Monday Night Open Mic

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Howdy Blog O’Doomers!

I hope everyone involved had a great North American celebration weekend, whether it was Canada Day on Friday or Independence Day on Monday.

Tommy and Scott have Money in the Bank reviews from the weekend. It was a perfectly acceptable show. Both of the ladder matches were fine. I wish they would just use one or two ladders max, but it’s the car crash/spot fest we’ve come to know. Liv Morgan got the Smackdown title after cashing in on Ronda Rousey. Good for her. She was part of a very deep women’s division in NXT and was very much overshadowed by some of the great talents there. But she stuck at it and found a place for herself on the mid card in NXT and then on the main roster and continued to improve and get herself over. Now I can assume they will feed her viciously to Charlotte as soon as Mrs. El Idolo returns from wedding leave, but until then I can enjoy the feel good story.

RAW is live tonight. Not sure of the card, but I bet it’ll be amazing. AEW YouTube is streaming too. I’m sure it will be amazing.

Keep. It. Clean.

Slammiversary 2022

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Slammiversary 2022
Date: June 19, 2022
Location: The Asylum, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Matthew Rehwoldt, Tom Hannifan

It’s the big twenty year celebration of Impact wrestling and the company is doing its best to flash back and move forward at the same time. The main event is Josh Alexander defending the World Title, but we also have a Queen of the Mountain match and Ultimate X to keep up the tradition. Let’s get to it.

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What the World Was Watching: WWF Superstars – March 23, 1991

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Vince McMahon and Roddy Piper are in the booth, broadcasting the last show of the taping from Orlando, Florida.

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Joshi Spotlight: Budokan- Discover New Heroine (Day One)

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BUDOKAN MIDSUMMER NIGHT- DISCOVER NEW HEROINE (Day One):
(Aug. 12th 1996):
* Welcome back to AJW, as they release this MONSTER interpromotional show in mid-1996, at the Budokan Hall! It’s just like the old days- AJW! FMW! JWP! JD’! GAEA Japan! Holy crap! It sounds like the biggest show in Joshi history… except it’s this weirdo “Veteran + Rookie” Tag Team Tournament so every match has amateurs in it, AND there’s also the U*Top Shoot Fight tournament on the same show, lol. MoskowDiskow, who regularly posts here, says this is one of those “the Matsunagas were losing their shirts so they let Rossy Ogawa book a show, and he did some weird Gimmick Show” situations.

Cagematch says this drew 4,500 to the Budokan, which is pretty crazy, but might be a lie… and also 4,500 is like 1/3 full, so if that’s papered/lying then HOLY CRAP. So this show is largely seen as a disaster. This show is also apparently quite infamous for injuries, but only on Day Two. So come see future stars and washouts give some decidedly iffy performances and take easy falls to veterans! And the “Joshi Style” wrestled in 5-8 minute matches instead of 16-minute wars!

DISCOVER NEW HEROINE TAG TOURNAMENT ROUND ONE:

AJA KONG & YOSHIKO TAMURA (AJW) vs. CHIGUSA NAGAYO & SAKURA HIROTA (GAEA Japan):
* Okay, so Aja/Chigusa is a huge “get” for a match, as their eras only barely overlap, and Aja was very young when Chigusa retired. I’m like “who the frig is Sakura Hirota?” but it turns out she’s making her DEBUT here, and is a new GAEA trainee to join the other recent ones this year. She’s actually still wrestling, making this a NON-washout GAEA hire! She’s a long-haired rookie in a pink Arena swimsuit (which was worn by Mariko Narita before her, but Narita vanished from the biz). Aja’s still a big, pushed star, and Yoshiko is a rookie getting a very sudden lot of emphasis. Aja is giving Chigusa the death glare to end all death glares, here- like I’m watching this on YouTube and even I’m kinda scared.

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The top five bottom five

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Scott,

Everybody’s roster seems bloated to me.

Can you name the 5 best workers that WWE could lose tomorrow and it would make little to no difference in the promotion?

Can you name the 5 best workers that AEW could lose tomorrow and it would make little to no difference in theirs?

Why does everyone want top 5s all the time?  
Ali could disappear from WWE tomorrow and no one would care at this point. 
AEW is literally paying Kip Sabian to sit in the front row with a bag on his head for the past few months. 

Coolest move

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Hi Scott,

which wrestling moves have you always personally thought of as the coolest? Not necessarily the “best” moves in kayfabe, but the ones you like the most as a fan. I always loved Savage's “jump over the top rope to the floor and snap their throat
on the rope on the way down” move and Mr. Perfect's rolling neck snap thingy. Honorable mention to Goldberg's gorilla press into a spinebuster when he hit it well.

Dibiase's fistdrop, Haku's thrust kick and yeah Perfect's necksnap was always awesome as well. 

I have another Theory

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Cody makes a miraculous returns at the Rumble and wins it.

Theory loses to Cena in the Wrestlemania Night 1 Main Event


Cody beats Roman in the Night 2 Main Event and instead of hearing Cody's theme to end tbe show it's…
NO CHANCE we hear.  Vince walks out with Theory. Vince has given his chosen one HIS theme as he walks off TV forever. Theory beats Cody and a riot ensues.

How about Theory stacking up Roman and Cody like cordwood to reference how Roman won last year?  I seriously have no idea what they see in Theory to justify this push.  

