STC, WhatCulture identified the participants of the NXT Halloween battle royal, but they didn’t know who was inside Pandamonium.
I wish they would have done everyone instead of just a top 10. But I’m glad they got the statue of Caeser in there…God he was funny.
There are some interesting reports circulating about the delays getting the wrestlers back from Saudi Arabia, which indicate that “mechanical issues” may be a cover for what happened.
If these reports are to be believed, the Saudis were behind on payments for Crown Jewel and the previous show, and Vince delayed SA’s feed of Crown Jewel by an hour, then killed it altogether halfway through, to get them to pay up. It’s further reported that MBS personally responded by ordering the flight to be held up for 24 hours, and that Vince had already left the country on a private flight while the wrestlers were stuck there.
If true, then Vince is an utter shitheel and WWE’s talent should refuse to work any future Saudi shows.
This has happened to WWE overseas before. AFAIK it was always a matter of paying some baksheesh, bribes to local officials. If Vince did this it was monumentally stupid, WWE stock tanked because he couldn’t close foreign market deals that he had been hyping. Why the hell would he mess up the foreign market deal he did have?
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Vince legitimately believed he could play hardball with the Saudis as if they were just another NWA territory he busted in the '80s.
Talent has always had the option to refuse the Saudi trip. Bryan and Owens have refused to go in the past. From what I’ve heard the payouts for the Saudi shows make it worth the trip.
And Vince has ALWAYS been an utter shitheel.
I’ve been binge watching Stargate Atlantis, and there’s a scene in the second season that had me laughing my ass off. Jason Momoa plays Ronon Dex, and he threw a Superman Punch in a fight scene. This was in 2006, and Roman Reigns didn’t start his career until 2010.
Ronon, tall dude with dreds, goatee, similar sounding name… Not the first blatant ripoff, but it was fun to come across it.
The “Superman Punch” is a fairly common cinematic punch, and that look goes even further back (one of the characters in Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda had the same look). Maybe someone saw Andromeda and copied it, but if they said that’s not where it came from, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.
Moreover, it’s a legitimate MMA strike.
I hope I’m not the only person who cracked up laughing when Wrestling Superstar Virgil popped up in Jericho’s hype video tonight.
I wonder who the Superman Punch is named after. Maybe it was some MMA guy named Sid Superman or something.
I thought he had to go by “Vincent” outside of WWE.
Wait a minute…Vincent (as his wrestling name) is probably a WCW trademark, and Vince now owns those, too.
They referred to him by his old Mid-South name, Soultrain Jones.
Here’s the card for Full Gear:
- AEW World Championship: Chris Jericho © vs. Cody Rhodes; a panel of judges will decide the winner if the 60-minute time limit expires; if Cody loses, he will never challenge for the world title again
- AEW Women’s Championship: Riho © vs. Emi Sakura
- AEW Tag Team Championship: SCU © vs. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix vs. Private Party
- Lights Out match: Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega
- The Young Bucks vs. LAX
- Hangman Page vs. PAC
- Joey Janela vs. Shaun Spears
- Dr. Britt Baker vs. Bea Priestly
It oughta be an awesome show, and they’ve got my money.
In the meantime, please enjoy this clip of Ken Shamrock (who at age 55 looks like what would have happened if Al Bundy had done a shitload of steroids) taking Joey Ryan’s dick-plex.
I met up with my pals Tom & Lisa last night to watch Extreme Midget Wrestling in Southern Pines NC at the Southwest Bar & Grill. Lisa took the place of Tom’s brother Darin, who died a month ago. He would have loved this event and would have heckled the midgets at top volume.
Here’s an album of pictures I took.
The ring was 1/4 the size of a regular wrestling ring, and our seats were right next to it. The whole bar’s lighting was a couple of ceiling fans with bulbs. I got the hot wings and they were surprisingly excellent. Me and Tom started talking about Rodney Dangerfield, and the chick sitting next to us never heard of him. Damn millenials.
All told, there were five guys who worked the entire show, in addition to the ring announcer: the Lumberjack, the Rasta, the midget Bray Wyatt, the Chicken, and the Ex Con. They took turns acting as referee, but really, there was no regularity. In the second match, the midget Bray Wyatt acted as ref, and the two participants would take turns beating him up. After that match, they beat him up again, then he slipped out of the ref shirt and put on gloves. The Rasta put on a Jamaican shirt with vertical stripes and acted as the referee for midget Bray Wyatt vs the Lumberjack. Every match was no DQ. They hit each other with cookie sheets and pool sticks, and frequently crotched each other with the plastic mop sign.
They slammed each other pretty hard. The mat boards cracked with booming volume. Our favorite was the Chicken. We started singing the Chicken Dance song and did the claps. He called me Santa Claus and the crowd popped. He was jacking and jawing with the crowd and calling them “Dumb clucks.” There was a handicapped guy in the audience with a walker and they used it. His wife didn’t want them to, but the crowd kept calling for it. In the last match, all five participated at various times. Nobody acted as ref, so the ring announcer did the 1-2-3’s. All in all, it was a pretty crazy night in a small town bar, and nobody got arrested.
And now, please enjoy Asuka trying out her new rice cooker.
That pork belly miso actually looks pretty good. I’d love to have her recipe.
How soon before…
“And introducing Chris Jericho’s mystery opponent for the AEW World Championship…from Diablo Canyon, Colorado, the Midnight Rider!”
Wow, I thought I was the only one who remembered angles from 35 years ago. 
That of course, was Dusty, wearing a mask and cowboy attire after he lost a “loser leaves town” match to Ole Anderson I believe, who was the biggest heel at the time. Cowboy Bill Watts was Dusty’s mouthpiece, swearing up and down “This isn’t who you think it is!”
I don’t remember if that angle actually resolved. Dusty was making the rounds in all the NWA territories at the time, and that was another reason for him to be off the air for a few months. I think it just petered out.
Not so much “petered out,” IIRC, but I think they did what they did with the Brian Pillman/Yellow Dog angle - they announced a reinstatement, and the Midnight Rider just vanished without a trace after that.
Not to be confused with the James Boys angle (Dusty and Magnum - or were they? - in masks as “Frank and Jesse James”), which ended when the James Boys were unmasked as a couple of midcarders by the Midnight Express, who were then attacked by Dusty and Magnum.