air_raid

I like to think I’m catching up, but I still don’t know who half those faces belong to.

The Match That Started It All OK, I’ve told this story a dozen times. My mate Simon was into the WWF - trading cards, tapes, Superstars on his Game Boy, a small collection of Hasbros, everything. I didn’t get it, my dad had told me it was fake, and despite my primary interest being cartoons about robots battling for the future of Earth or talking turtles, this meant it was a waste of time watching. Simon handed me a tape from his sisters video shop one day and said “Just watch it” with wisdom beyond his years - we were still in Cubs, for context. The tape was WrestleMania VI. I’ve also recounted how the colours, music, overall presentation etc made me realize early on this was something I was going to enjoy. And by the time Demolition made their entrance, it wasn’t getting switched off before the end. I’ve probably shared that watching the Harts smash the Bolsheviks I decided Bret “Hitman” Hart was the coolest cat alive, and might even have known then that he was going to be my favourite. Ultimately (no pun intended) it’s possible that if the show hadn’t delivered a memorable main event, that it might have been a fun one off viewing that at least stopped me taking the piss out of Simon for watching the fake fighting. Instead, it put an exclamation point on three hours that changed the course of my life* forever. (1) Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior To understand the impact this match had, it's worth pointing out that as a video shop tape, it came in a video shop box so I didn't know what "WrestleMania VI" was going to involve until I pressed play. The opening had Vince McMahon immediately do a voiceover so iconic in my brain that I reckon I can recite it verbatim ; “Upon the examination of the galaxies of space, images begin to appear. Images of strange and powerful forces. But of all the forces in the universe, the two most powerful…. HULK HOGAN….. and THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR…. prepare to explode! Champion vs champion, title for title! It’s the ULTIMATE CHALLENGE, it’s WrrrrrestleMANIAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!” ... you're going to have to tell me if any of that isn't correct. I was absolutely SHOOK when I saw this ; I knew from all the trading cards and toys etc that "Hulk Hogan" and "Ultimate Warrior" were two of the biggest characters and immediately I learned that they indeed had wrestled each other, and I was going to see it. When Gorilla informed me that the Hulkster was putting his title up against the Intercontinental title, I didn't really know what it meant, but it sounded like each man had a prestigious belt, and just like happened in the boxing, this was going to be for both. Without knowing anything about the WWF, I knew this at least SOUNDED like a big deal. With that powerful intro, midway through the tape there were duelling interviews from the men involved. I say interviews, but really they were monologues. First Mean Gene introduced Hulk Hogan, "the greatest World Wrestling Federation Champion of all time", who gave a typically Hogan promo ; "You know something, Mean Gene? You don't have to remind me and my Hulkamaniacs that at Skydome we're gonna face the Ultimate Challenge, brother. When we crossed the border from the United States of America to Canada, I was hovering over Skydome, brother. I saw what was beneath me, man. I saw the greatest arena of all times, where the Ultimate Challenge will take place and as we landed brother, nothing but stark raving Hulkamaniacs were there to greet me at the airport. Nothing but positive vibes, man. Hulkamania is running wild like it's never ran before! But the Ultimate Warrior, you must realize that when you step into Skydome, when you feel the energy that's gonna run wild throughout the arena, those are my people. That's my energy, brother. And Ultimate Warrior, this is where the power lies, man, and the power of the Hulkster, the largest arms in the world and once I get you down on your knees, Ultimate Warrior, I'm gonna ask you one question, brother. I'm gonna ask you: do you want to live forever? And if your answer is yes, Ultimate Warrior, then breathe your last breath into my body. I can save you. My Hulkamaniacs can save you. We can turn the darkness that you live in into the light! We can save all your little Warriors with the training, the prayers, and the vitamins, but I got to prove one thing to all my little Hulkamaniacs out there, it's not whether you win or whether you lose, the only thing that matters is what kind of winner you are or what kind of loser you are and Ultimate Warrior, I sure hope you're a good loser, brother. Whatcha gonna do at Skydome when the largest arms in the world and Hulkamania destroys you?!!" .... I mean, Jesus Christ. Immediately they cut to Sean Mooney with the Intercontinental champ who scowled "YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A NORMAL!!" before ejecting Sean and going on to growl, without a microphone required in his face ; "Hulk Hogan, I must ask you now as you asked me. Do you, Hulk Hogan, want your ideas, your beliefs to live forever? For Hulk Hogan, in this normal world, physically none of us can live