The Thread Killer

Man, Morrissey is a beast. I can’t believe it’s the same guy, what a transformation.

Ugh. Jake Hager is useless.

I had never heard that story, that’s awesome.

I tried, I really did. Once I heard that this podcast is now the number one rated and ranked podcast out of all professional wrestling podcasts, I went back and tried it again. I figured maybe I had missed something the first time. I just don’t get the appeal. The show is really long and the choice of topics are generally terrible.

I also would have figured that they would wait until after the show in the UK to fire most of their talent that worked there and lived there, and have some of them on the show too…but I guess not?

I’m not going to lie, I am feeling very conflicted. Both @KawadaSmile and @Timbo Slice started weekly WWE threads and I don’t know which one to post in. KS has put in the most time posting about WWE here at PWO, so he has the slight edge, but TS is a savvy veteran and I don’t want to hurt his feelings by favouring Good Bubba KS.

That’s an even better idea. He looked great when he fought Wardlow. Although it was obvious he was juiced to the gills.

Now that I fully agree with. That was yet another release which made absolutely zero sense.

I think under the right circumstances, Braun can be carried to a very good match. From what I have seen, Omos couldn’t be carried if he had handles growing out of his back. I personally witnessed matches featuring Stroman that weren’t terrible, that’s all I’m saying. It’s not like I wanted him showing up in AEW or anything, but I have seen a lot worse in WWE in my years as a fan.

In all honesty (despite the fact that the guy is clearly an Olympic level dumbass in real life) there’s no real reason Stroman shouldn’t be a major star in WWE. He’s competent in the ring, if not particularly compelling. He can talk, although nobody could make WWE scripted verbiage sound interesting. Lord knows, he’s got a great look. I think what killed him was shitty writing. They could do worse than bringing him back. Aside from saving money, I never really got why they let him go in the first place. As far as WWE guys go, you would think he pretty much checks all the boxes.

but then how can he control his narrative

Yeah I agree, I mentioned that earlier in this thread I think. Or somewhere else, I don’t remember. Point is, Arn has managed Brock and Pillman Jr. on a couple of independent shows recently (including in a match against FTR who had Bret in their corner) and to me, going that direction makes a lot of sense. It gives Brock a way to get more experience, and working with Arn can only help Pillman at this point.

WWE RAW was in Toronto this week, and it actually sold out. Probably because the local media was hyping the fact that it was Edge’s first time wrestling in Toronto in almost a decade. The tickets were $50-$60 which is close to what I was expecting to pay for the AEW tickets although I was more than happy to pay $200 all in for both tickets, that would have been fair in my opinion. WWE was running the Scotiabank Arena which is a nicer arena than the AEW is running. I think you were right sek, this is probably scalpers. Ticketmaster should not be allowing people to resell tickets for these prices, but I would love to know what the original price that AEW set was.

These prices are absolutely insane. I have been looking everywhere since the tickets went on sale. I personally have no interest in going to see live wrestling ever again as long as I live. I swore off ever attending a live event again after ROH/NJPW War of the Worlds 2016 in Toronto. But I have a friend who is disabled and is an AEW fan (that’s not his disability) and he really wants to go. I would like to help the guy, so I would break my vow and actually go to the show with him. I have been checking all of the ticket sites since the tickets went on sale this morning. Most of the decent seats are literally going for more than $400 apiece, and the cheapest I can find are about $290 apiece. Even the approved broker Ticketmaster are selling them for that much. That’s obscene. I already had a strong moral objection over having to actually pay money out of my own pocket to see Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks. I feel I should be paid to have to watch them. But I was going to go, for my friend. With these prices, once you factor in tickets, service charges, tax, and transportation and parking…it’s entirely conceivable that the cost for two people would be close to $700, and that’s not including refreshments and merchandise. That’s just madness.

Change of topic… AEW is coming to Toronto in October. The tickets went on sale today. The cheapest tickets I could find were $290 a piece. That’s goddamn insane. Are tickets that expensive for them everywhere, or is that the Canadian ticket broker?

