2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

Didn't see Malenko or IRS, but Finlay sold the spear very well.

 

Malenko and IRS were holding Kane back, Finlay and Jamie Noble were holding Reigns back.

 

I think the former Joey Mercury was the bald guy on the outside.

 

I think Punk is the one who got him hired as an agent. I may be misremembering, but I know Punk and him were extremely close off camera.

 

Yep, it is him. WWE.com had a couple of stories in him, one was the Where Are They Now series and the other was on him mentoring the Shield guys.

 

The Monday Night War is going to be worth the $10/month alone. I feared it would be a rehash of the DVD, but only Bischoff seemed to be rehashed from the DVD. Looking forward to see how they present this when it starts up in August.

 

I keep reading that budget cuts are going to delay some of the original programming, like yet another reboot of Tough Enough and another Legends' House. It's too bad. I love watching old PPVs because I never saw them. I've also checked out some of the retrospectives/documentaries on old promotions that I never saw because of the nature of the territory system and just being too young. But there are only so many times I can watch shows like WrestleMania Rewind or Countdown. It's the same clip packages over and over again. I haven't checked out Monday Night Wars yet, but it seems like it could be more of the same. I'll watch it for a few episodes before writing it off. Maybe I'll be surprised.

I realize that digitizing content takes a lot of man hours, but there's also a push to upload stuff in batches slowly over time to keep attracting more viewers. Right now, launching stuff like Monday Night Wars, Saturday Night's Main Event, and possibly uploading Raws and Nitros (not 'best of' but all episodes in order) is geared toward getting people to renew because that six-month term is coming up. I get that. But as someone who is in no way going to drop it, it's frustrating.

More original programming might be key to getting people to sign up. Seriously, instead of having WWE Studios finance a bunch of shitty direct-to-video movies, why not pump that money into original programming? I know that my joke of rebooting "Tag Team" was lame, but maybe they should try to put together an exclusive show, like how Netflix does short seasons of original shows.

If that's not a potential direction, what else can WWE do for the Network? They gave up pretty fast on the absurd post-PPV press conferences. Those were awful. Seems they've given up on Raw Backstage Pass. Money in the Bank didn't have a post-show show either. But were they really ever needed? No. I don't think you can have the Network open up the business even more with the documentaries and stuff like Legends' House (and Total Divas) and then treat Raw and SmackDown like a real sports show to be analyzed. Either go kayfabe or don't. It's too wishy-washy. I think dropping those post-show panels is a good thing.

Rant over.

 

Can't help but chuckle every time Bo Dallas does his spiel.

 

On Cheap Heat, the Grantland wrestling podcast, Rosenberg has mentioned that he's pitched MST3K / Cheap Seats Wrestling to them several times, and he's gotten rebuffed each time. To me, that seems like a slam dunk, easy decision - All it would require is paying a comedian(s) a couple hundred for each episode, and dubbing the commentary over the existing broadcast. It's too bad Bobby Heenan's voice is shot, because he would have been perfect for it.

 

Wasn't that kind of what they were doing with Are You Serious?, the YouTube show with Road Dogg and Josh Matthews?

 

That's odd. It's not like WWE has been above making fun of some of the sillier aspects of the wrestling business on their other shows and web content. Especially if it has to deal with WCW.

 

Yeah, and if they wanted to, I'm sure they own enough classic footage that they could just mock non-WWE stuff.

Mystery Meat, I didn't even know that existed, but I'm now intrigued. I'll have to look it up when I get a chance. I know on Cheap Seats, they did mock some of the wrestling ESPN had the rights to, but obviously they focused on a bunch of other stuff too.