The strange part is that they didn’t wish him well in his future endeavors. He must have pissed someone off royally.
I guess you can take the boys out of New Jersey but you can’t take the New Jersey out of the boys.
What are Real1 and Tall1 doing in the Impact Zone?!?!
It’s kind of funny in retrospect that out of the hottest trio in 2014 NXT, it’s Carmella that lasted the longest.
If I remember correctly, Big Cass comes from my neighboring town, Glendale, Queens, NY…and wiki confirms that.
He pissed off Vince. In the segment a while back where Cass brought out a midget dressed like Daniel Bryan, he was only supposed to kick him, not beat him up afterwards. Cass asked Vince if he could beat down the guy, Vince said no, then during the segment, Cass did the beatdown anyway.
Presumably they kept hin around long enough to finish off the feud, but then got rid of him.
SI reporting that he was drunk and obnoxious for most of the European tour and that, coupled with his other stuff, ran afoul of the ones backstage.
I don’t like seeing people lose their jobs, but I was never in on Enzo and Cass from the beginning, so I won’t miss them.
So Big Cass is a big ass. And his partner was a little dick.
Nice.
Another future HoF dies before being inducted because…Lord…I don’t even know anymore.
RIP Vader
Too bad. Great wrestler. Got to seem him starting out on TV when he was in some Rocky Mountain promotion as the Baby Bull. No surprise that his heart gave out, it was predicted by doctors 2 years ago to happen now. When he was at the HoF induction for Stan Hanson I could sense he was weakening.
Damn. Hard to believe that man mountain could die.
Stan Hanson knocked his eye from the socket with his bell by accident in a match in Japan, and Vader pushed it back in and finished the match. Both guys worked stiff the whole time and brawled into plunder territory. Steve Austin had some great interviews with him.
Vader’s career kind of skipped around my interests at the time. He was big in WCW when I didn’t care anything about WCW other than Sting. Then he went to WWF right as the NWO was originating or heating up in WCW, if I remember. I was aware of him, knew he was a hell of an athlete for his size.
My fondest memory of Vader is when he and Undertaker were on a TV show in, was it Saudi Arabia? or Kuwait? Anyway, Vader attacked the TV host and 'Taker just sat there and watched on, stone faced.
Vader said before the Kuwait interview, the producers told him to do a work on the host, but they neglected to tell said host. That’s why UT did nothing. He thought it was going the way it was supposed to.
*BAHHWANNNNHHHAAAAA
BANNNHHHHH*
Jack Swagger is now in Lucha Underground as Jake Strong. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. He wore a gold singlet and had his hair and beard dyed gold. He’s even more of lunkhead than he was before. I think they’re trying to sell him as another Andre the Giant or something. Vampiro kept remarking about his colossal size. OK, he’s a big dude, but not WWE big. I guess he is giant compared to luchas.
It was supposed to be the Trios champs (Mack, Killshot and Son of Havoc) vs Famous B, Texano, and Dr. Wagner, but Famous B said they’d be facing his new team of Infamous Inc: Jake Strong, Sammy Guevara, (kind of a latino version of the Young Bucks) and Big Bad Steve, who was outfitted like an auto mechanic. Matt Stryker said “Looks like Famous B wants to throw a wrench in the works.” Vampiro replied “I don’t like you.” Stryker went on to make more auto mechanic puns while Vampiro groaned.
After Strong was introduced, Stryker lauded his past (without mentioning WWE) and said he brings a certain “swagger” to the ring. Vampiro said “I hate you.”
(List of wrestling personalities I want to get stoned with: Jeff & Matt Hardy, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Marty the Moth, Vampiro. I would include Stryker, but I bet he’s all straight edge and teachery about that stuff.)
At one point, Strong had Killshot hanging in the air while applying an ankle log. Killshot was tapping, but Famous B was arguing with the referee on the ring apron. Mack kicked Strong in the face, and Son of Havoc later pinned Big Bad Steve. Strong went all Hulk Smash on Infamous Inc. after the match, and put Famous B in the ankle lock. Then, he bent B’s ankle one way and snapped it the next, like Pentagon Dark does with arms. NOW Strong is officially LU material. He led the fans in a “Strong” chant, so he managed to officially bury his “We The People” gimmick.
