WCW Monday Nitro (October 16th, 1995) – Being Stupid Doesn’t Pay Off

Today’s episode of Nitro opens with a clip from WCW Saturday Night where Ric Flair is pleading with Sting to be his partner in his feud against Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman… and of course, Sting accepts because he’s a stupid idiot babyface and we all know what’s going to happen when this match takes place at Halloween Havoc. Though, to be fair, Sting did warn Flair that if Ric went bad, he’d be left for dead… and, well, that didn’t happen.

There’s a DDP/Johnny B. Badd interaction that goes nowhere, which is followed by a short but great Eddie Guerrero/Chris Benoit match that sees Benoit win with a Dragon Suplex, followed by a Giant/Kevin Sullivan promo… at some point, Mean Gene even pimps the WCW Hotline. Meng murders Jim Duggan with his Golden Spike thing… I kinda preferred the Tongan Death Grip myself, but we’re still ways off from that, are we? And then, Hogan comes out in his black get-up to try and convince us that he’s an evil bastard… well, there’s some truth to that, but this promo is mostly laughable.

And in the main event, Ric Flair & Sting defeated Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman in a fun match that saw Flair do most of the work before he tags in Sting and he does a billion splashes to win the match. And then he agrees to be Flair’s partner at Halloween Havoc… in the same match-up we saw on Nitro… on free TV… and they want you to pay for the rematch… where Flair will turn on Sting. That’s not a spoiler; that’s business as usual.

A couple good matches in this hour-long show makes this an easy watch.

 

BPS Tetris (Famicom) Longplay

Today’s regularly scheduled video upload has been delayed for tomorrow due to last minute fixes. Instead, here’s an old longplay of BPS Tetris for Famicom. If you fancy THREE HOURS of very old-school Tetris gameplay (and not even fairly good gameplay if we’re being honest here – there’s a couple times where nothing is happening because I’m too busy tending to the dog, which you won’t see), then this is the vid for you. Otherwise, see you all tomorrow for Pac-In-Time.

Kota Ibushi Out For A Year… Again

Source: https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/kota-ibushi-update-aew-collision-injury/

So former New Japan star and occasional AEW participant Kota Ibushi, who had recently returned from years of injuries and recovery, suffered yet another horrific injury that might put him out for another year. A femur fracture, it’s been said.

I almost feel bad for the guy. He had a good run in New Japan and then at some point, he started racking up these injuries and other issues that kept him on the shelf more than in the ring. I’m not sure if maybe it’s a sign that he should hang it up and do something else in the business, but regardless of where he goes from here, I wish him nothing but a speedy recovery and then we’ll see where he goes from there.

Side note: today’s video offering will be up later than usual. Thanksgiving and all… later.

A Brief Blurb On The NXT vs TNA Showdown Show

So I managed to catch some of the NXT Showdown show on Tuesday – airing opposite an episode of Dynamite that saw Darby Allin attempt to use more explosive instruments (literally) – and I don’t have much to say other than a couple points.

First off, congratulations to the Hardys for winning the NXT Tag titles while also holding the TNA titles. How fitting that of all the TNA contracted talent, the first to hold NXT titles just so happens to be former WWE Superstars and celebrated tag team champions. Funny how that works.

Secondly, the multi-person matches went over about as well as I’d expected. Funny how a NXT contracted wrestler (Jordynne Grace) reffed a match that saw the NXT women triumph while a TNA contracted wrestler (Joe Hendry)

Oh, hi, Joe. Long time no see…

…officiated a match that saw the TNA team triumph… after TNA champion and contracted NXT wrestler Trick Williams walked out on his NXT team… so I guess it was a swerve or something? Maybe… I don’t know? I’m not sure if this is making me want to watch more NXT or get me excited for TNA’s upcoming Bound For Glory show.

Other than that, I thought it was a perfectly fine show. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that TNA got a good showing here and even won a couple matches. Had this been under Vince… oh, who am I kidding? This wouldn’t have gone past two weeks and everyone would be jobbing to Roman Reigns and his tired babyface schtick. Fuck off with that noise.

Pinky Turned 55

A bit late to the party, but a belated happy birthday goes out to OG Pinky Amy Jo Johnson, who recently turned 55.

In other news, whiny PR fanwanks continue to complain about her not being the reunion show or her not attending Morphicon (is that still a thing?) or her not playing dress up or her… whatever she’s not doing, they’re probably complaining about it. Fuck ’em.

Wow… where did that come from?

Why Does Riho Show Up To Lose Every Year?

Someone was watching AEW a while back and asked me why they keep bringing back Riho every year to lose to whichever champion they want to push at the time. Part of me think it’s giving Riho something to do because she’s a friend of Kenny Omega, another part is that Riho is busy with stuff in Japan and there’s also dealing with work visas and things of that nature.

This isn’t a knock on Riho; she’s a fine talent, first AEW Women’s Champion, got the ball rolling on that… but they’re bringing her in every year to have a couple matches, challenge for whatever title, and then lose, which kind of mitigates the “specialness” of the whole deal, right? And it’s not just her; the same deal happened with Hikaru Shida, who was also once a prominent star in the early days of AEW – especially during the pandemic days – and now she just shows up here and there. Again, she has stuff in Japan and work visas to deal with, but it’s just sad that she was actually one of my favorite characters on the program and she barely shows up.

And then there was the comments that Gail Kim made regarding Riho that I’m not really going to get into. As a prominent wrestling veteran, she can say whatever she wants and people will be pissy about it. It happens to anyone these days and honestly, I don’t care what Gail Kim thinks about Riho. Someone else’s opinion is not going to hinder my own enjoyable of a show or a talent; I’m not sure why it should hinder anyone else’s unless they’re really, really stupid.