WCW Battlebowl 1993

For some reason, I felt like watch WCW Battlebowl 1993 – a show that I have on DVD-R because I had recorded off the WWE Network back when it was a channel on TV in Canada. I never got around to watching this one and it sort of languished in the archives until recently… and so here we are.

Anyway, WCW Battlebowl was a thing that they did one time and never did again. The idea of Battlebowl had existed previously in prior Starrcade PPVs, but this was the first and only time that WCW had expanded the idea into its own PPV. And there’s a good reason for that.

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Review #1168 – Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (PS2)

Sorrow is the word of the day, it seems.

As a sidenote, this review of Seven Sorrows was the last one ready to go before my hospitalization these past couple weeks. I’ve got other stuff in progress and I’m going to attempt some dubs to see if I can get back in the groove of things. If all goes well, there should be “some” review content in the month of May, but I may also push things further to see if I can pick up the slack of some long overdue Gimmick Table videos for the future.

One Last Note On This John Cena Thing Before We Move On

So there has been a lot said about the way that this much-anticipated John Cena heel turn has turned out. How it was supposed to happen at Mania, but was pushed up. We all saw Cena cut one decent heel promo and just repeat it ad naseum. We saw the eventual Wrestlemania main event that saw John Cena win his record-setting 17th World title and not feeling like a big deal. And of course, we saw Dwayne interject himself to push things onwards, only to not show up at the moment where his presence not only would have made sense, but was also necessary to give this limp dick feud between Cody and Cena some substance.

And then of course, we have Dwayne on that McAfee shithead’s show saying that he didn’t show up because he decided that he had to go now because his planet needed him… but made a point to mention that he would have done things differently. There’s a rant from Busted Open radio host Dave LeGreca where he railed on Dwayne for this interview that you can look up. It pretty much sums up some of the issues I have with this thing, but the only thing I could say about Dwayne is… nothing. Just fuck off, Dwayne. Go back to your home planet and hopefully die along the way so that the actual creative people can work on the creative.

There were only two big things to come out of Wrestlemania that I thought were worth a damn; Dominik Mysterios’s IC title and the surprise appearance of Joe Hendry. Both got big pops from the crowd, both produced memorable moments, and at least one of them is going to get a spot on one of those Top whatever RKO videos that WWE likes to produce every so often. Hell, I’ll even give a nod to IYO SKY actually retaining her Women’s title because I actually like IYO SKY more than I let on around here and was happy to see her get her time to shine.

Everything else? The Jey Uso World title win? The 17th John Cena World title win? The 752,089,827,615th New Day tag title win? The return of Becky Lynch for a random tag match?

Meh.

So this John Cena retirement tour that’s going on… I don’t care. Oh goodie, another John Cena vs. Randy Orton WWE title match is on the horizon. Haven’t had one of those in a while, in no hurry to save the date for the Backlash show that this match is going to take place in. Someone please wake me up when we get the nigh impossible match of John Cena vs. Joe Hendry at Slammiversary or something. Then I’ll start to give a fuck because Joe Hendry could potentially get a big rub and raise his stock for his eventual jump to WWE that’s going to eventually happen.

Dude, I was almost tempted to say that this man saved Wrestlemania… but that would be pushing it.

Okay, so that’s all I have to say about this John Cena thing. I’m shitcanning the Netflix subscription for the foreseeable future. I’ll use the last week or so to catch up on a couple PPVs I’ve been wanting to watch, but after that, I’m sticking with the classic WCW content that’s been going up on Youtube. Or I’ll stick with TNA, which has been fine for the most part. I can lay off the WWE viewing experience for the foreseeable… and therefore, I will gladly follow HHH”s advice at the end of that roast and fuck off elsewhere. They don’t need my viewership these days.

Also, note to self, cancel Disney+ while you’re at it. Now that you saw Andor and blew through some of the better Home Improvement episodes, you can dump the service and stick with… whatever’s on Prime Video, I guess.

Actually, hold on… there is that Dracula ’79 Blu-Ray that I recently ordered.

Yeah, I’ll go watch that.

Later.

A Personal Request

To anyone who is subscribed to the WWE Youtube channel, I want you to do me a big favor.

