Pro Wrestling Discussion Thread **Spoilers Possible**

[Mota]

When I was a teenager I used to go to a ton of shows by International Wrestling which was the Quebec regional fed with the Rougeaus, Rick Martel, Dino Bravo, Gino Brito, etc. They used to call the time limit before every match and would also call every 5 minutes how much time was left. It would actually build the suspense as you'd come closer to the time limit. But in today's world if you call the time limit it does become painfully obvious that they're going to a draw or within seconds of one as that's the only time they mention it.

Matthean, I wouldn't really consider them on a youth movement right now, they're going to a PPV filled with 40+ year olds that haven't been in the spotlight for over 10 years in many cases. I couldn't name one guy that they have developed in the last two years ... Matt Morgan is improving but he's still a pretty crappy wrestler and they're not protecting him at all, he's losing all the time recently. The Pope would be close even though he's ex-WWE but they have remade him to their credit. He's had some injury problems though.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Multiple online sources reporting that Jerry Lynn has been forced to pull out of tomorrow night's PPV main event due to a back injury.

No one seems to know what they'll do to replace him, and I suspect that "no one" includes Tommy Dreamer.

[DeToxRox]

It's being reported ROH World Champion has signed a deal with WWE. Black is a good worker but cannot talk at all. Interested to see what they do with him.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Dixie Carter tweeted last hour ... main event is RVD vs Sabu

[JonInMiddleGA]

Gonna be a little weird tonight, probably half the guys original names are owned by Vince. So far Tony Mamaluke has become Tony Luke and Johnny Swinger is now just Swinger.

But the "Where's My Pizza?" chant for the FBI is still in play

[JonInMiddleGA]

Taz: "Not surprising we'll hear from Simon Diamond here ... Pat Kinney is blown up"

[Sun Tzu]

Uh...what time does HJ actually start? 8 or 9 EST

[JonInMiddleGA]

It's underway now ... opened with FBI vs Kash/Swinger/Diamond

Now we're getting little Where Are They Now vignettes ... first one features thank yous from Tod Gordon, Gary Wolfe (Pitbull #1), and Blue Meanie.

[Sun Tzu]

hmm...I'm having issues finding a half-way decent justin.tv feed with this. Cable out here (Hawai'i) is a joke.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Damn Fonzie looks & sounds bad. Did he have a stroke or something?

[JonInMiddleGA]

"P.J. Polanco", although I think he looks more in shape than Justin Credible.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Where Are They Now vignette with Francine (w/ her 1 y/o baby).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, let's be honest, the quality is pretty bad in terms of workrate. It's all in good fun & the nostalgia is a decent ride but other than 2 Cold and Kash, the years have not been particularly kind.

Next up: Rhino vs Spike Dudley vs Al Snow

[JonInMiddleGA]

Decent bit of chain wrestling in the middle, a little bit of Head and a fairly funny spot. Ref bump allows Snow to use Head, LSD grabs a chair but instead of using it on Snow he bangs the floor with it & falls down hoping to fool Finnegan into thinking Snow used it. Al picks up the chair, duplicates the stunt, leaving the ref to wonder who the hell hit who so he does nothing except dispose of the chair.

[JonInMiddleGA]

It's Axl Rotten with his partner "Kahoneys". Interesting to note that they used the AC/DC "Big Balls" instrumental theme for them.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Taz re: Joel Gertner's coat "Must have been a big racoon"

[JonInMiddleGA]

It's a South Philly streetfight, Dudleys vs Balls & Axl and I'm hoping this is where we get a (spoilered elsewhere) surprise.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The crowd is handling the real name chants, and the ECdub chants pretty well.

Y'know, there's been some criticism about TNA essentially promoting a brand that they don't own and never will but I've decided that's fine. Vince can legally own it but there's no one that believes for a minute that he owns it if you see what I mean. It belongs to the old guys, it belongs to the fans, it belongs to damned near anyone & everyone other than VKM.

This isn't pretty but it's fun so far

edit to add: Balls vs Bubba with dueling plastic lightsabers, Taz "Now THIS is extreme !"

[JonInMiddleGA]

Got my surprise

Spoiler

Gangsta reform for one night, New Jack & Saed in da house

[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, this was poorly conceived. BWO run-in interrupts Dreamer-Raven as Dreamer had locked in a crossface using barbed wire in Raven's mouth. Talk about blowing the moment.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I have to guess (and it's only a guess) that the unknown lackey helping Raven (seen earlier in the BWO backstage sketch) is going to be a part of the roster.

