The Wrestling List

Brock Lesnar Returns To WWE, Daniel Bryan Fans Backlash At Raw - April 3, 2012

2012-04-03T16:04:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the "get all the diehard fans left over from WrestleMania in the same building and watch the fun that ensues" edition of The Wrestling List. I was entertained as could be by last night's Raw. That crowd was amazing last night. It felt like watching an old school ECW show with the chants and loud pops.

There were two major points about the show last night. Brock Lesnar returned to WWE. The rumors have been flying for several days that he might even appear at WrestleMania. He obviously didn't. I did laugh at the fact that during Cena's promo to close the show, Cena was calling for The Rock to talk to him and congratulate him. The fans knew what they wanted. They had all heard the rumors and were chanting "we want Lesnar" and it was loud. Lesnar's music hit and the roof blew off the buliding. Lesnar made his way to the ring and got another chant as he walked around ringside. I won't say what it was but think a surprised reaction chant. LOL. Lesnar walks into the ring and Cena goes for a handshake. Lesnar grabs him and puts him for the F5 and the fans go nuts. F5 lands and Lesnar makes his big return. It should be pointed out that it was ten years ago that Lesnar made his debut for WWE. He debuted on the Raw the night after WrestleMania X-8. I am not a Lesnar fan at all. That is no secret. I still am not. However, seeing that crowd pop and react so huge like it was something from back in the day was just great. I had goosebumps watching those fans just going nuts. So, what about Brock? How they use him for the next year will be interesting. The fact that Lesnar is back in WWE is quite amazing considering all the bad blood between him and the company since 2004. It involved him leaving when it was time for him to start putting people over and also involved legal action when he decided he wanted to wrestle after his football career didn't work out. WWE made him sign a hefty no compete when he left cause of how he just up and left them. What kind of Brock are we going to have behind the scenes there?

Point two was the fan backlash over the Daniel Bryan squash at WrestleMania. Fans were furious at WrestleMania over the squash to the point where stuff was flying through the air. The word seems to be that the reason it was done was to do a shock moment to start the show off. Well, it shocked people. Shocked people into a near riot. Last night was the opportunity for those fans there in Miami to continue to voice their frustration. They voiced it...all night and it was tremendous. There were Daniel Bryan chants all night and the crowd turned "yes, yes, yes" into the chant of the night. This wasn't just a small section of fans. It was most of the building. It was loud! Sheamus was brought out and introduced as the new champion last night and the fans got to take out some more frustration on him. It wasn't the fans didn't like Sheamus. They were still using him as a vocal target. Del Rio made his return during that segment and the fans still chanted Daniel Bryan's name all through it. Well, except when they jumped in for some fun Del Rio chants too. They cut backstage after the segment to show Bryan and AJ watching on the monitor and you could hear the huge pop in the building as it appeared on the screen for the crowd. Daniel Bryan chants and 'yes, yes, yes" chants were ringing out during John Cena's promo too and also The Rock's. After the show, Bryan wrestled in a multi tag match and got a HUGE pop as he was introduced. I have seen video of it and it was awesome to watch the fans chanting "yes" every time Bryan pointed up. It was tremendous. He did a promo for the crowd after the show thanking them saying the previous night was the worst night of his career but that this "yes" thing by the fans had likely gotten him a t-shirt deal. He kept playing heel kicking AJ out of there to the back. He did the "yes" pose as he left to run to the back as the fans went nuts. I said it already that I was annoyed for the whole first hour of WrestleMania over that finish. It took the cell to get me back on the right page. Fans were pumped for it and were chanting. These fans have been vocal about it as well. It was a bad idea. I see that they wanted to go for a surprise but that wasn't the match to do it with. The fans didn't want it and they about had a riot on their hands. This could end up being a really good thing for Daniel Bryan cause now the fans have gotten vocal for him.

What about Rock? Well, his promo last night teased that he was looking for WWE championship gold in the future. Rock will be sticking around from time to time like he has done over the last year. When his schedule allows, he'll be back. I've already heard rumblings of people curious if we'll see something between Rock and Brock since we are coming up on the ten year anniversary of their match. Just speculation of people wondering. Nobody really knows anything at this point what lies in wait for either of them. We're all just waiting.

I mentioned the crowd last night but they again they were just amazing. Off the charts awesome. They made the show so much fun. You always get that on the Raw after Mania cause it's held in the same city and the diehards stick around for one more day. You're also going to be a different reaction about things too from that crowd. It really reminded me of an ECW crowd. They were just awesome all night. The sad thing is that next week we go back to the normal crowds. Nothing against those crowds but you've got all the diehards packed into a venue last night and they're going to make a lot of noise. Chanting all night and they were just having a great time.

Other thoughts on Raw. The artist formerly known as Albert and A-Train made his return as Lord Tensai. Alex Riley was the one fed to him. I've had this question for a year now but who did Alex Riley make mad behind the scenes? He had all sorts of momentum a year ago and now he is a squash guy whenever he does appear on TV. Punk and Henry was what it was. Big reaction for Punk which was awesome. Colt Cabana chants from the crowd always make me smile. The Jericho attack with the alcohol reminded me of the Punk/Raven feud from Ring Of Honor.

Chief Jay Strongbow has passed away. No word on details. Jim Ross mentioned his passing earlier today on his Twitter account.

Vince Russo will be doing a live You Shoot interview for Kayfabe Commentaries. Wow, does that sound dangerous. Have I mentioned that Russo is gone from TNA? Have I done a List since that happened? I don't think I have. Vince Russo is gone from the company. He has been for probably a month or so now.

WWE Classics On Demand did a great Legends roundtable show recently talking about celebrities in wrestling over the years. The panel was Jim Ross, Gene Okerlund, Michael Hayes, Roddy Piper, and Diamond Dallas Page. Now, that is a story telling panel and they did not disappoint. Speaking of Russo, things got interesting and a bit heated when David Arquette's name was brought up. JR was pretty vocal against it. Page was someone that stuck up for Arquette. Not because of the idea. He said the idea was terrible. He just didn't want Arquette taking the heat over it. Page said that Arquette got told that he was winning the title and wanted nothing to do with it. He was a huge fan and had all the respect for the history of the business. He did not want to do the finish and told Page that he didn't want to. He obviously had no say so about it. One thing that he mentioned that I've heard for several years is that Arquette gave all the money that he made in wrestling to the widow of Brian Pillman. He didn't keep any of the money. Very interesting roundtable. I don't think it is airing anymore on Classics but it was a really good one.

The WWE Hall Of Fame ceremony special aired last night as well. Edge's speech was just awesome. A guy that grew up loving this business and had to quit way before he was ready. You could see the emotion in him and he teared up a bunch during his speech and also at his appearance at WrestleMania. The Horsemen speech was great as well. Wild to see Ric Flair back on the WWE stage. Feels like I haven't seen him in forever cause I haven't watched TNA very much lately obviously. Great speech given by all. Tyson had fun up there and is a big fan as well of the business. He was taking pictures with some of his idols over the WrestleMania weekend that he ran into. Many more inducted but we didn't see them on the special. Wait for the DVD next month or for the ceremony to air on Classics a few months down the line.

Anyway, that is it. Just thought I'd type up some thoughts on last night's Raw since it was so fun. Have a great day! Take care and God bless!!

Thoughts On WrestleMania XXVIII - April 2, 2012

2012-04-02T10:46:00.002-07:00

And that is why I love wrestling. There was one moment last night during that Undertaker/Triple H match that was defining for me. I'm talking about the spot where Shawn nailed the superkick on to Undertaker which turned him right into a pedigree from Triple H. Triple H goes for the cover and Undertaker kicks out of it. Kicks out of both finishers. The crowd jumps up at the near fall. Shawn falls into the corner with a look of shock on his face. The crowd is going absolutely crazy for it. That moment right there was that reminder on why I love wrestling. Sure, it may have gotten stale lately and there aren't near as many great moments as we'd like them to be. They're there though. It was there last night. That moment right there last night was one of them for me.

Last night was WrestleMania XXVIII. Super Bowl night from Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida in front of 78,323 fans. This was a record attendance for that building. The show was outdoors which gave it a really cool visual. The sun setting over the stadium looked really amazing. The set up of the building looked good. The stage had an incredible screen for all their video and graphics. There was some criticism from some of the live fans about the palm trees that had to be set up to accommodate for the staging. It blocked the view for some fans and there were a lot of anti palm tree chants before the show got started.

I'm going to go in order of matches and just give thoughts on each match. The show started with Lilian Garcia singing the national anthem which is always awesome. The production of it to go with it looked great including the jet flyover. Hot crowd to start the show. The show opens with the World title match. Sheamus was the first one down the ramp. Then, Daniel Bryan made his way to the ring with AJ with him. One thing that I noticed was the big reaction that he was getting as they showed him making way down the ramp. As the bell rang, there was a ton of noise being made in the building. Bryan and AJ kiss. Bryan turns around and gets kicked right in the face. Sheamus makes the pin and wins the World title. 18 second match! LAME!!! My first thought was that they just killed the crowd. The crowd was into Daniel Bryan. Lots of chants for him before the show and throughout the rest of the night. Why did they have to squash him? Couldn't they have given at least five minutes for goodness sakes? This honestly got me off to a bad start too and left a bad taste in my mouth. If you remember, this match took place last year for the US title but was bumped to the dark match. This year, it is a squash match. I was annoyed for the rest of the first hour of the show. I really like the Daniel Bryan/AJ storyline. They are the modern version of a 1986 Savage and Elizabeth. The sweet nice girl dating a guy who is nothing but a jerk to her. Crowd likes her but boo him. I love the storyline and it's one of the things I really will tune in for. Plus, I like AJ. She is super cute. LOL. The next match is Randy Orton and Kane. I'm thinking, great, I'm all excited for this opener and now I get probably fifteen minutes of Orton and Kane. I actually didn't think the crowd level really got back at full height until the Cell match which led the second hour off. I'll get there though. Kane gets a win on Orton which did surprise me. It was a solid match. I just was still annoyed over the first match. Intercontinental title match was next with Cody Rhodes defending against Big Show. Lots of cheers for Cody from the fans. Show got the win and became the new champion after the knockout punch. Solid match. Still annoyed from the opener. Divas match next and I was curious to see how this went. Beth Phoenix and Eve taking on Kelly Kelly and Extra's Maria Menounos. Maria had reportedly broken two ribs on Dancing With The Stars. I didn't actually expect her to get much in ring action and then she ends up being in the ring the most. I thought they worked around it really well. Several bear hug type holds that look good but protect her. She still got knocked around a lot and I'm thinking she's stronger than I am doing this with those ribs. Kelly got the hot tag and after ramming the two heels together, Maria did a nice rollup to pin Beth Phoenix. Kudos to Maria Menounos for doing that when she clearly could have said she was hurt and didn't want to do as much.

Let's move to hour two. Triple H vs. Undertaker in the cell with Shawn Michaels as the referee. This was all of hour two! It was a fast hour two as well. Jim Ross gets to call the match!! That was fantastic!! Big entrance for Shawn and he looked happy to be back on the big stage. Triple H's entrance looked cool as did Undertaker's. I was waiting to see the reaction when Taker pulled that hood off knowing that he had short hair now. The hood came off and there was a blast of thunder and a look of wow from Triple H. The match got underway and the drama in this match was off the charts. Triple H started doing what he did last year. Pounding Undertaker with a chair over and over. Telling Shawn to stop the match or he was going to end him. Taker kept telling Shawn do not stop this match. Shawn kept getting put in a bad spot not knowing what to do. The sledgehammer gets into play but Shawn pulls it away from him before he can use it. Triple H continues to tell him to stop the match. Shawn goes to do it but Taker puts Shawn in the arm submission to stop it. The only thing that Taker could do to keep it going was to take matters into his own hands. Triple H then made the save for Shawn who is then down for a while. Triple H then got caught in the submission and was barely hanging on. Charles Robinson makes his way out to ref the match and Undertaker chokeslams him to the mat. Another referee out. Undertaker goes for the tombstone but Triple H slipped out. Taker runs right into a superkick from Shawn and then turns to catch a pedigree from Triple H. Two finishers and then Taker kicks out before three. Shawn collapses in the corner not believing what is going on. The crowd is going NUTS!! Triple H then grabbed the sledgehammer again and Shawn tried to stop it. Shawn gets tossed to the floor by Triple H. Undertaker then sits up and looks square at Triple H who gets a look of fear on his face. It was awesome. Taker goes on BIG offense. Finishers continue to get kicked out of. There was a moment where Triple H was desperate and went to crawl to the sledgehammer and Taker stepped on the sledgehammer preventing him from picking it up. Triple H's turn to take repeated chair shots and dishes out some major payback from earlier. Shawn at this point is yelling at Triple H to just stay down. Shawn's facials were incredible in this match as he looked so torn through the whole match on what to do and completely in shock of what was occurring. Triple H grabbed the sledgehammer again and took a very weak swing at Undertaker who caught it. He pulled it away and then Triple H gave him a defiant DX chop. Undertaker nails Triple H right in the head with the sledgehammer. Picks him up and tombstones him. One, two, three, and 20-0 goes The Undertaker. Off the charts drama in this match and the crowd was going nuts for it. After the match, Shawn helped up Undertaker to his feet. They hugged one another. Shawn and Undertaker both help Triple H to his feet and walk him to the back. It was a huge moment watching these three icons of the business walking to the back together.

Hour three started with the Hall Of Fame inductees all being introduced on stage. Great to see all of them. Four Horsemen at WrestleMania. Got to love that! Edge was the last introduced and got his music played for him. He was standing there taking it in with tears in his eyes. Great moment. Next was the Team Johnny and Team Teddy tag match. It was fine. I haven't been into this storyline at all so I wasn't very excited about it. Even less excited when Team Johnny won meaning we get more Johnny Ace. The finish had Eve costing the match for Zack Ryder. Then, after the match she laid him out. Can they do any worse booking for Ryder? They have stopped his momentum completely. He's late 90's clueless Sting. He was one of the hottest things they had going and now they've booked him into oblivion. WWE title match was next with CM Punk and Chris Jericho. Loved the entrances for both of them. Pyro was set off for Punk outside the stadium. Things really picked up at the end with the submission exchanges and the crowd was eating it up. Punk gets the win with a clean tap out and the crowd went nuts for it. Big win for Punk and he remains WWE champion. After that, we got a dance segment for Brodus Clay. My thought was I'm glad they went with the Bryan squash so we could get this segment into the show. Ugh!!!!

Main event time with John Cena and The Rock. If you didn't see the "We Are Young" promo video for them. You need to look it up on You Tube. Great stuff!! MGK came out and performed a song to intro Cena. He got on the mic and started talking bad on Rock and good on Cena. Fueled the boos and they booed as he finished. Cena comes out and gets BOOED. One person there said they had never heard boos so loud. New merchandise as Cena will apparently be in green for the near future. Flo Rida performs for The Rock and then Rock makes his way out to a huge ovation. What star power feel it had to it. The match was fun and the crowd was really into it. Ringside was jumping up on the big moves and happenings. Loud chants and there were so many chants going that it was hard to tell what was being said. Interesting that the match started with the Hogan/Rock spots. Stare at one another and look at the crowd on opposite sides. Then, the tie ups and power shove downs. Rock hit the people's elbow which got the crowd up. Impressive spot where Rock went for the high crossed body and Cena rolled through picking him right up into the AA. Rock kicks out to a huge pop from the fans. Cena looks stunned over Rock kicking out. Rock decides to go for a people's elbow of his own. After bouncing off the ropes, Rock catches him into a Rock Bottom. Three count and The Rock gets the win to a huge reaction from the fans. Cena rolled out to the ramp sitting there looking frustrated as Rock celebrated in the ring. Fun match.

Overall, I enjoyed the show. The crowd made this show ever better. When you have a good crowd, it can add so much and this crowd was ready for this show. Makes me wonder how much better it could have been if they hadn't done the squash in the opener. It seriously took me an hour of the show to recover from that annoyance. Good WrestleMania and there is obviously good and bad on the show just like anything. That is it for today. Have a great day. Take care and God bless!!

Survivor Series & Raw Thoughts - November 29, 2011

2011-11-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the "Twitter is the best pushed superstar in WWE" edition of The Wrestling List. Actually have a List coming to you this week. Sorry that I don't get more of these posted but I am so crazy busy that I almost have to schedule myself down time sometimes. I had to comment though on Survivor Series and some of the latest happenings.

I did check out Survivor Series this weekend and the show was just kind of there for me. It had its good moments but overall I wasn't that crazy about it. One thing that helped the show tremendously was Madison Square Garden. I knew that was going to help the show bottom line. I love the Garden fans. They chant what they feel. They like who they like. They boo who they don't like. It's an amazing atmosphere and the crowd was ready for this show. I thought right away that CM Punk's pop would probably be around The Rock's pop and I thought it was. Punk returning to NYC is always fun and the Garden was ready for him. Huge reaction to when he won the title from Alberto Del Rio. Loved the crowd dive after the match and Punk is the only guy in the company that has people chanting his name during his walk to the ring and after the match. Just a great moment and seeing Punk get to win the title in the Garden was a great thing. The Rock got the huge pop that we all expected and Cena got the huge boos that we all expected. LOL. Wow, that was a hostile crowd toward John Cena. Boos rained down when his music hit but I did have to laugh at Cena's smile when he came out while saying to the camera, "New York's favorite son is home". There were all sorts of anti Cena chants from the Garden including them telling Rock at one point, "don't tag Cena". Rock looked solid in the ring and put on a good show. I do have to say this. Cena looked ridiculous in the post match celebration. Apparently, Cena was the only guy in the world that didn't see the Rock Bottom coming. Everyone in the building knew it was coming. Everyone at home knew it was coming. People that don't even follow wrestling that were working concession in the building probably knew it was coming. As far as the rest of the show, Big Show and Mark Henry started slow. Really slow. The Garden let them know it too. Funny how the commentators were pointing out every crowd chant except that one that said "boring". Then, when the match was starting to pick up steam, we get the lame DQ finish. I did like the Big Show elbow drop off the top rope followed by a Randy Savage chant from the crowd. Another Savage chant broke out later when Punk delivered his tribute big elbow against Del Rio. The 10 man tag was fun and I like the traditional style Survivor Series matches. The Sin Cara injury was a bad way to get things going. I loved the finish where we didn't get the expected. I figured that Randy Orton was going to steam roll through and win. Cody Rhodes was over huge at the Garden. They popped big when he eliminated Mason Ryan. Having Barrett get the surprise win on Orton was a good way to finish the match although I thought it was going to be Cody to get the win. The women's match had the awesome finish of the glam slam off the top rope from Beth Phoenix on to Eve. It looked nasty. Solid opener with Ziggler and Morrison. However, the attention of the match was the Garden chanting "we want Ryder" through the whole thing. These chants were rolling through the Garden before the show started. Ryder's music hit after the match and the Garden popped HUGE. Funny that after the show when Rock was doing his post match speech, the Garden had to get one more "we want Ryder" chant in. Cracked me up. That guy is over!

Last night's Raw was a solid show. The most that I've enjoyed Raw in several weeks. Second year in a row where I've liked Raw better than the previous night's Survivor Series. Punk's promo to open the show was great. Johnny Ace was….well, Johnny Ace. Good match with Ziggler and Punk. Good match with Kofi and Barrett. The promo that closed the show was kind of anti-climatic which featured the breakup of Awesome Truth.

Sin Cara is out for 6-9 months after suffering a ruptured patella tendon in the 10 man match at Survivor Series. He appeared to suffer the injury on the run before he got to the ropes so it appears to not be from the fall. It looked bad and you knew it was bad when you saw his reaction after he hit the floor.

Last night during Raw I noticed something kind of out of the ordinary that I wondered if many people caught. During one of the Twitter graphics being on the screen, it went to static noise while a You Tube address was barely seen in it. I figured it was a weird glitch until I saw it again in the show. That happening twice just didn't make much sense to me. The You Tube address links to this video which is pushing what sounds like a return on the first edition of Raw in 2012. Here is the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxGkXIphAHw&feature=player_embedded

I have to voice this. WWE's obsession with Twitter is WAY out of hand. It is all they talk about through the whole show. Who is trending? Who is tweeting online. WWE pushes Twitter more than anything else on the show. If they would push their young guys as much as they push Twitter, this product would be very different right now. We don't need graphics every five minutes telling us that superstars are trending on Twitter. It's just annoying more than anything.

Speaking of annoying, the commentary is right back in the hole again. We got a bit of a break for a few weeks with Jim Ross back on commentary. Although, JR wasn't his normal self but how can he be when Michael Cole is screaming every two seconds about something? The commentary is supposed to add to the product and not take away from the product. There is times that I miss things and quit paying attention because the commentary is so dominating. To sum this up, I heard this funny story yesterday. If you didn't know, WWE now offers headphones that you can purchase at live events now. Those headphones allow you to listen to the commentary on the show while you are sitting in the arena in case you want to know what is being said on TV. They ran an advertisement for this at the Garden as Survivor Series was about to start and the Garden crowd booed the ad. LOL. Very clear that the Garden crowd wanted no part of listening to that commentary. If I could at home, I'd turn it off the commentary to just listen to the live crowd noise. The commentary is bad. I can't really remember it ever being much worse.

CM Punk has been the bright spot for WWE. He is the reason that I get up on my seat every week. It's a bummer because he has lost some of that incredible momentum that he had back in the summer. It isn't any fault of his own. WWE just has that effect on everyone right now. When something gets some steam, it's watered back down in a matter of weeks. There was a recent comment from a member of the creative team that worked there at the time of the Punk summer angle. He basically said that they knew they weren't going to be able to follow it up. Punk is the best performer that they've got. I'm talking in ring and on the mic. He delivers every time and has for a LONG time now. Just thankful that he is now in the position of champion. Really hoping that him being on top will now let him get some momentum rollin again.

Speaking of WWE and creative, one thing that they can take NO credit for is Zack Ryder. That guy is over and he did it on his own. He was getting nowhere on TV so he started his own thing online. The videos and all reached him out to fans. They embraced him and started chanting for him. He got a lot of support from talent in the back that have been pushing for him. One of those being Steve Austin who posted on Twitter one night that he didn't understand why the company wasn't using Ryder when the fans are into him. He said something like give the kid a chance. Zack Ryder got himself over and the way that WWE is these days, that may be the only way to get over.

Last night on Raw, there was a promo which seemed to big time tease a return of Kane with the mask. I have been calling for this to happen for about two years or so. The Kane character is really stale for a while now. The retro looking Kane is something that fans will pop for and I love the idea of it. You can get another year or more out of Kane and make it entertaining. What more can you do with the unmasked Kane character?

If you have access to the syndicated Ring Of Honor shows, you need to be watching them. I've really enjoyed them but am behind on them. They are putting together some fun wrestling shows.

That is all that I have for tonight. Wishing all of you a great and very happy Thanksgiving!! Take care and God bless!!

CM Punk Takes The Title In Chicago - July 19, 2011

2011-07-19T14:19:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the "CM Punk plus Chicago equals one of the all time greatest WWE moments" edition of The Wrestling List.

