2010 Pro Wrestling Thread

As someone who has only mildly renewed interest in wrestling just lately here, can someone give me an idea of what's up with Hart? Is he not capable of being a full time wrestler anymore? I'm assuming there's an injury there of some sort I don't know about because it's painful just to watch him walk. Is that just wear and tear from all those years or something else?

There was a time when HBK vs. Hart would have had me buying the PPV regardless of cost.

 

He received a pretty severe concussion from Goldberg on a kick in late 1999, and kept getting more concussions in a couple matches after that. He retired in early 2000, giving up the WCW title in the process, and the concussions played a big factor in a stroke he suffered in 2002 (IIRC).

 

Wow. I was not aware of that. He was one of my favorites of all time. Hope no mater what role he plays in the future of wrestling that he's able to stay healthy. Thanks for the info.

 

Just to throw some water on those "It was HBK's wife!" conspiracy theorists, the woman who hit the ... umm, Hitman last night was supposedly a diva on the FCW roster. (FCW is WWE's developmental territory in Florida)

 

When Bischoff (ach-TOOEY!) took on Raw on Monday nights in the 1990s it forced both feds to up their game in terms of booking and taking risks, and the McMahons' game needed some serious upping at that point¹. Hopefully that happens again with the second round of the Monday Night Wars; 1996 and 1997 were good years to be a rasslin' fan. If the booking improves I might start watching again.

Most of whom are now working for TNA now, but anyway . . .

So nobody said anything about the death of Vince's fake ECW? Guess now we know why it died. Somewhere Paulie Dangerously is evilly cackling to himself as a solitary tear traces a path down one of his chubby cheeks.

¹I think Vince actually invented the concept of "taped but plausibly live" that NBC has since perfected. I still remember the mid-November 1997 night Rick Rude showed up at the start of the live Nitro at the same time Raw was showing him "live" with D-Generation X taped six days before.

 

I well remember how they'd pound out a month's worth of tapings at a shot and then in post-production add random comments about current events to give the appearance that you were watching something that wasn't taped three weeks prior. Never mind that the audience members for those four shows, curiously enough, looked the same and wore the same clothes every week. Of course, I got to see four Raws and a Superstars for $10 back in 1995, and I was on TV each time (it was the one where Michaels collapsed in the middle of the ring during a match against Owen Hart and everyone broke character to sell it -- that was some seminal shit right there).

Nitro eventually changed that ... especially when Nitro had a clean-shaven Rude come out with the nWo an hour before he appeared on a taped Raw with a beard.

 

I remember those Rude segments. They had come a couple of weeks after the Montreal Screwjob, and it was funny as hell to see Rude come on both shows at the exact same time.

Rude became 1/3 of an answer to a trivia question. Who were the only three to appear on both Raw and Nitro at the exact same moment?

Answer: Rude, Vince, and Shane McMahon.

 

Was listening to the Pro Wrestling Report podcast today (It's not too bad, a little immature but serviceable) and they made a solid point in regard to the fall of WCW and TNA's biggest problem.

Right now TNA isn't creating it's own superstars, for the most part the top guys are all ex WWE guys and for someone like Mr. Kennedy, he's coming right over from WWE and winning over TNA's top guys. As a wrestling fan, if I see this on a regular basis, subconsciously I'm going to start believing WWE's guys are better than TNAs and, as such, TNA will never be the No. 1 brand.

WCW did this too. Apart from Goldberg, did they really CREATE any stars? Maybe Sting?

 

Sting had already been established from the final days of the NWA.

Not as huge stars, but Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T and Scott Steiner (once he turned heel) were established by WCW. Problem was, Page was really old, Booker never really got rolling until WCW was dying and Steiner was too volatile.

 

Depends on what you mean by creating stars, but AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Desmond Wolfe were not major stars before they came to TNA. Ditto Abyss, in line for a mega-push (spoiler below). And while Pope D'Angelo Dinero was a WWE developmental product who had some time in ECW as Elijah Burke, he became a star in TNA. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Dinero is the best WWE acquisition TNA has made, with the possible exception of Angle for his name recognition.

spoiler: Abyss will team with Hulk Hogan to wrestle Ric Flair and AJ Styles in the first live Monday Impact on March 9

 

For anyone who cares (which is probably nobody, given that it's 26 hours later), Ezekiel Jackson won the ECW title in the final show after Christian gave a fairly passionate promo about what ECW meant and what it meant to him to be the final champion.

 

Watched it, couldn't dignify it with a response. 'Tis a shame.

And MMII, damn you for your spoiler!