I’m hoping this frees up Heath Slater to be repackaged as JBL’s “nephew”, Clem Layfield, the role he’s been playing on the YouTube [del]Renee Young[/del] [del]Cody Rhodes[/del] [del]JBL & Cole[/del] BAD NEWS BARRETT Show, featuring Renee Young, [del]Cody Rhodes[/del], JBL & Cole. It’s a great character, and I’d like to see him bring it to the main show, a la #BNB.
Wait a minute…out of the 3MB, SLATER was the one that survived?
I wonder when Tensai gets his walking papers. And if I were Damian Sandow, I’d start packing my flesh-colored leotard right now.
Slater’s good at what he does–jobbing. Nothing wrong with that–he can make other guys look good, and somebody needs to be willing to do that. We can’t all be winners.
As to Sandow, I want better things for him–his “Intellectual Savior of the Masses” thing works fine as a heel gimmick, and he can work the stick pretty well. But he’s getting on TV every week, and most of these “rotating comedy jobber of the week” gimmicks he’s been doing have been pretty entertaining, and best of all, he is absolutely embracing each and every one of them. I don’t think he’s in any real danger any time soon.
Tensai’s been doing commentary on NXT as “Jason Alberts”, so his job might be safe at least for now.
Of all of 3MB, Slater was the one who embraced the role the most, had the most fun with it and seemed most open to doing pretty much anything. This is what Vince likes - when you take a punishment gimmick and run with it without complaining.
As above, Albert/Tensai has been doing occasional commentary on NXT. He isn’t bad. I think he and Alex Riley skated through the cuts on that factor, since neither of them has been doing anything in the ring. Another one that occurred to me was Brad Maddox, aka “Pretty” to some female fans. He was ‘fired’ as RAW General Manager just a couple of weeks ago and hadn’t really done much in the last several months.
Just so, I wouldn’t be surprised if all three were named in the next round of cuts. WWE usually does one main wave up front, then a couple of smaller waves over the next week or two.
I think the commentary boys are probably safe as commentary boys. They’re doing NXT, Main Event, and probably Superstars (I don’t watch). And, with Regal showing them how it’s done, they’re well on their way to doing a better job than the A-team. (They’re already doing better than Lawler, but so is the mute button.)
I actually started watching wrestling in the WWWF era with the Von Erichs.
I loved the 80’s era. But, the shows were terrible. By the early 90’s, TV was all squashes and the only decent matches you could see were on PPV. Thank god the WCW came along and introduced some real competition. When they got Paul White (The Giant,) I thought they won. He is probably the best wrestler of his generation. But then the Attitude Era started, and WWE hit it out of the park. WCW’s nWo crap couldn’t compete, and then they started putting celebrities into main events like Jay Leno or Dennis Rodman. WCW folding was the end, I stopped watching after that. I tried to see if WWE could create self-competition, but without the Rock or Steve Austin, the attitude was gone. The talent level went up, but when the lightweights started turning into 4 foot tall steroid monsters, I gave up.
I regret not being into it during the RoH era, I think I would have really enjoyed seeing Samoa Joe in his prime, or pure Brian Danielson.
My greatest WWE moments:
- Steve Austin busts out the 3:16 after winning King of the Ring for the first or second time.
- Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Triple H) debuts in a pig sty match against some Farmer Jobber. Somehow, he wins, but probably one of the most undramatic debuts of a future superstar ever.
- Parking lot match vs Steven Regal and the Irish guy where they got mad and started really pounding on each other. Irish guy needed surgery after.
- Chris Benoit reverses the choke slam on the Giant during a Raw taping and turns it into an STF, cementing his giant killer status.
- The first ever “You Suck” chant during Kurt Angle’s entry music. He really blossomed after that.
- Every interview the Rock has ever had after he became The Rock.
-Anytime Ravishing Rick Rude addressed the crowd.
-The time Scott Steiner addressed the crowd with a hot ring chick next to him and had to furiously think away the obvious boner he was getting in the middle of his speech.
My top 5 would have to be something like this;
- Hulk Hogan beats Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania VII, thus winning back the title and singlehandedly winning the Gulf War for America.
- “It’s me, Austin! IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, AUSTIN!”
- The Rock vs. Hogan at Wrestlemania 18.
- Being in the second row live for the Raw in Seattle last year, where the main event Cena/Orton promo got completely derailed because we wouldn’t stop cheering for Daniel Bryan.
- Bryan beating Triple H at Wrestlemania this year, then getting off a stretcher in the main event and beating Orton and Batista to become champion.
I can’t find any online video of Bryan, how good is he? I know he won wrestler awards of the year like 10 times and is considered a technician, but I just can’t locate any good tape of him.
Between say Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, or Shawn Michaels, how would he rank?
For certain, he’s right up there with those guys.
Bryan started out at Shawn Michaels’ school and trained under William Regal later on. He’s definitely the best technician in WWE today, and he does his fair share of high-flying too (though he may have to tone that down when he comes back from his neck injury).
