The Dart

1 hour ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Outside of maybe Wrestlemania 1, has it ever got this close to Wrestlemania with so little announced for it?

8 matches announced.    2 and a half weeks to go.   That seems reasonable.

5 minutes ago, Yakashi said:

That they’ve already hit their woman quota?

When I predicted Kane/Victoria would be the next inductee I was going to put it'll more likely be Kane as they're probably not going to have 2 women from the same era, or even, 2 women at all, in the same class.   I thought I'd get guff on here for saying that though, so I stuck with predicting either of them.

On 3/21/2021 at 6:35 PM, The Dart said:

"WWE has announced that Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Kane and Victoria will be on this Wednesday's episode of The Bump"

So, I predict Kane or Victoria will be announced for the HOF this week.

If I could predict it, surely Kane could have predicted it.   Maybe he thought they'd just be announcing Victoria.   Makes you wonder what's going through Victoria's mind now.

51 minutes ago, Statto said:

They still +1'd Triple H's total number of reigns though, despite him walking in & out as champ and the reigns in the middle not counting, IIRC.

Don't think that's true, although I think Jim Ross maybe said that on commentary, it's never been listed as that way by WWE.

..

I remember going to a house show at Wembley once and it was about a week after Big Show had beat Sheamus for the world title and the main event was Big Show vs. Sheamus for the title, and Sheamus won......but the referee reversed the decision, or the match was re-started and Big Show won, or Big Show got DQed, can't remember for sure.   Then walking back to the train station I overheard this excited kid who was so happy Sheamus had won the title back so quickly and his dad was confessing that he had been wrong about nothing ever happening on the UK shows.  They must have left as soon as that 3 count happened where Sheamus "won" and missed the rest.

At the first UK Raw, William Regal & Eugene beat La Resistance for the tag titles, but Bischoff came out in the commercial break and discounted it and said the match had to restart, which La Resistance won.   The crowd went loopy when Regal & Eugene won.   I can't remember why Bischoff re-started the match.

Regal & Eugene won the titles a month later anyway though.

32 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The problem - and I say this as someone who's known Ben since he was 16 - I don't know who Nelson Frazer is, nor did I really know who Ben Carter was. He was the epitome of a "happy to be here" babyface. That's exactly who he is in real life, but it's not the most compelling wrestling gimmick. If Nelson Frazer was a step toward showing a bit more character, it would make sense, but as it is, it seems pointless.

It's something that WWE just do because they know the audience know they'll sometimes change wrestler's names (my understanding is that he's dropped "Carter" because there's already a Carter in NXT proper, and he's US-bound eventually), so they may as well just get on with it. But doing it after he's already debuted and not bothering to explain it because "eh, fans already get it" is lazy, even by NXT UK standards. 

There's already a Carter in NXT UK is as likely the reason.

It's not just an NXT UK thing, it happens in NXT (US) often.   Damian Priest had 1 match as Punishment Martinez, then comes out a few weeks later, same gimmick, different name, no explanation.   That's a recent example, but it happens there too.

Sure I read that they offered it to him and he refused it.

On 3/19/2021 at 4:19 PM, The Dart said:

Also I think now when someone a bit unexpected is announced to appear on one of their shows next week, we'll be able to assume they're going to be announced for the HOF as it seems that's how they're doing it this year, rather than "first reported by ESPN News" or whatever toss they've done in previous years.

 

"WWE has announced that Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Kane and Victoria will be on this Wednesday's episode of The Bump"

So, I predict Kane or Victoria will be announced for the HOF this week.

Reminder that it starts at 11pm tonight, so if some of the recent B PPVs are anything to go by, it could be finished by 1.30.

14 hours ago, Shane O' Mac Version 2 said:

The whole "announcing it to the inductees" as a surprise has to be a work, surely? There's been people that have refused the honour before. Someone like Molly, who has worked with WWE a good amount in recent times, was probably a safe bet, but Bischoff, given his relatively recent firing and appearances on AEW, might have been a bit shakier. How embarrassing would it be if Eric turned around and said, "Actually, I don't want to be part of that"? 

Yes, surely an appearance fee has to be negotiated, whether they actually want to be inducted and appear etc.   Molly Holly, Eric Bischoff....surely they most know before they're "told".   Also I think now when someone a bit unexpected is announced to appear on one of their shows next week, we'll be able to assume they're going to be announced for the HOF as it seems that's how they're doing it this year, rather than "first reported by ESPN News" or whatever toss they've done in previous years.

53 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

A year and a return to TV & PPV.

We’ve heard how contracts can be extended when a guys out injured by however long they’re on the shelf, but could Andrade in theory just sit out however long is left on his deal, or do what Jon Moxley did and just say “I won’t be signing a new contract”? Surely he hasn’t got that long left as he’s been there for about 4 years

Just under 3 years on the main roster.   It's likely he has over 2 years left on his contract.

