The Thread Killer

It reminds me of those old "Monster Chiller Horror Theater" sketches on SCTV, or the camera angles on that Batman TV show from the 60's. It's just goofy. That's a Kevin Dunn thing, right?

To be fair, there is more than ample evidence that Lio is a jerk IRL. This particular case may not be a case of rookie hazing. He may be getting himself some well deserved "Enzo Heat."

You said it, right there. When Owens turned on Kofi and started stomping on him, they did this ridiculous camera shot that I've seen them use before, where they rapidly zoom in and out so quickly you can barely focus on what it is you're seeing. It's enough to make you dizzy. I'd really love to know the logic behind shots like that. Is it supposed to be edgy, or innovative, or what?

You guys are probably right. I think all the evidence is pretty clear that Vince is embarrassed of Professional Wrestling and he thinks that the only way he can trick people into watching it is if he alters it or disguises it in some way so the stupid audience doesn't really realize they're really getting wrestling. During the 80's boom it was a children's cartoon show with big muscular heroes and over the top characters, and during the Attitude Era it was profane, edgy almost adult content. I guess he thinks that nobody except hardcore fans want to see just plain old Pro Wrestling, which is the ultimate insult because it is really that fanbase that has sustained his company during it's downturns. It's too bad he's not comfortable or confident enough with his skills as a Pro Wrestling promoter. If he could accept that is what he is, we'd all be better off. Call me stupid, but I think if he would present a straight up Pro Wrestling show with traditional booking, roles and matches, people would still watch it in this era. I honestly believe a lot of what turns casual fans off is some of the stupid crap he does to try and appease them. I know a couple of lapsed fans who watched in the 90's, and their main complaint is that the characters are now bland and boring. And that's on Vinnie and his not-so-creative time and writers.

Here's my question...and I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm being serious. Is Scurll capable of being in a great or even above average match? Because I've never seen one. The few matches of his I've seen from NJPW and ROH have all been passable at best. I have serious doubts that he is capable of leading a great match, but I don't even know if he's able to be carried to a great match. Is there such thing is a great Marty Scrull match? Every time I think of him, I think of an idiot with a low class British accent flapping his arms about like a mental patient. I've a lot of time for Aldis but I have my serious doubts about Scrull.

Here's my assessment of the Bischoff/Russo comparison... It's 1993. Turner Home Entertainment has now owned WCW for five years, but the company is losing money hand over fist and has never turned a profit. The entire upper management of the Turner organization views WCW as nothing more than a money pit, and a low class, embarrassing money pit, at that. They want to dump the company from the Turner portfolio altogether. The most recent executives put in charge of the company (Ole Anderson and most recently Bill Watts) are so-called "wrestling people" who have demonstrated either an inability or unwillingness to work within a corporate environment or stop the financial bleeding. Bill Watts has turned into such a potential PR nightmare that Hank Freaking Aaron of all people wants him gone from the company. The decision is made that they need somebody new running WCW, but it's not going to be a former wrestler, and whoever it is will be overseen by Bob Dhue. Can anybody honestly tell me that they think if Vince Russo was dropped into that exact scenario, he would have turned WCW around the way Bischoff did? The popular narrative is that the only reason Eric Bischoff succeeded because he had Ted Turner's checkbook and was offering huge guaranteed contracts...and then he basically lucked into the nWo angle. Even if you accept that narrative (which I don't) you have to ask yourself - how did Eric get Turner's checkbook? When he took the Executive Producer's job in 1993 he impressed Turner by stopping the financial bleeding and actually breaking even. Then he was promoted to President of WCW in 1994, and then Turner gave him the money. There is no way in hell Turner would have agreed to sign Hulk Hogan (which opened the floodgates and began the influx of former WWF talent and also opened WCW to new advertisers and international markets) if Eric Bischoff hadn't ably demonstrated the business savvy to turn WCW around. That's why Turner took a gamble on him. (That and the fact Turner wanted to beat Vince at his own game.) No financial turnaround, no Hogan. No Hogan, no Nitro. No Nitro, no Monday Night War. We won't even get into the fact that Turner's company was offering guaranteed contracts before Eric Bischoff even went to the company. If you can look at me with a straight face and tell me that based on everything we know about Vince Russo, you think he would have been even close to capable of doing with WCW what Bischoff did before the so-called "Monday Night War" even began, then I don't know what to tell you...bro.

