cm funk

I remember he showed up on Smackdown in 2006 in a Diva Search segment, always found that random but great. Yeah, I randomly came across a Luke Perry Grantland thing where he talks to Simmons about wrestling and the first time he saw Kevin Sullivan. What celebrities do we know are big time wrestling fans or grew up on territories? Obviously there is people like Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), and others, like members of ZZ Top who like WWE, but do we know of celebs who are fans of older things? There's obvious ones like Bob Mould and Lars Frederickson Lots of professional athletes are or were at one point big wrestling fans RZA, Method Man and several other Wu-Tang members were big WWF fans growing up in the NYC area. There's actually a lot of rappers who reference 80's wrestling stuff in their lyrics

Four weeks ago on Twitter, when getting asked about it on Twitter, Meltzer replied that he would do those bios when: "Rey when contract with WWE expires, Cena when he's closer to end of career." This sort of makes putting active wrestlers on the ballots while they're still in their prime years a bit silly. Seriously. That comment about the Rey bio is kind of cryptic. Wonder what sort of dirt he's holding back

The stuff with Shawn and HHH setting up the ref bump was really bad and awkward. You'd think with all the times they've done matches and angles like that they'd come up with something more believable and compelling. I expected Orton to win via Shawn shenanigans so whatever. Match was pretty good up until the end sequence, very physical. Bryan finally dropping HHH got a big pop, so that's something at least. I actually didn't hate that followed by the superkick, at least it made sense. But the setup getting to that point the last few minutes really dragged the match down. Rest of the show was hit and miss. Opening triple threat was great and I love all 3 teams. I'm a big fan of Del Rio in the ring and pretty burned out on Cena....but that match was good for what it was. All this time building up Del Rio as this aggressive, dangerous heel champ after the failed face turn and it seems counterproductive to have him lose in typical dominant John Cena fashion. Punk-Heyman angle got really stale really fast and I hope that was the blowoff. Match was better than I expected it to be, an improvement on their Cell match last year for sure, but I didn't love it. Even when Ryback puts in a good performance the crowd just doesn't seem that into him, or buy him at Punk's level. And to me those two just don't have great chemistry in the ring, all their matches have been disappointing in some shape, though this was the best of the bunch. I enjoyed Ambrose-Big E quite a bit and I liked the finish. They've been doing a good job using Big E lately. Matadores-Real Americans was perfectly acceptable. Not really PPV caliber, but it was fine. the Fandango-Khali match had no business being on PPV. Kane's return was wholly underwhelming, complete with the beyond awkward "brawling" between him and Harper and Kane not being able to lift him up for whatever he was going for there

Bob Backlund (62) wrestled Ken Patera (67) on a legends show in 2011 Abdullah the Butcher (68) wrestled Tiger Jeet Singh (61) on a Hustle show in 2009 Multiple sources list The Sheik's last match as an 11-12-98 All Japan show when he was 72, but I can't find results from the card or who he wrestled

The Brock news broke weeks before the show, and everyone knew Goldberg was done after his 1 yr contract. It was a lame duck match, which was booked to put Lesnar over, and when he gave his notice after they'd already built the match what could they do? Letting Goldberg win was a nice FU to Lesnar at that point I don't think, under those circumstances, that they could have done anything to win over that crowd. WM XX, MSG, the hardest of hardcore fans.......it wasn't gonna happen.

Taker is no doubt one of the most recognizable names to non-fans/casual fans. If you were even tangently interested in wrestling in the 90's Taker was one of the most recognizable characters. I think if you polled random people on the street the majority of them would know "The Undertaker" Also, when WWE was at it's peak of popularity, the biggest show they did was Austin vs. Undertaker. Anyone with a pulse in 98 knew about that show. Taker isn't close to Hogan though. Everyone knows Hulk Hogan. He's the biggest wrestling star of the last 30 years, and it's not really close. I love Austin, but Hogan was a bigger star.

