Mr.Showtime

I knew absolutely nothing of Dino Bravo outside of the WWF so it was interesting to catch a small glimpse of his career before that. Admittedly though the episode peaked with, "You know who I am! I'M THE MOUNTIE!"

12 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Does anyone on here live in Vietnam?

I do, although at the opposite end of the country. Licensing laws as you'd expect here are a bit madcap, any family can just seemingly steal any old logo or shop name and throw it up on their front door and shazam, you have a new coffee shop. It's mostly seen with tourist agency shops, where a couple of places will flat-out just call their company exactly the same as the legit successful one down the street. 😂 But WWE is almost non-existent here so that's a new one to me!

Yeah it was entertaining enough to sit through, even for someone like me who has only watched the last 6 or 7 of these episodes, and never followed their careers outwith the show. You're not supposed to take it seriously which is the main thing. The montage at the end also means I don't have to go back and watch any more of 'em, heh.

The winner of the main event to grab the briefcase, escape the building on helicopter, and look back as Titan Towers CGI explodes and slowly burns to the ground. THAT'S how they will set up an off-season for the next couple of months 😀

Braun Strowman: "I know Bray Wyatt inside out. His mind games won't work with me."

Not even 10 seconds later - monster immediately shits himself at obvious mind games. *switches off*

Steve Blackman: Bounty Hunter, obvs.

I'm playing through WWE 2k20's career mode (I didn't have to pay for it...) and halfway through, Braun Strowman wins the Universal Title in an empty arena match. It's really weird!

I had no idea such huge matches were on this week - I knew NXT were going to have Takeover matches spread out over the next while but I didn't really see proper promotion for what was on and when.

I'm sure there will be a ton of discussion about the main event here. In short, for me, I thought it was mostly stupid to watch and only the way they introduced it, and the last five minutes, were interesting. I'm not one of those huge haters of these guys but again, without a crowd, a lot of this is not working. I enjoyed the end though. Always better when you've no idea how it's gonna go.

I'm in agreement with Supes there - Funhouse was funny as hell but I still preferred the Taker stuff the previous night. I didn't mind Edge/Orton but I definitely zoned out for about a third of it and basically had it on as background noise. Works better that way(!) Skipped or fast-forwarded through a lot of the other stuff, and weird to see Drew/Brock laid out exactly the same as Goldberg/Braun the night before! Was Drew the only performer on the entire two-night thing that actually looked into the camera and talked to the audience (Cena doesn't count because he always does that)? If that was deliberate, it felt much more meaningful because of it. Good lad.

Are they really going to do a Money in the Bank PPV with no crowd? Ewww.

The main event was superb, I was grinning through the whole thing. I enjoyed Owen v Rollins and think that should have kicked off the show. Everything else I never want to see again. I'm worried for McIntyre as I had a feeling after a while that they've switched some results from what they'd initially planned so as to wait for a batch of rematches when the fans are back.

Chris Jericho steals the show once again.

 

Quote

Release the hounds! 😂

 

The first-ever NXT Takeover took place in May 2014 at Full Sail, just two months after WrestleMania 30. I don’t remember ever watching this in full, as I think I began to watch NXT properly the following year, but I’ve definitely seen the women’s championship match. Let’s see if I missed anything else.

On commentary were Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton and William Regal, who introduced himself with a cheeky “hello!” and could be seen dancing away at the desk after the first match. Which was a huge one.

The show kicks off with Adam Rose and his Rosebuds entering the arena from outside, heading to the ring for the opening contest. Some of those trailing behind Rose included Braun Strowman, Becky Lynch, and the twat from the Vaudevillains.

Adam Rose took on Camacho, who was released from the company just a couple of weeks after this. Camacho, whose career highlight was probably getting beat up alongside a bunch of other people by the Undertaker and Kane at Raw 1000, was not happy with Rose having fun at his job. But Rose couldn’t help himself. He was loving it.

After a minute or so of comedy, a beatdown, then a quick comeback, Adam Rose was your victor after 5 minutes. A Takeover classic.

After Rose and his gang fuck off back to their bus, we go back to the ring to Eden Stiles. Eden who?

Eden Stiles! Whatever happened to her? What a babe.

She even still has her own WWE profile page: WWE.com Eden profile

However, on this show, I thought she looked so BORED.

Next up, we get The Ascension against Kalisto and… El Local?? Who the hell is this?

I had to search for El Local online, and lo and behold it’s Ricardo Rodriguez, the personal ring announcer of Alberto del Rio!

El Local was released about two months after this show. Judging by this match, it’s no surprise. It was a quick 6-minute tag, but El Local seemed sloppy. He almost stomped on Kalisto’s face jumping into the ring after the hot tag, flailed a nasty-looking kick at one of the Ascension lads, and almost missed completely with a jumping slingshot… thing off the ropes. The Ascension quickly took advantage and smashed them up. Entirely forgettable.

