The Dart

This is off topic from the random house shows, but on topic to 80s wrestlers looking older than they were.   I just started watching some 1998 Raw and the Rock 'n' Roll Express come back and even though the commentary isn't as explicit about it as they were with Backlund in 1992, they were obviously presented as a couple of old fogies from the past, and Gibson was just 39 and Morton was 41.

That's probably it, but doesn't fit the "local jobber in his home town" story, which there's no evidence of happening...so it probably is Masters.

But, it's not exactly unusual, especially then, for someone who is in developmental to beat someone on the level of Hardcore Holly in a pre show dark match.

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

Yeah, a match that totally passed me by at the time but that I recently saw, Bret & Cena vs Del Rio & Ricardo. Of course, the finish was Sharpshooter on Ricardo.

Appropos to this thread, I’d known about the MSG shows but had no idea that Bret had tagged along on a few European dates in November 2010, usually tagging with the Hart Dynasty against three of Slater, Gabriel, Otunga and Husky Harris. If he’d come to Britain on that tour 100% I’d have gone. Interestingly his final house show match was in Istanbul tagged with Edge and Rey against Del Rio, Cody and Drew. Some footage is on YouTube, including the finish ;

 

Indeed same here, as I never saw him wrestle live, although I had seen him appear on shows before.   But if he had a match on a show in the UK on that European tour I might have gone, though he did appear as GM, and I think guest referee a match on a show I went to in 2010.

On the same subject, Ricky Steamboat having matches on a handful of house shows against Sheamus and Drew McIntyre in addition to more matches against Chris Jericho in 2009 after their PPV match is a bit of a "house show random".

1 hour ago, Loki said:

Wasn't Bret Hart's last match also on a WWE house show?  After his match with Vince at WM I think.  

He did house shows after the Mania match, but his last match was on Raw.

Sounds like Timothy Thatcher’s gone too.

They’ve got rid of Regal !

Different sites reporting different things because none of them actually know?   I don't believe you.   Never heard of such a thing happening on wrestling news sites.

3 hours ago, air_raid said:

I have zero recollection of Heat being presented over here as Superstars in its infancy. The beginnings of Sunday Night Heat where it was a proto-SmackDown with all the big stars and gigantic main events or pull-aparts with Rock, Austin, Taker and Kane involved aired in highlight form on the Saturday lunchtime show. For the first few weeks, anyway, until it devolved into another JTTS show except becoming a Free-For-All type hype show on the night of a PPV - Mankind vs Mabel before the 99 Rumble might be the last time something newsworthy happened on a Heat before a PPV. If Heat was repackaged as Superstars it’s likely to have been after the transition to C show. Those were all over the place over here anyway with Shotgun Challenge etc and one of them eventually becoming Metal. Nothing quite like those halcyon Sundays in 1995 of watching a bunch of squashes on Challenge then watching most of the exact same squashes followed by one competitive match on Action Zone. I don’t want to think about how many months it took me to realize I could live without watching Challenge.

We definitely got at least some of the matches from Heat in full right from the beginning on our version of Superstars.   Prior to Heat being a show, we used to get Shotgun at 11am and then we'd get Superstars immediately after it at 12pm with the same matches as Shotgun but with different commentary!   Why, who knows, but I still used to watch them both.   Then one week, suddenly we got different matches on Superstars and those were the matches from Heat.  It may not have been all the matches, but it was 100% from the beginning and it may have only lasted a couple of months, because I don't think it was like that all the way until we actually started getting Heat ourselves (Channel 4).   But it was from the beginning as I can remember the Kane/Mankind vs. Owen Hart/Rock match being shown.

1 hour ago, eugenespeed said:

Did the UK get RAW and Smackdown from their first episodes? 

If not, how long into their run were they first broadcast over here? 

No.

We started getting Raw on Fridays at 5pm sometime in 1995.   But we would usually get to see most of the matches from Raw on one of the other weekend shows, not sure which one.

We started getting Smackdown in January 2000 I think, so we didn't miss much of that.   Highlights of that were also often on the weekend shows.

Also, you didn't ask, but Heat we didn't get until January 2000, but when it first started we used to pretty much get the full show, it was just presented as "Superstars" and had different commentary.

I think from a viewing at home on TV experience, 2 nights is the way to go.   From an attending live point of view, it absolutely isn't and I've seen as many people complaining about it now being 2 nights as I have people glad it is now 2 nights.

Getting a 2 night Wrestlemania doesn't mean getting a Wrestlemania with just the best of the best on one major show, it now means getting half the best one night and half the best the other night, so people are (I am guessing, given they are already giving tickets away) less likely to want to spend big money on tickets.

The best thing for them to do, which they aren't and won't, is to keep it one night, but just not have it so long !    Personally having attended 3 Wrestlemanias since they started being 6 hours long - never bothered me.   And as someone planning to go next year, I am not a fan of it being 2 nights at all - but I'll still go, so I guess it doesn't bother me that much, but I'd prefer it being one night.

