Well, WWE Network new system annoyance #2:
I can’t renew my subscription with a gift card until after my subscription has expired. I bought a gift card today and have to wait eight days before I can use the damn thing.
Does Moldberg have somebody hostage? He stunk up his match with UT, and now they’re letting him get his heat back with perennial Jobber to the Stars, Dolph Ziggler. With Miz and Michaels cheering him on.
The only bright spot I can make out of this is that the match leaves open the possibility that Shawn turns on Moldberg, setting up a battle of the relics next PPV. Otherwise, this reeks of a desperate ratings grab. AEW better beware. snark snark snark
Vince will always fall back on nostalgia acts if they’re physically capable of working and willing to take a check. If he could dig up Bruno Sammartino’s corpse and reanimate him Herbert West style, Bruno would’ve had a Universal Championship run by now.
Also, I would think Goldberg’s motivation (in addition to $$) is, like Undertaker, to not have that Saudi debacle be his last match. Ziggler can make him look good even in a squash, and if he brings whatever working shoes he has (and it was never much), Ziggler can make him look great.
Adam Cole (real name Austin Jenkins) first wrestled as Adam Cole in 2008 in CZW, which I don’t think has any relation to WWE, as far as I can tell.
Recently, WWE has tried to trademark Adam Cole. In their first rejection, WWE had to clarify whether Adam Cole identified a particular living individual. WWE said no. 
The USPTO rejected again, telling WWE nuh-huh, it’s Austin Jenkins. We can use Wikipedia, yaknow, and that Austin Jenkins would need to provide written authorization for WWE to trademark the name.
This was the WWE response, with my emphasis. Note that the Applicant refers to WWE:
WTF WWE?
Source: https://www. pwinsider. com/ViewArticle.php?id=128629 (Note I broke the link because that site is lousy with invasive ads. My adblocker stops them, but if you don’t use one, you might want to, at the very least, go private before visiting.)
I’d guess Samoa Joe is in the same boat. He had been using the name for years prior to WWE, but I wonder if they now “own” the name Samoa Joe? If he leaves WWE, can he not go by Samoa Joe any more? I’m pretty sure Joe had enough business savvy to make sure he kept his name, but it looks like Adam Cole won’t be able to. It’s also telling that they could potentially replace him with somebody else and keep the name, and that would be a REALLY STUPID THING TO DO, like they did with Diesel and Razor Ramon back in the day. That blew up in their faces, but they’re still using it as a justification.
When I went to an Evolve show he headlined, I paid $20 to get a pic of him with me, and told him “I hope you never get called up. You guys run NXT.” I wanted to add “Vince will bury you,” but I decided to keep things positive. Now it looks like he’s getting swallowed up in trademark issue hell. I hope he makes enough money from it not to care.
Okay, I’ll ask: how did WWE get away with trademarking the name Bubba Ray Dudley if he went by that name in ECW long before joining WWE? Note that, apparently, he still can’t use it outside of WWE; when he co-hosts Busted Open, he is always referred to as “Bully Ray” (one of his Impact names).
It’s not about being able to reassign the names (although didn’t WWE do this with Doink the Clown?); it’s about controlling the character, and the merchandising that goes with it.
It’s possible that Cole’s application went to the desk of a wrestling fan rather than the normal rubber stamp process that is the USPTO. I guess if one gets signed by WWE and starts using one’s own stage name, one should TM it before WWE can, though then they’ll probably give you a new, stupid name that WWE can own. I was more taken aback by the blatant lie in the response. It’s possible it is just an outside trademark lawyer who doesn’t really follow the history, but in that case, she didn’t do her research.
Welp, Summerslam is tomorrow. I’ve skipped the last few PPVs because the booking has been so sloppy lately that they didn’t appeal to me, and honestly this show isn’t much better, but I guess I’ll be watching it out of habit.
Here’s my somewhat cynical predictions for the card:
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Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins for the Brock Lesnar Championship (which is what it should be called at this point since Vince refuses to give anyone else a decent run with it). Seth should win, but I won’t be surprised if he loses due to interference by, I dunno, Jinder Mahal or someone.
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Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Championship. Kofi should win this one, because another Orton title run serves no purpose at this point.
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Becky Lynch vs. Natalya, submission match for the Raw women’s championship. A Hart is having a title match in Canada, so this match is pretty much doomed to end with Becky putting Natalya in a sharpshooter and the bell ringing instantly for yet another reenactment of the Montreal Screwjob.
