Bad Bunny had a WWF scratch logo on his jacket tonight on SmackDown. How long since we’ve seen that?
at least they had it somewhere they appreciate any pro wrestling I mean it might more popular as soccer but not as much as baseball there
ok I give backlash 3 1/2 outta 5 I mean no real surprises although I think every Puerto Rican wrestler that was ever in the WWE showed up tonight for the bad bunny/priest match
and the Belair/Skye match was strange where for most of the match they were smiling and laughing with each other but skye’s was the better technical wrestler…
Also, who tells them what moves to sell and not to sell? i mean in the 2nd women’s match they were walking off ddts and then a minute 30 later vega gets put down in a move that didn’t look like it would hurt a fly …
The 3-way US title match was the usual clusterfuck time waster it was meant to be and I give the bloodline 3 PPVs or so before they’re history possibly with Roman losing the title and Riddle was the scapegoat because you know the tag champs aren’t going to get blamed for the loss … and brocks bleeding , blade job or did he really get cut ?
but the bunny match was the 5-star of this one
Another thing I noticed was there was a hint of well I don’t wanna say racism but Olmos and Belair were booed I know Olmos was the heel but it was so bad for Belair that I wondered if there was a heel turn that I missed …
Belair carried Skye. Skye fucked up several times. She’s highly overrated.
Maybe Almost was going to get booed anyway. Maybe they loved Io Skye in Puerto Rico already. But that kind of racism abounds on the island. The wrestlers have faced this kind of thing in different places and different ways so at least they were prepared for it.
WWE announced the 12 competitors in the World Heavyweight Title tournament, and surprisingly, half of them are from SmackDown. Presumably if a SmackDown superstar wins the title, they’ll move to Raw.
Raw: Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Damian Priest, The Miz, Cody Rhodes, and Shinsuke Nakamura.
SmackDown: Edge, AJ Styles, Bobby Lashley, Austin Theory, Rey Mysterio, and Sheamus.
Where’s Gunther? He’d be a better pick than The Miz. The former wins matches, the latter does not.
Isn’t Vince dead set on Theory? I gotta admit the guy is in great shape and they’re throwing the works at him. Pretty much a wasted push if it’s not him.
I’d say they don’t want to cheapen his IC belt if Gunther doesn’t win the tournament, and they plan to keep him IC for a while. Theory, on the other hand, tends to win by being a lucky weasel instead of Gunther-level dominant, and won’t lose heat if he gets beat in the tournament.
I am psyched to see Rollins vs. Styles at Night of Champions for the World Heavyweight Title. That’s going to me match of the night.
Good grief, Baron Corbin has really lost his stock value. He got beat in 2 seconds by Cameron Grimes. Is he even past 40 yet?
Gunther isn’t ready to be a workhorse for them yet, he’d have to lose in the tournament. The 3 ways give the losers an excuse to lose but I’m surprised Theory got knocked off, his lucky weasel wins were all the heat he we getting. His 15 minutes are over unless he racks up a major one-on-one victory soon. I can’t see them counting on old beat up guys like Rollins or Styles to be workhorse champions either. They must have something planned, and we can rest assured it will be a stupid idea.
Superstar Billy Graham has died at age 79 after a lengthy illness.
My WWWF wrestling fandom began with Superstar Graham as champion, though I never got to see the ‘good’ matches. Only televised squash matches. I watched prior to that, but it was Graham’s turn as a transitional champion that got me going. That, and discovering Florida Championship Wrestling on the Spanish station, channel 47 in NYC.
Graham too the over-the-top persona of Gorgeous George, and dialed it up to 11. Jesse Ventura, Hulk Hogan, and Macho Man Savage, among many others, were all spiritual successors to Superstar. Heck, he even pioneered the male-pattern baldness blond look that Hogan spent his career trying to hide.
I got to see Billy Graham live at a show in Philadelphia just before he became WWWF champion. He was impressive, a massive steroid enhanced body plus great skill as a performer. He fought Ivan Putski and the two of them put on the hardest hitting fight I’d see in wrestling for many years to come.
Graham’s wrestling days were before my time, but I’ve seen snippets of him - in particular, there’s an ancient MSG show on WWE Network/Peacock of him (represented by the late Ernie Roth, the Grand Wizard of Wrestling, a small-statured gay Jewish guy who chose his ring name as his way of making fun of the KKK) defending the WWWF title against Bruno Sammartino. He definitely had style, and you can definitely see where Hogan and Savage and Ventura got their inspiration from in him.
I hadn’t seen Graham wrestle until the 80’s, when he was past his prime. I remember 70’s wrestling magazines had him featured prominently, and they always gushed about his physique. They had these kayfabe articles about women throwing themselves at his feet, and portrayed Arnold Schwartzenegger as his devoted student. When I finally saw him perform, I thought he was “eh.” Me and my friends would make fun of his “I’m a survivor” gimmick.
They apparently were contemporaries at Gold’s Gym in the '60s, according to Wikipedia.
That was the picture they used. “The student learns from the master” or something like that.
I thought the picture showed Arnold was Graham’s tailor. He’s about to check which way Billy hangs.
Seems like the Superstar had been at death’s door for most of the past 10 years. He’s probably my second favorite wrestler of all time (after Stan “The Lariat” Hansen). I have vague recollections of seeing him on TV in the early ‘70s. He was always much bigger and more charismatic than anyone else at the time. Few wrestlers have ever been as good “on the mic” as he was.
Mr. Graham appears briefly in the obscure film The Wrestler (1974) - IMDb starring Ed Asner and co-produced by Verne Gagne (who plays the title role). IIRC, Graham is seen in the dressing room post-match with blood on his face and complaining about Wahoo McDaniel. This film features a number of wrestlers from that era – and later eras – who provide virtually all of its entertainment value.