2024 Pro Wrestling Thread

It all makes sense now. HBK brought Stan into NXT under a pseudonym to make up for his treatment of him.

LONGTERM storytelling.



I would love a vignette backstage of Spears running into HBK and steering clear of him.

 

He’s really good and doing things like having him control Melo’s security sells the Don thing. They’ve done incredibly well making it not seem silly ….. they’ve done the same with Chase U too.

From what “2.0” started at to now is nothing short of amazing. HBK’s one hell of a booker

 

The jokes and memes that became aside, he had a big part in wrestling through the 80s and 90s. RIP Virgil.

They say it comes in threes: first Ole, now Virgil...

 

Yeah, he apparently was in poor health for the last couple of years and a GoFundMe had been started for him. I listened to a Ted DiBiase interview a couple of months ago where he said that while he wasn’t happy that Virgil had been claiming that Ted would appear at autograph signings, that since Virgil was ill, he would be willing to do appearances with him if it would help him out.

I actually saw him wrestle twice. Once was at an early 90s WWF show when he was squashed in a couple of minutes by Nailz. The other was a small independent show when he was in between his WWF and WCW runs.

Big part of the late 80s boom. His face turn was one of the better ones, and the pop he got when he finally turned on DiBiase was epic. Piper also did a helluva job getting the turn over. RIP.

 

Probably would be pretty controversial today, but this was one of the first times that Virgil did a promo after his face turn. I’m guessing knocking the mic out of Gene’s hand’s wasn’t part of the script. Love Roddy’s closing line, though.

 

Looks like the Elite is going full douchebag now.

 

Some interesting notes from the TKO earnings call today:

WWE had agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to Major League Wrestling in 2022 after allegedly interfering with MLW’s attempt to sign a TV deal with Vice and Tubi. Today TKO disclosed that it paid $20 million to settle the MLW litigation.

WWE’s TV deal for Raw with USA ends at the end for September, and the Netflix deal doesn’t pick up until January. Mark Shapiro says he’s confident that Raw will find a home for the interim three months.​

 

This show needs some Danhausen.

 

Seeing Ric Flair get "physical" at 75 is the absolute last thing I wanted to see, but seeing Sting descend from the rafters again was pretty damn cool.

 

Is that the first time anyone has done that since Owen?

 

Season premiere is on John Tenta, so not sure how Shockmaster fits in, unless they're just featuring various wrestling super-heavyweights.

Either way, Haku enjoyed it.

 

Vince wanted a white, British wrestler to make a quip about MLK on MLK Day in front of a bunch of Black wrestlers? Yep, that checks out.