Good interview, Cesaro seems like a really chill guy

I'd like to know how working with Dutch Mantell has been for him, in terms of what he's gained from it. And also, his opinions on Jack Swagger as a tag team partner, and what sort of potential they have I think they're an odd pairing, but I really like Swagger as a tag worker, and if they stuck with them as a duo for a while I think it would be great for both of them. They're already good at tag work and double team stuff together

I would have thought that a few years ago.....but I'm not so sure now, and there's been enough speculation about him lacing up the boots again. If I had to bet I'd say he won't wrestle again....but there's that old wrestling retirement mantra..... barring a career ending injury how many guys never do "one more match"

Total Divas.....I tried to watch it.....after about 3-4 episodes I tapped out. Everyone on the show came off as so unlikable, save for Uso, Bryan, and I guess Cena and Jo-Jo. Natalya was supposed to be the veteran babyface diva and I ended up really disliking her. Tyson Kidd looked like a douche. The Bella that dates Cena seemed manipulative and broken. Jo-Jo just came off as way over her head. Eva Marie was just awful in every way, like she was hired just to be on this show. I really did not enjoy watching that show, most of it was cringeworthy. However, I'm not a "reality" tv watcher, so I guess I can see the appeal to people who watch that crap The network plan has been a disaster since day 1. I totally agree they should figure out a way to do a Netflix/Hulu + type deal, but I understand the appeal of having their own premium cable channel. If they can get that, and get it solid, it only solidifies their brand name. A WWE network that was tiered with premium sports channels would be huge for them. They're a public company. They, in their minds, compete with the NFL and UFC. I get why they're striving for that goal. And they might get there. But so far it's been a struggle, and they're spending a ton of money trying to make it work

Yeah, I'm not really sure how this is all going to play out. Lots of different ways they could go, which makes it interesting at least - I wouldn't be shocked to see Shawn turn on Bryan and do "what's best for business" - I wouldn't be shocked if Bryan vs. HBK happened at WM - I wouldn't be shocked to see HBK vs. HHH be the endgame I really wouldn't be shocked by any direction they'd take, but I have no idea what their plans are heading into WM season. I like this HHH character, I like the Stephanie character, and I hope that Daniel Bryan comes out of all this really strong. And I like that they've taken Big Show, who I'm a big fan of, and made him into a huge impact player again. I like the way they've booked The Shield in all this. I like what they've done with Cody Rhodes and Goldust. I like a lot of what they've been doing....there's been missteps.....but they're on the right track generally. I just have that feeling that they're going to screw up and not deliver what fans really want to see....that's been their track record in most cases

was reading through results in one of the 96 Observer back issues Wow, look at that card. I didn't realize that WCW did carnival attraction type shows in addition to the tapings at Disney. I wonder if they had a ring set up outside for this so that passerbys could stop and watch some rasslin' for a minute before heading to their next destination. I'm oddly fascinated to know the details on a show like this.

Ric Flair was great as the manager of Fortune, cutting some hilarious fired up promos. There was also the time Fortune iced him backstage. His time in the wheelchair was awesome.

In retrospect I enjoyed the "Biker Taker" run. It was hit and miss at times, but there was some really fun stuff in there. Taker being "normal" and cutting angry promos was pretty cool, and he was really great as a badass "this is my yard" heel. He had some good matches in that stretch too. I think him coming out at the end of the Ironman match was "holy shit it's Taker!" at the time, but kind of kills that match for me in retrospect. Shitty finish to a great match. It was cool in the moment, but it doesn't really hold up. The first few months of Biker Taker were awkward, but he got into a groove eventually. I personally loved the buried alive match between him and Vince, and the buildup to him returning as the Dead Man

I can't stand Mitchell. He comes off like such a know-it-all on the audio shows he does, except he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and most of his ideas and opinions are terrible

It sounds more like anyone watching can see when a ref misses interference or cheating, so there's no need to state the obvious

