The Wrestling Thread: WWE WrestleMania 31 [NSFW]

[Return_of_the_STAR]

You both look so happy.

I was about to start shopping something like that.

x99999~

Now if only someone could shop Jim, Mocky and Mafro onto a battered and bruised Team 3D (Spike included).

Awesome, we're so cool.

Also I still can't get my head around bragging rights and what the duck happened. Although technically cena should now be fired I'm wondering if this is the start of a heel turn to get back at Orion. Thinking about it, I bet they will make up some excuse about not being able to fire cena because he is tag champion.

[KK]

Bragging Rights.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WJ7FZBXL
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3FQ6AJQ9

To everyone who hasn't seen it, watch the opening match with Danielson & Ziggler. Great match, crowd were really hot for it. Rest of Bragging Rights was a cure for insomnia.

The commentators seemed more interested in pissing about - Striker completely lost the plot following the elimination match. I think at one point something was so bloody terrible (may have been LayCool's promo) he called it "Shockmaster bad". Loving this new direction in the WWE, where you can guarantee something on every show is a load of gooseberry fool, & they know full well it's a load of gooseberry fool, so they tell the viewer just how full of gooseberry fool it really is.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Bragging Rights.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WJ7FZBXL
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3FQ6AJQ9

To everyone who hasn't seen it, watch the opening match with Danielson & Ziggler. Great match, crowd were really hot for it. Rest of Bragging Rights was a cure for insomnia.

The commentators seemed more interested in pissing about - Striker completely lost the plot following the elimination match. I think at one point something was so bloody terrible (may have been LayCool's promo) he called it "Shockmaster bad". Loving this new direction in the WWE, where you can guarantee something on every show is a load of gooseberry fool, & they know full well it's a load of gooseberry fool, so they tell the viewer just how full of gooseberry fool it really is.

On the last part I am really confused as to why they are doing this. It seems really odd to have the commentators and wrestler openly slamming the product. Also I didn't think the lay cool promo was that bad, why striker would compare it to shockmaster I have no idea.

[Mafro]

[gaminglegend]

Missed this thread.. had to make do with UKFF

Forgot the password for the secure site and lost the email, just by chance I tried the site today and it worked

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Interesting article on WWE in todays sun and on their website. Basically paints WWE fans as loonys. Yes these fans do exist at every event but i've been to 4 WWE Raw tapings now and out of thousands in attendance (20,000 at the O2) these fans number only hundreds.

FACE down in the gutter, agonising pain shoots up my spine as a muscular Texan wrenches me into a bone-jarring wrestling hold called the "STF".
To the uninitiated that's the Stepover Toehold Facelock. To the uninitiated, it hurts.
I'm in larger-than-life Dallas, Texas, trying to understand the popularity of the £300million-a-year global phenomenon World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).
And things aren't quite going to plan.
WWE nut Frank Javier insists on demonstrating ring legend John Cena's signature move on me.
The furniture deliveryman, 32, twists my left leg around his hefty thigh, pushes his knee into my back and with a sweaty hand over my face, wrenches my head back.
"Ok, Frank, I submit," I yell. "You're hurting me Frank... "
Laughing manically, the dad-of-five finally lets go, saying: "When I watch the wrestling I feel the vibrations, dude. I get so emotional I'm in tears sometimes."
The mammoth WWE tour rolls into Britain on November 4 and 70,000 fans will scream themselves hoarse at the series of live shows, with millions more glued to their TVs in 145 nations.
WWE has been plagued by steroid abuse scandals and the tragedy of wrestler Robin Ethics murdering his family. It has also suffered jibes that the whole thing is a massive fix.
Yet WWE is more popular than ever - with Britain its second biggest market.
I joined the WWE touring juggernaut winding its way through its US heartlands to discover the allure of this bizarre mix of pantomime and apparent violence.
The weird and wonderful fans in Rey Mysterio masks and Cena belts at Dallas's American Airlines Center for the WWE Hell In A Cell event seemed a good place to start.
My last visit to a wrestling match was to see British legend Big Daddy at a sparsely attended Wantage Civic Hall in the early Eighties. Things have moved on quite a bit.
As the house lights go down, heavy metal music throbs and pyrotechnics illuminate thousands of placard-waving fans.

Emerging through the flames are current WWE champ Randy Orton, 30, all tattoos and baby oil, and Irishman Sheamus.
The punches look real and the leaps off the ropes look worthy of Hollywood stuntmen.
Behind me a large bloke with a beard and baseball cap yells again and again: "Use a chair on him."
The storylines - including who wins - are carefully scripted by a team of writers, but the plots make Emmerdale look like King Lear.
Every fight has a hero and a villain to be cheered or hissed.
There's also a "Diva" contest between cuties with heaving bosoms and tight Lycra - explaining why so many dads have bought along their kids, leaving mom at home.

