Scott Keith

Impact Wrestlings Throwback Throwdown Thought


https://411mania.com/wrestling/impact-wrestling-to-air-throwback-throwdown-next-week/


i haven’t followed a second of impact since whenever Angle fought Joe, but In the age of ride alongs, Twitter , kayfabe-ridden network specials, I feel WWE has really missed the boat on multiple occasions , ahem old school raws and anniversary specials , for superstars to emulate  their favorite wrestlers of the past for a night.  years ago I was DYING for Savage-clothed CM Punk to battle a Lex-Express Cena!


Whoever thought up those names must be a student of Bruce Hart.  Bill Ding!  Ray Strack!    I’m so gonna find this one and recap it.  

NXT Women’s Division


I don't think Triple H gets enough credit for always being able to rebuild the NXT Womens Division after people get called up. Vince pratically took all of his core girls (to rebuild the main rosters women's division) then raided out the rest a few months later for the brand split and left him with Asuka only but he made it work. At this point last year, people were wondering who were they gonna get to program with Shayna once Kairi goes up. Enter Io who people for sure thought was a shoe in for a title win. Didn't happen and now within the span of one month, he's made viable contenders out of Team Kick, Candice, Bianca Belair, Io, Mia Yim and Rhea Ripley. We also still have the great Santana Garrett still waiting to debut, Rachel Ellering, Lacey Lane, Shotzi Blackheart and newly signed Ivelisse waiting in the wings. This isn't even counting the inevitable NXT Debut of Toni Storm. Could this be the most stacked a women's roster has ever been?

Problem is that there’s still Baszler on top and she’s not likely to drop the title anytime soon.  It’s been two years now, if Shayna isn’t ready to be called up, she never will be.  

Yesterday’s Wrestler’s today


Hey Scott, I follow both UFC and WWE and got me thinking, how would Shamrock and Severn fair today in WWE? Would they be booked as monsters and special draws like Lesnar? I actually would have loved to see Brock vs Severn. 

Shamrock would fit perfectly, but would probably get tired of developmental and go back to UFC.  Severn, forget it.  Wouldn’t work at all.  

Mr. Perfect in 1996


What happened to Mr. Perfect in the WWF in late 1996?  I remember he was acting as a Manager for Triple H after turning on Marc Mero.  He then seemingly disappeared from the wrestling scene altogether, only to reappear in WCW in mid 1997.  

He had a very large insurance settlement thanks to his supposed career ending back injury and Vince had to offer him a giant contract as incentive to give it up.  So once he got the offer, he turned around and took it to Eric Bischoff, who gave him a bigger offer, and he went to WCW instead.  

Survivor Series/Takeover

Bryan Alvarez went off on a great rant on Observer radio this morning about why the buildup for next weekend's WWE shows sucks so bad this year, and I wanted to echo his sentiments.
Myself and many other hardcore, longtime fans are basically the only ones left watching this product, and it's SO FUCKING COMPLICATED to follow who is facing who and why.  You've got Takeover with 2 different Wargames matches and a series of matches and angles building that up and determining who's on which team there.  Plus, running concurrently, you've got many of the same people in that match participating in a series of interbrand tag team matches for the next night, with another series of angles and matches determining who's on which team THERE.  Some people are on both, some are on neither, some are in unrelated three-way interbrand matches with the secondary champions.  But there's also a couple of non-interbrand World title matches on the show with their OWN separate buildup.  NXT is invading both shows, but RAW and Smackdown aren't invading each other and the whole thing has a vibe of NXT v. Main Roster, but we're still supposed to buy into the "brand supremacy" of RAW v. Smackdown as well as the NXT brand fighting for whatever.  It's a mess.  When you need a literal scorecard to figure out who is fighting who in what watches and why, your booking SUCKS.

SS 88

Reading your review…with all the injuries and dead weight, why not take the tag teams and add them to the other matches instead? 

Imagine having twin towers, brain busters and Dibiase vs megapowers, rockers and Hercules.  Warrior, beefcake, hart foundation, blue blazer vs honky, bass, Valentine, Davis, bad news.  Jake, Duggan, powers of pain, Tito vs Andre, Rude, perfect and demolition.

The beauty of the multi man matches is that you can have an intricate and long match

Also, I think one issue with today is that you obviously see the same match a million times.  I personally would do these multi man matches a lot more . It eats up time and you can even test out new feuds. 

