goc

I want in on a bet. And I am betting on Brock keeping the title at NOC, even if he doesn't win the match per se.

I think they could still do a Cena redemption story with Brock even though he got destroyed at SummerSlam. It's not what I would do though. This seems like their way of transitioning to the new era without having the next ace go over Cena to get there.

I'm thinking they might do a no contest at Night of Champions to lead to a rematch at Hell in a Cell.

They totally fucked him by making him The Authority's hand picked guy. They should have went through with their teasing of The Authority dropping Orton and going with someone else, either ADR or The Miz and then having Orton go full on IED Viper mode like he started to do when he beat up The Miz in front of his super dorky dad. Randy Orton the lackey to HHH & Stephanie isn't compelling at all, and I don't think Orton even gives a shit about trying to do a good job in that role. The only interesting thing he's done to me since that time is fuck with Batista about the fans not liking him during the build up to Mania.

Well you COULD get married by Ivan so there is that.

I agree with this. I said when Brock first came back to WWE that they should use him to put over Sheamus, and then when that didn't happen I thought they should use him to put over Ryback. I am as big a Brock fan as anyone but it doesn't make sense to pay him all that money and not try and get a new star out of it. The Ryback thing is even more idiotic because they just COULDN'T not have Brock vs Triple H at Mania that year, to the point where they did that shitty Brad Maddox ref finish instead of the obvious one of Heyman calling in Brock Lesnar to save Punk's title.

Thanks for alerting me to this. I really wish they'd offer the RNR Express DVD & the Ivan DVD for $40 though because I don't know which donation to make.

I really don't understand why anyone would be upset about a Cena/Lesnar rematch. There is absolutely no one else they can put against Brock right now that would be credible. And there is no way they build Brock up like this just to have him lose at Night of Champions. Unless they were going to work some big angle of The Authority realizing they can't control Brock & deciding to screw him out of the title somehow via helping Cena or a Rollins cash in. Which I really doubt. But it's even less likely to me that they did all this just to have Cena overcome the odds again and beat Brock, the end.

It's hard to really feature a guy when you don't know if he's going to stay healthy enough to play out a story. I'm a big Mark Henry fan but I can't even say I blame them for not pushing him very hard now.

Would it be so wrong for me to just post "No" and leave it at that? I guess if I can't get away with just posting "Yes" in the "Is TNA the worst promotion ever" thread I can't do it here. WWE could hire whatever former Emmy award winners they wanted to produce or direct the show but it wouldn't matter. They could have Steven Spielberg run their production but they would never even get a serious consideration for an Emmy. Because the people running the show would never "lower themselves" to consider pro wrestling for an Emmy.

I have wanted to see Sheamus vs Brock ever since I heard that Brock retired from UFC. I realize that as far as booking goes, Sheamus is nowhere near the level to take on Brock but I still want to see it damn it!