Sunday night was the Money In The Bank PPV and this lived up to every bit of the hype and hope on it. I said it was going to be a big time home field advantage kind of response and it was. CM Punk had chants going for him all night long in anticipation. During the Big Show injury angle, there was a CM Punk chant going as officials checked on Show. The match was set to take place and there was a HUGE CM Punk chant before his music hit. His music and the crowd pops like crazy. Punk had a new shirt on that said "the best in the world" including the date and city on it. This was sold at the show and sold out halfway through the night. Punk just got that crowd in a frenzy every time that he did anything. He would just raise his arms during his entrance and the crowd level would go way up. Just a monster pop. Punk signs all over the crowd. Sitting in the front row was Colt Cabana and Ace Steele. A Colt Cabana chant did break out during the night too. Gotta love that. Chicago is a Ring Of Honor town and has been for a long time. You have that combo in along with fans from all over the country flying in to see this match. It was something special and fans knew that it was going to be that. So, John Cena's music hits and boos just rain in from the crowd. Cena did not even do his normal saluting the crowd as he walked out. There were Cena fans in the house but they were in an up hill battle against this very pro-CM Punk crowd. The crowd atmosphere of this match was just amazing. Off the charts amazing. The finish had Cena hooking on the STF and Vince McMahon along with John Lauranitis made their way to the ring. Vince wanted Lauranitis to ring the bell and I thought, not Montreal AGAIN. LOL. He was stopped and Cena made it clear to Vince that he did not want to win the match that way. When he turned around, he landed right into a GTS from Punk. Punk gets the clean finish and is the new WWE champion. The Chicago crowd goes absolutely crazy. Vince is of course furious and looks completely rattled as his nightmare has come true. Punk is leaving with the title. Vince gets on the headset and demands for Albert Del Rio to come to the ring and cash in the Money In The Bank that he won earlier in the night. Del Rio runs to the ring and Punk knocks him to the mat immediately. Bell never rang to start the match. Punk rolls out with the title, sits on the barrier, and blows a kiss to Vince McMahon. Punk leaves through the crowd with the title as the show goes off the air. Just awesome, awesome stuff. This is the most positive response that I have seen in a very long time for a show and angle. People are just loving the ending of this show and I did too. How many people actually thought that Punk would get the win and take the title? I had thought that Punk might win and then would lose to a Money In The Bank winner.

So, what has happened with CM Punk since then? Well, he has been posting on Twitter. He posted at midnight a picture of the WWE title sitting in his refrigerator. Last night during Raw, he posted pictures of himself at Wrigley Field at the Cubs game. One included the belt laying on top of the Cubs logo while another had him posing with a player along with the championship belt. On Raw, they announced that the tournament was being held to crown a new champion. Punk posted pondering how there could be a new champion "when the champ is here" and had the picture of the belt at Wrigley. So, what is up with Punk? Nobody seems to know. Everything I've heard has him not signing any new agreement. Maybe he'll sign an extension? He has been doing interviews saying that he definitely has no intent of resigning with the company. He has talked about just taking time off. Regardless of what he does, what a way to go out and it has everyone talking. Lots of fans that have quit watching have come back to check out this angle. All of us fans that love CM Punk have just loved how this angle played out. It's almost this feeling of vindication for us as fans who believed in this guy and now we're seeing what we knew he was capable of and what Punk himself knew that he was capable of. Just great stuff.

Good stuff with the Money In The Bank PPV all around. Many saying it was easily the best PPV of the year topping WrestleMania. Del Rio was the Raw MITB winner. Daniel Bryan was the surprise Smackdown MITB winner. Christian won the World title after a DQ finish with Randy Orton. The DQ stip on the match had Christian getting Orton so mad that he nailed the low blow causing the DQ awarding Christian the title.

So, that gets us to last night's Raw. Lots of excitement to see where things went from Money In The Bank. Vince McMahon opens the show saying that he doesn't ever want to hear Punk's name again, that there would be a championship tournament, and that Cena would now be facing the repercussions of last night's defeat. I guess I'll stick with the McMahon thing. The ending of the show had him and Cena with their confrontation. Cena talked of how he did things his way and was not going to be put in the same position as Shawn was put in with Bret. He told him to go ahead and find the next John Cena and he would move including him saying that he would go on to another show, brother. Clear reference at TNA there. Triple H made his way out and cooled things off. Cena left the ring after things turned to a more serious tone. The story is that there was a board of directors meeting and that Vince had been removed from power cause of concerns about the current product. He regrettably told him that the person now in charge was himself. So, now Triple H is in control. He apologized to him and Vince was in tears. Triple H walked away leaving Vince in the ring. Let's move on to the tournament. Solid action. First round had Miz defeating Alex Riley, R Truth defeating Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston defeating Alberto Del Rio, and Rey Mysterio defeating Dolph Ziggler. The second round had Miz over Kofi and then Rey over Truth. That sets up a tournament final of Miz vs. Rey which did not happen cause of the Vince/Cena deal at the end of the show.

Other notes from Raw. Did you catch Vince accidentally say the words "WWF champion" in the last segment? Whoops! LOL. Even Vince messes up on that. I'm sure TNA appreciated the reference last night. They've got to be thinking after all of these years of taking shots at them, they finally referenced us on TV. Congrats TNA. Now, concentrate on your own product. LOL. WWE has referenced them a few years ago. I do realize that. I really thought that Del Rio was going to cash in MITB on whoever won the tournament final giving Del Rio basically two shots at the title in the same tournament. I still could see that happening.

Anyway, that is it for this week. Wishing you all a great week! Take care and God bless!!

CM Punk Continues To Rule Raw - July 12, 2011

2011-07-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "we want ice cream bars" edition of The Wrestling List. Did you hear the pop from that crowd when Punk mentioned that he wanted the return of the WWE ice cream bars with his face on them? They went nuts. I did too. I cracked up at the "we want ice cream" chant a few minutes later.

Let's get right to Raw or as I like to call it, the CM Punk show. CM Punk has revitalized Raw right now and the sad thing is that we're in all likelihood going back to the same dull show after next week when he has left. It has been great TV and it really is such a frustration of that this guy has been so good for so long and we're now seeing WWE actually let him do something in the three weeks before he leaves!! UGH!!!! Anyway, I loved the opening segment with Punk continuing where he started a few weeks ago. John Cena came out and confronted him over everything. They had a good back and forth. It was announced that Punk's demands would be met, a live attempt at a contract signing to close Raw by Vince himself. That is how we closed the show. Punk using all of his leverage against Vince including an insane amount of demands. The great thing was that the crowd was absolutely with him. WWE might want to listen to their audience a little more instead of Vince's typical "I know what they want better than they know" stuff. It is like all of these fans frustration is now being used through CM Punk. John Cena's arrival did not budge the fans much either. Keep in mind that this show was in Boston which is basically Cena's hometown. Punk demanded an apology from Vince and finally got Vince so fired up that he got it. Then, Punk went at Cena saying that Cena needs to quit playing up that he is the underdog all the time because he isn't. He compared it to the Red Sox and the Celtics who are always talked about as being the underdog. Punk told Cena that he isn't the underdog, he is the New York Yankees. He is the dynasty. The story was told that it eventually got to Cena and Cena gave a punch to Punk. It was great stuff and absolutely true. Cena is always pushed as this underdog character and talks of being one. He isn't. He is Superman. He beats everyone handily. Goodness, he was put over the tag team champions one on two again. How many times has that guy beaten everyone in a handicap match? Now, the argument is also made that there are a ton of guys that beat the tag team champions in a handicap match which does nothing for the champions but that is a different story. CM Punk is the heel but fans are getting behind him and his frustrations on why he is leaving. It was great stuff to watch. He wanted apologies to Colt Cabana and Luke Gallows. CM Punk has made Raw must watch when it has not been in many years now. You have to tune in to see what is going to happen next. I have heard that his promo a few weeks ago was not scripted. He was told to go out there and talk about how he felt and it came across great. It shows the difference in scripted and unscripted promos. There is a difference and it keeps all of these wrestlers from sounding the same. I have loved CM Punk's work for many years going back to Ring Of Honor. I remember the excitement of seeing him working that ECW Sci-Fi show at the Hammerstein and that crowd went nuts for him the second he walked out including a large CM Punk chant to start the match. It launched him. It was that feeling of Heyman just launched another guy. Punk was well known in that area due to his ROH matches. From there, he fought his way against the politics in WWE and everything he has said is true. People felt he was the "King of the Indys". He became one of WWE's greatest performers. He has definitely been that recently by far. In the ring, on the mic, and all around. When you are so solidly good, you're going to be able to overcome the politics and he is showing that even more in the last three weeks. Despite not being marketed and pushed as one of the biggest stars, he is so good and over with the fans that he still gets that reaction. Keep in mind that Punk's actual debut was what he said last night and that was being an extra for the John Cena WrestleMania entrance. Completely true story and fans said it at the time that it was a bummer that this was how Punk's debut would end up being. Too good for that. Now, he is going out with him being the absolute talk of the entire industry. Not just WWE. I'm talking everything. There is always that thought of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. Well, WWE is about to learn that. So many of us have said for so long that this guy is their most consistent wrestler that they have. You know what you're going to get out of him. He loves the business. He works as hard as he can. Now, he is likely on his way out unless there is some sort of last minute deal thrown together.

Money In The Bank will be his last appearance for the company taking on John Cena for the WWE title. There is so much anticipation for this match and I'd like to see it just to watch the atmosphere of it. This show is in Chicago. Punk's hometown. Punk always gets huge reactions in Chicago. Keep in mind that Chicago is one of the biggest anti-Cena crowds. They have been for years. That crowd just does not like Cena and it is going to be a crowd feeling of back to the One Night Stand PPV with Cena and RVD where the ECW fans were viciously ripping Cena. I fully expect this Chicago crowd to be very hostile and very pro-Punk. Cena did an interview this morning where he talked about how he is expecting it to be ugly against him.

More on Raw. Was there really much else on the show? LOL. The rest just felt like filler to me. More build to the PPV. Scary moment with the spot with Show, Henry, and McIntyre. McIntyre took a scary bump and was shaken up. His fall did not go as planned but he is said to be ok. The Bellas and Kelly Kelly was odd. So, WWE did a storyline a few years ago with LayCool saying that Mickie James was too big. Now, the Bellas are picking on Kelly for being too skinny. So, which is it WWE? As I said earlier, another set of tag team champions were dismantled by one guy. If you see the tag team champs in a handicap match, always assume that they are about to get beat. It doesn't do much for the tag team champions to always getting beat by one guy. How can you take them serious to beat another tag team when they get beat by one guy?

WWE Ice Cream Bars are also the talk of the wrestling world today. They trended forever on Twitter last night. It was hilarious. I loved the ice cream bars as a kid. I remember that they were hard to find and me and my mom would stock up on them whenever we found them. They were so good. If you want to send some feedback to Good Humor about wanting the WWE Ice Cream Bars to continue, here is the link to send it: https://ssl.unilever.com/goodhumor.com/Contact-Us.aspx

Several wrestlers took to Twitter last week to demand that Arn Anderson be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame next year. This included Randy Orton who got the ball rolling and was followed by Chris Jericho and William Regal.

WWE Classics On Demand is focusing on high flyers for the month of July. Hall of Fame profile is on Jimmy Snuka. The Wrestling's Highest Flyers DVD is currently airing. Shorties section is on John Morrison stuff. The old Coliseum Video on Ricky Steamboat is airing and the new roundtable discussion on the nWo will be showing later this month. Not long after the official 15 year anniversary of the debut of the nWo. Hard to believe it has been 15 years. Speaking of Classics, I did watch the Royal Rumble 2011 last week. Solid show. The Rumble was very enjoyable as always. Going back to the trend of this List, Punk was the highlight of it.

On the NWA show from December 1987 that is currently airing on Classics, it shows the Lex Luger face turn on the Horsemen. It is good stuff. Luger puts over Dusty Rhodes and how much of a competitor that he was at Starrcade. JJ Dillon is seen in the background shaking his head at Luger's comments including Luger saying that JJ is not allowed to get involved anymore. He can accompany but not get involved as it messed up his match strategy. Another segment then shows Luger finally clashing physically with Arn and Tully and also JJ. Eventually, they get the advantage on Luger and put a good beating on him with a figure four leglock. it was good stuff to watch.

Some Ric Flair news. He and Highspots.com have finally finished their long troubles. Highspots announced that Flair has finally paid them the money that Flair owed them from their court settlement. Many fans were upset about Flair not appearing at the TNA Basebrawl show in Brooklyn recently. Flair was advertised as appearing on the show and did do a VIP signing for those VIP ticket holders. Flair was pushed to the live crowd there as making an appearance on the show later on but Flair turned it down and left. Lots of fans very disappointed that Flair did not make an appearance especially after being advertised.

Remember the company that throws fits over spoilers getting out from Impact? TNA. You know, that company? The company that has thrown out people from the Impact tapings for sending spoilers from the show. Well, Hulk Hogan did an interview lately promoting his new video game where he told where his whole storyline was going completely. I won't spoil it but it just blew me away. Now, I'm sure that TNA probably wasn't happy with him doing this but wow.

That is it for this week. This Sunday will be very interesting with how WWE plays out the whole CM Punk storyline. Have a great week. Take care and God bless!!

CM Punk Takes Raw To A Level Not Seen In Ages - July 1, 2011

2011-07-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "CM Punk needs to do a promo like that every week" edition of The Wrestling List. What a promo that was! It was straight out of the attitude era with reacting to it. Fans were abuzz over it and it just great stuff. Let's get right into it.

Monday night's Raw had three moments on it that I found enjoyable. Raw Roulette was the theme for the episode. However, the big buzz of the show came at the end where CM Punk cost John Cena his match against R Truth. Then, he went and sat down on the ramp and did a shoot promo ripping the company apart. It was incredible. He talked of how he didn't dislike Cena like so many do in the back but just realizes that Cena is better at kissing up to Vince than he is. Punk said he is the best they've got but he isn't as good at kissing up as Cena is and Hogan and Dwayne was. He talked about how he had been vilified since day one because Paul Heyman liked him. Punk said that he was a Heyman guy just like Brock Lesnar was. The common thing with him and Lesnar was that he was leaving just like Lesnar did but he was taking the title with unlike Lesnar. Punk ripped on the company for being there and being the workhorse but never being on any of the merchandise. He said he was the best on the mic, best in the ring, and best even on commentary (completely agree on the commentary thing). He talked about leaving and how he was taking the championship with him. He pondered on what he would do next saying that maybe he would go to Ring Of Honor and then said hello to Colt Cabana. He talked about Vince some more saying that unfortunately this company would be no better after Vince was gone because it was being taken over by "his idiotic daughter, his son-in-law, and the rest of his stupid family". When he got to telling a personal story about Vince, his microphone was cut and he said he had been silenced and the show went black. It was awesome!! The crowd started to cheer for him as well. I know I was. I was sitting there with my mouth open and a smile on my face as he kept talking while applauding. Just incredible. That is how you do a promo folks. It definitely got people talking. Many have taken to Twitter to comment on the promo including Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, Mick Foley, Bret Hart, and more.
Stone Cold Steve Austin: "just melted my 52 inch TV with a scorching hot promo…delivery, content, and attitude..one of the best promos I've ever seen."
Shawn Michaels: "Gettin ready 2 head home. 2 words 4 @CMPunk- thata boy. Felt like old times. Anywho, back 2 my normal life, tweet u on touchdown:-)"
Chris Jericho: "Congrats to @cmpunk and Vince McMahon for doing something tonight that hasn't been done in awhile...make history."
Mick Foley: "I have no idea where this @cmpunk thing might go, but I know I'll be watching. Captivating stuff."
Bret Hart: "The best promos are always the ones that sound real"

If you missed the promo, here it is:

Oh, there were other happenings on Raw. Great to see Shawn Michaels on the show. He was in the opening segment and had a face off with Punk and Nexus. He was later in a backstage vignette with Diamond Dallas Page and Booker T which was a promotion for the WCW DVD. Another big highlight which actually woke me up was when Big Show was knocked through the side of the cage by Mark Henry. It looked great and completely caught me off guard. I cracked up at the fans watching it happen in the building. Standing in stunned reaction. Evan Bourne and Sin Cara had a good match. Rey Mysterio teamed with Alex Riley against The Miz and Jack Swagger which was a solid match. Fun ending.

Other notes from Raw. Funny that Punk posted on Twitter before Raw saying "I'm in full 'what are they going to do fire me' mode?" I guess now I know why the ending graphic for Raw was put up unusually early just as the 10:00 hour hit. There would be no end graphic due to the plan to cut to black. I bet Ring Of Honor appreciated that mention on Raw given that they are about to launch syndicated in September. I was wondering if WWE would mention the voting mess-up when the Sin Cara/Bourne match happened. They acknowledged but didn't ever really say, hey, we messed up. They did not mention at all about the Vickie Guerrero match stipulation being messed up. Instead they had Kofi get to pick his match and said that he personally voted for Vickie to be banned last week so wanted that to happen this week. That was another mess-up last week with the voting as that was the winner but the 2 out of 3 falls match was shown as the winner. Voting mess up.

The coroner's report has been released on the passing of Macho Man Randy Savage. Still hard to believe that I'm typing those words. It was due to cardiovascular disease. His brother, Lanny Poffo, has been doing interviews off and on and he told the story of the accident. He said that Savage's wife actually steered the car off the road into the tree. Poffo said that this avoided several people getting hurt that were on the road in that same area at the time. He said that she was a hero for doing what she did to save the other people.

Colt Cabana is someone that really needs to work big to capitalize on his name being mentioned on Raw. And he is. He did an interview with the Miami Herald. Colt talked about Punk's reasoning for wanting to leave WWE and here were some of the comments: “From being laughed at by the trainers in Ohio Valley Wrestling to Paul [Heyman] finally bringing him up and everybody treating him like dirt, telling him he has an attitude problem and calling him the ‘King of the Indies.’ Just looking down on him, he just felt shunned his whole time there. It was a complete struggle. The power of him not really caring because he was ready to leave — I always said the power of not giving a **** is so important. He is really at the point where he just wants to get out of there. It’s too frustrating for him. If he said anything that made anybody mad, what are they going to do to him? Not re-sign him? He doesn’t want to be there. So I think that idea is so powerful. He is so strong in his beliefs with the straight edge lifestyle. By being how strong headed that he is, he was able to have the power to go out on television and say what probably every other wrestler has wanted to say. He made unbelievable television. He made unbelievable history in wrestling. He almost has the ability to change professional wrestling as we know it. It has been so stagnant and vanilla. It kind of shook up the wrestling world because of his real life frustrations.”
To read more of the interview which is definitely worth a read, here you go: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/30/2292336/colt-cabana-thanks-friend-wwe.html#ixzz1QsWmhRN8

I watched a little bit of Impact last week. Oh, and I need to say that I messed up on the main event for Destination X. It is instead going to be AJ vs. Daniels instead of having Joe in the mix. He is in another match. Going back to Impact. What is up with Sting? That is just bizarre with what they are doing with him. It's just strange and I don't really like it. I know that Hogan and Bischoff have been raving on Twitter about how great it is. I don't know. Just not my cup of tea but maybe others like it.

Ring Of Honor held their long awaited press conference last week where they talked about the launching on the Sinclair networks across the country. They had talent there to promote the product and took questions from the media. I don't know if there was anything really groundbreaking that was learned that we didn't already know but I do know that I get to see ROH here locally every week so that is a huge plus. On another note, I'm hearing great things about their PPV last week.

That is it for today. Wishing you all a great day. Take care and God bless!!

WWE: Brian Pillman - Loose Cannon - DVD Review

2011-06-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

Originally typed up on October 1, 2006

Hey everyone. I promised a review of the new WWE Brian Pillman DVD so here you go. First off, if you are wanting to watch this, you may not want to read this cause I'm going to spoil stuff that is said in it obviously.

Brian Pillman was a favorite of mine in the mid 90's especially when he made his way to the WWF. He was this loose cannon of a wrestler that you never knew what was going to happen with him. His loose cannon gimmick often made wrestlers wonder what was real and what was the character. He always kept fans guessing on what he was going to do next and actually he kept the talent and promoters guessing too. The internet was just starting to get going and he would use that to his advantage too. I've seen several people since try to pull off what Pillman was able to accomplish. Many people last year made the comparison of Matt Hardy to Pillman with what Hardy was saying on the internet and showing up at various shows looking like a loose cannon. Hardy wasn't able to pull it off though. It's the closest thing that I've seen but it got nowhere near Pillman.

The story part of the DVD runs 1 hour and 33 minutes long. Several of Pillman's family are interviewed for including his wife, Melanie. Others interviewed are Jim Ross, Eric Bischoff, Paul Heyman, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Dusty and Dustin Rhodes, and others. The story opens up talking about his rough childhood as he had forty throat surgeries done due to the fact that polyps kept appearing. He would often have trouble breathing because of this. It was said to be unusual for kids to have this problem as Brian was two when this occurred the first time. This was the reason that his voice was always rough sounding cause of all the surgeries. The doctor that did the surgeries actually wrote an article about Brian cause of how rare of a case this was in kids. On to high school where they talk about Brian's football career. His size was always talked about as he was small compared to other players. He had very good success but colleges were afraid to put up the money in scholarships due to his size. Once again, he had to prove himself. He ended up being a walk on for Miami of Ohio. He sat on the sidelines and was treated badly cause he was a freshmen and also a walk on. He finally got put in during a play in practice. He ended up injuring one of the quarterbacks when he tackled him. When he went to the pro ranks, it was the same thing. No one wanted him cause of his size. He went to the local Cincinnati Bengals as a free agent. He made the team due to his performance in the last exhibition game. He was injured halfway through the season and was released. He went to the Bills and then to the CFL. After an ankle injury, he decided to try wrestling after he was told about it.

Brian called the Hart family who brought him in. Chris Benoit said that although Brian wasn't that good in the ring at first, he could really fly through the air. This became his persona, Flyin Brian. Jim Ross and WCW were sent a letter about Brian and asked to take a look. JR was interested immediately and had heard of him. He was brought into WCW. Paul Heyman talked about Pillman's high flying moves saying that Pillman was ahead of his time in what he could do acrobatic wise. Pillman studied Flair promos and matches while also reading books. The DVD doesn't go into any detail about how Flair helped train him. What really put Pillman on the map was the feud with Lex Luger. People were amazed at how good of matches that he was getting out of Luger. A little is shown of the team of Pillman and Z-Man. They were a fun tag team to watch and its a shame that they couldn't stay together longer. They then go into talking about the light heavyweight title. Pillman wanted to make the light heavyweight matches just as good and important as the rest of the card. They go into the matches with Jushin Liger which were always good. The highest profile match between the two happened at SuperBrawl 2 for the light heavyweight title. Dusty Rhodes comments saying that this match is one that he still shows to young wrestlers to teach them. Footage is shown of Brian and Melanie's wedding in 1993. Next up is the Hollywood Blondes tag team with Steve Austin. A lot of what Austin says about the team is also discussed in his book. Austin says that he found out about them teaming when Brian came up to him with all these ideas for their team. He went to Dusty who was the booker at the time and got the confirmation. Austin wasn't really happy about it cause he wanted to be a singles guy. Brian came up with the Blondes name and a lot of their outfits. They became really good friends and had a ton of fun being a tag team. Austin says that it was one of the happiest times of his career. Austin tells a story that is one of his favorites of them as a team. He tells about how after their match against Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas, Pillman was stiff with this belt that he was nailing Steamboat with. Steamboat cut this really mad promo after the match cause it really hurt and he WAS mad. Austin discusses how he and Pillman made each other better. The Flair For The Old segment with Flair and Anderson is brought up and Austin says that most of it was ad-lib. When asked about the split of the team, Austin says that it was basically politics. He said that they were put together to be the work horse and have solid matches but to put other people over. The problem was that they got hot and got over instead with the audience. They were stealing the thunder of the wrestlers that did the booking. JR has an interesting comment where he says that when you have an active wrestler booking that it is "a recipe for disaster". Hmm, that sounds familiar in the current state of wrestling. Austin and Pillman were mad over the split but didn't have enough power in the company to fight it so they didn't bother. He said if it would have happened later that they would have fought it and said no.

