Dang, considering how much of a mama’s boy Bagwell is, I wonder if his mother handles all his gigolo booking?
WWE has brought in Tony Schiavone to hype Starrcade '17. Still no word yet on whether it’ll be on the Network.
Future Endeavor Time:
Emma
Summer Rae
Darren Young
Emma has the most potential, but I’m not really going to miss any of em
So was it their angles that killed them, or were they each lacking something like talent, charisma or commitment?
I think in Emma’s case, she had the talent, but no chemistry with others during promos. They had a love angle with her and Santino Morella, but she didn’t look like she was into it that much. The blue lipstick just made her look icier.
Summer Rae could dance and look pretty, but she wasn’t a physical threat. Same with Young, in a way.
Well, no knowing how far this will go, but I’ll list those I see as most vulnerable right now;
RAW: Heath Slater, Rhyno, Curt Hawkins, Curtis Axel, Bo Dallas, Titus O’Neil; Dana Brook. Yeah, Hennig and Dallas would kill the Miztourage, but Miz could turn that into a promo angle.
Smackdown: Primo & Epico are still listed on the roster, I thought they were gone. I’d put them at the top of any cuts here. Mike Kanellis, Maria Kanellis (out on Maternity leave, only listed as managing her husband) Konor, Victor, Mojo Rollins, Zack Ryder.
If they make cuts at NXT, I’d bet on Buddy Murphy and Wesley Blake, neither of whom have been seen on air in a long time.
But hey, we could be surprised. Frankly, I sincerely hope they keep The Ascension around, because I like those guys. I could see them cutting Aiden English or James Ellsworth, but that seems less likely.
I guess we’ll find out tomorrow if there are more cuts.
None of these releases are particularly surprising, but they are disappointing.
Emma had a great character and was good in the ring, but it was pretty clear for a long time that they had no idea what to do with her, as best exemplified when they spent months building up her repackaging as Emmalina and then dropped the whole angle after one appearance.
Summer Rae I didn’t even realize was still employed. She was never that great in the ring, and she was great as Fandango’s valet, but once they split her from him she didn’t have anything going for her aside from being smoking hot.
Darren Young really should have gotten a bigger push after he came out of the closet, but I guess they steered clear of that because Vince wouldn’t have any idea how to push a gay superstar other than turning him into a mincing, lisping stereotype. Also, they never should have broken up the Prime Time Players.
Recurring theme here; just because Shawn Michaels became a star doesn’t mean breaking up popular duos just for the sake of a brief feud and/or singles push for one of them is a good idea.
Frankly, this is one of the top 5 things that frustrates me the most about the current product. They create and break up tag teams so damn quickly that as soon as a tag-team happens I automatically put a countdown in my head as to when it will die.
This is why some superstars and floundering and DEFINITELY why the tag division is crap right now. Just let the tag division be a thing
Didn’t work with Harper & Rowan, but fortunately they reunited them like nothing happened.
It’s hard to decide how to handle a gay wrestler, because the flouncy Adrian Adonis stereotype isn’t cool nowadays. The “Gay & Proud” angle is too risky and could generate more negative than positive feedback. Plus, flamboyance and willingness to handle other men’s bodies makes the profession tacitly gay, so for reasons of kayfabe it’s not to be talked about in the open.
If anybody’s ever seen Frazier, Kelsey Grammar was the only male cast member who wasn’t gay. Frazier’s dad, brother, and macho DJ Bulldog were all gay actors but convincingly played straight roles – except maybe in Nigel’s case. So, the argument could be made that a gay wrestler can succeed at appearing straight. However, Chris Canyon was gay and kept it under wraps until he was let go. The stress of maintaining a straight appearance could have played a part in his suicide.
Frasier.
With an “s”.
You know, I love listening to wrestling podcasts, I really do, but sometimes the negativity over absolutely everything is just infuriating. These people claim to enjoy wrestling, but everything WWE does sucks or is stupid, everything the indies does is great and the best thing ever,. Every person in WWE should quit and be super successful in the indies (spoiler alert, it doesn’t happen often) and everything is terrible all the time.
I do’t need people to suck up and be shills and not have criticism, but good Lord things aren’t THAT bad. I’m gonna start my own podcast called “Wrestling isn’t terrible” and review the shows with some actual logic and realism and long-term thinking.
You might try the Sidewalk Slam podcast. They do it from a storytelling perspective and highlight good stuff (and some storyline stuff that just doesn’t work). They enjoy the shows - the biggest problem is they do about an episode per PPV to review the runup and fallout, so not a tone of episodes, and on top of that they run pretty far behind (most recently release was August 20 over Extreme Rules and Money in the Bank)
only pod casts I even listen to is cornette’s and that’s just in spots on you tube cause hes funny as hell in a crazy old uncle/get off my lawn kind of way…
Smackdown’s coming my way in Jan., so Mrs. Cups and I got ourselves a pair of tix. Not bad for 20 bucks*.
*before Ticketmaster’s godawful fees system at least…
SD was in Raleigh Oct 30, same night as RAM. Why?
I like What Culture’s youtubes. They balance absurdity and technical nerdiness, and came up with my favorite buzz in describing Perry Saturn: “He has a degree in Fuck Your Shit Up from Don’t Look At Me University” said in such a dapper English accent.
Speaker of dapper English accents, I marked out when William Regal came out at the end of NXT and announced “We’re going to settle this in a match that’s so dangerous, we haven’t seen it in 20 years.” Then the backdrop behind him warped into the WAR GAMES logo. Squeeee!!!
The obvious answer is, the fan base - or, at least, what Vince perceives to be the fan base - has better things to do the night of 10/31.
Speaking of which, how much of the current fan base is pre-teen kids?
More than people think because it’s only the adults who are loud/snarky/angry enough to talk about it online.
(which, by the way, kinda adds to my “there’s no positive podcasts anymore” because everyone seems to forget that this is a product FOR KIDS)
I would venture to say I go to way more wrestling shows than the average person, almost entirely because of where I live. At least 60% of the audience at any given time are kids no older than 12 or 13. Say what you will about the Izzy demographic, but they’re all hanging out together at the shows and, most importantly, they’re the ones clearly having the most fun.
I’ve been listening to Jim Cornette interview Ron Fuller, the Tennessee Stud. He’s got some great stories about the old days. He’s got a good ol’ boy sense of humor about all the times he avoided getting mauled by rabid fans in the Bahamas and Eastern Kentucky. He also had some funny anecdotes about the Funk brothers. You can tell from listening how much he loves performing and getting reactions from fans, good or bad.
So apparently Kenny Omega vs. Jericho has been confirmed for Wrestle Kingdom in January…there’s no way Vince makes that match unless K-dogg is coming to WWE right? Rumble appearance?
how do they book something like wrestle kingdom? I don’t see the Asian bookers letting vince dictate their booking …
Meltzer says Jericho isn’t under contract right now.