WWE’s special on HHH was an interesting watch. The week of WM, he met with people in DC, Malibu and NYC, made speeches at several business functions, helped produce NXT Takeover, gave the talent morale boosting speeches, got together with DX for the Hall of Fame ceremony, worked a match with Batista at WM, then flew to Orlando the next day to oversee the next month of NXT tapings. One part showed him hugging and comforting Shayna Baizler, who looked like she was about to burst into tears. Weird to see her getting nervous like that, because she looks so damn scary in the ring.
WWE has been an absolute dud this week. PROMO PROMO PROMO WE’RE SUCKING ARAB OIL-DRENCHED COCK! SHANE! ROMAN! SHANE! ROMAN! RETIRED GUYS! MORE SHANE! MORE ROMAN! Brock Brock Brock Brock Brooooock - AEW cannot debut their show soon enough.
Make fun of WWE for the Saudi deal all you want, they’re making 100 million or whatever dollars from it and I would hesitate to think any business in the world would say no to that.
Depends on the backlash the business would get from the fact that it has to put a giant “No Women Allowed okay, except maybe the boss’s wife and/or daughter, but try and stand in a corner or something” sign on the ring - and why do I have the feeling that, if there’s a pre-show, then (a) it will be hosted from Stamford, and (b) because that’s the only way that any women can be involved with it?
It just sucks they think the reason they’re dipping in ratings is because the newer talent isn’t catching on and they have to unearth the dinosaurs. The people I want to see are being buried under promos, and they further insult my intelligence by announcing the location as just “Jeddah,” and they quietly exclude the women’s division and any talent with contentious national origins. Pandering to the Saudis is becoming “business as usual” and the same 7-8 big names are getting 75% of air time, just like the bad old days.
In other international news, here’s the full card for Dominion, NJPW’s second-biggest show of the year, which airs live from Osaka this Sunday at 3 AM Eastern/Midnight Pacific;
CHAOS (Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, & Ryusuke Taguchi) vs. Bullet Club (Jay White, Chase Owens, & Taiji Ishimori)
Yoshi-Hashi & Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr.
Satoshi Kojima vs. Shingo Takagi
Jon Moxley vs. Shota Umino
I’m not familiar with everyone on the card, but all in all this is a pretty stacked show. Okada vs. Jericho especially ought to be electric. Satoshi Kojima is a legend in Japan and a former NWA world champion, and he should be a delight to watch. Moxley is now the IWGP United States champion after beating Juice Robinson earlier this week, but his fight is a non-title match as I don’t believe Young Lions are allowed to compete for championships.
This show wasn’t offensively bad like Crown Jewel was, but it was mediocre at best, and nobody’s really going to remember it a year from now. I’ll give it a 5/10.
I’m much more looking forward to Dominion, and I still haven’t decided if I want to get a ticket for Stomping Grounds since the card doesn’t sound too impressive.
the Goldberg/ Undertaker match was getting trashed on social media as worst match of the year … apparently taker and berg were wrestling stiff and messed up a bunch of stuff …MSN
Goldberg likely concussed himself early on. Goldberg couldn’t do his spots nor help a gassed Undertaker hit his. They nearly killed each other. Match was booked too long for these dinosaurs to begin, but they both should have known to finish early. Too much ego from both of them, thinking they could go long and then not adapting.
Goldberg was already bleeding when he left his dressing room. Word is his entrance took longer than normal because they had a doctor check him out first.
Must’ve headbutted the door again. Doing the same to the steel post, then getting spiked by Taker probably didn’t help. Of course he then almost killed Taker with that brain buster jackhammer.
Some factoids about Mansoor:
[ul]
[li]He trained under Dory Funk, and performed in the Indies as Manny Faberino.[/li][li]He was born in Saudi Arabia, but moved to California at an early age, so the “native son” label is skin deep.[/li][li]He was a nerd who wanted to be a wrestling producer at first, but the promos Daniel Bryan gave during his abused underdog phase inspired Manny to get in the ring.[/li][/ul]
It’s kind of like discovering that Ivan Koloff and Abdullah the Butcher were actually from Canada. Kind of deflates the mystique.