Next up is Tyler Breeze vs Sami Zayn, in a number one contendership match. There’s a fun pre-match video package, highlighting that Sami is struggling to win matches. Tyler Breeze is great getting his character over in this. I always thought he was a decent hand. The match was good also.

At 16 minutes or so, it didn’t outstay its welcome. And there was a unique ending that I didn’t see coming - Sami went to hit the Helluva Kick, but Breeze put his fists up across his face in an X shape to protect his beautiful face and Sami basically went balls first into said fists. One Beauty Shot spinning heel kick later, and Tyler Breeze became the number one contender!

WWE has actually provided the last two minutes of the match here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjda9pO1PfE

Before the next match, the Ravishing Russian Lana comes out and introduces her main squeeze, Rusev! He comes out waving his flag around, then Mojo Rawley comes out with an American flag! And hilariously, even though this was six years ago, even back then Mojo was treated like a pure loser. Rusev battered him immediately. Good stuff.

I could not find a photo online but shown in the crowd was KRIS KRISTOFFERSON! A bit mad I thought, at first. The country singer-songwriter has a special place in my heart as he was the star in 1978 movie Convoy, a film about trucks just moving along on the motorway, one after the other. Honestly, it’s great. My wee brother, who wanted to be a trucker like our dad, would put this on all the time, using a thing called a video cassette. I preferred to watch Twins, but oh well. But there’s no mistaking that the theme tune to Convoy is amazing.

Convoy by C.W. McCall

Anyways it turned out Kris’ son Jody was in NXT for a little bit at the time.

Paige here! The new WWE Divas Champion returned to NXT to show off her belt. Beating AJ Lee on her Raw debut just prior to this, then-NXT General Manager JBL stripped Paige (just of her belt, not anything else) and put the NXT gold on the line in a tournament, with the final taking place RIGHT NOW! Oh, and already I don't remember a thing Paige said.

Charlotte (w/Ric Flair) vs Natalya (w/Bret Hart)

It’s a 17-minute match and it’s not bad. I just don’t get invested in any Natalya stuff. I don’t know - I’ve always wanted to like her, there’s just something off or missing all the time. So yeah it’s a good exhibition of what the women can do, but it’s nothing special, especially when you compare it to upcoming NXT battles involving the likes of Sasha Banks and Bayley.

Bret Hart and Ric Flair don’t do much during the bout, but having them there of course helps the match have a big-time feel. Charlotte and Natalya trade some submissions towards the end, especially a back-and-forth figure four, and I don’t think Charlotte had the figure-eight yet because she escaped the submission attempts and finished Nattie off with Natural Selection. We have a new Women’s Champion, and Charlotte better start getting used to carrying those heavy belts around…

Tyson Kidd v Neville

Your main event, for the NXT Championship, is between champion Adrian Neville and Hart member Tyson Kidd. A video package shows how we got here, with Neville successfully defending the gold against Bo Dallas, before winning a mini-feud with Brodus Clay (although Neville got a few teeth knocked out in the process). Now we have Tyson Kidd, in what they say is maybe his last chance for a title and an opportunity to get back to the main roster. Neville does his best to put over Kidd as a danger to his title reign. I’m not buying it though.

Tyson and Natalya have an awkward embrace before Tyson heads out to the ring, and this one is on. 

Quick highlights of the match are below, including an impressive jumping-middle-rope-Russian-leg-sweep thing, top rope huricanranna, and some other flippy stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAtFCKX5gmY

Ultimately, Neville retains the gold with his superb Red Arrow finish. A decent 20-minute match. Again, I was just not that invested in Tyson Kidd, but it was interesting to see Neville at this point in his career. It’s obvious he’s a machine, they just gotta get the character to shine through.

And that was that. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch any of this again, and it must be very low down on the Takeover list, but it wasn’t offensive. There was a buzz about the show, the fans were supportive, it was nice to have Regal on commentary (although I hate Saxton’s over-the-top enthusiasm, bloody hell there’s been six years of this!)

As an aside, in case anyone is still unaware, the WWE Network is currently offering free access to every single NXT Takeover show, along with a bunch of other WWE pay-per-views, and the Ruthless Aggression series, which I'm working through now, it's worth a watch. Stay safe everyone

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

It’s no wonder Jericho wasn’t happy with the segment. You’ve got one of the greatest minds for what works in the business in Jericho and then a lad in Matt who’s coming up with the type of shit you’d find written in the back of a teenage goth’s exercise book....

.....If fucking teleporting is the first thing Matt wants to do, suggesting it’s one of his better ideas, can you even imagine the shit he’s probably been pitching to Vince? 

