Wrestling With Death: Thoughts As I Watch It and Waste My Life

I had to add that colon into the title so that people wouldn't misinterpret this as me having an internal struggle and wrestling with my own disappointing mortality.

So Derrick King is on a national network. That's weird, right? He got married to a gal named Jaime, who possibly set a record for "BumpIt Use on Wedding Day" and the family he married into has an indy fed in Arkansas. And a funeral home. And he works at both. I am completely unfamiliar with Mid Southern Championship Wrestling. I mean, I'm unfamiliar with Arkansas. I would wager before it became known as Bill Clinton's home state that it was our least talked about state in the union. That would probably be Delaware now. The hashtag for this show is #WrestleInPeace. I have never heard of Lafonce Latham - owner and proprietor of both MCW and the funeral home -  before but he seems like a guy I would have dug. He's clearly in his 60s now and from the clips shown he still seems like a guy I would dig. I would definitely go to these shows if I lived in Arkansas. Also, living in Arkansas, I would have already made a series of several horrible life decisions by that point.

I wonder who or how many people TNA would murder to get on a network like this. WGN is pretty huge. TNA is on Destination America right now, which I just confirmed yesterday is an actual television channel available to watch on televisions. 90% of the programming on Destination America appears to be advertisements masquerading as actual programming. Tuesday is filled with hilarious Disney "programming". They are supposed to be actual shows, but they have names like "Inside Disney Cruise Lines" or "Behind the Scenes: Walt Disney World Resort". The channel also shows an incredible sounding show called "Buying Log Cabins" which officially has to be the most niche reality show ever. Buying Log Cabins looks like a joke that got cut from UHF. Looking deeper at their schedule, and 40% of the channel seems entirely focused on the Alaska real estate scene. And literally all Friday is episodes of TNA Impact on a loop, 18 hellish hours. 6 AM to midnight. At what point in that 18 hours does Impact turn to Suicide Pact?

And here's this show, on an actual network that produces original dramas and shows Cubs and White Sox games.

I stopped watching after 20 minutes or so when I noticed MeTV was showing an old Gunsmoke episode with Anthony James as a hillbilly trying to operate a secret still.

Read more!

CMLL Workrate Round-Up 7/27/14, 10/17/14 & 10/31/14

1. Silueta vs. Zeuxis (7/27/14)

Nice little women's match, the kind we don't normally get to see. It was billed as a lightning match but really wasn't worked like one, other than it being una caida. We get a nice 10 minutes match with a bunch of cool arm and leg work and some big flashy spots. They both have a couple cool armbar roll throughs and there was an especially good sequence with Zeuxis locking on an armbar and sort of rolling it through into a Yes Lock as Silueta was about to get to the ropes. We even get a Frye/Shamrock dueling knee bar section. Zeuxis throws a bunch of stiff kicks during this and does a great running double knee attack in the corner, Silueta does some nice ranas, and this was all fun. Although is it just me or do most women wrestlers run the ropes really awkwardly? It seems like every time they had to run ropes or run into the turnbuckles it was like their bodies were just not designed to do so. I've noticed this before with others and all the movements just look completely foreign.

2. Mascara Dorada, Stuka Jr. & Maximo vs. Shocker, Thunder & Euforia (10/17/14)

So…I think I kinda like Thunder. He's a big lug and I'll probably get sick of him at some point, but right now I dig what he brings to matches. He seems very mobile which already sets him apart from past large white guys that CMLL has brought in. I like his power offense based around catching guys mid-flying move and then just tossing them. He's got a really great fallaway slam and some nice strikes. I like how he mixed up his corner shots with kicks, nice punches, and then ends it with a Zidane headbutt. This was probably the best Shocker has looked in a match this year. The Rush series was good, but more about a young punk taking advantage of an out of shape older guy. Shocker was a jerk in this and looked more fired up than any non-Rush match I've seen him in lately. Not only did he break out some nasty strikes, including a couple stiff punches and a rough stomp to the face, but he did a cool fat guy senton, and even took the straps down to mockingly flex his chubbiness to the crowd. Dorada is a guy I like a lot, probably more than most, as I like the way he incorporates his athleticism into matches, always taking super high bumps on backdrops, and doing cool things that most workers can't do. Here he does his awesome high jump rana, sprinting from the ramp over the ropes and into the ring. This was short and sweet, real good mix of stuff.

3. Lightning Match: Dragon Lee vs. Kamaitachi (10/17/14)

Well this was crazy! Going a little over 6 minutes, this would have been a legendary WorldWide match. Both guys get to show off wild offense, both guys take big bumps, both guys were very likely sore on Saturday. We get a run of Kamaitachi doing running horizontal dropkicks (the kind where you fling your legs straight out and land in a back bump), first a normal one in the ring, then one leaping from the rampway over the ropes into the ring (which Lee runs stupidly/awesomely chin first right into, flipping him asshole over elbow), then one running from the apron to the floor. Awesome. Then Lee does a crazy one of his own to the floor and I'm fully invested at this point. Both guys really fly into the other's offense with gusto, with Kamaitachi launching himself off a German and getting his chest caved in while hung up on the turnbuckle and taking a Lee double stomp off the top. The finish is great as they have a really cool strike exchange, with both men throwing stiff shots and mixing up the timing of them, cutting each other off, all building to Lee hitting one of the more insane suplexes that I've seen, kind of like a Musclebuster but dropped more like a Northern Lights. It certainly looked like Kamaitachi will end up an inch or two shorter. Go watch this. In 6 easy minutes it will bring joy to your day.

4. Rush vs. Ultimo Guerrero (10/31/14)

This was from the Halloween show which was probably the most batshit atmosphere of any show this year. The crowd was hot, and the mood was freaking weird as most of the guys on the show were wearing skeleton body and face paint, even the referees were all decked out like skeletons, and all the CMLL chicas were painted up like sugar skulls while the arena was filled with overworking smoke machines and eerie red lights. Truly unique atmosphere for everything. I got a huge kick out of all the girls rhythmically dancing in their calavera get-ups. I thought the whole show was lifted up by the presentation, and this match especially was really fun. Both guys really pulled out all the stops to try and one up the other. This felt like something that could have really been classic if there was blood allowed. I enjoyed it as it, but the environment was just begging for blood. Both guys worked plenty stiff and there were some nice nearfalls, really dig UG planting Rush with a mean Liger bomb. The week before Rush planted UG with a brutal ballshot and I wish that would have been played up more here, but UG did sorta get revenge by winning with his own tiny ballshot.

Read more!