Pinc

I was telling a mate who doesn't follow the wrestling about the Foley/Funk death matches from back int he day, and he was incedulous that I'd swallowed the line about them using real C4.

Can anyone tell me, hopefully with sources, whether the C4 was real? Or have I been duped by Foley's first book?

A three month run of Great American Bash > Bash at the Beach > SummerSlam would cause some brand confusion, but aside from that I like the idea of using the strongest portfolio of event titles they have access to. Can't believe there's never been a WWE Halloween Havoc.

The horse has probably bolted now but if they'd started running Starrcade in December 2001 (maybe having the InVasion storyline culminate there) the brand would likely be strong enough to add at least an extra 50-100k buys to what their December PPVs have done since.

The free sport magazine that you get on the tube on Friday mornings did a four page spread on WrestleMania today. It looked really out of place and had loads of errors in it, not just factual errors that a wrestling fan would spot but grammatical and formatting errors too. For example it switched between arabic and roman numerals to represent the events willy-nilly, and said that Cena got his revenge over the Rock at WMXXVIIV, which I don't think is even a real number.

Edit: Bit heavy for a BritWres forum, and unfair. Must banter better.

Yer Da looks like Lou Albano!

Ian, why do you edit every single post you ever make. It makes you look suspicious.

Could it not be that a few of them have access to the account?

Big Bad Booty Daddy would be the worst wrestling nickname ever if anybody else had used it. As it was Scott Steiner who used it, it is the best ever.

Wowsers, I was only thinking about Duane yesterday and how I missed all his wacky antics.

 

https://twitter.com/GrooveeOne

 

Looks like he's 'helping' people with mental health issues with his business as a Laughter Yoga Coach. Reading out his old posts would do it.

Why the fuck are StonesThrow records following Duane?

Edit: His twitter's just as mad as you'd want. Seems to be big into UKIP now. Also, just last week:

Duane Farr ‏@GrooveeOne Mar 14

 

Respect to #tonybenn however the title prophet is more apt for Icke.

Duane Farr ‏@GrooveeOne Mar 14

 

Can't see the BBC doing an hour long programme on David Icke when he leaves the physical realm. #tonybenn

Couldn't remember who the Dangerous Alliance were?

Aye. Never heard the sound of a whole room of people's eyebrows raising simultaneously before. There were even a few gasps.

Yeah, it was alright. He wasn't especially keen to elaborate very much. He said there's only one more match he's interested in having, and it's against the Undertaker 'on a big stage.' He was coy about going to WWE but said he wants it to happen.

He also said Ric Flair likes women with hairy forearms and he claimed never to have heard of the Dangerous Alliance, even after the MC tried to remind him who they were.

Mark Henry is the perfect litmus test for sussing out other fans you meet in real life. A Voight-Kampff test for Dem Wans, if you will. I usually try to steer the conversation on to Henry as quickly as I can after someone outs themselves.

If all you get back is lulz about Mae Young or that time he couldn't open the cage door on SmackDown, it's the veritable purple cloud in the swimming pool.

Bryan's best segment since SummerSlam was when he got Wyatt in the cage. No talking, all physicality, and he unequivocally came out on top. The crowd went mad for it. Would be interested to see how that segment did in the ratings compared to his 20 minute promo battles.

A Bryan run-in to fuck up a match that Triple H has a vested interest in would be a nice way to continue the feud next week. Bryan can run off immediately afterwards without saying a word, having gotten one over on H for once. Yeses all over the gaff.

My laptop threw a wobbler which meant instead of torrenting I had to go looking for Raw on DailyMotion. Almost every video labelled 'Raw March 3 2014' featured the same thumbnail of Punk in a black t-shirt that I didn't recognise, so I was 100% sure he'd come back on the night.

Seeing the excellent show they put on safe in the knowledge that Punk was coming back at the end I was sat thinking 'this is the best episode of Raw I've ever seen.' I couldn't really believe it when the copyright notice came up at the end. It's a shame because H was note perfect in the closing segment.

I continue to be bemused by Daniel Bryan's popularity. He's been the least likable character on the show for ages and he's not making any effort to improve on the mic.

Rollins being the one to escalate the Shield break-up was a very clever move which saves him from seeming a passive party when it all goes down. Could've been quite debilitating for him.

On the subject of dream pairings, I wonder if we'll ever see the Shield interact with the nWo in any way.

If they haven't split up by then seeing the Shield bump into Hall, Nash and X-Pac backstage at Mania would be great. Especially if one or all of the Wolfpac have gone in the HOF the night before. A tense stand off or even a bit of a pull apart after Ambrose mockingly does the Hall fingers would make me piss jizz.

