2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

This was my first thought, that this was his plan all along as he found closure and respect from the WWE. But I recall thinking he was a little off when he was climbing into the ring Monday night. Seems like it was just bizarre timing. Damn.

 

"No WWE talent becomes a legend on their own. Every man's heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe their final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others and makes them bleed deeper in something that's larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized by the storytellers, by the loyalty, by the memory of those who honor him, and make the running the man did live forever."

RIP Warrior.

I'm still at a loss that he's gone.

 

STING!!!

http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2014/0410/573061/sting-reportedly-signs-a-deal-with-wwe/

 

Will be interesting to see how they use him. As much as I would've loved it 10 years ago, I have no interest in Undertaker-Sting at this point, and with 'Taker's loss, that seems unlikely anyway. Maybe Sting gets appointed as a face Raw GM by Vince to counter Trips and Steph.

 

Watching Heyman's post-WM promo again, this has to be one of the best promos ever done, period. Some other sites,of course, are calling it the best EVAR! I would put it on my top 10 list. This list is just with individual promos, with maybe an announcer and/or others in the background, with the scene not ending in an attack or fight (eliminating Piper and coconuts and Austin with beer trucks)


1. Austin 3.16

2. Hard Times

3. Cane Dewey

4. The Streak Ends

5. Archie (the Stomper) Gouldie after his "son" was stretchered out by Bad News Allen

6. Flair after losing the title at WM 8.

7. Flair after winning the title at the Rumble

8. Arn Anderson's retirement speech, giving his "spot" to Curt Hennig.

9. Mr. Anderson "Assholes" ( loses points because it happened in TNA)

10. Harley Race putting the bounty on Flair's head.

 

Random Friday afternoon thought ... all of the champions are currently faces. I can't remember the last time that happened.

 

Bray Wyatt will be done with Cena soon if he's not already done with him, right? I think he could get a nice boost from feuding with Sting, provided that Sting is motivated. He's also 55 - six years older than Taker - and was more of a contemporary of the Ultimate Warrior and Hogan and Flair than Taker, Rock, Austin, etc. So at best, he's probably doing novelty act wrestling.

 

Wait til The Ascension comes up from NXT. Those guys have the ability to be monster heels, but of course the crowd will cheer them.

 

They're amazing in the 2 minutes per match I've seen them. Even the little guy works like a monster heel.

 

This week’s Observer stuff, tons of neat and new info post-Mania. Sorry for the wall of text:

- They have a long piece culled from their past reporting on Warrior. It’s really good stuff, and some of the more interesting nuggets: Warrior was originally slated to be Big Van Vader in Japan, but wasn’t interested, so New Japan went to their second choice, Leon White.

He was originally brought into house shows by the WWE in 1987, but he was so over even at those that they had to rush him on to TV. Warrior’s best friend in the promotion was Owen Hart, who also later convinced him not to go to Japan, since Warrior would be poorly suited for it.

On his match with Hogan, it’s widely considered to be the best match Hogan ever worked, from a combined action in the ring and psychology standpoint. Outside of some crooked ref stuff, it was the first clean pinfall loss since the AWA for him. But he was so successful in the match, especially the ending, that fans were instead focused on him leaving vs. the Warrior’s ascension.

Warrior’s reign was short-lived, for two reasons: 1) The aforementioned issue with the end of Mania 6. 2) Warrior had nobody to feud with, having beat Rick Rude many times to retain and win the IC belt, and the other “top heel” at the time was Mr. Perfect, who had lost repeatedly to Hogan. So, the WWE brought in Sgt. Slaughter, and transferred the belt from Warrior to Slaughter to Hogan over the next year.

Other odds and ends: When WCW tried to bring in the Warrior clone, Renegade, Steve Austin caused the shutdown of a day of taping because he refused to put Renegade over. The “Ultimate Warrior” moniker was actually first used by “Bad News” Brown, who would call himself that in promos. In 1998, when he was brought back to WCW, his first appearance did incredible, but it was diminishing returns from there, as they had Hogan beat him, and then, never used him again despite having him under a longterm deal. Triple H and 2K Sports brokered his return to the WWE fold; Vince didn’t have much to do with it, outside of giving grudging approval at the beginning.

