Bonus Question: Which was the better N64 game, WCW/nWo Revenge or No Mercy?
To be honest, I found the difficulty on Retromania to be overly punishing to the point of frustration, and I lost interest in it pretty quickly. With Wrestlefest you can at least pump in quarters (or hit a button in emulators) to keep the match going when you're getting your ass kicked, but Retromania is too faithful to the original difficulty with no way to even the playing field. I'm onto Pac Man 99 now.
The weekend the wrestling world waits the whole year for is here. WrestleMania, which has expanded from the WWF’s signature event to more or less wrestling’s version of Comic-Con, is upon us.
Tonight, SmackDown is the WrestleMania Pre-Show. We will have parting words from Roman Reigns, Edge, and Daniel Bryan concerning their main event match. The SmackDown Tag Titles are on the line as the Mysterio Family, Alpha Academy, and Street Profits all look to take down the Dirty Dawgz. And, we will have the 7th Annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal!
Saturday and Sunday is WrestleMania, but everyone’s in on the act! AEW is doing The House Always Wins, a non-televised show in Jacksonville, while Impact presents Tommy Dreamer’s Hardcore Justice! Plus, almost a dozen independent shows will take place between now and midnight tomorrow! (Tommy Hall will review all of them before we give him a tranquilizer dart and allow him to sleep for 58 straight hours. Somehow, despite being unconscious, he will still review Raw, because we can all agree Raw is better when you’re unconscious.)
Before we get there, let’s go for a twist: here’s some wrestling from the Year 2000, and much as in 1987 and 2014, a legendary streak came to an end.
All right, guys, you know the rules. I want a good clean thread. Obey the mod’s instructions at all times. Now, touch gloves, go to your keyboards, and come out posting!
Have Fun Be Sad Date: April 9, 2021 Location: 81Bay Brewing, Tampa, Florida Commentators: Various
This is from Action Pro Wrestling and Southern Underground Pro Wrestling coming together for a show. I have no idea what that is going to mean as I don’t know anything about either promotion, but there is always the chance that they could pull off something good. It’s certainly a different kind of show title. Let’s get to it.
I'm sure whatever lines the pockets of the politicians the most is the way that they'll go with it. Athletic commissions everywhere are just a grift for the government and it's always been that way.
…AEW has lost their way because we're over a year into the crowdless covid-era? So much of AEW's success was how invested the live crowds were in the product, the new ideas, the characters and the wrestling match itself was a bigger focus. Tangible, visceral crowd reactions drove many of the storylines, became a huge part of what made characters work, which in turn fed into the way we reacted at home. The steady increase of mass-group run-ins and clusterfuck finishes, seems to be a response to the total lack of crowd-energy.
'Sending for the circus' has become a crutch in virtually every feud. By comparison the womens division has massively improved during the same period, in part, because they've kept the focus simple, feuds contained and the characters defined.
The best example I can give of a feud I think worked really well, was the Best Friends / Miro + Kip stuff. It was funny, smart, easy to follow, had solid matches and a limited cast of defined characters ending in great payoff. It also benefitted from not requiring an NJPW wiki page open or a YouTube blog for context.
It's frustrating because some of the Omega/Callis stuff has been really great, on the precipice of something unique… now they're back to being bogged down in fitting six people around the table and it makes Omega as champion so much smaller.
See, for me the Miro feud is an example of something that DOESN'T work. The central premise of the feud (Kip's wedding) was basically forgotten for weeks at a time. They did a weird storyline with Chuck becoming a butler to kill time and had no real payoff for it. And it took months to get to the actual tag team match. But yes, I agree with your larger point, absolutely. I think that a major positive, however, is that Tony Khan has always been willing to adjust the thinking on the fly and make changes where the audience seems to indicate, and I'm assuming he can also course correct in this case as well.
AEW Wednesday night and two nights of NXT already this week. Are you burned out yet? Will we get extra surly Scott by mid-show Sunday?
Not if the blog keeps bringing in numbers like it has the past two days. For the kind of action it's getting I'll review 2.5 -5 hours of wrestling all day, every day! Line 'em up!
For The Culture 2021 Date: April 8, 2021 Location: Cuban Club, Tampa, Florida Commentator: Big Perc
We continue the Wrestlemania weekend run with our first offering from the Collective. This is from Game Changer Wrestling which has some rather unique options at times. They have a rather solid collection of talent from what I’ve seen so far, which could make for a pretty awesome show. Let’s get to it.
Impact Wrestling Date: April 8, 2021 Location: Skyway Studios, Nashville, Tennessee Commentators: Matt Striker, D’Lo Brown
It’s the first show on a new night as Impact is back on Thursdays. As a result it is time for a stacked card, including the first ever Kenny Omega match around here. Throw in the fact that we are less than three weeks away from Rebellion and it is time to start setting up the card. Let’s get to it.