.

2 hours ago, Tommy! said:

Poor Vlad sat there on Christmas day with 24 chairs and no guests. 

Rumble 97 was an amazing bit of making the house look good at any cost, they blacked out the PPV in parts of texas and gave away free tickets on Dr Pepper & Taco Bell meals. 

I've not watched it for a while but I'm sure Cornette goes through the tickets prices too and loads were less than £20 and some were cheaper than buying a drink at the venue just to make it look good on TV. 

I think they were selling tickets for $5 on the day.

They're offering buy 3 get 1 free tickets on Wrestlemania at the moment.   I don't know if that's only limited to cheaper seats, or all seats.   Pretty good deal if it includes the ones that cost about £2000 !

I can't imagine they ever legitimately thought they'd fill that place for 2 nights.

Imagine not having already read the story elsewhere and seeing this thread is back in action.   You'd think there's been another mass of releases.

Sounds like it's for the best for him and also WWE.   They'll still offer him the help if he accepts it but if anything happens to him, it's not on their watch.

5 hours ago, theringmaster said:

Stripping Trish Stratus of the title (a couple of weeks before Wrestlemania in Canada) because she refused to kiss Torrie Wilson on the lips on an episode of Smackdown where they did a bikini contest.

This isn't a rumour btw, it is literally printed in a wwe book with quotes from Trish Stratus.

I always remember that story when she talks about how much she has done for women's wrestling.

Six weeks before Wrestlemania.   Bit of a difference.

I went to an NXT UK recently and they had fake crowd noise playing live in the arena, which I don't think is the case on Raw, etc.   I don't think the live crowd can hear the fake noise.   But what I found funny was when I then watched it back on TV I couldn't even recognise the fake crowd noise, it was like it wasn't even there.   So playing it in live (which was really distracting) seemed to be completely pointless.  Like the opposite of Raw.

This forum loves NXT's penchant for ladder matches, so natch they've announced Kai vs. Ray in a ladder match for next week.

1 hour ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Probably lies somewhere in the middle. Michaels wasn’t keen on working with Vader for the most part and although not on Kliq-levels of friendship, Michaels and Sid were mates. Sid had gotten over massive that Summer, so Shawn going to Vince and suggesting that he give his friend the rub in NY on Survivor Series (back when it still mattered) is a possibility, which in turn lead to Shawn winning it back at The Royal Rumble. 
With December’s PPV being IYH: It’s Time, clearly Vader was obviously pencilled in for winning the belt at some point though, something which must’ve been scuppered between August and November. 
Then we got knee injuries that weren’t that bad after all, lost smiles, ‘Tell Me A Lie’ music videos and all that shite.

Its probably worth giving that period another listen on the New Generation Podcast as they go into a lot of detail from various sources.

That was a year earlier !

11 minutes ago, DCW said:

they should definitely get that muscly lad with the goatee and beret back who did attitude era security.

Pretty sure he died about 5 years ago.

According to Meltzer at least 5, probably more were due to refusing to get the vaccine.

Dorado & Metalik both asked to be released.

I read somewhere else that Eva Marie had only signed a short term deal anyway, a year maybe and wasn't expected to stay longer than that.

2 minutes ago, Tsurutagun said:

Saw that one guy released was in the PC from 2016 and only used once in the Indian TV special. 

If you mean Jeet Rama, his TV debut was the Indian show, which was after 5 years in the PC, but he had 4 more TV matches after that.

Surely having someone around for that long and them still being shit is actually a reasonable reason to be getting rid of them.   That's what's strange though, many of the releases make perfect sense.   So many others do not.

1 hour ago, rollthedice said:

 

I originally wasn't going to go as theres no Reigns, Usos, New Day and Belair is now on Raw. However, the announcement of Ciampa vs Sami Zayn vs Bron Breakker and Walter vs Cesaro sold me on it.

 

Really annoyed we don't get that match at London.

28 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I usually enjoy live events regardless of who's there or what company it is. They're usually an enjoyable experience.

Main things stopping me these days:

1. Tickets are too expensive

2. I don't have a train season ticket anymore so I have to add travel on top now

3. I'm still limiting my 'going out' and I just don't really fancy risking it at the mo. I probably would for AEW..

I suppose that is still a factor in low ticket sales, but is it though?   The London show is a couple of hundred tickets away from being sold out and is a big improvement on the last show they did at Wembley.

Jacket Time.

They both wear jackets, so they're going to be called Jacket Time.

They may as well just called them the Jacket Experience.

They've sold less than 4,500 tickets for the Smackdown house show in Manchester next week.

Maybe the time has come to reduce ticket prices for the tours here.  Tickets for shows in America are half the price of the shows here sometimes.   I get it's more expensive to run shows here, but the prices are clearly putting people off (as well as the TV shows being poor).

I think the rumour was stronger this time than usual because of the promos Drew McIntyre cut on the tour.   It just seemed like it would be a really daft thing to say if there wasn't the intention of it happening.