Tuesday Night Thread

Well, I don’t know how they’re gonna top RAW for newsworthiness, but tonight is the go home show for Evolution, so maybe they’ll try.

Elsewhere, the World Series begins, and the Conners continues trying to milk the grave of Roseanne’s career.

Have a great night!

What the World Was Watching: WCW Worldwide – March 11, 1995

–Tony Schavione and Bobby Eaton are in the booth and they are taped from Orlando, Florida.

–A replay of Steven Regal rejecting Bobby Eaton’s offer to be his tag team partner on last week’s episode of WCW Saturday Night is shown.

Read moreWhat the World Was Watching: WCW Worldwide – March 11, 1995

Jewel in the Bank…


With it increasingly likely this Saudi show is gonna happen, can we stop the pretension and get Vince to go full troll, turning the horribly vague World Cup tournament into a literal Money in the Bank ladder match?


They can gimmick the case to fly open for the winner, spilling out stacks of hundreds, or Riyals for a local flavour (yes, that's flavour with a "u" my fellow Commonwealthian).

Better yet, put the performers appearance bonus in the briefcase ($2-3MM should cover it). Show up and they get to divvy up the cash after the match while Ted Dibiase's theme plays in the locker room.

THEY'LL MAKE MILLIONS!

Literally in this case.  

Questions


Hey Scott, hope all is well. Few Questions.


1. My prayers are with Roman. When Roman returns, he will be the most over face.
2. I think Dean has become the most hated heel. That took some major guts to do that. 
3. What are the odds Team Elite joins WWE at the Rumble?

The first two aren't questions.  And I'd put odds on Omega's guys joining at around 20%.  I think they're gonna explore every crackpot money mark and indy fed who can maintain the merch lifestyle they've grown accustomed to first. 

Roman Reigns Thought



Scott,
It really sucks that Roman Reigns' leukemia has resurfaced. I wonder if Vince knew about this beforehand, and if the decision to make Reigns The Man was influenced by that?

They wouldn't even medically clear Daniel Bryan because of concussion issues.  The doctors are not going to let Roman work a day if they know he has cancer.  

This Roman Thing

This is definitely a work to take attention off of the Saudi Arabia thing.  He distracts from that, then gets to come back as a surprise entrant in the royal rumble and finally get over as a babyface.  Do they really think we won't see through that?  On the off chance that it isn't a work, frankly I'm happy I don't have to watch him wrestle anymore.  I wouldn't want him to die or anything.  Just be sick enough that the wwe can't force me to see his smug face.  Does that make me a horrible person?  Hoping that a 33yo guy with three small children has cancer so I don't have to deal with the unspeakable torture that is being made to watch him attempt to entertain me?  That's reasonable, right?

Man, watching this business really messes people up.  

Monday Night Raw – October 22, 2018

Monday Night Raw
Date: October 22, 2018
Location: Dunkin Donuts Center, Providence, Rhode Island
Commentators: Corey Graves, Renee Young, Michael Cole

It’s the go home show for Evolution so expect a lot of hearing about Nikki Bella vs. Ronda Rousey, which somehow is the highest profile match we can have on what was supposed to be a top level show. Other than that we have Crown Jewel next week, even though we’re not allowed to hear where the show is taking place. Let’s get to it.

Read moreMonday Night Raw – October 22, 2018

The Hits Keep Coming


https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/22/wwe-to-hold-saudi-pay-per-view-event-despite-khashoggi-killing.html


Doesn't look like is going to be able to outrun this.

Oh, dude, did they seriously put that picture of the urn on there?  How did that make it past their HR guys?  


STOP THE DAMN MATCH!  WWE is Mick Foley getting hurled off the cell at this point.  

Monday Night Open Mic

Howdy Blog O’Doomers!

Hopefully you all had a great weekend and are having a great Monday. If you haven’t already you should read Scott’s review of the full “Last Battle of Atlanta” card that was released on the Network and if you have the Network than by all means watch the show.

We are a week from Evolution and two weeks from the Blood Money PPV so we’re looking at back-to-back go home shows. The Evolution card is still pretty undetermined besides the Battle Royale, Charlotte-Becky, Ronda-Bella and Mickie/Alexa vs. Trish/Lita. Assuming they will do the NXT rematch and the Mae Young final as well but who knows.

A bunch of guys missed shows over the weekend and apparently Reigns is injured. And there’s now word from Barstool that John Cena and Daniel Bryan won’t work the Saudi show so who the hell knows. Bottom line is both of these PPVs are a mess going into the final stretch.

Giants-Falcons is your Monday night game. Nine NBA games and four NHL games. World Series starts tomorrow. Basic TV fare fills up the hours otherwise.

Keep it clean!

Unbeatablility



I’ve been watching wrestling since 1976.  It may have been my youth, but there were
some wrestlers who seemed to simply be unbeatable in the first half of my 40
years as a fan.  Bruiser Brody in the
early 1980’s.  The Road Warriors from
1983 to 1985.  The Undertaker from 1991
to 1994.  Vader in 1992 and 1993.  Bill Goldberg in 1997 and 1998. 

Then I reached my late 20’s and my interest waned.  Has anybody had that aura of unbeatablility
in the last twenty years?  Having just
started watching again in the last couple years, Minoru Suzuki seems to have had
it in NJPW for the last year.  Anybody
else?  What about somebody coming along
like a Jeff Cobb or WALTER?  Is it there
anymore?

Or has the lose of kayfabe ended that forever?

