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Post by corndog on Jul 15, 2021 12:29:39 GMT -5
Wheeler Yuta is on Dynamite facing Sammy Guevera I'm glad New Japan and AEW are working together. I think going on excursion to AEW is going to be great for the Young Lions, like WCW was in the past. They will learn to work TV and the American style, plus unlike England and ROH, they will be working more regularly.
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Post by corndog on Jul 15, 2021 12:26:50 GMT -5
I might give this a listen, especially if Conrad isn't on one with Bret. I don't know why he dislikes him so much, but on the other hand, Bruce usually speaks very highly of Bret, so that should balance it out. I think Schiavone doesn't like him either. I remember a WHW podcast I think it might have been Rumble 90 where it seemed like they both had resentment towards him for some reason. Maybe Bret was rude to them in some way at a convention they were all at or something. Conrad is Flair's son and law so maybe Bret and Flair's heat over the years has something to do with it. Never knew about Schiavone, but he is at least professional about things. The weird thing about Conrad's heat with Bret, is Bret and Flair legit made amends when Bret went on Flair's podcast and I haven't heard either say anything bad about each other since then.
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Post by corndog on Jul 13, 2021 9:54:49 GMT -5
His run with Hogan doesn’t get talked about enough. Probably one of the best heel turns and storylines they ever did. A great slow burn where Orndorff was getting needled by the heels and he thought he was right in turning on Hogan because he didn’t answer his phone call. It wasn’t just a turn to do a turn. The motivations were perfect. It was really well done and not only that, but I felt like Ordorff gave Hogan his best matches and was his best opponent. The cage match on SNME was really well done and even though it ended up screwy, I like the Big Event match as well. He was a great worker and an underated heel that I doubt will get quite the dues he deserved. In a way, now he is at peace. It's see sad to see him go, but it was almost sadder to see him in the condition he was in at the end.
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Post by corndog on Jul 12, 2021 11:14:44 GMT -5
I might give this a listen, especially if Conrad isn't on one with Bret. I don't know why he dislikes him so much, but on the other hand, Bruce usually speaks very highly of Bret, so that should balance it out.
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Post by corndog on Jul 12, 2021 11:06:20 GMT -5
Tekkers vs Tekkers? was really good, hope they keep raising the bar for the Tag Titles and keep G.O.D away for a while. I would have liked to see another contender, but I'm okay with a rematch being this close. Interesting to see who is next after this defense, regardless of who wins.
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Post by corndog on Jul 9, 2021 16:55:57 GMT -5
Add me to Steamboat/Savage. I'm a big fan of both guys, but this match has never done it for me. Steamboat is supposed to be fired up and looking for revenge from the throat injury and we got a million 2 counts instead. I absolutely love Savage/Steamboat at WM3, but you have a really good point. The match doesn't fit the story, it should be more like Jake/Steamboat from the Big Event, a more brutal brawl which both Savage and Steamboat are perfectly capable of doing. Also add me to the list on Shawn/Bret at WM12 being overrated. When they talk about the match everyone in WWE acts like it is the greatest thing ever, but both have had much better matches and I would rather see a Flair/Steamboat broadway any day of the week, where the pace is much higher and more intense. I also think knowing this match would go an hour, really hurts it.
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Post by corndog on Jun 24, 2021 15:12:23 GMT -5
I think there would be plenty to do for at least Bret in 1998, Owen always had something going on. Bret definitely drops the belt clean to Austin at WM14. If Michaels still gets injured and besides that his drug problem was getting out of control by this point, Vince would have realized he needed Bret more than Shawn. I do think it would be hard to keep Bret heel, especially since him and Austin would have tore the house down, but he would have fit better as a heel. I would have loved to see a fued between Bret and Foley where he just beats the hell out of him. I spoiler tagged my fantasy booking, because it's kind of long. {Spoiler}{SPOILER: CLICK TO SHOW}My plan would be to have Vince court Bret and the Hart Foundation. Vince is hellbent on getting the belt off of Austin and even though Vince and Bret do not like each other, Bret fits Vince's idea of a champion much better. At first Bret is hesitant, he doesn't like or trust Vince, but eventually Vince gets him by playing to his ego, his love of being champion, being a great family man and of course offers him even more money than he already makes. Most of all Vince promises to make him WWF Champion and no one will be able to stop them. The rest of the Hart Foundation begs Bret to do it, because they want the money and power.
