simonworden

4 hours ago, Shy Dad said:

The schedule is there for guys like Dolph and Shelton Benjamin to come in and have an easier payday but remain on TV.

Rick Boogz could have a fantastic holiday camp cheese feud with Johnny Swinger and Dirty Dango too before seeing if he has more promise.

Hopefully with lots of foam hands, public warnings and a few "ask him refs" for good measure 

Just came across this brilliant old TNA add done on the cheapest of budgets using Windows XP movie maker I presume. Probably not even a licensed copy of windows. https://youtu.be/c7PmcZ6B4-o?si=8Ag5pmk9rZpbv8dm

Managed to finish this yesterday. Overall I thought it was an entertaining watch but probably wouldn't be too interesting or well received to a non fan. Here a few of my mixed rambling thoughts about the people and events.

Al Snow - I like Al's old WWF character, in my opinion he was a decent bit player in 1998-2000, never going to be any further up the card due to the talent they had at the time but was able to get a pop and I imagine he was a solid hand for the house show circuit. In a time of faced paced storylines and short matches his work gave something. Another person could have filled that time yes but he did and he should be proud of that. Was he a draw in WWE? Not really, if you took away Rock, Austin, Foley, Taker, Kane, Triple H etc and stuck Al Snow in the main event it wouldn't have shifted any more tickets but he is a carny old wrestler so if he wants to call himself a draw then fair enough. I think he means well with OVW but definitely has some ridiculous ideas like doing a bloody live TV show, absolutely no reason to bother and the fact they aren't getting loads of their guys called up/ used on TV in WWE, AEW, Impact reflects what the top layer of the industry thinks of their training/ booking/ product sadly.

Matt Jones - I thought through most of it he came across as a bit of an egotistical belled but towards the end I could see that he does actually mean well, seems to have no filter and is probably more what OVW needs business wise than Al. He's clearly got a good mind for local business and sees that OVW needs to be more about the local statewide area rather than faffing about with live TV pissing in the wind, trying to compete with what's out there already. 

Haley J - I didn't get her as a performer, to me she was like a more trailer trash version of Honey Boo Boo who wrestles. Her and the boyfriend didn't seem to have any clear understanding of how they'll need to behave if they were to start travelling around working for other promotions. A lot of entitlement and chips on shoulders there. I'd have preferred if the woman they focused on was Leila Grey who got signed to AEW. She seemed more interesting, dedicated and I'm sure nobody would argue better to look at. 

As people have said, no idea why Shera or Godderz are hanging around OVW, both seem like decent workers who could fill a place anywhere else. Did they burn their bridges with Impact?

Overall it didn't enlighten me on anything new in Wrestling, it was nice to see how somewhere like OVW runs these days but I won't be suddenly watching their show. 

I was lucky in the early stages as I was working on a per hour contract so when I wasn't teaching or in a meeting I could be home meaning I had loads of time to go to the gym or for myself around naps etc. 

Since he was born it's a rare treat for one of us to go out in the eve alone and even rarer as just a couple. The main thing was to make sure as much as possible that he can be happy with one of us and we are competent at all the jobs. We were also lucky that grandma has been nearby and took him all day on Thursdays so we could have some daytime to ourselves.

It's not the same as before kids but I've gotten used to it. He's at kindergarten now which has given my wife more free time, she's just working out what she wants to do with it. 

12 hours ago, Loki said:

WHAT a pop, that was an Attitude era pop.  Now I'm thinking LA Knight v Cena at Wrestlemania sounds pretty good, assuming Knight betrays Cena as people inevitably do.

I hope not, Knight's on a great face run at the moment and he's still be second fiddle to the bloodline if he turned heel.  I'm all for a Knight/ Cena match at Mania but hopefully theirs another way to get there

16 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Toadie mentioning both Big Boss Man and Bam Bam Bigelow in today's episode, how long before we get another wrestling cameo?

Perhaps it's Amazon's way of seeing if wrestling would work on their platforms? Does Toadie get a pop?

Personal I managed to do a short road trip through Vietnam on aanual motorbike. I've always been an automatic rider here and use a fairly chunky scooter thing as it's easier in the city but been tempted by a proper bike for years. Rented one and had a blast but decided not to buy a personal one as gear changes for a big bloke like me are highly frustrating on smaller motors. 