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Bayley vs. Ember Moon for the Smackdown women’s championship. Could go either way. I’m hoping Bayley retains, but Ember winning clean would also be satisfying.
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AJ Styles vs. Ricochet for the US title. Ricochet should win, but at this point I don’t have any faith in Vince’s ability to properly book Prince Puma, so AJ retains.
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Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan for the cruiserweight title. Gulak retains, I guess?
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Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens, Owens’ career is on the line. Owens loses so he can be “fired”, show up on TV week after week despite not being under contract any more, and somehow get his job back after beating Drew McIntyre at the next PPV.
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Trish Stratus vs. Charlotte. Trish wins because Vince will always put over nostalgia acts at the expense of the people who have to come back next week and try to draw a crowd.
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Dolph Ziggler vs. Bill Goldberg. Goldberg wins because Vince will always put over nostalgia acts at the expense of the people who have to come back next week and try to draw a crowd.
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Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor. If history is any indication, then Bray will win this match, lose the rematch at the next PPV, lose the rematch at the PPV after that, then on the following Raw he’ll pick a fight FOR NO RAISIN with, let’s say, the Miz.
I can’t really get into this card. I do want to see AJ vs Rico, Drulak vs Orkin, and Bray vs Finn, just to see the new Bray in action.
Natalya is an obvious pander to the Canadian audience, and she’ll be tucked back into the dugout when this is over, so I hope they give Vince one of their famous contrarian reactions. Same with Trish. She was wooden in her promo and worked zero percent of her tag match. It’s pretty much going to be Charlotte working with a broomstick. Zig is an obvious heat resurgence for Moldberg. He’ll get to beat a midcarder on SD next week before getting jerked into putting over another random up-and-comer.
They’ll probably have KO shave his head so he can be closer to SCSA reincarnated.
Takeover Toronto was NXT’s usual level of fucking awesomeness. SP vs UE opened the show, and it was a perfect match to get the crowd excited. Montez Ford used some of the Rock’s moves like the People’s Elbow and the Urinagi. I think he’s going to be a main eventer someday. Dawkins is Ford’s Big E sidekick. Fish and O’Reilly were their usual conniving bad guy selves.
Candace LaRae and Io Shirai was actually a good ol’ slobberknocker of a match. Both women were brutal, and LaRae used her husband’s playbook as far as taking bumps and looking on the verge of death.
The Triple Threat between VD, Dunne and Strong was a lot of fun. It was a balance of Dunne’s sadistic rage, Strong’s technical mastery, and Dream’s mischief.
Baizsler vs Yim went a different pace than the other matches. While Yim wanted to brawl, Baizsler kept controlling her with locks and holds until Yim would rake her eyes or pull her hair. It also looked they might have missed a few cues here and there. It was kind of an oil & water situation. It did have an interesting result in that Baizsler’s arm was too hurt to use her usual submission finisher, so she trapped Yim’s head in a triangle leg lock instead and made her tap out.
Guests in the audience included Ricochet, Austin Theory, and Walter. Looks like Theory is about to transition to NXT.
Gargano and Cole demonstrated they are the grandmasters of streaming wrestling. They were at each other’s throats and many other body parts for at least an hour. There were no run-ins, no distractions, and no rest holds. Gargano DQ’ed himself in the first match so he could beat up Cole with plundah, and that ultimately led to his undoing. At the end of the 2nd match, both men laid in the ring after a big spot, allowing the techs to run in and secure the cage as it lowered. I didn’t see the preshow, and don’t know if they covered the cage there, but it made for a nice reveal, being lowered from the upper stratosphere, showing the weapons attached to the sides, and the “oh shit” expressions of the two combatants as they realized things were about to get really harmful.
Did the show cut off for anybody else after Cole got the win? I tried to get back to the broadcast, but it wasn’t available. Weird.
The show cut off after Undisputed Era helped Cole out of the ring, almost at 11:00p EST exactly. About the only negative of the show was that it wasn’t the best Takeover ever (though that would be hard to choose). Still, it was an outstanding show. Baizsler was so good at selling the arm. Everyone short of Johnny Gargano should watch how she sold that. For me, the biggest downer was when Gargano got the barbed wire. I’m not a fan of blood and gore, but knowing WWE, you KNEW there wasn’t going to be any blood, so obviously they were going to avoid using it. And they didn’t.