Before he got into wrestling, Warrior was married to a stripper. As that marriage hit the rocks, he was dating another stripper, who was photographed in wrestling mags. Brian Pillman saw her and immediately fell in love, and eventually ended up marrying her. As a result, the two did not like each other. Warrior is his legal name, so his wife is Dana Warrior, and his kids are Indiana “Indy” Warrior and Mattigan “Matty” Warrior. One of Warrior’s fears was dying and not being there for his kids, since his dad died at 12; when Warrior died, his kids were 13 and 11.

- Re: Taker vs. Lesnar, referee Chad Patton was told that Taker was winning, which is why he hesitated on the three-count. However, you’re supposed to keep going in that situation if you’re a ref. (In a similar situation a few years ago, Jillian Hall or some other minor diva actually won the title because someone didn’t kick out fast enough.) The Observer speculates that the only people who knew the real finish, if the ref didn’t know, were Taker, Lesnar, Hayman and Vince, and possibly Triple H and Stephanie. Agents weren’t informed.

As far back as 1997, other superstars said that Taker was hurting really bad and probably had to retire in a year or two. He did suffer a severe concussion during the match – he and the WWE aren’t sure when, because he can’t remember. Vince made the call to end the streak, and Taker agreed.

- Vickie Guerrero’s contract with the WWE expired, and she has left amicably. She had been taking college courses in Medical Administration, and it’s believed she’s going to segue into that.

Ezekiel Jackson, who was also still somehow with the company, was the first post-Mania cut. It’s believed he had some sort of longterm deal, which was the only reason it hadn’t happened sooner. He’s a good trivia question answer: Who last held the ECW title belt? He hadn’t been on TV in 2.5 years, because of injuries and lack of ideas for him.

The WWE has signed Shawne Merriman, formerly of the NFL. He’ll start training, both as an announcer and in-ring talent, with the idea of transitioning him into the ring full-time at some point. The company has started to reach out to younger ex-NFL guys to gauge interest, after having success with guys like Dwayne Johnson and Roman Reigns, and because they feel like they have an excess of smaller guys who can work.

Christian is still with the company, but he hasn’t been medically cleared following his last concussion.

It’s believed that Triple H got legit hurt at Mania, hence why his leg was all taped up, but it’s not expected to be a big deal, since he’s a part-time performer.

Tyson Kidd might start appearing on TV a bit more, since he’s been getting good feedback for his appearances at Natayla’s husband on Total Divas.

- The post-Mania crowd as Raw was known to be heavily European, which is partly why Barrett got a huge pop for beating Mysterio. However, it was still considered a “smart” crowd, hence why Heyman got intense boos when out with Lesnar and intense cheers when out with Cesaro. Barrett is getting over with his gimmick though, and it’s part of why he was booked so strongly over Mysterio.

- On Superstars, Ziggler got pinned by Ryback. He’s believed to be deep in the doghouse.

- Mania got an 88.7 percent approval rating from readers. Outside of the obvious stuff, Billy Gunn got injured on the power bomb to end that match, and he’ll be off TV for a while. This was planned anyway though. The three ladies in Triple H’s ring entrance were Alexis, Charlotte and Sasha Banks from NXT. The Battle Royale is probably going to be a yearly Mania thing, to get guys a paycheck.

- Naomi accidentally tapped with her free hand during AJ’s finish in Mania. As a result, they changed things up on Raw. Paige is the first WWE title holder to be born in the 1990s.

- The WWE Network has about 667,000 subscribers as of April 7, which is a number short of what Wall Street expected and caused a sell-off from about $28 to $22 a share. The company is hoping for 1 million before the end of 2014, and the “break even” point is about 1.25 to 1.75 million subscribers. Mania’s gate was about $9.8 million, behind only The Rock vs. Cena ($11.9M) and GSP vs. Jake Shields ($12M) in MMA / wrestling events.

