Sha Samuels and Josh Bodom shoot on ref allegedly

[WyattSheepMask]

 

1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

 

 

“Back....and to the left”

[Surf Digby]

2 hours ago, Accident Prone said:

Grand stuff, so Sha should've called the audible to make sure instead of just going ahead with it. "Are you okay to take a slam right now?" and the ref indicates yes or no.

It's very possible Sha just said "Bodyslam" and didn't wait for any consent, or just did it without letting him know. It's definitely a misjudgement on his part, where a worked punch or worked headbutt could've got across the same point without a bump.

"Called the audible"

For fucks sake.

[Your Fight Site]

I don’t know why this is still being debated. Sha shouldn’t have body-slammed Aaren without prior knowledge. There’s a reason WWE tells us not to try [wrestling] at home: you can get injured if you’re untrained and unprepared. You can still get injured if you are both trained and prepared. Trained professionals therefore shouldn’t be putting other people at the risk of undue injury by hitting moves on unsuspecting participants and then blaming them if they get injured, saying “They should be trained” (even when they had been) or “Should be able to work on the fly”. It’s nothing but victim blaming and an attempt to excuse reckless and dangerous behaviour. End of. 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Your Fight Site

[Accident Prone]

10 minutes ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

"Called the audible"

For fucks sake.

[BomberPat]

I'm not particularly confident in this point, and it's more than a little "back, and to the left" but I do find it interesting that they cut very abruptly on the cover, to a point where you can just see Aaren's hand in shot, then immediately cut back after the "kick-out". That's not a framing that makes a lot of sense - though I'm not overly familiar with RevPro's VOD content, so maybe it's par for the course - but it feels like they cut very abruptly to a tighter zoom (maybe even cropped in post?) in order to better protect Josh than Aaren.

The camerawork in general is fucking dreadful, but maybe that's normal - particularly as they've left in footage of Bodom attacking Aaren at ringside. You know, that footage Quildan mysteriously didn't see.

In terms of timing, Sha is barely in the ring before he starts with the bodyslam. If he were improvising a spot to get his heat back, you'd think he would milk it, give the crowd time to recognise what's happening. It's blink and you'll miss it stuff.

Edited September 20, 2019 by BomberPat

[Accident Prone]

22 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The camerawork in general is fucking dreadful, but maybe that's normal - particularly as they've left in footage of Bodom attacking Aaren at ringside. You know, that footage Quildan mysteriously didn't see.

Rev Pro having dreadful video production is definitely very normal (constant zooms, unfocused, smudges, awful audio balancing) but even that shot is rather dubious. 

24 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

In terms of timing, Sha is barely in the ring before he starts with the bodyslam. If he were improvising a spot to get his heat back, you'd think he would milk it, give the crowd time to recognise what's happening. It's blink and you'll miss it stuff.

Bang on with this. 

Also, I find it perplexing that they completely cut out the CCK vs MK & Maloney match due to the botched ending and Gresham's subsequent injury, but left in the Aussie Open vs Bodom & Sha match, controversy and all.

[BomberPat]

I think it might be because the Aussie Open match had implications for Royal Quest the next day (no idea if the CCK match did or not, though), though mostly because they're at least smart enough to recognise that if they cut it out entirely they'd get no end of shit from people. I thought they would have edited it more than they have to try and cover their arses, there's definitely some dubious choices of camera angle in there - though, as you say, that may just be standard practice.

[chokeout]

34 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

The camerawork in general is fucking dreadful, but maybe that's normal - particularly as they've left in footage of Bodom attacking Aaren at ringside. You know, that footage Quildan mysteriously didn't see.

 

I can't decide if the camera cuts during the pin are terrible live editing or someone has intentionally gone in and used bad angles. (Who doesn't frame a pin with the ref in shot?) Looking at the edit they have used the angle that shows Bodom's attack the least, hence the lovely framing of a ring post with half a wrestler on it. They could easily have cropped in on the hard side for a cleaner cutaway. Camerawork as an afterthought in companies that charge for their video boils my piss. 

[Accident Prone]

They were fucked whatever they went with, but I think the less controversial option would've been to cut straight after the three count, just as Fletcher was posing on the ropes. It would've been abrupt and sharp, but you wouldn't have all this bullshit where they've clearly got the Bodom attack on all of their cameras and are trying to work around it.