You'll notice, for example, that the 89 show is drastically different than this one, because this one didn't have the Hogan-Andre build behind it and basically flopped in comparison.  So they did in fact eliminate the tag team Survivor match the very next year and tweaked some of the stuff.  
And I'm long been a proponent of doing more tag team matches, because tag team wrestling is awesome.  Plus you never know who's going to have crazy chemistry together, like Cesaro and Sheamus. 

Boulder dash


Hi Scott

Important question, watching some nitro in the network, whatever happened to Horace Hogan?

Every Hogan hanger on got some gig with the Hulkster after WCW folded except his own nephew. What gives?

He wasn’t a complete f-up in the ring and you’d think the name alone would spark some interest in him but according to his wiki page he pretty much jacked it in after a short stint in wwe developmental in 02, I’d think he’d dine off the association for years

Cheers

I don’t know or care about the specifics of his career and decision to get out, but not everyone is cut out for the WWE system and I suspect Horace was one of them.  

SD ratings and Baron Corbin


So SD hit a new low of 2.33 on FOX down 1.5 million since they started and the 18-35/18-49 demos are scary bad. In a related story, Baron Corbin is beaming heavily pushed and on TV again. I clocked it between his opening promo/“comedy” routine and presence at ringside during the tag match, he was on screen the first 30 min of SD.

Last year he was publicly scapegoated for all the problems. The follow up was PPV wins over Strowman, a main event 6-man vs The Shield, retiring Angle at WM, a LOOONG main event title feud with Rollins and now he’s the KOTR with another goober stable with Roode and Ziggler.

They’ve tried. They book him strong and he’s a hateable heel, but ratings are ratings and people turn off when’s he’s featured. What will it take for Vince to realize Corbin just isn’t the guy.

18-49 year old males see BC and leap off the television. That’s indisputable.

And yet they’ll keep putting him on TV in prominent spots.  That’s Vince for ya.  

Worst sell-job of an injury?


What do you think was the worst sell job of an injury by a wrestler?  I don’t think anything will ever top Austin dropping HHH in his limo from a forklift that reached the height of a small skyscraper at Survivor Series 2000, yet HHH returned to Raw as good as new 2 weeks later.  
Mr Wrestling after the plane crash with Ric Flair.  He was back the next week!  Didn’t even sell the extensive injuries he suffered. 

(Dammit, this is what happens when I post these from my phone…)

I FEEL LIKE GOD!!!!!




Where do you put Mr. Backlund's post Survivor Series 94 promo on the pantheon on all-time great promos? Personally, I find it a masterpiece that is criminally underrated, probably due to the fact that it was all rendered obsolete just a couple days later.

Hindsight being 20/20, I wonder if Vince wishes he'd have just stuck with Backlund as champ until at least Wrestlemania.

No way, Backlund had a shelf life in that role and it was clearly about a week after he won the belt.  

UK Wrestling Scene

Idk how familiar you are with the UK promotions but IPW just announced they would cease live events starting 2020 I believe, marking the end of an era for one of the UKs biggest promotions. This follows 3 other promotions that closed down recently. This all started with the rise of NXT UK and them signing all the bigger UK stars not named Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr. Or Marry Scurll. So my question is did Triple officially destroy the UK Wrestling Scene or is just a coincidence and just the UK scene naturally dying out after a hot period?

I don't know enough about it to comment specifically, but certainly it's right out of Vince's playbook to eliminate the competition in just the manner described.  

Rikishi & Too Cool

Mr Keith……….a couple of quick Rikishi & Too Cool questions………

1.   Rewatching 2000 programing on the network was a nice reminder of just how over they were for the first half of 2000.   What got them so over?   The dancing?   Did they have a big “moment” of sorts that got them as over as they were?

2.   The crowds were going nuts for them.   Did the WWE utilize them properly at that time or do you think there was more they could have done with them all?

3.   The Rikishi heel turn in late 2000 – terrible idea correct?

1.  It was the dancing, yeah.  They didn't really have a big "moment" but rather it just built organically.  Rikishi himself had a title match with HHH that turned him into a big star though.
2.  They were used about as well as they were going to be.  Too Cool got a tag title reign out of it and Rikishi was never going to be a top guy.
3.  Yes, although it was more damaging to walk it back immediately afterwards and have HHH be the mastermind all along.  Made Kish look like a doofus and killed whatever they were building him up to be.  

