Category: Wrestling Musings

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

40 Years Ago, Hulkamania Was Born

On this day – precisely four decades ago – Hulk Hogan defeated the reigning World Wrestling Federation heavyweight champion of the world, the Iron Sheik, to win the title at Madison Square Garden and thus began a legendary run that would last decades.

I’ve made no bones about never being the biggest Hogan fan ever. I wasn’t watching wrestling during the 80s and by the time I started watching, his act was getting stale and his backstage reputation of sorts (things that don’t work for him, brother) sort of tainted my perception of the man. That having been said, regardless of your actual feelings, you cannot deny that Hulk Hogan was an important part of the evolution and growth of WWE. He was a vital piece of the puzzle that needed the right promoter in Vince McMahon to take advantage of that natural charisma and charm that attracted audiences in the first place. The 80s was one of those instances where the right parts were working in tandem to create a monster that continues to this very day.

If Verne Gagne had ran with Hogan in AWA and made him the champion long term… yeah, sure, you might have moved some tickets, but Gagne was old-timey wrestling promoter who emphasized athletics over sensationalism. And quite frankly, I believe his son Greg to be not too far off from the tree. Hogan would’ve been wasted in that environment unless they treated him like he’d be treated in Japan… but that’s not difficult to do when you’ve got other big bodies on the market. Hogan making the jump to WWF, under the control of Vince Jr, was the move he needed to make and it proved to be a good decision.

So while I may never be the world’s biggest Hulkamaniac – nor would I want to be – I can at least tip my hat and acknowledge the man’s accomplishments and his enduring legacy that will continue onwards. Congrats on forty years of Hulkamania.

Okada Is Leaving New Japan… Let’s Have A Billion Podcasts On This One Subject

I mean… for fuck’s sake, man. I get it. Okada’s the golden child of New Japan or something, but fuck me, we don’t need eleventy-billion podcasts on the subject.

Then again, we still need Lance Storm’s take on the matter. And Granny’s. And Filthy Tom’s take. And that of Karl Stern. Or Denise, for that matter. I’m surprised Dave didn’t shoot another ten podcasts on the matter.

Want More AEW Musings? Get Tony Khan Off Twitter.

So I was going to sit down and watch the latest edition of Dynamite that I have recorded on PVR; the episode was supposed to be really good and I wanted to support new AEW World Champion Samoa Joe on his long-deserved World title run on a major wrestling show. I like to be able to enjoy the Hangman Page/Claudio match, which was a tremendous bit of action. I want to be able to enjoy the Brodie Lee Tribute 8-Man match, which was loads of fun. There’s stuff I want to enjoy that I thought were pretty good and I wanted to write about all of that.

But I really don’t want to reward bad behavior.

Tony Khan is a madman on Twitter, bitching about people complaining about Hook getting a title shot at Samoa Joe’s world title while no one is batting an eye over perennial loser Jinder Mahal getting a World title shot out of the blue. I say madman because from what I’ve seen, NOBODY is complaining about Hook getting a title shot and a great MAJORITY of people are wondering why a guy who hasn’t won a match in over a year is getting a World title opportunity on RAW, even if it is the consolation prize World title held by Seth Rollins. I would very much like to see this part of the world where nobody is hindering Jinder and everyone is shitting on Hook.

TK thinks he’s being clever by bitching about something online that the other guys are doing and then he sneaks in a tweet hyping up his big show. The problem with that strategy – and something that is EASILY verifiable by even the most inept social media user – is that the end result is everyone making fun of TK and calling him a fucking tool because he let one bad tweet get to him. He thinks that every bit of social media that doesn’t immediately praise him or his booking as what the cool kids call “god tier” is an attack on his very being. Is this his way of fearing for his online life or is this more of those anti-AEW bots that he likes to bring up every so often?

I wanted to give Dynamite another run. I was actually looking forward to it. But then TK had to go and be a fucking Twitter fool and now that’s all I’m thinking about. AEW has some issues that need fixing and one of them involves the guy on top. Keep him off Twitter or on a tight leash where he’s doing nothing but promoting matches on his shows and I might give this another try. I’m done with backstage drama tainting the wrestling shows I watch. I would very much like to enjoy these shows unhindered.

No pun intended.

Kevin Dunn Leaving WWE…

Source: https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/kevin-dunn-reportedly-leaving-wwe

Well, it truly is the end of an era now that the old “Bucky Beaver Mother Fucker” himself, WWE executive producer Kevin Dunn, is parting ways with the company that has employed his services for close to four decades. Regardless of what you thought of the man or how he produced television, he was always a major part of that WWE machine and there’s no doubt that there will be some huge shoes to fill. Hopefully, ol’ KD will enjoy the fruits of his labor… or maybe he’ll start a podcast… or maybe he’ll be the next AEW signee to fill the void left by Andrade.

Either way, we wish Kevin Dunn the best in all of his future endeavors.

