Random Thoughts III.

[Project Nim]

When I was much younger I avidly watched Superstars of a weekend, one highlight was always vignettes for new wrestlers.

One series aired on Bob Backlund (who I had never heard of) and one vignette came back to mind yesterday.

Vince on voiceover “Bob is preparing to return to the WWF and step away from his construction business.”

Cut to Bob atop a ladder hammering something. Stood next to him an unidentified individual who piped up with, “Gee Bob, I really wish you weren’t leaving.”

Bob, “Well a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do.”

Both lines were delivered with as much passion and fire as a dead slug, even as a kid I remember thinking ‘this berk is going to get battered”.

Edited April 3, 2019 by Project Nim
Formatting

[tiger_rick]

I had to go find that! It's about 32m into 17/10/1992 episode of Superstars. The one the week before is incredibly bad as Backlund sits facing the camera and asks "How is Bob backlund going to fit into the WWF with all the colour? With all the flair?" He's soooooo bad.

[King Pitcos]

Shawn Michaels without steroids looked tiny compared to everyone the last few years before he retired, but I suppose the big influx of indie wrestlers only came after. Surely he’d only be about as built as Kofi, who doesn’t look like a big lad on the roster.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Its crazy seeing supposed smaller wrestlers standing next to the roster today. When I was a teenager, Jeff Hardy was supposedly this tiny bag of bones straight off the backyard wrestling video game. Now he's one of the tallest they've got on Smackdown. He looks massive compared to some of them.

[stevieg1980]

Was going through the 1990 NWA/WCW roster for something from the wrestling misremembered thread and came across some interesting names and gimmicks I don't seem to remember coming across. 

Such as:

"Secret Service" Jack Victory which went to Jacko Victory later in the year. 

"The World's Strongest Man" Doug Furnas. 

"The Minotaur" Steve DiSalvo. 

So within a year they had two World's Strongest Man as Bill Kazmeier came in. Plus I'm really hoping Steve DiSalvo was an early Mantaur. With WCW's production values could be a complete train wreck. 

 

[King Pitcos]

On 4/1/2019 at 1:13 PM, King Pitcos said:

I’m curious about these as well. The market for them is fat little wrestling-fan scruffs like me, but I probably can’t pull off wearing something that loud. Im not paying a hundred quid to just be embarrassed by it. I’m glad I never had THE Ultimate Warrior jacket as a teenager for the same reason. The sort of people who can pull off wearing clothes that garish probably aren’t huge wrestling fans on the whole.

If one of them ever gets reduced enough, though, I’ll wear it to the club and see what people say. 

I’ve just bought the New Day one from Foot Locker. And their new Fila trainers.

[UK Kat Von D]

Watching Takeover and appreciating how they have always benefited from the shorter run time. Wrestlemania is going to drag like fuck compared to this.

Since it is on Friday this year, I’d be happy for them to give Saturday night to a three hour Wrestlemania pre-show event. Three hours featuring the WWE matches that don’t make the cut for the main Wrestlemania. Same arena as where NXT is held, good matches but save the really big stuff for Sunday. This is where you put stuff like Balor/Lashley. 

Wrestlemania is basically marketed as a week long wrestling holiday, they might as well do a show Friday to Tuesday and get a bit more money while giving fans more enjoyable shows 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I have no idea where to put this, but there's a guy with no legs wrestling on Joey Janela's Spring Break, and he's fucking unreal. Never seen the likes of it.

 

[simonworden]

5 hours ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Watching Takeover and appreciating how they have always benefited from the shorter run time. Wrestlemania is going to drag like fuck compared to this.

Since it is on Friday this year, I’d be happy for them to give Saturday night to a three hour Wrestlemania pre-show event. Three hours featuring the WWE matches that don’t make the cut for the main Wrestlemania. Same arena as where NXT is held, good matches but save the really big stuff for Sunday. This is where you put stuff like Balor/Lashley. 