The show starts off with Les Thatcher in the studio welcoming us to another edition of Southeastern Championship wrestling and the date I have for this is 3/29/80. We get a promo from Killer Karl Kox in an NWA trucker hat talking about how as the Southeastern Champion he has everyone coming for him. Les talks about all the new talent in the area and Kox says he likes to face the young guys because he always teaches them something and they walk away wondering what they just ran into. Our first match is Troy T. Tyler defending the Southeastern TV Title against The Seraph managed by The Great Mephisto. Troy T. Tyler would later be The Dream Machine, Troy Graham. He is in full on Dusty Rhodes mode here with the bleached blonde hair. Dutch Mantel does commentary on this match and claims that Tyler is Dusty Rhodes' brother but that Dusty is ashamed of him because Troy T. just got out of jail. Tyler ends up in trouble as does a great job selling as a babyface. He makes a comeback that gets derailed when he gets distracted by trying to unmask The Seraph. Mephisto gives The Seraph a foreign object to load in his mask and Seraph headbutts Tyler sending him out of the ring. Tyler makes it back in before the countout and then slams Seraph into the turnbuckle with the object still loaded. Troy T. Tyler manages to unmask The Seraph and it turns out that it was The Angel, Frank Morell. We are told that The Angel is suspended and now because he was under that mask he will NOT be back. Next Les is joined at the desk by The Matador (Jerry Stubbs) Steve Travis & Ron Slinker. Ron Slinker was burned by a fireball by The Mephisto and will have to wear a mask to cover the injury when he comes back next week. He has a makeup job under his eye. The Matador says that Mephisto should be suspended but promoter Bob Polk says that Memphisto as an attorney fighting the suspension but Polk will have an answer next week. Les mentions that The Matador wears his mask after being burned but Matador says that is only the reason he STARTED wearing it but now he IS The Matador and he will not lose that mask. Ron Slinker can't afford an attorny he is going to handle it in the street. The Great Mephisto makes a reply about what he has suffered since "arriving in the United States" with an incredibly vague accent that doesn't exactly fit the Arabic motif he is wearing but it was a simpler time. They have an awesome green screen graphic for The Great Mephisto of flames behind him that I will share with you. Mephisto says that if he only knew that the answer to his problems would be to copy the Americans and hire lawyers for everything he would have done it a long time ago. No expenses will be spared. He knows you don't like him being here but there is nothing you can do about it. We come back from commercial with Les talking to Steve Travis, Ron Slinker & The Matador some more. They talk about how the Americans won't be competing in the Moscow Olympics & Ron Slinker talks about being on the U.S. Olympic Judo Team. Slinker cuts a fired up promo vowing revenge on The Great Mephisto for the scars on his face. Back from another break and it's a tape from Georgia Championship Wrestling of Austin Idol vs. Tommy Rich with Harley Race watching from the outside. After a ref bump, Tommy Rich is on top of Austin Idol for a pin and Harley tries to come off the top onto Rich with a diving headbutt but Rich moves & Harley hits Austin Idol. Tommy Rich pins Austin Idol as the ref recovers but then Idol & Harley beatdown Rich after the match. Austin Idol straps Rich's legs together with a belt and then puts him in a figure four as Gordon tells that Idol must be trying to collect the bounty on Tommy Rich. After the video Les Thatcher tells us that Tommy Rich had the ligaments in his knee torn and he was out of action for 5 weeks. Les says that Austin Idol received $5,000 in bounty money from Harley Race. After that we get another video this time Freddie Miller interviewing Tommy Rich about his return from the injury. He can't think of a better place to get his revenge on Harley Race than in Tennessee. Next up is Troy T. Tyler as the desk with Les Thatcher. He cuts a great promo talking about being the protege of Dusty Rhodes. He's doing Dusty just about as good or better than Dusty himself. Les asks him about Dutch Mantel & Tyler calls him a heathen. Tyler says he could do better against Dutch but Dutch keeps blowing his whiskey breath in his face and rubbing his nicotine fingers in his eyes and he can't hardly see him. Great stuff from the future Dream Machine. The next match is Ole Anderson against jobber John Irving. The video cuts out during this match and it appears to be a station issue as we spend a long time looking at a still graphic for WKYH-TV in Hazard KY. The match comes back in time for us to see Ole finishing off John Irving with an elbow drop. After the match Ole sits down with Les to talk over clips of a match with Killer Karl Kox from Knoxville. We see the finish of someone running in the ring to attack Ole Anderson and we find out that this is a referee that Ole has had problems with in the past and apparently is now allying with Killer Karl Kox to get revenge on Ole. Les talks about how the ref wasn't even assigned to the building that night and Ole says that Kox and the referee are former marines together. Ole says that Lars is coming in to help him now and The Minnesota Wrecking Crew is going to do just what their name says. Les Thatcher throws us to a video of Don Diamond facing Rick Oliver from Florida. Don Diamond wins with a Russian Legsweep and has a nice white boy fro. Les reigns in Don's promo to talk about his amateur accomplishments and how he turned down offers in football to become a pro wrestler and be trained by Vernge Gagne. Diamond says he's heard about Southeastern everywhere he has been in wrestling and that's why he's here. He lists the top heels and says everyone can be beat and he's here to beat them. After a commercial we come back to Les Thatcher talking to The Great Mephisto. Les says that he heard it was Mephisto who talked The Angel into putting on The Seraph mask and staying in the area after being suspended but Mephisto dodges that and says he agrees with the officials and that The Angel should be suspended. Mephisto says he had no idea that The Seraph was The Angel. He was deceived just like everyone else. Next match is The Manchurians against Rick Stone & Mark Hill. Mark Hill has an INCREDIBLE white boy fro, dwarfing the previously praised hair of Don Diamond. The Manchurians quickly win this by making Mark Hill submit to a nerve hold. Ron Slinker & The Matador come out to check on the unconscious Mark Hill after the match and The Manchuarians attack! This is a wild brawl and Mephisto attacks Matador & Slinker with his boot so he and The Manchurians can escape. The show ends with Les Thatcher talking to The Great Mephisto who he says has done something no other manager has done, which is make everyone come after him personally in only a few weeks. Les calls Mephisto out who denies throwing fire. Les says Mephisto threw fire on TV just last week. Mephisto changes the story to Ron Slinker using illegal karate objects that felt out of his tights & when Memphisto picked it up it blew up in Slinker's face. After that Les wraps up the day's events and signs off the show, welcoming us to join him next time. And we will.