forever. But the places you have taken the Hulkamaniacs, the ideas and beliefs that you have given them can live through me, Hulk Hogan. That is why I breathe. That is why the Warriors have come. Hulk Hogan, there are ones that question where you are taking them. Do you no longer want to walk or step into that darkness? Hulk Hogan, the darkness I speak of is nothing of fear. It is about the beliefs...of accepting any and all challenges at the cost of losing everything, Hulk Hogan. You have lived, Hulk Hogan, for the last five WrestleManias for this one belief. Now, Hulk Hogan, I come to take what you believe in further then you ever could. I come, Hulk Hogan, not to destroy the Hulkamaniacs and Hulkamania. I come, Hulk Hogan, to bring the Warriors and Hulkamaniacs together as one as we, Hulk Hogan, accept all the challenges with all the strengths of the Warriors and the Hulkamaniacs together. Hulk Hogan, the colors of the Hulkamaniacs are coming through the pores of my skin...and Hulk Hogan, when we meet, Hulk Hogan, I will look at you and you will realize then that I have come to do no one no harm, but only, Hulk Hogan, to take what we both believe in to places it shall never have been!" ... I mean, I nearly misinterpreted Warrior as a villain here, such was his treatment of the inoffensive Mooney and shouty scariness. But his words sounded like he wanted to create a new and better world for both his followers AND the Hulkamaniacs if one of them was going to fall (and clearly he was suggesting Hogan was going to fall) so.. maybe not? But... fuck. The tape cut to The Rockers making their entrance but... Jesus wept, I doubt I thought about much more than the main event collision for the next ten minutes or more. You know that South Park where they do the wrestling pastiche and it's all about the orphan lost in the woods or whatever, nothing to do with matches, and people are saying "This is the best wrestling I've ever seen?" It's the truth! Here were these two massive blokes telling me their story and we were still quite a few minutes away from the actual match coming on. When the match itself came, I was off the charts excited. Presentation was amazing. Both wrestlers entering on their own power without using the little carts immediately them both seem a bigger deal than everyone that had come before. 65,000 Canucks making noise and waving giant cardboard Warriors, Hogans or waving banners, the way Fink boomed "the Intercontinental Champion" and then "the WORLD Wrestling Federation Champion" made me feel both prizes were worth fighting for. The call was fantastic right from the start with Monsoon pointing out the Warrior running to the ring, Jesse Ventura convinced that was a mistake and that the wise experienced head of The Hulk took his time. That would continue throughout, with both debating experience for Hogan vs youth for Warrior, comparing the use of weardown holds by each (a chinlock by Hogan, a bear hug by Warrior). The action would be considered basic by today's standards but for two blokes never lauded for "storytelling..." this match told you a story. They used the test of strength, which in most matches ever I think of as a colossal waste of time, but here it looked like a genuine tussle. The two men traded big bombs and fought for who was stronger and who could wear the other down. There are multiple things in this match which were intensely dramatic for me, as my first main event, that I'd never quite see the same again. The ref bump was completely unexpected and I didn't have a clue what was going to happen without a ref. Hogan did a reasonably short leg injury bit, and again I was on the edge of my seat. Hogan's elbowdrops looked like they'd kill you, a belly to back suplex from him looked as impressive as the moves that ended several of the other matches on the tape, Warrior's double axe-handle off the top was sold by Hogan like they were lethal. I'd later come to learn that a Hulk Hogan match would tend to follow a formula, but this was a true back and forth. The foreshadowing shot of Hogan on the floor clinging onto Warrior's foot as Jim just stands there breathing in the adulation from his fans was incredible, and when he pressed Hogan over his head I lost my mind. The last minute of the match is a treat, even without knowing (as I didn't) how Hogan's finishing sequence usually goes down. I was exhausted and bewildered when Warrior won, and as long as the celebrations and fireworks and closing shots of Hogan going down the aisle in the little cart seemed to last, I simply didn't want it to end. I just didn't want "WrestleMania" to be over and have to go back to reality. I suppose, in a way, I never did! Between intro, interviews and match itself it played out more like a movie than a wrestling match. Does it hold up today? Probably not. But it's remained one of my favourite matches, even long after I discovered indies, Puro, "workrate" and a bunch of other stuff that doesn't matter compared to telling a simple story like Hogan and Warrior did. * This is not an exaggeration. Wrestling directed me to travel and to friendships, one of which moved me from the Midlands to the North West and led me to a particular job offer, and it’s at that job I met the woman I’m marrying in a few weeks time.

