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Samoa Joe was once upon a time one of the brightest prospects in professional wrestling. After beating Xavier (A man whose claim to fame in Wrestling is losing to Samoa Joe) for the ROH title he began a title reign and a career that would set the fledgling internet wrestling fandom alight. Having great match after great match with wrestlers who nobody knew at the time such as AJ Styles, Homicide, Colt Cabana, The Briscoes, Bryan Danielson, Brian Kendrick, Austin Aries, Paul London, Roderick Strong etc, a series of matches with CM Punk that would earn Dave Meltzer's first Five star rating for an American match since the first Hell in a Cell match in 1997 and an aura of being a legit badass in wrestling often compared to Taz in ECW, Samoa Joe took a North Eastern indy fed with a weird gimmick of respect and honour and turned it into a worldwide famous promotion. He even turned their title belt into a legit world title by beating Paige's older brother, The Zebra Kid, in a cross promotion event with the defunct FWA. Wrestling icons like Mick Foley and Ricky Steamboat were publicly endorsing him. He had a match with Kenta Kobashi that has yet to be matched for intensity on the independent scene. Back in the early days of ROH and as such Indy wrestling, Samoa Joe was king. Samoa Joe was something of a beacon in early 2000's wrestling, where Raw was the Triple H Show where squat crossface enthusiasts came second to HHH's battles with the mentally challenged, Smackdown was JBL being champion for a year while participating in a second rate Evolution tribute band and TNA was a confusing mess of terrible booking, poo poo gimmicks and nostalgia acts for which there wasn't really any nostalgia. He was the antithesis of everything going on in mainstream wrestling at the time, with the WWE focusing on guys with ridiculous drug fuelled physiques and sod all wrestling ability and TNA primarily focusing on WWE cast offs as main eventers. He had a look, a style and an attitude that was just unique in wrestling at the time and it made him into the hottest unsigned commodity in wrestling. In 2005, that gave Samoa Joe a choice. He was presented with two options: 1) Go to WWE, wrestle in OVW where he would learn how to work the WWE style at a time where having a name outside of WWE and having a bodytype like Joe's was seen as an immediate no go or 2) go to TNA where he would immediately be treated as a star and go into feuds with people who knew how to work with him. Amid rumours that Vince McMahon personally took a disliking to Joe and wanted to expose him and put him in a savage Samoan gimmick, Samoa Joe took what at the time was seen as the wiser option. The other indy darling of the day CM Punk took the WWE offer, having had previous bad experiences with TNA and was expected to get jobbed out on Heat for the rest of his career. At first Joe's TNA career was a master class in booking to get a man over. He dominated the X Division, squashing the likes of Sonjay Dutt and Shark Boy while having blistering great matches with the likes of AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Having solidified Joe's status as a killer all TNA had to do was repeat the booking of ROH and have him win the title off of the undeserving coward Jeff Jarrett and they would have created a home grown talent that could carry the company. Unfortunately, as was the case for almost everything TNA ever did, they decided to stick with the old acts that people knew. Instead of having the title match that the fans expected, Samoa Joe beat Jeff Jarrett in a "Fan revenge" match where various backstage crew pretended to be fans, were handed leather belts and weakly slapped Jeff whenever he was thrown outside the ring. Joe then took the belt and only said he'd give it back when he was promised a title shot against the winner of Sting Vs Jarrett. Then Angle showed up. There is no doubt that Kurt Angle was a major get for TNA. At the time nobody really fully understood the depth of his drug addiction and he was still seen as one of the biggest stars in the industry. A feud with their own legit killer Joe was a no brainer. Angle came into the ring, stared down Samoa Joe, gave him a headbutt that busted Joe open hard way and they had an intense pull apart brawl. The stage was set for TNA's biggest ever match. Angle Vs Samoa Joe. A match that had previously only been fantasy. Jarrett sneaked in and stole back the belt during the brawl but nobody gave a poo poo. Their first match was an intense affair with an electric atmosphere. Angle won with the Ankle Lock, ending Samoa Joe's eighteen month undefeated streak. The PPV drew their biggest buyrate at the time. TNA were eager to repeat the success so they quickly booked the rematch the following month, where Joe won. Then they did it again the next month in a tag match with Joe and Styles against Kurt and Rhyno. Then they did a 30 minute Iron Man match which Angle narrowly won. The problem with this was