Category: Wrestling PPV Musings

WWE Elimination Chamber 2018

Fun fact: Not counting Survivor Series and Royal Rumble, this is the third straight WWE B-show that I’ve used the sleeping cat for a header. Another fun fact is that this is the first time I’ve sat down to watch a WWE B-show since Hell In A Cell left a sour taste in my mouth. Turns out I had a bit of free time and needed some background noise.

So I suppose the first noteworthy positive of having signed Ronda Rousey and advertising her on this show is that I’m watching a WWE B-level PPV for the first time in months. I assure you that has less to do with “Cold Ronda” and more to do with how WWE is going to pull off their “history making” seven man Elimination Chamber match.

Also, the women are getting an elimination chamber match. That’s also “history making” too, right?

Make note of this, folks. This is probably the last stretch of WWE B-shows that I’m going to watch before the ill-conceived notion of dual-branded ten hour B-shows come to fruition once Wrestlemania has come and gone. That means more multi-person matches and less reasons to actually give a shit about anything that’s going on. If nothing else, I’m hoping the creative ups their game… but that’s basically a fool’s hope at this point.

Anyway, on with the show…

Continue reading “WWE Elimination Chamber 2018”

Royal Ramble 2018

Yeah, this is going up a bit late and to be fair, that’s sort of the plan here.

I didn’t have a whole lot to say about the Rumble. The most I did was a brief results write-up and mentioned a more complete musings will be posted the following year. Well, it turns out you only needed to wait a month or so, but better late than never, I suppose.

Anyway, on with the late show…

Continue reading “Royal Ramble 2018”

Royal Ramble 2000

We end the string of Royal Rambles by taking a trip back to 2000, where we go from Rocky winning the WWE championship to build to a needless Mania rematch to Rocky winning the Royal Rumble in controversial fashion and never getting that one-on-one title match at Wrestlemania 2000… sorry if I spoiled the movie for you.

In any event, this was a return to form after the rather abysmal 1999 iteration that saw Vince McMahon win the Rumble and a whole lot of bullshit follow. Not only is this a better show, it is perhaps one of the best Royal Rumbles in a long time – either in terms of the Rumble itself  as well as the overall show.

Continue reading “Royal Ramble 2000”

Royal Ramble 2013

I was going to touch on a much older Rumble, but in looking back at the older blog posts, I found that I never did do a “proper” musings on the 2013 Royal Rumble. And then I did a little digging as to why and that’s when I remembered why I didn’t do it… because it was the build-up to the most needless rematch in the history of anything and I never bought the show. So I didn’t watch it and proceeded to not watch it for years because it was needless, given what the end game was going to be.

But then I came across a curious post that I did around that time, which involved a man nearly losing an eye during a robbery. A traumatic event to anyone, but in his mind, the worst thing to happen to him that week wasn’t the robbery or even the eye injury, but the fact that The Rock ended CM Punk’s year-plus long reign as WWE Champion. And that did put a smile on my face. Now if that doesn’t inspire you, then I don’t know what will.

But anyway, it’s time to give this show a proper write-up… whatever that means.

Continue reading “Royal Ramble 2013”

Royal Ramble 1994

Skipping ahead to 1994 here…

For those who don’t know… this is home to the only instance where the Royal Rumble had co-winners and there’s a reason why they never did this again… because it was stupid. It was so stupid that when the same thing happened years later (not on purpose), they restarted the match. But setting that aside… there’s the rest of the show and, well, let’s get into it.

Continue reading “Royal Ramble 1994”

Royal Ramble 1988

30 years ago, the first Royal Rumble took place on the USA Network. It would eventually become a popular concept in wrestling and the first stop on the “Road To Wrestlemania” that everyone likes to promote. (I myself circumvent that whole road and take the shortcut that skips all the bullshit stops along the way, but that’s another story.)

Today, we look at this historical first show and then over the next four days, I’ll be watching random Royal Rumbles and giving them quick little write-ups. And then maybe next week, I’ll do a post on this Sunday’s event.

Continue reading “Royal Ramble 1988”

WCW Starrcade 1997

Last month, I did a week’s worth of wrestling musings covering seven different Starrcade events. One of the events I contemplated looking at for this period was Starrcade 1997, a somewhat important WCW event in that it was the culmination of a year-long build up to the eventual confrontation between Hollywood Hulk Hogan and the Man Called Sting. I have never watched this show. Never got the opportunity to do so.

So here we are… twenty years after the fact, I finally get around to watching this in all its glory… and I instantly regret it.

Continue reading “WCW Starrcade 1997”

NXT Takeover: Wargames (Nov. 2017)

Yeah, sorry. I would’ve had this up sooner, but quite honestly, I wasn’t feeling it.

Maybe it was the fact that I watched a rather pointless Survivor Series PPV with only one worthwhile match before getting around to watching this show. Maybe it was due to the fact that while I was intrigued by WWE bringing back an old WCW concept, my mind wondered how they were going to screw this up rather than anticipating the moment. Maybe it was because of all the praise this show has been getting, deserving or otherwise. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t been watching the weekly NXT show in a good while and other than a handful of names, I hardly know anyone on the card.

Whatever the case may be, I would watch the replay whenever I could and even load it up on the Network… and no matter how hard I try, I simply couldn’t get into this show. As such, my musings will be very brief, save for two matches in particular.

Continue reading “NXT Takeover: Wargames (Nov. 2017)”