A little different but Mick Foley recently was a guest on the YouTube channel Hot Ones. He has some interesting stories to tell.
They sure love doing injury angles with Cody, don’t they?
Poor Mick on that eighth wing.
I love how Damien Priest is wearing one of his title belts hooked around the other one perpendicularly.
Halloween Havoc with Shotzi and Scarlet hosting and recreating horror movie bits was fun, but the break-out tournament would have been better for a regular show. One of them had a princess gimmick. Doesn’t Tiffany Stratton already fill that role?
I can’t stand Chase U and their audience plants. I’d rather put up with the Italian mobster stereotypes than those red sweater geeks. Now they’re tag team champs and will be on the air forever.
My girl Gigi lost again, but I’ll comfort myself with “she doesn’t need wins to get over.”
They really dolled up Brian Pillman Jr. It’s hard to take him seriously with that look. “We’ll make you into another Tiger King, but say the name references your stepfather to avoid trademark issues.”
You just HAD to say something, didn’t you? This is YOUR FAULT.
You’re welcome.
well supposedly he was supposed to join AEW when they originally signed Anadrae and the rumor mill was Charlotte was going to join them at some point but Ric said something that caused a problem so it never happened
John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa has been added to Crown Jewel. I just got a Facebook message from WWE’s official website confirming it.
Logan Paul defeated Rey Mysterio for the United States Title.
Great, now we’re gonna have two singles titles on the blue brand that are never defended.
There’s got to be some happy medium between “the title changes hands every other week on Raw and twice on Sundays” and “heel champion who holds the belt for years at a time, defends like twice a year, and only retains because his goons win the match for him”.
This Wednesday I’ll be in Portland for Dynamite, which will probably be the last live wrestling show I go to for a few months, because after this my extra money is going towards my trip to Chicago in April.
Here’s the card;
- World Championship(!): MJF (c) vs. Danny Garcia
- ROH TV Championship: Samoa Joe (c) vs. Keith Lee
- Red Velvet vs. Julia Hart
- Swerve Strickland vs. Pentagon Jr.
- Mark Briscoe vs. Jay White
Sting & Darby Allin vs. the Outrunners has been added to tomorrow’s show, so I’ll finally get to see Sting wrestle live at least once before he retires.
Meanwhile, the card for Wrestle Kingdom is starting to come together. SANADA will be defending the world title against Naito, Okada is getting his rematch against Danielson, and Jon Moxley will take on Will Ospreay and David Finlay (who it turns out is now the leader of Bullet Club) for a new title to replace Ospreay’s US/UK title after Finlay destroyed both belts last week. (My guess is they’re bringing back the IWGP Intercontinental title.)
Dynamite was fun. It was just an average TV episode, really - but even an average AEW TVis better than a great WWE TV. The biggest surprise of the night was probably Samoa Joe vacating the ROH TV title, seconds after retaining over Keith Lee, so he can go after MJF’s world title. The Sting match was a short squash, but all the same it was awesome to see the Stinger hit his splash and lock in the Scorpion Deathlock for the win. Swerve/Penta was awesome, with Swerve making a brief Killshot reference in a pre-match promo and pulling out some vintage lucha moves for the win.
Speaking of MJF, he easily got the biggest pop of the night after Jay White beat Mark Briscoe in the main event and Bullet Club proceeded to beat down Mark four-on-one. His music hit, and the four of them readied themselves and stared down the ramp - then he ran in from the crowd, crept up behind them, and took out Juice and the Gunns and sent White running before cutting a promo where he promised to beat White for everyone watching at home - because he’s not just a scumbag, he’s their scumbag. It’s amazing how in just a few short months he transitioned from being the biggest heel in all of wrestling to being a beloved fan favorite. It’s like he’s speedrunning the Rock’s career. It’s gonna sting when Adam Cole turns out to be the man in the devil mask (who briefly appeared on the big screen after a group of his ninjas beat down the Acclaimed and put Bowens through a glass window), costs Max the title, and sends him back down the path to the Dark Side.
They did an ROH taping afterwards. I stuck around for part of it, mainly for the ROH world title match in which Eddie Kingston retained over Dalton Castle, but by the time they brought out the Outrunners for their second match of the night I decided I was done.
My only gripe was that, as I’ve noted in the past but had forgotten since I don’t make it down here oftenz is that Portland crowds are downright sedate compared to Seattle crowds. I couldn’t get any of my creative heckling over, and aside from BC they didn’t really have any heel heat to give out. At least this trip allowed me to finally get a chance to visit Powell’s City of Books, which is easily the most impressive bookstore I’ve ever seen, and I could have easily spent hours in the rare book room paging through some of the old-ass encyclopedias and vintage copies of Dickens and Irving, and I might’ve cleared out their vintage comics collection if I had a thousand bucks or so to throw around. I did score an autographed copy of Joshua Weissman’s new cookbook - he’s my favorite Youtube chef and I’m looking forward to trying some of the recipes in here.
I also found myself sitting next to another single male wrestling nerd who I was able to make small talk with. I filled him in on how he really needs to check out DEFY and he told me I absolutely have to watch Twisted Metal just for Samoa Joe. I’ll have to take him up on that.
Overall, a good time.
For the record, Samoa Joe is overdubbed by Will Arnette. Oddly enough, there’s a scene where he considers himself a good actor.
He’s also listed in the credits as Joe Seanoa. World’s easiest way to come up with a wrestling name.
His actual first name is “Nuufolau”. In my experience, a lot of Samoans have a traditional Samoan first name, and a western middle name which is primarily what they go by. Roman Reigns, for example, is “Leati Joseph Anoa’i” and goes by Joe - which was the cause of some humor in 2017 when Samoa Joe’s first match on Raw was against a Samoan named Joe. 
“I’m a bit concerned with the number of heel turns on this show. My limit is one.”
Both Santos Escobar and Asuka turned heel on SmackDown. Escobar by beating on Rey, and Asuka by misting Bianca Belair. Does this mean the end for the LWO and the beginning of a new era for Damage Ctrl?
ISTR an episode ten years ago or so where Big Show went into the show as a face, turned heel within the first hour, then turned face again in the main event. Possibly during that confusing-as-hell storyline where Steph somehow owned his house and waw forcing him to do her bidding even though he supposedly had an unbreakable contract, and where she tried to guilt him by claiming they’d been friends since she was a girl as if she’d confused him for another giant who was French and dead.
Speaking of the former Big Show, he took a bump last night when Hobbs slammed him on the limo hood, after he’d been in a wheelchair for the past few months. When Jericho introduced him last week, he did not look good.
C’mon Wight, you’ve done it all, and you don’t have anything left to prove. You’re still a monumental personality, and you have a lot to teach the new players.