Scott Keith

Hey Dummy

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Don't criticize what AEW is doing.  Do you work in marketing?  Obviously not.  Because if you did, you'd see that they are doing everything 100% correct.  So until you get a job in marketing, don't criticize wrestling, because you'll just embarrass yourself.

You sent me an email from a fake address called “Phil Suckalooni” trying to troll the blog and I’M the one embarrassing myself?

Lio Rush

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Why was Lio Rush removed as Bobby Lashley's manager so suddenly and without explanation?  Did something happen behind the scenes that caused the change, or was it a matter of wanting Rush to actually do what he was signed for;  Wrestle?  

He had some vague health issues that he took time off to deal with.  

Another Petty Gripe

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Scott:

You know what needs to be retired from modern pro wrestling? The spot where a guy hits a big move and then is SHOCKED that the other guy kicked out. I think I liked it exactly once: when Shawn kicked out of the tombstone at Mania 25. Now it's seemingly done in every match, sometimes multiple times.

Last week on NXT Matt Riddle kicked Kassius Ohno and did the "OMG I can't believe it didn't work" face after the kickout at 2. Dude, it's a squash match at 10:20 pm on NXT TV. It's not the main event of Wrestlemania.

Can we please retire this stupid thing…or at least save it for main event matches of major shows?

I wish we could, but they're actually teaching the new people now to do that exact spot.  It's actually kind of astonishing to me that they'd take time to make it a part of the match structure, along with working to the hard camera and all their other stupid stuff.  

Non elite

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Cody already stated that he's not interested in getting casual fans for the show. Which is painfully obvious because I am totally lost when they start talking about the being the elite stuff. I'm AWARE of the show but I'm
not devoting 40 minutes of my time to it every week if the show doesn't promote it and tries to persuade me to watch it. But again, they are focusing on their hardcore true fans so whatever. 

Also, Kenny Omega has turned into something other than the great wrestler who was killing it last year with 5 star matches in Japan. He just looks like a guy who is there. Nothing special about him at all

Cody didn't actually say that.  But yes, Kenny has free reign to do whatever he wants, basically, and it's kind of mystifying that he's just kind of noodling around in the midcard and doing silly comedy bits.  

Beating the Fiend

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Isn’t the best and likely only way to beat The Fiend to somehow unmask him mid match and have him snap back into kiddie show Bray allowing a valiant babyface to defeat him. This way The Fiend character stays strong and there maintains a difference between normal Bray and his evil character. 

This would work perfect for Daniel Bryan. But again, I’m willing to bet on Roman getting the super push

Yeah, but the Miz is already facing unmasked Bray at TLC, and he's apparently evil, too.  So I don't even get what the character is supposed to be anymore.  

Show Don’t Tell

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OK, I feel like this topic needs to be spun off into its own thread, so I grabbed a comment from the Dynamite thread.

"As much as I think some of AEW's detractors are…purposefully obtuse at times, I have to agree on the Cody/QT/MJF thing.

This is show don't tell stuff. I enjoyed the match; I enjoyed QT surprising people; i would have enjoyed it more if it was really put over before hand that this was MJF putting Cody in check. And that insert promo gets the bare minimum of credit.

I appreciate that they are still trying to figure out the balance of creating drama without spelling everything out, but they are erring too much on the side of telling too little"


Yeah, so as I alluded to in the original review, this is not an effective way to build an audience.  I kind of joked about not really wanting to watch extra content to understand the story, but it's TRUE.  The argument from the gatekeepers is that "Oh, it's on YouTube on Being the Elite", but what is Being the Elite?  Who are the Elite?  Is that Cutler guy part of the Elite since he hangs out with the Young Bucks?  Was MJF part of the Elite?  They don't answer any of these questions on the TV show that they're trying to convince 800K people to watch every week and that's fucking annoying to me.  And yeah, you can be all WHATTABOUT?!? with WWE but WWE has a diehard rock bottom audience of 2 million people who watch their shows every week no matter what stupid shit they do or don't do in the name of storytelling.  We're not talking about them, let's focus here.  