Shamelessly C&P, "Holy Grail: The True Story of British Wrestling's Revival" Then in 2008, Hollywood movie star turned WWE scriptwriter Freddie Prinze Jr. sat the former FWA and All-England Champion down at a SmackDown TV taping, and gave him some life-changing news. "They were going to put me in a big storyline with The Undertaker. I was going to lead a gang of X-Men style mutants. Every week, I would send one of these guys after The Undertaker. After he had beaten them all, he would eventually face me at WrestleMania 25. It was f****** incredible. Freddie was really excited about the idea, he'd cleared it with Stephanie McMahon and she loved it." On December 13th 2008, Hade made his debut on SmackDown, cutting a shadowy, sinister and cerebral speech. It was supposedly the first of many to set up his mega-money feud with the legendary Dead Man, one of the biggest superstars in American Wrestling of the past 20 years. As far as I [writer Greg Lambert] was concerned, my old buddy performed extremely well for a debutant, showing all the verbal confidence and charisma I'd always known he possessed in abundance. But then? "Then they told me they were putting the storyline on hold. I went home for Christmas, and within a week I had been let go. They fired me." Hade's is the most frustrating story, and a perfect example of the fickle and unforgiving nature of the wrestling business and especially its market leader, the global beast that is World Wrestling Entertainment. He left British Wrestling and seemed to have it made in American Wrestling. But in the end, American Wrestling chewed him up and spat him out. Vansen was always a survivor though, with a "que sera sera" attitude to life which served him well after this heartbreaking rejection. "Nobody ever gave me a reason why I'd been released, but there is one story that keeps doing the rounds, and I don't know if this is true or not, and that is Vince McMahon saw me backstage and thought I was way too small to be hanging with The Undertaker. But I wasn't devastated. When Freddie first told me about The Undertaker feud, although half of me had fireworks going off inside, the other half thought: 'Hang on a minute, this is too good to be true, you're not at WrestleMania yet, boy!' So when they said they had nothing for me, I decided to shrug my shoulders, have a cup of tea, and move on." Shawn Michaels ended up taking Hade's spot as Taker's Mania opponent, not a bad substitute at all. Meanwhile the South City Thriller quit wrestling altogether and went to seek his fortune in sunny Los Angeles, the ideal home for his Hollywood looks. The real-life Hadrian Howard still lives in LA and has no intention of coming home, or returning to the squared circle, any time soon. "I'd been wrestling for ten years and kind of gone as far as I wanted to go. I didn't want to work on the American independent circuit and wait for WWE to come along, pat me on the head and give me another go. So I thought I would be my own boss. I've done some acting in commercials, small film roles and appeared on Days of Our Lives, and I run a head-shot photography business as a sideline. I have my own flat in LA, I'm 20 minutes from the beach, the sun is always shining and you can't beat the women in California. I'm living the American Dream!"

Aye.

They had him on the road for the first quarter of 2003 beating low level heels like Matt Hardy, then him and Taker doing dry runs of the tag vs Show and A-Train. Which was so bad they decided they couldn't do it on Mania. I'd not heard that he was pencilled in to fight Taker, but it wouldn't have surprised me either.

