2020 Pro Wrestling Thread

A trio of master wrestling technicians: Cesaro, Nakamura and ... Rawley?

 

Anyone watching NXT In Your House?

Keith Lee just got five minutes for boarding Johnny Gargano.

 

Nice touch digging Todd Pettengill out of the mothballs.

 

It sounds like HHH toyed with the audio levels for this show. The “crowd” such as it is sounds like a small full sail crowd. The ring bumps sound livlier. Its really good ambience.

 

Loved all the little Easter eggs to the '90s. Like the promotional spots with Regal narrating.

 

Well, she is of Mexican descent after all.

 

And Tamina apparently posted this to her Twitter before deleting it. Following in her dad's cuckoo footsteps?

 

Charlotte Flair working that Bret Hart 1995 schedule.

3 segment match to open Raw and they just said she has a singles with Asuska later in the show?

I mean shes great but 5+ segs for one person on one show when that person isnt Stone Cold Steve Austin seems like a force

 

Sunday was the 10th anniversary of one of the more awesome finishes in Raw history. The Nexus debut.

This should have been an insane storyline, but the E being the E, they couldn’t follow up.

So many cool dynamics looking back 10 years ago:

* Cena does a stretcher job, which is rare. And him not turning heel when he was forced to join the Nexus killed the entire angle.

* Punk was wearing a mask because he had his hair cut. He gets beaten up too, along with Gallows. They originally did a fan vote on who would be Cena’s opponent that night, and they though the fans would pick Mysterio, which would result in Nexus beating up two faces. Fans chose Punk instead. Also quite fun now to think about what happened with Punk the next year.

* Gallows eventually goes to Japan, becomes huge there, comes back years later, and has just left.

* You can see how they positioned Bryan to be the main threat. Of course, he got temporarily fired for choking Justin Roberts, but it’s interesting to see how far he’s come in 10 years, both in and out of the ring.

* I always thought Barrett was going to be a monster star. He had Vince’s look, could cut a promo, and had a ring presence. Wasn’t
meant to be.

* Slater, of all people, had the longest continuous run, which is nuts to think about.

* Sheffield becomes Ryback, who has his nutty run, and is now persona non grata.

* Otunga hangs on for years just because he was Mr. Jennifer Hudson. That marriage turned out poorly.

* Gabriel becomes generic high flyer who goes nowhere.

* Young has a decent run, and even more important, makes history as the E’s first out-of-the-closet gay performer.

* Tarver, well, does nothing.

Hard to believe 10 years flies by like that.

 

Going 7-for-8 with those guys, in terms of them having at least a viable run in the big leagues, is pretty phenomenal, though.

I went to a Global Force Wrestling show a few years ago (Jeff Jarrett's short-lived and ill-fated indy promotion when TNA looked like it was heading into the crapper) and Luke Gallows and Justin Gabriel were both on the card. Gabriel put on a good tag match, from what I remember. Scott Steiner also invited people into the ring for pictures at the end of the show, but I wasn't about to pay $20 for a picture.
Also saw Karen Jarrett eating a hot dog, which was nice.

 

It's a pretty good resume for the group, sans Tarver. All of them won championships in WWE, and Bryan went on to become a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Hell, even Slater won 4 tag titles.

 

Another star from the youth of a lot of people in Georgia gone. He was Jimmy Carter's favorite wrestler, and supposedly, he declined an offer to meet Carter once, because the Secret Service would have made him take his mask off to frisk him. RIP