The Wrestling Thread: WWE WrestleMania 31 [NSFW]

[sw26]

another 3 disc Shawn Michaels

Do want. Can never get enough HBK goodness.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Finally Chris Masters as a face!!!

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Just watching RAW, Sheamus has just said that he's never been beaten. So WWE are already writing over it's history, Sheamus lost to Goldust on superstars a few months back when he was in ecw

[vesp]

Was he pinned?

[PES Fan]

Didn't understand the last part of Raw. Why let a celeb drop Sheamus down with a shove?

[Jam-Master Jay]

Didn't understand the last part of Raw. Why let a celeb drop Sheamus down with a shove?

That didn't really happen, did it?

[PES Fan]

It did indeed.

[KK]

I’d laugh my arse off if Chris Masters ends up more over than Shaemus & Drew McIntyre. “MASTERLOCK” “MASTERLOCK”.

Great crowd, great host. He was the focus of the show, yet didn’t take anything away from the storylines. I wonder how having Shaemus end the show again will affect the ratings.

Some old school clips of WWF on SkyOne, Sky Movies & ITV here...











The Battle Royal & UK Rampage ’91 Tagged Classics is available through SilverVision.

[KK]

Listening to last week's Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer seemed to think that the WWE had never put a manager or a wrestler in a cage suspended above the ring before – but from my recollection they’ve done it twice. Once on Raw (Jerry Lawler’s nose started bleeding) & at Unforgiven: In Your House with Chyna. In another variation on the gimmick, DX had to throw the members of the Spirit Squad in a cage at Saturday Night's Main Event.

For someone that seemingly prides oneself on being a wrestling historian, he half seems to forget some obvious stuff.

[JV]

I'm sure I recall Paul Bearer in one as well during 1996/7.

[Adam Pollard]

Finally Chris Masters as a face!!!

THE MASTERPIECE

[Adam Pollard]

Impact spoilers for Thursday

Impact taping report for 12/7 -- TNA prepares for new Monday Night Wars by booking Thunder

By Gord Tepper

In Orlando on vacation, I made it out to the Impact Zone for the Monday night TV taping. This show will air this Thursday, December 10.

I'm not an avid TNA viewer, and that's probably why I was excited to see the show live. I can honestly say that this was the stupidest wrestling show I have ever seen. Vince Russo (or whoever is writing TV) needs to be shown the door.

TNA Impact

Kevin Nash comes out with Eric Young to announce all the matches for the show. He states that he arranged a meeting between Mick Foley & Hulk, so Foley is on his way to the airport (doesn't Hogan live like an hour away?)... he also lets us know that the A.J. Styles will be defending the title against whoever pays the most money for a shot at the belt.

1) Chris Sabin defeats British Invasion cleanly in a 3-on-1 handicap match after pinning Rob (the jacked-up guy)

-- WTF? The face defeats a heel team without interference when he's outnumbered 3-on-1?! A total burial of the British Invasion for no reason.

2) Scott Steiner & Awesome Kong defeats Bobby & Krystal Lashley when Steiner pins Krystal

-- WTF?? Steiner pins Krystal? Since when do men fight women in mixed tag matches? After the match he did pushups on top of her as if he were raping her while she was unconscious.

3) Eric Young defeats Hamada after a missed moonsault by Hamada, Young had his feet on the ropes for the pin

-- WTF??? As if one man pinning a woman on this show wasn't enough... and he needed to cheat to win. She slammed him and beat him up most of the match. This was absolutely ridiculous

4) ODB defeats Tara in a Trailer Park (Hardcore) match

-- WTF???? Tara is the best woman wrestler in the league, and ODB sucks. Naturally, according to TNA logic, that means ODB gets the win. It also means that since Tara is good, she gets thrown in some stupid garbage match that prevents her from actually performing well.

5) Team 3D, Rhyno, & Jesse Neal defeat Matt Morgan, Suicide, & Hernandez when Neal pins Hernandez after a spear

-- The insanity continues. The crowd cheered 3D & Rhyno, nobody (myself included) knew they were heels until Bubba took the mic and told everybody to shut up. This match was actually good. The most impressive guy to me was Hernandez (he did a nice dive over the top rope to the floor)... so of course he's the one who gets pinned. The only guy in the match who I never heard of was Jesse Neal, and he got the victory. Whatever. The Pope (nursing a leg injury) ran in to make the save during a post-match beatdown.

6) Velvet Skye defeats Lacey Von Erich in a mud wrestling match

Negative five stars. This wasn't even sexy -- it was just stupid and awful. Their teammates and the 3rd member of the team was the referee. What am I watching? Four out of the six matches to this point are women's matches.

7) A.J. Styles defeats Desmond Wolfe with a school boy roll up following a distraction by the Fallen Angel

This match was pretty good. Sadly, the wrestler I wanted to see most of all TNA talent was Kurt Angle and all he did was come out for commentary during this match.

TNA XPLOSION

The crowd was urged to stay for these matches with the incentive of receiving a free TNA DVD.

8) Amazing Red defeats Homocide with a standing shooting star press.

