Ciampa’s TNA run was taped in June, though, several months before these NXT tapings.
I bought Heenan’s first book. His father abandoned his family, so he became the man of the house. He dropped out of school in 8th grade to work and support his family.
He said years later, he heard his father had died, but he had started a second family. Heenan took his wife to meet his younger brother, but he was extremely nervous about it. It sounds like a sitcom script at this point. He pretended to be lost and went to the guy’s door asking for directions. He came back a short time later and said “Look, we’re not really lost. I think you and I might be related.” He met his young brother and his family and got to see pictures of his dad. He said from then on his brother and sister-in-law would come to the tapings wearing Bobby the Brain Heenan shirts.
Smackdown “Bit the Bullet” report 10/1
More Kane/Seth drama: Corporate Kane comes out in crutches, decides Seth is under too much stress, and will team him up with New-hoo Day-hee in the main event, so they can teach him the power of positivity. They will take on the Dudleyz and Demon Kane. Seth demands Corporate Kane sits at ringside. Yes, I thought Demon Kane would be a double. Who would they get to wear the mask and red suit? Colin Cassidy? Baron Corbin? Demon Finn Balor? A nameless indie?
Divas match: Team Bellas vs Team Bad. Finally. Da bitches had a hubris round before the match, each getting to talk trash on the mike, except for Tamina, who just kind of grunted. Naomi wore the weird glowy shoes. Sasha be bangin’. She just gets finer looking each week.
Tamina got to be the monster diva and no-sell team Bella offense. Naomi was the designated victim this match. Nice close with Sasha toppling Nikki with double-knees-to-the-back, then flip over for the Bank Statement tap-out.
Seth Rollins was doing his usual emo schtick backstage, when New-hoo Day-hee met up with him and started preaching the powah of positiviteh. They eventually got him to chant “I’m/The Man” while clapping, because clapping cures all ills. Funny segment.
Kevin Owens vs Ryback for the IC title: You know when the announcers start bloviating about how THE TITLE COULD CHANGE HANDS TONIGHT, it’s not gonna happen. Bother contestants wind up outside the ring and throw each other onto hard surfaces. The referee counts, and Ryback makes it back in by 8. KO is about to enter the ring himself, then decides “Fuck it, I don’t lose the belt on a count out” and does his typical bailout. I guess this means their PPV match will be a lumberjack match or something.
Neville and the Lucha Dragons vs Stardust and the Ascension: Cody gets to hang with all the recent NXT callups. No bowling ball strikes this time, but Callisto gets the pin on Konnor with Saline Del Sol. Cody’s face is just about cleaned off as his opponents have his greasepaint smeared all over them.
Bray Wyatt faces down Roman Reigns: The Wyatts come to the ring and Bray procures the mike. Roman comes down through the stands and enters the ring. Bray gestures to Braun and Luke to stay back. He’s about to deliver a sermon when Roman grabs the mike from him. The two have a staredown and Roman says “Hell in a Cell.” That’s what I like about this feud. Bray tries to mess with 2/3 Shield’s heads, but they don’t let him. Bray doesn’t lose his cool. He just resolves to break their spirit later.
Seth and New-hoo Day-hee vs The Dudleyz: Corporate Kane is at ringside. After the Dudleyz are introduced, he orders he match to start. No Kane double. D-Von is thrown out of the ring and Kane stands up in front of him just as Seth does a suicide dive. Poor Kane, always the victim of Seth’s domestic violence. A medic helps him backstage and Kane does the Smile of Evil. Sure enough, Demon Kane emerges a few minutes later and lays abuse on Seth. Seth hightails it and the Dudleyz take out Kofi with the 3D for the win. Kane then steps in and chokeslams everybody, including his teammates. OK, maybe I’m not so tired of Kane after all.
DEPP!
Thank you for the story Knowed Out. The WWE isnt as much fun without him.
It’s being reported that John Cena has been pulled from all events after HIAC until at least the end of the year, for “personal reasons”.
Sounds like he’ll be dropping the belt and taking an extended vacation, which he could certainly use considering how hard he works and how little time he takes off after injuries.
Hmm, I wonder if Nikki will be off it too or if this is him taking a few months off to think about the final days of his career and where he goes next in life.
Obviously he’ll be back and have at least one more run at the title to break Flair’s record in 2016.
Telling them to suck it apparently
Heenan also had some funny stories about Andre the Giant in his book.
Not to say Andre was mean, but he was used to getting his way because nobody wanted to piss him off. In his match with Hulk Hogan at WM III, both contestants rode to the ring on bucket arm rigs that technicians use to trim tree limbs. Andre told Heenan “I’m gonna go tip him over.” Heenan said “Machine and all?” Andre said “Yeah.” Heenan told Vince over their feed, so they rushed Hogan’s entrance so Andre wouldn’t get the opportunity.
Andre drank cans of beer is one swallow. They were like shotglasses to him. For pranks, Andre would pick up cars and move them down the street. Baron Von Raschke told Heenan Andre would get grumpy when there weren’t enough villagers around to feed on.
WWE @ MSG: Glad I didn’t pay to attend. All these are short TV matches. Nothing is given any time to develop. General rule - If the entrances and ring announcements take longer than the match, it isn’t a good match.
re: MSG: At least it wasn’t padded out with promos.
I hate cage matches. Numerous times Seth could have just fallen over the top of the cage wall and won, especially when Kane came out. “OMG! I’m too paralyzed with fear to fall over!”
Brock effectively squashed Big Show, which probably means BS is going to finish out his career jobbing to the stars, like Mark Henry is doing.
