Alas, for the second year in a row, the Raw/Smackdown stop in my neck in the woods is scheduled for the one week of the year that I’ll be vacationing in Vegas.
So you’d rather blow your money on gambling and hookers than go to a WWE show?
A bit unfair to sum up “One Night, One Fight” as “just one match anyway” (though I can appreciate that you may not have been in peak condition to enjoy it, Knowed Out). In my case, a) drink had been taken and b) even sober, I need to take notes if I’m going to really write up a review of a wrestling show, but it was easily up there with the classics of first season Lucha Underground like Aztec Warfare, Grave Consequences, and the Trios Tourney finals.
Just one match, sure–but the told a story that made sense and advanced everyone’s stories, all while giving us plenty of insane Lucha Underground athleticism. Puma got the first pin, but Mundo, dastardly heel that he was, smacked him upside da haid with a CROWBAR, letting him get several easy pins and build up what looked like a nearly insurmountable lead. Mundo gets cocky, starts showboating a little bit more, wasting time, giving Puma time to recover and nearly catch up–but even then, having been hit upside da haid with a crowbar, he needs the help of El Patron to even things up and take it down to the wire and finally eke out a victory. It was a fantastic wrestling story.
If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that I was rather hoping Mundo to take the title–Puma is great in the in the ring, he has fantastic headgear and he can shake hands like a mofo (as can Mundo). But a) he’s a babyface champion who never wins clean, and b) he’s nearly a total cypher. He does a little bit of work with facial expressions in promos, but for the most part he’s just not very compelling. If the idea, as Brandon Stroud suggests, is that he’s supposed to be an audience surrogate, it’s not really working. I wanna picture myself as Dean Ambrose or Roman Reigns or even Johnny Mundo, not a guy who literally never speaks whose personality consists of… being really good at handshakes?
Mundo, on the other hand, I think has tremendous potential, both as a heel champion who is willing to work with, but independent of, the heel authority figure, and as the all 'round “face of Lucha Underground”.
That said, I’m all in for his ongoing feud with Alberto.
Well I’m gonna be without cable for the foreseeable future because of money restrictions, but I can catch up on RAWs on Hulu, so feel free to spoil things or talk about it.
In an unrelated note…fuck washers/dryers and fuck the fact that I’m the least handy guy ever created and can’t do shit myself
Fear not. I hear the WWE Network is now available for some unspecified cost per month, though I can’t seem to recall exactly what it was.
Anyway, to lighten up a slow-news-couple of days, NXT did its latest batch of TV tapings on Thursday, and the pre-taping dark match featured a rather auspicious pairing - Uhaa Nation, who is apparently being allowed to follow Samoa Joe’s path by keeping his name for now, versus Johnny Gargano. Who is Johnny Gargano, you ask? He’s one of the top babyfaces of Evolve, a northeast indie promotion run by ROH co-creator Gabe Sapolsky, and according to a press release issued by Evolve after their match took place, he’s still 100% under contract with them.
It had been rumored a few weeks ago that Triple H was negotiating with Evolve for them to become sort of a second-level developmental below NXT, where they’d be grooming their top talents for WWE to have a first option at signing as opposed to them going to ROH or TNA. It would appear at this time that those rumors were probably true, which certainly bodes well for the future of NXT if the developmental program has gotten to the point that it needs its own developmental.
(On a side note, guess who Evolve’s current undisputed world champion is?)
The Chosen One himself, Drew McIntyre.
A lot of indie stars wrestle for multiple promotions. Prince Puma from LU goes by Ricochet without the mask, and works for Dragon Gate (both Japan and USA), PWG, and Evolve. He must have a buttload of frequent flier miles.
I thought Ricochet worked down in AAA as well.
Anyway, it’s probably unlikely that WWE would let indie guys work with Evolve on a non-exclusive basis. H might, but Vince hates not having control. And they just got burned (from their POV) with the Steen action figure. Which is a shame–I think there’s room for a “rising tide lifts all boats” situation with talent working in multiple promotions.
And on the Vince + Control thing, did you see that Jim Ross said Vince hated sneezing because it was something he couldn’t control?
Paul Heyman said that too. Vince thinks it’s a sign of weakness to sneeze, yawn, or betray some kind of physical imperfection.
Annoying: I’d like to wiki Ricochet/Puma to see where all he works, but I don’t dare due to spoilers. Grr.
Good god, I would love to become a celebrity if only to be a guest host on RAW. Sneezing, yawning, limping, dealing with my pain, refusing to take bumps.
Just so I could fucking LAUGH in his face if he said one damned word.
I would ask on /r/squaredcircle for that info. Someone will know.
Just heard that Nature Boy Buddy Landel has passed away from injuries following a car accident. Buddy started out as an incredible performer but he didn’t handle success all that well. Drugs and injuries took a lot out of him and he couldn’t maintain the ‘Nature Boy’ physique so that part became a joke. He was one of the last classic wrestlers, at his best you could put him in the ring with anyone and he could turn it into a main event.
I remember Landel was managed by JJ Dillon, who also managed Cowboy Ron Bass. They set up an angle where Buddy was always mugging for the camera while JJ and Ron were talking, and Ron finally had enough. Buddy was the cocky punk who told Bass he needed to step aside. Then he seemed to fall off the map. Fame was too much of a party for him.
Brock broke three of Jamie Noble’s ribs when he threw Noble into the barrier last night. Make was taken out on a stretcher to the hospital after Raw.
They need to turn this into an angle. Another example of how bad ass Brock can be.
Right up to the point where they get sued for injuries to someone not medically cleared for that sort of shit?
Like legit? and not kayfabe?
He didn’t get back in the ring with Kane and Mercury, so maybe real. Looked like a pretty hard hit, kind of high on the guard rail.
I was surprised not to hear about any injury to Adam Rose when Dolph Ziggler basically dropped the guy on the back of his head last night.
Oh, and Joannie? (I’m not calling you Chyna anymore) You don’t throw buckets of blood and feces at people, accuse them of felonies, then say you would like to meet them and get past the bad blood that YOU keep throwing at them. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but clearly that is your only remaining career option.
Spent a good 5-10 years being a real human being and not slandering WWE, Trips or anyone else, and maybe, just MAYBE, you might turn into something but a mentally ill washed up druggy loser who no one wants to be associated with.