You're hovering around the truth of the matter, and it's not bullshit that there were Taker vs Vansen plans. They aired the vignette late 2008 with a view to Hade being a potential Taker opponent for Mania 25. However, a lot of the office had been told good things about Hade without realizing he wasn't that big of a bloke. Freddie Prinze Jr tells the story that Triple H saw Hade, said "He looks like the guy that mows my lawn" - lots of people laughed, Vince heard it, and that was that.

Well, only in terms of televised in Spain. Domestically they still acted like he was undefeated until This Tuesday In Texas. Which was double bullshit as thousand of fans attending house shows or TV tapings across North America had already seen him pinned by Hogan, Warrior, or a very privileged few by Macho Man, or the good people of Halifax, Nova Scotia, by Roddy Piper.

Where’s the bullshit here?

I've heard that Tito was on the famed "list of 6" when they were scrambling to get in a new star when Flair was hurt and Warrior wasn't going to work out, where they ended up going with Bret. Of course, just because Bret was told "there are six names on the list and you're one of them" doesn't mean it was true. You know how these things tended to go.

You're conflating two parts of the Regal-to-WWF story. At the time it was indeed going around in the Observer etc that the WWF thought he might make a good opponent for Austin (and Steve might have gone to bat for Regal, they'd been friends), but it wasn't until later that he was repackaged. He first debuted on Raw in the June time as "Steven Regal" in his "Lord" persona in everything but name. They probably clocked reasonably soon thereafter that a combination of Regal not being in the shape they hoped for and a lukewarm reaction, were indicators he wasn't ready to be built up for Austin. He was repackaged as "A Real Man's Man" in the fall.. and you know the rest. Probably not as unthinkable as you believe.

Just a thought ; while everyone's got used to the idea Gunther might be moved up to main event challenger status, I think it's a lock that he'll be drafted to SmackDown. As a baddie, it's more likely he'll be pointed at Cody than Priest. I think title feuds will be thus ; for Priest, Jey Uso as we already know, then LA Knight once he's been drafted, then Drew at Clash Glasgow. For Cody, AJ then Gunther. Those probably take us into briefcase season at which point all bets are off. Still think Priest vs Balor is where we land.

20,000 people in the shadow of the Etihad. Make your own jokes. Probably won't hold quite the sway of "you dont want to miss something special" as other cities since they've already changed the WWE title in Manchester. I didn't go. I think about it at least once a week.

That’s a good one. Another reason, as if they needed one, was that viewers wouldn’t need that long a memory to recognise “Fallen Angel” as having done a job to Taka on Shotgun. He’s not coming in to play a starring role. It’s a weird one all ends up, if they didn’t find a spot for him at all as a wrestler, why they’d employ him in that position. For what he’d have delivered as a cult leader style character they could have just got Jackyl back in.

Interesting. What’s often forgotten about the much-maligned 90 day clauses is that the wrestlers still get paid their downside throughout. So for every five instances of people frustrated to twiddle their thumbs instead of getting right back on TV with their new employer, there’s one that sometimes comes out and says “It gave me chance to heal up a bit.” So if WWE are made to adhere, while it would return to the wrestlers the right to jump straight back on the wheel, it would also deny them a little paid break while they court potential new companies to work for.

Which was an accidental fuck up of a planned clean pin, out of her own mouth. Not refusing.

"TLC" only really exists as a name which WWE use. It's a ladder match. The rules are exactly the same. Do whatever the fuck you want, use any weapon you want, win by climbing a ladder and retrieving what's hanging.

My dream of Rhea vs Dom is still alive.

It wasn't that she wouldn't lose clean, she just wasn't keen on tapping out. Which I (and their agent, and Becky) understood. She loved Liv, mind. That "extreme rules" match where she beat her, she wanted them to be rolling round in thumb tacks when Liv passed out rather than tap, so Morgan looked hard as nails for not submitting to the pain even in dropping the belt back to Ronda.

Presumably "3 time champion" includes that reign and her two runs with the tag titles.