Outside The All-Elite Bubble

For anyone curious, I have not watched AEW’s Double Or Nothing PPV from last month (or was it the month before?) I did watch the Forbidden Door PPV… or rather the replay of Forbidden Door. And only because I was told that Tony Khan actually got the rights to Final Countdown for Bryan Danielson to come out to in his match with Okada. I’ll have full thoughts on the show… eventually, but I thought it was just fine.

I’m sure someone is reading this and having a conniption fit over my not glorifying this show as the greatest thing ever… but anyone who knows me knows that I don’t watch New Japan and thus do not have the New Japan hard on that certain folks in the wrestling bubble would have. And also, I have not been keeping up with as much AEW as I would like… life stuff and all that jazz.

I have also not watched a single lick of the new Saturday Night Collision show, thus killing Punk’s brilliant theory on how I’m watching no matter what and I didn’t. I’ve heard good things about the show, but when I heard Collision was only going to be on the TSN streaming app, I said, “Fuck it.” Because the last time I tried the TSN streaming app, it was a total clusterfuck of an app and I gave up on. Now apparently, I’ve heard that TSN did air replays at midnight, but you know what? I ain’t watching shit at midnight on a Saturday night and I haven’t DVR’ed a single episode of the show either, if that’s the case. That’s why I don’t talk about Rampage or those Battle Of The Belt shows; cuz it’s only on the app and that app is fucking horrible.

Even Dynamite… I haven’t been keeping up with all that much. Just didn’t have the time and you know the funny thing, the more time passes, the less inclined you are to go back to something… I’ve been dealing with some family stuff, some personal stuff, and like I said, there are also technical bits I needed to work on. I just didn’t have the time, so Forbidden Door ended up being the first proper AEW show that I’ve seen in a while. Why that show? Because I wanted to give Tony Khan a couple bucks and help him pay Europe for the use of Final Countdown… that was it, really. As soon as I heard he actually got the rights to Final Countdown, I’m like, “Yeah, I gotta get this show.” So, there you go.

I have yet to play the Fight Forever video game… reviews have been generally positive, but I’m debating whether I’m gonna go for the Switch version or go full-blown PC version… also I’m debating going all in now or waiting for a price drop… we’ll see. WWE front… tonight’s Money In The Bank. We’ll see if I can catch, but if not… oh well.

About Roman’s New Belt

So now that my two month wrestling embargo and subsequent one week hiatus has come to a close, I can finally talk about this “new” undisputed WWE title that Roman Reigns was gifted for reaching a thousand days, which I assume was the whole point of this deal. As you could probably tell, it’s just the usual belt buckle design, except now the center plate has a yellowish/gold backdrop and it says Undisputed Champion.

Much ado about nothing, I suppose. But at least Roman has a shiny new belt to carry around.

This also presumably means that the original WWE Championship that has been a thing since the inception of the promotion itself back in 1966 – the one held by Bruno, Hogan, Bret, Shawn, Austin, Rock, Cena, and others – has been put to rest so that focus can be put on both Roman’s one new belt and the fake World title that Seth is carrying around.

History is apparently nothing more than a number to surpass and flaunt on social media these days.

Oh well… at least GUNTHER is still IC champion. That’s the only reign I give two shits about these days.

No More Wrestling For Me… For Now, At Least

Yeah, so the header pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat; I enjoyed Wrestlemania for the most part. I thought that Saturday had the far stronger showing and the right main event with the right ending to provide a satisfying pay off to something that has been built up for a long while. However, while Night 1 showed that WWE was more than capable of paying off their storylines in satisfying fashion, Night 2 seemed to confirm that no matter how much of a good thing they got going, they are invariably going to find a way to fuck it up. I’m reserving any further thoughts for this Friday’s Ramblemania 39 musings and you’d better believe that I have quite a bit to say, especially in regards to the main events of both nights.

Beyond that, however, I’m taking a break from watching wrestling.

Listen, I’ll be honest. I haven’t been feeling it as of yet. The AEW side of things has been somewhat stagnant, no mater how many “important announcements” Tony Khan pulls out of his ass to announce the latest WWE job guy that he signed to a new deal, will push for a couple weeks on Dynamite before being relegated to Dark or Elevation at best and sitting at home at most. Dude, unless your important announcement is the return of MIRO and having him kill MJF for the World title, anything you say is blowing smoke out of your ass. At this point, you’re starting to sound like Dixie Carter, who had the habit of hyping every announcement as something that could change the face of wrestling forever, only to learn that they painted the walls of the washrooms in the Impact Zone.

And then there’s this Endeavor deal to acquire WWE and merge it with UFC to become this super duper combat sports entertainment super giant. When the best thing you can say about the deal is that “it’s better than the Saudis buying it…” I don’t know; maybe this’ll be a good thing, maybe it won’t. All I know is that regardless of who’s owning it or who’s running the creative, the same old creaky habits are still prevalent in the creative process and I’m just about done give them umpteenth chances. It’s been a fun ride, but I’m getting off and I don’t know when I’ll be back.

So here’s the deal; I’ve got one PPV musings this coming Wednesday, then the Ramblemania. And then we forgo any and all wrestling talk for the next couple months unless something significant happens. I have no problem filling the void with something else in the interim.

Later.