sek69

Steve Keirn was in WCW in 1994? My brain swiss-cheeses a lot of mid 90s wrestling but I don't have any recall of that at all. Was he mainly on the B shows?

They don't want JBL to job outright because Vince is a mark for the character. They're basically taking the risk of damaging Batista as a main eventer just so Vince can plug his alter ego back in the title picture whenever he wants.

I'd really be disappointed if the Warrior DVD was nothing but people goofing. Yeah he's a nutball but at one point the company thought enough of him to put him over Hogan (when that still meant something big) and make him their champion.

According to people posting on SK's blog, the Warrior DVD is basically a giant goof with everyone saying how much of an idiot the Warrior was and a whole feature of people making fun of his mannerisims.

The only way I'd consider this as offensive as the original segment is because they brought back the "terrorists". Otherwise it's still not even the same ballpark. It's not even the first time they've done that this year, remember when they did the spot where Big Show threw Angle off whatever backstage and he had blood splattered around his head? They can't even kill a character off creatively anymore.

Jeez.... a 2 minute cruiser match, Benoit jobs, your hot new tag team jobs to a midcarder and a fat old guy, Christian jobs again, the "terrorists" come back, and the main event ends in a non-finish. It looks like WWE worked long and hard to ensure no matter what kind of wrestling you like, you'd hate this PPV.

When they moved from USA to TNN, wasn't there a fuss made about how TNN was seen in fewer homes? If this is still the case, then WWE in theory should get higher ratings if more people can see them. I would think we'll probably see more DVD releases using the footage they own, since it usually makes money and it justifies the money spent on obtaining the footage in the first place.

I picked up Mike Graham's The Best of Classic Championship Wrestling Vol. 1 yesterday and this gem was on it. This match is notable of course because it's one of the first US appearances of the man who would go on to be much better known as the Great Muta. By the way (although it should be obvious), this Prince Iaukea isn't the one who was in WCW, he's the son of King Curtis Iaukea and bears a close resemblance to Taz with hair. The first thing you get in this segment is a lengthy (and meandering) description of what exactly a ninja is by someone who's name escapes me at the moment who was challenging for the National Title. Hearing some barely coherent southerner lay out the finer points of being a ninja is unintentional comedy gold, and the look on Gordon Solie's face when they cut back to him is priceless. You could tell every fiber of his being wanted to ask the guy what the fuck it was he just said. After a brief moment where Gordon asks an offscreen producer if they should take a break or go to the ring for the match (and why that couldn't be edited is beyond me), we go to the introductions where we see the Ninja looking much like Bruce Lee with his black karate gi pants with matching belt. Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat 1 = Mutoh in this matchup. On to the match itself, it starts off as a standard wrestling match of the time, lots of mat work and jockeying for position, with a suplex thrown in for no obvious reason than to allow Gordon to add one of his famous "soo-play" calls. However when the Ninja reverses a whip to the turnbuckle and busts out the backflip elbow to the corner you can almost hear every jaw in the arena drop. Prince rolls out of the ring to get his bearings and the Ninja follows him out with a bodypress to the floor, which was nuts for what was basically a jobber match in 1986. The match goes back to the ring where the Ninja hits a backbreaker and goes up for what Mike Graham described in the intro clip as the first moonsault in US wrestling. He actually doesn't hit it very well, but its enough to finish and with that the landscape of wrestling changes. All in all, it's a match not unlike the hundreds of other matches on NWA programming betweeen two undercard guys. Once the Ninja starts busting out moves no one's ever seen, it makes you wonder why it took til 1989 for him to get into a major US promotion.

Much like the footage of Superstar Graham's hip surgery, the Beefcake footage was shown uncensored on the first airing then censored with the big red X of doom for every other subsiquent showing.

Networks didn't have a problem with Ron Bass shredding Brutus Beefcake with spurs (which was hardcore for, when was that, 1988?) nor did they have a problem with Hawk's suicide angle or for Taker symbol-fixion'ing Austin.

I noticed Hassan was still in the SD intro, I guess they didn't have enough time to edit it out before airing

I'd want to see that too.........if it was in 1985.

I love it, they act like if there hadn't been an attack that day, it would have been okay.

The biggest irony is that getting banned from UPN just confirms his whole gimmick. What I'm wondering is if this will make WWE second guess their ideas knowing that the network has veto power.

It's not completely unreasonable to think first run TNA matches could do at least as good if not better than a show full of SD clips and jobber matches.

Kill him off like Paul Bearer? Too bad the Dudleys are gone.... "D-VON, GET THE CEMENT MIXER!" Guess we'll be seeing the debut of new WWE superstar Mark Mangus soon.

Wow, I figured he would have been a lot older than 77. I heard he was in bad health recently, but it's sad to hear of his passing as he was a big part of my early experiences in wrestling. One thing that article failed to mention (and it's probably his biggest contribution) is him being the guy who brought Andre to the WWF, at least in storyline.

I'd imagine the first Saturday in October would be the first show since WWE's deal ends in September.

Its really funny to read the WWE statement, you can almost hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the background, especially towards the end. I love when WWE gets heat for something stupid, it's always because the viewer didn't interpret it properly.

That's a fairly ignorant statement. You can argue about his push, but to say Hassan is a horrible wrestler is flat wrong. He's been hamstrung by his gimmick and by being forced to adapt to the WWE "Wrestling For Dummies" style. He's no Benoit to be sure, but he's far from horrible.

It's 5 hours from Philly to Pittsburgh, and about 4 from Pittsburgh to Buffalo. So even with a more direct route you're looking at 6-7 hours.

I can honestly say I'm shocked. I thought nothing short of a dead hooker would get either Hebner (but especially Earl) fired. Then again, they were caught with their hand in the only cookie jar that's increasing in revenue so they should have known what they were messing with. Where does this leave Brian Hebner? It'd be odd to go to work after your dad and uncle got caught pocketing company money.

I started watching wrestling so early (I was about 5) that my mom made sure I knew it was worked so I didn't go to school and try to Cobra Clutch someone on the playground. There was still a time where I didn't know the matches were pre-determined, I just thought it was like any other sport where they were trying to win without really hurting each other. What opened my eyes on that was when I watched AWA TV and someone botched a pinfall in a squash and the ref counted three anyway.

http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/articles/39450 He seemed to be not batshit crazy this time, he must save it for his political speeches these days. I did notice that nothing seems to be his fault, despite his flakiness being one of the most well-documented things in wrestling history. His comments about Hogan are hilarious in the sense that knowing Warrior was in on the joke during his WCW run. Hogan probably thought Warrior was another mark for him to work.

Welcome to the WWE style of thinking. I get what you're saying, but they've been treating SD like shit so it didn't shock me that SNME 2.0 would be RAW only.