DECEMBER 2019 There’s occasionally a sense of what brand you’re supposed to be watching but with no rhyme or reason to much of it (Fiend tops a Raw show, Rollins supports a Reigns main) I can’t be bothered to divide them for so few shows. Well, there will soon be far fewer, but you know. MAIN EVENTS 7th in Jacksonville there’s another of The Fiend vs Drew McIntyre for the U belt in a cage atop a mixed up but mostly Raw card, next night in Augusta GA has Seth Rollins vs Erick Rowan in a streetfight while Fiend vs Shinsuke Nakamura (huh?) in the cage goes on before intermission in Daytona Beach (Reigns on last), 12th in Ashwaubenon (suburban Green Bay) and 14th in Cedar Rapids The Miz goes in the cage with the champ. After Christmas things are slightly more settled - Boxing Day at MSG (12,000 only) it's Rollins vs Kevin Owens, and the Rollins heel turn really is rolling, 27th in Pittsburgh he's teaming with Authors Of Pain to beat Kev and Street Profits, before 28th/29th Rollins vs Owens "No Holds Barred" tops Baltimore and Hershey. Meanwhile, it's Fiend vs Daniel Bryan vs The Miz inside a cage 26th in Cincinnati, 28th in Toronto (7000 but its the Coca-Cola Coliseum, an ice hockey ground, not one of the big ones), 29th in Laval (Quebec) and 30th at the Staples Center - although everywhere except Cincinnati "The Big Dog" is still closing the show. THE CARDS Roman Reigns vs King Corbin continues 8th/12th. Seth Rollins vs Erick Rowan repeats Jacksonville and Cedar Rapids undercards as well as Augusta and both pre PPV Raw-heavy shows repeat Becky Lynch vs Charlotte going to a non finish then the pair of them beating Asuka & Kairi Sane non title. There’s New Day vs The Revival for the SmackDown tag belts on both Jacksonville and in Cedar Rapids sandwiching two rounds of a three way with Heavy Machinery, and both Green Bay and Cedar Rapids get Shinsuke Nakamura vs Mustafa Ali for the ICT and Bayley vs Lacey Evans (recurs in Cincinnati) - umm, aren’t both heels? Aleister Black vs Buddy Murphy also shows up on Augusta and Cedar Rapids and mid month Shorty G vs Cesaro (also repeating in Cincinnati) are not losses I’d expect for the “Swiss superman” and similarly Elias vs Dolph Ziggler straddles Christmas in Ashwaubenon and Cincinnati, both won by "The Drifter." Month end, Randy Orton vs AJ Styles is a belting match to go to intermission on the Raw shows, we're back to Becky vs Charlotte vs Asuka for the Raw Womens title, there are three rounds each of Viking Raiders vs Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows vs Street Profits for Raw's tag belts, Braun Strowman, Kofi & Big E vs Nakamura, Cesaro & Sami Zayn, Ziggler vs Gable (more upsets), Bayley & Sasha Banks vs Evans & Dana Brooke vs Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross, Revival vs Gran Metalik & Kalisto, Carmella vs one or the other of Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville, four nights of Drew McIntyre vs No Way Jose, and a few instances of R-Truth vs The Singh Brothers (one or both) in 24/7 shenanigans. Ricochet vs Bobby Lashley at MSG and in Pittsburgh feels like a big scalp for Trev, on the same nights as Andrade vs Rey Mysterio for the US title (the Garden sees a clean switch) - in Baltimore and Hershey it's Andrade vs Ric vs Bob. Finally, still Reigns vs Corbin in streetfights and Black vs Murphy. VARIATIONS In Jacksonville Andrade loses back to back to Humberto Carrillo then Kev. Augusta get a rerun of Ricochet & Raiders vs AJ & chums, Humberto & Owens beating Andrade & Drew and Street Profits vs Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins. In Daytona upsets ahoy in Cross vs Banks and (to my mind) Ali vs Cesaro, plus there’s Bayley vs Carmella and Gable vs Drew Gulak. Ashwaubenon has a sole singles match of Cross vs Brooke. Cedar Rapids, Reigns vs Ziggler goes on last and Corbin and Elias are off. Pittsburgh its a straight Raiders vs Club 2 on 2. Unique to Cincinnati it's Strowman beating Nakamura by DQ in an ICT match, New Day vs Metalik & Kalisto vs Dawson & Curtis Axel for the tag belts (Dash must have missed his flight) and the womens 3way sees Bliss & Cross beat Mella & Dana and Fire & Desire. MAIN EVENTS - NXT 5th in Jacksonville its Shayna Baszler vs Reina Gonzalez for the Womens belt on last atop an all-female card(!), next night in Dade City it's Keith Lee, Matt Riddle & Dominik Dijakovic vs Cameron Grimes, Dorian Mak & Killian Dain, then 7th in Tampa Keith wins a four-way over Marcel Barthel, Danny Burch and Ridge Holland. Big guns are indeed back on the road and they're out in