Professional, in about to present at my first conference which I've been trying to get the courage to do for a long time. 

I did it 9nce years ago in a rush to get to London at fleet services and vowed never again. I kept a can of that foam spray in every car I had since.

These days I always make sure my motorbikes/scooters have ride flats so I can at least go slow until I find a place or random man on the roadside to do it for me. 

12 hours ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

After he lost at Mania, I did read a few opinions that it was the right move because Cody needs to overcome more adversity before winning the title. I’m sure dipshit Road Dogg was one of the ones parroting this.
 

As if suffering through the Stardust years, making the decision to leave, become a fairly big deal on the indies, starting a successful company, having dog collar matches, setting himself on fire, introducing the world to the Codyverse, making the jump back to WWE, going through with a Hell In A Cell match with an arm the colour of an aubergine, having months off for the injury, winning the Rumble and having a mini match at said Rumble with Gunther wasn’t overcoming adversity enough, he then won a very physical feud over Brock. But that’s not enough adversity. Now he somehow (assuming the video above actually leads anywhere) has to drag shithouse Omos to a decent match. 
 

There may have been a rubber chicken involved somewhere as well.
 

Should have won at Mania. 

Totally agree here now, I'd been on the fence for a while but when you look at Roman's bloodline storyline since Mania, none of it needed or really utilised the belt in any meaningful way. The Loan Paul match is possibly the only thing at an absolute stretch. Meanwhile the Cody/Brock feud could have used the belt well with Brock even winning it and losing back to Cody which would have been a big deal

9 hours ago, Carbomb said:

IIRC that was the Builder's Cage match that WAW used to do back in the day. Don't know if they still do it though.

Wow! That's a memory that's shot back, I think Ricky outlined it on here many years ago when he still liked us. I must have take it from his post originally.

A couple more ideas I had were a tactical tag match where two managers assemble a team of 5 secretly but only 2 on each team are ever in the ring while the rest are in secret boxes. The manager can withwithdraw anyone at any time and replace to match up with the opposing sides choice unless eliminated. Basically a wrestler Pokémon battle. 

The other is an elevator gauntlet match. Use a big tower block and one wrestler on each floor. One starts in the lift and it randomly goes up and down with two wrestlers fighting on each floor which is set out with different themes such as a dojo, construction site, restaurant, bathhouse or whatever. Winner of the fall gets back in the lift and once all other floors are eliminated they go to the roof and fight the champ for the belt.

One match I made for an old TEW game I ran was an "I Quit" cage match where the loser was the first one to voluntarily leave the cage as a twist on the more traditional non cage version. Basically a feud ender where two wrestlers batter each other senseless in a cage until one has had enough.

Another cage idea was the Perspex box match where the cage is replaced by thickened Perspex meaning nobody can get in/ out but you can see in nicely.

I liked the idea of a traffic light tag team match too where you have two (red/green) or three (red/amber/green) people in a team and the light changes color randomly meaning another person on that team must tag in/ can be pinned for that time period. 

3 hours ago, Statto said:

I was fine with the fact it got no reaction, it just made it a nice little Easter egg nod to the past. If everyone had acknowledged it and guffawed and done the Captain America "I understood that reference" bit it would have made it super cheesy IMO.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Kip as he's a Norfolk boy, but I thought he did very well on the pre-show panel, and interacted well with Wight. Suffolk scumbag Anthony Ogogo not so much, but he was passable I guess.

My highlight of the pre-show panel was Wight telling Renee not to push Ogogo to make a match pick because "he's new in the company". Pretty much a day 1 signee, IIRC. Guess he's been gone long enough to be completely forgotten even by his co-workers.

The first time he said it I was onboard with the little Easter egg but it became cringeworthy following his second attempt. Anyway fair play to Sabian and Ogogo for doing it as it's not a role theve been in before I think. Especially Anthony on his first night in. 

Missed quite a few pages on the thread and still watching through the event. Did anyone else watch Kip Sabian try to use the famous Summerslam 92 quote about the bulldog twice during Zero Hour to absolutely no reaction from his cohosts? 