Once Vince gets Bret on his side, although Bret begrudging does so and still doesn't like what he is doing, he uses Bret to torture the wrestlers he doesn't like. He first tells him to take out Foley, who failed him against Austin. Vince pushes Bret to extreme levels to try and end his career. At first Bret just stretches him out and puts him in tortuous wrestling holds, but this is not enough for Vince. So Vince has a serious of extreme matches between the two, which ultimately ends in Hell in a Cell, where Bret throws Mankind off the cell at King of the Ring.
The Raw after King of the Ring, Bret calls out Vince. Vince is incredibly proud of Bret, but Bret is livid. He is sick of playing Vince's games and demands a title shot against Austin immediately. Vince doesn't really want to do it, but then the glass breaks and Austin comes out. He tells Bret if he wants some to come get it and he has no problem whooping his ass, then stuns Vince and Bret. Eventually Foley returns and of course gets jumped by the Corporation/Hart Foundation. Vince decides that Bret/Austin would make him a lot of money, but he feels it is too big for Raw and schedules the match for SummerSlam, with Fully Loaded being headlined by Manking/Austin vs Bret/Owen. Austin pins Owen for the win.
At Summerslam, Bret finally gets his match against Austin. Backstage before the match, Austin is attacked by the Hart Foundation(without Bret) and they target his leg, hitting it with a baseball bat. Bret sees Austin hobbling, but doesn't know what happened, but he says screw it and relentlessly attacks the leg. Eventually after a few failed comebacks, Bret is able to put Austin in the Sharpshooter. But just like WM13, Austin won't tap and he's holding on because he's not cut. Eventually Vince McMahon comes to ringside, he starts taunting Austin, but eventually realizes in shock that he won't tap. So Vince panics and tells the referee to ring the bell, making Bret the new Champion.
The next night on Raw Vince comes out and congradulates the new WWF Champion and calls him and the Hart Foundation out. Vince praises Bret and says together no one will be able to stop them, Bret will be champion until he retires. Of course, the glass shatters and Austin comes to crash the party. Austin stands at the top of the ramp knowing he can't go into the ring. He mocks Vince's praise and then asks Bret if he is proud of himself. Austin admits at one time, while he never liked Bret, he respected him as a wrestler. He said that Bret used to be viewed by himself and many others as one of the best, if not the best wrestlers in the world. But after what happened last night, he has lost all of that respect for him. Bret asks what the hell he was talking about, both oblivious to the backstage attack and Vince calling for the bell. Austin said, well lets see what happened before the match, and the Titantron shows the backstage attack. Bret looks upset and stares down the rest of the Hart Foundation, shaking his head. Then Austin says and the fact that I didn't tap, Vince called for the bell. Bret looks at Vince, Vince starts looking away and puts his hands up. Bret then looks down at the belt in shame. He grabs the mic from Vince. Bret talks about how hard he worked in his career and came from the very bottom to make it to the top. He says how hard he worked to earn the respect of his peers and of father and family. He says no one ever made it easy for him, even though his entire family was in the business, he had to work for everything he got. Then he looks at the belt one more time, kisses it, and then throws it at Vince. Bret says, he never had anything handed to him in this business and he doesn't want anything handed to him. Then the Hart Foundation jumps him from behind, with a smiling Vince looking on. Vince then says, you just kissed that belt goodbye for the last time. Austin then comes into the ring and clears them out. Austin waits for Bret to get up, which takes a while and offers to shake Bret's hand, they nod and of course he stuns him after that.
Bret takes some time off, and returns later in the year to fued with Vince's new Corporation, which still includes Owen and Bulldog. He does some tags with Austin against them and at WM15 finally has his match with Vince.
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Post by corndog on Jun 24, 2021 13:45:53 GMT -5
I can't wait for modern, give-no-f***s Bret to respond and bury this goober like 100 feet beneath the earth lol I have a feeling Bret doesn't even know who this guy is, but he will be buried into the molten lava in the center of the Earth.
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Post by corndog on Jun 24, 2021 13:34:51 GMT -5
I feel Hogan is one of those guys that would get what the ECW base wants and put more effort into his matches, basically almost like his Hardcore Hogan WCW run in the Kidman feud. I also however could see him come in and play up 80s Hogan but be clueless why people are booing him, In the land of extreme here's Hogan being a good boy scout type. However one thing is that Hogan would absolutely tower over most of the ECW roster at that time. I feel the crowd would cheer him at first just for the "holy shit its Hogan" moment, and then instantly boo him out of the building right after. This sounds about right, I could definitely hear a "holy shit" chant and then eventually the crowd would turn on Hogan and Hogan would turn on them. He would also be able to play that crowd like a fiddle.