If you don’t have WWE Network, Youtube has plenty of videos from his ROH days, when he was wrestling under his real name, Bryan Danielson. There’s plenty of really great clips of him wrestling other future WWE stars such as CM Punk, Tyler Black (Seth Rollins), Brodie Lee (Luke Harper), etc.
Mine
- Daniel Bryan and Kane undergoing couples therapy — I thought those two could have a sitcom. Kane was delightfully sick and twisted. Bryan had a prissy heel persona at the time, and he kept whining every time Kane upset him.
- Bobby “The Brain” Heenan’s feud with the Big Boss Man — Heenan kept making cracks on commentary about Bossman’s mom being fat white trash, and Bossman kept wanting to kill him. I thought it was Heenan’s finest hour in Weaseldom, when he couldn’t understand why Bossman handcuffed him to the barricade and no one would help him.
- CM Punk’s epic feud with Paul Heyman — both are gods on the mike
- Bray Wyatt surrounds John Cena with creepy children who sing “Whole World In His Hands” and then put on sheep masks. So symbolic, like Bergman hehehehe
- Brock Lesnar superflexes the Big Show and the ring falls apart — OK, they rigged it, but it was still spectacular
- Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant vs. Big John Studd & King Kong Bundy — I like it when super heavyweights have noisy matches. It’s like watching rhinos stampede.
- Elimination Chamber, the Wyatt Family vs. The Shield — awesome match with excellent ring psychology, and strong showing from future megastars
- Mankind hosts “This Is Your Life” with special guest The Rock — the actors they had playing people from the Rock’s past supposedly had no idea he was going to humiliate them like that
- The storyline where Mr. MacMahon was in the hospital — Mankind visits him to try to cheer him up, and debuts Mr. Socko. MacMahon’s disgusted facial expressions are priceless. In the last segment, MacMahon’s doctor has his back to the camera, turns around and it’s Stone Steve Cold Austin and he beats the shiite out of MacMahon.
- Mankind’s near suicidal HellinaCell match with Undertaker — Foley said afterward that everybody always asks him “Did it hurt?” He said no, because he was unconscious the whole time.
Top 5!
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Watching Goldberg with the WCW Championship at Starrcade
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Playing the old WWF arcade game. I was always Dink
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Watching Ultimate Warrior run to the ring. Every. Single. Time.
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Having my heart break when Rollins chaired the crap out of Reigns and Ambrose
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Daniel Bryan doing his yes chant, in a cage, after “turning” on Bray Wyatt. Start at 3:20 in this video I just got goosebumps and still do.
Darn it, they couldn’t. have waited until after WWE 2K15’s release to break up The Shield?! I wanted to play The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family; hopefully that’s still on the table.
Ladder match participants are still in the air, but actually I’d love to see Bray Wyatt win the title. Though he IS starting to get a little stale. I know he’s being told to do this, but “The Whole World in His Hands” is not creeping me out anymore. You’re overusing it!
Some of my favorite moments as a wrestling fan, in no particular order.
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After Scott Hall won the US Title in a ladder match in Indianapolis, he gazed out at the crowd, saw me giving the Wolfpack salute, and gave his signature “I’m just oozing machsimo” shrug.
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Watching Stone Cold win his 6th, ultimately last, WWF Championship from Kurt Angle (again, I was there)
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Lex Luger winning the WCW Championship from Hollywood Hogan
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The WrestleMania XX main event, made harsher by hindsight I’m afraid
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Daniel Bryan pinning Triple H, and then tapping Batista, to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XXX
If you ever get a chance to, I seriously encourage you to check out Mick Foley’s standup/spoken word show, “Tales of Wrestling Past”. I saw it this past February (here’s me posing with him at a pre-show photo op as proof) and I wasn’t even really watching WWF at the peak of Mick’s career, but I found it to be a really insightful look at the business in addition to being downright hilarious. A big part of the show revolves around the match you mentioned, and his memories of it (to the extent that he could piece them together by watching the tape afterward), and there are a lot of other interesting anecdotes he tosses out in the course of things as well.
So our field for the Money in the Bank match is set, who do we think is winning it?
My vote is either Cena or Orton (and maybe even both and split the belts again). I think everyone else just isn’t ready yet, although of the field that aren’t those two…I’d go with Reigns.
I did see that show! Foley was a class act and a true gentleman.
He took us by surprise when he said that during the HIAC match, UT stood over him with his hair hiding his face so the audience wouldn’t see them talking, and said in a cheerful voice, “Hi buddy? How’s it going?” (Actually he said “Go home,” which meant “take the fall and end the match.”)
I also liked the story about the making of the Chef Boyardee commercials. He said the director took the crew to a zoo and asked Foley, “Do you think you can get this giraffe to chase you holding that can of ravioli?” Foley said “No.” The director asked why, and Foley said “Because giraffes are herbivores.”
I can see two guys grabbing a belt each. That’s a true WWE screw.