Next we go to the Horsemen era and loose cannon character. Eric Bischoff says that the loose cannon thing was Brian's idea. They play the famous Bobby Heenan clip where Pillman caught Heenan so off guard at ringside that Heenan said the f word on live TV. They don't say that Bobby had just had neck surgery and was worried about that and didn't know what Pillman was doing. One funny story to throw in this is that Bobby in his book said that after the show, he went and apologized for saying the word on TV. No one even knew what he was talking about and Bobby joked about how that was how that company was run at times with people having no clue. Next is the famous Pillman match with Kevin Sullivan where Pillman fought him for a few seconds. He then got the mic and called Sullivan "booker man" as he left the ring. Sullivan was of course booking WCW at the time and the two didn't get along. People didn't know what was going on with that and everyone was confused if that was planned or real. JR said that he even called Brian cause he was concerned and Brian led him on for a while before finally saying that he was playing a character. Nobody knew what was real and what wasn't with Brian cause he kept stuff to himself. Pillman then wanted to play off the Sullivan thing more and asked for WCW to publicly fire him as his contract was about to run out. Bischoff goes on to say that he often couldn't figure out if Pillman was working him or if he and Pillman were working everyone else. WCW did publicly fire him although still under contract and he showed up in ECW. Heyman was happy to have him if he wanted to show up. Brian told Heyman that it would be easy to make the fans cheer him but he wanted them to boo him. Heyman said that it took Pillman about 60 seconds before the fans wanted to hop the rail and beat him down. He beat up a fan at one point who was a planted fan. Heyman also says that Pillman was the only guy to have all three promotions talking about him at the same time. WCW was trying to resign him to a new deal as Pillman had told them that he would be back but he was said not to be doing so. ECW currently had him and was going to put him in the ring with Shane Douglas. He was talking about going on to WWF. Heyman said that he was about to cash in big time and make the biggest money of his career when the accident happened. The car crash shattered him physically and mentally. His ankle was shattered and he had no contract as his WCW contract had expired.

Pillman then goes to WWF who said that they would find a way to use him somehow. Many claim that he came back way too soon and made his ankle worse leading to more surgeries down the line. The gun incident from Raw is discussed with Pillman and Austin which was big time controversial at the time and really still is. I'll never forget watching that night when they showed Pillman pull a gun on Austin who had broken into his home. USA Network wasn't happy at all with this and made it clear that this shouldn't be done again. Several of the people interviewed said that it went too far but that it did get people's attention. Austin said that it really helped to start swaying things in the Monday Night Wars. Pillman returned several months later and got his revenge attacking Austin in the ring. Austin said that he has only been knocked out once in his career and that was by the Undertaker but the first hit from behind by Pillman almost had him seeing stars. Austin had a laugh over the story saying that he got beat up bad by Pillman that night in the ring but he was happy to see his friend get the revenge. They then move into the Hart Foundation. Pillman was honored to be a part of it and the Hart Foundation were honored to have him in there as he really was an honorary member of their family. Pillman's ankle was in bad shape and at one point had an infection in it. Pillman wouldn't quit working though and at one point had an IV hooked to it at home for antibiotics. He would unhook it, go to work, come home and hook it back up. That was how bad he wanted to work. He was put on the Shotgun Saturday Night show as a commentator so it would give him something to do while he was out of the ring. They thought he'd be a good guy to have on there. JR said that he really looked after him at this point but felt that Pillman was settling for being an announcer but wanted to wrestle. He would never admit that he was hurting and often lied about it to cover up his pain. He never complained about the pain but did take painkillers for it. He got back in the ring. JR did get concerned about Brian and wanted him to take a drug test cause he just wasn't himself. Brian was set off about having to take a drug test and felt betrayed by JR. He failed the drug test. The test results found muscle relaxers and pain killers but everything was prescribed to him. No street drugs in him. He was over medicating himself to get through the day of the pain. People saw the changes in him and wanted to help him desperately. He didn't want any help. He didn't say that he didn't need help but that he just turned it down. They move on to the Goldust feud which the DVD reveals that Brian and Terri Runnels dated in 1990 but she broke up with him and started dating Dustin. Dustin said that the feud was a bit much cause it hit a little too close to home. The DVD finishes with talking about Brian passing away on the day was of the Badd Blood PPV in St. Louis in October of 1997. JR said that two people were late getting there that day. One was Bret Hart and the other was Brian. They asked Bret when he got there if he had seen Brian and he hadn't. They called Melanie who said she had talked to him the night before. Her first reaction was that he had been acting strange and she was annoyed cause he had probably overslept and missed a flight. The police found him in his hotel room and notified the WWF. Melanie was asked about her interview the next night on Raw and she says that she wasn't pressured into it unlike what a lot of people believe. WWF took a ton of heat for interviewing her on the air on the night after. The official cause of death for Pillman was a heart attack. JR feels strongly that Brian passed away due to a broken heart cause he couldn't physically do what he wanted to do. Austin said that he was devastated when he heard the news and says that he thinks about Brian every day.

So, there you go. I don't know if I learned a whole lot of new info in this DVD but I enjoyed hearing stories from other people who knew him. I often wonder what Pillman would have done in the attitude era. Pillman was a guy that overcame the odds so many times and kept people guessing. You never knew what he was going to do in the mid 90's especially on Nitro. It was wild. He was a lot of fun to watch in 1989 during his high flying days. I actually did get to see Pillman wrestle live in Nashville at a house show about a month before he passed away. The heat that he got was amazing. I think me and my friend that was with me who I converted into a Pillman fan were some of the few people cheering for him in that building. It was fun. I recommend this DVD as I think it is definitely worth checking out especially if you were a Pillman fan. I told of the extras on it and they definitely picked out a TON of good ones. Take care and God bless!!

WWE: Shawn Michaels - Heartbreak & Triumph - DVD Review

2011-06-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Still working on getting the older review stuff up on the site. This was originally typed up on December 2, 2007.

I watched the new WWE Shawn Michaels Heartbreak & Triumph DVD that was released last week. I'm a huge Shawn Michaels fan and have been for over 15 years now so there was no doubt that I was looking forward to this DVD set. The DVD covers the ups and downs of his career. The biography part of the DVD runs 2 hours and 2 minutes in length. Various people interviewed for the DVD are Shawn, his parents, his wife Rebecca, his pastors, his high school friend and also his high school football coach, Triple H, Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Chris Jericho, Mick Foley, Ted Dibiase, Marty Jannetty, Pat Patterson, and plenty more. I thought I'd go over some random thoughts on the DVD as I scribbled down some notes as I was watching it. The story covers his whole life including his parents talking about how they were hoping that Shawn would grow out of his wrestling phase as a kid. Shawn and Marty Jannetty were put together in a random tag team match and Shawn said he knew immediately that there was something special there. They were later paired up in the AWA. Shawn and Marty were always known as the party guys and trouble sometimes followed them. Sensational Sherri tells a story of how there were so many hotels that they got kicked out of cause of Shawn and Marty. They moved on to WWF after Pat Patterson had been watching them wrestle on TV. Things went bad though when they got there and felt immediately under a microscope. They decided to lay low cause they knew that they needed to be on their best behavior. Jimmy Jack Funk came up to them one night (in a bar if I remember right) and had some alcohol in him. He demanded to see what kind of party guys that they were made of. Shawn finally got tired of hearing it and picked up a glass and broke it over his own head. The story got blown out of proportion the next day and the talk had turned to how they trashed the bar completely. Their reputation proceeded them so their side of the story didn't go over at all. Ironic thing is that Jimmy Jack was one of them that hung them out to dry. Shawn and Marty were fired by Vince. Their dream had been shattered and they went back to working other territories. Shawn said that his heart wasn't in it at that point cause everything else just seemed ridiculous besides working for WWF. They went back to the AWA and also worked Memphis. Shawn started having fun again and they were then brought back to the WWF. They were determined to make this turn last and it did. The Rockers started their run in the WWF. The phantom title switch is shown on the DVD which has never seen the light of day as far as airing. The 2 out of 3 falls match against The Hart Foundation which was at a Saturday Night's Main Event taping had a problem when the top rope broke during the match. Shawn says the match looked terrible cause of it. The Rockers won the tag team titles and Shawn comments that they weren't happy with winning the tag team titles in that kind of match. They found out that the match was not going to air and that the belts would go back to the Hart Foundation due to the top rope breaking. Hmm, I've heard different stories about what occurred there. I've heard the constant story that Jim Neidhart's contract was up at the time of the title change. He hadn't resigned and the belts were put on The Rockers. After the match happened and before the show itself aired, Neidhart resigned and the decision was made to leave the belts on the Hart Foundation. That isn't mentioned on the DVD however. Great compliments from Arn Anderson where he discusses working with The Rockers. He said that he felt that he and Tully (as the Brain Busters) brought a level of maturity to The Rockers helping to elevate them. He then felt that after that, they learned things from The Rockers as well. Arn goes on to say that The Rockers may be the best tag team that he was ever in the ring with. Chris Jericho is all over this DVD and provides great comments. He talks about how The Rockers are still his favorite tag team ever cause they were doing things that other wrestlers weren't doing at that time. The decision was made to split up Shawn and Marty. Shawn admits that things were starting to get rocky between them cause they had been together for so long. He added that he was wanting more as well in his career. Jericho gives a great comment on the Barber Shop segment when the split of The Rockers happened saying that he was shocked and angry at what Shawn did saying "why Shawn?". Pat Patterson was the one that pushed for Sherri to manage Shawn telling Shawn that she'd be able to bring him to the next level as she had managed so many other great singles wrestlers. Shawn wasn't crazy at all with how he was being pushed as the sexy boy gimmick. He wasn't comfortable with it at first. After Sherri was gone, Shawn decided that he needed a bodyguard. He was watching WCW Saturday Night and saw Vinnie Vegas otherwise known as Kevin Nash. He thought the guy was hilarious and started asking questions about him. Word got to Nash and Nash told Ole Anderson that wrestling wasn't working out for him and wanted to quit. He got his release and went to work for WWF to be Shawn's bodyguard. LOL. The two clicked immediately and became good friends. Shawn was suspended when Vince told him that he had flunked a steroids test. Shawn greatly denies that he's ever taken steroids saying that he was taking prescription medicine at the time and maybe someone gave him something that showed up without his knowledge. Shawn flat out says very seriously that he has NEVER taken them. WWF wanted the Intercontinental belt back as he was the champion. Shawn said that he wasn't sending the belt back. So, when Shawn came back after suspension, they decided to do the two champions angle which led to the Razor Ramon ladder match. Everyone puts over how great that match was and it really was!! Triple H says that Ric Flair always says how Shawn went out that night and had a great match with a ladder. Not sure if that is Flair taking a little shot at Scott Hall or not. Talk turns to The Kliq after that. If you aren't familiar with The Kliq, this was the name that was given to the group of Shawn, Diesel, Razor, 123 Kid, and HHH behind the scenes cause they always ran together. Pat Patterson and Ted Dibiase talk about how the group could be too much at times. Shawn said that they didn't have pull like people thought but weren't afraid to speak their minds on things. They cover the concussion angle with Shawn and Owen Hart where Shawn passed out in the ring live on Raw. Shawn had been attacked in a bar a few weeks earlier. Triple H comments that Shawn was being Shawn and some guys probably decided to show up this wrestler. Triple H also adds that he, Hall, and Nash were out of the country at the time and usually they all looked after each other. Kid was the only one with him and Shawn got beaten up badly. Shawn did come back after a few weeks and he pushed hard to do the concussion angle. When it happened, Shawn says only two or three people knew that it was angle and that didn't include the doctors. They took him to the hospital to make it look very realistic. It fooled me watching on TV. That is for sure!! Moving to WrestleMania XII, Pat Patterson was the one that pushed for the ironman match with Bret. Vince didn't want to do a match that long in length concerned that fans wouldn't want a match that long on a PPV. When Shawn won the belt, Vince told Shawn that he wanted him to have fun with his title reign and enjoy it. That didn't happen. Shawn put a lot of pressure on himself being the top guy. Triple H thinks that Shawn knew that he was the best guy in the business and wanted to prove it. Hall and Nash decided to leave for WCW and that hurt Shawn that two of his best friends were leaving. This brings us to the Farewell To The Kliq show at MSG. They once again showed the bootleg footage of the event which always surprises me. That is the only footage that exists of that moment except it appears that WWF did get some footage with their own cameras of other points in the night since they showed some footage of it on the DVD. The Kliq had talked about doing some kind of farewell for Hall and Nash for weeks leading to the show. They ran it by Vince who didn't really want to do it cause it broke kayfabe with some being faces and heels. It would confuse fans. Vince reluctantly agreed to let them do it. So, it all happens and they celebrate together at the end of the show. Vince asks if "it was important to them?" which they said yes, and Vince said "well, it was important to me then too". Bruce Pritchard comments on the DVD saying that he thought it was a "slap in the face" to the business. There was a lot of backlash over it and Vince had to lay out punishment for it. As has been talked about since it happened, Triple H took the punishment over it. He was the only one that could. Hall and Nash were gone. Shawn was champion. Triple H was the only one left. Triple H was said to have taken his punishment and not complained at all. Triple H says that Shawn was hurt over them leaving and told Hall and Nash to not come crying back to WWF when WWF was destroying WCW in the ratings in a few months. Well, that didn't happen as the nWo angle launched. Triple H says that Shawn became an "angry young man" trying to carry the company along while they were losing in the ratings. Vince and Foley talk about how Shawn was the glue holding the company together. Shawn makes a comment of "follow that" in the DVD which is something that I've heard over the years. Shawn would go out and knock a homerun out of the park with a match and then yell at the others to "follow that". Vince said that Shawn was very difficult to work with a times and that he took stuff from Shawn that he didn't take from anyone else before or after Shawn. If Shawn was told to do something that he didn't want to do, he'd do it but wouldn't like it. The Rumble 1997 win was special to Shawn as he felt that he was responsible to fill that Alamo Dome to capacity due to it being his home town. He did and he talks of how special that WWF title win was to him especially having his family and friends there. This brings us to when Shawn stepped away from the WWF. He forfeited the title in February 1997 due to a knee injury that his doctor told him could end his career. During this time, he also said that his mom made a comment to him that he didn't smile like he used to. She said it's like you've lost your smile. This was where the "lost my smile" speech came from with the title forfeiting. He was completely burnt out from all the pressure on him and was basically miserable. Shawn did comment on the rumor that has been flying around since it happened that his leaving didn't have to do with the fact that he was told that he was going to drop the belt back to Bret at WrestleMania. That was the original plan. Glad that didn't work out looking back cause Austin/Bret at that event may have never happened. They skip ahead to DX in late 1997. Shawn and Triple H pushed Vince to do more pushing the boundaries stuff and bring attitude to the show cause that was where the company was going and what the fans were into. They show the footage from Raw where DX aired the Farewell To The Kliq footage and yelled at Vince about it. I remember this at the time with how stunned I was that they were talking about and airing the footage of that moment. I was stunned!!! They started saying stuff that they wanted to say and it made others say true feelings back at them on the air as well. Funny comment from Jericho where he talks about a moment that Shawn was in an anklelock by Ken Shamrock but yet still had his lollipop in his mouth. Jericho laughs at it saying "it was very funny but what an a******". I cracked up at that. There were several DX segments where USA called WWF threatening to pull them off the air. This was where the DX public address came from where they mocked the call on what they were supposed to say and not say. This is the presidential address looking thing if you're confused on which one it was. WWF then got a call the next day from USA saying that they loved it and thought it was hilarious. Triple H says that DX was them trying to have fun and not make the business as stiff. We then move on to Montreal. Triple H says that he was the one that came up with the idea of what they could do to Bret commenting on how mad he was that Bret didn't want to do business right. Ted Dibiase comments that he still doesn't understand why Bret didn't want to lose there. The decision was made to do it and Vince told them to not let on to anyone ever that they knew in advance what was going to happen. After it was over, they got back to the locker room and Triple H says that the Harris Brothers met them at the door. They understood why it had happened and stayed with Shawn and Triple H all night to make sure nothing happened to them. JR says that he felt a lot of talent turned on Shawn that night when it wasn't Shawn's fault cause Bret was already leaving. They don't mention on the DVD how a lot of wrestlers were threatening to quit and not show up at Raw the next night. Foley was one of them as he talks in his book that he was about to not go to Raw over what had happened. We move on to Royal Rumble 1998. This is the casket match with The Undertaker that basically ended Shawn's wrestling career. It was kind of a fluke deal where Shawn was backdropped out of the ring and his lower back caught the edge of the casket on the floor when he landed. Shawn said that he was fine immediately but days later, he couldn't walk. Read his book where he explains the terrible pain that he was in. It's incredible. The doctor said that it was a torn up disc in his back. The doctor said that he could get him through WrestleMania but that was going to be it. Shawn would have to quit. This was when Shawn really went downhill knowing that his young career was getting cut short before he was ready. This wasn't on the DVD but I will say that Shawn did not have any physical contact for weeks leading up to WrestleMania trying to protect him. There was one time where he superkicked Austin on the stage on Raw and it sent pain all through his body. When that news got out at the time, I kept wondering how is he going to get through WrestleMania? They go into the DX workout that took place outdoors days before WrestleMania and how Shawn was not in the right mental state at that time at all. The match with Austin vs. Shawn at WrestleMania is covered and I know that Shawn hates that match cause of how bad of shape he is in. If you've never seen this match, you need to watch it. I like this match cause it showed just how hard Shawn was working in this match while barely being able to walk. Just watch how much pain that he is in through the whole match and how he still does all his normal stuff. This is one of the toughest in ring performances that I've ever seen in my life. It is just incredible and at the time, I knew this was his last hurrah and was just concerned on him getting through the thing. He did and JR comments about how happy that he was for Austin but then sad for Shawn. They don't comment about this on the DVD but Shawn was very angry about the Austin shirt being laid on top of him by Tyson. He was very against that happening cause of the symbolism but it did anyway. I think this is what set him off and resulted in him making a scene at the post show press conference which is shown. Shawn says that after his career was cut short, he did drugs and was just in terrible shape. Shawn says that he won't call it a depression but instead "feeling sorry for himself". He was home watching Nitro one night and saw this Nitro Girl named Whisper and was just amazed at how beautiful that she was. He eventually met her and they hit it off. They got married and she became pregnant with their child. She told Shawn that he had 9 months to clean himself up but he didn't. Triple H talks about how Shawn showed up at Raw in 2001 which was the night that Shane McMahon showed up at Nitro. He says that Shawn was not in his right mind at all. Triple H says that Undertaker leaned over to him and said that he'd just about had it with this guy. Triple H got Shawn out of there. There had been plans to do something with Shawn on TV but this scene ended those chances as Vince said he was done with him. Shawn then proceeded to call out Triple H in front of everyone making a scene saying that his best friend had stabbed him in the back and finished him off. Shawn tears up when talking about what made him turn around. He says that his son was crawling on him one night while he was an induced soma sleep commenting that dad was sleeping. His son was getting old enough to understand things that were going on. He says that he asked his wife one night where all the cookies went. She replied that you and your son ate them all and he had no remembrance of this. He called Kevin Nash who he hadn't talked to in a long time and they had a long conversation. Nash said that he needed to clean up now. Shawn commented on how he hadn't talked to Triple H in a long time to which Nash said that was Shawn's fault. Shawn said that he turned to his wife, Rebecca, and told her that he was done doing drugs and drinking and that was it. This is what snapped him out of it and things turned around immediately. Rebecca is a very religious person and he went with her to a bible study shortly afterwards and it changed his life. He became involved in the church and accepted Jesus as his lord and savior. Shawn called Triple H and talked to him. They had a good talk and Shawn thanked him for sticking by him all these years. He later got a call wanting him to return to WWE. He asked Rebecca what she thought and she was all for it. Shawn reappeared and was part of the nWo. Shawn kept wondering if he could do one more match. He asked Triple H if he'd want to wrestle him in one last match to which Triple H was all for. That match took place at SummerSlam 2002. Triple H comments at how amazed that he was at how good Shawn was for someone who hadn't been in the ring for over 4 years. If you've never seen that match, you really ought to watch it. You'd never know that he had been out of the ring for that long and it is incredible with the performance that he gives. They move to Survivor Series 2002 where he won the title and Rebecca says that the reaction that Shawn was given that night was incredible. She said that wrestling fans are so loyal to who they like and loved the reaction that he got. They move ahead to WrestleMania XIX with Chris Jericho. Jericho talks about how excited he was for this match cause he was a Shawn fan all of his life and how Shawn influenced much of his career. Jericho says that during the match that "he was 99% professional and 1% lunatic raving mark" getting to be in the ring with Shawn. Shawn says that match boosted his confidence a ton letting him know that he can still do this. The DVD jumps way ahead to Hogan/Shawn in 2005. As you can expect, these are two very clashing egos. Shawn says that he wanted the match to be face vs. face but Hogan later changed it wanting it to be classic face vs. heel. He also wanted it to be classic 98 heel Shawn which Shawn reluctantly agreed to. Dibiase says that Shawn should have won the match but it wasn't going to happen. Jericho says that the match was fun and one of Hogan's best matches ever. Jericho also points out how Shawn got the best match possible out of Vince McMahon at WrestleMania. Shawn talks about how the ladder that he jumped off of during it was taller than he was expecting. Talk moves to the Backlash match where Vince and Shane wrestled Shawn and God. Jericho comments saying that it was the "dumbest match ever for WWE beating Kennel In The Cell as far as an idea". Shawn didn't comment on this match at all. The story moves on to the DX reunion. Shawn said that years earlier that he would do or say anything and is now limited on what he'll do. He says he takes the responsibility seriously with what he does for kids and how he acts on TV. The story finishes up with talk of Shawn and Cena. Triple H confirms the story that it was originally going to be Triple H vs. Cena at WrestleMania. Triple H went down with the bad injury and he was happy to see Shawn get to be back in the WrestleMania main event. Shawn said that he had a lot of pressure on him in the match with Cena being the veteran. He knew if the match was bad that he would take all the heat for it. The match went good and Cena said that he was honored to be in the main event with Shawn. Some summaries at the end commenting on Shawn's career. Triple H calls Shawn the best person he has ever been in the ring with. JR says that Shawn is top one or two in ring performers ever.

The deleted stories on the DVD cover Shawn and Angle from WrestleMania 21. Shawn talks about how he trained hard to wrestle Angle knowing he'd have to have his "A" game to keep up with Angle. Really good feature on that match. There are several different stories including one about a fight between Shawn and Marty in WWF which Marty says that Roddy Piper instigated. Randy Savage ended up saving an arrest from happening when he arrived at the building and the police were in awe of him. He gave them autographs and no arrest happened. LOL. Marty says that it was a fight that shouldn't have happened but it started a separation between the two. One really funny story is about the bad brown tights that Shawn wore at Survivor Series 2002. Shawn talks in his book about how embarrassed that he was to wear them. The people that were making the tights hadn't finished them and they looked terrible. Jericho says that Shawn always wore these really cool flashy tights and was suddenly wearing these poopy brown tights. Triple H laughs about it saying that he looked over at Shawn in the locker room with a look of "are you kidding"? Shawn asked if they looked bad and Triple H gave a "no, they're great" response while thinking oh my goodness those things look bad.