I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread (although iPuma above explains a little bit about the rushing of the segment) but according to Jericho on his YouTube Q&A type thing the other day, the segment was his own idea. Could be nonsense of course, but that's what he said, in particular in terms of the teleport stuff. Personally I thought it was funny as a one-off, but not so much for Matt Hardy but because of Jericho's reaction to it all. Trying to keep a straight face, indulging in Matt's nonsense, and keeping calm about the whole thing as long as he could. As it's returning a favour for the Young Bucks, they can easily explain it as a one-off, then maybe use Matt in other ways. Here's hoping.

“Mr. Showtime... you just made the list!!”

 

 

 

(Put me on the list please thanks)

1 hour ago, King Pitcos said:

Who are these people?

I was thinking of like Carbomb and stuff.

If WWE could just get to WrestleMania and close out all “storylines”, now would be the perfect time to have an off-season for the first time ever, and get some knowledgeable wrasslin’ boffins to sit down and write out a years’ worth of television before they go back on TV. That’d be nice, right? 😕

15 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

That tag match was something else. I’ve never really enjoyed the Bucks but that was arguably the best tag match I’ve ever seen.

I agree. Never watched them outside AEW, or Page, so I don’t know the full history between the four of them and it didn’t matter a bit. Full of storytelling anyone could understand and the time flew by too.

The only thing I was hoping to see at the end was, instead of the lariat tease (which was still great), I wanted Page to just walk up to Omega and slap him in the face, as if to say “You should NEVER have been concerned about me.”

I couldn’t stop laughing at the Inner Circle’s entrance for the main segment. Entertaining stuff all round (not sure about the women, I’m still skipping most of that for now).

It was mentioned in this thread earlier but the Bucks really annoy me, always hanging right over Omega like he’s their fucking baby. Then in the interview they did the whole “You’d be nothing without us!” schtick with Page, and insisting they are the best team in the world. Of course they’re the heels...

The fans were great though, super atmosphere to watch along with 👍🏼

The only thought I have for the rumble right now is this - if number 2 does a Kofi and charges at Lesnar or actually engages with him, when all they have to do is just stall for 90 seconds until some help comes out, I’m going to be extremely irked. 😂

What the hell, that’s all I’ve got hahaha

I'm sure many of you caught it at the time but I only yesterday found out about the Mauro Ranallo documentary from Showtime (it's on YouTube), which covers his life right up to when he started at NXT. I really didn't know that much about him and this opened my eyes to what he's been through, and puts what happened the other week in a new light for me. Worth watching for sure if any of you haven't seen it.

Despite having watched wrestling almost every day in like forever, and hearing his bloody name all the time, it's only really this year that I've actually started to listen to him on random youtube videos. For a minute or two. His writing, wherever it's done, may be in-depth and accurate, I've no idea. But I can't listen to him long before switching off.

If I'm listening to a correspondent or reporter in almost any other field, even if just on youtube or on a podcast etc, they know what they want to say, they've prepared it, they've got the main points in their head, and they get straight to it. Meltzer often goes 'So, here's the thing, and, y'know, well, right. So, the thing about it is - and here's the way I was told it... wait wait before we get to that, you know, and I don't know why...' Then he'll get a sentence of info out, maybe sigh before completing and then the other lad jumps in for a bit.

And almost anything they're saying, two of us could be sitting at a desk and speculating and getting just as close to reality as they probably are, in fact in some cases even more so because we don't have actual wrestlers possibly feeding us bullshit on purpose. I think I've read on here before he may have problems with speech or focusing and that's fine if that's the case. I wouldn't be very good presentation-wise either. He's just not for me. Twitter is another level which I won't even bother getting involved in when it comes to wrestling - I get angry enough on there following politics 😂

I'm okay with Kofi losing quickly to Brock, but by just running towards him and jumping into his finisher position for him?! Fair enough if Kofi went for a quick Trouble in Paradise and he misjudged the spin and got caught (or Brock anticipated it), I can believe that. Just leaping into his arms though, what the hell. Ever since Brock returned years back, most of his opponents have charged straight for him and I think it's only really worked for Goldberg...

I had somehow never known until now that Montez Ford and Bianca Belair are married. Ugh what a couple...

I'm no fan of Swagger, and he was totally out of place in Lucha Underground and one of the main reasons why I stopped watching it, but if he's here as a bodyguard back-up type guy for prick Jericho then that's probably the best spot for him. It's not like the company threw him in there to position him as the next Hulk Hogan.

It was a decent enough show for me and looked great but as said above, I'd have liked more vignettes or something along those lines. I only dip into non-WWE stuff every so often and I don't know much about many of the guys on the show. I had never seen Sammy Guevara before, for example, and they helped me out with the opening vid, so thumbs-up for that! More of that please.