Scott Keith – Scotts Blog of Doom!

Jesus balls. I've been watching WM35 off and on for the past week and I just passed the Kofi title win. Not only was Joan Jett still in The Runaways when this PPV started but I think Jesus was planning the menu for the Last Supper during the pre-show. This show makes WM4 look like In Your House: Beware of Dog Part 1.

Starting next week, it’s the WM 36 pregame show!

Bye Bye Brock?

I was as big of a Brock Lesnar fan as anybody and even traveled to Chicago to see his return match against John Cena. I even was a fan of the decision to have him break the Undertaker’s streak as it solidified him as an unstoppable monster on a different plane than the rest of the roster. But even I stopped giving a shit by the time he got the big red belt and obviously I wasn’t alone.

With Brock Lesnar jerking the curtain at Mania and basically being squashed by Seth Rollins, do you think we’ll ever see him again in a meaningful capacity? I could see him still doing the $audi shows, but even Vince by now has to realize that nobody else wants to see Brock get millions to have the same five-minute match anymore, right?

He’ll be back by Summerslam to con Vince out of another million with vague rumours of a fight with Daniel Cormier that will never happen. Maybe another couple of million to work the Fox debut.

Comics for beginners?

Hey Scott,

I’m a huge fan of the comics genre – love all the Marvel movies and Netflix shows, some of the TV shows, all of the old cartoons, even most of the DC movies. I read a lot of trivia/history of Marvel/DC stuff so feel like I have a solid base of knowledge. That said, I’ve never really gotten into reading actual comic books.

Do you have an opinion on the Marvel Unlimited online subscription library? Is it a good place to go for someone in my position?

Thanks

I've always found it way overwhelming the times that I've subscribed to it. There's a lot of stuff there and it's not very well organized as far as directing the reader to stuff if they don't know EXACTLY what they're looking for. Plus chunks are randomly missing, like for example I wanted to read the X-Force and X-Statix runs and it ended up that the first few issues of the X-Statix weren't added. I'd really be interested in seeing what DC Universe has to offer in comparison, but it's not yet available here in Canada.

Usually my recommendation would be to check bookstores, because everyone has a section for graphic novels now, and pick up a collection from a character you like and give it a try. Stuff these days is very geared towards 4 or 5 issue story arcs that can be put into trade paperback form a month later so it shouldn't be hard to pick up. Hey, even my local library has up to date stuff, so it won't even cost anything if you don't want to pay!

Paige movie

So, apparently the WWE/Rock-produced movie based on Paige's life made a nice profit at the box office & received generally positive reviews. Are you surprised?

Nothing the Rock does surprises me.

Viking Experience as Vince’s parting shot at Verne Gagne

What if this seemingly stupid name, the Viking Experience, is an elaborate troll job on Minnesota sports fans? It would make sense, given Vince's penchant for ruining Verne Gagne's life. They could do just like the NFL Vikings and always choke in big matches, miss easy moves that would have won them championships, pin their own teammate in a throwback to Jim Marshall's infamous wrong-way touchdown… There's tons of material there.

Cultaholic sez that the team was going to be called the Berzerkers until the literal last minute, when Vince changed his mind. So I doubt he'd have time to craft that kind of elaborate trolling backstory for them.

WWE Fan Council surveying for XFL?

Scott,

Check out a screenshot from today's WWE Fan Council survey. I haven't even finished watching Wrestlemania yet due to it's length, but WWE wants to know if football is too long because of commercial breaks. And asking if NFL is too politicized when the former CEO and current wife of the WWE owner is in the President's cabinet is rich…

They’re apparently going hardcore on the surveys at the moment and hopefully they actually listen to them. Although they had focus groups last year that said WM was too long and this year’s was longer.

Which is worse?

The Colons, sons of Puerto Rico become Fernando and Diego, Mexican Bullfighters

Tito Santana, former tag/IC champ is rechristened El Matador

Ricky Steamboat, former IC and NWA Champ is dressed as a lizard and christened The Dragon

War Raiders (Hanson & Rowe), the defending NXT Tag Champs who defended 10-days ago over Mania weekend are now literal Vikings in a team named for an Epcot excursion.

Better yet, explain why their NXT opponents are still Ricochet and Aleister Black instead of Colonel McFlip, and Crimson Moody?

People are really triggered by this one for some reason.

Lamer Name Change?

Okay, wracking my brain, but can’t think of a lamer name change than The Viking Experience? Literally the same guys, same characters, same look.

Anything else historically where the only thing they changed was the name that was this unnecessary? Aside from the recent “one name only trend”? Has to be something from the 2000s I’m forgetting about.

There was a point late in the run of the Val Venis character, and I can't remember if it was before or after the RTC change, where he was officially referred to as "The Big Valbowski" exclusively. That was pretty stupid considering that nickname was supposed to be his penis.

No ideas for WWE/Universal Titles?

