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Fantastic post, in-depth but not baggy, nicely written.

Have you read Lion's Pride? It's a great book, very easy to read but with a wealth of information about the history of NJPW and it's quirks. I'd recommend it to anyone who's interested in the history of the company or Japanese wrestling in general.

Not sure if you know this, but they made a John Morrison 1 disc DVD compilation that was kind of awesome. You can buy it used for 31 cents haha.

It's pretty comprehensive of his best stuff from when he became Morrison to when the DVD came out. It's got clips of him doing parkour and stuff too.

Maybe Body Glide?

Yep

KIDS ARE AWESOME. I get the fear, nothing to be afraid of but no matter what we tell you, you'll still have it. It goes away though.

My bible.

Seriously, get that book. I swear by it. It helped me out so much. It's humorous but very educational and you can read it while you're on the throne. It's at most one or two subjects per page.

Also - don't be afraid to get in there and wipe that dirty butt. It's way easier than you think. But if it's a boy, cover his junk with a towel when you're changing him. The change in air temperature will make him spray like a freaking ocelot. I got piss in my eyes, ears, nose and mouth before I figured out that trick. You'd think it'd be gross but it's not and we laugh about it to this day.

Also, my oldest is almost 5 and his favorite wrestlers are the Usos, New Day and he just discovered Bayley. Youngest just turned 3 and loves Tyler Breeze and Fandango. So, you know there's always that possibility that you will end up with built in wrestling buddies.

There are some WCW fans who believe the real death knell of the WCW was moving away from the NWO storyline, which apparently was still making good money, for other stories and pushing other stars which failed one after the other. I mean the story lasted three years with WCW eclipsing WWF/E at its peak.

I think that regardless, the clock was ticking on WCW and unless it could have created another Goldberg type wrestler, another top-tier talent to help carry WCW in to the future that it was only a matter of time. Maybe you stop guys like Jericho, Benoit, and others from jumping ship but it was reliant on aging stars nearing the end of their careers and there was not a lot of potential for replacing that.

Personally I thought the nWo storyline dragged on, and what followed it was even worse. Is that Russo/Ferrara? I don't know what you can pin on them specifically. I think people often critique the whole Arquette storyline, and rightfully so, but it was an aggressive cross-promotion and IMO Ready to Rumble has always been a 'cult favourite' of mine personall but goddamn that was 'darkest timeline' tier bad. It was worse when he booked himself to be the champion. Russo, or anyone else, could have made worse choices when moving on from a story that had lasted 3+ years and what... who was a future face of the franchise?

Wrestlecrap wrote a book about the demise of WCW and it was a very interesting read. Gives a good insight in to the kind of decision making that was being made within the company and really the death of WCW is due to a cacophony of poor choices, not just taking a desperate chance on Russo when it was already too late. There's a chapter about the final year of the company and the staggering amount of money it was bleeding out... it really stood no chance thanks to those who were in charge.

I've been reading L. A. Jennings's She's A Knockout!: A History of Dubious Punctuation Women in Fighting Sports. Jennings's background is in MMA, and she seems somewhat ambivalent about pro wrestling, but I've found some interesting tidbits.

It seems that in 1888, two women were arrested for prize fighting, along with their seconds. The defense argued that the whole thing had been a "sham"--a work. A species of Entertainment, as one may term it, in the nature of an affaire du sport. If it was a work, the women had evidently stiffed the hell out of each other; according to the news story, their faces were badly bruised. In any event, the State of New York sentenced Hattie Leslie and Alice Leary to six months a piece, and their (male) seconds were each fined $500, or about $12,200 in 2016 dollars.

Roughly a year later, Leslie had a pair of wrestling matches with one Ethel Marks. The first was apparently a shoot, judging by both fighters' lack of technical savvy, but the second was widely decried as a "fake"--the moves appeared to have been planned in advance, and some spectators claimed they could hear Leslie and Marks whispering instructions to each other. Their male seconds, scandalized and offended both, fought each other in a catch-as-catch-can bout soon afterward. Cynical minds suspected a connection.

I'd recommend the book. Jennings is a former fighter who now co-owns an MMA gym, in addition to holding a Ph.D in literature. It's a unique perspective and I hope this isn't her last (non-academic) publication.