I can honestly never decide if Vince and company are legitimately clueless as to what the fans want, and how to come up with compelling creative, or if they know and they've just decided that we're getting what they give us - whether we like it or not (àla John Cena and Roman Reigns.) I'd say they're incapable of presenting a compelling Pro Wrestling product, but if you look at NXT (for the most part, and this does tend to vacillate wildly) they have shown they are capable of presenting a straight-ahead viable wrestling show. Maybe part of the problem stems from the fact that they seem to think NXT is catered to "hardcore" fans, when in reality if you look at how their audience has shrunk since their beloved Attitude Era, "hardcore" fans are pretty much all they have left now. I don't really think there are any more so-called "casual" or new fans...but it seems to me that is the group they are trying to appeal to with their current blase product.

I don't know if there is any truth to this rumor, but I just read that WWE circulated some sort of document recently that lists the team formerly known as War Machine as "The Viking Warriors." Who knows if this is true, or if it's an old idea that they had prior to War Raiders, Viking Experience and Viking Raiders. Gotta be honest, I'd buy The Viking Warriors as the best potential name of the bunch.

We discussed earlier in this thread back when I reviewed the Starrcade 95 episode, but yeah Eric Bischoff's attitude towards Missy Hyatt is pretty poisonous and has said some pretty tasteless things about her. He clearly still carries a major grudge towards her after Missy reportedly went off the rails and started verbally abusing Bischoff in front of his wife and young children at a WCW employee social event, (a dinner after a Disney/MGM taping if I remember the story correctly) and then Hyatt later sued him claiming he had groped her. If you believe Bischoff, the source of the heat between them was that he hired Sheri Martel and Hyatt became crazy jealous, claiming she had been assured she would be the only female manager in WCW. However...if you are seriously comparing Eric Bischoff's overall business sense/intelligence, creativity and contributions to the wrestling business to Vince Russo and you feel they are at the same level, I could not disagree with you more strongly.

I haven't listened to 83 Weeks in over a month. It's probably still my favorite podcast but I just haven't been feeling up to listening to much of anything, so I was taking a bit of a break. Plus, I have to admit that whole recent ridiculous Twitter war between Eric Bischoff and Jim Cornette and their respective followers really left a bad taste in my mouth about both guys. 83 Weeks is one of my favorite shows but so is Cornette's Drive-Thru. To have the two of them acting like children like that - and especially the way Cornette and Brian Last reacted and then celebrated as Cornette's "Cult of Cornette" piled on was just really pathetic. Neither side came out looking good and it soured me on both guys and both shows for a while. Having said that, I was perusing one of the "news" sites today and I saw the report regarding the falling out Eric Bischoff had with Rick Rude prior to his death, and how Rude's family ejected Bischoff from Rude's funeral. It sounds pretty brutal. It is apparently from the Spring Stampede 94 episode (I guess they are working their way through those shows now.) Did anybody hear it, and was it has bad as it sounded from reading about it? It's a really sad story.

I think Aleister Black could be money if he was promoted properly, but this is WWE - so he won't be. He's got a fucking killer look and aura, he has an unorthodox ring style and for once they actually gave him a good ring name, music and entrance. He's exactly the kind of character that kids would get behind. Unfortunately, we all know they're going to force him to regurgitate ridiculous, uninspired, generic, bland, over-written and over-produced promos so after a month he'll just be just like everybody else or "the guy with a lot of tattoos who kicks a lot." His promos are weak, so he seems like a perfect candidate for a gimmick where some mystique is called for and he speaks very little or not at all...so I am sure they'll have him spouting typical WWE-speak nonsense in no time. He's almost unique and we can't have that. He must conform and blend in with the rest of the unexceptional pack, because this is WWE and the brand is the star, not him. What he needs is to trade wins with Dolp Ziggler in a meaningless mid-card feud.

The Rebel Complex looks like a great venue for wrestling the way they had it set up for Slammiversary. There are so many venues for wrestling in the Greater Toronto Area that I was surprised they picked that one of all places, and I didn't think they could pull it off. (I had been there for concerts previously.) Now I wish I could go to this show. Seems like a great atmosphere.

If that show was on iPPV I'd probably watch it, but I don't see where it's available anywhere. I assume it's going to be filmed? EDIT: Oh wait, it's available on Fite TV.

