than the flashy, signature-style kind of matches that happen in America. REALLY? That's.. weird. Cause I could have sworn I've seen Japanese crowds go crazy during spotfests and not seem too enthused with two guys trading submissions before. You should watch your generalizations. If all the Japanese fans want technical masterpieces, explain Masahiro Chono's popularity? Explain Bob Sapp? They aren't exactly the pinnacle of the form. And if American fans don't want submissions - explain the success of Benoit vs. Angle? The crowds dictate what kind of matches happen. How can you compare an American match to a Japanese match when they wrestle two DIFFERENT types of matches in front of two DIFFERENT types of crowds?! As I said before - there are common threads that bind wrestling matches. And it's not THAT "different" when you look at it. Besides, how does that justify putting out bad matches? "The fans want it" NO THE FANS ACCEPT IT because they can't do a thing about it. Like people here accept that the WWE is shit and lower their standards accordingly. Puro may have had heavy american influence. But bring some of that to the common-WWE arena and watch it get shit all over on. I can think of a dozen matches that would make the WWE fan go NUTS over. What might be good for you would not be good for the majority, and not good for business. "Good" wrestling matches and "Good" for business are two different things. What *I* want is a higher quality product, I don't see how that is "bad" for "the majority". Selling constantly and realistically, without going on offense, might be good for you, other Puro fans, and the Japanese fans - but try that in America and you won't be able to block out the "Boring" chants. Who said there would be no offense? I don't know what's wrong with "realism" since "realism" helps with "suspension of disbelief" which inturn is better for the fan and the believabilty of the match. As for the HBK explanation, I'm done with that. If you didn't understand the complexity of it, go back and reread it. Nothing "complex" about it. It's simple really. Shawn didn't know how to transition over from "being hurt" to "being ok" so he just totally forgot about "being hurt".

Have you read the other posts in this thread? Yeah, and a lot of it is "well, I enjoyed it so it doesn't matter" The story of the match can be taken different ways, depending on hurt Michaels back was supposed to be. If he was really supposed to be a walking cripple - how come he's wrestling every Raw now? Well _at_the_time_ *HBK* said he'd be there for "one or two" matches (even on WWE.com). How come he's wrestling on every Raw now? Money? Glory? I dunno. What does it have to do with *that* match? For *that* match we were supposed to believe that the "retired-from-a-back-injury" Shawn Michaels. Which is why people were gasping at the moves done to Shawns back. See, people were believing it. Then all-of-a-sudden it's not true, everything you saw was a lie, and HBK is really OKEYDOKIE! All that stuff you watched - worthless. All the emotion you put in - doesn't mean a thing. HBK is BACK baby! Oh wait, no he's not... he gets crippled after the match... so he really wasn't OKIEDOKIE... that's picking and choosing when to be fine - that doesn't take actual skill to do. It's spot work. Amateurish. Is it SO impossible to think that the WWE writers used a little psychology in Michaels' initial matches, showing his back was not as bad as he led people to believe, and the 4 years of rest and rehabbing did him good? Yeah. It is impossible. I'm thinkin it was more like "Ok, let's see how Shawn does here. If he's ok, lets use him some more cause he's over..." which they did - they gave him the title - after that they had no idea what to do with him. So lets not give the WWE too much credit here. But then again, the IWC didn't think up this kind of psychology, so surely it cannot be right. Michaels didn't sell the back as if he was dead, and lay in the ring like a beached whale for the entire match. Screw the enjoyment of the fans. MINUS 10 MILLION STARS!!! Never said entertaining the fans wasn't important. Just said that the match wasn't good. Again, being entertaining and being good aren't necessarily the same thing. There are still ways to have made that match good without no selling the back - they just didn't know how. Shawn didn't know how. Which is why people say Shawn is a bad seller. He takes the easy way out.

OHRVD also thinks that Puro and the WWE are "two entirely different things" despite Puro having heavy american influence. His explanation was bullshit. "Nothing can hurt his back! HBK IS BACK!... except for... and HBK isn't"

Oh god WHY?! *shudders*

Um... Why? I mean, I was a pretty big defender of the feud - but it broke down in the end and overall was poorly booked. (Angle vs. Brock, that is) And Cena vs. Angle was DOA - ever since Angles first rap and saying "you're whiter than me".

How was it a "good" match when the main story of the match -HBK's back- was conveniently forgotten about. I think some people need to separate "I enjoyed it" from "It was good"

I watch wrestling and bitch about wrestling... how bad am I?

I'm refering to Trishes-on-going-quest-for-love and Jericho-walking-the-line-of-face-and-heel, yes... which the WWE does every other month, it seems.

Actually, I meant "poor selling and low standards"

Yeah, but you liked this angle... *C*O*N*T*I*N*U*I*T*Y*

I thought it was TheDames homemade chocolate chunk cookies...

When I look through this thread, all I see is poor spelling and low standards

I define Technical Wrestling as Wrestling with Technique (*gasp*). As in, execution and difficulty of moves. While I agree that "submissions" do not always = "technical wrestling", what you discribed as technical wrestling sounds more like "Artistic" value.

In other words... you're a girl... go watch YnR girly girl.

I'm sure Tony Danza can lay claim to that. Maybe Michael Dorn from Star Trek.

I can't see how something that *dominated* television like the Torrie/DM angle "never mattered".

K-1 *MMA*

If Trish sluts up to another RAW heel (Henry, Batista, pick your hoss) for revenge, I could see a double turn working. "What Jericho did was wrong, I know that, we all know that - but no crime deserves the punishment he's getting right now! Trish, you've gotten your revenge, isn't that good enough!" - JR, on Jericho getting beaten excessively.

Am I winning in the points race??? The eps. where Monk and Stottlemeyer had to live together was fucking hilarious.