I have a Theory

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Brock and Roman do the Rocky 2 finish, at Summerslam, with Brock winning. Theory then comes out and cashes in on an exhausted Brock and wins.


Don't tell that wouldn't be the most WWE thing ever.

I cannot see either Roman or Brock agreeing to lie down for that dork, which is yet another reason why it was so dumb to put the briefcase on him.  It’s not like they should even take the belt off Roman in the first place.  If anything I could see them splitting up the belts again and having Theory be the RAW Megalithic champion or whatever they come up to replace the Universal title.  

Sunday Night Reset: July 3, 2022

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And guess what happens over a holiday weekend.  My toilet breaks down.  Thank heaven I rent and they have emergency maintenance.

Congratulations in chess to Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won the Candidates Tournament with a round to spare.  He will get a rematch against Magnus Carlsen for the world title.  Second place in the tournament comes down to one game, as Ding Liren is a half-point against Hikaru Nakamura, but those two will meet and Ding has the white pieces.  (Which is kind of like being the home team in soccer.)

Enjoy the night.

Abandoned Observer Awards

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This is a question I've asked the Observer directly but never did a response, so as someone who's yet to fully read the Observer archive yet should one day, is there a reason why there was such a massive purge in the awards handed out after 2003?  There used
to be Category A and Category B awards, and the majority of Category B awards were like “Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic” or “Worst Wrestler” or “The Mr. Fuji Award for Worst Manager”; general negative stuff.


I assume that, have those awards stuck around in today's social media climate, people would purposefully bait them with “stuff I don't like” nominees or dig at wrestlers for reasons outside of the squared circle, but it's fascinating that so many of these got
purged from the process after one year and people just don't bring it up… probably because it's meaningless trite.

I have no personal knowledge, but I think that the reasoning is that the awards were established as more of Dave's own personal tastes at the very beginning, and then as they expanded with a bigger readership the goofy stuff was less valuable and got essentially review-bombed as you speculate.  He may have said something in those year's awards, but I haven't looked it up to confirm.  

Kings Road

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Hey Scott! 
18 year reader here. Thanks for all the entertainment over the years. 

Email for your thoughts – I've been trying to dig up and watch the Cagematch top 100 this year to round out my own top 100 with (I've watched around 50 so far), and it's made me realize that I must be more of a fan of showmanship than “sport” when it comes to pro wrestling, b/c I have a really hard time getting into the 90s AJPW matches. The tag-matches are fun enough (increased action), but as for the singles, I'm finding them to be a fairly tedious watch.

I get that they're legitimately knocking each other's blocks off and dropping each other on their heads more than we would ever tolerate in a modern context, but that's not enough to make them entertaining for my tastes. 

What say you, Blog King?  Do they hold up, was it a time & place thing, is there maybe some key piece of info I'm missing that's necessary to enjoy them more, or is it nothing more than a minority opinion on my part? 

Thanks and hope the summer is treating you well thus far.

I'm with you, my brother.  For the 90s Japan stuff, my interests really only ever came from the New Japan junior heavyweight stuff.  I could appreciate the technique of the All Japan fellas dropping each other on their heads and I love a good lariat comeback sell, but I just couldn't get into the matches.  And not for lack of trying, I had a LOT of All Japan tapes. That said being, I goddamn LOVED Muta's 2000 comeback and his plodding matches with Tenryu and those guys where it was “dragon screw, figure-four, Shining Wizard” for 20 minutes and I'm unapologetic for it.  I'm complex that way.  

Name the AEW champs

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Off the top of your head, can you name every titleholder in AEW? This includes ROH, Japan, Mexico, etc.  

Well most of them are FTR so it’s not too bad.
World champion:  CM Punk
Interim World champion:  Jon Moxley
TNT champion:  Scorpio Sky
Women’s champion:  Thunder Rosa
TBS champion:  Jade Cargill
AEW World tag team champs:  Young Bucks
All Atlantic champion: Pac
FTW champ:  Ricky Starks
ROH World champ:  Jonathan Gresham
ROH TV champ:  Samoa Joe
ROH Tag champs:  FTR
ROH Women’s champ:  Mercedes Martinez
ROH Pure champ:  Wheeler Yuta
AAA / IWGP tag team champs:  FTR
That’s everyone, I think.  Who says they have too many champions?

 

Money In The Bank 2022

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Money In The Bank 2022
Date: July 2, 2022
Location: MGM Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada
Commentators: Byron Saxton Corey Graves, Jimmy Smith, Pat McAfee, Michael Cole

It’s the ladder show as we focus on becoming something close to the #1 contender. That means the show is going to be built around the two ladder matches, so there aren’t going to be many options for the rest of the card. There are enough title matches around to fill things out, but this is all about the ladder matches. Let’s get to it.

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What if? Moonsault Edition

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Lanny Poffo has this amazing cutting-edge finisher, but it doesn't really get over like it ought to… because Lanny.


What if it was his big brother, Randy Savage, instead? Would a proto-Moonsault as his finisher, rather than the flying elbow, have gotten him over even bigger (Bigger than Hogan?) or would that have been simply too much awesome for even “The Madness” to contain?

Savage already had bad knees and now you're booking him to do MOONSAULTS every night?  You're a monster.  

I’m Sorry Scott

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I watched an episode of XPW TV on Fite. 

The opening was the entire 4 1/2 minutes of Metallica's I Disappear and sadly that was the best part. 

Well that song does rule.  
I didn't even realize XPW was back.  Sounds like I'm not missing much.