Some stuff that was left off the DVD that I would have to have seen covered in the documentary. They didn't touch at all on the Shawn/Marty series of matches that they had with their feud. They had some great matches on the early days of Raw. They covered the Kliq but I would have liked to have seen a little of the last Shawn/Diesel match from Good Friends Better Enemies to go along with Hall and Nash leaving. They showed clips of the Shawn/Mankind match from Mind Games but didn't really go into great detail on it. That was a great match and definitely one of my favorite Shawn matches of all time. It could actually be argued as my favorite. They showed the Shawn title win from Sid but didn't really cover that feud at all including Sid turning on him years earlier. The title loss at Survivor Series 1996 to Sid wasn't covered at all. Come to think of it, they really didn't mention Sid at all even when they covered the Shawn victory at Royal Rumble 1997. They didn't really talk about how Shawn turned face in 1995 and how it all happened. One thing that was left out and I completely understand why was that they didn't cover Shawn's first time back in the main event at a WrestleMania since his return. That was WrestleMania XX against Triple H and Chris Benoit. That was a big moment that had to be overlooked now due to the circumstances around Benoit. I also should point out that Benoit is still continuing to be edited out of the Monday Night Wars show on WWE 24/7. They didn't really go much into major detail on how badly Shawn and Bret got along. They didn't touch at all on the fight backstage between the two at Raw in 1997 where they had to be pulled apart.

Thoughts on the matches. I didn't watch a lot of the matches on the set as I've seen 80% of them. I did watch the ones that I haven't seen. The one that I watched first was the tag team title change with The Rockers and The Hart Foundation. I have always wanted to see this match as I remember reading about it in the magazines as a kid and how the top rope breaking resulted in the reversed decision of the tag team titles. The match never aired on TV. There is no commentary on the match. This was a Saturday Night's Main Event taping so I'm sure that they just decided to not add commentary to it later on due to them deciding not to air it. I actually enjoyed the no commentary on the match as you were able to listen to the match more as far as the referee, crowd, and the wrestlers. I can definitely see why they didn't want to air this match as it is kind of a disaster once the top rope breaks during the second fall. Neidhart goes flying into the corner and that is when the rope falls apart on the other side of the ring. The reaction of when it happens is interesting to watch as you can see everyone figuring out what to do. You can also see anger too from the guys knowing that this match is going to look bad now no matter what they do. In between the second and third falls, the crew hits the ring and fixes the top rope. The Rockers win the match in the end and win the WWF tag team titles for their one and only time only for it never to be recognized. Lots of other good matches on it including the Rumble 95 win where Shawn wins after entering at number one, Rockers vs. Brain Busters from MSG which I've seen lately on something, Shawn vs. Jarrett from 1995 which I think is Jarrett's best match ever, Rockers reunion match from 2005 on Raw, the one hour match with Cena and Shawn from Raw back in the spring, a couple of fun AWA matches, and more. Nice that they put stuff on this set that wasn't on the Vault set from a few years back.

Overall, I give this DVD a big thumbs up!! The biography is very well produced. I'd definitely recommend picking up the book as a companion to the DVD to get the complete story due to time constraints on the DVD. When hearing the theme song used on the menus, I again have to ask why WWE can't get the updated version of his theme song. Why do they still use the 1993 version of his song? How hard can it be to go to the sound guy and get the rockier version? Anyway. LOL. Hope you enjoyed the review!!

WWE Raw's "Power To The People" Thoughts, Paul Heyman's TNA Plans, & More - June 21, 2011

2011-06-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "we got got by Little Jimmy's fan voting" edition of The Wrestling List. Wow, some of those voting results just made me scratch my head last night. I think I only predicted one of those things. Some of them even seemed easy on what the majority of fans would pick.

Let's get right into last night's three hour "power to the people" edition of Raw. There were bizarre picks and booking going on. The booking one really left me thinking what in the world but I'll get there. Fans were able to vote by text on opponents and stipulations throughout the night. The only one that I got right on predicting was Kelly Kelly being picked as the opponent in the Divas title match. I wanted Beth Phoenix but I knew Kelly would get the pick. I like Kelly and congrats to her on winning the Divas title last night. I was surprised to see Eve as such a distant third in the voting. I'm assuming her recent kind of heelish actions played a role in that? Then, I knew things were about to go off the rails when we got to the next pick which was an opponent for Evan Bourne. The picks were between Jack Swagger, Mason Ryah, and Sin Cara. I'm thinking how it will be great to get a battle between the high flyers with Bourne and Cara. Cara is way over with the crowd and he'll get the vote especially with him being the only babyface as well. Wrong. Ryan gets the pick and beats Bourne. Just bizarre. He also won by 51% of the vote to Cara's 30% and Swagger's 19%. Next is Kane and Mark Henry with the fans picking the stipulation. The winner is an arm wrestling match getting 52% of the vote. What was kind of telling to me at this moment was the crowd in Baltimore all groaning at this result. Now, I kind of used that as a barometer on what fans were going to pick. It just didn't add up with that reaction and what the audience picked at home. Fans were chanting during this one and not good things. This crowd also chanted "Batista" at Mason Ryan which was pretty funny too. The next crowd pick shocked me pick wise and booking wise. Dolph Zigger and Kofi Kingston for the U.S. title. Choices are 2 out of 3 falls, submission match, or a Vickie is banned from ringside match. The fans can't stand Vickie and the logical prediction is that it will be the win. Wrong again. 2 out of 3 falls wins by a large margin! Couldn't believe it. I'm not disappointed though with the pick though. I was disappointed to see them come back from commercial and realize we had missed the first fall. We go into the third fall tied. This is where the booking makes no sense to me. The two end up on the floor battling it out. The announcers start rambling about how if the match ends in a countout that the belt won't change hands. Umm, why??!! That is the rule in a one fall match but this is a two out of three fall match. Kofi gets hit by the mic by Dolph which gets the DQ. Kofi wins by DQ. No title changes hands. Why? Yes, there was a DQ finish in the third fall which would normally make the title change hands. However, we're counting falls here. Kofi won two out of three falls which should make him U.S. champion. Booking didn't make any sense there. CM Punk was put in a triple threat match against Rey Mysterio and Albert Del Rio after Punk's standoff to open the show against the Raw General Manager. The winner of the stipulation was a falls count anywhere match. I didn't have any opinion on that one and there didn't seem to be a clear favorite there. Punk gets the win in sneaky heel fashion which I loved. Afterwards, Punk announced that his contract is up at the Money In The Bank PPV and that he is leaving. He plans on winning the title and taking it with him. This plays off of the rumor that we've been hearing for a while now that Punk was leaving the company. I'll speak more about this in a moment. Daniel Bryan defeated Cody Rhodes in a no count out match. I thought the fans would vote for the sillier gimmick with the bag match. Dibiase came out afterwards and he and Cody doubleteamed Bryan. Next was the dance competition. Name Vickie Guerrero's dance opponent which was Michael Cole. Ok, I expected that one with the choices being Cole, Lawler, or Booker T. The main event had a six man tag with Cena, Riley, and Orton taking on Miz, Truth, and Christian. The winning stipulation was an elimination match. It came down to Truth, Christian, Cena, and Orton. Truth was pinned following a RKO. Christian then hit a spear on to Orton and eliminated him. It came down to Cena and Christian and I knew immediately how this match was going to end. Orton hits Christian with a RKO which sets him right up for Cena. Cena finishes off Christian and stands tall at the end of Raw again. Just seen this way too many times.

Other notes from Raw. WWE has just released this news as I have been typing this. WWE has apologized for a "technical issue" with the Mason Ryan vote. They said that a "voting backlog" from the previous vote of Kelly Kelly carried over to Ryan. That explains the vote there. I still want to know the reason for some of the rest of the voting. LOL. Two lines of the night were Punk's I'm going to make snow angels over here until you name me number one contender and then Truth's I got got by Little Jimmy line. Loved both of those lines.

Curious to see how this all plays out with CM Punk. Interesting twist with Punk saying he is leaving and taking the title. That is going to be a great crowd environment. Why do I say that? Well, the PPV is being held in Chicago. This is the hometown of CM Punk who always gets a big reaction there. Chicago is also a very anti-Cena town. They have booed him bad for MANY years now. Add those two together and the crowd should take that match to another level. I'm looking forward to it.

Shane McMahon did an interview with the Los Angeles Times talking about leaving WWE. Shane did say that there was still tension between the two of them over his exit from the company. You can read the interview here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/06/shane-mcmahon-is-his-own-man.html

Paul Heyman recently did an interview with 1130AM The Fan where he spoke about what his plans were for TNA. It was definitely an interesting look at what could happen. First, he said that Dixie Carter was absolutely somebody that was so extremely nice and had trouble firing anybody. Just goes to show that he is very loyal. That actually was one thing that worked against Heyman coming in. Heyman's plan was to build the company against all the young talent. His big push was to get rid of all the legends. Well, not all the legends. Leave one legend around. Let him be the standout personality with all the young guys. That way all the focus is on the young talent and the one legend that they do have gets to stand out instead of having twenty legends all in the same company that all feel the same. He had other ideas as well including music but it really makes you wonder what things would be like now in the company. He did say that he was not going to take it over with what was being talked about. He thought it was doomed to fail from the start and was not about to jump into something that he didn't feel could be successful. I'm not a fan of what the company is right now and that bums me out. I want to be a fan. I say that over and over. Here is the link to the interview:

With me making that last statement, there is a bit of interest with the build to the Destination X PPV. Talent from the past is being brought back to build around the focus of the X-Division style of the show. This may be a SPOILER ALERT cause I don't know if this has been announced on TV yet. So, if you don't want to know the main event, skip the rest of this paragraph. Ok, you've been warned. The main event is going to be a rematch of what many people consider to be the greatest match in the history of the company and that is AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels. So, that is a good start for the show. Several talent is showing back up including Austin Aries, Jimmy Rave, and Kid Kash who had a match on last week's Impact.

TNA has released Desmond Wolfe or as you may know him, Nigel McGuinness. No word on why he has been released but there are rumors. No idea though and a bummer to see him gone from the company.

One thing that I like that WWE Classics On Demand is doing now is that they have a Rewind section. Basically, it is a section for repeat programming on the service. For me, it is good cause they show some stuff that was shown before I had access to the service. An example is the fact that they've started airing the TNT shows from the beginning again. When I finally had the service, they were probably a year into it time wise on the shows so I missed the first year of the TNT shows. I've enjoyed a lot of it especially the Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch on location stuff which has been funny. If you missed any of the early roundtable shows, those are being aired in that section as well. Thankfully, I have seen all of those.

That is all for today. Wishing all of you a great rest of the week!! Take care and God bless!!

WWE Raw Thoughts, Ryder, Classics, & More - June 17, 2011

2011-06-17T14:01:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the "they wanted Ryder" edition of The Wrestling List.

Monday night's Raw was a three hour affair from Long Island, NY. Hot crowd and they popped huge for Austin. It think it is fair to say that there were more long term hardcore fans there than there is in other cities. That is usually fair to say anytime they get into that area. Austin hosted the WWE All Stars special edition of Raw as the general manager. I enjoyed it for the most part. More than I have in recent weeks. Austin was fun. I liked the exchange with him and Miz. Going with other segments later on, it was about time that we got an Austin/Punk segment. Really good stuff there too. They played off of each other really well. Austin has been pushing Punk on Twitter lately. It can't hurt to have guys like that in your corner when your contract is about up. Punk may be leaving here soon as he seems ready to get out of there which would be big time bad for WWE. Sticking with Austin, I liked the GM segment with him where he destroyed the computer. The threats from him were funny and then we got the payoff on it. The main event had John Cena taking on CM Punk. Wow, what a loud crowd during that and they were vocal against John Cena. Cena just isn't going to be liked in that New York area it seems. It's been that way for over five years now and doesn't appear to be changing. Funny thing is that they used to pop huge for him when he was in the rapper gimmick. Different character though completely. John Morrison returns….sort of. He was ready to take on Truth by word of Austin. Then, he is found laid out in the back. Speaking of Truth, he is great as a heel. One of the best things on the show and the "little Jimmy" thing is just hilarious. Christian and Randy Orton had another face off but Christian backed off. Then, the threat was made that they couldn't touch or Orton would be stripped of the World title. How does the Raw GM have that kind of power? I don't know. Maybe I missed something on how they explained that but I didn't hear it. Great to see Rowdy Roddy Piper on the show. Piper's Pit was the host of the back and forth words between Riley and Miz. After words got exchanged, Austin made a match with Miz and Piper. $5,000 on the line. Riley as the special ref. He helped Piper get the win and Miz loses the money.

Other notes from Raw. Did you hear those "we want Ryder" chants? If you didn't, how did you miss them??!! WWE should have brought him out or done something with him during the show. Three hours and you have a crowd begging for him. Surely, you could put him on the show somewhere. Isn't it amazing that this guy has gotten himself over online with his videos? It shows the power of the internet cause the guy is getting reactions despite hardly being used on TV. His videos have been getting attention for months now and WWE is going to have to look at doing something with him. Definitely good with the comedy. Chris Jericho took to Twitter to rip on WWE for not using him on Raw as well. He has a lot of supporters from big names in the business. Wondering when WWE will decide to listen? I wondered how much offense that Sin Cara would get with a live show and the answer was the finish. Poor guy.

A strange thing happened recently at the Smackdown tapings. Vince McMahon apparently decided to play a rib on Mark Henry. The bigger rib may have been on the fans in attendance. Henry was sent to the ring. He kept waiting for his opponent who never came out. This went on for a LONG time. According to the live report, it went for about 30 minutes. Henry eventually got furious and went to the back demanding to know what was going on. It appears that Vince played a rib on Henry. However, the fans stayed and stayed and stayed waiting to see another match. It would leave a sour taste in my mouth especially for me knowing that I travel usually a couple of hours to see a show. I could have put that on my travel time and get home earlier instead of waiting on this match to never happen just so a joke could be played.

Jim Ross posted on his Twitter lately about taping a new set of roundtable shows for WWE Classics On Demand. The addition to the panel was Kevin Nash. Apparently, there is a show done on the nWo. That has to be an interesting discussion and Nash is a good storyteller and talker. Should be fun to watch.

I'm happy to see the lineup for this month for WWE Classics On Demand. Specifically a house show from MSG from April of 1989. The event is one of the WrestleMania V rematches of Hogan and Savage. Very nice. Like the rest of the lineup as well and looking forward to watching it.

I mentioned lately how intriguing it was that Mick Foley was talking a lot about WWE as of late on his Twitter considering he has been with TNA. Well, it appears that he is gone from TNA and his exit was put into the storyline last week on Impact. Foley gave his thoughts on TNA in a column recently about what he didn't like about the company and all. I assume we'll see him back in WWE before too long.

Another guy is done with TNA and that is Tommy Dreamer. He finished up with the company this past weekend with the Basebrawl shows in Marion and Memphis. He posted on Twitter about how it started to rain in Memphis just as his music started to play for his last match entrance. He definitely pondered the timing of it with the rain delaying the show at that very second.

The next TNA PPV, Destination X, is going back to its roots. I think you'll be very happy with the main event. I know I am but I also worry about anything that company does lately. I would post the spoiler of the main event but they might take my Twitter away from me. Oh, I think I've said too much. Yep, there goes Twitter. Seriously, what is wrong with that company? I just don't get it.

That is all for today. Wishing you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

Impact Wrestling Base Brawl In Marion IL - June 10, 2011

2011-06-11T16:13:00.001-07:00

Last night was the first Base Brawl event from TNA Impact Wrestling. It was held in Marion, IL at Rent One Park which is the home field of the Southern Illinois Miners.

First, here are the results of the event. The show opened with Jeremy Borash in the ring hyping up the crowd. He would be in the ring in between matches all night. He does a great job and backstage passes were given away. Some kids got some backstage passes and the look on their faces were great. They were so excited. First match was Robbie E with Cookie taking on Eric Young. Lots of comedy in this match. Robbie and Cookie started dancing to the music. Then, the ref started dancing with Cookie. Not long after that, the Miners mascot got in the ring and started dancing with Robbie but Robbie didn't know it was the mascot. Cookie was in the corner looking horrified telling him to turn around. Eric then rolled up Robbie for the win. Borash introduced Earl Hebner who ended doing the whole Hitman gimmick pose in the ring including wearing the Hebner t-shirt that is being sold. Next match was Velvet Sky taking on Angelina Love. WSIL's Kevin Hunsperger accompanied Velvet while Winter accompanied Angelina. The finish had Winter trying to interfere but it backfiring on Angelina leading to a rollup pin for Velvet for the win. Matt Morgan and Scott Steiner was next. Steiner was a heat magnet with the crowd. Thought he went over the line with getting heat but that is just me. Morgan gets the win. Next was my favorite match on the show. AJ Styles and Devon taking on Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer. Interesting that Dreamer got to come out to the regular version of Man In The Box. Old school ECW feel to that entrance. I wasn't crazy about Bully Ray's heat tactics either but being an ECW fan, it was pretty tame from back then. LOL. I really enjoyed just listening to the interaction in the ring including the taunting back and forth between Bully Ray and Devon. Trash talking while hitting and reversing moves. It was fun. AJ is just incredible with his high flying stuff. AJ and Devon did the classic wassup to Bully Ray. AJ dove over the ropes on to Bully Ray. Devon pinned Dreamer with a spinebuster. Afterwards, Devon taunted Bully Ray to get back in the ring. Bully Ray teased that he was going to and then bailed out. Dreamer gave a wave as he headed to the locker room. I should point out that there was a ECW chant at the beginning of the match. Devon was all pumped for it. I looked at Dreamer who just had this look on his face of not being able to hold back a grin for the chant despite trying to stay heel. Just loved seeing that. After the intermission, Matt Hardy took on Kazarian. Kazarian hit a move that I had not seen before as I am not a frequent watcher of the show. It was like a backwards piledriver that looked awesome. Kazarian wins the match. Main event time with Kurt Angle taking on Jeff Jarrett. Not as long as I expected it to be. Toward the beginning of the match, Jarrett kept jawing with Hebner. Hebner finally shoved him and said do you want to go. They tied up and Jarrett was sent to the ropes. Hebner nailed a hip toss on to Jarrett who looked completely stunned. The finish had Angle hooking on the anklelock and getting the submission win. The show ended with the fireworks show.

It was extremely hot at the event. It was outdoors of course but it was just even hotter than normal making it very uncomfortable at times. The $50 ticket got you into the meet and greet before the event with many wrestlers making their way down the line on the field to sign autographs and take pictures including Tommy Dreamer, Devon, Kazarian, Robbie E, Cookie, and more. It was fun to just sit back and have the wrestlers come to you. Usually it is the other way around. Everyone was in a good mood and happy to sign and take pictures. AJ Styles signed in the dugout for his action figures. If you bought the action figure, you were able to go get in line and get it signed by AJ but that was the rule on that. A photo opportunity up on the main level of the park where you could have your picture taken with Velvet Sky for $10. I felt bad for Velvet a lot of times cause she looked like the heat was too much and it was really hot up in that area. Just no breeze at all. Matt Morgan signed over at the merchandise table. At intermission, Angelina Love and Winter signed at the merchandise table. Angelina was in full zombie type gimmick. After the show, Jeff Jarrett signed and took pictures at the merchandise table. While that was going on, Kurt Angle was taking pictures in the ring. You could pay $20 and get your picture taken with Kurt and it didn't matter how many people that you had in your group. $20 paid it. It was fun to do the meet and greet stuff. Not really that crazy about how certain people would sign for free and these others wouldn't but that was the company call and their way of making money. I thought the $50 meet and greet pass should get autographs from whoever you want that is available but that is just me. I absolutely had to pay the money to get the picture with Kurt and he was extremely nice to everyone. Fun deal there and I think that is a great money maker for the company to do. Getting to meet Dreamer was very cool especially with this being his last weekend in working with the company. I told him that I was a long time ECW fan and he said "me too". Cracked me up. Don West was in full selling mode at the show. He works hard for sure and was all over the place with the microphone announcing signings and all.

So, there you have it. The happenings of the first Basebrawl event. Memphis gets the second one tonight. Hoping that you all get cooler weather! Wow.

Looking Back On My Favorite Moments Of WCW Monday Nitro - June 6, 2011

2011-06-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

WWE is set to release a Best Of WCW Monday Nitro DVD set tomorrow. The set will be hosted by Diamond Dallas Page and will include matches and moments over the run of the series. It just popped into my head that it might be fun to do a Wrestling List looking back on my favorite moments of WCW Monday Nitro.

WCW Monday Nitro premiered in September of 1995 and went right head to head with Raw. Well, it actually didn't go head to head on its premiere night as Raw was preempted that night on USA Network. So, Eric Bischoff went with the plan to air the first Nitro on a night unopposed when fans would be looking for wrestling. Yeah, I think that might have worked. Yeah, it did work! The opening had great action, an interesting environment in the Mall of America, and the first of many surprises that we would get on Nitro with the return of Lex Luger. Keep in mind that Luger had just been with the WWF at the time so his return to WCW on a live Nitro was a complete shocker to everyone watching. This premiere is definitely in my list of favorite moments. This show gave us big matchups and stars on a live broadcast making us wonder what could happen next. This was such a huge alternative to what WWF was giving us on Raw in 1995. Lots of cartoony gimmicks and the only highlights for the company were Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, and those top level guys.

Savage/Hogan/Flair/Giant. This was a battle between these stars to be WCW World Champion. These four battled one another in early 1996 to become champion. The title changed hands on multiple occasions. There were twists and turns such as Elizabeth turning on Savage to go with Flair. She was his before she was Savage's by the way. Anyone get that 1992 reference? I enjoyed the matches of these four as they went for the title.

Memorial Day 1996. Scott Hall's debut on Nitro. Oh, what was to come with this. Hall showed up in basically the Razor Ramon gimmick except for the clothes. Fans were abuzz at his talk of "we are taking over". If you weren't a fan that knew the inside stuff, then you were thinking that WWF was showing up on WCW programming. I loved the stuff with Sting standing up to him as well when Hall would repeatedly show up. Enter in Kevin Nash a couple of weeks later. The set up for the nWo was underway. Some of my favorite Nitro moments were after the reveal of Hogan being in the nWo. They were taping TV down in Orlando. A black limo would show up and I was just glued to the TV wondering what was going to happen when these guys got out. All fans were glued to the TV. We had the moment where they went up into the top of the venue covering up the WCW letters. They attacked the WCW roster in the back including Nash throwing Rey Mysterio like a dart into the trailer. It was just a different level of TV than we had ever seen. These guys that were just there to wreck havoc and you never knew when they were going to show up.

1-2-3-4, next week, 5. That was the signal that Ted Dibiase held up during a live broadcast when he sat ringside and started counting nWo members. This became a lot of what the fall of 1996 would be in WCW. Who was the next to join? Would somebody turn on WCW? You just never knew. An attack would play out when The Giant would turn on WCW and join up with the nWo and unleash a big time attack on Randy Savage.

