Wrestling PPV Musings – Page 27

NWA 70th Anniversary (2019 PPV)

So this coronovirus thing is a big deal. Businesses are shutting down, large gatherings and sporting events are getting cancelled left and right, and a lot of the sources of entertainment are slowly but surely going away as a result. Naturally, pro wrestling is being affected by this pandemic, with many smaller groups postponing or outright cancelling shows. One of these promotions is Billy Corgan’s revived National Wrestling Alliance, which had cancelled a PPV and further TV tapings.

As a sort of consolation for the lack of Powerrr, the NWA posted their 70th Anniversary show for free on their Youtube channel. The show, originally airing October 21, 2018, featured the main event of Cody Rhodes, defending the NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship against the man he beat for the title at All In the month prior, Nick Aldis, in a Best Of 3 Falls match. Also featured is the crowning of a new NWA National champion.

Sounds like fun… too bad I missed out the first time, but let’s take advantage of Billy’s generosity and give this a whirl, shall we?

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RambleMania 36

So we live in interesting times at the moment. There’s a worldwide pandemic that making thousands sick and killing a fraction of that number. Businesses are shutdown for extended periods. Live events and sports have been postponed until further notice. Everyone is being told to stay at home. And we watch as everything around us slowly becomes a police state and who knows when things will be back to normal, if at all.

This naturally affects pro wrestling, as a lot of independent promotions had been forced to cancel events, leaving many independent contractors out of work and unable to make money. However, some have tried to get in as much content as they can in the can before they’re forced to shutdown. One of them being WWE, who were supposed to hold Wrestlemania at a big stadium in Tampa, but after some back and forth, cancelled that event and decided to hold it at their Performance Center with no fans… as a pre-taped program… that’s too big for one night… or something.

The debate as to whether they should’ve cancelled or postponed the event until we can have crowds back will be debated until the end of time, but regardless, WWE did their Mania show and whether it turned out to be a complete disaster or an utter miracle, it was going to be unique if nothing else… and as such, I break my modern WWE moratorium with Wrestlemania 36… we’ll skip the one week of TV that I watched because those were pretty useless.

A word of warning: much like the Ramblemania entries of the past couple years, this is going to be a very long read, as I’ve opted to cover both nights in one single entry. Anyone who has followed the PPV Musings over the past couple years will know that I used to watch the longer WWE shows over the course of several nights and those would be noted in the posts, so this isn’t any different from what I’ve done before. However, considering the circumstances, and in an effort to try and make this as timeless as possible, this one is going to be particularly meaty as I try to include some context to the mix. There is a lot to digest here and I want to get down as much as I can.

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WWF In Your House #8 – Beware Of Dog (May 1996 PPV)

Fun little story behind this one; while this PPV took place on Sunday night, there was a nasty storm that killed the power in the arena, which meant lots of problems in the arena (everyone wrestled in the dark) as well as out (some PPV feed issues.) So the WWF did something special for their Tuesday replay, in which they replay the two matches from the Sunday show, but they’d also air a new set of matches from the arena live.

In all honesty, I thought that was a pretty cool move. At any other time, they could’ve went with half a PPV showing and be done with it… but they offered a make-up show and earned a bit of good will. In any event, how was this Beware Of Dog show?

Let’s find out.

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WWF In Your House #7: Good Friends, Better Enemies (April 1996 PPV)

Yeah, we’re doing another one of these In Your House shows… I want to cover the 1996 batch for the next few weeks before we move on to something else, expect a few more of these until May…

In any event, this is a notable event because it’s the last major appearance of two big names who will be soon hold a curtain call and be outsiders in a rival promotion… but that is then. This is now. Let’s get on with it.

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WWF In Your House #6 (February 1996 PPV)

Yeah, so I’ve been catching up on these In Your House shows as of late because I figured “why not?”

Beginning in 1995, the In Your House brand related to a series of monthly 2-hour PPVs that would occupy the months that didn’t already have a PPV scheduled. We’ve already looked at the 1995 shows ages ago and so we might as well continue the trend with the 1996 shows for the month.

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AEW Revolution (Feb. 2020 PPV)

How odd was it that I was more looking forward to a PPV event from All Elite Wrestling than I am the next Wrestlemania, which is supposed to be the biggest deal of them all?

In a way, not so odd… because in the preceding three months, I got a weekly wrestling show in Dynamite that was not only entertaining and fun, but also got me invested in wrestlers and personalities that I had either never known about before or at one point, disregarded as former WWE guys. Hell, this last week’s episode was probably the perfect go-home show for a PPV I’ve watched; because it had a main event angle that pushed forward not one, not two, but three matches primed for the card, it had a couple really good segments to build other matches, and there was also a really sick Ironman match that set the tone for the rest of the night.

And so, I watched the Revolution show… they missed a trick by not calling this show Lethal Leap Year or something like that. And the last time I saw a wrestling PPV with the word “Revolution” in it, it was a largely bad show whose only high point was Edge cashing in a briefcase to win the World title. I guess calling it Lethal Leap Year is out of the question because that’s a Southpaw thing… but in any event, silly name aside, how does the show fair?

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IMPACT Wrestling’s HARD TO KILL (January 2020 PPV)

WWE names one of their PPVs after an classic old song. Why not have a PPV named after a Steven Seagal movie?

And how apropos is Hard To Kill for a title of an Impact PPV, because it perfectly fits with the company’s identity. No matter how many fuck-ups have occurred, the company continues to survive to see another decade. Yes, it has produced countless hours of horrendous television and PPVs. Yes, it has made some questionable decisions for the sake of cheap publicity that fizzled out quickly, but no matter how bad the mess-up, the former TNA somehow finds a way to survive another year and for that alone, it deserves a modicum of respect.

Which is why I’m doing a very quick write-up on this show.

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AEW Full Gear 2019

So “Full Gear” was a running gag on the Being The Elite show where Hangman Page always shows up in these videos in his gear and people comment on his physique. This led to the “Full Gear Challenge” that prompted Page to trim up or something… and then somebody remembered Full Gear and decided it’d be a perfect name for a PPV.

Sure, why not? WWE has had stupid PPV names like Stomping Grounds and Great Balls Of Fire. Impact Wrestling has an upcoming PPV named after a Steven Seagal film.

But yes, this is All Elite Wrestling’s third PPV event following Double Or Nothing and All Out. I missed out on the live airing, but did catch the replay. So let’s get into it.

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WCW Halloween Havoc 1997

Happy Halloween, ladies and gentlemen.

Fancy a wrestling show tomorrow, but don’t want to subject yourselves to WWE Blood Money IV or whatever the fuck it’s called? Well, I’ve got a treat for you, for today, we’ll be looking at a truly horrifying PPV event called Halloween Havoc, brought to you by our dearly departed friends at World Championship Wrestling. Today’s musings will be covering the 1997 iteration of the show, which features Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan in a steel cage match.

Yes, kids. This show is home to the infamous AGE IN THE CAGE!

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WWE Bullshit In A Cell 2019

Fun fact: This show took place on original Pinky Ranger Amy Jo Johnson’s birthday. Happy belated birthday, AJJ.

That’s about the only positive I can levy towards the show… yeah, of all the WWE B-shows, I ended up watching this complete and utter pile of shit. And the only reason was so I could witness live a December To Dismember in the making… holy fuck, why did I watch this fucking show?

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