Not going into super heavy detail for this one, but I just wanted to address a couple key points here and be on my way. Yes, I’m a little late to the party, but what else is new?
Continue reading “Smackdown (Nov. 13th, 2018) – Daniel Bryan Danielson Is Champion Again…”
It’s time for another Crackdown On Smackdown!
So I saw the 1000th episode of Smackdown, which was a mere 2-hour program whose opening segment was nothing but McMahons, featured a reunion of a stable that was a focal point of RAW’s worst years, and generally felt like any other episode of the show. For a show that’s going to be on the FOX Network next year and hitting their 1000th episode, this sure as hell didn’t feel like an important show. But then again, if WWE couldn’t be bothered to produce a worthwhile anniversary show for RAW earlier this year, then my expectations shouldn’t be (and quite frankly, weren’t) that high.
So much like that show, I’ll bring up five observations that came to mind when watching this show. I was going to save this for later on… but I ended up watching the show late last night and wanted to get this out of the way so I can have something more worthwhile later this week.
Continue reading “Smackdown (Oct. 16th, 2018) – The Crackdown On The Smackdown #1000 Or Something”
I swear to God, if that name isn’t already a regular feature on some website or web show somewhere, you’re all just a bunch of geeks.
In any event, in lieu of another TNA PPV, I decided to go back in time and check out the original pilot episode of WWF Smackdown from 1999. With Smackdown having aired its 1000th episode ever – and yes, I’ll offering some quick thoughts on that show when I get around to watching it – I thought it’d be pretty neat to give this show a watch and see where it all began.
Fun fact: This is the only episode of Smackdown to garner a TV-14 rating, which is the usual television rating for most WWF/E television programming until the full-on shift to PG programming. Other than this one show, Smackdown has always – ALWAYS – maintained a TV-PG rating and managed to produce some of the best wrestling and sports-entertainment weekly shows in the 2000s, thus curtailing any arguments that the TV-PG rating is an issue with modern-day WWE. It never was.
And because this is April 1999 and because it’s TV-14, this is a Vince Russo-penned program. Given that the second show came along and was a strictly PG show, I wonder if that had more to do with Russo leaving than just the second show and nanny comment in general.
Continue reading “WWF Smackdown (Apr. 29th, 1999) – The Pilot Episode”
Full disclosure: I wrote this brief blurb Monday afternoon at around 2:30 p.m. prior to leaving for work with the intent of having a post to fill Tuesday morning. Because WWE is utterly predictable when it comes to their wanting to make Roman look really, really strong despite having him lose a bunch of matches, I have no problem proclaiming that Roman would win the rematch. Hell, I even predicted it in my Extreme Rules musings this past weekend.
In any event, here we go again, I suppose.
Because I guess the umpteenth time is the charm. I guess we can look forward to the Summerslam main event where thousands of New Yorkers will either boo Roman, come up with “inventive” chants, play with their balls, or maybe walk out to beat the traffic. And then the only mystery would be whether they finally pull the trigger on a Roman Reigns title reign or they keep it on Brock so that they can have him carry the belt at whatever UFC he ends up fighting in down the line… assuming he doesn’t fail any drug tests.
So they dropped the Black Saturday episode of the old World Championship show from 1984… a show that aired precisely twenty-four years ago.
Once upon a time, there was an old wrestling promotion called Georgia Championship Wrestling, which was hosted by popular wrestling announcer Gordon Solie and featured popular NWA stars such as the Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes, Ole Anderson, Ric Flair, and others. It’s been a staple of the WTBS Superstation every Saturday Night at 6:05 p.m., airing a program called World Championship Wrestling.
And then Vince McMahon came along and bought the company.
Now instead of NWA stars wrestling at a small Atlanta studio, we have pre-taped WWF matches and interviews from other arenas for other WWF programs. People were pissed at this development, but none moreso than Billionaire Ted himself, Ted Turner. WWF’s version of WCW had shit ratings, so Turner gave time slots to Ole Anderson and Bill Watts’ Mid-South circuits, both of whom did better than McMahon’s show… to make a long story short, the show was eventually sold off to Crockett and the rest is history.