If anyone is watching, could that have been newly signed indy guy Rob Eckos?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Eh, it was fun, if extremely unspectacular. Sabu & RVD was actually better than I expected although my expectations were very very low for that but Sabu held up his end of the deal well enough I think. I don't feel cheated & it was the first TNA PPV I'd been motivated to buy in months, so that says something.

That said, unless Heyman gets the book then this definitely needs to be a "one night stand". Hell, even if Heyman had the book there are a few guys who could be useful longer term but not enough to build anything around certainly. Dreamer definitely isn't the answer for booking, what they did with the end of his match w/ Raven was just bad. The choice of an opener was also poor, probably should have gone with Scorpio/Anderson in hindsight.

It was what it was: a nostalgia show & most of the guys did what they could still do, a few have something left but most don't.

[Sun Tzu]

I give the whole card a big thumbs up. The end was a bit anti-climactic. Personally, I thought the highlight of the show was the Balls/Rotten v Dudleys match. I was hoping for an Eliminators run-in, but alas it was not to be.

I enjoyed the RVD v Sabu match, and it was nice to have Phonsie's whistle ringing in my ears until the end again, but the match had a pretty slow pace. For me, it felt like they were milking it toward the end.

Very surprised not to see Heyman show up, and the same can be said for Shane Douglas. Does Douglas hold some ill will toward the old ECW days or something?

All in all, this card gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach that only ECW wrestlers & chants can provide.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

what they did with the end of his match w/ Raven was just bad.

I agree 100%. I got the feeling that someone else was supposed to run-in, but they either no-showed or backed out at the last second. That left them with Nova and the "new Blue Meanie."

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

I agree 100%. I got the feeling that someone else was supposed to run-in, but they either no-showed or backed out at the last second. That left them with Nova and the "new Blue Meanie."

I'm without any explanation about the fake Meanie, I know the original Meanie was anticipated (according to the dirt sheets) so that was just weird. But I think the whole point to the run-in was to introduce a new lackey character for Raven, although having him pick fake Meanie's nose backstage probably wasn't the best way to do that.

Best moment: Flaming table FTW I guess. That was probably the best image of the night. The return of the Quintessential Studmuffin was a highlight to me as well.

Guys I thought looked the best: Scorpio, Kash, Guido. You could actually put them in the ring and not be hurting the regular product at all IMO.

Guys who looked the worst: Diamond, Axl, and Smothers (he didn't suck, he just literally looks terrible).

Screwiest shit: New Jack & Saed hugging it out with the Dudleys second after a complete beatdown. I get the nostalgia, I'm glad they're friends & all, I marked for New Jack's arrival ... but it didn't make jack shit worth of sense.

Things that made me go hmm: They did a relative lot of hyping Joey Styles tonight, enough to make me wonder if his contract is expiring shortly.

Quirky fun: I actually got a kick out of how amused Taz was by some of the
oddball shit, the f'ed up names they had to use, and the like.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

Scorpio can work a bit, the three-way dance actually should have gotten a little more time

It wasn't bad by any stretch & was clearly above the curve tonight. That said however, it also struck me as the most forgettable thing on the whole show. I think Rhino's character has been killed completely by his prolonged absence, Snow was hurt for me with the bizarro backstage bit earlier in the show, and it hasn't been that long since we've seen little Spike.

(Axl might as well have been a cadaver)

Might have been the single weakest in-ring performer all night, along with Smothers/Kinney. Axl has absolutely nothing left at all.

Dixie giving him the book may actually be worse than leaving it with Rizzo.

Nah, nothing is worse than the current troika unless they become a quartet and add Ferrara to the mix. But Dreamer certainly doesn't appear to be an improvement either.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

Once that's done you can start inserting extras like TLC, Ultimate X, street fights etc.

Except that I don't consider Ultimate X an "extra", it's a fairly integral part of TNA's history.

Then again, I haven't forgiven them for dropping the six-sided ring or devaluing the X-Division title and likely won't ever forgive them for inflicting Hogan on the world again.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

In a weird way though, Hogan coming to TNA and nothing happening to the ratings as a result actually has devalued Hogan a lot, so in a weird way, it's a positive for pro wrestling since it gives Hogan less leverage.

Not sure that there's anyone around to take advantage of that unfortunately. I mean, the next biggest thing on the horizon seems to be the rumored start-up in Florida and they're hiring every has-been they can get their hands on (if the rumors are to be believed). That ain't exactly progress.

ROH's roster has been pretty much decimated unless they roll out every top guy they have on a show (which you can't really do indefinitely), the indies seem to be weaker on talent than I can recall in at least a decade although you might be able to cobble together a decent young roster if you got the absolute best from every promotion lower than ROH into one full-time collection.