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Post by corndog on Jun 16, 2021 17:31:09 GMT -5
Well at least CMLL still has New Japan. While CMLL has been a bit of a shit show for the last couple of years, this really looks bad from all ends. I don't think this will really affect anything else, I see New Japan still working with both companies. While New Japan has a blossoming relationship with AEW, they still use a good amount of ROH talent on Strong. Also it seems they are likely to send Tsuji to Mexico for excursion and they have always liked to use CMLL for that purpose. As long as CMLL doesn't do anything stupid like trying to force New Japan's hand with Dragon Lee when he returns, they should be fine. But even CMLL can't be that stupid.....
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Post by corndog on Jun 16, 2021 13:52:54 GMT -5
I'd like to get an episode on Rikidozan. What about Verne Gagne? It's not "dark dark" but he did some things that weren't good. What "dark" things did Verne Gagne do? I know he made some bad business decisions in the 80s, but the darkest thing I can think of him doing was offering the Iron Sheik a large sum of money to break Hogan's leg. I guess there was him strangling a guy in the nursing home, but he was really old and had Alzheimer's bad at that point. But in reality, compared to Vince McMahon and a lot of promoters, he wasn't a complete scumbag to my knowledge.
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Post by corndog on Jun 10, 2021 16:30:18 GMT -5
Stamford is weird like that. There's like a cosmopolitan urban area, but the area around where Titan Towers was was more wooded and such. Here's a bird's eye view that kills me every time thinking "TNA paid money to advertise in this spot" It's so strange to see a large corporate building in what looks like an old New England coastal fishing town.
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Post by corndog on Jun 10, 2021 15:39:49 GMT -5
Damn, now I wished it would have happened. Sting vs Michaels in their prime, no wait Sting vs the Undertaker in their prime!
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Post by corndog on Jun 10, 2021 14:56:10 GMT -5
Bret was good at everything and he was definitely very technically sound as all of his stuff looked good, not just his moves, but his selling as well. You could certainly argue Dynamite Kid was a better technician, as his moves might have looked better, but he worked stronger and would hurt his opponents sometimes. Curt Hennig was right there technically as well and overall about as close to Bret as you could get, although some of his selling could be a little more over the top and less realistic than Bret, but that was more of the WWF's heel selling style. I would say Hennig even had an argument against Bret as an overall wrestler and he was definitely better on the mic. But what made Bret so good was his story telling and the little details in his matches. His matches were always logical and he told some incredible stories with many different styles and wrestlers. He was able to do David/Goliath at it's best with Yokozuna, Nash and Undertaker, then reverse it with 123 Kid working underneath. The Austin/Bret match at Wrestlemania 12 was one of the most brilliant matches I have ever seen with accomplishing the double turn. The crowd was 50/50 at the start and as it went on, the crowd turned on Bret and was fulling supporting Austin by the end.
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Post by corndog on Jun 10, 2021 13:37:59 GMT -5
Cena kind of was in the role already and he knew exactly how to play it. When he fueded with Bryan and Punk, he definitely was playing a Bret Hart style heel almost to a T. He even finally addressed the people that would boo him, saying they would never accept him and it was pointless to try and make them like him. Of course then he put on great matches with Punk and Cena, even putting them over that actually did cause many of his critics to respect him.
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Post by corndog on Jun 10, 2021 11:19:00 GMT -5
Gotta say, Shingo having the title and Tekkers champs again, with an actual angle of sorts with Naito and SANADA, those two things really have me much more enthusiastic about NJPW than I was. I wasn't *as* annoyed or anything with G.O.D. outside of a lot of this feeling a bit old hat, but I'm a Suzuki-Gun mark. Of course I am pleased. Top it off with Despy defending successfully and Hiromu calling his shot of wanting Despy in a title match, and I am quite happy. I suspect Takahashi falls short and this is him giving Despy a rub before challenging for the NEVER, perhaps, but even if Hiromu won, I think El Desperado's stock has risen, especially since if he does get to face Hiromu, he has to beat Ishimori to survive that long. That's presumably a kayfabe bigger hurdle than YOH was, since Ishimori's obviously been champ before and is more established in singles. I am definitely happy with the current champions. Despy beating Ishimori will definitely legitimize Despy more as a champion, if he can beat him. I can easily see that one going either way, but I love Despy so I hope he can hold on to the belt, he deserves a somewhat lengthy run with the belt. I'm always happy to see the Tekkers with the belts, they are easily my favorite team right now. With them, I am just glad to see them work with someone besides G.O.D. Naito and SANADA makes sense as well, they all have a past with each other. I am somewhat surprised to see Shingo actually get the belt, although with his work since joining the company he clearly deserves it. He's been on fire and it's nice to see him get it when the iron was still hot. Hopefully it's not just a transitional reign, but as of late no one has held on the belt for very long. I really want to see him defend it against Naito at some point.