I know he's already loved there but if Punk does return on the Chicago Raw he'll never have to pay for another bevvy in that town.

Wrestling is a very strange hobby.

I hate Dem Wans, but I'm looking forward to this Raw more than any in ages to see what they get up to, and particularly whether Batista can get his own back on them somehow.

Which kind of makes them the top heels in the biz.

Wrestling is a very strange hobby.

I don't think everyone was copying a meme, the 'BOO-urns' is a pretty well known Simpsons reference

Aye wrestling crowds are always spontaneously co-opting decades old Simpsons jokes. I remember when they chanted 'You don't win friends with salad' at Shane McMahon on the last Nitro.

What's different about the house show audiences? Do they typically attract a different demographic than TV tapings?

The internet makes up a miniscule population of the fan base, and the crowds at a few raws (and it has only been a few) don't necessarily represent a majority at all. It's a tens of thousands versus millions.

Is that really true these days? Fucking eveyone's on the internet. At the Chamber a large section of the crowd were chanting 'Boo-Tista', which started life as an r/SquaredCircle meme:

If you're going to soldier on in the face of hatred, you don't fall back on pseudo-new age bollocks like 'i'm a dream chaser', 'only got time for positive people' and calling the fans that boo you idiots. If Batista was still moving the needle in terms of viewers/ratings, then they could have moved forward provided that he carried on handling it with grace and Cena's usual 'GEE-WHIZ! YOU GUYS!' routine. Not chucking your toys out of the pram.

Batista's "If they boo me, I boo them back" stance is the best thing he's done since returning by a mile. If the reactions continue I hope he really starts to flip on them, showing a bit of balls/defiance is his best chance of winning the crowd back over. I love Cena and his GEE-WHIZ act, but it does make him look a fucking dweeb. An admirable dweeb, but a dweeb nonetheless.

The saddest part is that the real-life Cena seems to have internalized all that stuff in order to rationalize his failure (and it is a failure) to really get over as the ace that he was supposed to be. My heart bled for the big weirdo when I heard him towing that line on Austin's podcast - "If you're my opponent and everybody in the arena is booing me, isn't it you who should be mad?" I loved when Piper called him out on it on Piper's Pit in the lead-up to WM28 when he asked him why he didn't care that the crowd doesn't like him. I thought there was a real chance to develop Cena's character by exploring that, but apparently Piper had just gone off-script and it was never discussed again.

Batista is supposed to be a bad ass muscle-head. Responding to the crowd's hostility with some of his own is much truer to life than Cena's angsty "THESE PEOPLE PAID FOR THEIR TICKET!!" eunuch act.

Bryan's been a whiney, entitled bitch ever since Team Hell No ended. I like his matches and everything but I don't understand why he's so popular when he's been so consistently unlikeable for ages now. "Listen to these people, they love me!" He's done great character work in the past as well, so he's definitely capable of better. His mic work and acting have regressed massively over the last year. Back to the support groups and misogyny this year please Dan, less of the being-a-nobhead every single night.

Maybe I'm getting carried away by the hype (but sure isn't that the point anyway?) but in Wyatt and the Shield WWE have a core of guys who can all go on to be bonafide stars for years, I even see some crossover potential in a couple of them. Everyone talked about how promising Cena, Orton, and Batista were 10+ years ago, but even at the time it felt like we were all kidding ourselves a bit; they were always an obvious step down from the Austin/Rock/Foley generation who preceded them. Cena only eventually became a great act by virtue of his unique, polarised relationship with the live crowds, and Orton and Batista have been chronic bores for almost their entire careers (admittedly excepting those few months as a heel when Batista decided to be the best wrestler of all time for a laugh).

With the new lads though, there's an exciting feeling that the new era they bring in will be a big improvement on what came before them. They all have at least one or two genuinely great elements to them and loads of time to improve. They all seem pretty clever as well; I love that Rollins wrestles the style he does. He's all about the quickness and the big strikes, and it makes him a plausible threat despite his size. Big contrast to CM Punk reminding you that what you're watching is just a bit of a laugh every time he does his comically unsuitable finisher on a larger opponent.

On the subject of Punk, presuming he doesn't come back I reckon he might end up regretting leaving when he did. In hindsight it may prove to have been the eve of a really exciting time. If he keeps improving at his current rate I want to see Wyatt go over the 'Taker at Mania 31, I don't even care if it means we never get to see Cena/Taker at the big show. Undertaker losing the streak has seemed a daft idea since Mania 21 at the latest, but that was because there's never been anybody with the requisite youth, potential and character to be a good fit for the spot. Wyatt's starting to look like he has all three.