Mania is at Santa Clara in 2015, but there is a good chance they’ll break the attendance record in 2016 at Dallas Cowboy Stadium (not publicly announced, but signed and sealed). 2017 is probably going to be in Orlando, and negotiating for 2018 are Indy, Toronto, Philly and Columbus, OH (Ohio Stadium holds 102,329).

The New Orleans Times-Picayune did eight pages of Mania coverage the day after the event. It apparently did gangbusters business and completely sold out.

- Jarrett announced his company’s launch. It’s believed that they might have a reality show, Total Divas-ish, to help publicize the company before it actually launches. Currently, there is a dearth of non-WWE and non-TNA ‘free agent’ talent out there though, with the biggest names being Tommy Dreamer, Carlito, Masters, AJ Styles, Matt Hardy and Kevin Nash. Chris Daniels, Frankie Kaz and Angle’s contracts with TNA expire soon. Some guys like Jericho and HBK technically aren’t under wrestling deals, but are still heavily affiliated with the WWE.

- Speaking of TNA… Still no renewal of their TV contract from Spike. Chris Daniels and Frankie Kaz’s contracts expire within weeks, which is why they aren’t on TV. Angle’s expires in August or September, and it’s believed he has no interest in re-upping. Samoa Joe and Angelina Love both missed shows because of concussions. And Christy Hemme, for some reason, is now part of creative at TNA.

Also, because TNA is now doing taping and airing shows, there are humorous editing errors. Two weeks ago, James Storm cracked Gunnar’s dad on the head with a beer bottle. However, if you look at shows following that, you can see Gunnar’s dad in the same outfit just sitting in the crowd.

- The UFC is trying hard to lure Gina Carano out of retirement to face Ronda Rousey.

- Shane McMahon had a lengthy interview on Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/golianopoulos/how-pro-wrestlings-scion-is-fighting-to-make-it-on-his-own - Surprisingly, they got Vince for some comments too. At one point, Shane could have been running WCW, Pride, ECW or UFC, but the company (Vince) ultimately balked and pulled out of deals. Shane himself wisely passed though when he was offered Maxim.

- Punk is being edited out of a WWE-Flintstones straight-to-DVD movie. Mysterio and Daniel Bryan are taking his role.

Spoiler part:

- It’s believed that the WWE is working toward The Shield vs. Evolution for the next PPV, Extreme Rules on May 4. It’s not sure if it would be 4 on 4, with Kane and Bryan involved, or 3 on 3, with Kane taking Triple H’s spot in Evolution.

- Sting has definitely signed, but it’s not known in what way he’s going to be used by the company. The Rock vs. Sting or The Rock vs. Lesnar is a possibility for the “novelty” match at Mania 31, since Taker isn’t expected to wrestle anymore. Sting isn’t expected to debut on TV for a while.

- Fandango and Summer Rae are splitting up, with her turning babyface. Layla will be Fandango’s new dance partner.

- Bo Dallas will be up for good soon, in a heel spoof of a cartoon babyface. Adam Rose will also be up soon; he’s older than people realize (34) and probably was at the risk of being cut, but his recent gimmick change got him super over in NXT. The Ascension and Sami Zayn also are scheduled to be elevated to the main roster in 2014-15.

 

Good stuff......what was Savage up to post Wm6? Seems like Warrior could've feuded with him during the title run rather than saving it for after he jobbed to Slaughter in the run up to WM 7.

 

From looking at Wiki and relying on my memory, Savage was involved in the Slaughter angle - He and Dusty Rhodes fought at Mania 6, with Savage losing. At the Rumble, he asked Savage and Warrior for the right to challenge the winner to the title. Slaughter agreed, Warrior didn't, and as a result, Savage interfered in the match and cost it for Warrior. However, before he got his title shot, Warrior challenged him to a "loser must retire" match at Mania 7 (March 1991), which Savage lost. While he was still on TV via announcing, he didn't wrestle again until December 1991, so maybe he was legit hurt or something.