Impact Wrestling has been banned from Twitch, due to a segment they ran which was basically softcore porn of Rob Van Dam in bed with two topless women.
You can change the name and change the management, but TNA gonna TNA.
That was the first Impact I had watched in a while, and those chicks were wearing pasties and swapping spit: a hair’s width from an R rating. RVD was channeling some Ric Flair at his playboy douchebag finest.
I like Don Callis on color. He makes Josh Matthews break character with his slow burns.
Booker T doesn’t like that men have to job to Tessa Blanchard now that she’s Impact world champ. but Lucha Underground booked women over men frequently and their matches were still awesome. LU also didn’t make a big deal about women breaking barriers or anything. With them, it was the gods demanding any able body take arms to satisfy their bloodlust. Gender didn’t matter.
I don’t know if it’s the best or worst part, but that is RVD’s real life gf, and her gf.
Lucha Underground was different, though, that was a fictional universe in a way that even the Undertaker at his most magical wasn’t. LU had literal gods and dragons, most people ended up connected to mystical Aztec tribes, etc.
I’m not sure I fully agree with Booker T’s comments, but I do think that it does put them in a bind if they want to keep things semi-realistic (which I’m not always sure about, as one moment they have Ken Shamrock doing MMA stuff, then the next they have Rosemary literally teleporting around)
Ohhh that makes more sense. A facebook group I’m a part of was freaking out when Alex Shelley came out and I hadn’t any idea why…now I do.
Thanks for this.
…and he jobs on his debut.
Seriously, search for Motor City Machine Guns matches and your mind will be blown.
I wonder if Vince will try to make this an angle where Becky Lynch sent an assassin after Asuka?
Asuka Escapes Building During Las Vegas Fashion Show Mall Shooting
NXT Worlds Collide was beautiful. I thought it’d be a one-off, but this was booked to fine detail. Each pair of opponents studied each other’s playbook and countered each other’s signature moves. There were a few blown spots here and there, but they recovered adroitly and the commentators would add some sort of detail to make it not look so bad. Each participant had their own entrance style, and if they were a team, they’d do some kind of group gesture in time with their entrance music. Each tag team would wear identical trunk styles. The overall setting had a main event boxing match feel. The announcements reverberated like echos, and they only kept the ring under lights. The focus was purely on the talent. Nobody had their spotlight stolen.
I was surprised to see Jordan Devlin win the Cruiserweight belt, but I’m glad he did. I was afraid his career was destined to be main event jobber, but he all the sudden won a belt! Not only that, he got to gloat about it afterwards and make the audience hate him more.
The last match, Alexander Wolf got injured and taken out early. I guess it was legit, though I couldn’t really tell what happened. He had taken a double kick from the former ReDDragon, and Fish did a cover, but it looked like Fish jumped off as if Wolf had actually kicked out, but he just barely jostled. That’s when the ref called for the ring medics. The camera didn’t show Wolf being looked at with concern, so it must not have been kayfabe. Still, this was the best kind of match for someone to get legit injured, as it immediately continued as a 4 on 3 contest. US made Walter look like the Incredible Hulk. They flew across the ring whenever he smacked them. After Imperium won, they stood on the ramp in formation under the spotlights, as if Alexander Wolf never existed. Damn, that’s going to kill his career. It makes him look like a wuss who wasn’t needed for the win.
doubled nm
Wolf got kicked in the face hard, right on the bridge of the nose. Probably went into concussion protocol. Nigel was wonderful, saying that O’Reilly (think it was O’Reilly, but might have been Fish) put his hand under the shoulder for extra leverage and the red caught it. Makes no sense, but great explaining on the fly to the TV audience about why Wolf didn’t kick out.
Without spoiling, that was a very, very, very well booked Men’s Royal Rumble match. Better than the Women’s, unlike last year. And, IMO, the right guy won. Hope it translates into a good WM match.
+1. This was one of the best WWE PPVs I saw in years. The right guy did win (Drew McEntyre) and he looked fantastic, eliminating Brock with a slight assist from Ricochet. Nothing felt like Vince’s hands were involved. No pointless last-minute belaboring, no “fuck the previous storyline” moments, no obvious preference for Vince’s flavor-of-the-week…
Mr. and Mrs. Edge Phoenix came back and looked tough. Beth’s head got gashed and her hair was half blood throughout her time in the WRR, but she stuck it out and hasn’t lost a step. She sounds so nice on NXT commentary, but she was anything but nice to her opponents. Edge looked like a grizzled rock star and took a few scary-looking bumps, considering his reason for retirement. He and Orton reunited to take out a few opponents, prompting one to ask “who’s going to backstab first?” It was the Rated R Superstar of course. Welcome back Edge! I look forward to seeing him work with the guys that came after his heyday, like AJ Styles.