Sting. This was a big deal as 1996 came to a close in WCW. We had the supposed attack of Sting on Luger in the parking lot on a Nitro show which made it look like Sting had joined the nWo. However, Sting denied it was him but with all the turns of people to the nWo, nobody believed him. So, Sting would show up at Fall Brawl in the War Games match as scheduled. He cleaned house on the nWo and then left saying now do you believe me. It was an awesome, awesome moment. Then, he would walk out on WCW on the next edition of Nitro. This would see the emergence of one of my favorite things in wrestling history. The black and white "crow" looking Sting who would just watch the happenings of the action in the tops of the buildings. Not saying anything. What was on his mind? Whose side was he on? He would make his way to the ring, lay out somebody, not say anything, and leave. It was great TV. He didn't say a word for months. Sting would later start getting to the ring by propelling from a cable to the ring. It was an amazing sight and one that would send fans into a big reaction. It came across great on TV and also live as I saw Sting drop down in the building in Nashville on Nitro to one of the loudest roars that I've ever heard at an event. The mystery of Sting would be great TV for many months on Monday Nitro.

Lex Luger wins for WCW. The big Luger/Hogan match for the WCW title was built up on a Nitro in August of 1997. Luger pulled out the win and won the title giving WCW a big celebration against the nWo. Then, WCW would put the belt back on Hogan days later at the Road Wild or Hog Wild PPV, whatever it was called that year. Just took some of the big momentum off of it.

Goldberg/Hogan. Some still point at this match as a problem that WCW had putting this first ever epic encounter on free TV on Nitro. Me? I didn't really have a problem with it. They went for the ratings gold with it and packed the Georgia Dome with it. I see both sides of the argument though. Goldberg had all sorts of momentum in 1998 with him steamrolling competition and had the crowd in the palm of his hands. I still love to watch those crowds react jumping out of their seats when Goldberg would hit the spear. With his undefeated record, it was a matter of time before he would get to Hogan. July of 1998 would see that. Goldberg would defeat Hogan to win his first WCW title in front of a loud and pumped up crowd in Atlanta.

Chris Jericho. When you read his book, you realize that Jericho knew he wasn't getting attention from management so he just did whatever to get attention. It worked! Jericho's Nitro segments are some of my favorites in history. Lots of great comedy stuff with Dean Malenko, Rey Mysterio, and others. The 1,004 holds segment is still one of my favorites. Jericho proclaimed that Malenko was the man of a 1,000 holds that Jericho was the man of a 1,004 holds and was going to read them all off. Almost every other one of them was an arm bar. Hilarious stuff. When they went to commercial, they came back and he was still in the ring reading moves. Great, great stuff. Jericho had great segments and matches over the years on Nitro and I always have to think Jericho when I think of Monday Nitro.

The Four Horsemen are reunited. Charlotte, North Carolina hosted one of the biggest Nitro moments ever. The Horsemen had been separated. Flair and WCW had all sorts of backstage issues. However, this was the night that the Horsemen rode again. The culmination of this big moment would be Arn Anderson in the ring finishing up the promo when he said that he almost forgot somebody and introduces Ric Flair. Horsemen country goes crazy and Flair walks out in his suit all sorts of teary eyed. Flair does his usual great promo and the Horsemen were back.

January 4, 1999. The fingerpoke of doom. Ok, just kidding. Not in my favorite moments. Ranks up there with my least favorite moments. Most of which include Vince Russo.

Bret Hart knocks out Goldberg in Canada. I had forgotten how good this segment was until they showed the footage again on a recent Legends of Wrestling roundtable show on WWE Classics On Demand. The basic set up was that Nitro was in Canada in 1999. Now, you know that Bret Hart got a huge ovation walking out there and the crowd was eating up everything he said. He laid out the challenge for Goldberg. Goldberg answered it and hit Bret with a spear. They then both laid on the mat to the stunned reaction of everyone wondering why Goldberg was unconscious after hitting the spear. After a minute or so, Bret staged to his feet and revealed that he had a piece of metal around his waist which Goldberg knocked himself out on with the spear. Bret had outsmarted and KO'd Goldberg in Canada and the crowd went wild over it.

Speaking of Bret Hart, I have to mention another incredible Nitro moment and that was the tribute match to Owen Hart. Bret returned to Kansas City and a match was made with him and Chris Benoit to pay tribute to Owen. They put on a classic match and Bret was the winner. Afterwards, he pointed upward to Owen. With the Benoit tragedy, this moment will likely never be seen again in WWE footage unless they just show Bret paying tribute and they ignore the match completely.

August 9, 1999. The return of Hulkamania. I loved this. They had been teasing a Hogan face turn for a while. The fans had gotten back behind Hollywood Hogan. On this night on Nitro, the red and yellow returned along with the "American Made" music. The crowd went nuts as he teamed with Sting and Goldberg. It was the first time to see Hogan in red and yellow in over three years and the crowd ate it up. One of those moments where you saw fathers nudging their kids and saying this is what I grew up on.

Sting vs. Ric Flair. How fitting was it that these two competed on the last Monday Nitro ever? Two of the guys who had meant so much to the success of WCW got to go at it one last time. Was it a mat classic? No, but it was a great ending to the show to have these two competing against each on this night in March of 2001.

WCW Monday Nitro had its big place in pop culture. Nitro parties were held all over the country every week. It changed the landscape. Nitro was the reason that the then WWF had to step up to the plate and try to grab that audience back. Nitro always had surprises whether it was from talent moving over such as the night that Rick Rude appeared on both Raw and Nitro. Nitro went from one hour, to two hours, and eventually on to three hours. Yeah, three hours was way too much TV and add into the fact that Thunder was airing on TBS at the time of the three hour Nitro's and that was five hours of wrestling programming just on those two shows alone. Nitro was exciting and innovative. It was sad to see what the show became in the later years especially with what it was for so long. It was that unpredictable show that you couldn't wait to tune in to. I remember Nitro for the early years of entertainment. If there was no Nitro, the wrestling landscape would not have changed into what it became. You need that great competition out there and it was there for both companies. The Monday Night Wars are a time that will live on forever in fans minds. If you weren't there to witness it, stories can be told that will do it justice. The truth is that the stories can't even really live up to what we saw unfold week after week as these two companies battled for cable TV supremacy every Monday night. It was cutthroat, vicious, exciting, fun, and the real winners were all of us fans that got to witness it.

10 Count - Influential Matches Of The 90's - WWE Classics Review - June 3, 2011

2011-06-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

The edition of 10 Count that has been recently airing on WWE Classics On Demand did a list of the most influential matches of the 90's. Just thought I'd review it and provide their top ten list. It definitely brought back some memories for sure. I enjoy their 10 Count shows that they produce.

10. Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VI. I can definitely see the argument of this match deserving to be in this list. This was something that just wasn't done much at the time. Not at all actually especially in that company. The top two babyfaces in the company headlining the Super Bowl event. Fans were split on who they liked and it set the standard for the future where it would be ok to have top faces battle for the championship. It proved that it would draw a ton of interest.

9. Edge and Christian vs. The Hardys in the ladder match at No Mercy 1999. This sent the ladder match to another level. Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon had the biggest ladder match spotlight at WrestleMania X and also SummerSlam 1995. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels also had the first big ladder match which was featured on a Coliseum Video release. Ladder matches had been held since but this one took it to another level. The Hardys and Edge and Christian took risks that no one had seen. The fans were just in awe of it. These were guys that took the chance they were given and putting themselves in the minds of fans. It took their careers to another level and set the standard for what was yet to come in the future with them and also the ladder match.

8. Bret Hart vs. The British Bulldog for the Intercontinental title at SummerSlam 1992. This match closed SummerSlam. That was the importance of this match that this closed the show. The Bulldog going for the title in his home country inside of a packed Wembley Stadium. This was a sign of things to come with the focus of the company going to some of the smaller guys and more in ring style including guys like Bret. I realize that I'm making that comment but that the Bulldog who was bigger won the match and the title. Just saying that this was a straight up wrestling match including it being two babyfaces. Plus, you had the rivalry of the UK fans being behind the Bulldog. Bret was booed by a lot of the fans because he was against the home team. This would go to another level years later with The Hart Foundation in 1997.

7. The Rock vs. Mankind from Raw on January 4, 1999. Absolutely agree on this one. This might be considered the night that the final finish was put on the Monday Night Wars. You've all heard the stories on this one. Mick Foley's dream comes true winning the championship. WCW had their big show on this night at the Georgia Dome. It finished with the fingerpoke of Hogan pinning Kevin Nash and the nWo was reformed. That turned a lot of fans off but the big moment on WCW's end was Tony Schiavone on commentary spoiling the results of Raw as it was taped that night. He mocked how Foley was going to win the championship and how that would really put people in the seats. The result was the ratings going full tilt and people tuning over to Raw to catch the moment. The moment was a lot of fun and that crowd was just incredible. Austin's music hits and it was one of the loudest pops that I've ever heard. He comes to the ring and nails The Rock with a chair. Keep in mind that Vince and the corporation were at ringside with The Rock while DX was the counter in the corner of Mankind. Austin puts Mankind on The Rock after the chair shot and the three count goes on and it results in one of the biggest pops and long crowd roars I've ever heard as well. The crowd went nuts and the people did at home too. We had a group of us together at the time watching it. We were let down with the WCW finish but optimistic about the nWo reunion. However, the room went nuts when the title changed hands. I remember that clearly. One of the most important nights in the Monday Night Wars.

6. Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio at Halloween Havoc 1997. When you think about either of these guys, this is the match that gets talked about a lot. Just a tremendous match that stole the show at that PPV. The cruiserweight was a big part of the 90's with several of them getting center stage in ECW and then on to WCW. A lot of the early WCW Monday Nitro era was built around the division and you knew you were going to get some fun matches. Eddie vs. Rey was one of the best matches of this era of WCW.

5. Raven vs. Terry Funk at ECW Barely Legal 1997. ECW Barely Legal was the first PPV for the company and a huge step. I was so excited to see the company get to PPV. I actually didn't get to see this show live because my PPV company at the time didn't carry it. I wouldn't see an ECW PPV live until the 1997 November To Remember. Raven vs. Terry Funk was the headline of this show with Funk winning the opportunity to face the champion. This was also the year of the Terry Funk retirement. One of many. LOL. It was great to see Funk win the title and it was a great tribute to him by the talent and the fans. A fitting end to a great first PPV show by ECW. One that was very scary on how close it was to not finishing with the ECW Arena handling more electrical juice than it was able to. The story is that the power went out in the building just after the show went off the air. Back to how that company always was and it was fighting to the end. Can't argue with this being on the list at all.

4. Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series 1997. I can't imagine this being an influential match in the 90's. Yeah, I'm just kidding obviously. This match did so much in wrestling history with the happenings around it. Bret Hart is on his way out of the company and is told the finish of the match. However, the plan was to get the belt off of him. Vince comes to ringside. Shawn turns Bret over for a sharpshooter. Hebner calls for the bell. Shawn wins the title and gets out of there. Bret spits in Vince's face. The crowd is furious. Bret destroys the whole ringside area with his family by his side watching it go down. Backstage, Bret punches Vince. All this going on as the Wrestling With Shadows crew are shooting their Bret Hart documentary. It would be talked about for years to come and it really launched the Mr. McMahon character which would take the company in a new direction with the Austin/McMahon feud. Bret would go on to WCW where they unfortunately had no idea on how to use him. The finish of this match has been done over and over and over and over again. So much that I just about have my mind explode when I see the finish. This match absolutely influenced so many things whether it is talent, characters, booking styles, matches, or whatever.

3. Undertaker vs. Mankind in the cell from King Of The Ring 1998. What can be said here? This match is one of the most talked about matches of all time. People have dissected it by watching it, talking about it, reading about it , you name it. Mick Foley gets asked about this match all the time and goes into great detail about it in his first book. I think this took the company to another level of wild matches and shocking moments. I still remember watching this match as it happened on TV. I was just laying on the bed and settling in for it. Suddenly, Foley goes right off of the cell to the floor. I jumped up off the bed thinking what in the world just happened??!! Eyes wide as could be. I had never seen anything like that before and just hoped that he was ok. About ten minutes later, I'd be wondering the same thing when he crashed through the middle of the cage. A group of us got together the next day and that match dominated the conversation of the day including us watching the match again. This match took the cell matches took the cell matches to another level and influenced in the minds of the fans just how crazy these matches could be. There were a lot of wild moments in the 90's and this is one of the first mentions, if not the first mention.

2. Sting, Lex Luger, and Macho Man Randy Savage vs. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and a surprise partner at Bash At The Beach 1996. The Hulk Hogan heel turn. I've talked about this already recently in my favorite heel turns list so there really isn't much to go over. Big surprises can go over huge and there was a payoff with this one. It launched WCW into another stratosphere with popularity that it had never seen before. The nWo was the hottest thing going for a long time and this match is definitely one that people will talk about when it comes to the 90's.

1. Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XIV. The Austin era has begun. There are several stories in this match. First was the rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin. The World Wrestling Federation was starting to climb back in the ratings with the Monday Night Wars and Austin was a huge reason. People loved Austin. That attitude of defiance. People were tuning in to see Austin and wrestling merchandise was starting to be seen back in the mainstream. The Attitude Era was underway and Austin led the way. One thing that I often feel bad about especially at the time was that Shawn Michaels was a big reason for the starting of the Attitude Era. The company was taking back off and he was going to be on the sidelines watching it. Shawn was beaten up at this point. He was having major physical problems especially after a back injury at the 1998 Royal Rumble. Shawn was kept out of the ring cause his back was so bad. It was common knowledge on the internet at the time that Shawn was hurt. Being a huge Shawn fan, my concern was just seeing him getting through the match and it was tough to watch. This was still might have to be the gutsiest performances that I have ever seen. He just would not slow down. Broken and battered but refusing to not go all out in this match. Every flip into the buckle or every other big spot had me cringing knowing how bad he had to be hurting. Shawn gutted through and dropped the title to Austin. Shawn will be the first to admit that he was an attitude problem behind the scenes at the time so he was tough to deal with in this particular period. I can't imagine how hard that must have been with what all he was dealing with. Don't forget also about the Mike Tyson involvement in this match. This was a big name star in the main event at WrestleMania. It got the media attention and it got WrestleMania XIV seen on all sorts of media outlets. Tyson was a big deal in getting to appear for the company. With Tyson and the attitude era underway, the company was on their way with going back to the top.

My Favorite Wrestling Heel Turns - June 1, 2011

2011-06-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Heel turns if done right can completely turn things around for a company. The right person. The right storyline. The right way. Of course, there are many heel turns that flopped and continue to flop. Come to think of it, I may need to do a List in the future of the worst heel turns ever. However, this is a list of my favorite heel turns and the stories around them. Remember that these are sudden turns where a moment happened. There are many others I could list but they didn't involve a particular sudden moment.

Here we go in no particular order.

Trish Stratus - WrestleMania XX - March 20, 2004. This is a favorite heel turn of mine cause of how unexpected that it was. Good for how well it was done. Good for how she ran with it afterwards. I'm a big Trish fan and was at the time too. It was exciting at the time to see her able to take her character in a different direction. There had been a triangle at the time between Trish, Chris Jericho, and Christian. Trish and Jericho had paired up with Christian being the heel. During the match, Jericho caught an elbow from Trish with the story being that she thought it was Christian. Christian rolled up Jericho and got the pin. After the match, Trish launched an attacks of slaps on Jericho that was fast and furious. Christian would follow up with an unprettier in the middle of the ring. Trish joins up with Christian. It led to a great series of matches and added more to that really fun feud of 2004. Trish would remain a heel for a while and was fun to watch.

Shawn Michaels - December 1991. Who knew just how important this heel turn would be? The trouble between The Rockers had been brewing for a while including problems at Survivor Series 1991. The Barber Shop was the site for what many fans hoped would be where they would work out their troubles. However, things didn't work out that way. There was the tease that all was well including them posing as the segment came to an end. All was not well after Shawn followed it with a superkick. Shawn then launched his singles career next by firing Marty through the Barber Shop window. The rest is history. Shawn went on to become a big heel for the company and a go to guy for those great solid matches even that early on in his career. The Rockers were a very popular tag team and the split gave us many great matches between the two former partners.

The Rock - Survivor Series 1998 - November 15, 1998. The championship tournament was the setting for this big turn in St. Louis in what was called the Deadly Games tournament. I need to throw another mention of a great heel turn in this moment as earlier in the night, Shane McMahon had a good turn of his own. He ran into the ring as a referee to make the three count for Austin but it didn't happen. He paused after two and gave Austin a salute. Shane was now paired up with his dad. In the tournament finals, the McMahon's had used Mankind to do their bidding against the man who was picking up some serious steam as a face, The Rock. Rock looked poised to become the next champion and the fans were ready for it. However, they didn't get it like they had planned. Rock turned and joined up with the McMahon's to become the "corporate champion" instead of the people's champion. This was a surprise to me as they had really made a turn with Rock. Fans had turned him heel as Rocky Maivia. As The Rock, fans were turning him back to a face. This set up a feud that would last for many years with Rock and Austin.

Andre The Giant - 1987. I tried to decide about this one on whether it was a sudden turn kind of deal. It really was. Just done in a different way. The others required an action in the ring. This one required one thing and that was the World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight title, Hulk Hogan, and Bobby Heenan. Andre walked out on to the set of Piper's Pit with Heenan. Jesse Ventura was also there stirring things up about how Hogan had been ducking Andre cause he was afraid of him. Andre shows up with Heenan demanding a title shot. A stunned Hogan is in shock that Heenan is with Andre and refusing to believe what he is seeing. Heenan says if you don't believe it, maybe you'll believe this Hogan. Andre proceeds to rip the cross right off of Hogan's neck. Piper looks for reaction from Hogan who is shocked and saddened at what is just occurred. This would lead to Hogan and Andre at WrestleMania 3. Andre was one of the most beloved superstars at the time so for him to join forces with Heenan against Hogan was a huge deal.

Ric Flair - Clash Of The Champions X - 1990. What a memorable night that was. Flair and Sting had been teaming together upon Flair's return from injury in 1989. The tease of trouble was probably given at Starrcade 1989 when Sting defeated Flair in the iron man tournament which gave Sting the overall victory. In early 1990, the Horsemen were reformed and Sting was right there with them. It seemed likely that he would join the group. However, on this night of the Clash, Sting was kicked out of the group and viciously too. Telling him how he was not a Horsemen and Flair just lighting him up with comments. Later in the night, the already booked cage match with the Horsemen taking on the Gary Hart crew did take place. The story of the match was Sting trying to get into the cage being pulled away by security as he tried to get to Flair and the Horsemen. That was the story. The real life situation that played out was much worse. During one moment of jumping up and climbing the cage, Sting banged his knee hard against the cage. It would require surgery and Sting was out of action for many months. He would arrive at shows on crutches at times including Wrestle War 90. With Sting's injury and Flair's heel turn, Luger was turned babyface. Sting would be there to try and motivate Luger to win the world title. The Horsemen got involved and Luger's attention to saving his friend instead of trying to fulfill his goal of becoming world champion. The match was eventually set up once Sting was healthy. Sting would defeat Ric Flair at The Great American Bash in July of 1990. Flair's heel turn that night at the Clash was a vicious one and set up one of my favorite feuds of that time with Sting and Flair.

Owen Hart - Royal Rumble 1994. All you had to do was tag me. That was what Owen yelled after he left Bret laying in the middle of the ring. I was not a Bret Hart fan at all at that time in my young life. Any time somebody rose up against Bret Hart, I was ready to jump behind them. When his brother was the next to rise up, I was immediately on board. This was such a great heel turn. Trouble had been coming up between the two with Owen being jealous of his older brother, Bret. The two seemingly had patched things up in a united front to go after the tag team titles at The Royal Rumble against The Quebecers. The story of the match was Bret's knee getting beaten on throughout. Owen kept cheering Bret on to tag him. Instead of tagging though, Bret tried to go for the win himself and hooked the sharpshooter. Bret went to the mat in pain and the ref stopped the match. Bret was helped to his feet and once he was on his feet, down he went. Owen delivered a kick to Bret knee sending him crashing to the mat. Owen then yelled "all you had to do was tag me" all the way to the locker room. I remember thinking at the time that he was right. Owen was ready to try and win but his brother wouldn't tag him. Owen was in the right. Even more to my biased anti-Bret stance. LOL. The two had an incredible series of matches in 1994 and on into 1995. I love hearing Bret talk about how much he enjoyed their matches. You could tell they loved working against one another and they stepped up delivering big time in their matches. Bret and Owen is one of my favorite feuds of all time including great matches at WrestleMania X and a cage match at SummerSlam 1994. Owen would get that big win at WrestleMania stunning the wrestling world and sending me and my friend into a cheering ovation of celebration. LOL.

Stephanie McMahon - Armageddon 1999. This pick will be met with likes and dislikes. I loved this turn. It set up for a lot of great TV in the future. The McMahon Helmsley era began on this night in December of 1999. Stephanie had been played up to be the good girl all year. Nice storylines of love with Test earlier that year. Just the girl that you cheered for with her having to battle her father and brother. Test and Stephanie would be ready to be married on a Raw episode. Triple H despite being threatened about interrupting it had a video to air. Stephanie had passed out at her bachelorette party and Triple H took her. He married her at a drive thru wedding chapel while she was passed out. The video aired and the two were married so Test couldn't marry her. The feud between Vince McMahon and Triple H came to a head in this no holds barred match which blew away expectations on how good it was going to be. Vince would go for revenge for his baby girl. Vince was destroyed by a sledgehammer and Stephanie weeped over her dad. Triple H wound up to nail her. She turned around to see Triple H with the sledgehammer and had a look of shock and horror on her face. She gets up, smiles, and hugs Triple H. Who saw that coming???!!! LOL. Stephanie and Triple H were in power and it was the start of a great relationship on TV. It also ended up being the start of a real life relationship for them outside of the ring.

Paul Orndorff - 1986. A well built heel turn. He had been teaming with Hulk Hogan and jealousy started to consume Orndorff. Hogan was getting all the attention and cheers and Orndorff couldn't stand it. Orndorff got infuriated when he made a phone call to Hogan at one point and was told that Hogan was too busy to be able to take the call. This all exploded during a match between Hogan and Orndorff taking on King Kong Bundy and Big John Studd. Hogan and Orndorff would collide at one point during the match. Orndorff would hold the eye every time that Hogan would try to reach over to tag. Eventually, Orndorff clotheslined Hogan and hit him with a piledriver. It was put over huge as a horrible attack and turn on his friend. The feud would draw a lot of fans over its run. Over 60,000 at The Big Event in Toronto where that match headlined the show. There was also the big championship cage match on Saturday Night's Main Event in 1987 where there was a controversial moment of the two dropping down out of the cage at the same time. The ref ruled it as a tie and restarted the match leading to Hogan winning and retaining the title. This was a really good feud back in 1986-1987.