Rev Pro video production is bad, woeful even, but even some of those chosen shots and zooms are very, very questionable.

The CCK/MK & Maloney match being cut due to the botched ending just strikes me as very odd. No matter how bad the finish or injury, most companies will keep matches intact, no matter how inconsequential the match is. But this show wasn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill show though (biggest show of the year with three matches that had controversy surrounding them) so I guess they're aiming for easy wins.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Accident Prone

[BomberPat]

Even so, it feels very odd to cut a match under almost any circumstances - particularly on a big show, that (largely due to all that controversy) will have a lot of eyes on it. I wonder if it's a timing issue - the show over-ran by something like 45 minutes, and maybe there's some reason they want to keep the overall show down to within a time constraint. 

[Tommy!]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

feels like they cut very abruptly to a tighter zoom

Like when Randy ran in at NYR that year and they had to crop him out in the edit with a super zoom on HHHs face for the DVD.

I loved that, still make s me laugh how unsubtle they were in the edit.

[iPumaPants]

4 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The ref called the match with the right result. The only thing wrong was it wasn't the right finish. Sha's bodyslam was weak and while I don't agree with doing something without consent, he protects the ref. Bodom on the other hand is acting like he's had too many bottles of Hooch and a kebab on the way home from the pub. Absolute thuggery 

I'm not sure he does. I think he picks him up with the technique he knows, which at his level would be second nature to him. Sha is a big guy, and from the video, there's no way the ref isn't sandbagging. He clearly didn't want it to happen, Sha gave him no choice, and as already mentioned, there's about a split second between Sha getting in the ring (at which point the referee appears already on the defensive) and bodyslamming the ref. 

 

The footage being uploaded just makes the whole thing worse. So much for Andy Quildan respecting the referee and wanting to help. All he's done is used it to sell his on demand show. At this point, the whole thing is just an absolute shambles.

Edited September 20, 2019 by iPumaPants

[BomberPat]

There really doesn't seem to be any communication between Sha and Aaren.

And while people have pointed out that Sha has protected Aaren's neck, everything else about the execution of that slam would be torn to shreds if he did it in a training school, let alone on the biggest show of the year. From what I can tell (like I said, it's "blink and you'll miss it") he doesn't allow Aaren the opportunity to post off him, so he's pretty much all deadweight no matter what, and seems to be more focused on just throwing him to the mat than anything else. 

Again, if it was about "calling an audible", it's a terrible job of it. If it was about Sha trying to get some heat back, why do it all in the blink of an eye? There's no argument with the ref, no point where Sha sells the frustration or makes a show of picking Aaren up for the audience to see before slamming him. It's a slam done with the intent to "teach him a lesson", and has fuck all to do with the match, the audience, or anything else.

I was at the point last week where I thought that Sha could be forgiven, and that it was a momentary lapse of judgement from him, but Bodom and Quildan were the real shits. But, while I still wouldn't put Sha on Bodom's level, seeing the footage in full makes me question his version of events all over again. 

Edited September 20, 2019 by BomberPat

[Carbomb]

One of the odder things about this is that Quildan is or used to be a ref himself (I haven't watched much BritWres recently, so don't know if he's still doing it), and I'm fairly sure he'd have objected to being treated in a similar manner, both in terms of the incident, and the professional and public reactions afterwards.

[BomberPat]

2 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

One of the odder things about this is that Quildan is or used to be a ref himself (I haven't watched much BritWres recently, so don't know if he's still doing it), and I'm fairly sure he'd have objected to being treated in a similar manner, both in terms of the incident, and the professional and public reactions afterwards.

That was one of the things that disappointed me most about the whole thing - someone did ask him on Twitter how he'd have felt if someone had done something similar to him when he was refereeing but, obviously, he didn't reply. 

A lot of decisions you make as a ref are "in the moment" choices, and when it comes to "call a three when it's not the finish", you're usually weighing up pissing off the wrestlers vs. pissing off the boss, but you make that choice on the understanding that the boss has your back. I lost what little respect I had for Quildan when he tried to bury this, and when he immediately took the side of "the boys" over the referee. Because then it's not just Aaren, it's clearly sending a message to anyone else who might ever work for them that he doesn't support you.

I know other promoters who made a point of messaging their referees reassuring them that he would have their back, what to do in this sort of situation, that he would respect their call, and so on. But it's sad that we should all even be in a position where it needs to be said.