Actually, I think the segment showed evidence that WWE does book for the long term. How long in advance do they know where the event’s going to take place? A month or two? They saw they were coming to the King’s hometown and timed Dolph’s heel turn to take place a few weeks before this show.
Meanwhile, courtesy of the indy show I went to on Friday, here’s what happens when you call Cody Rhodes “Stardust”.
Dutch. He was billed as being from Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Wrestles for quite a while now, all over the world but a lot in the UK. Probably why they picked him for the match, and was a protegee of Chris Hero/Kassius Ohno, as was mentioned by Cole & Nigel.
The first night of the tournament was alright. Nothing spectacular imo.
The level of matches was very uneven and I wasn’t sure I would watch the 2nd night.
I’m glad I did (though I decided to not watch it live) because it got a lot better.
Dunne plays the despicable villain so well. I wouldn’t be shocked if he went to Regal and asked for some pointers.
Tyler Bate was an interesting character and winner. Very strong, has a good look though I think without the moustache he’d look like the kid he is.
The number in his finisher is probably a reference to his year of birth?
Nigel kept saying it, that was slightly annoying.
I think they shouldn’t rush into a tv show with these people like they did with the cruiser weights. Maybe some events from time to time? More in the style of a Takeover.
Dunne btw got more heat than half of the guys on the main roster would get.
Again, he plays his part very very well. He’s the one guy I think they could sign, put on tv and it’d work.
Dutch/Danish, Norse/Norwegian… I can at least find Europe on a map. 
Totally agree with you about Dunne. He’s the reason why the UK tournament went so well. Not only did he play the main villain part to perfection, but he also trained half those guys.
I’m not one to immediately hate everything WWE does, but I think that’s giving them a biiiiit too much credit.
I think someone remembered [del]the rumble[/del] that King and Dolph had a thing once, and would make for a good segment, but I don’t think it was planned too far in advance.
I didn’t hate the Nikki/Nattie segment any more than I hated any of the other women’s segments. Let’s face it, none of them are actors. Between CHAR-LOTTE SEG-MEN-TING HER LI-ONS. and Sasha always telling us about her hero Eddie Gur-rer-ro. They all sound like middle-schoolers. Bayley sounded the worst she ever has on Monday. At least Nikki and Nattie’s feud kinda-sorta makes sense. Nattie is the true legacy girl, but Nikki gets all the press because she’s porking the star, so Nattie is mad. Makes more sense than what’s going on with the cruiserweights and Alicia Fox, who is back to the “bitches be crazy” line of thinking.
I think it’s a testament to Smackdown that even the shittier segments end it well enough for me to not hate it. That cage match last night was utterly pointless. I mean, why even be in a cage if you literally never use it? Well, the answer is so that the people you’re supposed to keep out come in, and it ends up being Mickie James which is semi-interesting.
I’ve been binge-listening to Jim Cornette’s podcast lately. He’s very much in the “old man yells at cloud” stage of his career, but he’s just so delightful to listen to - he’s an angry, foul-mouthed southerner (who’s also an atheist and a hardcore liberal) who’s got a lot of colorful tales to tell about everything from the territory days up to the current decade. It’s worth checking out if you have time to spare.
According to what I’ve read, WWE is working on a deal with a British promotion called ICW to put their weekly show on the Network. Maybe that’s where the UK title will wind up?
I understand that mileage varies and all of that, but I feel like how delightful one finds Cornette to listen to may be directly proportional to how one feels about 1) Southern-style wrestling, 2)Highspot-style indie wrestling, and/or 3) Women’s wrestling.
To me, Jim Cornette is the George Karl of professional wrestling, and I do not find him delightful to listen to, at all.
Back in the NWA days, Cornette played the hilarious mama’s boy manager of the Midnight Express.
He’s definitely old school and not too keen on today’s product, but the man can rant like no other.
TNA’s been growing on me. First the Hardys, then Decay, then Eli Drake, and now Rock Star Spud. He’s the cocky shrimp who always gets clobbered for his impudence, but he’s fucking hilarious. As Aron Rex’s lackey of homosexual tendencies, he prances and poses like a ballet dancer and acts like his shit don’t stink. He and Rex went against Robbie E and the dehorned Swoggle last night, and Swoggle gave him a stinkface, which he sold perfectly. What can you say about a guy who would put even a one-year old over?
