2016 Pro Wrestling Thread

I am not liking the idea that Sasha is going to announce bad news tonight.

 

LOL "longest reigning Universal champion in history."

 

In other news, apparently the E is releasing a "Hidden Gems" show on the Network starting tomorrow. A very hot rumor going around is one of the matches is the famous "Last Battle of Atlanta," the 1983 roofed cage match between Tommy Rich and Buzz Sawyer that ended a program that lasted over a year, which HBK said was the inspiration for Hell in the Cell.

There supposedly wasn't any footage of the match that existed in the public domain. An urban legend is that Ole Anderson had the only footage and either has kept it, or burned it when Vince bought out Georgia Championship Wrestling. Now, apparently, there is a one-camera shot of most, if not all of the match. Another rumor is that Paul Ellering, who was in a small cage at the top of the match, has had the footage all these years.

This could either be awesome, or Al Capone's vault.

 

HOLY SHIT!!!

...

THEY GAVE ALICIA FOX AN ANGLE!!!

 

I'm having a really bad feeling right now with what Sasha's saying ....

 

Whew. After all the recent real-life bad news promos, they had me there.

 

I thought they were giving Bayley the title shot? Three-way?

 

Did they make that official, or have they just been implying it?

Either way, seems kinda early to have them have the three-way.

 

And I must admit, I'm a New Day apologist (Xavier Woods is a local kid), but that whole skit was a-TRO-cious.

 

That was such a disjointed show.........first time in my life I think I actually wanted to see HHH and he's not there. He's just gonna loom over everything until God knows when. If the end result is the Rollins face turn we've needed for four months than I'll just shut up and deal but yikes.

The Sasha thing, I thought, was cringe worthy. It was obvious to me from the minute she sold the back injury at Summerslam and the rumors circulated that the whole thing was a work. I think what they have with the Horsewomen and making women's wrestling real is very special but there's only so many times you can go to that well before the fans will start WHAT-ing those speeches. It's not a good spot for a worked shoot. It didn't work on any level for me.

 

Just got done watching the Last Battle of Atlanta. It's not Al Capone's vault. It's the full match, with in-ring intros, as well as the follow-up match, in which Ole Anderson got to fight Paul Ellering as part of a stipulation in the cage.

There's no commentary, just a streamer a couple of times explaining that there was no commentary with the original match. There is one camera used, but you can see all of the action. It's different, of course, compared to the modern productions that we see now.

The action is fairly standard for 1980s wrestling, as in, don't expect any moonsaults or bumps from the top of the cage., not that Rich and Sawyer did them anyways. The rules for the main match were kinda weird. No ref, but the ring announcer would begin to count to 10 if one wrestler appeared knocked out. Then they started trying to pin each other, with the announcer doing the count. Kinda nutty.

The finishes also are of the "he beat him with that?"quality. I guess the finishes rely on the psychology of being worn down by the fight, but again, compared to today's stuff with finishing moves galore, it's, well, different.

All in all, it was fun watching a piece of wrestling history that supposedly was totally lost to time. I'm very interested in finding out the story of how the footage came to light. It should be a good story.



Also, SPOILER ALERT:







There's blood. Lots and lots of blood. If you have a weak stomach, then skip it.

 

Any body else feel like Ambrose has jumped the shark a bit?