that they burned through the feud as fast as they could, diminishing returns being a foreign concept to head booker Vince Russo. With the feud over and Angle the victor, Samoa Joe came to a loose end. TNA had found their new main eventer in Kurt Angle. He was a former WWE superstar and shockingly not a midcarder, thus making him the man to get behind in TNA's eyes. Not only that, they had Christian Cage, the Wrestler everybody watching WWE wanted to become a main eventer but the people running the show didn't. Samoa Joe was now no longer undefeated, so what's the harm in beating him? Joe lost a title match to Christian after Joe was too stupid to let go of his sleeper when Christian reversed it into a pin. Thus the saga of Samoa Joe the Big dumb baby began. After going through some weird title bullshit with Angle, Joe became the X Division champion, the TNA tag title champion (Both of them for Joe) and then lost both to Kurt Angle when he put them on the line against Kurt in order to get a shot at the TNA Title and the IWGP title (Lineage in contention) when Karen Angle interfered. The unstoppable monster was now being beaten by Kurt Angle's wife running distractions. To say Joe's star was falling despite being pushed up the card would be an understatement. And if that wasn't bad enough, here came a feud with Kevin Nash to get the mystique into proper free fall. There was meant to be a match with Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe and Scott Hall going up against The Angle Alliance, Angle's faction because gently caress knows everyone in TNA needs a faction behind them. Surprisingly, noted unreliable alcoholic Scott Hall didn't bother to show up. Attempting to save face, TNA management asked Joe to cut a promo where he would introduce Eric Young as Scott Hall's replacement and take the heat off TNA for booking Scott Hall in the first place. Samoa Joe lobbied for Homicide to replace Hall, but TNA were dead set on Eric Young. Samoa Joe, perhaps spurned on by frustration with his own stalling career, cut a scathing promo on Scott Hall and part time wrestlers that showed up in TNA for the easy paycheck. The promo was so scathing that it legitimately pissed off Kevin Nash and Dixie Carter, who Joe was seen saying "Are you mad? Go ahead, fire me, I don't care" to off mic after the promo. This resulted in a legit shoving match between Nash and Joe backstage where if you believe Kevin Nash, Nash slapped Joe and Joe didn't do anything about it. You probably shouldn't believe Nash as he's told the same story several times throughout his career with only names changing. This began a several month long feud that did nothing for anyone involved. Luckily, no organisation would be dumb enough to put a rising star into a feud with over the hill Kevin Nash again. Skip ahead a bunch of bullshit and Joe finally won the TNA world Championship at the 2008 Lockdown in a match that divided fan reception due to it's hybrid style of MMA and Pro Wrestling. Unfortunately this would be the best match in Joe's wet fart of a title run, as he would go on to defend against a series of ex WWE and WCW wrestlers who quite clearly couldn't give a gently caress. The only memorable part of his entire title run was in the match where he dropped the title to Sting, taking a nasty bump on the concrete stairs after diving down them to deliver a dropkick, often remembered as the dumbest spot in wrestling history. I'm not even sure that's hyperbole.  Look at this poo poo Jesus gently caress. Samoa Joe never really recovered from this title reign and his star plummeted like a fat Samoan trying to dropkick a goth in his 50's down the stairs. He got Taz as a manager, was kidnapped by fat ninjas in shorts to which even Taz couldn't give a poo poo, turned up three months later with a dick tattoo on his face and a machete, tried to molest Scott Steiner with it, somehow ended up arse in the air through a hole in the ring and a bunch of other poo poo that doesn't even bare mentioning. Through all this it became clear that Samoa Joe just stopped caring, gaining large amounts of weight and having less and less quality matches. Samoa Joe went from a sure fire main eventer to a fat whiny baby with a dick on his face. The biggest name in indy wrestling ever turned to a bloke showing up for a paycheck Samoa Joe left TNA recently due to budget cuts and TNA being unable to match his current salary. News is it was an amicable split, although the same was said of AJ Styles so it could just mean he didn't take a poo poo on Dixie's desk on the way out. It's too early to say what's next in the career of Samoa Joe. Will he go to NXT as “Two Scoops of hot Newz” Rovert says? Will he go on an indy rampage, reminding everyone who's the daddy? Or will he just do Lets plays and enjoy retirement? Gonzo McFee fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 03:48
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Post yer fave matches, corrections and memories and I'll try and post them in order here.
