Scott Keith

Two night WrestleMania is apparently back

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https://mobile.twitter.com/Uncle_Madd/status/1350605494021468164


2022 & 2023 (for now) appear to be one night shows. Guessing they are spliting it into 2 nights for the gate, as they can safely get about 15-20k into Tampa's football stadium with social distancing. 

I gotta say, from the perspective of a viewer, YAWN to the same boring locations year after year.  California, Texas, Florida, maybe throw in something in the New York area every few years, rinse and repeat.  Whatever happened to the rumored Minny show, I wonder?  Or why not do an international show like from Wembley Stadium?  

Anyway, I'm glad to see 2 night WM return this year.  It's a much better viewing experience that way.  

How would you, SCOTT KEITH, have ended the nWo?

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Preferably a non comedy answer. If you had control of the WCW universe, when/where/how would you have ended the nWo angle?


Bonus question: what's the big angle and/or feud that proceeds it?


I think it's pretty rich that YOU are demanding a non-comedy answer given some of the emails I've published on your behalf, but the real answer is of course Sting beating Hogan at Starrcade 97, cleanly, and then the nWo turning on Hogan the next night on Nitro because he dropped the ball.  Then the Outsiders can go off and do their own thing, and Hogan can go off and do his own thing, and if the remaining losers want to continue on and call themselves something else then so be it, but that was the logical end of the nWo storyline and that's where it should have stopped one way or another.  

Not a fair fight

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I know alot of fans want to make AEW vs WWE into this big war like the Monday night battles but really it's not even close. It's more like arguing a college team like Alabama could beat the worst NFL team, which they couldn't but it's fun to discuss. Yes AEW may come close in demos of Raw and beat NXT on a regular basis. But how can you compare one league that only has to fill two hours of programming a week vs another league that fills 7 hrs a week? Obviously AEW is going to be must see just because it's only on one day. WWE has 3 shows plus content for the network to pump out. And if you really want to compare numbers weekly shouldn't you add up all of WWE numbers vs all of AEW numbers? WWE has about 6-7 million eyes on its products a week vs about million a week for AEW if you add in Dark. That seems pretty one sided to me. 

And also how long will AEW keep getting to use the built in excuse “We've only been around for a year” when they fail or succeed. You have said it yourself a few times even. Its not like they are some grassroots league that built themselves up from nothing. The owner has access to billions of his dad's dollars, they have multiple household names like Jericho, Cody, and Mox to attract viewers, they own a nice looking venue to broadcast from, and are on one of the biggest cable networks who has a history showing wrestling. Which is why it debuted to 1.4 million people, but they couldn't keep it going. I think what MLW or ECW in the 90s did is way more impressive, especially how they have to keep rebuilding stars. Even TNA/Impact back in the day was impressive with the numbers they put up, and for a time they went against Raw on Mondays.

AEW has a niche audience that loves them and there is nothing wrong with that. They are just not on WWE's level and that isn't an insult but most of their fans will take it that way. Do some WWE wrestlers want to go there, for sure, cause they have more creative freedom and think the grass may be greener. I have yet to see that work out, looking at you Miro! But for the most part WWE fears them cause it gives wrestlers leverage. 


See, when people talk about “moving the goalposts”, this is what they're referring to.  

Shameless plug for Thea Trinidad and myself!

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Hello Scott!

It’s ol’ faithful, Bonzai! For those who haven’t kept up in the daily threads for a while, I was hired at the end of last year to be the video editor of Thea Trinidad’s (FKA Zelina Vega in WWE) Youtube channel, which was relaunched today into a gaming channel, so here I am with a shameless plug! To say this has been both a daunting and wonderful creative challenge would be an understatement on both counts, and it’s been an amazing opportunity to go from being a fan of a talent to working in daily collaboration with her and both of us embarking on this channel as our new day jobs.

Basically, my gig is to take her full live-streams and mine the best minutes for comedic effect, with enough visual cutaways and video game audio gags to make even Maffew blush (or sue; and if Maffew sees this and asks “You got any Simpsons gags, mate?”, there’s a split-second one in the next episode!). This debut ep has Thea playing “Among Us” with some special guests including Ronda Rousey and Saraya (aka Paige) on the “we know them from TV fighting” side and folks like Jirard The Completionist and Grandpoobear on the “professional streamers who are famous and popular” side. Any support with a like and subscribe would be greatly appreciated! 