Randy Savage - The Main Event - February 5, 1988. The Mega Powers are ready to explode. I remember watching this as a kid and being so infuriated with what I had seen. I was a true and proud Hulkamaniac and this heel turn rocked me as a kid. The Mega Powers were formed in 1987 but things really got rolling for the team in 1988. Savage would win the WWF championship at WrestleMania IV. For the next ten months, teases were laid in place where Savage wasn't so thrilled with what he was seeing out of Hogan. Hogan hugging Elizabeth. Eliminating him at the Royal Rumble. The moment on Saturday Night's Main Event where Hogan was in trouble but Savage wouldn't come to his aid despite Elizabeth's pleas while Savage said that Hogan would be ok. Many moments. It all boiled over to The Main Event airing on NBC. The Mega Powers vs. The Big Boss Man and Akeem. This was the feud that had been going on for many months. The story of the match was when Savage was thrown from the ring on to Elizabeth. She was knocked unconscious. Hogan went to her aid quickly and Savage was not happy about it. Savage looked for a tag but there was no Hogan. Hogan carried Elizabeth to the back where she was tended to by officials. Hogan returns to the ring and is ready for the tag. He gets a tag all right. A tag or slap right to the face. Savage bails and leaves Hogan to face the two opponents. Savage rants and raves to Elizabeth about Hogan. Hogan wins the match and returns to the back where he gets an angry Savage who says that Hogan is jealous of him. How he had lusted after Elizabeth. The result was a belt to the face of Hogan followed by a vicious assault while Elizabeth cried in the background. The following months after would see Savage doing promos looking back on the last year and giving his points on how Hogan had done him wrong. They were great promos. Elizabeth stayed in the middle supporting both of them. The Mega Powers exploded at WrestleMania V with Hogan winning back the World Wrestling Federation championship. Savage would launch another assault on Hogan after the show was over which we did not see on TV until the following week. The feud would continue with a series of rematches through the year. Sherri joined with Savage. Elizabeth would make some appearances in Hogan's corner. It was great stuff.

Hulk Hogan - Bash At The Beach 1996. Was there ever a heel turn so vicious and so angrily received by fans? The number one good guy. The childhood hero. The guy who stood for everything right in wrestling. The Real American. The red and yellow turns to black and white. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash arrived in WCW in the summer of 1996 with the tease that they were still with the World Wrestling Federation. If you were a fan watching on TV and weren't familiar with the inside workings of the wrestling world, I can't imagine how your brain must have went crazy over this. The rest of us on the internet and all knew that Hall and Nash were due to show up in WCW at any time. The big moment was set. The Outsiders looking to take apart WCW and they teased that they had a third guy. A match was set up at Bash At The Beach with Hall, Nash, and a surprise third guy taking on Sting, Lex Luger, and Randy Savage. The match started and there was no third guy. Paranoia reigned through the match. Luger was injured early on. Things look bad at the end of the bout and out comes Hulk Hogan. Here comes the hero to save the day. Crowd goes crazy. Then, you hear the crowd cheers turn to gasps as Hogan legdrops Randy Savage. Hogan had turned and gives Hall and Nash the thumbs up. It was a surreal moment. What followed was Gene Okerlund walking in the ring getting an interview. Hogan would tell the fans to stick it while the ring was littered with trash. To follow up on the trash, Hogan would tell the fans that the garbage in the ring represents every one of the fans. In just a few minutes, Hogan shredded everything on that persona and became the most hated man in wrestling. The nWo was formed and a new era of WCW was born. It was a night that will never be forgotten and the result was a LOT of fun especially in those first several months of the nWo.

WWE WrestleMania III Championship Edition - DVD Review

2011-06-02T18:22:00.001-07:00

I am going to start getting some of my older stuff up on the site including some older DVD and book reviews. I also want to get some of the earlier Wrestling List stuff up here from 2000 and after that. So, here is a review that I typed up in March of 2007.

WWE released the WrestleMania III Championship Edition DVD last week. I have gotten it and have already watched it. Here are my thoughts on it. There are two versions of WrestleMania on this set. The first disc features the show itself. The second disc features a "pop up" version. Let's start with the event itself on disc one. The show looks amazing on DVD. Quality of it looks great. It is amazing to compare this full version to the Coliseum Video version released in 1987. The Coliseum version runs somewhere around 2:45 in length where as this version runs 3:05. There were a lot of things on this version that I have never seen as I've only seen the Coliseum version. The Coliseum version had most of the wrestler entrances cut out and a lot of the exits. I also noticed that some of the clips of the buildup to some of the matches had been cut short on the Coliseum Video version. Here are some of the things that I'll mention that are different between the two versions. The Coliseum version has the WrestleMania press conference in it but it isn't on the original version. It's a shame that they didn't use that as an extra on this set as it is very entertaining. This version shows the story that I've often heard about where a fan jumped in to celebrate with Roddy Piper after he won his farewell match. Piper celebrated with him too and then security took him down quick. That was edited off of the Coliseum version as I had never seen the thing with the fan. One thing that makes much more sense on this original version is why Jesse Ventura was carrying the Bulldogs' mascot, Matilda, back to the locker room on the cart. Jesse went to ringside and wanted to be introduced to the fans before that six man tag match. Then, he ended up being left with escorting Matilda to the back. It never made sense to me why the heel announcer just went down there to get Matilda to bring back. Well, that is why he was down there, to be introduced to the fans. Pretty funny. The original version ends different than the Coliseum version. On the Coliseum version, we go right from Hogan into a picture slideshow recapping the events with the music of Real American on a loop from the live arena. On the original version on this DVD, Gorilla and Jesse do a short recap and wrap it up. The picture slideshow is then shown but the music with it is a re-airing of Aretha Franklin singing America The Beautiful from the beginning of the night. On to the music changes. Not too many to report but there are some. The opening music for WrestleMania III is intact which was great to hear. Ricky Steamboat's music is gone which was Sirius by Alan Parsons Project. The music it was replaced with is at least similar in sounding. Hillbilly Jim's music is replaced and the ring intros for him and his team have been dubbed over with new audio. Hmm, that is bizarre especially when Junk Yard Dog's theme song is on there. Both JYD and Hillbilly's songs were on the Wrestling Album that was released in 1985 so it's bizarre that they can play one but not the other. Koko's music has been replaced to Piledriver which was what he used later that year. All other music is intact although there isn't a LOT of music being used in this era to begin with.

The pop ups include pop up facts reminiscent of the old VH-1 Pop Up Video show. Also part of the pop ups is interviews with people looking back on the event. Here is a list of everyone that is involved in the pop up interview segments: Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, Cowboy Bob Orton, Mean Gene Okerlund, Ron Simmons, Hillbilly Jim, Raymond Rougeau, Greg Valentine, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Edge, Gorilla Monsoon, Ricky Steamboat, Gerald Brisco, George The Animal Steele, Chris Jericho, Jake The Snake Roberts, Jimmy Hart, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Nikolai Volkoff, Iron Sheik, Jim Brunzell, Bobby Heenan, and Pat Patterson. Some of the highlights of the interview pop ups include Vince McMahon talking about standing in front of that huge crowd and thinking how proud his father would be of this show. Vince gets choked up when talking about it. Rowdy Roddy Piper talks about how he looked around at the fans as he stood in the ring before the match and how he never did that but wanted to take that moment in. Chris Jericho talks about the infamous story of how he and his friends would watch the Steamboat/Savage match over and over memorizing the multiple two count sequence in the match and they would do the match themselves. Several superstars have told of doing the same thing. Steamboat tells of how he and Savage knew of how many people were going to be watching this and they wanted to do their best to steal the show. Mean Gene talks about how nervous that Savage and Steamboat were before the match as both were pacing backstage. John Cena discusses how when Hogan won, he and his friends were jumping around throwing stuff and throwing food cause they were so excited that Hogan won it. He said that his dad and grandfather were also going crazy. Edge said that he listened to the radio all night cause there was a DJ that was giving out WrestleMania results as they happened. Edge says that this is how much he loved wrestling that he was listening to the radio just to hear the results as they couldn't afford to go to a closed circuit location to see it. He said that he was jumping all around the room happy when he heard that Hogan had beat the Giant and also bodyslammed him. Edge felt the Giant couldn't be beaten and was happily surprised. Bobby Heenan talks about how much pain that Andre was in after the match when they got backstage. Andre was in bad shape by that point in his career physically but Heenan said that Andre never would complain to anyone about how bad he was hurting all the time.

Extras on the set include several interviews from Hogan, Savage, and Steamboat in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania from various WWF shows. The battle royal from Saturday Night's Main Event is shown and also the Hogan/Andre contract signing. The Savage/Steele match from 1/3/87 Saturday Night's Main Event is on the DVD as well which was where Steamboat showed up when Savage tried was trying to bail out on the match.

I definitely recommend this DVD as it is very well produced. Plus, I love having a full version of the show instead of what I did have even though it does have a few music changes. I can deal with those though on this one. The "pop up" is a very cool idea and I hope they release some classic shows like this in the future. This was the 20 year anniversary of WrestleMania so how about a 20 year anniversary DVD of the first Survivor Series this winter.

Raw Thoughts, TNA Ejects A Fan, THQ/WWE, WWE Classics, The Chaperone Review, & More - May 31, 2011

2011-05-31T19:50:00.001-07:00

After a crazy couple of weeks, things have slowed down a bit in the wrestling world.

Last night's Raw was an enjoyable show especially for a holiday show. A lot of times the holiday shows aren't that good because the ratings are usually lower on them. I felt bad for WWE for the technical problems that they were having at the beginning of the show. All I could think was that it had to be chaos backstage trying to figure out what was going on. This company rarely ever has technical problems so things are going to happen like that from time to time. The real bummer was that the R Truth segment looked pretty entertaining. We did get to hear a lot of it despite the audio and video being out of sync. The stuff with the "fan" was pretty good stuff. Truth and Cena had a good back and forth all night including the match. Truth later threw a drink in the fan's face on the way out of the building. Cena went over to the guy and wiped his face off helping him out. Yeah, obviously a plant in the crowd but it was interesting all night. I really like Truth as a heel. All eyes on Alex Riley. He has had two big weeks in a row with his brawls with Miz. Great stuff and the crowd is eating it up. The reaction was even bigger this week after the brawl was finished with the fans cheering Riley. I was stunned last week over the way that Kharma was booked but then understood more when the news came out that she is pregnant. No, this is not some storyline and is the real deal. Wishing her all the best with her pregnancy. She did a really good speech on wanting to get into WWE and her road to get there. The speech was finished by The Bellas who came out and stirred things up. I loved the finish of it with Kharma saying that she'd be back in a year and hoped that The Bellas were there too. I've said this before but I really like the Bellas as heels. Kharma has a ready made program for when she returns. However, this is WWE so I'd be amazed if they even remember this or care when she comes back. Remember Edge not going after the person that took him out and his reaction to creative of, uh, shouldn't I be going after that person now? Solid matches with Ziggler taking on Kofi and also with Rey and CM Punk.

Other notes from Raw. Again, I just know that Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn must have been losing their mind during that first ten minutes of the show. Really nice Memorial Day video played to open the show. They always do something really classy for Memorial Day. Anyone else find it as strange as me to just have Cole and Lawler suddenly just letting bygones be bygones and commentating next to each other again?

A news story got out last night from PWInsider.com. Every week, the site has ongoing live spoilers from the TNA Impact tapings. Last night, a story broke that their TNA correspondent that sends in the Impact spoilers as they happen was ejected from the building and also from Universal Studios. He was ejected for…..posting spoilers. To say that it stirred up a hornets nest online would be an understatement. Apparently, someone there did not like the fact that spoilers were being sent out. Why this is suddenly a big deal? I don't know. Spoilers have been a part of the business for a VERY long time now. Just curious if TNA realizes that it is 2011. Ugh, this company. I could rant about so many things with them right now but I'm just going to leave it at "ugh, this company".

Mick Foley posted on Twitter during Raw about how Alex Riley was his new favorite wrestler. Interesting that he was commenting so much about WWE programming on Monday night. However, this begs the question. If he was commenting on TNA at that time, it would be during the Impact tapings and would he be thrown out of the building as well?

THQ announced today that they are not going to be making any more of the Smackdown vs. Raw video games. Instead, the next series will be simply by year such as NBA 2K11 or things like that. WWE '12 is the name of the new game and there will be a lot of changes to the gaming. Probably a good idea as there is not near as much buzz on those games as there used to be. I think that is why there was that genuine excitement of the WWE All Stars game cause it was just so different.

Talk about a cool match to see on WWE Classics On Demand this month. The Undertaker vs. Unabomb from Smoky Mountain Wrestling in 1995. Unabomb is of course Glen Jacobs who would go on to be Kane. Just a cool match to see those two face off that early on knowing how their careers would soon be tied together. Lots of good stuff in that Smoky Mountain shorties category including a couple of Chris Candido matches which brings Tammy Sytch on to the screen as well. That was when I first became a fan of Tammy Sytch was watching Smoky Mountain tapes back in the day.

I watched the WWE Film, The Chaperone which is one of their most recent releases. The movie stars Triple H and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I had heard that it was one of their better efforts and I give this movie a big thumbs up. Triple H plays the character of Ray. Ray spent seven years in prison after a robbery. It was part of a group effort though but the others escaped leaving him to take the fall as the driver. The movie begins with Ray being a free man. His goal upon leaving is to get his family back including his wife and daughter. Will Ray be able to stay on the straight and narrow or fall back into his own habits of trouble? Lots of good action, drama, and comedy in this movie. Triple H does really well in his role and I really liked the cast all around. When I saw the promos for this movie during Raw, it looked like it could be a fun movie. It was.

I am currently reading the Death of WCW book. It is a good read so far. A lot of the stories I already know but there are more details that I am learning about the company including back in the 90's build. I'm about 100 pages in.

That is all I have for this week. I still have some things on the horizon of ideas for editions of the List. Some are typed up and some will be done in the future. Hopefully, they'll be things that you'll enjoy reading. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!

Mickie James Helps The Flood Victims In Southern Illinois - May 29, 2011

2011-05-29T13:52:00.000-07:00

Friday night was a fun night for me as I got to meet one of my all time favorites, Mickie James. Anybody that knows me knows that I've been a Mickie James fan for a long time now. When Trish Stratus retired back in 2006, I was already cheering for Mickie. Their styles reminded me quite a bit of one another and Mickie just took that spot left by Trish as my favorite in the women's division. How many times have I ranted in this Wrestling List about the use of Mickie James by WWE? Yes, I've ranted about TNA as well. I was thinking the other day on what is my favorite Mickie James match? I think it goes back to that first title win at WrestleMania 22 when she defeated Trish in Chicago. It was a really fun match and had an awesome crowd behind it. Chicago is known for being more of a heel kind of city so there were a lot of fans cheering for the heel Mickie James that night. Mickie would eventually make that face turn and hold six championships in WWE including the Women's and Divas titles. She was one of the most popular wrestlers in the company. She is fun to watch in the ring and has that great personality to go with it. Along with her wrestling schedule, Mickie also has been working on her career as a musician. She is scheduled to perform down at CMA Fest in Nashville next month. Basically, she is a very busy person these days.

Carrier Mills, IL was the the host of this event as part of their Catskin Days. Bert Prentice's USA Championship Wrestling was on the bill for a show and Mickie James was announced for a special guest appearance. People came from all around to meet the current Impact Wrestling knockouts champion. Money was being raised to help benefit those that have been impacted by the terrible recent flooding. The show started with Mickie in the ring taking photos with fans. Make a donation and get your photo taken with her. I was, of course, one of those that said "sold" and had to get my picture taken with her. LOL. This again to the surprise of no one that knows me. It was a pleasure to get to meet her and she was extremely nice. She later had a table set up where she would sign autographs. She had a long line for the photo opportunity in the ring as well as the autograph signing at the table. Fans of all ages were thrilled to get to meet her and she was so kind and friendly to everyone. Just a great, great person. Later in the night, Mickie would help to present the money to the mayor of the money raised. It has been a really rough spring in the area for flooding and severe weather and every bit of money will count to help those in need. Mickie was extremely excited to be there to help to raise money. I know she made an even bigger fan out of me on Friday night.

Raw Thoughts, Ring Of Honor, & More - May 26, 2011

2011-05-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

Monday night's Raw entertained me. It was a lot better than the last couple of weeks. Last week was making me beg for it to be over. Monday night saw tributes to the Macho Man. The show opened with the in memory of graphic. At around 9:40 or so, a music video tribute played that was just incredible. The main event hit the ring after that and I had noticed the yellow boots that CM Punk was wearing earlier in the night. I was thinking that was a Savage tribute and then saw the tights that he was wearing as well. The classic pink with white stars Macho Man tights. Only difference was that he had his own name on the back of them instead of Macho Man's. It was a really nice tribute from Punk for one of his favorite wrestlers of all time. I love seeing tributes like that. Thank you CM Punk for doing that. I did notice one spot in the match where Punk was tagged in and did the slingshot jump over the ropes. He then ran across the ring and dropped an axe handle on the back of the head. There was a lot of other good stuff on the show and one segment that left me dumbfounded. I liked the opening segment where it looks like a feud is setting up for Cena and R Truth. I think that could be fun and the verbal exchange between the two was entertaining. Bret Hart was a surprise on the show. That added a lot to it. Bret was named the special ref of a match between the teams of Cena and Rey against Truth and Punk. Entertaining main event which ended with Bret putting Punk in the sharpshooter followed by Rey hitting the legdrop off the top rope. The Miz and Alex Riley. Wow, that was more than I bargained for with that segment. When Riley finally started hammering on Miz, I thought that we'd just get a little something and it would set up a feud. Minutes later, I was amazed that he was still hammering on him. Definitely put Riley over as a problem for Miz and the crowd was chanting for him. That was a brutal attack. Injury angle done with Del Rio taking out Big Show's knee with the car. Lots of time devoted to that Monday night with medical people trying to help Show who wanted no help. He eventually fought his way to his feet with the help of Kane. It should be mentioned too that the new Nexus defeated Show and Kane to win the tag team titles earlier in the show before that happened. Now, I have to talk about the thing that drove me absolutely crazy. The divas match. We get set for a 8 diva tag team match. Based on who I was seeing in the ring, I was happy to get it especially with several in there who don't get TV time anymore. Twenty seconds or so in, Kharma's music hits. All the divas line up for strength in numbers. Kharma gets in the ring and is surrounded by the divas. A big staredown ensues and I'm having all kinds of thoughts. Beth Phoenix being the one to step up to her. Wondering if Melina is about to get beaten down with how she has been used lately. Will it be a pile on? What happens? Kharma gets down on her knees and……cries. I could not believe it. All that build up as a monster and weeks of beat downs for them to have her sit down in the ring and cry. Ugh. You have got to be kidding me. I have heard why this turn suddenly happened but that is all they could come up with? Moving on, Michael Cole returns to Raw for the second hour in a much more somber mood after Over The Limit. I did wonder a lot throughout the first hour of the show if I was liking it more than normal due to the fact that I wasn't having to listen to arguing commentators distracting me from the action. Josh and Lawler were easy to listen to. I watched a little of Smackdown on Friday night and just could not take anymore of listening to Cole and Booker argue. Just takes too much away from the ring.

Other notes from Raw. I loved the interaction between Bret Hart and CM Punk. Punk would hit Hart moves and then laugh at Bret. The moment where he picked him up for the backbreaker and laughed right at Bret was awesome. I cracked up too at Punk yelling at Bret, "where did you learn to count, Canada?" Bret laughed at it too. How funny was Truth ranting at Cena and then quoting Legendary by saying "I want my son back". LOL.

CM Punk got three big names pulling for him last week courtesy of Twitter. Paul Heyman posted on Twitter this comment about Punk: "I'm sure he will get heat for me saying this, but @CMPunk is STILL the most underutilized talent on the WWE roster. And my apologies to to @CMPunk for the heat he'll get, but come on already. Punk is the best heel in the biz today! WAKE UP! It's amazing to me (and not in a good way) that WWE doesn't see how @CMPunk has brought out the best in every opponent". Stone Cold Steve Austin later saw what Heyman wrote and said "Agreed." Bret Hart also retweeted what Heyman had to say. Punk later responded to Heyman's comments saying "oh you know me, if I don't have heat I'm doing something wrong. Keeps me warm."

Big news out of Ring Of Honor last week. The company has been sold to Sinclair Broadcasting. This is a big move by ROH and we'll see where the company goes from here. The company has been kind of stagnant here in the last couple of years so something seemed to have to change. Gary Juster is being brought in to promote the live events and he has done this for WCW back in the early 90's. In the press release, the company said that the front office will not change. Jim Cornette is also remaining. ROH's Cary Silkin posted this on the ROH forum saying "It's a new dawn!! I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for all the years of support.As corny as it sounds if is was not for the fans and the passion of all of you we would have never made it to this day. ROH will now live on bigger and better than ever.We look forward to this new era of ROH. Lots of news will be coming out over the next few weeks and I am thrilled to stay on with the company and be able to enjoy a bigger and better Ring of Honor. Thank you Joe Koff and the Sinclair team for making this happen and I will see everyone in NYC !!! It's a new dawn!!" Sinclair Broadcasting has a big part of the United States with TV and will get the shows out to a wider audience. Hopefully this is a great thing for Ring Of Honor and can help grow the company.

Have clues finally started showing up on what the problem was between Randy Savage and Vince McMahon? Rowdy Roddy Piper posted on Twitter that "Randy slapped Vince in a bar. End of that story!!!". George Steele did an interview saying that he was an agent at the time of when Savage left for WCW in 1994. When Savage said what he was going to do, Steele said that Vince looked "broken".

Paul Heyman was on the ESPN Gross Point Blank podcast and had this to say about Randy Savage. I recapped what he had to say. He didn't know Randy that well. He met him a handful of times but was a huge admirer of his success. Just like Piper and Hogan in the 80's and 90's, he became a pop culture icon. His passing has touched a lot of people. Those that knew him were very moved by him cause he was so intense in his professionalism. Those that got the opportunity to work with him, I heard from many that knew him said that he did whatever he could to bring out the best. A lot of people are losing a part of their youth. In the business, he was someone that everyone universally respected. The most criticism on him is that he cared too much. Heyman then added, "I hope that is the worst that people can say about me is that I cared too much." Heyman was asked about the relationship with Savage and McMahon. Heyman said that something happened and there are ten billion rumors on what happened. Until Vince wants to go public with it which will probably be never, we'll never know. Every year that Heyman was there, Savage's name was brought up for the Hall of Fame. People would say that you've got to induct Savage and Bruno. Then, the subject was dropped immediately by Vince. In 2002 or 2003, his name was brought up and Vince looked down at the yellow note pad and said I don't want anything to do with that man. Jim Ross brought Savage up every year for the Hall of Fame and got shot down every year. Something happened but he doesn't know what happened. Whatever it was, it was pretty serious. Heyman said that he had seen Vince do business with people that he hated especially if there was money to be made. Savage was a sore subject with him.

That is it for tonight. Wishing all of you a great rest of the week!! Take care and God bless!!

Randy Savage Tributes From All Around - May 24, 2011

2011-05-24T18:01:00.001-07:00

WWE and TNA obviously released statements on the passing of Randy Savage. WWE issued this statement: WWE is saddened to learn of the passing of one of the greatest Superstars of his time, Randy Poffo, a.k.a. Randy “Macho Man” Savage. Poffo was under contract with WWE from 1985 to 1993 and held both the WWE and Intercontinental Championships.Our sincerest condolences go out to his family and friends. We wish a speedy recovery to his wife Lynn. Poffo will be greatly missed by WWE and his fans.

TNA released this statement: TNA joins the entire wrestling world in mourning the passing of the legendary "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Savage was one of the most talented athletes to ever compete inside a wrestling ring. He truly transcended professional wrestling, becoming one of the true "icons" of our sport. Millions of wrestling fans grew up watching Savage battle other legends such as Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat and many more.Savage appeared with TNA during our 2004 "Victory Road" and "Turning Point" events - memorable moments that we hope wrestling fans will never forget.TNA hopes all of our fans remember Randy Savage's amazing life and career, and how he helped shape the sport as we know it today.