Cali - 12th in Riverside and 14th Santa Cruz Riddle and Keith face Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly, 13th in Visalia and 15th in San Jose Keith vs Finn Balor is on last. B shows - 12th in Largo it's Kushida vs Austin Theory, next night in Fort Pierce Kush is with Shane Thorne, 14th in Orlando Tony Nese vs Joaquin Wilde vs Raul Mendoza goes on last. THE REPEATS Early month Taynara Conti & Briana Brandy vs Catalina Garcia & Rita Reis repeats in Jacksonville and Dade City - the names you don't recognize are better known as B-Fab and Valentina Feroz. In California there are several repeats - two rounds of Matt Riddle & Pete Dunne vs Steve Cutler & Wesley Blake and Bronson Reed vs Killian Dain, or Dunne vs Dain and Reed vs Kona Reeves, Womens title with Shayna Baszler vs Candice LeRae and Rhea Ripley vs Io Shirai or Mia Yim vs Dakota Kai with Ripley & LeRae vs Baszler & Shirai, Isiah Scott vs Cameron Grimes goes 1-1 and there are three nights of Angel Garza vs Lio Rush for the NXT CWT. SOME OTHERS In Jacksonville the incredibly progressive all-girl show has LeRae, Ripley & Yim vs Kai, Marina Shafir & Jessamyn Duke, Io vs Santana Garrett, Bianca Belair vs Monique Jenkins, Deonna Purrazzo vs Kayden Carter, Chelsea Green vs Shotzi Blackheart, Xia Li vs Jessi Kamea and Vanessa Borne vs Indi Hartwell. Dade follows with Kayden & Xia vs Deonna & Chelsea, plus Mansoor vs Austin Theory, Scott vs Ridge Holland and Kushida vs Dexter Lumis. Tampa has Rita lose to MJ, mixed tag action of Ripley & Riddle vs Shafir & Roderick Strong, Dunne vs Reeves, Dominik Dijakovic vs Jaxson Ryker and Scott & Mansoor vs Blake & Cutler. Largo see Belair vs Carter and Blackheart vs Purrazzo plus Raul Mendoza vs Joaquin Wilde and Mansoor vs Brendan Vink while in Riverside there's Tyler Breeze vs Blake. In Fort Pierce there's Jenkins vs Hartwell and a six woman of Vanessa/Jessi/Deonna vs Brandy/Garrett/Blackheart plus Travis Banks vs Lumis, same night in Visalia it's Breeze vs Grimes. In Orlando it's Conti vs Carter, Green vs Jenkins, Indi vs Reina Gonzalez and Danny Burch vs Shane Thorne, in Santa Cruz there's Breeze vs Ryker. Finally in San Jose - Garza vs Scott for the belt, Breeze vs Reeves, Rush vs Grimes. TVs 1st in Duluth is Starrcade and there's a whopping 6 extra matches on top of the hour streamed live on the Network - Nakamura vs Miz, Black vs Andrade then Ricochet also beating Andrade, Orton vs Styles, Reigns vs Corbin and Fiend vs Strowman(!) inside a cage(!) - everything except the WWE Champion was thrown at that one. Next nights Raw, Lynch vs Kairi is the dark main. 4th at Full Sail Wilde vs Chase Parker and Carter vs Kamea are the dark openers. Nothing dark happens at Tribute To The Troops, the same night in Fayetteville Carmella vs Tamina and Fiend vs Miz bookend the taping. Monday 9th Raw Matt Hardy shows his face to lose to Drew. Wednesday at Full Sail Roddy vs Theory for the NAT is a remarkably strong dark opener, there's also Thorne vs Sean Maluta and for TV Garza beats Rush for the CWT. Friday 13th SmackDown in Milwaukee has Kalisto vs Gulak just for those in attendance and fuck all of note. 15th in Minneapolis TLC is a baffling card on which <iz (miscast as a babyface again) faces Bray in his "Firefly Funhouse host" persona non title, there's no ICT or UST match (yes, they did a PPV without ANY of the four major mens singles titles at stake), Corbin beats Roman in a ladder match (ick) and on last the Kabuki Warriors beat Lynch & Charlotte in another... no wonder only 8500 turned up. Next night in Des Moines they tape two episodes of Raw so everyone gets a break, Titus O'Neil vs Erik Young curtain jerks, Matt wrestles in a gauntlet match and Purrazzo and Green actually get on Raw (losing to Asuka and Charlotte respectively). Wednesday at Full Sail Rhea beats Baszler to win the belt. 20th they do SmackDown and tape an NXT at the Barclays, Lince Dorado vs Gulak opens. Friday 27th in Detroit there's a SmackDown, Revival vs Kalisto & Metalik dark, and they tape Reigns vs Ziggler for a New Years Eve special on Fox. Finally 30th Raw in Hartford is one of the most beige sounding shows of all time - if you held a gun to my head, I'd say Profits vs Gallows & Anderson or McIntyre vs Hawkins & Ryder in a handicap are the most interesting sounding matches. Imagine. NON TITLE WHINING None. Fairly typical of an awfully boring sounding month of TV. DEPARTURE The Ascension last worked Main Event on 8th April, and have not been used since, and finally get their papers this month. Don't worry, plenty more coming.