Here is the story from Jericho’s book… Goldberg was coming to the WWE. I wasn’t too keen on him coming to the WWE either since the last time I’d worked with him in WCW was a complete disaster. But I had no choice and decided to make the best of it. On his first day, he came up behind me and slapped me on the back as hard as he could. ‘Hey Chris!’ he said loudly and sarcastically like he was Biff and I was McFly. I could tell he was still miffed about how things had gone with us in WCW. I was willing to let the past stay there, but I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to let this guy throw his weight around in the WWE the way he did in WCW. Coincidentally, a few minutes later, Vince asked me for a strange favor. ‘We’ve got Bill Goldberg coming in, and I want you to welcome him and help him out as much as you can.’ I don’t know if Vince knew about my past with Goldberg—he’d never asked me to help anybody else before. But I told him I’d be happy to do what I could to help him adjust to his new environment. And I intended to do just that. Until Milwaukee. It was Goldfinch’s first Raw, and I worked with HHH vs. Shawn and Booker T. After the match, I was pulled aside and informed that Goldsmith had spent the entire match barking to Nash about how I didn’t know how to sell properly and how I hadn’t wanted to do business with him in WCW. This pissed me off because I never had a problem selling for him or anybody else for that matter. I’ve always done business, and it was business I was trying to do when I wanted to put Bill over properly in WCW. But it was obvious that he still had a chip on his shoulder when it came to me. It made me mad that he had only been with the company for a little over a week, and he was already up to his old tricks. It was time to put a stop to it right now. I marched straight into the dressing room and saw Nash sitting in the corner like a giant praying mantis acting like he owned the place, while Billy Boy sat across from him with a self-indulgent smile on his face. Throwing caution to the wind, I stood in front of him and stared directly into his eyes. ‘I heard you were saying some stuff about me during my match. I don’t know if you realize it, but things have changed. This isn’t WCW. If you have something to say to me, say it to my face.’ Goldberg gave a shaky laugh and said, ‘I didn’t say anything about you.’ ‘Bullshit. I know you did.’ Something snapped in the Burgermeister, and he jumped to his feet. ‘Oh yeah? What about all that stuff you were saying about me on the Internet?’ Internet? Internet?? You’ve got to be kidding me! I didn’t spend enough time on the Internet to check out Club Jenna properly, let alone talk shit about Bill Fucking Goldeye. ‘What are you talking about?’ A vein in his neck popped out like a worm as he shouted back, ‘Mike Tenay told me that you said stuff about me on the Internet!’ I looked at him in disbelief and said, ‘Listen, Bill. It’s simple. I could be your best friend in this company or your worst enemy. We’re probably going to be working with each other at some point, and I could either make you look like a million bucks or make you look like shit, and you wouldn’t know the difference! We’re all here to make money and do business together, so just fucking relax!’ ‘You never wanted to do the job for me in WCW! You’re a prima donna!’ ‘You’re totally wrong about th—’ Before I could finish the sentence, Goldfish grunted like a Neanderthal (the vein in his neck now resembling a corpulent slug) and grabbed me by the throat. Now, let me preface the rest of this Goldberg fight story by saying that I’m not the toughest man in the world, nor have I ever claimed to be. However, when someone puts their hand on my throat and begins to squeeze, it’s time to throw hands. Am I right? Let’s take a vote to make sure: All in favor that a hand on the throat preceded by a prehistoric growl is a provocation to fight, say aye. Okay, we’re all in agreement on that, then—except for that one guy in Peoria, and your case is weak. Once Goldster made his move, I reacted the only way I knew how. I swatted his hand off my throat and gave him a two-handed push to the chest. He rushed forward with his head down and tried to tackle me, like the ex– NFL lineman that he was. I stepped to the side like the world’s worst matador and grabbed him in a front facelock. It was the only shoot hold I knew, one that harkened back to my days bouncing at Malarkey’s in Calgary. I think I surprised the shit out of him with my lethal hold and was able to power him down to the ground, applying pressure because I knew if I pushed his throat into his chest long enough, he might pass out. I really hoped that he would go to sleep because I was sure that he was going to fire up and kick the shit out of me. I mean, come on, have you ever seen this guy? He is massive! I continued to hold my ground and couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t fighting back. I got a little lazy and released the pressure slightly, and suddenly he rolled on top of me. I was freaking out at this point, convinced that he was going to eat me, but I held on to my patented front facelock. He started bucking around like a mechanical bull, but surprisingly I was able to use his momentum against him to roll him over again. Yee-haw!! Jericho 2, Goldie 0. It was like WCW all over again—except this time, it was real. I was getting cocky at this point because he wasn’t moving. In the back of my mind, I still had the idea that he was going to morph into a savage animal, throw me off, and draw and quarter me. But he never did. It seemed that the Goldschlager was all smoke and mirrors. Maybe he’d always gotten by on the intimidation factor and had never been tested. Maybe he was being nice and didn’t want to fight back because he was the new kid on the block. If that was the case, this muscle-bound Joey McIntyre was getting manhandled. With adrenaline surging through my veins and my confidence rolling, I thought of the Japanese magazines Funaki had brought into the dressing room earlier in the day containing pictures of Royce Gracie fighting. Gracie’s calling card was a front facelock with his legs scissored around his opponent’s midsection, and after seeing photos of him doing the hold, I decided to give it a try. I egged him on as I crossed my legs around his midsection: ‘C’mon, Mr. Shooter! Try to get out of this one!’ He got to his feet again, and we busted through the doors at the back of the dressing room, straight into the hallway filled with surprised fans who got a bonus match that night. We scuffled back into the dressing room and were finally broken up by Arn Anderson, Terry Taylor, Hurricane, Christian, and Booker T. Nash Mantis continued to sit in his chair in the corner of the room watching the festivities. Goldfinger and I were separated, and if you’ve ever been in a fight that’s been broken up by your friends, you can probably relate to what happened next. As Christian and Hurricane were restraining me, they were inadvertently setting me up to be murdered at the same time because when Goldsworthy broke free of the pack, they still had my arms pinned to my sides. ‘Let go! Let go! He’s going to kill me!’ I screamed, closing my eyes and preparing to have my face caved in. They realized what was going on and let me go at the last minute, but it was too late. He broke through and reared his fist back. I tensed up and prepared for him to knock my block off, but—he started pulling my hair instead. I couldn’t believe that the mighty Berggold was tugging at my hair like a five-year-old during playtime. What was up with this guy? I figured if he hadn’t knocked me out yet, he was never going to. So I pried his hand out of my hair and pie-faced him as hard as I could. He stumbled back and stared at me in surprise. I was done with this bitch fight, and I screamed, ‘What the hell is wrong with you, man? You’re acting like a goof!’ Goldrush screamed back, ‘Your mother is a fucking goof!’ Booker T got the most quizzical look on his face as he chewed on the unlit cigar he always seemed to have in his mouth and said, ‘Hold up! Did you just say his mother is a fucking goof? That’s the worst insult I ever heard, man.’ We continued jaw-jacking back and forth until we both calmed down. We were separated into our respective corners, and after a few minutes, I walked back over to Billbo. Matter-of-factly, I said, ‘Here’s the deal. You can shake my hand right now, and we can forget about this. Or we can come to work and do this every single week. I don’t give a shit either way. Your call.’ GoGoBoy looked me in the eye, stuck out his hand to shake mine, and we called a truce. I walked back to my chair and saw a text on my phone from Disco Inferno, who had already heard that Goldbone and I had gotten into a fight. It had been ten minutes. Telephone, telegraph, tell a wrestler. For the next week, everybody I knew in the business called or pulled me aside to ask me about the BIG FIGHT. I was forced to relay the lion’s tale over and over again to everyone from Bruce Prichard to Jim Ross to Gerry Brisco to the champ himself. I was surprised when I answered the phone a few days later and heard Ric Flair’s distinctive voice. ‘Chris, there are guys in this business who want to bring you down, but when you’re a great worker, nobody can ever touch that. Don’t fall into these traps. Don’t let these guys get into your head. You’re too good for that; you’re too talented. It’s beneath you.’ Once again, Flair’s words put perspective on things. I had just bested Vince’s new acquisition, and I wasn’t sure how everybody would feel about it. The gossip girls were in full force for this juicy tidbit, and I still get asked about it all the time. In a way, I feel bad for Bill, as deep down I know he’s got a good heart, but when our international incident happened, it really got him off on the wrong foot with a lot of guys in the dressing room. When the word got out that David had taken down Goliath, I gained admiration while Goldberg gained more resentment than he already had. But not everybody admired me after the brawl. A week later, in Richmond, Virginia, I got word that Vince wanted to talk to me. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you.’ ‘I’m sorry about the fight, boss.’ Vince replied, ‘That’s not why I’m upset with you. I’m upset because you didn’t tell me about it yourself.’ ‘I didn’t think you’d want to hear that I just took down Goldberg." Vince replied in a stern voice, ‘Chris, I need to know these things.’ He then repeated one of his favorite themes, ‘I’m not just trying to teach you wrestling lessons, I’m trying to teach you about life. I’m your boss, and if something like that happens, I should be the first person you call. And if anything like that ever happens again, I want to hear it from you.’ After our brawl, Goldberg and I became very cordial with each other, almost friendly. We ended up having a good match at a PPV in Houston (when I walked into Gorilla afterward, I received no reaction, and when Goldberg walked through, Vince gave him a standing ovation—grrrrr). Bill even invited me to fly on his private plane a few times. I think he was embarrassed that he got into the fight with me during his very first week of work with the WWE and wanted to show his good side. I think it still bothers him that his status as a badass (great album title) will always be tarnished by the fact that Chris Jericho took him down. Bret Hart wrote an article in the Calgary Sun about how ‘Jericho used the moves that Stu Hart taught him in the dungeon to stretch Goldberg.’ If I died tomorrow, it would probably be my biggest legacy among other wrestlers. But let’s be honest. I’d like to say that in no way, shape, or form would I want to go through that with Goldberg again. He’s a big man, and he studies the art of fighting. I’m just a wiry guy from Winnipeg who was sick of being buried and reacted accordingly. I surprised him with my ruthless aggression, and he was stuck in a moment that he couldn’t get out of and didn’t know what to do. I basically held on for dear life and was credited with the win. Suffice it to say there will never be a rematch. But for the record, the final score of the Jericho vs. Goldberg Fight is Jericho 1, Goldberg 0.