Hulk Hogan is someone that has been posting a ton about Savage on his Twitter and Facebook accounts. He has really been hit hard by this news and talked about how Savage and him just started reconnecting lately after ten years of not talking. He has been posting fan videos and using his page as a way for fans to come and talk about Savage memories and post tributes.

Jim Ross has done an excellent blog on Randy Savage at www.JRsBarBQ.com which is very much worth a read.

Shawn Michaels comments on Savage came across my news feed late last week and I just loved what he had to say on Savage's advice to him. From Shawn's Twitter: "Greatest advice from "Mach"- I was angry & wanted to leave WWE. He said, Don't take urself out of the game. If ur still here...there's always a chance. If ur gone, there is no chance. It was then I determined never to leave. Stay in the "game" & there's hope."

Speaking of Twitter, here is a list of comments from various people on Twitter.

Steve Austin: "Just heard about Macho Man Randy Savage... Unmatched intensity in the ring. A hellacious performer and terrific promo. A real bad a**. RIP."

The Rock: The Rock: "RIP Randy Macho Man Savage - you were one of my childhood inspirations and heros. Strength, love and prayers to the Savage/Poffo family. Today Team Bring It will celebrate a life – we will kick a** and chase greatness #OOHHYEEEAAAHHH style!”

Roddy Piper: "Too SAD TO TWEET."

Shawn Michaels - "@IAmJericho jus txt me the news. We've lost one of the greats!! Our prayers go out to the family & friends of Randy Savage."

Hulk Hogan: "I'm completely devastated, after over 10 years of not talking with Randy, we've finally started to talk and communicate. He had so much life in his eyes & in his spirit. I just pray that he's happy and in a better place and we miss him. We miss him a lot. I feel horrible about the ten years of having no communication. This was a tough one. I just pray that Randy's happy and in a better place and we miss him. HH"

Trish Stratus - "Rest in peace Randy-my first inspiration in the ring. My prayers & condolences to the Savage family #RIPMachoMan"

Chris Jericho: "Randy Savage was a true influence and inspiration to me and taught me some very important lessons, in and out of the ring. Rest in peace, Mach."

Jim Cornette: "Our deepest condolences in losing another legend. R.I.P. Randy."

Howard Finkel - "I am profoundly saddened by the passing of one of the all-time greats, Macho Man Randy Savage. My condolences go out to the Poffo family."

Kevin Nash: "I lost a close friend today. If anybody in heaven is wondering who the cat is in the ugly cowboy hat is it's Randy. Love you Bro. Never another".

Rey Mysterio - "RIP Macho Man Randy Savage! Doing promotion in Seattle for Over the Limit ppv, was asked earlier today at a radio station, Who would I of loved to wrestle from back in da day? I said would of loved to hit it off in a 3ple threat, Macho Man, Ricky the Dragon, and myself!RIP RMS!"

Bret Hart: "I have no words to say. This one hits me hard. We lost one of the best.”

CM Punk - " (retweeted Bret Hart's words of) “@BretHart: I have no words to say. This one hits me hard. We lost one of the best.” (Punk then added this) This sums it up."

John Cena - "CeNation. The untimely passing of randy savage is indeed tragic. All true fans of wrestling will mourn this loss. One of the all time greats"

Christopher Daniels: "RIP Randy Savage, an inspiration who set the standard! As a fan watching Randy in WrestleMania 3, 4 and 5 was incredible! True Story: at Turning Point 2004 (AMW-XXX cage match), I asked Randy's permission to drop the elbow of the top of the cage! Randy's reply? "God bless you, brother, I don't even do the elbow anymore." And, he gave me a thumbs up after the match as well!

Mark Henry - "Wow family, one of my favorites is gone! Rest well (Randy savage) you will be missed. Savage vs steamboat look it up do yourself a favor family one of my favorite."

Kharma - "In utter shock about Macho Man. So much charisma in one soul. #ripmachoman"

Yoshi Tatsu - "The Macho Man Randy Savage was one of my heros when I was childhood and one of the best of all time. Rest in peace."

Darren Young - "JUST like that! Life can end. Tell those close to ya that you love them cause ya never know! RIP Macho Man"

Wade Barrett - "Bow to the kingdom of the madness. RIP Macho Man, amazing performer."

Curt Hawkins - "I carry this picture in my gear bag ...7yr old Hawkins & my 1st tag team partner. RIP Macho Man. http://yfrog.com/h097hykj"

JTG - "To one of my favorite Hall of Famers, inducted or not. Macho Man Randy Savage. R.I.P OOOOOOOOOH YEEEEEEEAH !"

Goldust - "Prayers go out to randy savage family.....god be with them in this tough time"

Vickie Guerrero - "RIP Randy Macho Man Savage. My prayers are to your family"

Ezekiel Jackson - "Whoa....just heard about macho man Randy savage...God bless the family, the wrestling world just lost one of the greatest ever...R.I.P"

Justin Roberts - "Macho Man...simply awesome. Incredible and entertaining in everything he did. One of the best ever. RIP"

Christian - "Sad 2 hear about "Macho Man"Randy Savage..Only met him once briefly.No doubt 1 of the best & influenced so many performers you see today RIP"

Scott Stanford - "Sorry to hear about the Macho Man! He was one of the best!"

Jeff Jarrett - "Just got a call w the news. RIP Randy. I met him when I was 11yrs old. He would always teach, correct, encourage, and compliment as my career progressed. I have NEVER forgotten the intricacies and attention to detail he taught me over the years. Randy always had a method to his madness. Randy is gone, but will never be forgotten. Thoughts and prayers are w the entire Poffo family. And, he may be the greatest card player the business has ever seen... When he lost, he was only setting you up to take more money from you!

Tommy Dreamer - "Randy Savage was the 1st person I saw piledrive someone thru a table. Thanks 4 all the memories. Hope u walk the aisle w/ Liz & Sherri again"

Doug Williams - "RIP #randysavage I was fortunate to see him live at his peak..."

Joey Styles: "There's no other way for me to celebrate the life & career of The Macho Man than to let him keep entertaining me.VIDEO: http://bit.ly/lZLBj8"

Karen Jarrett - "My thoughts and prayers go out to Randy Savage's wife and family!"

Mickie James - "Ooh No! My childhood favorite! RIP Macho Man... *finger in the air*

Jay Lethal - "R.I.P. Macho Man Randy Savage. You were amazing... Oohh yea!!!"

Shane Helms - "Totally heartbreaking news about Randy Savage. One of my all-time favs!! So sad!! RIP Macho"

William Regal - "Just heard of the passing of Randy Savage.A one of a kind great performer. RIP."

Jim Ross - "Just heard Macho Man died this morning of a heart attack while driving his vehicle in Tampa. Condolences to all Randy Savage fans/family."

Zack Ryder - "RIP MACHO MAN. One of my favorites and one of the best of all time. DIG IT! http://t.co/PSYmsrJ"

Bill DeMott: "When I got my start in WCW it was Randy that gave me the rub....my prayers and thoughts to the Poffo Family"

Jack Korpela: "Hogan vs. Savage at WrestleMania V was the match that got me hooked on WWE as a kid. RIP "Macho Man" Randy Savage. My condolences."

Natalya: "My prayers are with Randy Savage and his family right now".

Beth Phoenix: "No words for this very sad day. Condolences to Randy Savage's family, friends and millions of fans." #MachoMan

Darren Young: "JUST like that! Life can end. Tell those close to ya that you love them cause ya never know! RIP Macho Man."

Torrie Wilson: "Just heard the news of Macho Man Randy Savage passing... Rest in peace, Randy.

Lilian Garcia: "Just heard the news about "Macho Man" Randy Savage passing away. So sad. RIP Randy. My prayers go out to your friends & family."

The Bella Twins: "Very sad to hear about Macho Man... His family is in our thoughts & prayers... Truly an amazin' & captivatin' man!"

Gail Kim: "RIP macho man. Thank u 4 all the great yrs u gave us. u were part of the reason I loved wrestling...what u did 4 all..."

Ricardo Rodriguez: “Thoughts go to Randy Savage's family. Definitely an amazing talent and a great inspiration to many. Can never forget Savage vs Steamboat.”

There have been a lot of videos popping up online of different wrestlers being asked their thoughts on Savage's passing. Everyone is just stunned and saying great things. There was one that was done with Sean Waltman where he said that he woke up Friday morning and his phone had been lit up with texts and messages including from Triple H and more. He said that his first thought was that Scott Hall had finally passed. How sad is that??!! That just made me sad hearing him say that cause that is just awful to be anticipating that. Waltman talked about Savage with tears in his eyes through the rest of the video.

Diamond Dallas Page has posted a video online of his thoughts on Savage. He has such great things to say and you have to remember that the feud with Savage was what sent DDP to the different level. Their feud was incredible. Great comments from Page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4wmvpNIMK3c

Hulk Hogan has posted this video online with his words about Savage.
http://youtu.be/yITu6455sNU

Jay Lethal posted a poem in tribute to Savage. You may remember that Lethal did a Macho Man imitation gimmick in TNA.
You inspired me more than this world will ever know. Enjoy.
You were a tower of power that was too sweet to be sour,You were funky like a monkey every minute of every hour. For you, space was the place and time distortion had to be,And your fans here on earth wanted the madness for eternity. You met every challenge with fists clinched and face to face, You even fought and defeats dragons and snakes. Flying off the ropes with an elbow drop, There was no way you could ever be stopped. Identifiable by your voice alone, Even being Dubbed the macho king while you sat on your throne. We hung on your words with interviews memorable and classic, And we knew it was serious when you took off your glasses. I promise not to lose you in the sands of time, For you will always be that all time hero of mine.

The Ultimate Warrior has posted a video giving his thoughts on Randy Savage. It is a really touching video where he just talks about a guy that he respected so much. Warrior has always said great things about working with Savage and these two videos are really worth watching. Just a classy tribute by the Warrior.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74NjMY5bsnc&feature=player_embedded

Lance Storm has posted an incredible blog about Savage and how Savage was really the reason as a fan that he got into the business. He also includes a couple of pictures that he took of Savage at live events including the big win for Savage at WrestleMania IV. He talks about meeting him during a Smoky Mountain wrestling show in 1994 and the advice that Randy gave him. Read this if you get a chance.
http://stormwrestling.com/052011.html

Slim Jim has spoken out about Savage and released this statement: "We're saddened by the loss. Randy was a beloved ambassador for the Slim Jim brand for many years and will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayer are with his family and friends at this time."

There have been reactions from across all the entertainment world on Twitter paying tribute including Ryan Seacrest, Alyssa Milano, Maria Menounos, Donnie Wahlberg, and more. Savage was honored at Yankee Stadium the other night with a graphic up on the screen after "Macho Man" was played for the crowd during a break in the action. Fans gave him a big ovation.

I'll have more on Savage and the other happenings in the wrestling world later on. Been a wild and sad week for sure.

A Tribute to Macho Man Randy Savage - May 20, 2011

2011-05-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

Now, he's headed to the outside. A flying elbow. Hooks the leg. One, two, it's over. We have a new champion. That was the call by Gorilla Monsoon on March 27, 1988 as Macho Man Randy Savage won the tournament at WrestleMania IV to become the undisputed World Wrestling Federation Champion.

Randy Savage is one of my favorites of all time. I got hooked into wrestling just as he was moving up that ladder of success. A lot of my childhood revolves around wrestling and especially Randy Savage. When I was little, we would all wrestle and imitate our favorites. I loved climbing up on that couch or chair and raising those two arms up in the air to drop that double ax handle. It was fun. He was fun to watch. One thing that I found interesting about Savage even as a kid was that he was hard to cheer against him. I always talk about how Shawn Michaels was probably the first full fledged heel that I got behind with cheering. However, Savage was the one that got the ball rolling. I remember cheering him against The Ultimate Warrior. I couldn't cheer him against Hogan though cause I was too big of a Hulkamaniac. Savage was one of those guys that I enjoyed watching. When his matches air on WWE Classics On Demand, I will often watch them and still enjoy them. He did things that others weren't doing. The Randy Savage DVD set was released in the last couple of years and I enjoyed every bit of it.

1985 saw the launch of Savage in the World Wrestling Federation. He got people's attention for sure and his first match at MSG has been shown on DVD and also on Classics on Demand. You just have to laugh at the fact that Savage was such a heel magnet that he was getting stuff thrown at him already. Savage's heel run would be amazing to watch as he introduced Elizabeth as his manager. They did a big thing on TV where managers were trying to get Savage to allow them to be his manager. Elizabeth was introduced and we went to the next level with Savage. It didn't take long for Savage to be in the main event picture having some great matches with Hogan. They had some great matches at Madison Square Garden in the mid 80's.

WrestleMania III. You know where I'm going. Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat. Still one of my favorite matches of all time. While all the attention was on Hogan and Andre, Savage and Steamboat went out there and stole the show. You can ask so many wrestlers about that match and it is a favorite of theirs. Chris Jericho talked in his book about how he and his friend could work the full match by memory when they were kids. 93,173 fans were just glued to this match and it is one of the best WrestleMania matches in history to this day.

It wasn't long before Savage would make that face turn. A feud with Honky Tonk Man was the launching pad and then a teaming of the Madness and the Mania. The Mega Powers were formed in late 1987 on Saturday Night's Main Event in what was a perfectly done story. This would all lead to Savage taking the top spot in the company as World Wrestling Federation Champion by defeating Ted Dibiase in that tournament final. Savage was one of my favorite champions ever. Just always had good matches and interesting feuds. That year of 1988 saw feuds with Dibiase, Andre, and Bad News Brown. However, then the build turned to becoming a heel once again. Savage would turn on Hogan and there would be these great promos showing how Hogan had been a backstabber to him throughout his title reign. I recently commented about how Classics On Demand is now in that time period with Prime Time Wrestling and is airing those promos. I haven't seen them since probably that time they aired. Savage would drop the title to Hogan at WrestleMania V. A series of rematches would occur including bringing Sherri into the mix as Savage's manager while Elizabeth paired up with Hogan. Great stuff with the rematches. Savage's next feuds would be with Hacksaw Jim Duggan (which brought him to becoming the Macho King) and then on to Dusty Rhodes. The build to WrestleMania VII would be Savage not getting a title shot against The Ultimate Warrior only for him to cost Warrior the title at The 1991 Royal Rumble. WrestleMania VII was set up with a career ending match in place. One would have to retire. The result had one of the most garbage finishes ever with Warrior kicking out of five Savage elbow drops which should have been career ending, much less kicked out of. Warrior would end Savage's career but the big story became Elizabeth sitting in the building. After Sherri turned on Savage, Elizabeth ran to the ring to toss Sherri out of there. Savage and Elizabeth were reunited in one of the best booked feel good moments ever. It was great stuff and the crowd gave them a huge send off. We had the wedding that headlined SummerSlam 1991 and then the launch of the Jake Roberts feud. Roberts brought out another side of Savage's character. The insane Savage where you just watched as a viewer thinking that he is going to seriously injure this guy. That feud was just intense as could be. The next version of that was the feud with Ric Flair where he claimed that Elizabeth was "mine before she was yours" to Savage. Savage would win his second world championship that night. Not long after that, Savage would mostly work as an announcer for the company. The story that I've always heard was that Savage wanted to continue wrestling but Vince didn't want him to be that anymore. So, Savage left to go to WCW and his continue his in ring career.

WCW was definitely a revival of his in ring career. Savage kept teasing on why he was coming to WCW but we didn't know if it was friend or foe of Hogan's. Savage and Hogan would reunite and eventually feud once again. Savage continued his rivalry with Flair and had some title reigns thrown in there as well. Hogan turned heel and it was the legdrop on the Macho Man that sealed the deal on what was going on at Bash At The Beach in 1996. Savage was one of the guys that led the brigade of WCW against the nWo. However, Savage eventually joined the group but there ended up being a power struggle within the group. When the Wolfpack formed, Savage jumped over to that group. Savage would reinvent the character in 1999 with new music and a new look. Enter also Gorgeous George. Another title reign in there but Savage wasn't around a whole lot longer in WCW.

Savage has kind of faded out of the spotlight over the last ten years. He did make a few appearances for TNA including appearing in a main event match. Savage would pop up and do some convention appearances. Would he ever make another WWE appearance has been the talk for so long now? Would he go into the Hall Of Fame? There has been so much talk as to what exactly the heat was between Vince and Savage keeping him from being brought back into WWE. When Savage recently appeared in the new All Stars game, that was a good sign. An even better sign was the recent promo video that was done for WWE by Savage pushing the new Savage WWE figure. It was great and just classic Savage. I know I loved it and it got people all stirred up. People have been trying to figure out for years now just how long it would be until he went into the WWE Hall Of Fame. It didn't happen this year but attention turned to next year. Sadly, we didn't get the WWE sendoff for Savage which is always going to be sad. I am sure he will now go into the Hall Of Fame but it isn't going to be the same great moment that it should have been. Savage being up on that stage and saying farewell would have been great. It was a moment that I was really looking forward to. One of the all time greats has passed away today. Thank you Randy Savage.

Macho Man Randy Savage Passes Away - May 20, 2011

2011-05-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Things have been so busy this week that I haven't been able to begin typing up a Wrestling List but this breaking news obviously couldn't wait. Very sad news from the world of wrestling as TMZ.com is reporting that Macho Man Randy Savage passed away earlier today at the age of 58. The report says that he was driving with his wife, Lynn, in Florida and suffered a heart attack while behind the wheel. He lost control of the vehicle and drove across the median through traffic hitting head on with a tree. He was transported to the medical center where he passed away from the injuries. Both were wearing seat belts. Lynn survived with minor injuries. Savage and Lynn have been married for just about a year. This is obviously devastating news to hear of one of the all time greats. Savage is one of my top five favorites of all time and I will tend to sit and watch Savage matches when I see them on Classics. This is obviously very sad too as that I was really looking forward to closure for Savage when he would be inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame. Savage and WWE have not had a good relationship for many years after his departure from the company in the mid 90's. However, the launch of the WWE All Stars game including him, the new Savage wrestling figure, and the fact that he taped a promo to promote it was a positive that things were getting better between the two. I really thought that Savage would be inducted soon and it was just a matter of time. I'll of course be typing up a tribute to Savage but this is tough news to digest for sure this morning. Savage was a definite part of my childhood as I grew up watching and loving Randy Savage. Tributes are starting to be posted on Twitter and here are a few already. One from The Rock and the other from Kevin Nash.
The Rock: "RIP Randy Macho Man Savage - you were one of my childhood inspirations and heros. Strength, love and prayers to the Savage/Poffo family."
Kevin Nash: "I lost a close friend today. If anybody in heaven is wondering who the cat is in the ugly cowboy hat is it's Randy. Love you Bro. Never another".
Hulk Hogan: "I'm completely devastated, after over 10 years of not talking with Randy, we've finally started to talk and communicate. He had so much life in his eyes & in his spirit, I just pray that he's happy and in a better place and we miss him. We miss him a lot. I feel horrible about the ten years of having no communication. This was a tough one. I just pray that Randy's happy and in a better place and we miss him. HH"
Mick Foley: "I just heard the sad news about the Macho Man. Randy Savage was one of my favorite performers, and my heart goes out to his loved ones."

Orton Wins The World Title, Impact Wrestling, WrestleMania DVD Edits, & More

2011-05-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "we need to build more stars so let's put the titles on the two top established guys that we already have" edition of The Wrestling List.

WWE and TNA were the focal point of something last Tuesday night. However, they were the focal point of fan anger. Why Tuesday? Well, this was the night that Smackdown was taped in Orlando while TNA was also taping Impact in Orlando. I won't yet get into the Impact deal since it hasn't aired but my goodness I just don't understand that company. So, let's get to WWE. If you watched Smackdown, you know that Christian's world title reign last all but two days. I'm saying two days cause that was when it was actually taped. The match was good. However, fans were furious over Christian's title reign being ended so quickly. Fans vented on Twitter and also lit up WWE through other social networking. The anger was definitely noticed by WWE and Joey Styles even commented on his Twitter saying: "When sending hate tweets to myself or @WWE because of @Christian4Peeps, @RandyOrton and the World Heavyweight Championship, please be PG ;)". Randy Orton commented on his Twitter saying: "Biggest change from Raw to Smackdown…Ignorance x Jealousy + Spoilers = entertaining tweets!! Keep em coming!!". WWE is said to be shocked over the outrage and also kind of annoyed at it. The talk appears to be that Christian was never planned to be a long term champion and that the change of Del Rio to Raw altered their plans and resulted in giving Christian that feel good championship winning moment. Ok, here is my thing with this. How much have we talked about the young guys lately? Even so much with WWE mentioning it in their conference calls. In one week, we had the belt go back to Cena on Raw. Then, the belt goes to Orton on Smackdown. The two top established guys in the company have both titles now. What does that accomplish?

Monday's Raw. Just don't have much to say about it. It was just kind of there for me. The main event was solid with Miz defeating Del Rio and Mysterio to get the title shot at Extreme Rules. Cena also won a match earlier in the night against Alex Riley. It was just there for me. Been there done that. R Truth continues his heel turn and it's turned into a conspiracy against him kind of deal with the storyline where he is getting overlooked. Kharma laid out what I believe was her first "face" diva as Eve attacked Kharma as Kharma stood in the ring with Eve and Kelly. Kelly then ran away. One problem that I see with Kharma is that WWE has decimated the women's division so much that I just don't see anyone that should be able to be a strong opponent against her. She is this monster heel and they don't have a strong opponent on the other side for her. Even if she was a face, she wouldn't have a strong heel to go against either. The last one would probably have been Michelle McCool as far as someone believable as a stronger opponent. Now, Michelle is gone though. Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler. This is going on so long and the segments are so long as well. Every time that a Cole segment comes on, I just tend to zone out. It's just boring. I think it would be fine if Cole was just a character but he's a commentator. We listen to him for the whole show giving his thoughts so why do we need long promo segments from him as well. They just have Cole dominating these shows way too much. The payoff of the crowd getting to see him get beat up isn't even fun anymore. It isn't for me anyway. Just bores me.

Other notes from Raw. I loved the Bellas hiding and then running away from Kharma. I thought that was great. That is what you should do instead of just standing there in fear. Especially if you have a good minute before she gets to the ring to do anything. Can't really think of anything else to say about this show that I haven't already said.

Significant news out of TNA last week and those letters really are the news. TNA is rebranding itself. They will now be referring to themselves as Impact Wrestling. The domain has been bought for the website and the change will be coming soon. I can't say that I blame them for this cause it is hard to take a company very seriously that has those initials. Although there are other reasons to not take the company seriously but I'll refrain. I don't know why they thought those letters would be good and was anyone thinking about marketing that thing in the future when they created the name? Impact Wrestling will be something to get used to and I was thinking about whether it would hurt what they're already built as far as a name. Maybe a little bit but I still don't think many people know they're out there. When you see a TNA clip on TV, people not in the know about wrestling will refer to it as WWE when it isn't. I like having letters for a company name but this is the plan going forward. I just want the company to do more "wrestling" with the name change. On a side note, I did watch about five minutes of the show last week and I felt a headache arriving on the scene and changed the channel.

