That is indeed a tremendous suicide dive.

When I read that, I also thought of Darby. The other two notables I can think of are Joe and Austin Aries. Aries' is so good, he can give people legit concussions with it:

High Energy would have been an amazing tag team if they had even half-decent ring attire

Their finisher was cool as ****


https://youtu.be/8NMVW7FR8C0

They certainly had more going for them than the New Foundation. I can’t honestly believe they named a team that.

Tatanka with a Superstars jobber squash against Reno Riggins.

Riggins gets his one move in, and then he goes up to the camera and yells, "I'VE GOT NO RESERVATIONS ABOUT BEATING UP AN INDIAN!"

Lol great heel work

As much as Bret hates Hogan - likely with good reason - it did feel notable in his book that he didn't make any attempt to bury just how great of a pro wrestler Hogan was. He talked about how you could reasonably assess wrestlers by rating them in a few key categories, and one of them was look, where he gave Hogan a 10/10. Can't remember what he gave him for in-ring skills, but obviously lower than that. But in terms of overall picture, him designating that much weight to look meant that he fully agreed that Hogan was one of the GOATs.

Seems like all of his contempt for Hogan was based in legitimate personal gripes and not in unrealistic standards that only fixated on things like workrate.

I've only read a handful of wrestling books, but Bret's was by far the best one that I've dived into.

Yes Bret was quite fair in his assessments I thought

Two ugly people looking at each other. That's fun.

Glad they've finally resumed adding episodes to the WCW Saturday Night section.

It's funny how they immortalize that rivalry now like it was one of the biggest things ever, but that period (early to mid-90s) was some of the worst business the WWE has done in the last 40 years. It's good to see them remaining in a good place though. It's been 12 years since they made up, almost as long as they were feuding for.

But it culminated in the Montreal Screwjob, which is one of the biggest inflection points in the history of the industry. By 1997, I think they had at least escaped the doldrums of the "some of the worst business WWE has done," even though catching up to WCW was still ahead of them. When people play up how big it was, they're invariably just talking about that period from March 1996 through November 1997, and not any of their earlier stuff.

I do think it's nice that they seem to legitimately get along these days though. When Bret first returned, the awkward hug they shared on Raw seemed completely insincere to me. But then Shawn gave his retirement speech later that year, and he extended what felt like a very sincere thank you and mea culpa to Bret, and then it all rang way truer to me. The off-hand comment Shawn made in the above video, that Bret will reach out to say happy birthday and **** like that, also brings home that the relationship is in a pretty positive place, that attempts at reconciliation have succeeded beyond mere civil coexistence.

I still think Shawn is slimy. His whole “religious awakening” seems like perfect cover and he realized it was one of the only ways out while keeping his legacy intact. Genuine or not, he still seems like an *******.

I don't think of Shawn as one of the standout great guys in wrestling, even when just isolating any assessment to the comeback rendition of him, and I don't doubt that there may be some duplicity at play. But I also don't think that Bret would be taken in even for a second by a completely phony image rehab that didn't have some substance behind it.

Basically I think Shawn managed to go from being someone who was an absolute horror to even be in a room with to being relatively easy to get along with, and that by itself is a pretty significant upgrade. But yeah, I don't put him anywhere near, say, Mick Foley on the list of the industry's really great people either.

(It would break my heart to find out that I'm completely misreading Foley since it's not like I know him personally and can't truly know what kind of person he is, but I feel like he's the one I can name most confidently as a stand-up guy.)

DDP comes to mind as well, but his shameless self-promotion always puts my antenna up just a bit in terms of a full assessment of him.

That said: while bragging about doing charity is tacky behavior, when the charitable work goes a lot deeper than just signing a check (and it clearly goes deeper in terms of DDP's direct personal involvement), any tackiness is more than offset by the good being done.

Only bad thing I've ever heard about Foley was that he was cheap.

Worst thing I've heard about Sean in recent years is that old habits come back around the Kliq. One of the FTR guys talks about pouring his heart out to Sean and getting advice, only for him to catch Sean making fun of him to Nash & Hall.

(Quick google found the incident in question: https://cultaholic.com/posts/dax-har...-at-wwe-raw-25)

Yeah, I remember that story. Not a good look at all. Not surprised there's still big high school bully energy in the surviving members of the Kliq (and surely was a significant part of Scott Hall's makeup as well).

I do tend to split off Sean Waltman from the rest of the jerk as being a potentially decent enough guy. He comes off well in interviews, and I'm sure I'm influenced to some extent by Jim Cornette going out of his way to say that he's been unfair with Waltman by lumping him in with the rest, and that he's not nearly as much of a dick as the rest of that crew.

Wow just watched Lesnar vs Big Show Smackdown June 12th 2003 with the ring collapse, great match! It seemed like a shoot but doubt it, cool to see I def wasnt expecting it!!

Big Show and Lesnar have had a few great matches. That one. The one from Survivor Series 02 and whichever show the forklift match (or whatever tf it was called) happened at. Though, their "match" at Royal Rumble 2014 was the drizzling shits.

Yes at this time it genuinely liiks like Show is a threat to Lesnar. 200 pound weight advantage and Show is super agile.