2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

Is Vicky Guerrero a Hall of Famer?

 

Not inconceivable. She was inseparable from the WWE product for nearly 10 years. She often got the violent heat that most heels of that time could only dream about. She's not a headliner by any stretch, but it's certainly a decent possibility.

 

Excuse me?

 

Dick Whitman likes wrestling now too!

 

I agree. She was really great at what she did especially seeing as her time in wrestling was actually quite short. Inducting her within the next few years seems way too soon. At the same time, will there be much desire to put her in a decade from now? If they just need some random women to induct and they've already inducted solid choices like Kai, Madusa, Luna and Jackie, I wouldn't have a problem with a Vickie induction. I'd just prefer that they wait a long enough time so we don't get a repeat of the Eddie induction.

 

Speaking of women, I wonder if the recent resurgence of Brock Lesnar means Vince and Sable have made up to the point she could be a HOF candidate.

 

Is Vickie a Hall of Famer?

Yeah, I think so.

Which is incredible when you think about it.

 

This week’s Observer stuff:

- Syfy and WWE confirmed Smackdown’s move from Friday to Thursday on Aug. 24. The first day for the shift will be Oct. 2, but it’s not official yet. Although they will now be head-to-head with the NFL at times, the overall audience available is expected to be much better. Other programs like Superstars and NXT will probably be moved to Wednesday.

- TNA and Spike announced that Impact will air through the end of the year, but no new contract has been announced. Spike is allowing TNA an undetermined amount of time to find a new TV home, but there have been no bites. Paul Heyman and ECW were offered a similar deal in 2000, but he closed up shop once USA and TNT / TBS turned him down.

The only reported nibble so far has been the Velocity channel, which is offering about ¼ of what Spike does now, and it’s in only 48M to 52M homes, about half of the reach of Spike. If TNA was able to work something out with them, it would mean a large scale reduction in everything.

- Lucha Underground will be airing on the El Rey Network. The first taping will be Sept. 6, with Chavo Guerrero Jr. and John Hennigan (John Morrison) signed. Alberto Del Rio will also be pursued. It’s a production by Mexican promotion AAA. Their Triplemania show sold out – 15,000 seats – based on the mainstream attention they got from Del Rio, the first sellout since 2007.

- Meltzer has a bunch of numbers about various performers’ (wrestling, MMA, boxing) popularity, based on monitoring stuff like Google searches. The Top 10: Floyd Mayweather, The Rock, Manny Pacquiao, John Cena, CM Punk, Ronda Rousey, Undertaker, Marcos Maidana, Hulk Hogan and Canelo Alvarez.

- New Japan is looking into airing a Jan. 4 PPV in the U.S. with English language broadcasters. (The past few months, Jim Ross has floated out the idea on his podcast of doing commentary for them with CM Punk, but the Observer doesn’t mention this. Even when Ross said that, he said it was just something he thought would be fun, and that he hadn’t contacted anyone about it.)

- Mick Foley, 49, cancelled a show scheduled for Aug. 31 because he’s having a lot of back pain, and needs surgery. Unsurprisingly, he’s a mess physically. He said he was on vacation recently, and the pain was so bad he spent half the time in bed.

- Scott Williams, who works for The Observer, is the writer helping out Jim Ross with his planned autobiographies. It’s expected to be like Foley or Jericho, with multiple editions. Williams previously wrote a bio on Terry Funk.

- Keith Alcorn is releasing a documentary “Back on Badstreet,” which is about The Freebirds. It’s supposed to be pretty funny and a celebration of Dallas area wrestling.

- Bret Hart didn’t wrestle this past week; he was managing Davey Smith Jr. and post-match, they did a double sharpshooter spot. He did the low intensity stuff in WWE a few years back, but even that triggered a review of his insurance policy from his WCW time by Lloyd’s of London, and they’ve tried to collect money from him as a result.

- The Wolves’ contract with TNA only runs until the end of 2014, and it’s highly likely that they will go to ROH when it expires.

- ODB’s TNA contract expired, however, she wasn’t being used by the company this year. If WWE showed interest, it would be shocking, given her look and style, but it would also be really interesting. Mickie James’ contract expired in September, but she’s 5 months pregnant and hasn’t appeared on TV in a while either as a result.

- RVD’s last appearance for now is probably Friday’s Smackdown. He and the WWE basically work via short-term contracts, similar to Jericho and some other part-time performers.

- Ken Jeong (The Hangover movies, Community) will star in a WWE Films comedy, where he bets a ton of money in a celebrity death pool on David Hasselhoff. He then attempts to kill The Hoff, who is signed for the movie. It’s expected to have a lot of celebrity cameos, and Hogan is signed for it.

- Ronda Rousey and Jon Jones were backstage for SummerSlam, and are both big WWE fans who want to be involved with the product in some way. However, it’s not clear if UFC would let them, and obviously, neither one would probably be willing to do an actual match.

- Shawne Merriman and the WWE parted ways at some point. He signed a wrestling and TV announcing deal around Wrestlemania, but it’s unclear how much he ever trained or worked toward it.

- Daniel Bryan and Wade Barrett are both being announced for the European tour in November, but it would be surprised if either one was able to wrestle, given their surgery statuses.

- There has been no talk of Tough Enough lately, and it’s believed to have been cancelled because of the WWE’s budget cuts.

- A Cena turn is very unlikely right now, because his merchandising is outselling the rest of the active roster combined.

- Zeb Colter (Dutch Mantell) is legit injured, although it’s believed to be from an outside the ring incident, not the stiff kick.

Total Divas, and minor roster and show spoilers:

- Eva Marie and her boyfriend were actually married in Vegas before the show, but they re-did it for the show in California on Aug. 21.

- Dean Ambrose is scheduled to finish filming on Sept. 20, which would mean a run-in at Night of Champions is likely.

- Regal will be the GM figure for NXT.

 

Back in 2012, they were supposed to have a match or an angle between Mick Foley and Dean Ambrose to debut him. How do you think Ambrose's career would be now if they had debuted him with that angle instead of as part of The Shield?

 

I think I mentioned that earlier.

It came off as unscripted on Ambrose's part to Foley, but obviously they had worked something out. Just didn't pan out I guess.

 

Hard to say but the chemistry he developed in NXT with Rollins is paying off now in a major way.

With so many of these new guys, it seems like its all about the second feud. Dean's talented, so his his feud with Foley probably would've been hot, but then what? Would they have screwed it up and buried him, or kept the momentum going?

On another note, reading Masked Man's book. It's really strong. Stuff about real wrestling being boring in the 20's and putting the fix in reminds me of how slow UFC can be when the wrestling really takes over. Had no idea Moolah's Spider Lady thing wasn't worked until reading it in his book.

 

Jake Roberts is in the hospital with double pneumonia and apparently was in a coma for 24 hours.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2014/08/28/wwe-jake-the-snake-roberts-hospitalized-pneumonia-las-vegas/14765261/

Crazy thing is, he was heading to a show in Vegas and became unconscious on the plane. I know guys try to make all their bookings and all, but double pneumonia?