If, at any point, WWE decides to upload the entirety of Triple H’s Hall Of Fame induction speech on their Youtube channel, do me a favor and send me a link. That way, if I ever have trouble falling asleep, I’ll know where to look.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

When Did You Sour On Dwayne?

Once upon a time, there was a fellow named Dwayne Johnson, who trained to be a wrestler and would be the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. And then he decided to begin a Hollywood career that would span many hits and misses. Every so often, he’d come back to the place that first gained him his celebrity and do a couple token appearances saying a few token catchphrases… and people were into it because it’s the Rock.

And then something happened…

Dwayne decided he wanted to do a little more and all of a sudden, people weren’t liking him as much. Why was this? How did this happen? I couldn’t begin to tell you because some people still like Dwayne while others have long since soured on him. The question of when did someone sour on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson over the years really has no answer save for the one that’s relevant to you.

So it’s no secret that I don’t hold Dwayne in such high regard these days, but there used to be a time when I was a fan of his. Rock had charisma, he had a gift for gab, he had limmericks that… good luck trying to get that stuff over in modern times, but the point was I dug what the guy was doing. And even when he was in Hollywood and he would come back for the occasional one-off, the guy still had it.

You can go back and read the old blog posts of back in the day when Rock vs. Cena was going to be a thing and let me tell you – while the story wanted you to root for John Cena because he was the full-timer who wouldn’t ditch WWE for Hollywood aspirations (spoiler: of course, he would), I was on Team Rock because now we’ve got a professional working their magic while everyone else was amateur hour. And when Rock beat Cena at Wrestlemania that year, it made me very happy.

But then something happened along the way… Rock came back and decided that he was going after the WWE Championship. Okay, cool… except said championship was currrently in the hands of one CM Punk, who was riding a wave of popularity that, despite a few hiccups, resulted in him getting a year-plus long reign with the WWE Championship. And the people who have been following this man was hoping that he would hold onto that title until Wrestlemania, where he’d presumably main event by virtue of being the champion.

Alas, it was not to be.

And so, at the Royal Rumble, The Rock defeated CM Punk to win the WWE Championship. And all of this was to set up the rematch between Rock and John Cena – the match that was billed as Once In A Lifetime turned out to be Twice In A Lifetime. While I knew that was going to happen, I was really hoping that someone would see sense and not go this route… but yeah, Rock became champion at the expense of CM Punk and that’s when I soured on  ol’ Dwayne.

Don’t get me wrong. The guy can cut great promos. He still has that gift for gab. But I wasn’t into his schtick anymore. Probably because I prefer Classic Rock, who was more crass and vulgar without having to be more vulgar in his wording.

I’ve only seen a handful of his movies. The last one I watched was probably Black Adam. From what I hear, a lot of his movies aren’t all that great unless it’s Moana or whatever it’s called. His ego has been called into question. Maybe that’s why he bought some stake in TKO, so he can manipulate WWE creative in ways that make no sense, but he can say that we’re twenty steps ahead and just enjoy the ride.

Which usually tells me they have no fucking clue what they’re doing and they’re just making shit up as they go along. Whatever pieces happen to fit is more by chance rather than by design.

So yes, whenever Dwayne shows up on screen at a WWE show, my first question is almost always going to be “What did he fuck up this time?” What was once a highlight on WWE programming has now become a harbinger of dread… okay, maybe not that extreme… but I’m still gonna ask, “What did Dwayne fuck up this time?”

So… yeah… that’s the story of Rock going sour.

On a final note… fuck off, Dwayne.

Later.

RAW After Mania (April 21st, 2025) – Well, It’s A Raw After Mania Alright…

Well, some twelve hours after the Ramblemania post went up, you’re getting the RAW After Mania musings, because that’s also a thing we do around here. Also, this is Night Four of the Buy One Get One Free All You Can Eat Extravaganza that’s set to conclude tomorrow with NXT, which I will not be watching.

Anyway, I’ll save the proper show musings for after the break to avoid spoiling days-old programming for those who haven’t seen it yet. Though, for what it’s worth, just watch Night 2 and wait until they upload the main event of Night 1 to Youtube.

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