2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

Believe it or not, he actually was a babyface in the first couple years of his career when he used his real name and talked about how he coached the U.S. team.

Snuka was a heel in the early 80s when he teamed with Ray Stevens and was managed by Albano. When he made that famous dive off the cage against Backlund in MSG, he was a heel at the time. They turned him when Buddy Rogers had him on his interview show and told him Albano was stealing money from him, leading Snuka to confront him and Stevens to piledrive him on the floor.

I can't remember Santana nor Steamboat ever being a heel. Two others that I can't recall either were Kerry and Kevin Von Erich, although David was a heel in one or two other territories.

I don't recall Heenan ever being a face, but I do remember right before Flair came to the WWF in '91, they made Heenan a tweener for a couple of matches with Mr. Fuji at MSG. They had Heenan allow Fuji to manage Haku and Barbarian in a match while Heenan did commentary and kept talking about how, win or lose, it was going to be on his record. They lose, and Heenan gets pissed and goes in the ring and confronts Fuji.

They then had a match with Heenan's guys against the Orient Express the next month, which was a double-DQ, although Heenan's guys played the faces, as I recall. They then had a third match with Heenan and Fuji, which I've never seen, but have read by the Apter mags and Meltzer as one of the most shittiest matches of all-time. It's one that I would love to find on Youtube or something just to see how horrible it was.

I'm think Heenan was going to retire as a manager, so they were going to have him stop with some cheers, but then Flair came along and Heenan was asked to manage him. He did for a short while, but his bad neck, and trying to keep up with Flair, was bothering him too much.

 

Junkyard Dog, as far as I know, was never a heel as JYD. He was in Calgary and maybe other territories, but with a different name. As JYD, nothing but face.

 

I've got a great idea for original programming for The Network.

Instead of pouring money into shitty films, how 'bout a shitty exclusive action/comedy series? Seriously.

Remember about 20 or 25 years or so ago, Roddy Piper and Jesse Ventura made a TV movie that was supposed to be a pilot for a TV show about washed-up wrestlers turned cops? It was called "Tag Team." Some poor bastard actually recorded it on VHS, then digitized it to YouTube. I swear, you can find the most obscure shit online these days.

If you've never seen it, here's the link. It's awful. It should be re-booted with The Miz and Wade Barrett. Or anyone else who might be better off on a shit TV show than actually wrestling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Gf3gXvZ-k&index=14&list=WL

 

I reviewed that show on my blog, and man, it's awesome, in the vein of Lookwell (Adam West, written by Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel) and Heat Vision and Jack (Owen Wilson as a talking motorcycle, Jack Black as a superhero astronaut). Shameless self-promotion: http://stephenonstuff.blogspot.com/2012/02/inexplicable-tv-review-tagteam-with.html

 

I remember seeing it on TV as a kid. It's still ridiculously bad, and I love it.

 

WWE released Emma today after she apparently stole an iPod case.

And since she's not an American citizen and her work visa will be revoked, they really had no other choice at the moment.

 

Stole an iPod case ... weird.

And sad because she actually was fun in the ring but she got stuck with Santino of all people ...

 

She's been re-hired.

 

That was quick. Maybe they were getting all sorts of flak because they've let others off the hook when they've had legal issues.

Plus, from what I've gathered, she claims she had made a mistake in the automated checkout line and hadn't meant to steal it.

 

Loved that. Amazing to see the heel-to-face transition happen overnight in such an obvious, natural way. True to characters.

Also, I never watch NXT, but a co-worker brought the Vaudevillains to my attention, and I love the shtick.

 

Wowwww, that is awesome. So, so awesome, but I can't imagine it working on the main roster. Kind of like how Adam Rose is having problems getting over, and how they made El Generico change to Sami Zayn.

 

The Vaudevillians are freaking funny.

The music, the schtick everything but they need a higher impact dynamic for me. A better tag-team finisher etc.