Do they have any idea what they are doing with the WWE Championship and Universal Title moving forward? This is the 2nd week in a row on both Raw and Smackdown that Seth and Kofi were in meaningless, time killing tag team matches. I don't think I've ever seen the 2 weeks after WrestleMania where they didn't at least already name a No.1 Contender to 1 of their main Championships.

Everything just feels like it's killing time right now. Wrestlemania itself felt like 90% of the matches were just there to fill 7 hours. Especially with Seth, where the last champion is now gone for the foreseeable future and they didn't bring anyone over from Smackdown who could even be a contender. Unless they're turning AJ, which is possible I suppose. I guess there's always Baron Corbin.

Favorite Women’s Wrestler?

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you proclaim this, so I’ll ask. Who’s your favorite women’s wrestler of all time?

I’m pretty sure mine is Kairi Sane. Her selling, her pure babyface mannerisms, that Insane Elbow… a buddy of mine called her Ricky Steamboat. That’s an apt comparison.

Also up there for me are Molly Holly, heel NXT Sasha Banks and, of course, Trish Stratus.

Trish Stratus #1, Lita #2, and then everyone else is a distant third for me as far as favorites go.

AEW as a business

April 18, 2019April 18, 2019 by Scott Keith

There’s obviously been discussion ad nauseam about AEW and whether they need a TV deal, whether they are or should be viewed competition for WWE etc.

But my question is more about how exactly they function as a business. I read somewhere that they have 40 some wrestlers signed, plus I would assume they’ve got to have some sort of office staff in place. How are these people getting paid? Even if their next show is a huge success, is that really enough for guys like Jericho and Jim Ross to get paid, plus enough left over for the 36 executive producers to make something as well?

Tony Khan has a lot of money. Plus you don't start a business and instantly turn a profit, that's just not how it works. I'm pretty sure ownership is well aware that things are gonna be deeply into the red for the first while.

Which WM was better?

Hi Scott,

I noticed your WM 35 rant had circa 800 comments compared to the 1600 comments for the WM 34 rant. It's similar on other sites too, so it seems WM 35 overall had noticeably less interest from fans than WM 34, which I find interesting.

I saw WM 35 receive a lot of praise among IWC, which do you think is better? 35 or 34?

And what in your opinion is the best WM since WM 25 (including)? Outside of 30, that one is obvious.

Oh yeah, interest in this year’s show was WAYYY down. Last year did 24,000 pageviews, which stands as an all time record for the blog, and this year’s show did 17,000. Both this year’s show and last year’s suffered from the same problem quality wise, in that they started good and then trailed off badly at the halfway mark. But 34 had some tremendous matches by that point. Whereas this year had Kofi vs Bryan and little else.

As for the best one if I’m not allowed to pick the actual best one, I’m gonna have to say the one with the first Rock vs Cena match. At least I can remember that match.

Elias

Do you think they pull the trigger on Elias soon? He's not a great wrestler, but he has a ton of charisma who gets some of the best reactions each week and the company seems to love him.

I'm hoping he weasels his way into winning Money In The Bank this year. I'd love to see him with the briefcase and eventually cash in on Kofi.

No one ever argues about his charisma, but he’s got NOTHING in the ring. Seth Rollins got one good match out of him a year ago and that’s pretty much it. If all you’ve got is charisma and a funny character, that’s the Honky Tonk Man. Honky is great at what he did, but that’s not a top guy. IC title, sure, put it on Elias all day long. But I think he’s already been exposed at the higher level they thought he could be and that’s why his push got killed.

Worst Time Of The Year For Wrestling?

Do you think this is the worst time of the year to be a pro wrestling fan? I read this somewhere recently, but I don't agree with it. I think Fall will always be the worst in my view; Monday Night Football comes back on, so the WWE starts phoning it in until January. Much worse than the post Wrestle-Mania lull period, IMO.

It’s not bad if there’s interesting stuff coming out of the draft, but this year was just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic as far as creative direction. Like, what are they gonna do once they’ve finished milking the Shield “last ever” matches and have to come up with actual storylines again?

But yeah, September through December is DEATH. Brand supremacy? Table matches? Wake me for the Rumble.

Striking while the iron is hot

Which wrestlers did you think WWE (or any company) should've pulled the trigger and pushed to a world title but either never did or did it too late? Two of the biggest ones for me is Braun in 2017 against Brock, Braun was WHITE HOT going into that match but
lost clean and has never gotten close to being as over as he did ever again and the second would be RVD in 2001, the guy was the MVP of the Alliance angle broke out to be a big star that having him beat Austin in 2001 could've made him a mega star but did
it years later long after his peak in popularity. What say you?

Yeah, the RVD run in 2001 is certainly the gold standard for it. Say what you will about WCW, but they pulled the trigger on Goldberg when he was peaking and it paid off bigtime.

Wrestling’s biggest carny

Which wrestling promoter do you think is the biggest carny?

PT Barnum.

Oh, wait, WRESTLING promoter? Still Vince unless someone else manages to top him for bait-and-switch tactics in the near future.

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