Sometimes changes have to be made at the last second, and brilliant ideas can sprout from desperation. This time WWE called it right, and if Ambrose = Ratings, they’ll be saying Roman Who?
I really dug the match between Nakamura and Murphy on NXT. Murphy’s on deck to be the next Dolph Ziggler, as good as he sells. Nakamura has his own brand of fun and it’s infectious, like the Cactus Jack snaggletooth smile when he’s in pain. I can see Nak fitting in the main roster against Rollins, Reigns, AJ, KO, and even Cena. He uses his lack of English skills to his advantage in his promos, like his brain is too rattled to form words.
Oh joy, Jerry Lawler’s loss is Pugface Utunga’s gain. He thoundth tho thwishy.
Is he the second coming of Dusty?
Odunga has 0% Texan in him. He’s all Harvard educated and shit.
I knew that, but you have the “th” in there as if he had a lisp
Not everybody who lisps sounds like Dusty.
Meanwhile, in Japan, this happened.
Thank you for that. As that was the funniest goddamn thing I’ve seen in months.
More randomness:
Saw Izzy (remember when she was a thing?) and her parents at Universal today (getting on the Hogwarts Express from one side to the other).
Not only is that strange and coincidental in and of itself, but it’s the SECOND time I’ve seen her family at Universal.
You gotta quit stalking Bailey’s stalker.
Before she lost her smile, you mean.
She’s still been popping up in the front row on the weekly show, but WWE seems to have stopped mentioning her or playing up her presence, presumably due to some combination of Bayley getting called up soon, NXT Kids not getting picked up for a full series, and their realizing that it’s a really bad idea to encourage obsessed superfans.
NXT and it’s small arena format are reminding me of the old days of wrestling when the code was still in place and fans were obsessed with wrestlers. My friend Timmy tells of going to work for Vince in the 70s as a truck driver, he was interviewed by Vince, convinced he could do the job, and Vince asked him one more question; “Tell me your top 3 favorite wrestlers.” Timmy stammered for a bit, said “Well Bruno, and I guess Chief Jay, but I can’t remember any others I haven’t seen the show for years”. Vince said “You’re hired.” He didn’t want any obsessed fans, he fired the previous guy in the job because he was out washing a wrestler’s car instead of loading the truck. NXT is bringing back that feeling, the very close relationship of fans and wrestlers in the game that reaches a personal level with the same people in the front row seats show after show, lining up before and after the show to catch a glimpse of the wrestler’s and maybe even a word or a handshake. I like it, but the wrestlers have to be prepared as they were in the old days when most of them traveled armed, snuck in and out of arenas and hotels, and stayed out of the limelight when they weren’t working.
So Bayley is going to be secretly working on the side as an elementary school teacher?
George ‘The Animal’ Steele and Baron Von Rashke were teachers
I remember all my friends were into wresting stuff but I could never get into it. I’d rather play my super nintendo. 
Checked off another thing on the WWE bucket list…saw a house show last night.
Some highlights:
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Saw Izzy and her family again. This is less weird than Universal, but I can’t escape this bitch!
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We had the A show which was supposed to be headlined by Reigns (who obviously wasn’t there). At the same time as my show at Amway, the B show was happening at Jacksonville (headlined by Ambrose). So to make us all happy, the WWE had Ambrose do the first match of that night then truck his ass 2.5 hours from Jacksonville to Orlando and do the headliner for us. Good on Dean for wrestling twice in one night, a couple hours apart.
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The guy next to us was playing around with the kid (probably age 5) behind us about Rollins/Ambrose. Rollins guy would say “Come on Rollins!” and the kid would scream “No! Go Dean! Go Dean!” and it was cracking us up. Remember what it was like when you thought it was real? As an aside, it also really shows that this is a product for kids. It’s great that it happened when YOU were a kid, but this isn’t about you Mr. SmarkyPants…
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Other matches: Usos vs Bullet Club (minus AJ), Viktor vs Jack Swagger (I got a pretzel), Prime Time Players (though introduced apart) vs. The Shining Stars (this was actually a decent match tbh), Zach Ryder vs. Baron Corbin
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One of the matches was ADR vs. Cesaro. I keep this one separate because this has a funny story. As we were pulling into the parking garage (it’s attached to Amway) I see what looks like an old WW2 Jeep thing. It even had the exhaust above the truck. I joked with Ms. Cups that the old truck was probably Bray Wyatt’s car. Fast forward to the end of the night and we see Cesaro getting into it. Why he drives a broken-down looking Jeep I don’t know. I also am curious as to why he drove it. It’s clearly not a rental, so I’m assuming it’s his. Maybe he lives in Orlando? Most likely Tampa though. Tampa is only an hour away.
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Women’s match was kinda fun. Eva Marie, Dana Brooke and Nattie (full heel apparently), vs. Summer Rae, Sasha Banks, and Bayley. Bayley got a big response, but not as big as Sasha’s. They also had the wacky-wailing-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-men for her.
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Most interesting match of the night: Team TNA vs. Team New Japan. Austin Aries and Samoa Joe faced Finn Balor and Shinuske Nakamura. First time seeing Nakamura in person for us. Twas a fun match. Faces won.
House shows are weird. It’s pitch black in the arena other than the lights on the ring…never seen that before. Oh well. Twas still fun. Next up for us is an NXT house show at the end of July, and we just bought tickets to one of the final rounds of the CruiserWeight Classic in August.
One of the funny differences I’ve noticed between house shows and Raw/Smackdown tapings is that they play the national anthem at the beginning of house shows, but for the televised shows they don’t bother. Maybe it’s because they’re on a tighter schedule when TV crews are involved.
Sounds like it was a fun show. WWE doesn’t have any dates announced in my part of the country right now, so the next live show for me will be in August when I’m going to Vegas to attend ROH Death Before Dishonor and the TV tapings the next night (second row for the PPV, front row for the TV taping).
Another fun fact I learned from the dude who sat next to us (so take this all with some grains of salt):
Apparently Blue Pants is a parade worker at Universal who has been conspicuously absent from the parade because of an injury and is hinting at a kinda-sorta wrestling return. Since he is (again, kinda-sorta) friends with her, he thinks that she’s going to debut on the main roster as Sister Abagail.
I don’t totally believe it. But it’s worth mentioning.
The part about her working at Universal is true, according to her Wikipedia page. She wrestles in the indies under her real name, and her last match as far as I can tell was in April. It’s entirely possible WWE might sign her at some point considering how over she is, though I’ve read there’s some bad blood on account of her backstage behavior at the Brooklyn show last year (IIRC, she was supposedly intoxicated and acting like she was hot shit compared to the signed talent.)