As much as we've bitched about younger talent being held down due to the Hogan's et al of the world, I think we may be headed for an even bigger problem down the road with there just not being much in the next wave to work with.

[Terps]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

I give the whole card a big thumbs up. The end was a bit anti-climactic. Personally, I thought the highlight of the show was the Balls/Rotten v Dudleys match. I was hoping for an Eliminators run-in, but alas it was not to be.

I enjoyed the RVD v Sabu match, and it was nice to have Phonsie's whistle ringing in my ears until the end again, but the match had a pretty slow pace. For me, it felt like they were milking it toward the end.

Very surprised not to see Heyman show up, and the same can be said for Shane Douglas. Does Douglas hold some ill will toward the old ECW days or something?

All in all, this card gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach that only ECW wrestlers & chants can provide.

That'd be kinda tough with Saturn being MIA for at least 5 years, and Kronus being dead.

[Toddzilla]

I was kind of hoping Heyman would show up at the end to big fanfare, then Samoa Joe and the rest of the TNA roster would hit the ring and clear it while Heyman cut a promo on Dixie, "Are you happy now? I hope you got it out of your system, because these are the boys you need to push - Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Jay Lethal..." etc. and behind the scenes, Paul takes the book and goes from there.

Ah, I can dream, can't I?

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Guys who looked the worst: Diamond, Axl, and Smothers (he didn't suck, he just literally looks terrible)

Tracy Smotheres looked like an unwrapped mummy.

[molson]

So who has dibs on the next ECW reunion angle? ROH in around 2013?

[JonInMiddleGA]

I've seen a couple of references to Raven's unknown lackey last night being the barely remembered/rarely used worker known as Lupus from back in the days of the original Raven's Flock. But even those references in the dirt sheets don't seem to be certain if that's who it was.

It's kind of amazing to me that in this day & age, with all the stuff on the internet, that TNA managed to find someone so obscure that even the IWC doesn't know who they were.

The fake Blue Meanie was pretty quickly identified as an indy worker from Florida.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by Terps

That'd be kinda tough with Saturn being MIA for at least 5 years, and Kronus being dead.

What the hell...when did John Kronus die?

[Sun Tzu]

Hifi in this thread reminds me of MBBF in Microsoft threads. Seriously man, get over it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

What the hell...when did John Kronus die?

July 2007, due to heart failure caused by an enlarged heart. Fiance found him at her apartment, just a few days after he'd had knee surgery. Just 38 y/o.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

What the hell...when did John Kronus die?

If you haven't followed wrestling at all for a few years you might be alarmed at the number of deaths that have occurred in the meantime.....

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

July 2007, due to heart failure caused by an enlarged heart. Fiance found him at her apartment, just a few days after he'd had knee surgery. Just 38 y/o.

Sigh...I guess if you stop watching wrestling for a few years you should expect to hear about a dozen or so new guys who died in their 20's & 30's.

Sad.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Over the weekend Bryan Danielson worked (vs Adam Pearce) on the NWA Legends show in Charlotte. A fan won a silent auction to give the ring introductions but was apparently more than a little nervous, as he brought out "The Ulitmate Dragon Bryan Pearce".

This is video is AmDrag's reaction:

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

That's beautiful. It's amazing how little the NWA means these days but they can still pull out a World title match of Danielson and Pearce. Not bad for something that is almost completely irrelevant.

Probably deserves a bit of an * by it though, considering that neither worker performs for NWA promotions as their primary home. For the NWA to have them facing each other for their title is a little bit like ROH putting their belt on Sabin & having him defend against Lethal.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

Pearce does, and did in his reigns before, defend the title pretty regularly which is about all the NWA can hope for these days. Considering where they are on the landscape they could be doing a lot worse than Pearce, Albright, Pearce, Blue Demon Jr., Pearce as the title holders since TNA bowed out.

I'd consider Pearce's "primary" wrestling home as ROH where he's head booker (at least afaik he still is), but you're definitely right that he has been an active champion (and a very respectable one IMO).

[molson]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

I really think the NWA could work today at a level just below the TV promotions. If they would be more selective in member requirements, set up a site to sell DVDs of each regional promotion, link to each individual promotions site, and drop to just two world titles (singles and tag) they could be a meaningful part of the indy scene.

I think they should do away with the "membership" format and just book two world titles (or even just the singles world title), and try to run indy "supershows". Let the champions carry around the belts in their home promotions if they want (but don't require it).

This kind of structure would have worked a lot better when you had a stronger indy scene, but I think it would have been a better way to go for them for the last 2 decades now.