Another great analogy was brought forth in the comments as well, in that AEW is currently telling stories like Marvel Comics, with a dense backstory that you need a physics degree to understand, and they should be telling stories like Marvel Cinematic Universe instead.  The argument is that "Oh, the announcers already told us that Adam Page left the Elite".  So why not SHOW THAT?  They're got five extra minutes to have the guy talk to his TV set in his hotel room, but they can't show a clip of Page deciding to "leave the Elite", whatever that means?  And while I'm at it, how were we supposed to know that the two jobbers even had a team name?  Have they ever been announced as "The Beaver Brothers" or whatever the fuck they were called on Dynamite?  Not everyone is watching all your content like devoted hardcore nerds, and it's really insulting to be excluded in all those little ways and it's the kind of thing that makes people resentful.  It makes me feel like "If you don't want my business, I will stop watching".  Not to say I'm gonna stop watching the show, because it's great, but I totally get where people would be coming from.  

Clearly they have an audience who wants to be sold to.  So sell to them!  Anyway, there you go, my rant on this for the morning.     



Disco

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It always surprised me that Disco never got a run in WWE.  He had a good look, ranged from competent to very good in the ring depending on the opponent, and could work comedy.  I could see him as the mouthpiece for the FBI in the mid 2000’s at the very least.  As far as you know, did Vince just not have interest?  Was there heat on him for some reason? 
Yeah, so in 1997 Disco tried to jump from WCW and get the Rockabilly spot by claiming that his contract was invalid, and Vince was ready to bring him in and started producing material to hype it up.  But then it turned out to be a very valid contract and Vince dropped all interest immediately.   And then Disco had to go crawl back to WCW like Shane Douglas in 2000 and never left.  

IDEAL nWo THAT SHUDDA’ BEEN….

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IDEAL nWo THAT SHUDDA’ BEEN….


After listening to enough Conrad Thompson podcasts you get the sense that the nWo could’ve been a few different things. Bischoff wanted the nWo to have its own roster & show. But in it’s infancy Bischoff has a hard time admitting it but it indeed was an unofficial WWF invasion. So it would’ve been best kept as guys who were known as WWF guys. So agree or disagree with this contingent……


Hollywood Hogan with the Disciple

Savage with Liz

Dibiase with Virgil & Sherri

Hennig with Rude

Hall, Nash & Syxx


So we get six workers, half of which is the Wolfpack, Dibiase as the manager & backer, two valets Liz & Sherri, & Rude, Beefcake & Virgil as muscle. And if you have to, rotate guys in & out. Maybe Bossman & Tenta tag for awhile but get clipped for losing & sucking. Or another jobber tag team of Martel & Jim Powers who get clipped too. This thing HAD TO STAY WWF-CENTRIC yes? Good lineup here? Then of course eventually the Hitman arrives & dispatches Hogan & becomes the leader of the nWo as Hogan goes back to the red & yellow…..BROTHER. Otherwise Booker T was coming for him anyway NIGG….!


GO BILLS!!!!! And Sabres too, I guess. It’s only ice hockey.



I think your timeline is all over the place here. 

Wrestlemania Build

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Hey Scott, was reading about Brocks Wrestlemania opponents and how they are looking at Bray Wyatt. I think if would be ok, but, wouldn't Aleister Black be a better option for Wyatt? 


I think they should worry about actually having Black work a match on PPV before lining up Wrestlemania opponents for him.  Wasn't his only singles match so far that one with Cesaro that was forgotten the next day?  