I have spent a stupid amount of time lately trying to put my Southeastern/Continental collection in chronological order and teaching myself how to create/edit DVDs in the process. To avoid getting completely burnt out on this project I decided to take a little break to enjoy the fruits of my labor and watch the first DVD. The date I have for this is 3/22/80. Les Thatcher welcomes us to Southeastern Championship Wrestling and I'm excited to be here today with you too Les. The first match of the show is Ron Slinker facing a VERY young looking Terry Taylor. Slinker is an interesting guy to me, I have no idea if he was able to make his real life fighting skills in Judo and Karate into a viable wrestling style. Never been too impressed with him on limited viewing. Slinker & Taylor shake hands before the match so I assume this is going to be a very "scientific" match. This is a wrestling match the whole way through with no strikes thrown and I thought was actually very good for such a short match. Ron Slinker wins with a small package but Terry Taylor looked very much like an equal here. They play some funky music that you would not expect coming into and out of the breaks, including the intro to Hot Stuff as the one that I recognized. After a break we come back to Les Thatcher, promoter Bob Polk and Killer Karl Kox. And a lot of video problems. Les starts off by saying that the referee from Kox's last match with Ole Anderson wants to have Ole suspended. I think the referee's name is Ron Catrone. They show a video of the bloody referee talking to Les. The referee says that Ole did this to him and he will fight Ole any time, but when he's wearing the referee shirt he's supposed to be the authority in the ring. He wants Ole suspended. Karl Kox walks into the interview and puts his arm around the ref. He says that they both served together in the marines and they have always had each other's back and still do. After the video Karl Kox makes his case to promoter Bob Polk for why Ole should be suspended. Bob Polk says that Ole might be suspended but that Karl Kox is signed to face Ole Anderson in upcoming matches. Kox doesn't want to wrestle him but Polk doesn't particularly care. I am not sure quite where this is going but it seems like Ole is still the face here even after beating up on the ref so I assume this referee is Killer Karl Kox stooge, as also backed up by them talking about serving together in the marines. Then we have some local promos. Kox talks about losing a match a few weeks ago in Johnson City, Tennessee in 2 minutes and 20 seconds to Troy T. Tyler. He had no idea who he was and he caught him by surprise. But he isn't going to do it again in Hazard Ky. Then Les talks to Tyler but I have a lot of audio/video problems and miss most of what he says. After some commercials for where to go for summer fun in Hazard, Kentucky we have Les Thatcher sitting down at the desk talking to Ron Slinker who he invites to do commentary with him on the next match between The Matador (Jerry Stubbs' masked gimmick pre-Olympia) and Jerry Roberts from Canada (Jacques Rougeaa, I can only assume they thought Jacques Rougeau sounded too French for a babyface in Knoxville) against The Manchurians managed by The Great Mephisto. Everything I read about Tapu & Tio the Manchurians would state that these guys are the latter day New Guinea Headhunters but the hair and age/weight difference makes it really hard to tell. The faces put up a fight but The Manchuarians win after making Jerry Roberts pass out in a nervehold. After the match The Matador tosses both Manchurians out of the ring and attacks Great Mephisto again but The Manchurians come back in the ring and start beating him down. The Matador gets tied up in the ropes and Mephisto starts whipping him with his belt. Ron Slinker runs in from the announce table to help out as The Manchurians tie The Matador up in the ropes. The referee ,and to my surprise, members of the front row studio audience help free The Matador from the ropes but while that is happening The Great Mephisto throws fire into the face of Ron Slinker! Boy this promotion loved it's fireballs! After commercial we come back to The Matador showing off the welts on his back from Mephisto beating on him with a belt. He cuts a promo hyping a match with Memphisto in Hazard and Mephisto has a taped promo as well. Mephisto calls The Matador "Jerry Stubbs" so I guess this guy NEVER had a masked identity where people didn't know who he was. Another commercial leads us to Les Thatcher & Bob Polk at the desk. Bob asks if anyone in the audience got any kind of pictures of Mephisto's attack in the parking lot last week please send them to him. Les starts to talk about the Killer Karl Kox/referee Ron Catrone situation again and this brings out Stan Hansen. He wants Les to show the tape of what started all of this and so we see the arena footage of ole Anderson getting in the referee's face during a match with Killer Karl Kox. While Ole is distracted with the ref, Kox goes in his tights, pulls something out and nails Ole with it when he turns around and covers him for the pin. Stan rants about how the referee should have and could have seen it but he didn't call it. Hansen says he's a biased referee and talks about how the ref and Kox drink and hang out together. They go back to the arena footage of after the match and Ole attacks the referee. Kox comes back in and helps the referee, ending with Kox holding Ole's arms while referee Ron Catrone starts wailing away on him. This looks to really get the crowd riled up but it's a heavy zoom in so I can't see very many of them. Stan goes through all of Kox's title wins over the past few years and says all of them were ref'd by Ron Catrone, including Kox's Southeastern Title win over Ole Anderson. This is a pretty unique deal. Stan Hansen goes into the ring to face The Seraph so Killer Karl Kox comes out to do commentary on his match. Kox starts mocking Hansen's cowboy hat and puts it on his head. Then he decides to start cutting it up. Hansen sees what is happening from inside the ring and dispatches The Seraph like a piece of garbage so he can go outside and brawl with Kox. Kox takes off and leaves the angry Stan Hansen to let us know he's going to kick Karl Kox's ass. During the commercial we get the lineup for Monday Night's card in Hazard and it's a little different to see them promoting a Monday card anywhere other than Birmingham, Alabama after watching so much 1986 Continental. We come back to Les Thatcher at the desk with Troy T. Tyler the future Dream Machine. He talks about being a protege of Dusty Rhodes, and when you think of one match for Dusty Rhodes it's the Texas Bullrope match. He pulls out the bullrope with the bell on it and he and Les talk about how a Bullrope match works. While this happens Dutch Mantell comes out for his match with Troy T. Tyler and Tyler lets us know he's getting ready to kick Dutch's booty. This is just your standard back and forth TV match but then Tyler ends up outside the ring and Dutch vaults over the top rope to go after him and things heat up from there. Tyler has Dutch down for the count but ref Scrappy McGowan had just been bumped so another ref slides in and hits a pretty fast 3 to match Troy T. Tyler the Southeastern Television Champion. Dutch is a sore loser so he decides to post Tyler after the match and put the boots to him. Troy T. Tyler is busted open and Dutch pounds on the cut before he takes off when Tyler gets his hands on the Bull rope. After the commercial Stan Hansen cuts a promo for is upcoming World Title match with Harley Race in Hazard, Kentucky. Would like to be able to see THAT match. Then we have Les Thatcher and ring announcer Alan Williams wrap up the show and talk about the day's events but The Matador comes out to let us know that Ron Slinker has gone to the hospital and he once again shows off the welts on his back from Mephisto whipping him with a belt. Then Hansen comes out and lets us know what he's going to do to Karl Kox even if he doesn't care about that old hat.