Brock Lesnar?  Undertaker?  Stephanie McMahon?  Nikki Bella?

Vince Russo


I miss him. I will take any of his storylines over no storylines. I know HHH and Stephanie would never allow him back with their fragile egos but could he make it back to a promotion I could watch. 2018 wrestling is terrible. Save.US.Russo.TV14

Your mom probably put paint chips in your cereal when you were a kid, didn’t she?  Asking for a friend to settle a bet.  

A Journey Through Memphis: CWA TV 3/22/1986

Frank Morrell is determined to lead Billy Travis to the AWA International Championship. A sit-down interview Jeff Jarrett following the vicious attack he endured two weeks ago. Joe LeDuc returns to in-ring competition. AWA Southern Tag Team Champions The Fantastics defend against the Mod Squad, who have put up $3,000 in gold coins.

Read moreA Journey Through Memphis: CWA TV 3/22/1986

The SmarK Rant for The Last Battle of Atlanta–10.23.83

The SmarK Rant for WWE Network Hidden Gems – THE LAST BATTLE OF ATLANTA!

Man, I know people have been saying we need more Georgia Championship Wrestling on the Network, but HOLY SHIT. So yeah, a couple of months back someone realized that they actually had the tape of the famous Buzz Sawyer v. Tommy Rich cage match in an unlabeled pile of master tapes, and decided to put that match up on the Network as a “hidden gem”. So now, just to be even more crazy awesome, I guess they figured “Fuck it, let’s put the ENTIRE SHOW on the Network”. John McAdam probably could have put his kids through college if he had this back in the early 90s when tape trading was a thing.

Taped from Atlanta, GA (duh), 10.23.83. No commentary for this.

Read moreThe SmarK Rant for The Last Battle of Atlanta–10.23.83

Anyone other than Diesel winning the title from Backlund

Do you think WWF should have chosen someone else other than Diesel for the MSG title win over Backlund?  If they had kept the title on Bob, would Bob vs Bret III worked as a WM Main Event?  Could Lex Luger have worked as the guy who beat Backlund ala Hulk over
Iron Sheik in '84?


Was the plan going into WM XI, that they would come back with Diesel-Shawn II at WM XII?

The problem wasn't even that Diesel was or wasn't the guy to get the title.  It's that they had him win it based on one character, and then completely changed the character literally the very next show he was on.  No one's getting over with that kind of meddling.  

As for long-term plan, I don't think they had one.  I think in Vince's eyes it was 

1) Get the title onto Diesel and make him the next Hogan
2) ?????
3) Profit!

Nash was definitely supposed to be the long-term guy, though.  But where they would have gone with that, we definitely didn't know at the time.

Hogan 1998 and wrestlers getting stale

Hi Scott,

I've been listening to a few podcasts recently that one way or another talk about Hulk Hogan's run in 1998 and what stood out to me was that during the summer when he was feuding with DDP/Malone and losing to Goldberg he seemed like he was still a hot character with a lot left in the tank, but by the Warrior feud just 2 or 3 months later he'd already cooled off significantly. 

Was this the actual case or was his star already falling earlier in the year? What do you think happened, overexposure/a stale act combined with an audience that was getting sick of the NWO and wanting other things (Goldberg/Horsemen/Wolfpac/Hart)? WWF making everything else look uncool by comparison?

Also for the sake of blog conversation who are the wrestlers you think went from hottest act to coldest in the shortest amount of time?

As for the last question, Bob Backlund in 1994.  World champion one week, midcard geek the next.

Hogan's star was already somewhat falling, along with all of WCW, during most of 1998.  Goldberg himself was hot, but the company was trending downwards as RAW destroyed them systematically and everyone started to look uncool as a result.  In particular, nWo Wolfpac really made Hogan's group of second-stringers look lame by comparison, and it didn't help that he was still booking himself to be top guy while Goldberg was the World champion and hottest act.  

Evolution


Hi Scott,


With the recent reunion of the Evolution stable and the upcoming PPV of the same name, what are the odds that we see the formation of the female version of Evolution?

I know we've had the Riott Squad and Absolution fail, but what if, hypothetically, we had Asuka and Shayna Baszler as legit, established badasses team up with Trish or Lita with Stephanie McMahon "endorsing" them? Do you see that getting over?
They literally can't even keep track of a storyline where Bayley and Sasha Banks are a tag team and then break up.  And I still have no idea when or how Mickie James turned heel.  So no, anything beyond that is not going to happen. 

The Goldberg push

Hi Scott 

I’m slowly working my way through nitro and Thunder on the network, I’m up to spring of 98 and I’m seeing the Goldberg push in detail for the 1st time. Without any real programme in his first 6 months (well apart from the crap with Mongo) he caught on like nobody I’ve seen before or since.

So to actually get round to my question, one of the oddest knocks I’ve seen on him at times online is that anyone would have gotten over with such a push but isn’t that just complete bs? Dude got over beating Scotty Riggs and Jim Powers whilst it took 6 months of Lesnar wrestling to crickets before finally beating Hogan and Rock to get half the reaction Goldberg got as just one example. So was he lucky right time right place or a true once in a lifetime phenom, what say you?

People online are stupid.  Goldberg got over because he got over.  If you could get anyone over with the same push, we'd be talking about how Wrath changed the business or that dude Crimson in TNA is a former multi-time champion.  They even tried the same push with Sid later on and that failed, too.  He was a once in a lifetime phenom, if you have to choose between those two options.