PS: Yes, I have briefly met Aleister Black, and I only mildly embarrassed myself.

https://youtu.be/F2Qssw5bZI8

Best of luck! 

Tom Magee: Klingon Bastard

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Happy New Year, Scott!

Sure, everyone loves that Tom Magee match with Bret, and that time he lifted all the cheese, but what about the time he played Fek'lhr, the guardian of the gates of Klingon hell? 


Does this make him the first wrestler to appear on Star Trek, opening the door for Rock and Big Show? 

Man if Lex Luger's not careful he's gonna get usurped on the blog. 

Ratings for Particular Tegan Nox Matches

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Hi Scott,

Good day. Been a reader of your blogs for some time now. I just wanted to know your match ratings for 2 matches involving NXT diva Tegan Nox, hoping you are familiar with them.

1. Tegan Nox vs Dakota Kai – NXT January 29, 2020
2. Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match – NXT Great American Bash, July 1, 2020
Didn't watch either one.  I probably wouldn't particularly remember even if I had, but if she's your favorite, more power to you. 

Monday Night Wars, US Only?

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Hi Scott. 

I've been enjoying reading the Wrestling Observer flashbacks on your blog, especially since we're now into the Monday Night Wars. 

This got me thinking. As a lad in his teens living in the UK, I grew up on World of Sport wrestling and then, when that vanished in the late 80s, the WWF. 

I wasn't able to watch RAW at the time, but I never used to miss Superstars. I was aware of WCW, hell I even had a WCW LCD game where you could play as Arn Anderson or Sting, but I didn't follow it, for me, it was the WWF. 

WWF was the only wrestling I had available at the time and therefore was the only one I watched. 

Truth be told, I wasn't even aware of the “War” and took the Huckster skits as jabs at the older, now gone, wrestlers. Think was probably 2001 when I first heard the term (which coincides with when I got internet access)

My question is, was this the case for most people outside of the US, or was it just me living a sheltered life? 

Probably just you, although I of course was hyper-aware of it due to living on the internet at the time, even though I couldn't watch either show truly live.  But everyone's experience is different.  There's probably even some people right now who don't even know there's a Wednesday Night War going on and haven't even picked a side to hate yet! 

Tom Magee has been surpassed

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Hi Scott,

Since Tom Magee is a favourite of the blog I thought you might be interested in this. During the World's Strongest Man competition in 1983 Magee apparently deadlifted over 1000 lbs of cheese in New Zealand, a record that stood for 37 years. But during this year's WSM (which I highly recommend), Olekseii Novikov broke that record, though sadly deadlifting regular metal weights rather than cheese or any other milk product. Novikov went on to win the tournament, bringing a tear to my eye and raising hopes that he will be another Magee, perhaps having a three star dark match with AJ Styles some time in the late 2020s.


Pix of the cheese deadlift or GTFO.  You can’t tease me with something like that and leave me hanging.  

Huber/Lee/Harper

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Scott,

Hope all is well.

I didn’t know Luke Harper/Brodie Lee/Jon Huber.

The closest I came was seeing him live have an awesome match at RAW in Brooklyn in 2014.

My anti-Cena bias at the time led me to immediately marvel at Harper’s work and appreciate how much the guy can go.

Anyway, I watched the WWE Best of Luke Harper special they put on the Network today.

I got to say for a guy to make the entire Wyatt family and especially Randy Orton of all people tear up just talking about him speaks volumes.

This was obviously an incredible person whose friends and family were very lucky to have known him.

The video they put with Harper tearing up talking about his son is a heartbreaker as well.

Can’t imagine how his family is dealing.

The special is definitely worth a watch at any rate.



Definitely sounds like it’s worth a watch. 

Judas in your lungs

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Chris Jericho reveals he tested positive for COVID back in September, despite having no symptoms of the virus. https://t.co/ACUvIBK8wN

Jericho was on TV a lot in September.