Since Cena is supposedly taking a sabbatical, is Sheamus going to take his place as top face? He’s already in a sort-of feud with Seth, and now it looks like he and Rusev are going to mix it up.
Interesting development with Paige becoming the diva pariah. Is she going to be the crazy stalker bitch now? I’d like to see her in a wedding dress clutching a bouquet of stink weed and a trail of toilet paper coming out her petticoats.
What are they going to do - have him get into another bar fight and have somebody stab his other kidney?
Great show except for the stupid cage match. So if Cena will be off for a while now he has to turn over the belt somehow.
Big Show and Lesnar were better than I thought even though it was a short event. I’ll give Show credit for taking a couple of extra post-decision bumps.
I’m developing a like for KO. He’s reminding me of Buddy Colt, perfectly content to win matches with an illegal move. Real heels don’t care about honorable wins. He should add Buddy’s thumb spike in the throat to his repertoire to make himself more a more dangerous threat.
Of course the Divas are showing how quickly what they’ve just gained can be taken away. I know they need to give the new hires some experience but it’s time to get the title back in Paige’s hands and give her some serious matches so the title has some credibility.
They’ve got good wrestlers like Dolph, Randy, and Cesaro with nothing to do already so why is Y2J back? I like the guy, but it’s time he became an announcer or manager now if he wants to keep working the big time.
Just finished watching the replay. As a house show, this was good, but it really didn’t need to be televised. As traditional as cage matches are in pro wrestling, I don’t think I ever want to see one on TV again. All the spots where one guy is on top and the other one is “pulling” him back in, the camera close-ups make it obvious that he’s climbing back in on his own. It’s the pro wrestling equivalent of a boom mic in the shot - I know what I’m watching isn’t real, but they should at least be trying to make it look like it’s real. The entire “referee opening the door to let the guy out” thing is completely nonsensical as well - why would anyone ever try to climb over the cage if they can just tell Lil’ Naitch to open the door for them? Why even bother having the cage at that point? It kinda made sense when they did it for Bray Wyatt because he’s such a big guy that I don’t know if he could climb over and out safely, but that’s obviously not the case for either Seth or for “Big Match John” (a name which I’m pretty sure nobody other than JBL and Rich Brennan has ever used in an unironic context).
Owens/Jericho was fun, and so was Show/Lesnar. Dudleyz/New Day did the exact same finish they’ve been doing in their house show matches recently, and I guess I can’t blame them for that, but ending the same title match on two televised shows in a row in the exact same way is just lazy, and yet another example of the problem I keep harping on. Logically, if this were a real sport, the ref would have sent Xavier off before he even rang the bell; letting him stick around to interfere just draws your attention to how artificial this is and how nothing matters. We better still get a tables match at HIAC.
Not really sure what the ladies’ match was all about. Remember when there was a Divas Revolution for about fifteen minutes until Vince woke up from his afternoon nap, and suggested that the ladies should just call each other bitches and fight because they’re jelly of each others’ boyfriends? I guess we’re not supposed to either, because we’re back to the standard booking where nobody has any friends and face-heel is less relevant a distinction than snotty bitch-crazy bitch-lesbo bitch.
At least they combined Sheamus/Orton and Dolph/Rusev into a tag match instead of forcing us to watch both of those singles matches again for the zillionth time.
You and I must have been watching different shows. Despite the weaknesses that crop up in all cage matches, I thought it was the best match of the show (even though everyone knew Cena was winning). Every other match on the card felt rushed.
In a new interview this weekend, Daniel Bryan says his personal doctor has cleared him to wrestle, but WWE’s doctor hasn’t, so he’s planning on getting a third opinion soon in the hopes that they’ll let him back in the ring in time for WrestleMania season.
If WWE won’t let him in the ring again, he says - wait for it - he’s going to Mexico and he’s going to wrestle in lucha libre.
He specifically mentioned that he thinks he’d fit in in CMLL, but the possibility that we might at some point see Bryan Danielson in Lucha Underground is just too tempting to even fantasize about.
Oh man, that’d piss me off.
I’m still holding hope that we don’t see him until he’s a “surprise” (since it’ll clearly be leaked) entrant into the Royal Rumble this year.
He won’t even have to win it really, just enter and get eliminated by whomever he will start a rivalry with
He shouldn’t win, if you ask me, as WWE would be making a major mistake by having him lose a title match, and booking him to win would almost certainly have to be the last match of the next WM - but it would also be a mistake not having the final match at the next WM be Undertaker’s retirement match.
Honestly, if two out of three doctors fail to clear him, I’d prefer him not to wrestle anywhere.
In other news, after TNA’s PPV last night, between TNA and WWE we have the Dudleys competing for tag team titles, Kane challenging for a World title, Matt Hardy winning a World title, and Al Snow competing in a #1 contender Battle Royale.
From what I understand, WWE’s doctor refusing to clear him is more political than medical. WWE is currently being sued by several retired wrestlers (Billy Jack Haynes and others whose names don’t come to mind right now) alleging that the company has been negligent in dealing with concussion-related issues over the years, which it’s pretty obvious is true (coughCHRISBENOITwheeze). The injury that sidelined Bryan back in April was a concussion, so keeping him out of action allows them to demonstrate that they’re taking concussions seriously these days.
If a third doctor finds that Bryan’s suffered so much brain damage over the years that he’s at risk of CTE, then I would absolutely agree that he should retire - he’s still a young man, and he could definitely find a place in commentary, or as a trainer or road agent. I don’t believe that is the case in his instance, and I believe he’s in it for the love of the game much more so than he’s in it because he needs to be wrestling in order to pay his bills (looking at you, Kurt Angle), so if he wants to come back and the professionals say he’s fit to come back, then I say let him.