Daily News Update – January 27, 2020

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That Rumble match is proving pretty divisive!  However, we as a people can still all come together and agree that we’re tired of Charlotte at the very least.

DATELINE:  Vic Joseph got bounced as lead RAW announcer before the show and will be replaced by Tom Phillips.  I honestly can’t tell the difference between them anyway.

DATELINE:  Edge has signed a new 3-year deal and will be working with Orton at Wrestlemania, according to Observer radio this morning.

DATELINE:  The Briscoe Brothers have signed a new deal with ROH.  Was anyone else gonna put them on national TV anyway?  Doubt it, so good for them.

Today’s free match is from New Japan, as Goto takes on Jeff Cobb from the G1 San Fran special last year…

Rock Star Gary reflects on WCCW 08-04-1984

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Taped from Dallas, TX

Airdate: August 4, 1984 (taped 07/20)

Attendance: unknown

Hosted by Bill Mercer

Can Mike and Adams topple the Freebirds? Will Kevin get the better of Khan? By the way, what’s up with Khan? And who will join me for this fiery episode?

Read moreRock Star Gary reflects on WCCW 08-04-1984

“Live” Wrestling Shows?

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Recently you wrote about how Vince McMahon loves to promote all his T.V. shows as taking place live, otherwise he believes his audience will tune out.  However, was/is he the only one in the wrestling business to employ this philosophy?  I seem to recall WCW during the Nitro Era acting as if WCW Saturday Night, Pro, Worldwide, etc. were taking place as they were airing.  I'm not sure about ECW, though.      

Yes, historically everyone has gone to fairly ridiculous lengths to pretend like their shows aren't taped.  Vince is hardly the only one with that attitude. 

Royal Rumble in Stadiums?

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While I understand why WWE still likes to hold Wrestlemania in stadiums, it doesn’t seem entirely logical to hold other events in them, especially given their uneven attendance numbers outside of that event. It’s especially questionable given how hard it was
to sell tickets to last years Royal Rumble.

It kind of makes me think back to the 1997 Royal Rumble when they were trying to prove they were bigger than they really were at the time (though the actual 48,000 tickets bought for that event was far more impressive than what they usually sell now).
Is it really worth it for them to do stadium events outside of Wrestlemania at this point, given the ticket sales and overall dead crowds they tend to perform in front of now?

 

I think they mostly had it planned already last year and now it's just a prestige type of deal, since attendance and making money are literally no longer a factor in their decision making process.  They just have to wave the balance sheets at investors and be like "Whoops, still making a billion dollars from FOX and USA, sorry not sorry" and really that's the end of any arguments against them. 

Beth Phoenix Bleeding

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Watching the Royal Rumble and for the majority of the women rumble, my 11 and 8 year old sons could do nothing but talk about Beth Phoenix's bleeding scalp and red hair.  At first I thought it was hair dye then was like they will pull her to not have this on tv, but nope.  Kept going as my boys talked about how blood was now on Charolette etc.


What the F not as bad as their shock during the Orton Brock incident but why was she not pulled?
I don't wanna tell you how to parent because I recently watched the 1990 It miniseries with my nine-year old daughter, but you might want to toughen up your kids a bit. 

Royal Rumble 2020

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Royal Rumble 2020
Date: January 26, 2020
Location: Minute Maid Park, Houston, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, Jerry Lawler, Tom Phillips

It’s time to get started on the Road to Wrestlemania and while you could say the Rumbles are predictable, you could also say that they’re wide open. This is a very strange situation and I’m rather pleased with that. I’m not sure who is going to win either but they’re going to mean a lot. Let’s get to it.

Read moreRoyal Rumble 2020

ROYAL RUMBLE 2020: Part 1

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It’s time to Pre-Show!

…nah, doesn’t sound the same.

Anyway, here’s where we try to hype ourselves up for the Royal Rumble, even though that’s gonna be hard to do.  Most of us are sports fans, and we’re understandably pre-occupied right now.

RIP Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and the other passengers.

But let’s get prepped anyway!

Joshi Spotlight: AJW Grand Prix ’92 (Part Two)

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Image result for korakuen hall

Ever wanna go on a backstage tour of Korakuen Hall? This show lets you do that!  By proxy of an Attitude Era-style brawl!

AJW JAPAN GRAND PRIX ’92 (Part Two)- BOMB BLAST FEVER POINT
(07.05.1992, Tokyo Korakuen Hall)

-The second of three tapes devoted to the AJW Grand Prix, which lasted for three months and had a bunch of tapes between it. The last tape is only from the week before, so most of these people are well-travelled already. This is one of the lowest-rent of the tapes, though, as many of the matches are cut down by half.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Watch This?”: Ever wanna go on a backstage tour of Korakuen Hall? This show lets you see it! Via Aja Kong & Manami Toyota inventing the Attitude Era Main Event Style! The early matches are clipped to death and not very good, but the latter bunch are great, though not the classics we’re used to seeing weekly at this point. Also, a joshi handicap match, further proof that great things were expected of Mariko Yoshida, and more!

Read moreJoshi Spotlight: AJW Grand Prix ’92 (Part Two)

Blog question – star trek

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Hey Scott – long time reader / poster. I'm a long time star wars fan who has never really been into star trek beyond casually watching the Abrams reboot in 2009. Everyone is saying how awesome Picard is and my interest is piqued as I'm sure others feel the same way. Would you rank or recommend the series in any way? They are all mostly on Netflix, I've heard deep space nine is the bees knees especially. Appreciate your insight. 