Apparently AJ Styles was robbed while in Arkansas.
He had a bag full of video game goodies that was stolen from him. Damn Southern-on-Southern crime!
So just who is this No Am Dar guy and why can’t he speak english? Is he some unfrozen cave man? And just who or what is ‘Dar’ that he No Am? Are people constantly confusing him with some guy named Dar and he keeps having to say that he ‘No am Dar’?
For those who might be in Orlando on Wrestlemania week, it appears that ROH’s Supercard of Honor event will feature the Broken Hardys vs the Young Bucks, which has been teased a long time by both parties.
So Ms. Cups and I decided to head out to the wonder known as Ikea for some meatballs and getting me a dresser. We’re sitting on a couch (kinda need that too) and Ms. Cups says “hey…is that…” and I look up and see someone who looks just like ole Noam Dar. Not only does he look like Dar, but he has a man purse. We get close to him and definitely hear his accent. So Noam Dar and his lady friend were spotted in Ikea today. Makes it the second sighting of a superstar in the wild by us!
This is the second reason I popped on. Since we’ve seen enough NXT in our lives we opted to see this show! Bought our tickets today and am excited to see the Bucks of Youth! and the rest of the RoH cast!
Pentagon Jr. has apparently quit AAA/LU. He and his Perros Del Mal stablemates showed up last night in Crash (the Tijuana promotion where Perrito had his final match) and announced that they’re now free agents, and that he’s now calling himself Penta Cero Miedo.
I don’t know how much AAA was paying him, but it’s quite possible he could do very well working ROH/PWG/the indies. Maybe we’ll see him up here in Defy along with his buddies from the Temple.
Does leaving AAA mean he automatically leaves LU? He goes by Pentagon Dark there. I’d think they’d just have to renegotiate his contract. Strip out a few lines and add some others. What’s the worst AAA can do, tell him he can no longer name himself after a geometric shape?
Also, I can count the amount of LU I’ve seen on one and a half hands, and I certainly haven’t seen enough to really understand who people are and how they work.
Would he have a future in WWE? Would they even want him?
WWE would just treat Pent like a cute little novelty act, like they do Kallisto. Maybe when they put together WWE Latin America they’ll put out feelers for him and his brothers-in-arms, but I think Pent is really into his brand and unwilling to change it for a PG audience. He’s more of a shadowy underground presence. Plus, I don’t think he speaks much English, but that wasn’t a problem for Nakamura.
Who knows though? Even the Undertaker managed to maintain the same level of coolness while smoothing away some of the darker aspects of his character. IIRC WWE was only tangential about using Samoa Joe at first, but then they saw how his merchandise sales took off and said “Welcome aboard.” If Pent means more merchandising bucks, they’ll put out the Bienvenida mat.
WWE doesn’t have the greatest history when it comes to dealing with hispanic stars. I know some of them have complained about potentially racist comments from Trips in the past.
So it will be interesting how fast or how smooth a WWE Latin America comes about.
They certainly haven’t attempted to showcase the ones they have very well and Andrade hasn’t been handled particularly well in NXT.
Tyler Bate, Pete Dunne, Trent Severn, and Kurt Angle have all suddenly pulled out of indy shows they were scheduled to work this weekend.
Wonder if we’ll be seeing them at the Rumble?
Is WWE finally taking Sami Zayn seriously? He got a win over Seth Rollins in a “Loser Leaves the Rumble” match, taking advantage of HHH’s false flag. I’m thinking he’ll get revenge on Stroman at RR by eliminating him.
KO took commentary while Jericho and Reigns battled, and absolutely killed it. As much as Graves snarks on Saxton, KO was eviscerating him.
I wonder if Undertaker, Goldberg and Brock get paid the same amount of money for showing up that everybody else gets paid for working matches? Goldberg is on for 5 minutes. All he has to do is make his entrance and use the mic. Brock shows up for 2 minutes to stare down Goldberg. The lights go out and UT shows up for 1 minute, and the show is over. Cha-ching!