Takeover: Stand & Deliver Night Two Date: April 8, 2021 Location: Capitol Wrestling Center, Winter Park, Florida Commentators: Vic Joseph, Beth Phoenix, Wade Barrett
We’re back here after a heck of a first night and the card here might look even better. The main event is the showdown over the NXT Title as Finn Balor defends against Karrion Kross, who never lost the title in the first place. Other than that, we have multiple title matches and an unsanctioned match between Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole. Let’s get to it.
NXT UK: Prelude Date: April 8, 2021 Location: BT Sports Studios, London, England Commentators: Nigel McGuinness, Andy Shepherd
I’m not sure what the deal is with this one as the show has a fancy title but it seems to just be a beefed up episode of the show. What matters most here is that Walter is defending the United Kingdom Title against Rampage Brown, which should be a heck of a hoss fight. This show does have some potential so let’s get to it.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Event Center here at the Blog of Doom. It’s WrestleMania week, and that means the wrestling world is converging on one location — this year, it’s Tampa, Florida. Both IWTV and FITE are bringing you a long line of wrestling from the hottest talents under the radar in case you cannot make the trip.
But first: Impact Wrestling returns to its traditional Thursday home tonight. Highlighting the show is a six-man tag team main event, as Impact mainstays Willie Mack, Eddie Edwards, and champion Rich Swann take on AEW Champion Kenny Omega alongside his henchmen Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson. Remember that in 16 days, Swann and Omega will have a title-for-title match at Impact’s Rebellion event.
In addition, six women will square off in teams of three as Jordynne Grace, Havok, and Rosemary face off against Tenille Dashwood, Nevaeh, and Alisha. Given that Nevaeh called off her team with Havok last week, one has to wonder what their focus will be. Meanwhile, XXXL will go at it in tag team action against Sami Callihan and a mystery partner, while longtime Impact veteran Chris Sabin faces Cody Deaner.
After the jump, we’ll run down the long list of independent shows going on this weekend as part of WrestleMania.
IWTV Family Reunion 2021 Part 2 Date: April 8, 2021 Location: 81Bay Brewing, Tampa, Florida Commentators: Various
Must like the first part all those hours ago, this is something of a sampler of the various promotions offered by Independent Wrestling.TV. That means we are going to get a nice mixture of stuff, hopefully with mainly different offering than part one. This could be quite the collection so let’s get to it.
Truly a five star whitewash by WWE. People just “cared about the
characters” so much (raw HLA had nothing to do with it), there were
certainly no botches, and it CERTAINLY did not have one of the most
infamous spots ever at Wrestlemania!
This is why winning is so important. The winners get to write history.
What is this, like Mickie James day on the blog all of a sudden? LEX LUGER IS STILL A THING YOU GUYS.
Anyway, I literally write a column for Inside the Ropes magazine every month that's CALLED “Written by the Winners”, where I review WWE's white-washing attempts on the WWE Network and rate their honesty on a scale of one to five Brother Loves, so I know all about it, my friend!
I hadn't thought about this until now, but after Mickie beat Trish at WrestleMania 22, she didn't have another Mania match until 25 (the diva's battle royal which Santino won), or if you don't count that, a 10 diva tag match the next year at Mania 26. What gives? Did Vince lose faith in Mickie for some reason? Was this punishment for the crotch grab and the subsequent “V lick”, or was it just a case of the women becoming less of a priority (not that they were ever a huge priority to begin with)?
I don't think it was anything personal against the Mickster, I just think that the whole women's division was a dumpster fire after Trish and Lita left, until Stephanie thankfully saved it by inventing women's wrestling in 2018.
Is AEW trying to hard? Vince pretends that there is no wrestling world outside of WWE. AEW seems to be trying way too hard to prove that there is. Referencing all this history in New Japan. Working with NWA and Impact. It’s hard to keep track of.
In addition they also seem to be bringing any pop culture has been they can with Shaq, Snoop and Tyson. They just seem to be getting away from everything that made them great.
I agree. Simpler is better sometimes. If you want the extreme opposite example, look at the NWA Powerrr show right now, where they've literally got, like, 8 guys to feature on each show and so they do really simple storytelling and get everyone over best they can. Dynamite is overloaded with people and you suddenly have guys like Sammy Guevara and Wardlow completely lost in the shuffle of these endless stables when they should be getting ready for a big push on their own. It's especially going to drag Jungle Boy down if they can't find a way to get him away from the dinosaur and the little person soon, I think. Focus on making people care about the World title program (whatever that actually is at the moment) and don't worry so much about getting JD Drake and Ryan Nemeth onto national TV, maybe.