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Feb 19, 2015 03:50
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Joe vs Kobashi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8nwNgY8iII still probably my favorite match
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Feb 19, 2015 03:52
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exDgkr6vsdM
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Feb 19, 2015 03:56
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Joe VS AJ Styles VS Christopher Daniels=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28pyOAMXcI THis match not only made me a fan of these three guys and TNA, it made me a Wrestling fan again when I first saw this back int he day. I never REALLY got into ROH or the indys until much later so when I saw this match I was just blown away. Take all the bullshit TNA has done over the years, the constant nWo rip offs, shamelessly coping WWE, Dixie Carter, Tasteless Storylines, sucking Hulk Hogan's dick, Vince Russo, Just being loving stupid. None of it compares to what they did with Joe. He was suppose to be the best in the loving world. He could of been the guy TNA built their whole company around. Those matches he had with Angle, as good as they were, were a loving mistake. BigRed0427 fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 04:01
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Joey McChrist posted:Joe vs Kobashi a drat shame this is the version with commentary. so so so fun.
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Feb 19, 2015 04:12
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i liked when he saw tazz and it motivated him. also his penis face tattoo.
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Feb 19, 2015 04:17
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stuck 
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Feb 19, 2015 04:48
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HulkaMatt posted:a drat shame this is the version with commentary. so so so fun. Is the version without commentary that much better? I've never watched it without the commentary. I haven't watched it in awhile but I'm sure Gabe or whatever name he was using at the time screamed "DAAAANGEROOOOUUUSSSS" at least once.
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Feb 19, 2015 04:55
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DJExile posted:stuck oh, bother!
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Feb 19, 2015 04:55
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I'm gonna need to watch the two good matches posted since I've only seen a handful of matches of his.DJExile posted:stuck where's the picture of that? couldn't find it via an image search
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Feb 19, 2015 05:01
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Feb 19, 2015 05:06
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Thauros posted:I'm gonna need to watch the two good matches posted since I've only seen a handful of matches of his.  edit:  ganAt least mine doesn't break tables! I watched that Joe/Kobashi match and there really wasn't anything like it at the time. Just a loving great match. Anyone got a link to the Punk ones?
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Feb 19, 2015 05:09
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gets me every loving time 
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Feb 19, 2015 05:10
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mariooncrack posted:Is the version without commentary that much better? I've never watched it without the commentary. I haven't watched it in awhile but I'm sure Gabe or whatever name he was using at the time screamed "DAAAANGEROOOOUUUSSSS" at least once. It just didn't need commentary. Original version didn't have any. The commentary for the version you're hearing was added 2-3 years later.
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Feb 19, 2015 06:00
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I never really cared much for Samoa Joe so have fun in ROH or whatever
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Feb 19, 2015 06:02
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMU5S9VHhJM
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Feb 19, 2015 06:14
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The matches he had with Punk were some of the greatest of all time. I assume he kept wrestling after that I guess I don't really know. Oh right, Joe was in that match Punk commentated too! What a storied career. for real though that tna match was real good too, joe could go cams fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 07:10
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Let's not forget the first Bound for Glory tournament where Samoa Joe not only lost every match he was in, but by getting disqualified at one point, he ended with negative points.
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Feb 19, 2015 07:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI6jZeHc3ZI
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Feb 19, 2015 07:37
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Oh, also, the greatest thing Samoa Joe ever did was the shoot video with Punk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23lDcanhC6w
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Feb 19, 2015 07:38
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Didn't he turn heel and team up with Taz by handing the world title that he was about to win over to some other heel, and then claim that he teamed up with Taz for the sole purpose of winning the world title, which he was subsequently unable to win?
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Feb 19, 2015 07:59
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My favorite Samoa Joe memory is when he was in a Feast or Fired match and was literally the only man in the ring with all four briefcases still on the poles while everyone else was in a body-pile outside the ring, so he just ignored every case and waited for everyone to get onto their feet and dove onto all of them. He never ended up with a case. Also the time he was playing Titanfall on Twitch while Impact was on, that was cool.
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Feb 19, 2015 08:23
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If Adam Pearce can get a coaching job at the Performance Center then Joe should be able to. But he isn't retiring and I don't believe they'd ever put him on TV, even in a special guest jobber role ala Rhyno or Kendrick. He might take the paycheck but people would want to see him succeed.
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Feb 19, 2015 08:52
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Saul Goode posted:Didn't he turn heel and team up with Taz by handing the world title that he was about to win over to some other heel, and then claim that he teamed up with Taz for the sole purpose of winning the world title, which he was subsequently unable to win?
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Feb 19, 2015 08:55
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Perigryn posted:He handed the title to Angle and joined the Main Event Mafia. IIRC, he was facing off against Sting and while he was locked in the Scorpion Deathlock, Taz made his debut and just stood there at ringside to 'motivate' Joe into winning. Reminder that Joe lost that match.