Getting out of chokes like a front facelock was literally one of the very first things they taught when I took Jiu Jitsu, and I still vividly remember the technique. As strong as Goldberg is, I would have thought it would have been easy for him to get out of it. Then again, you could easily dislocate or break somebody’s elbow doing that. It’s equally possible @sek69 is right, Jericho slapped the hold on to avoid the fight getting worse, and Goldberg didn’t want to break his arm getting out of it. Either way, it’s a funny story and that’s all that matters to me.

I always found the funniest part of that story to be Jericho claiming that once he had Goldberg locked up in the facelock, Goldberg was totally helpless and had no idea how to get out of it until Jericho let him go. I suppose part of that could be Jericho putting himself over, but it’s equally likely that Goldberg was so hapless at basic wrestling moves that he didn’t know how to get out of a basic hold. Funnily enough, Jericho recently had a Goldberg on his podcast and they apparently talked about their tension over the years. I haven’t checked it out yet but I might at some point.

Even that one was basically nothing more than a glorified shoving match, wasn’t it? I guess my point was with my original post, is that 99.9% of all backstage altercations very rarely end up in a full-fledged brawl. From everything I have read and heard, it usually is just guys jawing at each other and shoving with the occasional punch thrown, usually with a bunch of people there to break it up. Two more I thought of were RVD/Taz and that story about Rick Rude allegedly knocking the Ultimate Warrior loopy with an open-handed slap.

I think that is one of those fights that the severity of it depends on whose version you get.

You might want to message @sek69 because he is here all the time. Loss is embarrassed of us and never comes around anymore.

I have not heard about that one! It was a legit back-and-forth flight? I can’t believe I forgot about that one, considering the massive write up I did on it in my recap thread.

Yeah, I agree. Half of the so-called locker room “fights” that have been reported over the years involved minimal physical contact, but still ended up becoming folklore. Bret barely got his hands on Michaels after the “Sunny Days” incident. Jericho ended up putting Goldberg in a front facelock and that’s about it. I don’t know if Scott Steiner and DDP ever actually made contact, but that one got around. Hell, the only actual fights I ever heard about were Dick The Bruiser and Brody, and Dick Slater and Sting. And that last one sounds like it was pretty one sided…Slater just blindsided Sting and beat the hell out of him.

LOL that’s exactly what I thought. I have no doubt at all that Triple H would LOVE to get a ton of people back from AEW. Cole. O’Reilly. Fish. Lee. Swerve. Joe. Regal, especially. But I highly doubt that Jericho is anywhere on that list, except in his own mind. Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall have all admitted that they used to imply that WWE was trying to get them, and use that to either get a raise or a contract extension from WCW. Eric Bischoff has admitted that as well. I would bet you that is exactly what Chris Jericho is doing.

I am literally still in disbelief that this is basically their biggest pay-per-view of the year, and they are going with Tyrus in the main event. I have no beef whatsoever with Trevor Murdoch as their World Champion, but they really need to find a better challenger. This is just insane.