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Post by corndog on Jun 2, 2021 11:30:37 GMT -5
It is interesting, because Sting beating Hogan and winning the title felt like the beginning of the end. You even had Nash and Savage start to challenge Hogan's leadership, so it was starting to head the right direction. Even the Wolfpac split, wasn't a bad idea, I just didn't like Sting and Luger joining the group. I felt someone like Jericho or another up and coming, heel midcarder would have made more sense and Hall definitely should have been in the group. Also it wouldn't have been so terrible if it didn't all end up with the Fingerpoke of Doom. At least the original Fingerpoke of Doom with HHH/HBK made sense, this was just two egos throwing away a blow off for a feud that nearly lasted a year.
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Post by corndog on Jun 2, 2021 11:19:41 GMT -5
It's definitely something to look back on and realize it was mistake. Most of them felt they had to do it, because it was the only way to make it in the business. But the even sadder part is some of them weren't bad workers at all. Balls Mahoney actually was a very good worker when he wanted to be. As far as drugs and alcohol, I think a lot of that was just to cope with their bodies being in pain. But drugs were definitely rampant in ECW, I would say half of the roster was doing hard drugs. True. Some of those guys may have just enjoyed the freedom ECW gave them creatively. And Paul probably did get in their ear and convince them that ECW was their only hope for success. Paul was definitely a factor. I just hesitate to put all of the blame on him for their condition now. Ultimately it was their choice, but I am sure Heyman got in their ear, it's well known that he was very good at manipulating people. Of course I wouldn't put the entire blame on Heyman, but I feel he should at least want to help them if he has any bit of decency in his body.
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Post by corndog on Jun 2, 2021 9:55:16 GMT -5
Paul Heyman was a POS for how he treated his wrestlers in ECW, especially with regards to pay. But let’s not make the health problems of people like Whipwreck all his fault. There are ECW wrestlers out there who have few health problems, at least as wrestlers would judge it. Like Lance Storm. Most of these guys basically knew that they were either not good enough workers or not marketable enough to make it in the big leagues. Or they had drug and alcohol problems that would hinder them long term there. Wrestling that violent hardcore style was their way to be stars. They gave their bodies to something they loved. Long term not the best choice but it was their choice. It's definitely something to look back on and realize it was mistake. Most of them felt they had to do it, because it was the only way to make it in the business. But the even sadder part is some of them weren't bad workers at all. Balls Mahoney actually was a very good worker when he wanted to be. As far as drugs and alcohol, I think a lot of that was just to cope with their bodies being in pain. But drugs were definitely rampant in ECW, I would say half of the roster was doing hard drugs.
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Post by corndog on May 31, 2021 19:30:07 GMT -5
I sincerely hope Paul Heyman helps some of the guys who worked for him. Maybe he is and is doing it privately, he does seem like a very private public person who would do that but these guys helped build his company and many put their lives on the line even more so than most wrestlers. If Paul doesn't have all these guys to do that he would have been just another failed indy promotion but now he is revered like a God to those who grew up following ECW. And I don't think it was so much him being a mad scientist as it was all these guys realizing without doing the extreme style this company would not get over and neither would they. I am really feeling bad for Mikey and hope he knows how much his fans love him. My only small connection to him is my grandfather who died this past Tuesday, was close with the owner of a venue promoting an indy show in 2001 and after bugging my grandfather the night of the show he got me backstage to meet Mikey and Brian Christoper. Both guys were amazingly nice and you could tell how genuine they were as people. They didn't know us and it wasn't even the owner or promoter of the show who took us backstage but they gave quite a bit of time to us and I will always be grateful to them for that. I wouldn't expect Heyman to do anything, he literally left all of his talent high and dry to save himself in 2001. Now Tommy Dreamer, yeah I could see it. But there needs to be something for people like Mikey, who at least thankfully he is still with us, that can't be said for a lot of that same ECW roster. He definitely needs help and I am also guessing he can't afford it. But he could possibly get on disabilities and that would get him medicare as well.
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