And it began with this one show.
Continue reading “Black Saturday (World Championship Wrestling 14-July-1984)”
On January 14, 2003, Monday Night RAW celebrated its tenth anniversary with an awards show ceremony that served more as a public masterbation of WWE’s public image than anything of merit. Eventually, they released the special, along with a handful of special features, onto DVD. I never got to watch the special live since it wasn’t part of the TSN package, but I was able to procure the DVD and so this is what I’m going to be looking at.
Continue reading “DVD Review – WWE RAW X: Tenth Anniversary Special (Jan. 2003)”
So, first off, hope everyone has had a wonderful Easter weekend or Passover weekend or just plain ol’ long weekend if you have any of those.
Since I had (well, have) a long weekend off, that meant I was home to watch Raw for the first time in what seemed like forever. While I originally had other plans, said plans were cancelled at the last minute and I found myself with plenty of spare time to spare. So I started tuning in to RAW about an hour in, which meant I missed the opening segment with Cold Ronda, the Queen of Ear Rape, Jason Jordan’s Dad, and Gonad the Barbarian… and when I say missed, I really meant “dodged a bullet.”
Fortunately, the rest of the show fared better… which isn’t really saying much. In any event, here are about five-ish notable points about my Raw viewing experience in no particular order.
Continue reading “RAW (April 2nd, 2018) – Easter Monday Means Two-Thirds Of RAW For Me”
The last time I sat down to watch an episode of Impact Wrestling… let’s just say it didn’t go over well and the end result was one of the longer tirades I’ve written on a wrestling show.
It’s been a year since then and there’s been yet another shake-up in management, a move to Toronto, and a massive reshuffling of the deck in terms of talent and personnel. And of course, the familiar claim to fame that Impact Wrestling survived another year. And while the product was once again under new management, I didn’t bother to watch their first show last month because it wasn’t a straight-up reboot or anything like that, but rather a slow shift. Things would change, but not outright and in a way that would feel natural rather than forced.
So I made the decision to bite the bullet and check out their Crossroads special; essentially an episode of Impact Wrestling with four major matches, including the first ever meeting between Impact World champion Austin Aries and Johnny Impact. I’ll be doing a general musings of the show, but I will also bring up a couple points from my last Impact viewing experience and see how this compares to that earlier (and lesser) venture.
For what it’s worth, I’m watching this off the Global Wrestling Network website, which shows the last few episodes of Impact for free. I’m on the fence as to whether I’d want to fork over another ten bucks for a monthly subscription, but on the other hand, there’s a whole bunch of TNA shows that I’d very much want to check out and I’ve got some free time coming up, so it might be worth looking into in the future.
But back to Crossroads… right after the break, of course.
Continue reading “Impact Wrestling: Crossroads (March 8, 2018 Episode)”
I only had two twits on my little seen Twitter thing that I almost considered ditching because it’s pretty pointless… but since I use it as a quick scribblepad more than anything, it allows for quick thoughts that would otherwise be a waste of space on the blog, which I try (and fail) to keep to worthwhile material.
In any event, one Twit referred to a WWE.com exclusive interview where Stone Cold Steve Austin, after having given Vince and Shane McMahon Stunners on TV, ripped into one of the interviewers for only having one question. It was Austin in classic form; perhaps a little more rapsy due to age, but still a compelling promo if there ever was one.
Favorite line of the bit? “My name is Stone Cold Steve Austin and I actually drew money.”
The other twit that I wrote was sitting down to watch the show and then turning off the TV when Stephanie McMahon showed up on screen… because nothing gives me a headache more than another long-ass promo from the Queen of Ear Rape.
However, skipping that bit, I was able to watch the show. Not all of it, but some of it. And I can decipher five points from that show.
Warning: This post focuses on a series of events in the wrestling industry whose effects are still being felt to this day and may contain material that may be unsettling for some readers. Given how people will feel or have felt about the subject matter of this post, it’s only fair to me to suggest that discretion is advised and if you choose to comment on this post, I implore to keep it clean and keep it respectful. Thanks.
dtm666 