Takeover/Survivor Series

Hey Scott,

For the NXT people who are wrestling at Takeover: War Games and then Survivor Series the next night, how is that going to work exactly?

Will this hamper the show making them extra safe in the Wargames matches so as not to ruin their participation the next night?

Or do they just put in a half ass effort as part of a multi person match with 14 other people in it at Survivor Series?

I’m thinking they’re going to have some emergency backups on hand ready to go.

Either way, this has got to be tough on the NXT roster.

Don't worry, they'll all get jobbed out in less than a minute anyway. 

Punk AEW?


If his contract is with Fox and not WWE do you think technically he could show up on AEW TV or do you think FOX put it in his contract that he cant?

Do people really think that FOX is run by a bunch of idiot rubes?  Of course it's in his contract. 

Teardrop Suplex. Why?

Hey Scott,

Just wondering if anyone's ever discussed the reasoning behind making HBK's initial finisher the teardrop suplex?

I've never seen anyone do this move before/since HBK and no matter how I look at it, it was a stupid move and even stupider for Shawn.

1. It's a visually uninteresting move

2. If anything, looks less lethal than a regular backdrop suplex (probably more dangerous since you can't control the over guy's bump).

3. It's awkward in terms of when a crowd is supposed to pop for it. (IE: There's no surprise of a stunner, no anticipation like in submission holds, no anticipation for the move like the superkick stomp. It's just, "Shawn's going for the suplex… and he did it.")

4. It's stupid to give Shawn a power move as a finisher when A) it goes completely against his style and B) he was one of the smaller guys on the roster at that point.

It's just such a clear brainfart and yet HBK stuck with the move for 3 years. Why?


I have literally never even thought about this question before.  
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CM Punk not working for WWE

Much has been made of the fact that CM Punk is kinda, sorta back with WWE. But he’s actually under contract with Fox with no need to toe the WWE company line. Is it just me waiting for, and looking forward to, him to complain about some of the rotten booking when he appears on the Backstage show?
I'm PRETTY sure he's smart enough not to go on that show and complain about lousy booking.  Just a hunch. 

The ending of NXT annoyed me and I wonder if it’s just me

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1194814796509544448 

I caught the NXT overrun because people were raving about the main event match (which was suitably insane) and the Bayley attack annoyed me for 2 very specific, if small, reasons.

1- What were the 3 women doing in the ring for as Bayley is doing her attack? Did they just sit there & watch before deciding to help? The ring is like 20 feet away from this. It's not a Raw or SD arena where it can take 10-15 seconds to get up the ramp. SAVE YOUR TEAMMATE! 

2- Bianca gets close enough to attack/hit Bayley at the end during the chase, but just pretends to (??) and lets Bayley run backstage. Then they huddle over the fallen champ, and all act like they want to go get Bayley, but they just look around as the show ends as if Bayley will reappear. BIANCA COULD HAVE HIT BAYLEY!

Maybe I'm just an old fart of a wrestling fan, but that whole scene was completely not believable to me. 
I have yet to watch NXT but I do enjoy a good nitpicking. 

John Morrison signing with the WWE

Didn't John Morrison-Mundo sign with the WWE in late September?  If so, any idea where he's been?  

No clue.  The announcement was sort of made, and then WWE started denying it while putting up "Best of John Morrison" videos on YouTube, and then that was the last we heard of it.  Maybe they just signed him to a Legends-style deal to keep him away from AEW?  Wouldn't be that much of a stretch for them.  

AEW up 16% after PPV

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/dwfqyi/wednesday_ratings_aew_43_nxt_25/ 
http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Final-Cable-2019-Nov-13-WED.png
Nearly back up to a million viewers again for AEW after Full Gear.  Glad to see that some of their strategies in laying out the show worked this time around, and it was a hell of a show to boot.  
NXT drops on the Network tonight so I'll probably check it out this weekend because I hear it was good, too.   

Marko Stunt Tag Team Specialist


I really don't care about Marko Stunt wrestling, but if he's going to be in tag matches couldn't they at least use him right? It should be the easiest story to tell with Jungle Boy not wanting to tag Marko in because he knows that Marko is in over his head, getting his ass beat after going alone for most of the match, then Marko getting tagged in somehow and showing a lot of heart before taking the fall. Instead they have Marko Stunt start the match, against what's supposed to be two of their best teams. 
You have a weird idea of what gets people over.