Glad you've already been able to dig into that stuff. Wish I could say the same. I don't know why Stomper would have been wearing a mask but having seen the guy still look great well into the mid-80s and even not that old in SMW, I don't think he was wearing the mask to hide his age. As for why Jerry Stubbs didn't go to JCP, I know that he had the opportunity. I listened to an interview of his where he said he had the chance to go at the same time that Arn went but he decided to stay in Southeastern. He said he just really liked working that territory and didn't want to leave.

Actually, hiring Don West to help sell the Network would be a pretty good idea and a nice way to piss on the ashes of TNA also.

THIS! I have no idea why they insist on doing this, NO ONE in WWE is any good at it and like you said it just comes off like bad soap acting.

Thank you for passing that along.

Wow I hope that 15 includes entrances.

That already happened before when he made the big surprise early return from injury to win the Royal Rumble and the crowd went crazy when he came out before they remembered they were supposed to boo him in time for the finish.

Digitizing the content is likely what is setting them back there, and with regard to their other libraries. In particular, adding closed captioning to everything seems to be the most difficult part. I don't know if upping the stuff on CoD (whether the video-on-demand version or the web version) makes it easier to up it to The Network, but I'm assuming that's the case. I was going to post about how I'd love to take the job of doing closed captioning for them but then I thought about transcribing Bill Mercer. Probably doesn't pay enough.

Anyone know if Dave plans to do an Obit for Ken Lucas?