Wrestling

Smackdown – July 23, 2019

Smackdown
Date: July 23, 2019
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, David Otunga

Depending on what you thought of last night’s Raw Reunion, this show either has a lot to live up to or a very easy path to being the best show of the week. We’re less than three weeks away from Summerslam and that means we could be in for an eventful night as the card gets filled in. If nothing else, we should be hearing about Kofi Kingston’s opponent, which shouldn’t be hard to figure out. Let’s get to it.

Read moreSmackdown – July 23, 2019

CRAB Wrestling Vice Effects

Vice Effect
Date: June 8, 2019
Location: Old Ox Brewery, Ashburn, Virginia
Commentator: Jason Heat

Odds are you haven’t heard of this one but a colleague of mine works for the company and asked me to take a look at it. Since I have an issue saying no to anyone (I really need to work on that.), here we are. This is from CRAB Wrestling (Championship Rassling And Beyond) and they might want to change the name. Let’s get to it.

Read moreCRAB Wrestling Vice Effects

Did WWE waste legends return on RAW Reunion?



Scott, I was wondering whether you though WWE wasted the return of so many WWF legend at once at the RAW reunion. I mean they could had:


a DX Reunion Show with Triple HHH, Shaun Michaels, Xpac, and the New Age Outlaws

A NWO Reunion Show with Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Hogan, and Bischoff

An ECW Reunion with Paul Heyman, Rob van Damme, and other ECW stars

insteading of bringing everyone back all at once ?

More telling is that they brought all of those guys back and still only did 3 million viewers.   

Tuesday Night Thread

Tonight! Its Smackdown, which may or may not actually have the involvement of Eric Bischoff at some point in the indeterminate future! But holy shit, we do know that Kofi is defending against Randy Orton at Summerslam! I wonder if Kofi will mess up a move and Orton will call him “Stupid stupid stupid” again?

An awful RAW did an awfully big rating by 2019 standards. Which literally proves nothing.

Enjoy the show tonight!

DiBiase officially a former WWF champion?


https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/cgsufm/raw_spoilersnew_precedent_set_last_night_means_a/ 

It's been quite the topic on Reddit today.  Does this goofy one-off retroactively confirm the precedent that he did in fact legally purchase the championship? Furthermore, does that mean Jack Tunney was nothing more than a puppet in the Hulkamania machine!? Is nothing sacred!?! 

They would exhume Jack Tunney's corpse on live TV and let Bray Wyatt make a puppet out of it if they thought it would pop a rating.  Of course nothing is sacred.  
And yes, this 100% proves that Jesse Ventura was right about Tunney being a corporate stooge all along.  

What the World Was Watching: WCW Main Event – August 20, 1995

–Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan are in the studio as per usual for today’s broadcast.  Heenan says he is bothered by the tensions between Ric Flair and Arn Anderson because they are good friends of his.  He blames Hulk Hogan for their problems.

Read moreWhat the World Was Watching: WCW Main Event – August 20, 1995

Ring of Honor

Just one question, it can either be from what you've seen or heard but…where did it all go wrong for ROH?

When AEW essentially stripped away all of the Elite crew.  Ownership with a vision and some money to fix the problem would have gone out and recruited some talent to replace them, but we've got Sinclair and so Matt Taven is World champion and they never leverage their baffling continuing deal with New Japan.  I know the G1 is taking up NJPW's time at the moment, but you'd think they could send some Young Lions over to get experience and exposure in the US and fill up the cards.

On the other hand, and this one kind of blew my mind, the ROH TV rant did numbers I would consider to be shockingly good, so I might actually carry on with it.  

10 straight years of part-timers main eventing Wrestlemania

What does it say about the current state of WWE when they've had part-timers (or retirees in the case of Michaels & Rousey) main eventing Wrestlemania for 10 straight years? And yes, I'm including The Rock for WM 27. He was the star of the match. 

What does it say that a part-timer is the current World champion of their #1 brand?  Maybe that'll be Vince's next excuse at the investor's conference.  "Oh, ratings were down another 300,000 viewers because our champion was busy headlocking a moose on his farm in Saskatchewan."  

New Japan Use of Jon Moxley

Not only is New Japan getting some kick ass matches and tons of new

YouTube views from Jon Moxley himself, but it looks like he is also

elevating Juice Robinson from happy-go-lucky joke to someone that

might step up to the main event tier next year. And on top of that,

they may have even stumbled upon a whole new way of elevating a Young

Lion without having to send him away for a couple of years.

Is this what the experts call "good shit"?


I believe so.  I'm such a huge fan of what they're doing with Umino here, too.  It's win-win-win.  Moxley gets someone to do the job for him and a protege for his character, Umino gets the rub and some high profile tag matches in the G1 instead of laundering jock straps or whatever the Lions have to do these days, and fans get a wacky storyline to elevate an otherwise meaningless filler match on the undercard.  It's such a great idea.  

Austin

Hey Scott,

Why is Vince not backing up the Brinks truck onto Austin's lawn to get him come be the GM on Raw/SD or do something that gets him on TV each week? He was the only bright spot on last night's train wreck. He would totally outshine the rest of the roster, as
he did last night, but if it gets the ratings up a bit then it would be worth it in my opinion.

I don't know, I feel like Vince has to know this is an obvious thing to do, especially with the new TV deals kicking in soon. Or is Austin just not interested in appearing regularly for any amount of money?


He's not interested and has openly complained about the booking and creative side on his podcast.  Austin's a guy with enough money to last him several lifetimes who is really only interested in doing what makes him happy at this point.  And being involved in the trainwreck that is 2019 WWE would not make him happy, so it's best for everyone that he stays away.  

