Category: Wrestling Musings

All posts related to pro rasslin’ that isn’t covering specific shows or events.

I Am Not ALL IN… But Would Watch It On TV

So the big story as of late is that ALL IN, the independent wrestling show thing that is organized by Cody (Rhodes) and the Young Fucks… er, I mean, Bucks (sorry; slip of the tongue and all that jazz) that’s being held at the Sears Arena in Chicago, has sold out in roughly half an hour. And without the benefit of television promotion, hyper hyperbole through the “usual” media circuits, or that WWE machine that people claim to hate but still support. For the record, I don’t hate the machine; just the shitty shows they’ve been putting out in the past few years.

As for ALL IN selling out, that’s pretty impressive. I’m sure we all had our doubts as to whether they could pull it off with what little in terms of promotion they had at their disposal, but the fact that they were able to pull it off shows that there is some genuine interest in what Cody and the Fucks (sorry, I mean Bucks… GODDAMIT WOO!) have in store for this show.

Think about it… there was nothing in terms of big-scale promotion; only lots of social media stuff and even then, not all that much. And on top of that, they didn’t have a card on there. It’s just three guys with a vision of sorts who wanted to put a big indy wrestling show at a rather big arena… and for the most part, their vision paid off in half an hour. There’s an interest in this show and now that there’s an audience, the real work begins.

Whatever the case may be come September – whether it ends up being a card for the ages or the proverbial drizzling shits – this is a good sign for the indy circuit and I wish Cody and the Bucks (got it right this time) all the best in their upcoming show.

Now if only they find themselves a nice streaming deal so that the rest of us can watch this thing…

MMA Fighter Guy Chael Sonnen Roasts Former MMA Diva Ronda Rousey

The context: Former UFC Diva Ronda Rousey did a couple interviews with ESPN where they asked about her future in the MMA circuit and Rousey dodged the questions. While this might seem like a dickish move on the part of the hosts to touch on a part of her life that she doesn’t want to touch, there’s also another side of the story, as MMA fight guy Chael Sonnen explains in the video.

My take? I really have none since I haven’t seen the interviews in question. I have seen Ronda in other interviews and… well, vapid charisma vacuum is perhaps the most generous statement I can levy her way. So, I don’t know. I can’t agree or disagree.

This Chael fellow? Hell of a promo in this video. Why isn’t he signed to an acting gig? He’s got talent.

Reflecting On Brock Lesnar's UFC Debut

Originally posted on the old DTM Blog on February 4th, 2008:

Managed to get myself past the Brock match to see the rest of the show, whom a friend of mine foolishly blew fifty bucks on and taped the event for me. Other than a few quick moments, I couldn’t really get into the show. It just seems like after watching a bunch of sports-entertainers trying to make scripted entertainment seem real for a whole bunch of years, I’d expect a real fight to even more intense, only to be sorely disappointed as I watch two grown men in their boxers swatting each other like flies with about as much ferocity as a ball of cotton. Maybe I prefer my action to be scripted.

But let’s get back to Brock for a minute. Obviously his first UFC outing didn’t turn out too well, as after a minute of solid punches, he was caught in a leglock and forced to tap out. While I mentioned this already in a previous blog post, Brock is far from the next big choke. It’s his first match and naturally, you can’t win them all. But from the short time he was offensive, he didn’t look like a complete idiot and may do very well in his new UFC career.

So best of luck, Brock.

The Modern Take:

As is probably known, Brock Lesnar recovered from his first UFC loss and eventually became UFC Heavyweight Champion. And then he lost the title and came back to WWE in 2012, where he sporadically remains to this day… at least, as of this recording.

Unfortunately for the world of real fights and MMA, I never could find the enthusiasm to enjoy watching two people beat the crap out of each other. I can certainly respect the toughness of these individuals in regards to the training and endurance required to participate in such intense contests, but when it comes to actually sitting down and watching the fights, I find myself falling asleep faster than if I were to watch a HHH promo.

This is perhaps why I prefer the wrestling shows. Sure, the fights are all phoney-balooney and all that, but at its best, wrestling tell better stories and feature characters with larger than life (or at least very likeable) personalities that you can’t help but take a liking to. So, MMA fans. You can have your real fights and stick ’em. I prefer my fights to be staged and pre-determined.

A Bunch Of Random Crap

So, a couple folks have been wondering why there hasn’t been much RAW talk on the blog, considering they started building towards Wrestlemania and also they recently had the Ultimate Deletion that saw Bray Wyatt get deleted and stuff. Well, it boils down to a couple reasons.

1 – I’ve been recovering from a cold. Hence the lack of frequent “worthwhile” posts such as videos and stuff.

2 – I haven’t had the need to watch RAW in years and whatever I might’ve missed, I can easily catch on Youtube via official clips. No need to sit through three hours of stuff.

Right now, there’s nothing on the “road to Wrestlemania” that has me remotely interested in the show beyond a strictly superficial level, but with news of Daniel Bryan Danielson being cleared to compete, I may be tempted to follow the road a little more closely… but not too closely, because I’ve got stuff to catch up on.

In other news, I’ve been lagging on the movie watching bit as of late. Off the top of my head, the last movie that I can recall going to the theatre to watch was The Last Jedi and since then, there hasn’t been much that piqued my interest. No, not even the modern-day blaxploitation film Black Panther has garnered much interest from me. I don’t know, man. There’s nothing on the waves or on the tube that has me really hooked as of late. I’ve dabbled on some of the Marvel stuff on Netflix, but after Defenders, I was done.

Now I just stick with binging on old episodes of Star Trek, Power Rangers, and other stuff. And mostly for the purposes of trying to turn those viewing experiences into material for the blog… which may or may not be considered a bad thing, I don’t know.

So I decided to make the plunge and donate a couple bucks of Classic Game Room’s Patreon page so that I could check out the new Classic Game Room 2085 show that started earlier this month. This new show is available on Amazon Prime… in the U.S. Outside of the U.S., you’re shit out of luck, which means signing on to the Patreon and checking out the shows there. And in hindsight, I’m glad that I DIDN’T make the plunge to Prime, as there was no way I could honestly justify going with a one-year commitment for a service that would have me watch just one show.

So, about Classic Game Room 2085… it’s essentially the same Classic Game Room that you got for the past couple years, except much longer and with more stuff within. Each episode features a game review, some viewer mail, and a couple other features depending on the theme of the show. I want to say that the show feels like a step up from the smaller reviews, but the truth is it’s really more of the same. Now for me, that’s fine and the longer format feels a bit more flexible, but if you didn’t care for the recent reviews on the old Youtube channel, then this new 2085 variation isn’t going to change your mind any better.

Anyway, I’m going to see if I can get back into the groove of finding my voice so I can start dubbing videos again. I desperately need to catch up in that regard, but on the bright side, most of the text stuff that’s on tap to be posted in the near future is pretty much done and will publish on schedule. So that’s one less headache to worry about.

Later, folks.

WTF?! Daniel Bryan Danielson Medically Cleared To Return To Action

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/smackdown/article/daniel-bryan-makes-huge-announcement?sf185073827=1

Well, that’s a genuine surprise. And here I thought I’d have to wait until his contract would expire to hear about him going to New Japan or whatever. But, hey, congratulations to Daniel Bryan Danielson for getting the clearance to do what he loves doing. Hopefully, he’ll be a bit more careful this time around… and hopefully, he’ll be the one inserted into the three-way rather than that Shane McMahon fellow.

I’ve said too much, haven’t I?