The Wrestling Thread

[Xeogred]

Nothing but love for the Kliq here. Sean, Nash, and Hall are my favorite guys to listen to thesedays with the stories and all. It's hilarious how... somewhat boring Shawn is now though haha. I mean if the Christian thing isn't a phase and he's found real happiness, that's cool and all. But of all people, it's like he became my dad from the 90's. The way he "protects the business" in interviews is a bit much as well, but eh can't really blame him. I don't think Seah, Nash, or Hall have any ties to them thesedays so they can be more candid about everything.

I used to flip flop between Bret and Shawn as my favorite, but I think I lean towards Shawn thesedays. I guess I'd take Christian dad over hating-life Bret Hart... phew man, his resentment and 4/10's for anything and everything can be amusing at first, but this guy will suck the life out of anything. He's such a downer and at this point I've heard enough, I probably don't need to hear anymore interviews or shoots from him. He's making himself look pretty bad. lol

I like Sean in bursts. I honestly thought his Sixx run in WCW was solid from start to finish. Had some great matches with Jericho, the cruiser weights and middle guys, etc. No complaints here. X-Pac though, he's cool off and on but gets to be a bit too much after awhile haha.

We agree on Goldberg. How about Austin? I joke with my wrestling buddy I think I like him more as the podcaster than the wrestler, lmao. His ring work before the neck issues was insane, but yeah I'm not too big on his "brawler" thing. Had to do what he had to do though. He's good but I was more of a Rock guy during that era. All that said, Austin really knows his history and seems to know an unlimited amount of aspects to the art and philosophy behind wrestling... dude knows his shit for sure. One of my favorite podcasts.

[TSTR]

I do hope Shawn found his peace with religion and family, because dude was apparently a legendary dickhead, and it kind of always came off to me that way. Even post-Jesus Shawn still seems like a shoot douche to me. Like I can totally respect all his work, and he's one of the best BIG MATCH guys ever, but I think he just rubs me the wrong way—which is why I say I might like Bret more.

Though nowadays, Bret's definitely got the "bitter old man" thing going on. Which is rather sad, because the dude has had a ton of shit thrown his way just in life hurdles, like losing Owen, the public family squabbles, his own career-ending injury, and his health struggles.

Yeah, Waltman is pretty great from his Lightning/1-2-3 days up through Syxx and into X-Pac, but I agree it got kind of old after a while. Throw in his ever-increasing drug problems over those years, and there you go. I think it's neat that he's one of the only guys (Rick Rude, too) that can say he was in both the nWo and DX when they mattered.

Austin is a legend, one of the biggest stars of all time. Hell, I just picked up the classic "Austin 3:16" shirt the other day (along with a B/W nWo, a Shinsuke Nakamura "STRONG STYLE," and a magically silly New Day joint). You're right in that he definitely had to slow his style down after the ill-fated piledriver. He made it work though, and continued to define that "WWE Style" as it came down the line from Hogan. He's also a very smart guy regarding the industry, and everything I've ever heard from his podcasts is solid.

I will say that the goddamn "WHAT" chant is probably the worst thing he ever gave us, though.

[Xeogred]

WHAT

Yeah, that pissed some people off who kept up with it after all these years. Like, I hear it just now finally kind of died off more recently... a decade or something later, lmao. The gimmick was fine for him at times, but after that... yikes.

Back in the day I lost most of my interest around the invasion angle. Gonna try to watch through that more closely this time around though, I missed out on the full run of some of my WCW favorites in WWF. So it will be cool to see it all evolve.

1998 is painful though... but I have it on the side while I do other things. lol

[TSTR]

Oh, the "WHAT" ain't dead yet. Some of the ladies still get it. Charlotte comes to mind as struggling with it within the past year, and I saw them TRY to get Alexa Bliss with it the other night on SmackDown. She rolled it like a pro though—immediately changed her speaking cadence, spoke a long phrase, that kind of thing. Killed it flat after one "WHAT."

That's a great way to stop that chant. Piper pulled it off when they tried to do it to him. Although I'd have to say Undertaker had the best response:

"Why don't you say WHAT if you like to sleep with your own sister."

[Juan Aguacate]

Lucha Underground's first two seasons are officially coming to Netflix. No excuse for anyone to not watch it now.

[Reprise]

Xeogred, if you want to watch a brilliant Crow-era Sting match, watch the championship match against DDP from 1999 on Nitro. I think it was an April episode. It was a seriously great match.

I disagree with much of the blame for the craptastic Starrcade match being on Sting being out of shape to be honest. I don't dispute that Sting didn't look great, but the match booked itself. Sting wins clean, triumphant victory, nWo disappears, job done. It didn't need to be a "great" match, it just needed to be coherent and tell a great story or rather be a fitting finale to a great story.

[TSTR]

I agree. Sting's issues may have affected Starrcade '97 some, but as I said, there are a number of other--and arguably more--detrimental factors that caused it to be what it was.

I heard about LU coming to Netflix; I'm so excited to catch up. Wish they'd nail down a date already.

[Xeogred]

FEEL THE POWER OF THE WARRIOR IN 1998

[Reprise]

At least Halloween Havoc 98 gave us the brilliant Goldberg vs. DDP match. It's probably the best match of Goldberg's career, not that that says a lot.

[Xeogred]

Yeah I've seen that one a lot, great stuff. DDP brought out the best of him.

I was a huge DDP fan as a kid, but he's kind of so-so for me now in retrospect. The way Mike Tenay constantly hypes up his "just another opening for the Diamond Cutter" gimmick is hilarious... he's a bit too sloppy and rough style wise for me now. But he still has his moments, the long feud with Macho was really good.

I'm watching Halloween Havoc right now and honestly, it's pretty solid. Jericho vs Raven was top notch, Kidman is getting over and I forgot he was kind of cool after being free from the flock, "drunk" Nash and Hall was whatever, Sting vs Bret was okay, etc. Not bad.

Sting looked completely stupid though, holy hell. Like, I almost want to barf: