I was pretty surprised to see Migs show up - he’s the main ring announcer for DEFY, and his day job is as a DJ for the hard rock FM station in Seattle. It’d be sort of like if you’d gone to a house show in the '80s and Ted Dibiase was wrestling Howard Finkel.
The Khans are now also being bandied about as potential buyers for WWE.
I’m actually alive. Just busy and have a hard time getting on here.
Stupidly enough the culprit is that I don’t spend as much time on my personal computer anymore. I don’t want to visit and spend time on the site on my work computer and I absolutely loath typing on my phone with every fiber of my being, so I just end up not visiting. Sucks cuz I kinda miss the interactions on here.
As for wrestling…I barely have time to watch it anymore, but I follow along on various facebook groups and other social media I’m a part of. Sounds like everything in WWE land is just terrible. Although last I heard Trips did a meeting with talent and said Vince is back just for the sale and won’t be touching creative. Hope that’s true as the product has gotten better.
Although my hot take is that I still HATE the Bloodline storyline. Is it compelling? Most definitely. Well written? Of Course. The best thing happening in WWE in ages? Absolutely. Am I bored to tears every time they come on because I know for a fact the belts aren’t changing, their promos are always the same, the storylines they’re apart of are completely meaningless, and I know nothing is changing until (hopefully) April? 100%.
Call me a mark and “the dumbass fan who RUINS WRESTLING” all you want. If the title picture is meaningless than so is every other storyline underneath it, therefore see no point in watching.
I actually prefer having a champion hold on to a belt for at least a year over having it change hands because Vince gets a bug up his ass at the eleventh hour, 59th minute, and 59th second.
Well, this is a shocker - Jay Briscoe is dead at 38 as the result of a car accident.
He and his brother were one of the all-time best tag teams, and the one time I got to see him live he worked a hardcore match against Hangman Page that brought the house down. He will be missed.
oh dear lord the drive-through is going to be somber tomorrow night …
they didn’t get much of a chance due to a bunch of old comments that they said years ago … but damn …
Damn, sorry to hear that. While I didn’t expect him to live a long life, it’s sad to see him go so quickly.
AEW Dark Taz/Excalibur moment of the day
Coming to you from Portland Oregon, noted for having the highest number of strip clubs per-capita in a city in the United States.
- Winnipeg will be having a parade for Taz after AEW does their show there, but Taz won’t make it.
- Taz and Daddy Magic have announcer heat. Taz says it’s three weeks vs three decades.
- Taz: All about getting his nipples hard, that’s Daddy Magic.
- Taz: The guy behind me needs a mask like you.
- Taz: Blackpool Combat Club wins with the Rocket Launcher Jones.
- Taz goes to the Sushi ‘n’ Pop when he visits Fresno. Yes, it actually exists.
Blackpool Combat Club’s Wheeler Yuta & Claudio Castignoli vs. The Butcher & The Blade (with The Bunny)
Butcher and Blade attack BCC before the bell and the assault carries over to ringside.
Ex: The bell hasn’t even rung for this match.
Taz: No, but Claudio’s bell just got rung on that chair, oof.
Ex: I see what you did there. That was a good one.
Taz: It’s called a segue. Well, not really a segue. It’s more like a continuity bridge, but I digress.
Apparently WWE asked AEW to let them book Billy Gunn for the Raw 30th anniversary show and were told no, so Kurt Angle got to play the role of Daddy Ass for the obligatory anniversary segment where DX show up, put each other over, and then kill the momentum of an up-and-coming tag team by burying them in a segment that benefits noone (Imperium in this case).
In other news, Hulk Hogan is apparently a Scientologist now.
Faulty microphone aside, Hogan looked like soggy ass.
I was going to stay up for Theory vs Lashley, but I couldn’t take another Cody Rhodes documentary. While I give him kudos for controlling his own narrative, OK WE FUCKING GET THE POINT!
AEW Dark Taz/Excalibur moment of the day
- Billie Starks, no relation to Ricky or the Blue Meanie, whose real name is Brian Hefron. Whuut?
- Confuses pessimistic and optimistic, calls for it to be fixed in post, but it can’t be done since they’re live, and Ex didn’t catch it. (Ex was genuinely dumbfounded and couldn’t work with it)
- Alex Reynolds, no relation to Burt. Adds “Showing my age with that one.”
- Serpentico grabbed the referee’s shirt while SAP played dirty with his opponent. Taz said he was trying to get the starch out of it.
- Peter Avalon has access to “growth hormones for follicles,” explaining why his hair is long again. Ex asks him why he hasn’t used it. Taz replies his fans like him as he is. Stay bald, Taz.
- Dasha Gonzales introduced “The Iron Savages’s Bear Bronson,” and Taz thinks she pronounced “Savages’s” wrong. She was actually right, but it sounded awkward. Maybe tell copy to leave out the apostrophe next time.
- Action Andretti sailed over Bronson’s head, leading Taz to call him “Overshot Jones.”
Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. with Rebel vs. Billie Starkz
Taz: I talk with Dr. Britt Baker a lot, about everything. My teeth, my psychological situation, mental stuff, she helps with that.
Ex: You know she’s just a dental doctor, not a psychiatrist doctor.
Taz: No, but she knows the mind. The teeth are connected to the face, which is connected to the jaw/nose area, which goes up through the eye sockets into the brain. It’s all connected.
…
Britt’s nose is bloodied. Billie props her up on her shoulders, and Britt wipes the blood on Billie’s forehead.
Ex: Britt has had problems with that nose before, surgically repaired, and what is Britt doing? Wiping the blood on the forehead of Starkz!?
Taz: Well, she is a doctor. Doctors have to deal with blood on a regular basis. They wipe the blood on people.
Royal Rumble thoughts
Nothing much happened in the Wyatt/Knight Pitch Black Match, but damn, it looked cool. I think like Doink the Clown, Uncle Howdy has multiple portrayers. I lay odds it was Scrips who wore the hobo outfit and delivered the elbow drop. I hope Knight gets a push after this. YE-AH!
It was pretty apparent from the way Cody was being promoted that he would be the winner, despite his past heat with HHH. It was kind of lame that he eliminated Stroman with Ricochet right there to help his partner. But, Ric and Logan Paul had the bump of the night, with the double top rope cross jump collision. Gunter was the real winner. He was higher level than everybody else in the match. I think he and the rest of Imperium will eventually be the triple crown of champions. They’re tearing it up. Dominick is now the Annoying Pipsqueak King. Long may he reign.
Belair vs Bliss was already a done deal, and probably had the most restroom breaks, but Bliss’s story is still interesting.
Rhea is getting such a correct push. She’s not only a badass, but has mastered her expressive abilities. She looks like a mythological savage bitch. The NXT contingent put on a good showing. I get the feeling Asuka’s relevance is slowly fading, despite her being one of the last three. The return of Nia Jax was kind of a downer, but at least she got a spectacular exit. Never say never in WWE.
Roman vs KO had all the main event tropes: finisher kick-outs, the ref bump, back of KO’s head getting slung into the steel steps, TWICE, and Zayn’s ultimate betrayal of da Godfatha of WWE. It also teased dissention within the Tribe as Jey was reluctant to join in Sami’s beatdown. I like the long-term storytelling of this angle. Vince may be back, but at least he’s not there to call last-minute swerves.
first-time ive watched a WWE event since the attitude era and I was underwhelmed by the men’s rumble … it looked like the mid-carder rumble for the most part Was rey misterio actually supposed to be there or was that for angle purposes?
Dumb question … is Cody Dustin’s son or brother?
The women’s rumble was more athletic … but both had too many moments of half the people in it laying down looking blown up and Asuka was cute and crazy as hell looking tonight… and nice to see the girls not all looking like supermodels there were few that could have been a daughter of KK Bundy
I actually thought the chair shot from zayn was going to be during the match
Half-brother. Dustin is 16 years older than him and from Dusty’s first wife; Cody is from his second.
ahh ok they mentioned “the grandson of a plumber” and I thought that was a reference to dusty’s wwf skits from back in the day
It is. One of Dusty’s nicknames was “son of a plumber”.
Note that, while Dustin and Cody are the real first names of his kids, their dad wasn’t really named Dusty - his real name was Virgil Runnels, which is why Vince renamed Soultrain Jones “Virgil” when he joined the WWF and became Ted Dibiase’s valet. (Of course, Virgil eventually went back over to WCW and was promptly renamed “Vincent” when he got there, as a way of turning the rib back around on Vince.)
As an amusing aside, the night before AEW was in town earlier this month, I was manning the customer service desk at the grocery store I work at when we had someone call asking for the deli department, and the name on the caller ID was “Dustin Rhodes”. I briefly entertained the notion that Goldust himself was craving some grocery store fried chicken, but I later found out he’s a regular and no relation.
For those wrestling fans not yet born or not yet following wrestling in 1985, I just want to leave this piece of history:
The dirt sheets say he got injured in his match with Karrion Kross. The original plan was for Judgment Day to ambush Rey, take his mask, and have Dominick wear it. Instead, they had to imply that it happened.
ok I got peacock for the wwe mainly but there’s a lot of stuff they have and a lot of stuff they don’t …has peacock added everything the original network had on?
although I didn’t start watching wrestling again until 88, (mom’s favorite was Georgia championship wrestling and whatever indy shows that was on the Indiana tv channels )watching the first episode of wrestling challenge is way different from what came later when the weekend shows were just infomercials for house matches …
right now I’m watching paul orndorrf fighting troy martin … who if I’m correct later became shane douglas
If you can find it, there’s a 5-disc DVD box set called “Wrestling Gold” that came out around 2000 or so, which is a collection of classic territory matches mostly from the '70s and '80s, with a few older matches mixed in. It’s got some real gems like a San Antonio house show match with an 18-year-old Shawn Michaels, one of Bruno Sammartino’s rare non-WWWF appearances, an Original Sheik hardcore match for the US title out of Cobo Hall in Detroit, a guy wrestling a bear sometime in the black-and-white era, a Bruiser Brody/Abdullah the Butcher brawl that never even makes it into the ring, and all kinds of other relics of what wrestling was like before Vince McMahon took over the world.
It’s been out of print for ages, but you can find copies for sale on eBay and places of that nature. I got my copy because a few years back Jim Cornette was selling a bunch of unsold copies he acquired in a warehouse find, and the DVDs feature him and Dave Meltzer doing commentary on the second audio track. There’s an amusing little tidbit during a Bob Orton match where Corny mentions that Cowboy Bob’s son is training in OVW right now and he’s gonna be huge someday just you wait and see. 
It’s well worth watching if you can get your hands on it.