Reminds me of Wide World of Sports and the cliff diving champions of Acapulco. There’s only two types of cliff divers, champions and the guys who hit the rocks.
I keep getting amazed by Billy F’ing Gunn. The guy is 90 something years old and yet doesn’t look credible laying down for the pencil necked geeks who are his opponents. He shouldn’t be able to walk much less wrestle after all the abuse his body has taken but he’s doing better than his kids in the wrestling biz.
Actually, there’s never really been any thought for the integrity of the title belts, world fed champion or otherwise. It’s all a matter of booking decisions, and we all know by now they’re only looking at short-term gains.
Sometimes there’s a transitional champ who loses the belt to the hot new thing, like the Iron Sheik to Hulk Hogan. Sometimes there’s a last-second decision to change belts to see if doing so will boost ratings. Sometimes one fed’s belt will be fought for in another fed. Sometimes a bored rock star will revive a fed and retrieve the old belt from a storage pod. Sometimes a belt is invented out of nowhere (Million Dollar Belt). Sometimes there’s David Arquette.
As long as there’s a prominent and flashy prop to display to lure viewers, it doesn’t matter if there’s a history to the belt or not.
I understood interim champions back in the day, like Superstar Billy Graham and The Iron Sheik. WWWF/WWF didn’t want to risk splitting fans over two babyfaces. It was after Hogan that the belt started becoming a hot potato, both in WWF and WCW. But that also marks around the era when TV went from a vehicle to sell house shows and PPVs to a main revenue stream itself. And that’s when all the shenanigans started occurring. It’s not as if there weren’t previous shenanigans (like Inoki’s title win or about 1/3 of the NWA title changes before becoming WCW), but no one was thinking “what will be the title shenanigans this time” because it’s just expected.
I joined this week’s SmackDown in progress. Is that Wade Barrett on color commentary?! Freakin’ awesome.
Yeah, until Pat McAfee returns (after football season).
If I threaten to quit my job, can I get a #1 contender’s match, too?
Sheamus and Rey have never wrestled each other in WWE? Not even in the Royal Rumble match?
They need to keep Barrett and ditch McAfee. McAfee sucks on commentary. But maybe he’ll be better now that he doesn’t have VKM yelling in his ear to dance on the table whenever he hears Shinsuke Nakamura’s entrance music. (As a matter of fact, where the hell is Shinsuke?)
Wow, I knew Bray Wyatt was going to be there (later than they said he would; I know they advertised him as being “next” and then we had the six-woman tag-team match instead), but I did not expect to hear from the genuine Windham Rotunda. That was a nice heartfelt promo.
But I hope that’s the last time we hear from him; I don’t want to see his character derailed.
He just attended Antonio Inoki’s funeral.
And now, a new addition to the “Things That Will Definitely Piss Off Jim Cornette” file, here’s an indie wrestler jobbing to an Australian shepherd named Daquiri.
Someone get this doggo an AEW contract right the heck now.
He did rant about it.
Adam Page apparently suffered a serious injury on Dynamite tonight while challenging Moxley for the title. He faceplanted hard after taking a clothesline, the ref threw up the X and stopped the match, declaring Mox the winner, and the camera cut away from the ring and spent the last few minutes of the show at the commentary desk while Page was stretchered out.
Hopefully he makes a full recovery.
Initial diagnosis is that he suffered a concussion. He was taken to a hospital, and apparently appeared okay, but concussions can be tricky, so we’ll see. Props to AEW for stopping the match (unlike WWE too many times to count). Also props to Moxley and MJF for filling the remaining time entertainingly.
MJF broke character on Twitter afterward, then immediately switched back into heel mode, because the dude absolutely lives his gimmick.
AEW Dark Taz/Excalibur moment of the day
I missed the stupid rescheduled Dynamite and had to hear Ex plug it repeatedly. Then, the results appeared all over my newsfeed. Anyway, the Toronto crowd was really into this episode.
Brandon Cutler vs, Ari Daivari
Daivari has Cutler sitting on the mat, lands some kicks and elbows, then digs in a chinlock.
Taz: Daivari realizes he has control. He’s gonna wear down the body here of Cutler, knees to the spine, pointing the shoulder earlier to the pec/shoulder area, upper shoulder I should say. Upper pec I should say. Two mistakes in one sentence. That’s rare for me, very rare.
MJF and William Regal delivered an absolute epic promo on this week’s Dynamite. That’s the best mic work I’ve seen since Paul Heyman vs. CM Punk.
i jjust sat through this and it’s …well something …at least piper was enjoying himself it seemed
MJF had the crowd actually on his side due to his passion, until Regal reminded them that this is the guy who always takes shortcuts.
Yes, it’s admirable the way Regal sucked MJF’s heat back, and even dared MJF to be the devil he claims to be. Regal pointed out how the beginning of his career sucked more than MJF’s, and his goal was to prove everybody wrong. By the end of the show, MJF realized he wasn’t going to be an icon by taking cheap shots, and instead challenged Moxley when he would be in top form.
That’s some fucking storytelling! MJF isn’t going to stick with the same gimmick forever. He’s going to change and get more awesome.
MJF: “That e-mail… look at me when I say this to you!.. that e-mail made me want to kill myself!”
[…]
Regal: “…and if a bloody e-mail is what it took to get you to this place, and you’ve held onto that for seven years… you’ve had it easy, sunshine.”