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Feb 19, 2015 10:08
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BigRed0427 posted:Joe VS AJ Styles VS Christopher Daniels=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28pyOAMXcI THis match not only made me a fan of these three guys and TNA, it made me a Wrestling fan again when I first saw this back int he day. I never REALLY got into ROH or the indys until much later so when I saw this match I was just blown away. To this day TNA says this is the greatest match in their history. And then you look at how the careers of these three men ended up, what with Daniels given a half-assed one-sided feud with Sting and released multiple times, Styles flip flopping between the face of TNA and a whiny stooge for whatever ex-WWE guy was on top at the time, and of course, everything said about Joe here. It's a drat shame. Also, regarding that "dick on his face," I remember him getting into it with folks on twitter about how it was a cultural thing and they were disrespecting his heritage. Despite this, the design of the face paint was noticeably different and less dick-like the next time they had a taping.
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Feb 19, 2015 10:59
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Goddamn, I loved the matches Joe had in ROH and TNA between 2004-2006 and its a shame what happened to his career. He had so much potential. I loved the cage match he had with Jay Briscoe, the Punk trilogy and his final match as champion against Austin Aries. It'd be kinda cool to see him in WWE now, particularly with the talented performers they have in NXT but I can understand that he's much older now and not the prospect he was ten years ago.
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Feb 19, 2015 13:02
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I remember reading about him a long time ago around when he was first getting big in ROH, and then tuning out of wrestling for 7-8 years and being shocked the way his career had turned out when I returned. I hope he gets an AJ Styles-type resurgence - maybe Bruce Tharpe is looking for the next serious NWA title challenger?
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Feb 19, 2015 13:16
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HulkaMatt posted:It just didn't need commentary. Original version didn't have any. The commentary for the version you're hearing was added 2-3 years later. I did not know that. I remember watching it on DVD at one point but I guess I got a later copy. This is one of my favorite CM Punk/Samoa Joe stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFjwEsjiztc
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Feb 19, 2015 13:26
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I find this thread incredibly depressing. The OP is a rundown of the biggest waste of talent in wrestling history and how to break a man's spirit. I wish Dixie had fired him for the Scott Hall promo when there was still time to salvage things.
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Feb 19, 2015 14:18
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Charles Gnarwin posted:I find this thread incredibly depressing. The OP is a rundown of the biggest waste of talent in wrestling history and how to break a man's spirit. I wish Dixie had fired him for the Scott Hall promo when there was still time to salvage things. It was only going to be three paragraphs long as an excuse for a Samoa Joe Memorial of the good times thread but I kept remembering bullshit. I mean I skipped over a lot of stuff in Samoa Joe's career. I don't even think I included anything from post 2010.
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Feb 19, 2015 14:34
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Gonzo McFee posted:It was only going to be three paragraphs long as an excuse for a Samoa Joe Memorial of the good times thread but I kept remembering bullshit. I mean I skipped over a lot of stuff in Samoa Joe's career. I don't even think I included anything from post 2010. You should list it all, if only to underline how consistently TNA failed to recognise a good thing.
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Feb 19, 2015 14:44
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mariooncrack posted:I did not know that. I remember watching it on DVD at one point but I guess I got a later copy. Holy poo poo I forgot all about this.
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Feb 19, 2015 15:04
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I think you skipped the cage match with Kurt, possibly conflating it with the first match. The first one did do a good buy rate, but they were able to go back to the well later, and with a great build, do 3 times their usual buys. Of course this showed that they should never do such a terrible thing ever again and went back to booking bullshit that drew 20k.
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Feb 19, 2015 15:05
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ploink RIP Samoa's Little Joe
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Feb 19, 2015 16:59
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Joe murdered and buried Scott Steiner on a PPV, had Heel Don West tell Tenay that he'd finally gone too far.... ...and had his actions defended by Tenay. 
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Feb 19, 2015 17:06
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Basic Chunnel posted:If Adam Pearce can get a coaching job at the Performance Center then Joe should be able to. But he isn't retiring and I don't believe they'd ever put him on TV, even in a special guest jobber role ala Rhyno or Kendrick. He might take the paycheck but people would want to see him succeed. Joe told The Observer that he is surprised at all the offers coming his way after announcing he is a free agent, so it sounds like he'll be kept busy for at least the first little while.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:10
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flashy_mcflash posted:ploink why
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Feb 19, 2015 17:19
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flashy_mcflash posted:ploink And yet slamming his balls into the guardrail wasn't even close to the dumbest part of this spot.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:23
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