Always interesting to read your notes and realize how things get mixed up in our heads. I could have sword Punk didn't wrestle until the Rumble as he was out injured late 2010 but he was back in the mix mostly off TV from the start of the year.  This really was the heart of the 50/50 era too wasn't it

I was always partial to "Virtual Bart" on the SNES (not sure about other consoles). I think I played it before actually watching a single episode of The Simpsons. Great pick up and play game with around 6-8 different games embedded.

The waterslide, pig Bart and tomato/egg throwing ones were my favorite while I couldn't stand the difficulty of dino Bart, Mad Max Bart and baby Bart. The opening/ ending scenes on each one were fantastic for the time especially the waterslide/pig level.

38 minutes ago, Nick James said:

Edge has always been, quite possibly, my favourite of all time. Not saying he's the best of all time, but definitely my favourite of all time. If that's it, then I'll be gutted to be honest as his return run has been a bit lacklustre to say the least, BUT, at least he got a return run and his final match wasn't Alberto Del Rio. 

All this talk of Edge to AEW is bollocks as well, surely? Imagine taking Christian away from the tremendous heel stuff he's been doing to have a 10 minute nostalgia run where they can't even be called Edge and Christian. Plus no doubt within a month, a TLC would be booked with Jeff and Matt that would likely kill Jeff off for good. 

That's exactly why I hope he doesn't go anywhere near AEW. They don't need him and he doesn't need to become an edge parody feuding with the very broken Hardy's. 

Only thing wrestling wise I'd like to see is some form of q and a show with him, Christian and some form of Dudley's/Hardy's perhaps. 

On 8/16/2023 at 8:15 PM, deathrey said:

Hmm it basically seems both of you are saying that everything I'm worried about is likely to happen. Maybe it's a little ambitious and Vancouver should wait a couple of years. I think maybe start small with a European trip next year.

 

Thank you @simonwordenand @Chest Rockwellyou've given me lots to think about but I think I'm swaying towards not going.

No worries, I strangely comfort myself by some of things we don't do by thinking about money saved if that helps

I'm not going but fully on board with a Stadium Stampede. There's loads of mad wembley, London, UK specific shit they can do here. Plus if Gangrel appears in the background eating crisps we'll know Tomy is among our ranks. 

2 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

This is the same promotion that was on the Jericho podcast right? That was an interesting listen.. 

Yeah, I finally got around to it todaym best part was the announcer talked enough Jericho barely got a word in. Always a plus. 

2 hours ago, Mr.Showtime said:

How did such a promotion get on a Jericho podcast? Has he been doing this with other obscure destinations (I haven't listened in a long time)?

I don't know about in Ho Chi Minh City but up in the capital of Hanoi wrestling is non-existent. Well, not that I've been looking. There's definitely been more buzz over the last couple of years about MMA and setting up smaller events in various locations, but I've seen zero wrestling, so this was fascinating to read, thanks!

If anything was organised in Hanoi, I would absolutely want to learn how to be a referee or manager 😂

Not 100 percent sure, they've been pretty hot on their promotion online and did get into PWI not long ago. No idea how they ended up on Jericho's podcast apart from he picked up on the story and it intrigued him so he got in touch. The podcast did give a good bit of Insight into the challenges of getting to big or known and having the government try to put a stop to it for lack of understanding which happens often. Black Pink had to pay copyright fees to play their own songs the other week!

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

My brother lives in Ho Chi Minh City and has been to a couple of events they've put on and really enjoyed them. Funnily enough, he always utterly rinsed me when I was a kid for enjoying wrestling, so quite funny that he's ended up having fun at these shows. I think having something to do out there that's a bit different is a factor. 

Starting to feel there's a lot of gimmick infringement in this forum now! That's what one of the draws for a lot of people is I think. It's a decent night out with the bar and food. If you're ever visiting let me know although this venue will need a serious toilet upgrade before a ukff meetup could safely happen. 

8 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I got very confused when I saw the name Mitch Ryder on there, as I was thinking "oh wow, I remember him from CHIKARA back in the day", only to remember that he's dead and this is a different bloke.

Thanks for posting this, I love grassroots wrestling in parts of the world with little or no tradition of pro-wrestling, it's always interesting seeing or reading about how they approach it, and what local flavour it's given. 

