thoughts on SummerSlam Note its two different writers (BTW when did SI start taking pro wrestling seriously?):
SI’s parent company, Authentic Brands Group, is 50% owner of Tapout.
The other 50% is owned by WWE.
Corporate synergy at work, I guess.
Whew… if anybody in the current era is going to bear old school battle scars the rest of his life like Dusty Rhodes and Abdullah the Butcher, it’s going to be Ilya Draganov. He had blood blisters all over his chest and face after his match with Walter.
Judging from Karrion Kross’ new costume, Vince must have just seen Zardoz for the first time this weekend.
I tried to give RAW a chance. I really did. But after seeing Ricochet get squashed by Karrion Zardoz…
While I would like to see more done with Ricochet, given his current place in the WWE framework, jobbing him out to Karrion Kross sadly makes sense. BUT that og-awful ring gear…
In other feuds I am not going to care about: Charlotte Flair vs Alexa Bliss and possibly Nia Jax vs Shayna Bazler part deux. The only way the latter works is if Bazler comes out strong and gets into the title picture. Slightly curious as to what is planned with Shaemus/Lashley, as both are heels, and Priest/McIntyre as both are faces. Pretty obvious Morrison is going face - let’s see if they rehabilitate him and let him get into the upper mid card.
Lastly, 5 weeks, no Asuka. I’m a sucker for The Empress of Tomorrow, and I keep watching just for her return, and nothing but disappointment (but I was already disappointed at her booking). Meltzer put out something regarding her status, which was retweeted by another wrestling “journalist” (where journalist means just repeat anything Meltzer says), and was shot down hard and angrily by Asuka. That was funny to read. She might have had oral surgery for her teeth and is taking time off to heal, but Asuka almost never gives out any details, and when she does, it is usually in Japanese.
AEW Dark Taz/Excalibur moment of the day
Lucha Brothers vs Aaron Solow and Nick Cammaroto
Camera shows Varsity Blonds at ringside
Taz: There’s the Varsity Blonds, like we mentioned, tomorrow night, tomorrow night? I’m sorry.
Ex: Tomorrow night.
Taz: Sometimes on the air, I lose my composure. Even the great ones make errors! You understand that Excalibur? Even the great ones!
Taz: Forget it Taz, I’m here to help. I’m here to support you!
Penta faces Cammarato, makes a big show of removing his glove, tosses it to Alex Alejandro at ringside, who then drops it. They try again and this time he catches it.
Ex: Alex gets fined $10,000 every time he drops the glove. So far, he’s at a net negative.
Taz (laughing): Net negative… or as Justin Roberts would say, a “home run.”
Ex laughs
Taz: Inside Joke Jones, no one else gets it.
The latest scuttlebutt is that Danielson is going to make his first AEW appearance next weekend at All Out.
I somehow managed to get the day off, and one of the movie theaters in town is going to be showing it live on the big screen, so I picked up a ticket because I’ve never seen Wrestling in a theater before and it might be fun to have a few other weirdos chanting at the TV with me.
Is it just me or is anyone else nervous about DB in AEW? With his history of concussions I don’t know if the extreme style of AEW is really the best decision.
The other bit of scuffle in my neck of the woods is that Dark might be taping at Impacts old stage here at universal and will be open to the public. If true I doubt I’ll be able to see anything with the baby, but still good to have more wrestling in Orlando
Congratulations!
Is the baby getting wrestling onesies?
Thank you! Yup she already does. Our announcement was wrestling related actually. We bought the onesie in advance and brought it to Takeover Stand and Deliver. We got a picture of us holding the onesie in front of the set and another of just the onesie on one of the branded chairs. “Our Tag Team is now a triple threat!”.
She’s due at the end of September and if my wife will let me I’ll upload a picture of her in her onesie
From what I’ve read, AEW is paying him the same as he got during his last WWE run, for fewer dates. He’s probably not gonna be wrestling every week - maybe every few Dynamites, the occasional Rampage, and on the PPVs. He definitely wrestles a lot safer now than he did in 2013-2014, he’s over 40, and he’s got a wife and two kids to provide for, so I don’t think he’s gonna be taking any more risks than he needs to. If anything, he can fall back on his technical wrestling chops and have any number of awesome matches where nobody ever climbs up on a rope or leaves the ring. He might get a world title run just for the sake of making him the first-ever ROH/WWE/AEW champ, but he’s probably gonna be more involved in the TNT and/or IWGP US title scenes.
What I’m really hoping for out of this run is that he has a chance to work some NJPW shows, because he could easily put on an all-time classic with Okada or Tanahashi.
baby? did we miss something important? congrats!