Meanwhile, Catrina materializes into the Prime Material plane, landing in King Cuerno’s trophy room, looking for The Gauntlet that he stole from Mil Muertes. Cuerno tells her The Gauntlet has the power to wipe out the Seven Tribes, so he gave it somebody else for safekeeping and doesn’t know where it is. Catrina tells him she needs The Gauntlet to become alive again. He replies “I don’t give a shit.” OH NO HE DI-INT!
Later, Catrina materializes in Antonio 's office and flickers like she streaming through congested bandwidth. She proposes that Mil Muertes face Fenix in a Grave Consequences (coffin) match so she can take the self-resurrecting Fenix’s life essence and be solid form again. Antonio drools at the prospect of violence, and agrees, asking her “So next time, you will knock on my office door?”
In other matches, El Dragon Azteca won against Drago w/Kobra Moon. Johnny Nitro/Morrison/Mundo/Impact came out and taunted Moon and Drago while Taya Valkyrie jumped Kobra from behind, so I guess there’s going to be a mixed tag match next week, with Vibora, the Luchasaurus waiting in the wings.
Finally, Pentagon Dark vs Matanza. It looks like they’re establishing PD as the unbeatable champ, even though Matanza has been marketed as the mass slaughtering monster who has to be kept in a jail cell between matches. Vampiro kept lamenting that PD has lost his edge because he’s responding to the fans and not truly embracing the ways of evil. Nevertheless, PD is dominant and wins the match rather easily. He attempts to break Mat’s arm after the match, but Mat is too brawny to have his arm pulled back, and he slips out. Antonio calls him “worthless” as they leave. Weird how they’re writing Matanza off all the sudden. Maybe they’ll book him in a “do or die” situation later.
*BAHHWANNNNHHHAAAAA
BANNNHHHHH*
(Snipped.)
Death must have gotten Vader in his sleep, because if he was awake, Vader would have kicked his ass.
Couple other things I noticed in LU–Cuerno said he not only didn’t know where it was, but also didn’t know when it was–so presumably Aerostar has it.
Also, after Catrina left Cuerto’s office, it seemed like Cuerto briefly bent over in pain. Almost like someone who might be recovering from a gunshot to the gut?
Full card is out now for the G1 Special, which airs live on AXS from the Cow Palace on July 7th;
- IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kenny Omega © vs. Cody Rhodes
- IWGP United States Championship: Jay White © vs. Juice Robinson
- IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: The Young Bucks © vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & Sanada)
- IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi © vs. Dragon Lee
- NEVER Openweight Championship: Hirooki Goto © vs. Jeff Cobb (AKA Matanza)
- CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI)
- Taguchi Japan (Hiroshi Tanahashi) vs. Bullet Club (Marty Scurll & Adam Page)
- CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr.)
- CHAOS (Sho and Yoh, Rocky Romero, Gedo, & Yoshi-Hashi) vs. Bullet Club (Chase Owens, Yurijo Takahashi, Tanga Loa, Tama Tonga, & Haku (!))
Kenny vs. Cody has been building for almost a year now, and even though Kenny probably isn’t dropping the belt on his first defense, it ought to be a hell of a match. Juice Robinson has improved considerably since he was CJ Parker, so his match should be good too. The undercard tag matches won’t be anything special, but they should be fun, and it’ll be interesting to see how much Haku can do at his age (he’ll be 60 in February.)
Missed the edit window; it’s Tanahashi and Kushida vs. Naito & BUSHI.
Good catches. Aerostar makes sense, since he’s a time traveler, and it could lead to a showdown between him and Mil later.
I assumed Antonio’s pain was due to old age and a malady “yet to be revealed”. Dario could conceivably be in disguise as his old man. The body in the coffin could be a fake.
Another speculation: Given the times they were talking about body transferal in previous seasons, Dario could have transferred his soul into Antonio’s body somehow, but took his gunshot pain with him.