What about the long term plans for the Wyatts? Are Erik and Luke going to stick around with Bray forever more? Can't help but feel they'd be a bit lost on the roster without Bray.

If Bray keeps improving I'm sure they'll want to try him out as a babyface eventually but he's got at least another 12 months as a heel left in him, and while he's a heel there's no reason to change up what has been a winning formula so far.

Personally I'm hoping that Wyatt can go on to become WWE's top heel for the next few years, as a mirror image to Reigns' rise on the babyface side. It'd be really cool to look back on this Shield/Wyatts feud as the first chapter of a storied rivalry between Wyatt and Reigns, the same way that we look back on the Rock/Triple H SummerSlam ladder match now.

That totally makes sense for him being booed at the Rumble, but he's been getting booed on Raw, too. Always thought the smarty-arse fans had a bit of a soft spot for him unlike Cena and Orton.

Outside of the initial storyline when he left Evolution I don't remember him ever being a smartarse favourite. Him and Big Show got blanket 'You Can't Wrestle' chants on one of those Hammerstein Ballroom ECW shows.

They need to be careful with Reigns losing the big matches, even if a couple of blokes cost him. They did that with Ryback and it led to diminishing returns. If anything, I'd have Rollins and Ambrose trying to foil the rise of Reigns, only for Reigns to constantly out think and out power them, similar to Raven's Flock v Goldberg. That was a fantastic feud and it really helped Goldberg because it solidified Goldberg as the baddest bloke in wrestling.

That's spot on actually. In stead then Reigns swats them away with ease for a few months, and its that very defiance that prompts The Shield pads to look at bringing in a 3rd member.

Cena'd look a don in Shield gear as well, though he'd probably insist on a flak jacket 3 sizes larger than he needs.

On the subject of recycling old angles. If Reigns really takes off this year, to the point that he begins to look like a legitimate pretender to Cena's throne...

I'd love to see Ambrose and Rollins start interfering in his business; costing him world title matches, stealing his Money in the Bank brief case for a few weeks, etc. Up to the point that an elimination tag is booked for the Survivor Series. Reigns and his mates against Ambrose, Rollins, and a new member of the Shield to be debuted on the night. A third man, if you will.

During the match Reigns and co. are making a bit of a pig's ear of things and the Shield start doing something especially dastardly. Cuffing Big E Langston (say) to the ring post and going nuts with a chair, maybe with the help of a dummy third man (I read they're considering Mason Ryan?) to throw people off. Out comes a (returning?) Cena to make the save...

You all know the rest. If they could do it with the required subtlety you could cause a big splash and run with new babyface ace Reigns + allies against Hollywood Cena and The Shield for the next year or more. You could even eventually have Punk hang out in the rafters for a year and a half before he returns to finally put his old nemesis away at WrestleMania 32.

I got moist writing all that out, I reckon throwback angles could be great fun. With all the retro stuff they do now and the Network launch I think WWE could be up for something like that to add a bit of hypertextuality.

Has anyone managed to make Del Rio interesting or upped his stock though? He's worked with people like Cena and Punk and he's always been a total bore. Swagger has had less opportunities at the top, but he's also always been as dull as shit on his own too.

He was brilliant booting Ziggler in the head over and over again while ostensibly still a babyface, and then coming out and cutting that coy tweener promo immediately after. I proper loved all that, and I don't usually like either of them.

Either side of that match he's be a fucking drain in every feud he's had for years.

All three of the Shield look the fucking business in the all black so I'd let all three of them keep it at least initially and add small tweaks to each to differentiate them from eachother.

I'd dress Reigns up like he's Wesley Snipes in Blade. Long black trench coat over more or less the gear he wears now. Shades, like Diesel. Even have the inside of his jacket be red like Blade's to add some colour to the look. I don't think he's ever going to be an especially strong promo so have him be a brooding man of few words.

Ambrose should move towards a bit more of a grungey, punk rock look. Use some spikes and/or a little bit of denim to move him on from his Shield days. Maybe even incorporate a hat. He's going to have to shave his head sooner or later anyway so aping Tim Armstrong's look from Rancid could be a winner for him.

Rollins can probably stand to deviate from his Shield gear a bit more, and we don't want them all looking too similar otherwise there'll be no visual novelty when they put the flak jackets back on in 2019 to chase off Cody Hall's nWo. He'll look daft if he's brightly coloured tights straight away though, so maybe start him off with dark tights with a white singlet. Like Squall from Final Fantasy. If he still looks a bit too monotone he can start dying different colours into his hair. He could take off with Jeff Hardy's old demographic piss easy.

Playing dress up with the Shield is more fun that I'd figured it'd be. Nice one Ian.