2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

Finally got on the Network last night and am already pretty damn impressed. My video feed is a little twitchy at times, but that might be because it's an older computer. It never cut out completely. Watched a Hogan-Studd match from early in Hogan's first title reign and part of the MSG card it was on last night (weird seeing "normal"moves like suplexes and clotheslines win matches), and the Undertaker-Mankind Hell in a Cell match.

Today, feeling a little morbid, I checked out Over the Edge '99 to see how they handled Owen Hart and Wrestlemania XX to see what they did with Benoit. They did cut out the Hart stuff. They had a small tribute to him at the beginning of the show, then just excised that whole other part.

Benoit is a little interesting. They had his matches from WM XX and Summerslam 2004, so I assume they have all the others on there, too. But you can't search for his matches. You get an "item not found" message.
Each show also has a little waypoint on the progress bar where you can skip to matches, but Benoit's aren't marked. They're almost like easter eggs.

 

I've only watched the WCW ppvs from 1998 so far, but Benoit is fully featured on any show he was on. Nothing changed or edited.

I mostly watch via Apple TV. The picture, even on pre-HD shows like WCW, are still good quality. No lagging after the first two days. Only problem is that unlike Netflix or Hulu Plus, I can't pause a show, watch something on another Apple TV app, then resume the WWE Network show where I stopped. So I have to remember the time and fast-forward. Kind of annoying.

Random merchandise thought: Saw something on TV the other day from the '80s, guy wearing a shirt that says "Frankie Says Relax." I thought, holy shit, that would be a great idea for a Daniel Bryan shirt. "Daniel Says Yes!" ... but no one under 30 is going to get it. Damn kids.

 

Anyone have experience with buying tickets via StubHub?

My parents got me a ticket to fly home for a few weeks in April, so my brother and I are going to Raw in Birmingham two weeks after WrestleMania. WWE.com has sold out of everything but shit seats. StubHub has a lot of good stuff. We're going to sit lower level across from the camera so we can be on TV. I'm too short to sit on the floor and have a decent view.

I figure StubHub would be more legit than ebay. Any advice would be helpful.

 

Is anyone watching the TNA PPV?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha sorry I tried to get through that with a straight face.

 

Yeah, I sure didn't notice anything edited in the two Benoit matches I've watched. They had the full promo package on the feud, and sure as hell didn't edit out the blood. HBK and HHH both looked like they were auditioning for the prom scene in "Carrie" in that WM 20 match.
I also watched a bit of Fully Loaded from 1999. They sure as hell didn't edit out Sable's handprint bikini, although they did blur out Jacqueline's nip slip.

Just thought it was curious, with Benoit, how they've included the matches but not an easy way to find them. Those two were obviously main events, but for a few others I've hit Wiki to see where on the card they were.

 

It doesn't bode well for TNA that the vast majority of the wrestling world is more interested in digging up 30-year-old matches on the WWE Network rather than buying their PPV.
In a related note, TNA reportedly has plans for its own online network. It'll link you to YouTube clips of early 2000s WCW matches.

 

There was an interview with Vince a while back in which he said they couldn't pretend Benoit didn't exist, but that they didn't want to promote him. That might be a reason they're not allowing searches.

I also heard somewhere that they were going to run a streamer in Benoit's matches explaining what happened and that they didn't condone what he did.

 

Remember back at the start of 2010, when they were going to challenge WWE withn Hogan and Bubba the Love Sponge? Seems like a ridiculous pipe dream now, doesn't it?

 

TNA did a house show in my town right around the time they'd gone live on Monday nights, and I wrote a story about that. Lots of stuff on how they essentially rose from the ashes of WCW's flameout, how having two major promotions was good for the industry as a whole, and how they were ready to take the next step.
Looking back, it seems pretty silly that that was ever a plausible story idea.

 

Haven't watched it yet, but am looking forward to viewing Flair-Race at Starrcade '83. It's probably one of the rare matches or moments that shifted the course of wrestling by marking Flair's ascendancy to "The Man" status in the NWA.
That got me to wondering if it's on the short list of moments that shifted the course of wrestling in the last 30-35 years, and what the biggest of those moments might be?

For my money, the Montreal Screwjob is No. 1 and it's not even close. So many things flowed out of that that it's hard to count them all.
It was the unofficial start of the Attitude Era.
It ensured the survival of the WWE.
It allowed WWE to shift from the bland Bret Hart era into one that featured the greatest collection of talent the industry has ever seen.
It gave us the evil Mr. McMahon character that's been copied by every promotion and been the basis of nearly every storyline ever since.
Combined with WCW botching Hogan-Sting and Hart's introduction a month later at Starrcade, it helped set the stage for the modern wrestling product to evolve.

So, that's a pretty clear No. 1 to me, but what are some of the other influential moments on the list?

 

Two pop to mind:

1) Hall and Nash invade Monday Nitro. Really where WCW began its rise to prominence over WWE until they managed to screw it all up. The WWE Attitude Era began a year later in WWE, but its roots really go back to this moment (or maybe to the Madison Square Garden curtain call with the Kliq).

2) The end of WCW. I hadn't watched WCW in years, but I remember when the two shows broadcast the end together, with Shane coming out to shock his dad. Basically the moment that eventually led to the current state of the WWE.

 

Agree with you on the Screwjob being No. 1, and an addendum to the Starrcade match: The Race-Flair matchup, and the card as a whole, sent the business toward the eventual reliance on the Pay-Per-View event of pro wrestling, which changed the business' focus of booking and marketing. The birth of Wrestlemania really put that into gear, but Starrcade '83 was the first step.