Doink The Clown

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I was just re-watching some early 1990's stuff with Doink.  He was really over as a heel at one point there, well as over as you could get at one of the worst periods for the WWF creatively.  Was he ever in line for a big push, or was it kind of lightning in a bottle with him?  His face turn towards the end of 1993 was one of the more nonsensical, un-needed turns ever.  
No, he was definitely in line for a big push.  If anything he ended up underachieving because Matt Borne was such a flake, and then no one else could pull the same mix of creepy and yet silly that he brought to the table.  In fact, given the resurgence of "creepy evil clowns" as a thing these days, I'm surprised they haven't rebooted the character again with someone new in the role.  

the 24/7 title

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Hey Scott. What about the 24/7 title? Is it history? I´m not watching their weekly shows, just the ppv´s, but I even can´t remember when I read something about it in show reports (at least I read some to follow the weeklys)

Pretty sure they had a race car driver of some sort win it and then lose it again last week.  So it's still around.  

Do followup

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This might be the plan already but they might as well have Dio go against Brock at the Rumble. The match is going to be 5 to 6 minutes anyway so might as well have a newbie get suplexed all over the ring instead of an established
guy who would be wasted in that spot 

I can't make many guarantees in life, but I can guarantee you that Dio Madden will not be wrestling Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble.

Sami Zayn done in ring?

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I may have missed something, but is Zayn injured badly or something? They're really pushing him as a manager. He's doing a great job, but was just wondering what's going on with him in regards to being an in-ring competitor.

He was injured last I had heard and at least this way he's on TV doing something instead of sitting at home doing nothing.  

Fwd: NXT: Victim of its Own Success?

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Hey Scott–

Now that it's well established that NXT is handily destroying AEW on

Wednesdays and Cody's promotion is on its deathbed, is the end also

near for NXT as we know it?

With NXT taking a more prominent position (live on Wednesdays against

AEW, all the Survivor Series nonsense, bringing Raw/Smackdown guys in

to "invade") I just have this sinking feeling that Vince is going to

start mucking with it more and more. What makes NXT so great is that

it's far removed from Vince and his army of writer monkeys. I worry

that in the wake of NXT beating AEW a couple of weeks in a row, the

lesson Vince will take away is that it's the Raw/SD "influence" that

turned the tide and he'll start tinkering with it until NXT is as much

of a chore as Monday and Friday nights are.

What do you think? Is Vince going to mess with the Wednesday show or

does Triple H put his foot down? Or will Vince be too busy pretending

to be a football mogul to care?


I guess we'll find out in the next few weeks.  But I think as long as it's still competitive on Wednesdays, Vince will mostly let HHH do his own thing.  

Fwd: Randy Orton: New Smartest Man?

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Hey Scott–

With Triple H a front-office fixture, does the title of "Smartest Man

in Pro Wrestling" now belong to Randy Orton?

He calls out bullshit whenever he wants, works whatever schedule he

wants, "corpses" on camera (to borrow Maffew's phrase) whenever he

wants, gives whatever level of effort he feels is justified on any

given day… and he just signed a contract for "fuck you" level money

because Vince doesn't want him to go play with Cody in AEW.

Given all the kayfabe accolades he's already achieved, is there a

wrestler on the planet who sits in a better position?


I'd say Brock still has him beat, but Orton is a strong contender, yeah.  

Dio Maddin

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Is Dio Maddin still selling the beating Brock Lesnar gave him when he put Maddin through the announce table, or was that whole angle designed to get Dio Maddin off the Raw announce team?  If it's the former, that has to be one of the better sell jobs ever.  

They already announced last week that he's being replaced by Samoa Joe and he's going back to training to be a wrestler again. 

The Toys that Made (Me)

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Hey Scott,

Long time reader here. My parents are moving, and so that means a bunch of old wrestling toys I had in their basement need a new home. Tons of stuff, from LJNs, Hasbro's, Jakks, and others, spanning the 1980s-early 2000s, and multiple promotions.

I doubt you have any interest yourself, but hoping you might post this on the blog. Is there any market for this sort of thing? Figured I'd put this out there to the other readers before I trash anything. Would rather see these things get a good home.

If anyone is interested, feel free to email me at [email protected]. I'm looking to unload the entire thing as a package deal, no interest in selling stuff piecemeal.

I also found the old WrestleMania The Collection VHS set. I think this was the one that had everything uncut/no music changes. That's available too, if anyone is interested.

Photos attached.

THANK YOU

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