No worries, happy to share. I might add a few more highlights from shows if they have a more local flavour. I also found the late Mitch Ryder at first when looking for a bio. This guy was a solid worker but not done much outside the Aussie scene yet but has potential. 

Most of you are probably unware that I live in Vietnam. Oh you knew already? I don't recall mentioning it before. Jokes out the way, for anyone interested here's a quick write up on my first visit to the local wrestling company Vietnam Pro Wrestling https://www.youtube.com/@VietnamProWrestling4Life .

To give a quick background, they've been going for quite a few years starting off as just doing dojo type shows on a Gatomove type mat, since then they've managed to have a ring constructed and made leaps and bounds in their product. When I first heard about them I will admit I was put off by the size of the wrestlers, their lack of costumes, gimmicks and some of their in ring work looking pretty dangerous. That was back in probably 2017-18 and after that I kind of switched off until more recently when some of my colleagues have attended their recent shows and given them glowing reviews which I completely agree with now.  I won't go into much more background information on them as the recent Jericho podcast with the owner and ring announcer does a far better job than I could. My match recaps will also be fairly short as I don't have a great knack for it. 

Show Report

The show titled "The Rumble" was held this last Saturday in VAIB Studios, Ho Chi Minh City. This was probably the closest a wrestling show has ever been held to my home in my life and it was nice to be in bed around 20 minutes after the last bell rang.  You can see the venue in their videos, it's a warehouse type room that's used for filming and events. Ring was set up in the middle with a video screen at the entrance. Overall they've got a decent set up with screen/ lighting for an Indy promotion especially considering they don't have any predecessors in Vietnam.  At a 300 capacity venue there really isn't a bad seat in the house. More importantly the promotion brings in a load of different food/drink vendors for the show including a local brewery, hot dogs, burgers and pizza by the slice.

The show started on time with the ring announcer Xavier Patrick welcoming us to the show in a very enthusiastic way reminiscent of how Progress shows (used to?) start. With an audience full of casuals and even never seen wrestling before's it helped to drive up enthusiasm more than your traditional introductions.

Match 1 - Sid Nguyen vs Mitch Ryder

Ryder was a visiting Australian wrestler while Sid is one of the two friends who started VPW. This was an excellent opener with both starting off as faces and Ryder slowly showing the classic heel mannerisms building more heat in the match until being pinned after around 15 mins by Sid. The match had a good mix of mat wrestling, high flying, brawling and entertainment based spots and started the show off well. I think having a more seasoned wrestler from abroad in the first match helped get things off to a good start but Sid Nguyen held his own and looked like a pro as well.

Match 2 - Venom Shank vs Hydraco and Phong Tran

This was the first storyline based match on the show with Hydraco having some previous beef with Venom Shank and introducing Phong Tran as his mystery partner for the match. Venom Shank are a set of two twins who are short, stocky and have matching outfits and hairstyles. They have a real evil - minion vibe about them (not the yellow Pixar things) and I'd love to see them paired up with a manager or a singles star to make a mid-card faction. Hydraco wears basketball attire and seems to be more of a flyer/ fast striker in terms of move set while his partner Phong Tran has a kind of K-Pop star gimmick and I would love to see the latter make the transition over to prima donna heel in due course. I would hazzard a guess these guys were the least experienced roster members and at times this showed in the psychology of the match but then this wasn't a bad match at all. I've seen far worse from more experienced guys over the years it was perhaps just that compared to the two more experienced workers in match 1 the psychology was not quite there. After mixing it up for around 10-12 minutes the match ended in a draw with one of the twins going to a clever double pin with Hydrco, followed by him getting a good amount of green mist in the face. 

Match 3 - VPW Openweight Championship - Damien Wolfe (C) vs Ares

This was the best singles bout of the night. Wolf is a big chunky guy who comes to the ring in a trench coat and looks mean but not as mean as the challenger Ares, my now favorite VPW wrestler who is a wonderful meaty man whose clearly spent a good amount of time in the gym. A slow burner that got the crowd going about a third of the way through, it reminded me of my Orpington days where Martin Stone would have big meaty man fights with people like Leroy Kincade and Batallion. After a few false finishes Ares got the win to become the new champ much to the delight of the fans.  