Beanca BelAir looked scary good and she should be some kind of champ. I still can’t get into heel Bailey, and the announcers wore out the “rough childhood” angle with Lacey Evans. They need to stop involving the wrestlers’ children. Lacey’s daughter looked like she was laughing, just like Shane McMahon’s kids did when his face was mashed into the side of a cage a couple years ago. Daniel Bryan took some nasty lashes in the strap match, but got in a good comeback on Bray by pulling the strap across the Fiend’s mouth like a garrote. It was reminiscent of Mr. Bill getting his face mashed by Mr. Sluggo in the old SNL days. Oh Nooooo!
Most of the entire PPV was very, very good. Roman and Corbin started us off with an entertaining brawl that ended up on the Astros’ dugout. I was wondering if they’d be allowed to go that far. The right people won the Royal Rumble matches. I expect Becky’s title reign to end at Charlotte’s hands at WrestleMania. Not sure about Brock’s against Drew.
It’s great to see Drew McIntyre pushed not only as the guy who eliminated Brock, but as the guy who won the Royal Rumble. I’ve liked him for a few years now. I’ve even had him win the Royal Rumble in the WWE '12 video game and go on to defeat John Cena at WrestleMania. Lesnar looked like a monster, as well he should have, in setting the elimination record for a 30-man Royal Rumble and tying it overall.
Bryan vs. Wyatt was brutal but thankfully not one-sided, though it was at first. And good to see Becky finally beat Asuka.
Drew has the in-ring talent and mic talent to make a run at the top. Hopefully they give him a shot. As for Asuka vs. Lynch, I personally would have preferred something more along the lines of Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven where it took Dreamer ~2 years to overcome Raven (Raven was jumping to WCW, but subverting convention was being given substantive consideration). Given the only other “screw job” was a handful of tights, I think they could even have given Asuka a count-out or DQ win. They wouldn’t have to fight over and over and over again, but whenever it was revisited, there would be a built-in story. But that’s just my fantasy booking.
Am I the only one that didn’t like the Rumble? I was bored to tears and thought the constant throwing out of actual superstars was a classic case of burying the roster. The most interesting the Rumble got was AFTER Brock was gone.
Having Brock roll through guys like that did what exactly? Show him as tough? We knew that. That he never loses? We knew that. It was just stupid.
I didn’t really dig Brock’s dominance either. I haven’t liked that style of booking since he did those 15 zillion suplexes to John Cena. WWE even makes legit negative audience reaction to him an angle. But, Hulk Hogan used to be booked this way, and he eventually became enhancement talent. Don’t worry, Brock will eventually get to the point where he’ll be lucky to be booked in a match with the kid who was Braun Strowman’s tag partner.
Fortunately, it led to Drew getting his moment in the sun. Plus, Brock’s presence means Paul Heyman gets to deliver an epic promo.
Brock’s not going to let that happen. He’ll just go home to his farm and Sable and smoke cigars wrapped in all the cash Vince is paying him to be a part-timer.
It felt to me as if they went out of their way to make sure that neither of the monster heels in the two Rumbles would be allowed to keep the “most eliminations” record - just to share it with somebody else.
As for Brock, I am guessing that it was a case of, “Let’s put Brock over as unstoppable machine - oh, wait, look, somebody eliminated him - oh, wait, look again, the guy who eliminated him ended up winning; gee, I wonder who he’s going to choose to wrestle at WrestleMania?”
If anyone here had WWE stock, hope you weren’t planning on selling it in the next few days. WWE’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Revenue Officer both just left, effective immediately.
That’s…not likely to be good news and the market appears to be reacting like it’s bad news. Meltzer is speculating that it’s a scapegoat firing for upcoming bad Q4 financials, but I tend to think firing two C-level execs is more than just an off quarter.
I have a few, but I wasn’t planning on selling any time soon. Besides, with WWE Stock, I also get the Annual Report, which has a habit of telegraphing who’s going to get a push in the near future.