Summerslam was actually pretty good. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat the entire time or anything, but most of the matches were more interesting than not. Honestly, the biggest takeaway of the night is Bray Wyatt. His new mask is absolutely spectacular and the fact he wrestles in it is amazing. WWE won’t do this, but he needs to never speak in this character and only do his talking through Firefly Funhouse segments and let this Fiend character do all the heavy lifting.
I miss Ambrose because Rollins is so boring and whitebread to me. I can’t stand him being the face of the company and I wouldn’t even mind Reigns to get back in the picture. I couldn’t care less about Rollins/Lesnar and I couldn’t care less about their rematch in Hell in a Cell in two months or whatever.
Notice whoever has the RAW belt becomes unlikeable?
Brock because he’s gone most of the time.
Seth because he’s boring.
Roman because he got pushed too much.
Goldberg because he’s old.
KO because well, he’s KO.
As over as Bray has become, even using his old head for the lantern, I can’t see him having any matches longer than a few minutes. One, because his entrance takes a while, and two, because he probably has trouble breathing latex-spawned air and inhaling his own sweat stench.
Plus, the only main event-level babyfaces left to feud with is Braun Stroman. That could be interesting, actually. The two are traveling buddies and have been discussing angles to pass the time.
I watched a lot of SummerSlam last night, but the last few matches, I watched today.
Did anyone else have a problem near the end of the Lesnar/Rollins match in which the audio inexplicably switched to German?
Don’t recall a language shift. I did lose HD for about 5 minutes - it was like when I first started watching wrestling over-the-air back in the 70s, but not in the nice, nostalgic way.
Definitely a watchable, if not entirely memorable show. I know, I know, I know Goldberg can’t go more than 5 minutes, but give us 5 freakin’ minutes please. I don’t think that is asking too much. Good point about breathing for The Fiend; that looks hotter than the lucha masks. With Finn Balor expected to take some time off, they should feed Bray a mid/upper-mid card baby face or 3 before getting him into the top tier. As much as I’d like to see Strowman beaten by him, I don’t see it happening. We don’t know what brand he’ll be on yet (if it really matters), but he can beat Rey Mysterio before building to facing Roman or Brawn. I’d keep him away from Ricochet, so that each can build.
Having said that, they’ll probably job him out to Brock Lesnar next PPV, because…WWE.
Buh-Buh Ray and D-Von Dudley (all the Dudleys actually) were created by ECW to be used by certain wrestlers. When they left acrimoniously, Paul Heyman told them that he was giving them the rights to the names but never followed through with the legal paperwork. When the WWE bought ECW’s assets, that included intellectual property such as characters, any original music, etc.
I’m assuming that wrestlers that come in under their own name have a limited rights deal that allow the WWE to control the name while that person is under contract and allow them certain rights in perpetuity while not giving up complete control.
Just my $.02 based one distant memories.
Don’t know if any of you watch Letterkenny on Hulu, but there’s a character in that show who would make a perfect wrestler character. Stewart, leader of the Skids, is a meth head who tries to intimidate people with his edginess and spectacularly fails. He wants to be Malcolm McDowell’s character from Clockwork Orange. If James Ellsworth grew his hair shoulder length, dyed it jet black, and wore a top hat, that would come close.
I couldn’t find any videos of Stewart at his best, but here’s one of the actor discussing the role.
Speaking of Canada, thank you Toronto for chanting “Thank you Sasha” when she swerved on Nattie. They can’t stand her daddy issues either.
Here’s Stone Cold Steve Austin on “Hot Ones”, where he shares wrestling stories while chomping down on hot wings of increasing intensity.
Here’s my predictions for the King of the Ring tournament:
RAW bracket:
Samoa Joe d. Cesaro
Ricochet d. Drew McIntyre
Sami Zayn d. Cedric Alexander
Baron Corbin d. The Miz
SmackDown Live bracket:
Kevin Owens d. Elias
Ali d. Buddy Murphy
Chad Gable d. Shelton Benjamin
Andrade d. Apollo Crews
RAW Round 2:
Ricochet d. Samoa Joe
Baron Corbin d. Sami Zayn
SmackDown Round 2:
Kevin Owens d. Ali
Andrade d. Chad Gable
RAW Finals:
Baron Corbin d. Ricochet
SmackDown Finals:
Kevin Owens d. Andrade
Finals:
Baron Corbin d. Kevin Owens
Because WWE is going to continue to push Baron Corbin down our throats.