Rocket354 said:

I started after that, learned by trial and error, and wasted literal decades of my life working 10X as hard for half the results.

The fundamentally sound players of today would trounce the top players of the 80s given a time machine. Earl, Sigel, Hall could hang, but pretty much all the others would get steamrolled by even the 50th best player today.

Thorpe is exactly what most top players of then would look like if magically transported to today's game. A talented player, fighting an uphill battle against poor mechanics, and ultimately just an also-ran.

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Lowell said:

Is he really that much better than Fedor Gorst, KPC, SVB, FSR of late, etc. though? I still think he's the best but the gap between him and the other top tier players is not enormous by any means IMO.

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skogstokig said:

asthma medicine sounds probable?

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Cornerman said:

Yes, a few times.

Brunswick doubles championship in the 80’s. No surprise, Sigel won with Ewa (Mataya) Laurance over Loreejon and Hopkins.

PBT Championship - Earl crushed Efren in the finals. Lots of empty air time, so fortunately they had Mike Massey doing trick shots. Earl had beaten George Breedlove in the west side finals earlier.

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JAM said:

Interestingly, a friend of Keith's on-site said Joe had bodyguards with him.

Here's the Joe Rogan interview with Natalie Pike and FSR, right after FSR beat Filler. The question Natalie asked at the end made me cringe a little I'm not sure if she was trying to be nice or if she really did not know much about who Joe Rogan was. I like her, though. She's a nice addition to the WNT team.

View attachment 927457

WNT NATALIE: Joe, I know you're a huge, huge supporter of 9-ball, a big, big supporter of the sport as well. And I heard in your commentary. You were talking—you said it is one of the most underrated sports in North America. For anybody to watch that, how could they not be obsessed with this sport?

JOE ROGAN: I think the real problem with pool is you really only appreciate it if you play it. I think that's the problem. And then when you see guys who play as good as him, it almost looks easy. So it's good to have a game like this where there are some mistakes and you get a few "ooh," a few scratches and a few tense moments and a few bad safeties. And it's—you know, it is a beautiful game. It's an unforgiving game. It's a precise game. And when you watch it played beautifully, like that runout he you just did when you know it's on the line for the—you know, to get to 10 like that, it was just fantastic.

WNT NATALIE: Joe, are you sticking around? What's your plans?

JOE ROGAN: I'm here for two days.

WNT NATALIE: Amazing. Well, thank you. I hope we can get you back on the comms table because—

JOE ROGAN: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. It was fun.

WNT NATALIE: You could have a future in 9-ball commentary.

JOE ROGAN: I'm pretty busy, but every now and again, I would love to come by.

WNT NATALIE: Well, thank you. We really enjoyed your commentary.

JOE ROGAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

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Rickhem said:

Agree completely. Billy is a huge supporter, and brings a lot of energy and positivity, remember him in the Uncle Sam outfit?

A couple years ago, while my girl and I were visiting Turning Stone to watch the tournament there, we took a break down in the casino for a bit. I was playing craps and Sky and Billy bought in at the table, and played for a bit. Aside from having heard their names, and having seen them play on YouTube, I didn't really know anything more about either of them that day. Sky seemed a bit more reserved, but happy and upbeat, and Billy was a big personality, he added a lot of life to that table. My impression was that he enjoyed whatever he did, and it seems that the other players all enjoy his company. They both made the time at that craps table fun, and they both are players that I like to watch playing pool.

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