Could not agree with you guys more, these are exactly the thoughts I had as soon as I saw him turn. He wasn't even done with the beatdown on Kofi and I was already rolling my eyes. I hate Kevin Owens when he tries to pretend he's intense/scary. If he has to be a heel, let him be a chickenshit heel. I don't think I can watch another prolonged Kevin Owens heel angle, I really don't. His feud with AJ Styles almost did me in.

Haven't heard much buzz around these parts about the PPV this weekend, Impact: Rebellion. It's in my neck of the woods and in the same venue that Slammiversary XVI was in, (The Rebel Complex in Toronto.) I thought that show was the best PPV I saw in 2018, and I thought the venue came across great on PPV. I'd be going to this show if I was physically and financially able to, but sadly I am not. I am thinking about ordering it on PPV, but it is going to be expensive. I'll probably end up seeing the show in some way, shape or form at some point - even if I wait until they show it on The Fight Network here. Gail Kim should be crazy over since she's from Toronto, so that should be huge. Anybody going to watch this show? Thoughts on the card? Only five announced matches for a full PPV seems a bit odd to me.

It's been a long time since I saw it, but wasn't Kevin pretty straight up in the Heroes of World Class documentary? Hell, he told that story about Fritz threatened him with a gun and told him that he should be dead like his brothers. It doesn't get much more "real" than that.

I have no real use for Seth Rollins as a singles wrestler and I felt the same way (except even stronger) about Dean Ambrose, but I really liked their work as a Tag Team. Hell, I thought their match for the Tag Team Championships at Hell in a Cell last year was excellent, and they were fighting Drew McIntyre and Dolph Freaking Ziggler of all people. So really, I had no time for 3 out of the 4 guys in that match as singles, but they had a hell of a Tag Title Match.

I know they both went on record back when they were both with WWE saying that it was their dream to fight at Wrestlemania. This is probably much bigger for them so I'm really happy that they're finally getting to do the match they always wanted to do. Just too bad Dusty won't be here for it, I can't even imagine how proud he would have been of his sons.

I guess the fact that Oney Lorcan has shown up on 205 Live means that his NXT tag team with Danny Burch is finished? If so, that's too bad. I thought they were great, and I'm not convinced 205 Live will "get" Lorcan's style? Not to mention I am concerned about what will happen to Burch without Lorcan. Maybe they will send him to NXT UK? Reportedly that is where Alexander Wolfe is headed. I know Burch and Lorcan made an appearance there in February.

Lord knows in his book Bret pretty much brags about sleeping with practically every woman within a 50 mile radius of every WWF event while he worked there, so I was surprised he denied it as well.

One thing I find kind of humorous is that back at the time it happened, the narrative put forward in some circles was that nobody knew about the planned screwjob ahead of time except for Vince and Earl Hebner. A lot of people didn't believe that, but I know a fair number of fans did. Not even Vince's inner circle knew. Bruce didn't know. JR didn't know. Russo claimed at the time that he didn't know, and swore on that fact when Mick Foley confronted him about it. Even Shawn didn't know, (so by extension neither did Triple H.) Then Shawn admits on Confidential that okay...he knew, and then so does Gerry Brisco...and the pendulum starts to swing the other way. Now the more time that goes by, all sorts of people claim that not only did they know - but it was their idea. Vince planned it. No, Russo planned it. No, Brisco planned it. It was Triple H's idea ("if he doesn't want to do business we make him do business!") No, it was Cornette's idea. The Montreal Screwjob has gone from being the best guarded conspiracy in the history of Pro Wrestling to something that everybody up to and including the popcorn guy knew about ahead of time. I admit to being biased against the guy, but to me Vince Russo just came across in this episode as desperate to be relevant to any conversation about anything at this point. I think he'd cop to being the second gunman on the grassy knoll if the thought it might help him get exposure or back in WWE.

I know this sounds dumb and it never would have happened, but I would've loved to see Balor, Gable and EY end up on 205 Live. And then they could move Tony Nese to Main Event.

I would certainly not begrudge him that. In WWE he won't have to kill himself every time out like he would in AEW, New Japan or the Indies. Not to mention, if anybody earned the right to coast on their reputation into retirement, it's AJ.

Oh man, I hope they have plans for Gable. Otherwise he was probably better off in that team with Roode. Which also begs the question, why have them just turn heel two weeks ago, if they're splitting them up anyway?

I hate to say this, and I hope it isn't true...but based on not just the Daniel Bryan series but the entire past year, I'm starting to worry that AJ Styles might have passed his "best before" date.