Don West is awesome. Amazing Red looks like a cupie doll.. pretty weird. I though Homocide was really good so of course he had to job out here for no reason.

9) Consequences Creed defeats Sheik Bashir with a press slam

Again, I thought Bashir was the better of the two (he's also noticeably enormous and might have trouble passing a 'medicine' test), so TNA booked him to lose. He's also a great mic man and a personality so he's left to wrestle with no in ring promo on a syndicated show that nobody watches.

David Penzer announced at the end of the taping that tomorrow night (the taping for 12/17) will feature a match between Desmond Wolfe and Fallen Angel. Sorry, but I won't be going back after this. Somebody else will have to submit a report for that one.

Wow, this show seemed even more awful to me after writing this report.

Additional Notes: The 'arena' was half empty and people were leaving as the show was going on. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention how bizarre many members of the audience were. Some notable characters include a guy dressed just like Richard Petty, a wild guy on the floor who danced the entire show, a hyperactive kid standing on the bleachers eating a gigantic sour pickle, and assorted red necks... a wild bunch to say the least. There was also a significant number of people from the UK in the audience -- I'm guessing that's why they have a group called the British Invasion and pushed Desmond Wolfe to the moon.

[KK]

Somewhat of an attitude era line up to that card what with the return of the swimming pool & hardcore matches.

On the subject of TNA Eric Bischoff has posted these two comments on his Twitter page (EBischoff) in regards to the Live iMPACT!:

Was anxious to make the announcement about the Jan 4 debut. Been in the works for more than a month and a tough one to keep quiet..gooseberry fools on!

Expecting WWE to come out with guns blazing on Jan 4. Love making them "sell". Thats when you know you're doing it right!

In today's blog entry by Jim Ross (jrsbarbq.com), he writes:

"I'm feeling better every day and remain upbeat and optimistic that I have not called my last match and that my next one might be sooner than some expect."

Hmmm. Who might qualify as "some"? Maybe Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn?

What if Jim Ross's contract talks with WWE don't result in a renewal of his deal, either because they lowball him, they aren't sure if he will ever announce again and thus delay negotiations, or Ross plays hardball because he has a viable alternative to WWE to do what he loves (and feel appreciated rather than ridiculed)?

Jim Ross walking into the TNA Impact Zone to take over as the lead announcer of Impact would make as much of a statement as anything else I can think of, short of The Rock or Steve Austin or John Cena walking onto that show. WWE isn't going to let any current top WWE wrestlers do what Lex Luger did just before Nitro launched, which is work on TV without a contract pending negotiations. So realistically, TNA cannot deliver Cena, Undertaker, Batista, or Edge, for instance.

But TNA has acquired top WWE wrestlers before, most notably Kurt Angle, but also Booker T, Team 3D, and Christian. None had much effect on ratings. None shifted the balance of power or perception of TNA.

Ross could. Ross is trusted and admired by WWE fans, who recognize that "despite his non-Kohl's catalog looks" he is on WWE for a reason - he's the best at what he does. He enhances every match he calls. He also is the voice of the some of the biggest matches wrestling fans of this generation have seen.

Going to TNA now, with TNA at the stage it's at, with Hulk Hogan, Kurt Angle, UFC-plugs, and a relatively long track record that tells fans they're here to stay, would not be seen as a demotion for Ross. Five years ago Ross going to TNA might have been seen by fans as a case of him having no other option. Now it'd be seen as a final legitimization of TNA as credible and major league to a group of fans who might not have been moved by Hulk Hogan and what he represents.

And it might just give Ross a sense of satisfaction after years of being underappreciated and abused by Vince McMahon and his inner-circle who value Ken Doll looks over superior announcing.

[vesp]

Interesting JR read there

[sw26]

JR and Tenay together would be great.

[Baron Zemo]

Just bought SvR2010 for £20, apparently "The best SvR ever"

[KK]

I was watching Raw is War (after Unforgiven '98) last night - it was a really entertaining show, but everything bar one match had a screwy ending or non-finish. If there was one problem with the Attitude era, the quality of the wrestling definitely took a back seat in favour of storyline development.

Ken Shamrock and Owen Hart against The Nation didn't take place when Owen Hart turned on Shamrock before the match & joined The Nation; The Headbangers defeated Terry Funk & 2 Cold Scorpio by DQ; Bradshaw defeated Jeff Jarrett by DQ when Kai En Tai ran in; The DOA beat the New Age Outlaws with a roll up following interference; The Undertaker pinned Barry Windham in 2 minutes & Steve Austin Vs Goldust went to a no contest when Dude Love ran in & Vince McMahon accidentally waffled the referee (Brisco) with the title belt.

[blackoutHERO]

Was there any mention of Umaga on RAW?

[KK]

Was there any mention of Umaga on RAW?

Nope. Absolutely nothing.

Chris Jericho was wearing a black armband though.

[Cardinal Chunder]

Was there any mention of Umaga on RAW?

Nope. Absolutely nothing.

Yeah, I thought that was a bit strange.

Regarding JR and TNA, I think JR's style works best when there's thousands of people going mental. He couldn't really go mental with ten people in the iMPACT Zone going, "yay"