Have i said how he's an idiot?

Saying that Jericho has made some questionable life choices this past year is a big understatement.  

Koko vs. “The Patriot”

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An item that became fairly popular with the internet was video of a Memphis squash where Koko Ware just massacred a knockoff Patriot.  Was it ever established just what this guy did/said to get Koko to go off on him the way he did?

I’m not familiar with that video, actually.  Was it Doug Gilbert maybe?  

Horrifying question about Starrcade 95

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Or potentially what could have been. So we all remember the Dungeon Of Doom yeah? We all certainly remember THE YETI. Here's the thing. The Yeti was presented as being originally AHEAD of The Giant in the pecking order. He was introduced right before Halloween
Havoc and the entire show built up as The DOD's diabolical master plan or some such shit. So Hogan faces Giant at HH. Was he originally supposed to be face the goddamned Yeti at Starrcade??!? I mean obviously it went over even worse than the DOD's usual shenanigans
and within weeks Yet-tay was a ninja then vanished for a while then came back as a generic big man but for a week or two The Mummy that was also a Yeti was treated like a VERY big deal and he was TALLER than The Giant so in Hulk Hogan logic that meant he was
TOUGHER brother.


So yeah. Starrcade 95. Hogan vs. Yeti. I wonder how close we were to getting this.

I often wonder the same thing myself.  

Too Sweet

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The Good Brothers have invaded AEW to join up with the Bucks and Omega, sealed with the Too Sweet hand gesture. Meanwhile, Bullet Club leader Jay White seems close to leaving New Japan after losing to super babyface champion Ibushi. Omega has history with Ibushi
as the Golden Lovers, but has hinted at travelling to other promotions to collect belts. There's a possible dream cross-promotional booking scenario where Omega turns on Ibushi to chase his belts and Jay hooks up with the new AEW-Impact faction.

This is 2021 however, so my question is: when Jay White moves to WWE, will he job to Baron Corbin or The Miz first?

First he needs 5 years of seasoning in NXT so he can learn to work to the hard camera.  

Top 20-somethings

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Following up on the The WWE Roster is so old thread with a simple question, albeit one that is perhaps better addressed to your readers:


Who are the top wrestlers, still in their 20's, that aren't already on the Raw or Smackdown rosters?

They’ve got TONS of guys in development that will probably never make TV even.  Enough that they’re doing the rumoured secondary version of NXT to give them some time.  But Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne are clearly two of the best in the world right now.  Also Rhea Ripley and Toni Storm on the women’s side.  

Payday

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Hey Scott,

Does WWE still have PPV payoffs or “being a champion pay bump” for the wrestlers like one would read about back in the day? Or is it straight-up contract pay; regardless, for example, if you’re on the WM card or not? Is the true motivation gone for some of these guys?

Regards

No one really knows these days.  The money appears to be based on Vince’s whims outside of the contracted guarantee.  Don’t worry though, Roman Reigns is being taken care of.  

The WWE Roster is so old

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Hey Scott,

We all know the problems with guys like Goldberg and Undertaker and Triple H and Brock always coming back, but I'm watching a lot of 1998 stuff lately and I'm struck by how old the roster in general today is. In 1998 guys who were the 10+ year vets like Owen Hart and Big Bossman were just 33-35, with the clear majority of the talent being in their 20s. Just off the top of my head right now, guys like Miz, Morrison, Kofi, Ziggler, Sheamus, and Cesaro are all 40+ or just about there. 'Rising stars' like Braun, Big E, and Corbin are all in their late 30s.

I'm no ageist, guys like Batista and Bret Hart show you can get a push in your late 30s and be worth it. But jeez, where is the youth? What would you chalk this up to, are the dang Gen Z Zoomers just not developing fast enough for Vince? Did the NXT project ultimately value experience at the expense of new blood? What happened?

As you get older, time starts to compress for you, and now that Vince is in his 70s, the guys that have been around for 10 years seem like they've only been there for a year.  It's actually a real thing that happens, which is why you get people around the blog being like “What?  It's the 20th anniversary of Wrestlemania 2000?  That was just last year!”  Getting old, man.  It sucks.