Wrestlemania is basically marketed as a week long wrestling holiday, they might as well do a show Friday to Tuesday and get a bit more money while giving fans more enjoyable shows 

Couldn't agree more with this, it could easily be tied into the Hall of Fame i'd quite like to see the arena floor set up like a black tie dinner event with wrestlers, legends and their family watching at ringside. Have 4-5 matches tops that could be cut off of Mania, one could possibly be a bigger feature bout like AJ/ Orton or one of the battle royals this year. Would make the big show much more tolerable and from WWE's point of view perhaps slap off some of the other promotions benefiting from Wrestlemania as we know they'd much rather have the money and the viewers over the other guys 

[Daaaaaad!]

Well New Japan have already confirmed that they are turning Wrestle Kingdom into a two day event, and while I’m not suggesting that specifically will influence WWE, I do think in time they’ll realise they can make more from a two day event.  The show is getting so bloated at this point that two 3 hour events would surely go down far better than one seven hour slog. Plus, double the ticket money (in theory), even if they do have to rent the stadium twice instead of once. 

[Tommy!]

6 hours ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

I have no idea where to put this, but there's a guy with no legs wrestling on Joey Janela's Spring Break, and he's fucking unreal. Never seen the likes of it.

A wrestler who's legless you say

[King Pitcos]

Splitting WrestleMania into two nights is problematic. If it’s two nights in the stadium, a $300 ticket becomes a $600 ticket, and so on. If the first night is in the arena, that show is hard to advertise as anything other than a night of stuff that’s not quite good enough for Mania. It’s not gonna have the niche appeal of NXT, and not even the appeal of Raw, which at least has the top guys from Raw.

I did love the old Countdown To shows though, so I’d like them to try it. Fuck knows what sort of stuff would end up main eventing, though.

[UK Kat Von D]

1 hour ago, King Pitcos said:

Splitting WrestleMania into two nights is problematic. If it’s two nights in the stadium, a $300 ticket becomes a $600 ticket, and so on. If the first night is in the arena, that show is hard to advertise as anything other than a night of stuff that’s not quite good enough for Mania. It’s not gonna have the niche appeal of NXT, and not even the appeal of Raw, which at least has the top guys from Raw.

I did love the old Countdown To shows though, so I’d like them to try it. Fuck knows what sort of stuff would end up main eventing, though.

Don’t see how it would be problematic to hold it NXT arena and advertise it as as stuff not good enough for Mania. Plenty of fans will be in town, most of who will be buying their tickets before the card is announced anyway. They have a deep enough roster to put on a good warm up show that still has a few decent names. Make night one more work rate heavy and it will sell out.

I’ll tell you what is problematic though, seven hour wrestling shows. 

[air_raid]

4 hours ago, Daaaaaad! said:

Well New Japan have already confirmed that they are turning Wrestle Kingdom into a two day event, and while I’m not suggesting that specifically will influence WWE, I do think in time they’ll realise they can make more from a two day event.  The show is getting so bloated at this point that two 3 hour events would surely go down far better than one seven hour slog. Plus, double the ticket money (in theory), even if they do have to rent the stadium twice instead of once. 

 

Wrestle Kingdom will be two nights where the biggest matches are split between two nights and the guys not having their “big match” on one night will have an undercard tag or six man on the other night ; the roster will all wrestle twice in the same model they run double shots every February and October at present. Mania wouldn’t be diluted in the same manner, at least not successfully.

[King Pitcos]

4 hours ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Don’t see how it would be problematic to hold it NXT arena and advertise it as as stuff not good enough for Mania.

Maybe it’s be fine. If they did it this year, the card would probably be these matches (if we were keeping it to 5 like Takeover and going for the workrate stuff):

Lashley vs Balor

Mysterio vs Joe

Ryder/Hawkins vs Revival 

Smackdown tag team four way

Nese vs Murphy

I suppose that could work decently as a Takeover-style show? It just seems small-time as fuck but without the indie cred - but as you say, it'd probably sell out months in advance and if it delivered on the night, it’d establish itself as a cool brand for Mania weekend.