2015 Pro Wrestling Thread

Bradley, I spent some of the holiday weekend catching up on podcasts, and I agree with you on Jericho. I'm not super into some of his guests, but I think he gets a much better range than some of the other folks (Ross, Austin), who can become a bit formulaic. I really liked his shows with Big Show (shockingly personable, and he was really candid about his training and time in WCW), and Renee Young (she as an incredibly filthy mouth and it immediately snapped into place after 5 minutes about how she and Dean Ambrose are dating).

 

I love how Big Show admitted he wakes up not remembering if he's heel or face because he flips so much. I feel bad for the guy, because he's just being a company guy and is so misued at times.

And Rene's filthy mouth made me love her more. She's so awesome.

I feel I should elaborate on the Austin vs. a horsefly story. He set the whole thing up beautifully. Throughout the episode, he was bitching about having so many flies in his camper because he was near a ranch with horses and a stable. So every so often, he'd comment that he swatted another fly. It's just random comments, and you don't realize it's leading up to the horsefly story. Then at the end of the show, out of nowhere he launches into this bizzare encounter with a 6-foot horsefly and how he got into a fight with it inside the camper.

It's the Unleashed show, episode 230. Skip to 1:43, near the end.

 

Stone Cold also interviewed Big Foot, but he lost the mp3.

 

Haaaa - I like Stone Cold, but he could use a bit of a co-host / straight man to help guide the show. Kind of similar to how Gilbert Gottfried's show has Frank to keep him vaguely on topic with the guest. When he doesn't have a guest, I wish Austin would still do a bit of a "theme" show, instead of just trying to shoot the shit about his various reality shows.

One thing I think could work awesome - There is a line of "shoot" videos that are timeline videos, where they sit with a guy and go over everything that happened in a year of WWE / WCW / ECW while they were with the company. I think that could be interesting, if he broke down a couple months of his career in that fashion.

 

Problem is that guys from his generation have taken too many chair shots to the head and don't remember some stuff.

 

I do wonder if some of the underwhelming Balor/Owens stuff was done to play for the Japanese crowd and what they expect in some fashion. There were a few moves that seemed to pop the crowd but Cole had no idea what to call them.

I like Cheap Heat even though its tedious at times. I listen to Jericho and JR when there are guests I like.....I find Jericho's to be much better than JR's generally. The recent shows with Big Show and Tyson Kidd/Nattie were excellent.....hard to turn off even after the gym workout was through.

 

Cheap Heat is really good when Rosenberg isn't hyping the shit out of his own stuff. I realize he thinks it's just a heel persona deal, but really, I just find it oft-putting in the bad way.

 

Just watched both the Beast in the East special and the first two episodes of Tough Enough and both were a bit meh to me.
First off, the special itself was a cool idea and I hope the WWE does more of these live events on the network but, by and by, it was kind of bland. I mean, I get it's a house show but apart from the NXT title change, there were no real consequences of any sort on the line. Even the Divas title never seemed to be at much risk.
Part of that, to me, was the booking leading into it. I'm behind on NXT but it seems like they've promoting the special a lot there but they barely mentioned it on WWE TV and to waste a Lesnar match in that situation, against Kofi Kingston no less, seemed pointless to me.
That being said, it was cool to see something different. I just guess I keep wishing they'd bring some sort of PPV back to Wembley. Fingers crossed.
As for Tough Enough, whomever came up with the format needs to be fired. The show is all kinds of awkward and the live vote is incredibly stupid.
So, basically, they're spending time with Billy Gunn, Booker T and Lita and none of that matters or factors into how DB, Hogan and Paige vote so much as how they're portrayed in the video packages does.
Blah.
I prefer the format of the previous season and, to me, it was much more enjoyable. There's not a single person on this show I could see being a developmental talent, let alone an NXT superstar or WWE superstar.
Just another wasted opportunity for a franchise that should, by all accounts, be a money-printing show.

 

I think it was partially Lesnar's doing - The Observer said he agreed to the match as a favor to someone in Japan. I'm not sure how long they've been promoting it on the Network, but I thought they were televising it because it was Lesnar's first match back. From there, I can see why they decided to switch the NXT title, and I'm not sure who else they had available for Lesnar. Kane, I guess, but it didn't seem like Rollins or J&J were there in Japan. I think they just wanted to put Lesnar in a position to look the best, and Kofi accomplishes that better than a plodding match with Kane, even if the latter moves the storylines forward a bit.

 

Good point. While wrestling is a work, those chair shots to the head are stiff. I talked to Stevie Richards after a Smackdown show years ago and he said nobody likes taking a chair shot to the head.

 

Some details have come out about Piper's podcast leaving Podcastone.com. According to Piper, it involves Austin:

Roddy Piper Accuses Steve Austin of Having His Podcast Taken Off Podcastone - Wrestlezone

Good observations by Bradley Guire on the podcasts; they seem to pretty much mirror mine: Jericho's definitely my fave, with Austin second, and I'll listen to Cheap Heat once in a while if there's no others to listen to.

Back to Piper, the only podcast of his I listened to was the one with Jim Cornette, and that's because I don't pass up any chance to listen to Cornette talk. When I heard Piper had his own podcast, I kind of raised my eyebrows at that just because of what I've heard from him during interviews over the past few years. Keeping him focused and on track is kind of like putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

Also, with the proliferation of wrestlers' podcasts and the shoot interviews you can find on YouTube, who are the guys (excluding the known podcast hosts) that those on the board like to hear talk about the wresting business? I have two that come to my mind. As mentioned before, I love to listen to Cornette because, whether you agree with him or not, he's very entertaining and just doesn't give a shit what the reaction would be. The other is Lance Storm. As you would guess, he's certainly not as animated or loose-cannon like as Cornette and others, but he's very well-spoken and comes off as very intelligent when giving his view on the business.

 

Piper's Pit is gone from the Podcast One website, but I think the episodes are still on the servers (obviously, because PO will still own those). My iPhone podcast app re-loaded the entire feed, all shows, Sunday night without prompting from me. I rarely save the eps to my hard drive (just the John Carpenter ep), and I haven't tried to listen or download yet.

But the iOS app still has the PO artwork. The "banned" ep is available, I'm guessing on the server of the company that now does the show. Unless he retained ownership, he might have to yank the ep since it would likely belong to PO. He'll at least have to take the PO logo off the avatar.

I'm downloading to listen tonight.