On 3/15/2021 at 5:41 PM, air_raid said:

 

The worst offender is the repeated contrived ways wrestlers would fall, take impact from moves or in other ways conspire to drape themselves over the middle rope when wrestling Rey Mysterio. Absolutely dreadful.

Same with Brie Bella.   Her opponents conventiently tumble into the middle of the bottom rope ready for her knee, in a way they never fall when wrestling against other opponents.   The worst was Rumble 2018 when she makes her entrance and 4 wrestlers just happen to all be lying on the bottom rope ready for her kick.

75 for me.    Couldn't remember some of the early ones and some of the later ones, but got most of 1990-2015.

23 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

 Anyone have any memories of attending any of them, even?

Absolutely as Insurrextion 2002 was the first ever WWE show I went to (been to a lot more since then!).

Although it was the last ever televised WWF show, some of the merchandise being sold had the WWE logo on it, which was a clue that something was going on and they announced the change to WWE the next day.   Linda McMahon was also there, spotted by my friend, probably on business regarding the name change.  We bought VIP tickets, the main reason being the show had already sold out before we decided to go and VIP was all that's available (good seats you'd think, nope, we were literally back row of Wembley Arena, although very much central to the ring, but it was what came with the VIP package that was great). 

VIP included a meet and greet with 2 unnamed stars before the show, who turned out to be Booker T and RVD which I was happy about.   I forgot to get a photo with Booker T though as I was panicking as I thought I'd lost my bag.   The gift bag had all sorts in, a programme, videos, signed photos, balloons, the bag itself was pretty nice too.   They probably lobbed a few extra bits in as they were offloading as much merch with the WWF logo on as they could.  And then, the main thing was an all you can eat buffet with the nicest hot dogs I've had, while watching last year's Insurrextion on a massive screen.   Although they would occasionally turn the audio off to play songs from Forceable Entry.

Loved the show, what with it being my first ever WWE show live although looking back it wasn't brilliant.   Getting to see Austin wrestle live so close to his retirement is the standout memory.

One weird thing about the show was before it started Debra came out to cut a promo talking about her man Steve Austin was going to win his match.   Was so weird as they had no on screen relationship.

25 minutes ago, RancidPunx said:

Yeah last time i bought through the app and then casted to my Apple Tv. Worked fine.

 

 

Is there likely to be much of a crowd at the event ?

1,300 they said.

I can see why they announced him signing, but him just showing up tonight unexpected/unannounced would have been pretty awesome.

What websites do people on here use to reliably get wrestling news?

I've used PWInsider forever.   Them making you turn off adblocker to access the site was bad enough, but now it seems just having an adblocker is enough to block access to the website, so fuck them.

29 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Just watching Dark and who the hell is JD Drake?!?

Former Evolve guy.  He wrestled here for Progress too.  He's great, seen him live a couple of times.  Not sure why WWE didn't sign him with all the other Evolve guys.   Think he'd had WWE tryouts before too.  He even wrestled on a NXT show.

I'll only be interested if he turns heel and face again on his first night.

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Debuting him on the pre-show felt insane, too. Imagine your big debut being on a completely skippable show where Sam Roberts is the lead. It was probably the smallest audience Knight has ever performed in front of. Gutted.

I know you're not being serious, but it's got 200,000 views on YouTube, plus however many were watching on the Network, whereas the most views his most recent Impact videos have on YouTube only about 80,000 views.

As above I'm the same age as the Mania number that's about to take place apart from for about 6 weeks of the year where it's the same, so I'll always know which one we're on for as long as they've stopped numbering them.

Also, my older brothers who got me into wrestling don't watch it anymore, but they'll always ask me "what number Wrestlemania was it this year?" and then when I tell them they gasp, surprised at how old they are.

As for remembering specifics about the Manias, I was at 33,34 and 35 so I'll remember them.

1 hour ago, Statto said:

Yeah, it went entirely unmentioned. 

There were rumours a few weeks ago about WWE having a "scary finish planned for the Rumble match" which I assumed would have resulted in Orton being last eliminated as he was, but with some spooky-dooky Fiend involvement.

I imagine either a) Vince hated what they had planned like he hated whatever they originally planned for the finish of the Eye for an Eye match or b) it was decided they didn't want to overshadow the Edge win in any way, so they decided to just forget about it for the night.

Isn't it more likely that whichever website posted that was just making stuff up?

After Charlotte choosing NXT last year, it at least does logically make sense that Edge has that option and would consider it, so him appearing on NXT to tease it is no worse than him appearing on both Raw and Smackdown to tease which title he's going to choose.