Fun fact for title reign nerds - this is the 5th run for Lynch with "the other one" - that being the title introduced as the SmackDown Womens title in 2016, which she was the first holder of. As opposed to the one where the lineage can be traced back to Moolah and which prior to Ripley's dominant reign coinciding with Io's forgettable one, was undoubtedly THE title. Becky technically held that one only twice so far, and one of those was the disappointing "let's just swap belts" where her and Charlotte both got drafted (which at least allowed her to lose THE title to Belair at a Mania). The only time Becky actually won THE title in the ring... was on last at Mania 35. Quality over quantity there, really.

👋 I can. Excluding matches mates had on when I was round their house but not actually watching, the first match I actively watched was Koko B Ware vs The Model from WrestleMania VI. It's not on my list for "shaped" but it was the first.

Amazingly, the Meltz has been Tweeting about this very topic as recently as February ; I can see both sides. The WWF weren't even one year into their 5 year contract for Raw with TNN, I doubt their brass would have been thrilled with a total rebrand of the show they'd paid big bucks to lure away from USA. It also would have been a huge gamble for the WWF, if ratings for "the flagship" had dropped because their viewers didn't want Booker T, they wanted Steve Austin. That said... Prichard has pointed out that more homes having access to UPN than TNN at the time made it appealing to make SmackDown the flagship show. There's a logic there I suppose, but I can't help the feeling that at the crunch they'd have wussed out regardless of Tacoma shitting on Booker vs Buff.

Were you watching at the time? Specifically between SummerSlam and Evolution? This reads as though you weren't. Even the night in question when she strode out alone to stare down Team Raw she looked like the big fucking deal. That her covered in blood up in the stands became an iconic image absolutely does not detract from the fact she was the hottest star in the company already. Big fan of her winning the belt in a battle royal rather than literally any other piece of booking they could have done. Nobody had to do a TV pinfall job, and the next champion who gets elevated will do so by beating The Man, rather than winning a vacant title because they couldn't beat Rhea Ripley and only injury could. Good stuff. Realistically, Becky losing it to Morgan so she's primed for Rhea's revenge is probably the way they'll go, and I have no problem with that.