Hulk Hogan still needs to get off of Twitter. Some fan took him to task about not jobbing much to other talent and Hogan brought up that he had jobbed to Kidman three times back in WCW. That is true but then another fan brought up to him about not wanting to job to Shawn Michaels. Hogan tweeted saying "Vince is the only man that makes thoeszdecisions,that came from him.hbk didn't want to job not me. By,over it. HH". He didn't bring up the fact that Shawn wanted to do a three match series with Hogan that year. Shawn pitched having Hogan win the first one, Shawn winning the second, and then Hogan winning the third. Instead, Hogan wanted to win all three. It ended up being one match and Hogan won. Shawn then ranted a little on Raw the next night after SummerSlam about the experience. LOL.

The WrestleMania XXVII DVD and Blu-ray release is this week and it has already been reported that there are a couple of music changes. Johnny Cash's song for the Undertaker's entrance has been replaced as has the Metallica entrance for Triple H. Just how much has Metallica got to charge for WWE to cut them out of two big entrances in the history of the company. I'm referring to the Sandman from the first ECW One Night Stand in 2005 where the music was replaced on the DVD release. Then again, the DVD had a JBL commentary track on it so it was fitting to make that DVD worse. Strange though to see music replaced on a WrestleMania DVD as that hasn't happened in years. I thought that maybe WWE had worked out a deal with the rights where they could use it on live shows but also include on DVD. I guess I was wrong. Wrong in this instance anyway for sure. So, if you pick up your WrestleMania set, don't be surprised to see music changes. Really takes a lot of kick out of those entrances.

Good month to be a WWE Classics On Demand subscriber. The shorties section for May is all about Smoky Mountain Wrestling. I am really excited about watching this stuff. I've watched some of it over the years of course but didn't have weekly access to it. So, the shorties section is going to be various Smoky Mountain matches. In this is a treat for fans, especially Shawn Michaels fans. There is a match included in there from 1995 where Shawn went to Smoky Mountain as then WWF Intercontinental champion and took on Buddy Landell. The match was never released on video as the company went out of business not long afterward. So, now here it is for Classics subscribers.

Wishing you all a great week!! Take care and God bless!!

Rock's Birthday Celebration on Raw & More - May 3, 2011

2011-05-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "Rocky, it's your birthday" edition of The Wrestling List.

Let's get into Extreme Rules. This sounds like it was a really good show based on all reports. Top to bottom people are saying that it was better than WrestleMania from an in ring standpoint. John Cena wins the WWE title back against The Miz. Yeah, I didn't care for this. When we need something new on WWE programming, having Cena as champion again just doesn't scream new to me. Christian wins the World title. On the other hand, I loved that. Christian finally gets his dream of being a world champion and gets to celebrate with Edge. The Layla/Michelle McCool match ended up being loser leaves WWE and saw the debut of Awesome Kong or who is now known as Kharma. Put over Kharma big in the debut by having her lay out Michelle on her way out.

Last night's Raw was a mix of patriotism and The Rock. The show kicked off with a big salute of patriotism with Lilian Garcia returning to sing the national anthem. This of course was in response to the news of Bin Laden from the night before. How fitting was it to have her kick off that show when she was the one that got to also sing that incredible anthem on the Smackdown show after 9/11 in 2001? It really brought back memories of that time. That video that they opened the show with definitely put tears in my eyes thinking back. Lilian was incredible last night and it was fitting that The Rock was there as well just like in 2001. I remember watching that show in 2001 and how horrible of a week that it had been. The Rock's music hitting and him walking to the ring was the first time that I had truly smiled all week at that time. Having him on this show last night really felt like a flashback as well. Rock was a good one to have out there as a face of the company to get the patriotic feel going. The Rock then had a face off with Michael Cole which was funny and the crowd ate it up. Several good Rock segments throughout the night for his birthday celebration. The stuff with the past movie roles was so cheesy that it was funny especially with Simmons finishing it off. Rock got the big celebration from the end of the show including Vince McMahon coming out to pay tribute to him along with a music video that was very well done. There was a face off with Rock and Cena backstage where Cena held up the WWE title saying that he would have it at WrestleMania XXVIII when they faced off. My goodness, I hope he doesn't hold that thing for eleven more months. Other happenings on the show had Truth putting a beating on Morrison before their match started. Definitely added more to that feud. Kharma once again returned getting involved in the Maryse and Kelly Kelly match. I loved the expression on Kelly's face as Kharma made her way to the ring with the look of fear. Then, Kharma lays out Maryse while Kelly looks on scared in the corner. John Cena and The Miz was a good match. Strange ending though with Miz cheating and using the belt to pin Cena to win the title. I reacted to it but was thinking there has to be a twist. Hoping there wasn't but then there was the DQ. The ref saw the title fly out of Miz and Riley's hands and the ref DQ'd Miz. Cena retains. Umm, yeah. I didn't pay much attention to the tag match with Rey and Kofi against Drew and Swagger so I can't really comment on that. Wow, they are really pushing Mason Ryan. He was taking down both Kane and Big Show and blocking big moves. Take a look at the next guy that WWE is going to push as a monster only for him to be squashed three months ahead.

Other notes from Raw. Nothing like having Rock lay out Michael Cole and seeing JR when they come back from commercial. Just a good sign for commentary for the rest of the night. Being someone that doesn't like the Miami Heat and being someone that cheers every single team that plays them, I did like Cole standing up with the Celtics jersey on in Miami. LOL. I laughed at the Rock's line of picking at himself with his old picture saying he looked like the lead singer of Menudo. Surely, Kharma isn't going to be a face, is she?? Alex Riley's excuse to Miz for not being at the PPV was that he isn't a Raw talent anymore. Umm, aren't both brands supposed to be the PPV's?

Michelle McCool is indeed done with WWE. That was a surprise last week. Michelle has decided not to continue with WWE and has moved on. She thanked her fans on Twitter and that is it. Really surprised by this as she was someone that I expected to be around for a long time especially with who she is married to. I'm interested to see what they do with Layla from here. She made a face turn at the PPV with the divas locker room basically saying we don't like either one of you but we dislike Michelle more. I really like Layla as a heel so I'm going to wait and see what her face turn is like. I am bummed that the LayCool gimmick is over cause I really enjoyed it.

The news about Bin Laden was told to the live crowd after the main event at Extreme Rules. John Cena got on the mic and told the live crowd the news. Probably some knew it already from their phones but you could tell some were very shocked over the news. WWE definitely had a big moment there including some media outlets showing it to get the reactions from around the country to the news.

WWE held their stockholders meeting last week. It was announced that WrestleMania did over a million buys so the return of The Rock did help with buys. Highlights of the meeting was Vince being asked about the PG product. He said that sometimes you have to go backwards to go forward saying that they went back to their roots of being PG. He didn't talk like they would ever go back to an adult type product. I think there is that balance and they have been doing it lately with the build to WrestleMania. Plus, Vince said that being PG is going to help them get bigger name sponsors that they wouldn't be able to get with a higher rating. Absolutely true there. Vince did also say that they were going to focus on bringing in more international stars. Funny moment when Vince was asked if they were going to buy that company in Nashville, TN and if he was going to save the world from Dixie Carter. That of course is TNA. Vince said that "Stephanie has more brains that Dixie Carter has" which got a lot of laughs including from Stephanie and Triple H. Vince answered saying that he didn't know that they were for sale. They aren't of course but it was kind of a funny little moment.

The theme for WWE Classics On Demand in May is The 90's. The programming will center around 90's happenings and events. The Hall Of Fame will be on Stone Cold Steve Austin which will include a profile and matches from his career. The Greatest Superstars of the 90's DVD will be airing. The In Your House Ground Zero PPV will air this month which is one of my favorite PPV's of 1997. It took place from Louisville and that crowd was hot. Other events airing include WCW SuperBrawl VI, WCW Clash Of The Champions XX, and also the WWE TLC 2010 event. A new Ten Count will also air with a top ten list focusing on the 90's. The Shawn Michaels: My Journey DVD will also air in several parts throughout the month. It is a very good program to watch if you haven't seen it. The shorties appear to have a Smoky Mountain Wrestling theme to it which is exciting to see. Just something different and I like it. Those are just some of the highlights for the month.

Take care and God bless!!

WWE Draft Results & Thoughts, & More - April 27, 2011

2011-04-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "apparently you can be redrafted" edition of The Wrestling List.

Wow, was Monday night's WWE Draft edition of Raw a mixed bag. As usual, matches were held with draft picks being on the line. A battle royal was held to open the show and it was won by Smackdown. The first pick of the draft was John Cena going to Smackdown. My first thought was oh my goodness. This draft is going to be huge. Moving the top guy over to Smackdown. Gutsy move. Later, Rey Mysterio was sent to Raw. Not a balance fixer at all but then the move of Randy Orton over to Smackdown not long after stunned all of us. Cena and Orton moving to Smackdown? Umm, who is there to move from Smackdown to Raw to be a top draw for that brand??!! That was my thinking for the rest of the show. Well, until the end. Mark Henry gets drafted to Smackdown. He turns on Cena in the six man tag team match. Miz pins Cena. Raw gets the last pick and I'm thinking that it has to be something huge. Then, it's Cena…..going back to Raw..….ok? It was just really bizarre. Since when can you be redrafted? I guess in the world of WWE you can. It would have made better sense to have Cena traded like Triple H was years ago. Remember he was drafted the one year to Smackdown and there was suddenly this really weak trade announced later in the week sending him back to Raw. Yeah, that was lame and this was too. A trade would have at least made more sense instead of the same person being drafted…twice. Just didn't like it. It did answer of my question of who the top draw on Raw was going to be. Same one as before.

So, let's look at the draft picks and I'll give my thoughts on each one that were announced on last night's Raw.
Raw Picks:
John Cena. Goes to Smackdown and back to Raw. Already talked about that so moving on.
Rey Mysterio. I'm just not excited about this move. I guess I'm just not excited watching Rey matches anymore.
Big Show. No excitement here either. Been there done that. Show has jumped brands and switched from face to heel so much that I can't really keep up. I'm not knocking Rey or Show obviously. Just not excited at all.
Alberto Del Rio. This is a big move sending him over to Raw. It's also making fans of Christian get excited that maybe he has a shot of winning the title on Sunday. Del Rio just hasn't done anything for me either. I've seen a lot of him on Raw and I'm just not getting into him yet. Maybe I'll be proved wrong. I'm just in that middle ground with him.

Smackdown Picks:
Randy Orton. This is obviously the pick of the draft since Cena stayed on Raw. Sending Orton over to Smackdown will send him to the top level of that brand immediately. Should be a good thing for Smackdown.
Mark Henry. I think this is going to be a good thing especially after his heel turn. If they make him a monster heel again which is likely, he'll be fun to watch. I like this move. His move over to Raw was bad as it is usually for a lot of Smackdown top talent that move over.
Sin Cara. Not surprised at all here. Probably be a good thing for him especially with as nervous as he has looked in his matches. They can post produce him now on any mistakes in the ring now. Gives Smackdown a lucha guy that will get fans behind him. Good move here.

Other notes from Raw. This was exactly my complaint about Michael Cole. Divas match starts and he rants and raves. Takes full attention off the match especially when we have a storyline going on with LayCool at ringside. This whole thing just didn't make any sense. When Cole got up and the distraction made the match end early, my first thought was ok, Cole has to be traded here. His rant and rave costs him to be traded. The draft graphic pops up and it's…..Rey Mysterio. Absolutely no ties to the match or angle especially when WWE overbooks those kind of situations all the time in these drafts. Then, LayCool has a really good brawl that saw Michelle get fired over the announce table by Layla. I thought that looked awesome and then the emotion from Layla on what has happened with her best friend and her. However, a lot was taken away from it due to the ranting and raving of Michael Cole. Again, he overshadows the other talent. I was hoping that he'd get drafted to NXT….which is shown online. The R Truth promo was really good. I loved the opening where he teased the "what's up" and then said "shut up". His reaction to the "what" chants was good. Not sure how WWE felt about him having to be bleeped a couple of times for language but I thought he did good in getting over his new heel persona. Again, he should be the face in this whole deal in my opinion. Friend fooled him into giving up his dream, outed his personal problems, and basically made a mockery of him. How is Truth the heel here? Wow, JR busted his hand on Cole's mouth. Bet that hurt both of them!

Let's get to the supplemental draft that was covered on WWE.com this past Tuesday. To keep it simple, I'll just separate the brands as I did early and show who is going where and give thoughts.
Going to Raw:
Jack Swagger. Unfortunately, this means more of Michael Cole is what this told me.
Kelly Kelly. Good to have her back on Raw. Thought she shouldn't have went to Smackdown in the first place. Raw seems like a good place for her.
JTG. No real comment here. Haven't watched him in forever.
Drew McIntyre. This is an interesting one. I'm not sure if a move to Raw is going to help him or not. I think he may just get lost in the mix on Raw just like so many others from Smackdown have.
Curt Hawkins. Yeah, I've got nothing here. Haven't watched him in forever either. Solid when he was with Edge. Lost in the mix since then.
Chris Masters. Probably will be used as a comedy type gimmick on Raw.
Kofi Kingston. This is an interesting one. I think Raw is a better place for him but I just think he may get lost in the mix. Another young guy that got pushed and then stopped.
Tyler Reks. Got nothing on this one either. Barely watched him.
Beth Phoenix. I like this move of her coming back to Raw. She got lost in the mix fast on Smackdown. Hopefully, Raw will get her rolling again. She's much better than how she is being used.

Going to Smackdown:
Daniel Bryan. I really like this. This could be a great thing for him to get on Smackdown.
The Great Khali and Runjin Singh. I really like this too cause he's off Raw. LOL
Jimmy Uso. Means nothing unless the others are going with him.
Alicia Fox. Ehh, whatever. Think it will be a fine move for her. No opinion really either way.
William Regal. Honestly did not even know he was on the Raw roster. Wasn't sure what roster that he was on to be honest.
Yoshi Tatsu. Probably be a good thing for him.
Natalya. I just want Natalya to get a good run wherever she is. Hoping this will be a good thing.
Jey Uso. Ok, now we have both Uso's together. Tag teams unfortunately don't matter in WWE. Frustrating obviously. More young guys that got the push and then right back down.
Ted Dibiase. Wow, I hope this is a good thing for Dibiase. Anything has got to be better, right? Surely, it can't get worse. They've turned Dibiase into a joke much like they have a lot of the young guys. Never would have guessed that Rhodes would be more successful right now than Dibiase.
Tyson Kidd. Another start stop guy. Got this big push including a bodyguard and then completely gone off of TV. I like him. Hope it's a good move for him.
Tamina. Well, I guess they put her back with the Uso's?
Alex Riley. Wow, splitting up Riley and Miz. Probably the right time for it.
Sheamus. This was a surprise but I like this move. He needs a fresh start on Smackdown cause they have ruined him on Raw. Bad ruined him.

So, there you have it. Overall thoughts. I think Smackdown got the much better deal out of this. I'm not excited about any of the moves for Raw. I think Smackdown is a much better position right now. That show tends to be good especially for in ring action. Seeing the talent going over there could be a good thing for them and for the show. They have the star power with Orton. A big heel in Henry. Some definite good mid card talent. Bryan and Sheamus are guys that you can into the title mix. Gotta say that Smackdown came out the winner in my opinion.

The WWE Extreme Rules PPV is this Sunday. I think it will probably be a solid show.

Don't forget that The Rock will be on Raw this Monday night. It will be his birthday party.

Chris Jericho was eliminated on last night's Dancing With The Stars. He had a good run on there.

Jay Lethal was let go by TNA. Yeah, of all the talent that they have that should probably be cut loose. Lethal is the one that they let go. Really what can you say to this news?

The news on Scott Hall just continues to get sadder. Just looks really bad for him. Kevin Nash took to his blog to type up his comments on Hall. It is a really interesting read and it's just sad knowing how bad of shape that Hall is in. Here is a link to what Nash had to say: http://kevinnash.tumblr.com/

That is it for tonight. I have a Wrestling List typed up that I'll send out later this week probably. Looking back on my favorite moments in WCW Monday Nitro history in anticipation of the new WWE DVD that is a best of Monday Nitro set. Take care and God bless!!

Raw Thoughts, Edge, Tough Enough, and More - April 18, 2011

2011-04-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the "shouldn't Morrison be the heel?" edition of The Wrestling List.

Last night's Raw was honestly a pretty dull show. London hosted Raw so the show was taped earlier in the day from when we saw it due to the obvious time difference. The show opened with R Truth doing a promo and was happy about being in the main event at Extreme Rules. John Morrison came out and got Truth to give him a match with the winner going on to Extreme Rules. Truth ended up losing the match and then lost it afterwards. He pounded on Morrison badly blaming him for what had happened. Ok, here is my point on this and I'm going to go in depth more on the talking part. First, the promo stuff was pretty bad. Second, how is Truth the heel here? Morrison is supposedly Truth's friend, right? Morrison comes out and works on Truth to give him a match. Morrison had his chance and lost last week. Morrison shows video of Truth drinking water in between matches and how he wasn't in shape. Definitely an embarrassing kind of deal. Next, Morrison goes on to say that Truth smokes and that it doesn't help his health at all and hurts him in the ring. Now, Morrison is attacking his "friend" on another level in front of an audience. Truth kind of gets persuaded into this match. Then, Morrison gets his way and wins. Now, Truth is without a title match that he worked for and Morrison got what he wanted at the expense of his "friend". Truth then pounds on Morrison for what happened. Now, how is Truth the heel here? It seems to be that he was done pretty dirty by his friend in the ring. Just kind of my observations of that storyline as it played out last night. Just didn't make sense to me. The Michael Cole being knighted thing was so silly. I know it's supposed to be silly but wow. This was Lawler/Bret Hart kiss my foot level bad. Literally. Just a silly and dumb segment. Niki Bella and Eve had a decent match with Eve pinning Niki. However, there is Cole right after it saying well now that that silliness is over, let's get to my stuff. Give me the divas match anytime over that Cole segment. Randy Orton and CM Punk was the best thing on this show. Solid match and fun to see the crowd being split on who they were cheering for. Nexus returns and almost takes out Orton only for him to avoid a punt kick from Punk and hitting a RKO. Dolph Ziggler with a new look took on Evan Bourne. It's going to take a lot more than a new look for me to get interested in Ziggler. John Cena gets involved in the Sin Cara/Riley match when it looks like a doubleteam of Miz and Riley is about to occur. Solid match. There were other things on the show but those were my main points on it.

Other notes from Raw. Well, Truth suddenly being talked about with smoking was sure a random out of nowhere thing to insert into the storyline. I did laugh at the people in the audience being goofy over the storyline. I can't blame them. This was such a random thing to add in there. I don't like having a guy smoking on TV especially even more with kids there but it's WWE. Just bizarre. How awesome was that Edge tribute video? Just great, great stuff. New look for Ziggler, same boredom from me. Did you see Sin Cara hit that entrance perfect this week? Probably the best he has done it. He's had a rough go of it so far and it really is a dangerous entrance. Dangerous especially when we've had a guy have to retire from neck trouble. The draft conversation got to be annoying with them talking about what would happen if Cole went to Smackdown? Well, what would be different? He is on Smackdown every week anyway.

You knew this was coming especially with Edge's retirement. Enter the WWE Draft next week. The draft is kind of pointless with the way that talent jumps shows but I think it is more important on the live event end than it is on TV. House shows are obviously going to have their talent set by who is on what roster. So, who is going to be moved? With Ziggler's new look, I think he will be on the move. I'm also thinking that Truth and Morrison may be on their way back to Smackdown. A new heel in Truth so it would send a fresh heel back to Smackdown. Send Punk back to Smackdown? He has thrived on Smackdown and what else is there for him to do on Raw? I really think we'll see LayCool split up. One will move to Raw and the other will stay on Smackdown. That is a major gut feeling there from me especially with the timing of this split.

If you aren't watching Tough Enough, you really need to be. It is fun. Last week's episode was pretty intense. Running from attack dogs which Austin sure had a lot of fun with. I think he had too much fun. He almost seemed disappointed when they got away from the dog. LOL. Then, they had to take a running Bill DeMott move in the corner followed by five bodyslams. Wow, that was rough. Matt was sent home last week. He was one of the front runners but it didn't help his cause when he just didn't show that personality. He didn't show enough early on in the competition. Last week had John Cena making an appearance. SPOILER ALERT if you have not seen this week's episode yet cause I'm going to talk about it. This week's episode had two people making appearances which was Big Show and also Stacy Keibler. Loved seeing Stacy and Trish back on TV together. Two of my very favorites ever. Luke looks like a major front runner right now. He also got to go in the ring with Austin this week. He did get knocked down a peg in that last challenge. Eric is still battling his conditioning. Big Show gave him some advice on that one. Michelle quit this week after missing her daughter. It was a really nice moment with her and Austin talking to one another. He understood her position saying he had children and that he was just now getting to know them. Picking between the two, she wasn't about to pick this business over her family. Good for her on that. Mickael, Ryan, and Rima were picked as the bottom three. The trouble between Mickael and Ryan was brought to a head as Austin let it be between the two of them on who went home. Austin had them cut a promo on one another and it was not even close. Ryan destroyed him on the promo and it was the best thing that Ryan has done so far this season. Like I said, you really need to watch this show if you're not.

Edge's farewell speech was aired on Smackdown last week. If you didn't read the List last week, you need to cause there is a link to the additional farewell that he got after the show went off the air. On Smackdown, there were some edits to the speech. The mentions of the writers, Michael Hayes, and Lita were removed from the segment. It is strange how WWE does not want writers names out there. Dave Lagana talked on a recent podcast of his where he said that they were mentioned in a Hall of Fame speech but it was cut off the DVD. They weren't happy about it and Stephanie McMahon made sure that they got an unedited version of it with them being thanked. If you have not seen the amazing music video tribute to Edge that aired last night, here is the link to it set to a song by 3 Doors Down.

It has been announced that The Rock will be back on Raw on May 2. This is also the Rock's birthday.

WWE is really getting behind Chris Jericho with Dancing With The Stars. They were sending out alerts last night telling you to vote for him and how to do it.

TNA held their Lockdown PPV over the weekend. I'm hearing up and down things on the show. The obvious good thing was the lethal lockdown match which sounded like it was great. Good thing for TNA there especially with how they closed their show last month. A scare for Kurt Angle when he took a powerbomb off the top rope from Jarrett and landed wrong. Angle is a guy that I just don't know how he is able to keep going with all the injuries over the years.

Hulk Hogan commented on Twitter about Edge's retirement last week with multiple comments. Here was his first post: "if any of the guys like me,Flair,Hardy,Andre,AA,Blanchard,orndoff,Henning would have listened to doctors we would have quit15yrsago. but I don't know Edges working environment because they are a media company not a wrestling company. HH"
"wrestlers work hurt! What about Foley! I bet EDGE still wants to keep wrestling,he's one of the boys big time!!! HH"
Then, he pulled the other comments because they came off bad and he was getting criticized for them from fans. He then posted this one to finish: "I'm not saying anything bad about Edge but he's a real wrestler,Stone Cold and Cena had neck surgery and u couldn't stop em,Or Edge it's in Edges blood,he lives for this business he's a real wrestler,he a lifer,he's one of the real boys,he's hard to hold down,that's all. HH"
Sigh, I don't even know what to say here. I love Hulk Hogan but my goodness. It should be pointed out too that Austin did have to retire for the very same reason that Edge did so that ruins that point of his. Just pay tribute and don't make it look like you're using it to take a shot at the other company.

I now have a book in my possession that I have heard so much about over the years. The Death Of WCW. People say that it is a very interesting read and I just finally had to check it out.

That is it for tonight. Hope you're all doing great!! Take care and God bless!!