Main Event - The Rumble (20 man) 

The winner of the rumble received the "sure shot" contract - think Money in the Bank.

I was pretty merry by the time we got here so I'll just write highlight notes on what was an entertaining rumble match using standard timed entry rules.

• Guys from the first 2 matches were part of the early goings on and continued their conflict from earlier with the twins doing a bit of twin magic during the rumble. 
• Xavier Patrick the ring announcer entered the match himself which got a big pop and he danced and played a fishing game with a big chunky tag team known as "The Classic Night"
• Immediately after this a locally famous comedian called Phuong Nam entered which got a huge pop from the Vietnamese in attendance 
• End of the match was built around their veteran trainer Fugo Fugo Yumeji taking it to some of his early days trainees
• Rocky Huynh won the Rumble 

Post Show thoughts

I really enjoyed this show, going in I didn't expect that much but it was up there with any indy shows I've seen in the UK in the last 15-20 years in terms of entertainment value. A lot of the roster are really young and don't have the same opportunities to travel around wrestling different places and people regularly but I reckon a lot if not most of them could hold their own in the UK or USA. Production quality was brilliant and the best thing (apart from the food/ beer) in this area was the kept things on time and I was off home by 10:15PM. 

It's not really my place to say but if I was to give my thoughts on what they need to do next I'd say push the gimmicks in a bit further, lean into the Vietnamese culture a bit more and most importantly they need a raffle. They already do a good job of catering to pretty much everyone there from long term fans like me, children and even making it interesting for curious locals who have no idea what wrestling is.

I know this is probably not of massive interest to most people here but in the past we've had threads on more obscure wrestling and events so thought it would be worth a write up for my first time. I don't think I'll make a habit of clogging up the threads here.

TLDR - Vietnam has wrestling now and it's good. 

4 hours ago, deathrey said:

So you did 16 hours?! That does sound like a nightmare. I did wonder about the seat thing for my youngest. He is a big boy, despite the two year age gap, he shares t-shirts with his older brother. I was wondering if we would be able to get him a seat from the offset as he will be days away from turning two. I think may have to contact some airlines.

Yeah it's definitely worth talking to them before. The way out was better than the way back as we were there for a month and our lad used the Christmas period to learn to walk and do some growing so they wouldn't let us have the bassinet meaning he had to stay on one of our laps for the whole journey. 

1 hour ago, deathrey said:

I'm not sure where to put this, here or the children thread but I'll give it a go here. My cousin is getting married in Vancouver next year and wants us to come over. My youngest will be one - his second birthday would happened out there if we went and my eldest will be one month shy of his fourth birthday. It's at least a 9 hour flight. Is it worth flying that far with two toddlers? Or do I just say 'sorry we can't make it this year, maybe next year?'.

Also anyone who has travelled with little kids, I'm guessing an Air BnB or something similar would be better than a hotel?

I did atwo 8 hour flights back to back to get home with a just 1 year old in December. It was hard work. We couldn't rest as we had to flip between trying to get him to sleep and keeping him entertained for the whole time. We decided against another trip back for this year until next when he can have his own seat. Best advice I can give is do it if you really want to go but be prepared. Lots.of snacks, cartoons they like downloaded etc and you might be fine. Go on a good airline who will be supportive. 

One thing to consider with the birthday over there is making sure you book properly as they'll have to be in their own seat once they turn two. No idea how you would book that unless you book each journey separately. 

The idea of Umaga Vs Taker in 08 or 09 sounds brilliant. I'd have love to see Umaga take it off him post Punk feud and then be the one to drop it to Jericho for the Mania run. 

Umaga was really a career resurgence for the guy behind it after years on the Indies and being part of 3MW. Always surprised me how well a character like that worked in 2006 to 2009. If he was alive today he could have been a great short term opponent or bodyguard type for Roman. 

Keep up the great reports Raid, just another 13 or so years to go!

7 hours ago, 2Xtreme_lives said:

With this even in mind. If they go on first and he flies straight down even on a private jet its a 3 hour flight. He'll be pushing it either way

I wonder if WWE will make every effort to get him there so he can boast about winning through another outlet. I assume he's get a quick interview or two at the event.