I wish new japan would put more on Roku or put their stream on there
AFAIK, NJPWWorld is only available through their website. It’s ¥999 per month ($9.13 as of my most recent charge) and they bill on the 1st of the month regardless of when you sign up, so you should subscribe right after the 1st if you want to get the most for your money.
Their next big event, Wrestle Grand Slam, is going to be airing next weekend over two nights - 4 AM Eastern/1 AM Pacific on the morning of Saturday the 4th, and 2 AM Eastern/11 PM Pacific on the morning of Sunday the 5th/evening of Saturday the 4th. Night One is set to feature Tanahashi defending the US title against Kota Ibushi, with Night Two featuring Shingo Takagi defending the world title against EVIL and Taichi/Zack Sabre Jr. defending the tag titles against Tetsuya Naito and SANADA.
There’ll probably be more six-man and eight-man and ten-man undercard matches than I’d like to see, but it should be a fun couple of shows to whet one’s appetite in the leadup to All Out.
We’re now going to see prettier people in NXT as they phase the uggo indies out. What fa duck Vince? AEW beat you in the ratings because they took the restricting clamps off their talent, not because they had prettier wrestlers. He’s truly going for style over substance and banking WWE’s future on non-talented pretty people.
Nope, you didn’t miss anything. I never really did a formal “We’re having a baby!” post anywhere on here. The process to have her and the pregnency itself have been going very smooth, almost too smoothly for how often terrible shit happens to us. Therefore, I’ve mostly kept quiet about it because I didn’t want to jinx anything.
She’s a girl, she’s due Sept. 30, she’s got one wrestling onsie so far, but I’m sure many more will be coming!
As for the NXT rebrand/refresh, I am one of the few who are all for it. Maybe not the tye-dye look, but NXT was best when it was Indie unknowns and in-house people learning what it takes to be on TV and wrestling for WWE. Sure the smarks watched more and freaked out when they signed Cole/Finn/Joe/etc. etc. And yes, DB, Rollins, Cesaro et.al were known on the Indies before coming to FCW/NXT…but they made their name in NXT. And finding and grooming the in-house talent is what got most of the stars of the roster right now. Give me an hour or two every week of people I’ve never seen, let me watch them grow up and grow into awesome wrestlers, then graduate them to WWE and go from there.
Well, you are about half my age, and Vince wants to attract your age group. Can’t say I blame him, but I think this is disrespectful. Indie stars got into wrestling because of their love for it. They slept in their cars, gambled their life savings, and performed at nearly empty venues to live their dream. Vince is telling them that doesn’t matter any more. He couldn’t mold them into his WWE formula because they’re too independent and have too many cosmetically unpleasing battle scars. He wants pretty drones.
Maybe this will work for him. He managed to resurge WWE to eventually defeat WCW in the ratings, but WCW had bloated themselves and was contributing to their own downfall. In this case, he’s pretty much retreating, letting AEW have his ageing fan base, and starting a new business that’s based on paint-by-numbers instead of actual artistic talent.
“And I’d like to think that maybe this company will be better after Vince McMahon’s dead, but the truth is, it’ll just get taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law.”
At the rate things are going, I think it’s more likely that Vince sells the company to either Comcast or Disney when he’s ready to retire. Personally, I think they’d do better with the latter, but the former feels more likely to me.
Oh man, I completely disagree.
There are plenty of opportunities for indie wrestlers who are doing it “for the love of the game” to have big name success. Not only for the obvious promotions like the superteam that is Impact/NJPW/AEW, but I believe or WWE as well.
The point of the rebrand isn’t “screw anyone in the indies, let’s just hire bodybuilders”, it’s “hey let’s not hire the biggest name in the big indie promotions and have them leave us in 5 years when their contract runs out”, it’s "let’s hire complete unknowns that we think have a ton of potential and work with them.
WWE knows that the people they have on their roster have more opportunities than ever before to go wrestle elsewhere. When your roster is full of people who are USED to being able to wrestle elsewhere and are unhappy, that’s just what they’re going to do. And a lot of the WWE (and NXT especially) is chock full of people who had prior success and want to go elsewhere. However, if you take someone who, for lack of a better phrase, doesn’t know any better, you can train them and mold them into what success is in YOUR promotion. Everybody wins. The prospect wins because they can be a pro wrestler and, in theory, will find success in their first promotion and not want to leave. The WWE wins because a happy wrestler is a loyal wrestler and they won’t want to leave.
Don’t hire an indy guy and be surprised when they want to go to the indy-centric promotion. Instead, hire the no-name and make them not want to leave because they’re happier where they are.
Lastly, there’s no way Disney wants a pro wrestling company under their belt…selling to Comcast is what would happen