Current WWE golden boy John Cena, 33 - with an amazingly muscled physique - runs on stage to wild applause. Dressed in cut-off jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap, he takes on Brit Wade Barrett, 30, from baddies collective The Nexus. The script writers deem Cena will lose and he must join The Nexus.
When he is duly dispatched - he is attacked by crowd members who are friends of the baddies - the audience sits hushed and stunned.
Many have tears rolling down their cheek, and hulking McDonald's maintenance man Tyrone Davis, sitting next to me, is inconsolable.
I tell Tyrone not to worry, that it's all a fix any way, but the 36-year-old sobs: "But John lost." The climax is a bout between WWE luminary The Undertaker, 45, known as 'Taker, and 7ft monster Kane, 43.
Sitting behind me bellowing at 'Taker is Shaun Cowan, 26, there with his son Timmy, four.
Shaun wears a red fright mask, black wig and Lycra jump suit, his tummy rolling over his black belt. He made the outfit himself to mimic one once worn by his hero Kane.
"I wear it around the house," admits Shaun. "My wife doesn't mind, she's a big WWE fan too."
As fireworks explode, Timmy puts his fingers in his ears as Dad screams for Kane.
It's American razzmatazz at its most gaudy and is undoubtedly an impressive show.
The stage and set are taken down every night ready for the next show.
The stars make their own way there and as I board the plane next morning for Wichita, Kansas, Mark Henry, 39 - a former Olympic weightlifter whose WWE tag is World's Strongest Man - has crammed his vast bulk into a club seat.
A clutch of dolled-up divas are at the back of the plane being ogled by star-struck Midwesterners. Soon we are in the bowels of Wichita's Intrust Bank Arena preparing for that day's Raw bout. Around 100 stage hands unload 12 huge trucks on this continuous tour.
Sean Sellman, 46, in charge of logistics, reveals: "We are like a rock show with a TV show rolled into it. But backstage it's dry - we're not the Rolling Stones."

Earlier I was granted an interview with the Celtic Warrior Sheamus - real name Stephen Farrelly - one of WWE's rising stars.
Articulate Sheamus, 32, a former Dublin IT worker, gives his take on why WWE is so wildly popular, saying: "It's a story, a soap opera. People know that, but get lost in it."
Red-haired and pasty-skinned Sheamus adds: "It might sound corny but it's real-life superheroes - you've got your good guys and your bad guys. Kids love it because these larger than life people perform amazing feats in the ring."
The Benoit murders in 2007 drove a coach and horses through WWE's attempts to craft a family image. Benoit, 40, murdered wife Nancy and strangled his seven-year-old son Daniel before hanging himself. Steroids were later discovered in his Atlanta home, followed by reports that a slew of other WWE stars were taking the drugs.
An autopsy showed signs of significant brain damage, which his family attributes to repeated blows to the head during wrestling.
WWE say that under their Talent Wellness Program stars now undergo compulsory brain tests including memory and reaction time.
Any wrestler suffering concussion has to pass medical tests before entering the ring again.
There is also a tougher drug testing procedure, WWE insist.
Sheamus tells me: "I've never taken a performance enhancer, steroid or any narcotic in my life. WWE come down hard on that stuff. We promote a healthy lifestyle."
Advertisement

WWE is now labelled as "sports entertainment" and they have toned down the language, got rid of fake blood - and happily admit it's fixed.
Dominic Hayes, television and digital managing director for WWE, revealed: "WWE is and always has been scripted entertainment."
Show time is approaching and I've decided to join in the escapism.
So I don the full Cena "product" line of purple T-shirt, sweatbands, baseball cap and medallion to mingle with the screaming hordes.
As the heavy metal reverberates, I raise my giant foam hand and scream: "Go go Cena! Go go Cena!"


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fe ... z13ONR8mNY

[Mafro]

Apter Used to read 1Wrestling all the time back in the day.

[Chocolate Jim]

Interesting article on WWE in todays sun and on their website. Basically paints WWE fans as loonys. Yes these fans do exist at every event but i've been to 4 WWE Raw tapings now and out of thousands in attendance (20,000 at the O2) these fans number only hundreds.

The Sun have become the most ridiculous fanboys of TNA it is unreal. Just check out their wrestling page armed with that knowledge now! You will be astounded how biased it really is.

[E-Man]

Pell and E-man get the points.

I stayed up lat night for the first hour then went to bed. Watched the rest now, looks like I made the right decision.

[Mafro]

Just watching the bit of Smackdown I missed, the finish to the Punk v Edge match was awesome.

LayCool l pretending to be Natalya and Bret

[Ginga]

Rob Van Dam is in the new Smackdown game. As a legend.

I'm so lost as to how you handle people who used to work for you but are now at the competition. All my years of training thus far has been geared towards completely strawberry floating ignoring them. Not placing them in your videogame and promoting their book

[KK]

TMZ caught up with WWE announcer Jerry Lawler over the weekend for an interview on Jim Carrey spitting in his face during the filming of Andy Kaufman's "Man On The Moon" movie in the late 1990s.

Lawler recalled Carrey staying in character as Kaufman throughout the filming to the point where Carrey wanted to take a piledriver from Lawler during a scene in the movie, which Lawler balked at.

