offical wwe thread

[famicommander]

I watch bits and pieces of Impact most weeks, and any time Storm and Sabin are on it's like the adults are finally in the room. Both still fantastic workers and such strong presence/characters. Both will retire having received far too little recognition for how good they really were IMO.

They did alright all things considered

Chris Sabin:
1X TNA World Heavyweight Champion
2X TNA World Tag Team Champion
8X TNA X-Division Champion
1X Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champion
1X NJPW IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion
AJPW Junior Tag League (2007)
Sixth TNA Triple Crown Champion after AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Abyss, and Austin Aries

I believe Sabin and Shelley are still the only two to win tag titles in all three of TNA, ROH, and NJPW.

James Storm:
1X TNA World Heavyweight Champion
1X TNA King of The Mountain Champion (that's what they were calling the TV Title at that time)
7X TNA World Tag Team Champion
7X NWA-TNA World Tag Team Champion
2X TNA World Beer Drinking Champion (self-created like Dibiase and Taz)

Both guys are obvious picks for the Impact Hall of Fame.

Sabin will probably get into the ROH Hall of Fame too at some point. He and Shelley really did define tag team wrestling for a generation.

It's easy to say they deserved the big WWE payday but looking at what WWE has done to Bobby Roode it probably would've been pretty soul crushing.

 

[norton9478]

Although I never connected with the James Storm charecter, I recognize his talent in being able to work the gimmick.

 

[famicommander]

DX's blackface skit parodying Nation of Domination has been edited out.

By my count there's at least two more blackface skits HHH was involved in but they haven't gotten that far yet.

 

[famicommander]

Special episode of MLW Fusion tonight. Never Say Never 2021. Their last few specials were ridiculously bad so we'll see what they can pull off this time around. Card:
MLW World Heavyweight Championship: Jacob Fatu (c) vs Calvin Tankman
Myron Reed vs Shawn Daivari
Jordan Oliver vs Simon Gotch

If Fatu vs Tankman is given proper time it could be a great hoss fight. But the way both men have been booked so far indicates some kind of fuck finish because I don't think they're ready to put the title on Tankman yet and I don't think they want him to take an L, either.

 

[famicommander]

Impact is in freefall. Hopefully the move to Thursday next week revives it somewhat, because god damn:
February 16 Episode: 197,000 viewers with a 0.06 rating in the 18-49 demographic (post-No Surrender episode, right after Kenny pinned Swann)
February 23 Episode: 170,000 viewers with a 0.04 rating in the 18-49 demographic
March 2 Episode: 134,000 viewers with a 0.03 rating in the 18-49 demographic
March 9 Episode: 144,000 viewers with a 0.04 rating in the 18-49 demographic
March 16 Episode: 146,000 viewers with a 0.04 rating in the 18-49 demographic (post-Sacrifice episode)
March 23 Episode: 116,000 viewers with a 0.04 rating in the 18-49 demographic
March 30 Episode: 38,000 viewers with a 0.01 rating in the 18-49 demographic (final Tuesday night episode)

 

[Arcademan]

"Arcade Anarchy" was the AEW main event with lots of arcade games (quite a few classics out there). Miro picks up one of the game cabinets and tries to smash the other wrestler with it...of course the one he grabs is the "Arcade 1UP" flimsy one. Would've been more impressed if he picked up the Pac-Man or Mario Bros. but whomever owned those games probably would not have been very happy if that happened

 

[famicommander]

AEW is all stables and beatdowns. Literally every fucking match.

 

[Arcademan]

AEW is all stables and beatdowns. Literally every fucking match.

The concept of singles wrestlers seems to be lost in AEW, which is a shame. There's been 3 more stables added in the past couple of weeks, tonight included.

 

[famicommander]

The concept of singles wrestlers seems to be lost in AEW, which is a shame. There's been 3 more stables added in the past couple of weeks, tonight included.

Commentary situation is still a mess too.

Nobody likes a three man booth. And, inexplicably, they picked three play by play guys and zero color commentators. JR needs to retire, fire Alex Marvez, make Schiavone the lead interviewer, Excalibur on play by play, Taz or Don Callis on color. Problem solved.

MLW's show was pretty decent tonight. And they got Ray Flores on play by play now, which is amazing. He's one of the better boxing/MMA commentators, he has experience calling AAA, he speaks perfect Spanish and English, and he can do commentary, interviews, hosting, or ring announcing. Flores being there gives the show a much more legitimate feel off the bat. Not sure if Rich Bocchini is leaving or what but he wasn't there tonight. Jared Saint Laurent is a good old school heel commentator. Overall MLW's commentary situation is really good.

Striker and D'Lo are getting into a good rhythm on Impact. Massive improvement over Josh Mathews and anybody.

Ian Riccaboni and Caprice Coleman remain the best duo in wrestling by a wide margin.

 

[jro]

AEW is all stables and beatdowns. Literally every fucking match.

They somehow don't seem to realize that having so many stables makes all of them weaker, especially on the heel side.

Also reeks of having no idea what to do with talent, i.e. sure, let's have Statlander join Best Friends and Butcher and Blade join Hardy and Private Party.

 

[famicommander]

In "AAA is a fucking gong show news"

After they put their cruiserweight title on Lio Rush on MLW TV, they realized they might at some point want that title back. Turns out Lio Rush wasn't available for any of the recent or upcoming AAA TV tapings. So AAA just sort of decided that the title change never happened, and Lio found out he was no longer the champion upon seeing Laredo Kid pop back up on AAA TV as champion.

AAA told Dave Meltzer that they were originally going to just claim that the title changed hands again at a made-up untelevised Mexican indie event, but they decided since AAA never promoted the title change on social media nobody would know the difference if they just pretended Laredo never lost the belt in the first place. Of course, this is stupid since the title change aired on MLW and AAA did in fact promote the title change on social media. And of course Dave just parroted the company line, not even bothering to see that the tweet that AAA announced the title change on is still up to this day.