The SmarK Rant for The Best of ECW Volume 2–ECW’s Bloodiest Matches!

The SmarK Rant for the Best of ECW Volume 2 – 10.24.92

Yes, more low rent early ECW from 1992, as apparently the first volume of the tape sold so well that the public DEMANDED a second one. More Surfer Sandman, they said! More Tommy Cairo! Perhaps less Glen Osbourne, but more spikes on his gear!

Strap in for…

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VHS tracking errors are EXTREME!

Read moreThe SmarK Rant for The Best of ECW Volume 2–ECW’s Bloodiest Matches!

BoD Daily Update: July 23, 2019

WWE.com Smackdown Live Preview

https://www.wwe.com/shows/smackdown/2019-07-23

 

Ricochet Update

Originally, Ricochet was going to face AJ Styles last night on RAW and then become endorsed by D-X but he was not cleared for the show due to an elbow infection.

Credit Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Newsletter

 

Flip Gordon Injury Update

https://www.prowrestlingsheet.com/flip-gordon-injury-update/#.XTb-1uhKjIU

 

Being the Elite Episode #162

 

MLW Fusion Episode #67

Rock Star Gary reflects on WCCW 10-29-1983

Taped from Dallas, TX

Airdate: October 29, 1983 (taped 10/21)

Attendance: unknown

Hosted by Bill Mercer

It’s the Halloween edition of WCCW 1983! Who will be in costume? Will there be spooky moments? And what triumphant event happened in 1983 that was truly scary?

Read moreRock Star Gary reflects on WCCW 10-29-1983

Monday Night Raw – July 22, 2019

Monday Night Raw
Date: July 22, 2019
Location: Amalie Arena, Tampa, Florida
Commentators: Corey Graves, Renee Young, Michael Cole

It’s a big night around here with Raw Reunion, featuring just about every big name you can think of who didn’t have anything better to do tonight. In other words, it’s time to try to get people to watch the show and since we don’t have many people of this generation to present (or Summerslam in less than three weeks), here we are. Let’s get to it.

Read moreMonday Night Raw – July 22, 2019

Monday Night Open Mic

Howdy Blog O’Doomers!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. This is the big RAW Reunion that will several of your old favorites return and take up the time that could be used to get newer talent over! Oh well. Usually these reunion shows give us something to talk about with all the returning old guard and whether or not they’ve kept themselves in decent shape. I’m not sure of any matches scheduled because most of the hype has been around the reunion.

Lot of baseball on, not much else.

New episodes of both the Bachelorette and American Ninja Warrior tonight.

Keep it Clean!

Joshi Spotlight- Random Grab-Bag (LCO & Toyota!)

So here’s a random assortment of matches I’ve found- some of the most fun to be had on YouTube Joshi searches isn’t with spotlighting only one wrestler or one show, but by jumping all over the place, finding interesting little things here and there. Some of the best workers of the early ’90s were paired up in all sorts of interesting ways.

But don’t worry if you don’t like it- the next batch will be more focused- the first two Wrestlemarinepiads, a Grand Prix thing from 1993, and maybe a history of a few Joshi promotions.

Read moreJoshi Spotlight- Random Grab-Bag (LCO & Toyota!)

What the World Was Watching: WCW Saturday Night – August 19, 1995

–Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan are in the booth and they are taped from Atlanta, Georgia.  These tapings were done on July 26 according to thehistoryofwwe.com.

Read moreWhat the World Was Watching: WCW Saturday Night – August 19, 1995

Bischoff not doing Smackdown creative


So, apparently Meltzer is reporting Bischoff isn't working the creative aspect of Smackdown but doing other stuff. So, we're stuck with the same old crap?

This would lead me to question why we needed a large scale press release saying BISCHOFF WILL BE RUNNING SMACKDOWN.  
Hey, it’s wrestling.  Card subject to change.  Eric himself was the expert in that. 

WrestleKingdom main event.

Have you been following/watching the G1 thus far. I honestly don’t know what direction they’re going for a final yet, so how about this: 

NJPW and AEW wake up and smell the money and work out a friendly working relationship.

Okada runs the G1 and wins as IWGP Champion. He gets to choose his WrestleKingdom opponent and he chooses the guy who ended his last reign as Champ, KENNY OMEGA.

Obviously AEW’s top guy losing a main event match to a NJPW guy isn’t pristine but an 8+ match and global exposure has to be worth it right?

New Japan is still being very stubborn about the AEW thing and there's no deal forthcoming as best anyone can tell. 
I have no idea where they're going with the G1, although I can also see them pulling the trigger on Ospreay this year and doing Okada v. Ospreay at WrestleKingdom.  I think Naito is due again pretty soon but he's cooled off a lot from where he was a couple of years back and this probably isn't the year for it. 

Bret/Austin endgame

Considering the WWF was cooling off the Bret/Austin program after Canadian Stampede, what do you think the original endgame was for their feud?  Austin was programmed with Owen, and Shawn's role in Bret's title win was the start of his heel turn, which led to DX.  So, if Austin's neck isn't hurt and Bret doesn't get screwed, do think they would have gotten a proper blowoff? I could see Vince letting Bret relinquish the belt and say goodbye like he wanted, but, in return he has one last match with Austin and puts him over on the way out.

The endgame, as least as far as Bret had always believed up until Vince started throwing the wacky scenarios at him around September, was Austin winning the World title from him at Wrestlemania in one last match where Bret puts him over big. Obviously we never got there but it 100% makes sense as the payoff for their previous match at Wrestlemania 14.