"Jim Carrey got really upset and came over and spit in my face," he said. "I kind of lost it for a second and I snapped for a bit. Once he spit, he realized what he did and his eyes got real big."

Lawler recalled Carrey trying to run away, Lawler grabbing him with a headlock, and Carrey's bodyguard trying to pull him away, which allegedly caused a neck injury for Carrey.

Video: Lawler's interview on TMZ can be viewed on TMZ.com.

Caldwell's Analysis: It's amazing this is still a story ten years later, but it's part of the Andy Kaufman legacy that continues to live on beyond his death.

You can read how Powerslam 52 in 1998 reported the original story on page 1.

[Balloon Sod]

TMZ caught up with WWE announcer Jerry Lawler over the weekend for an interview on Jim Carrey spitting in his face during the filming of Andy Kaufman's "Man On The Moon" movie in the late 1990s.

Lawler recalled Carrey staying in character as Kaufman throughout the filming to the point where Carrey wanted to take a piledriver from Lawler during a scene in the movie, which Lawler balked at.

"Jim Carrey got really upset and came over and spit in my face," he said. "I kind of lost it for a second and I snapped for a bit. Once he spit, he realized what he did and his eyes got real big."

Lawler recalled Carrey trying to run away, Lawler grabbing him with a headlock, and Carrey's bodyguard trying to pull him away, which allegedly caused a neck injury for Carrey.

Video: Lawler's interview on TMZ can be viewed on TMZ.com.

Caldwell's Analysis: It's amazing this is still a story ten years later, but it's part of the Andy Kaufman legacy that continues to live on beyond his death.

You can read how Powerslam 52 in 1998 reported the original story on page 1.

It's brilliant. Whether the Carrey/Lawler bad blood was legit doesn't really matter; it's the perfect tribute to Andy Kaufman in that regard. Damn good film, and it's an excuse to post an REM song in The Wrestling Thread.



Any song with a reference to Classy Freddie Blassie is alright with me.

[Cosmo]

Watching No Way Out 2000 on ye olde VHS

Jericho's post match interview was brilliant. I miss the days of Kirk Angel, Vivien Garcia, the Jerichoholics and the Inter-Chrisinental title.

[KK]

Talking of TMZ...

Brock Lesnar will not return to the WWE anytime soon to fight The Undertaker - despite several reports to the contrary - because the ex-heavyweight champ is still "under contract" with the UFC. Despite an intense standoff between Lesnar and The Undertaker at UFC 121 this weekend - in which Undie challenged Brock to a fight - UFC president Dana White tells us, "Brock Lesnar is still under contract with the UFC ... he is not going to wrestle in the WWE. He cannot wrestle, box or fight anywhere else.” Back when Brock fought with the WWE, he and Taker had a pretty nasty rivalry - and The Undertaker claims he still has "personal" issues with the former UFC champ. So far, no word from The Undertaker.

http://www.tmz.com/2010/10/25/ufc-presi ... lenge-wwe/

[Lotus]

Did anyone really think he would go back though? Even for one 'fight'? He wants to be taken seriously, and going back to the WWE wouldn't be conducive to that. Probably why The Rock's stayed away as well. The WWE's gone downhill massively to the point of being embarassing, so if I were him I'd stay well away.

[Lonestar]

I don't see Brock staying in MMA. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who will stick around unless he's the best, and you could tell after the fight that he knew he'd never be able to beat Cain Velasquez.

[Skippy]

you could tell after the fight that he knew he'd never be able to beat Cain Velasquez.

Bullshit Just because he was humble. He said something like "He was the better man, tonight" emphasis on tonight.

[Balloon Sod]

Did anyone really think he would go back though? Even for one 'fight'? He wants to be taken seriously, and going back to the WWE wouldn't be conducive to that. Probably why The Rock's stayed away as well. The WWE's gone downhill massively to the point of being embarassing, so if I were him I'd stay well away.

Brock had to be at least considering it. He could probably get a fair few million, and get to take a few months off his heavy training to spend time with his family. But there's the problem of a UFC fighter taking a dive in a 'fake' fight. That's a big problem.

Rock does make a good effort to stay away from the WWE for numerous reasons, his film career being the obvious one. But by all accounts he was absolutely disgusted with the angle where Orton crashed Eddie's car, and told Rey he was in hell. That was arguably the worst thing the WWE has ever done, and their excuse ("Eddie would have wanted it") was bullshit. When Art Barr died, he went nuts when a tame angle based around his death was suggested.

Why the Democrats haven't jumped all over that, I don't know.

[Lonestar]

you could tell after the fight that he knew he'd never be able to beat Cain Velasquez.

Bullshit Just because he was humble. He said something like "He was the better man, tonight" emphasis on tonight.

When he lost to Mir he was his usual cocky arrogant self, he knew Mir got lucky and knew he'd do better in a rematch. On Saturday he fought a younger more talented fighter, a fighter who not only got straight back up from Brock's takedowns, but also managed to put Brock on his ass.

Brock knows his stand up sucks, Brock knows he doesn't like getting hit and Brock certainly knows he will never be champion again.