Even dumber is that this title change was filmed in MLW BEFORE Triplemania. Which Laredo Kid and Lio Rush were both at. They could have easily just filmed something then to take care of this. But they didn't.

 

[famicommander]

NJPW debuted a new title to be defended on their US show:

NJPW Strong Openweight Championship. It will be awarded to the winner of the current NJPW Cup USA tournament.

Also, it looks like Dave Marquez is about to announce another regional indie with their own TV show. He already has:
Championship Wrestling From Hollywood (500+ episodes and counting)
Championship Wrestling From Arizona
Championship Wrestling from Memphis

And it looks like Championship Wrestling From Georgia is next. He claims a fifth regional show will come this year, as well as the return of the national face of the brand UWN Primetime Live, except this time the shows will be on some free outlet instead of weekly PPV.

 

[Syn]

That's so much nicer than the new IWGP belt.

 

[Syn]

Huge downgrade for the new IWGP belt:

That shit looks terrible

Double post for this.

 

[famicommander]

What the fuck is NJPW even doing?

They take the belt off Kota Ibushi already? And put it on Will Ospreay of all people?

Plus they discarded the history of the IWGP Heavyweight title. Technically the new belt is a brand new lineage.

No wonder they only drew 300 to Korakuen Hall last week. Even in socially distanced times DDT, NOAH, and Dragon Gate all drew more people in smaller buildings within two weeks of that.

 

[famicommander]

Top champions in Japan right row

NJPW: Will Ospreay

Dragon Gate: Shun Skywalker

DDT: Jun Akiyama

Pro Wrestling NOAH: The Great Muta

AJPW: Suwama

 

[famicommander]

The luchablog guy counted and, not including the already bloated broadcast team or refs, 72 characters were featured on screen on Dynamite tonight.

What a god damn clusterfuck of a promotion. How do they expect anybody to care about these people? Why does QT Marshall need his own stable? Why hasn't Sammy Guevara had a singles match in 7 months? How many times will they put the exact same Sting segment on screen?

 

[famicommander]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1379953798735597569

Jericho literally giving the audience cues about when to cheer during the commercial break. This is even worse than the time WWE used "APPLAUSE" signs for Wrestlemania.

 

[sylvie]

Just to share one of my favorite classic moments of quality entertainment

 

[famicommander]

Why does Darby Allin only defend his title against unranked opponents?

Why did Thunder Rosa get buried after winning that epic match with Baker? Rosa won and got sent to Dark. Britt lost and got a big celebration promo on Dynamite and is ranked higher than Rosa.

How many 50-something celebrities do we need to see? Tyson, Snoop Dogg, Urban Meyer, Shaq.

Why is there nobody currently feuding for any titles? Omega vs Mox is more about personal shit and should already be over and none of the other champions are in an actual feud.

How many times will they do a will/won't Bullet Club break up angle? Multiple times in NJPW, multiple times in ROH, now multiple times in AEW.

AEW is a terrible show. This is TNA 2.0 except there's no X-Division or Gail Kim absolutely killing it every week.

 

[famicommander]

WWE inducted Ethel Johnson, the first black female to hit the mainstream in pro wrestling way back in the 50s, into their Hall of Fame's legacy wing this week.

The only problem? The footage they played of her at the ceremony was of an entirely different woman, Sandy Parker.

 

[famicommander]

ROH has two great episodes lined up for this weekend and next.

This weekend is episode #499
Pure Rules match:
Rocky Romero vs Delirious

Both guys debuted in ROH in 2004 on the very same card. Delirious wants to step away from singles wrestling again and return to a backstage role with the occasional battle royal or multi-man preshow tag match. He picked Rocky as his final opponent, while Rocky has said he wants to win the ROH Pure Championship and defend it in NJPW.

The main event will be the Foundation (Lethal and Gresham) vs Bandido and Flamita.

The following week is the special 500th episode. They ran fan polls to book the matches and the fans booked tag team partners against each other in both matches.

Pure Championship: Jonathan Gresham (c) vs Jay Lethal

Jay Briscoe vs Mark Briscoe

 

[famicommander]

Dark Side of the Ring returns with new episodes on May 6. The first episode of the season will be about Brian Pillman.

Other confirmed topics:
WCW/NJPW Collision in Korea
Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling
XPW
Grizzly Smith and his children Jake Roberts, Rockin' Robin, and Sam Houston
The Ultimate Warrior
The Dynamite Kid
Chris Kanyon
Bruiser Bedlam and Johnny K-9
Nick Gage

There are still four other episodes to be announced. Confirmed presenters and interview guests include Chris Jericho, Jake Roberts, Jim Cornette, David Arquette, Shari Tyree (Warrior's ex-wife), Jon Moxley, and Eric Bischoff.

 

[famicommander]

GCW indie wrasslin' as fuck for Mania week
-Ninja Mack botched his top rope finisher and knocked Levi Everett cold
-Gino Medina fainted due to heat stroke in the ring. His opponent tried to power bomb him before the ref was able to stop the match.
-JJ Garrett lost his match by TKO when he threw up in the middle of the ring
-Arez appeared to either faint or injure something in his leg as he randomly fell to the mat and stayed there for an extended period after delivering a GTS. The match grinded to a halt for over a minute until they had him put on a submission and get the win over a minute later

 

[famicommander]

Impact did its best demo rating since February 16 and its best viewership since February 23 last night on their first night back on Thursdays, despite going head to head with NXT Takeover Night 2.

0.06 rating, 168,000 viewers.

Will be interesting to see how they will do without NXT's competition next week.