DS9 is pretty advanced studies as far as Trek is concerned.  Watch Next Generation starting in season 3 if you want to get a sense of why Picard is so great.  The best of the NG movies is First Contact, but most of the plot points from the new show come from Nemesis, the movie that killed off the franchise.  I like it but most do not.  Overall I’m a huge fan of Next Gen mostly, but I also enjoy the original Kirk run for what it was. 
I have done many DVD reviews and will post them again sometime.  

WALTER

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I've noticed something lately, WALTERS popularity has drastically increased since his debut at the first UK Takeover. The crowds are starting to treat him like a big star with them being really into his offence (chops especially) eventually hes going to outgrow NXT UK but he's made it clear he doesn't want to move to America so what happens then?

I'm pretty sure Vince could find a way to make it worth his while when the time comes.  

Pumped up

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Scott,

I was reading your recent Royal Rumble 1991 rant and your comment about Rick Martel being ripped struck a chord with me.  I was thinking the same thing around that era and was actually going to write you about it before your post.

I know that you can't put yourself in the minds of the wrestlers, but what do you think the thought process was behind this?  To me, Martel was always more of a high flyer, but after his heel turn and during his singles run, he seemed to pack on the muscle.

Was this his way of extending his career as this was seemingly towards the end for him?  I'm not aware of him having any nagging injuries for which he was trying to compensate.  Excluding his WCW run in 1997-1998, which I actually enjoyed, Martel was seemingly done with WWE by 1994-1995, so this would have been the last 3-4 years of his career.

Or do you feel he thought that if he changed his look, he'd be in line for a major singles push?  Although he had some feature feuds with Tito Santana, Jake Roberts, Shawn Michaels, and Tatanka, as well as occassional IC title shots against Bret Hart and Razor Ramon, it didn't really seem to amount to more than him putting everyone else over.

I bring this up because he has not been the only wrestler to do this.  Arguably one of the most successful at this was Scott Steiner.  Another one that comes to mind is the worst, Dino Bravo.  I'm not familiar with Bravo's work outside of WWE, but Wikipedia states he wrestled from 1970-1992.  In his early 80s WWE tag team work he seemed like a chunky babyface and somehow morphed into strongest man by 1987-1988, again towards the end of his career.  My last example would be Davey Boy Smith, although he made the change earlier in his career during his WWE absence between 1988-1991.

I'm not looking at this as a steroid argument and whether or not a guy used them before or after his change as I don't doubt Davey Boy was using in 1986.  I'm also not looking at this as a simple gimmick change (though this seems to follow a gimmick change), but was wondering why one would change his body type and entire working style so late in his career when he's already had success without it.
Wrestling is a weird business and wrestlers can get body issues as much as anyone.  That being said, Martel wasn't really steroid-y at the Rumble, it was more that he was all shredded up and clearly proud of it.  I feel like Bulldog was a guy who clearly saw that bigger guys were getting the pushes and just decided to get big and keep up with them. A lot of times high-flying guys like Bravo will get injured and be forced to work a different style.  That's a big reason why Scott Steiner drastically altered his style and body type, since he just couldn't do all the stuff he used to be able to.  And hey, some guys just get big into bodybuilding and might like bonding over it.  Like I said, wrestling is a weird business.

The Cheap and Lazy Sunday Thread

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It’s ROYAL RUMBLE DAY.  Regardless of the iffy quality of last year’s show, it’s still my favorite PPV of the year normally, so I’m going in with positive thoughts.  Plus thankfully this is the time of the month when the shitty January ad revenue starts to turn around for the blog, which always puts me in a better mood.

Speaking of positive, I would once again like to reiterate how awesome Picard’s debut episode was.  I am ALL IN on this one.

Also, Office 365 updated this morning and NOW ALL MY FUCKING ICONS ARE DIFFERENT.  Leave the memories alone, Microsoft.

DATELINE:  The winners of the Dusty Classic this week will challenge for the NXT tag team titles at Takeover.  Makes sense.  It’s pretty clearly gonna be the Broserweights, innit?

DATELINE:  Smackdown’s ratings were down a bit for the go-home episode for the Rumble.  Really doesn’t matter.

Today’s video is from my friends at Cultaholic, as they count down the Royal Rumble matches from worst to best.

Worlds Collide

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Worlds Collide
Date: January 25, 2020
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Nigel McGuinness

It’s a big night in Texas, and not just because I finally remembered that the show isn’t called When Worlds Collide. This is NXT vs. NXT UK and the card is actually stacked, with a bunch of matches that could be awesome. If they live up to the hype, it’s a show of the year contender. Let’s get to it.

Read moreWorlds Collide

Smackdown – August 25, 2005

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Smackdown
Date: August 25, 2005
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

Summerslam has come and gone and that means a lot of things have wrapped up for good. First and foremost, Batista defeated JBL to retain the Smackdown World Title, which means we need a new #1 contender. Other than that, Rey Mysterio defeated Eddie Guerrero (again) to gain custody of his son, but I wouldn’t bet on the feud being done just yet. Let’s get to it.

Read moreSmackdown – August 25, 2005

WWF Monday Night RAW – September 19th, 1994

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Well, after five weeks I am well enough to write up my reviews. And I want to thank everyone for their support. Who knew by going out to get my wife a tea, not even a mile away from our home. while she was sick would lead to an accident in which I received a concussion and whiplash. Anyway, you guys are great and I am back to write about 1994 WWF and maybe more subjects in the future.

 

September 19, 1994

From the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, MA

Your hosts are Vince McMahon and “Macho Man” Randy Savage

Read moreWWF Monday Night RAW – September 19th, 1994