I was thinking the same thing re: Flair & Hogan really not being on TV as much as people might think during their peak years. They usually had some face time in some form or another, but Hogan especially rarely wrestled on TV and almost never on the syndicated shows I think Sting is a fair guess to be up there - Got big around the time Turner bought WCW and WCW started adding more and more hours of programming (including Clash of Champions), heavily featured on all forms of WCW programming (it wasn't rare to see a Sting match on Worldwide for example), up through the Nitro & Thunder eras until the end of the company. Only real time off TV was due to injury, during the Crow angle (where he still showed up a lot of weeks and was heavily talked about/promoted), and near the end where they stopped using him - TNA regular throughout the entire Impact era with only brief vacations here and there. If he was around he was doing stuff on TV. I think generally if you really looked at it modern WWE guys who've been around a long time will by and large dominate a list like this. Including WCW Big Show has been on TV forever at this point. Kane has been on TV forever, and you can even throw in Issac Yankem and Fake Diesel to pad his stats. HHH, as mentioned, might actually have the most tv time of any wrestler ever. Even if you include announcing I'm not sure if Vince would be #1, but he might be. His commentary in the 70's was what, 1 hour a week? In the 80's and 90's he didn't do commentary on every show. He stopped doing commentary in 97. He's certainly been all over tv as a character since then, but there's also been big gaps where he's off tv. And do you count doing an hour of commentary as an hour of tv time, or just the stuff where he's featured on camera or interviewing someone? Interesting topic

"made for tv" wrestling promotions don't seem to work. That's essentially what Global was. That's what GLOW was. Wrestling Society X. Wasn't Jimmy Hart involved with something of that nature that never got off the ground? The one recently that that Hollywood producer got kickstarter funding for, taped, and it's never seen the light of day..... There's other examples too, but it doesn't seem like a sustainable or profitable model

The debut of Cactus Jack in the WWF was so perfect because you'd had Mankind, who at this point was going through a character change and more vulnerable and less of a monster than originally presented as, getting beat 2 on 1 by HHH and Chyna. Then wildman Cactus Jack shows up to even the score and pick up the ball for the weakened Mankind/Dude Love. It was brilliant, and I don't know if anyone but Foley could have pulled that off It's really annoying how HHH doesn't give Foley credit for getting him over these days. This program in 97, and Foley bringing back Cactus Jack to put him over in early 2000 were both huge in establishing HHH as legit.

He also worked with Ultimate Warrior in 96. They had a "match" at an IYH PPV (the entire thing consisted of 'Dust stalling forever then walking out). In addition to the house show run with HBK, they had a dark WWF title match at one of the IYH shows. That would have been a good program for TV and a proper PPV main event....I wonder if they didn't do it because of the nature of Shawn's character at the time and the fact that a segment of the crowd already thought he was gay. As it is Shawn's PPV opponents that year (Diesel, Bulldog, Mankind, Vader, Sid) were all strong and certainly none were worse or lower on the pecking order than Goldust at the time.

ah, that's correct, thank you. with all the shit that happens in TNA my memory can be spotty. now I recall that that's how they turned Roode heel in the first place. That actually turned out pretty well, with him losing to Angle being the catalyst for his heel turn, and the belt went on him pretty quick. They really dropped the ball on Storm though.

Closest thing to a local for me is In Your Face Wrestling which runs out of Ballston Spa, NY....near Albany. Never been to a show, looks like they run every couple of months. They're advertising Justin Credible for their next show, and past shows have had guys like Shelton Benjamin, Guido, Boogeyman, Finley and Val Venis. I'm curious what kind of crowds they draw. Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore is based in Poughkeepsie, NY which I believe would be the next closest, but they don't run many shows. They do have a show coming up next month headlined by Tommy Dreamer & TERRY FUNK vs. Sean Waltman & Lance Storm. I so badly want to go to this as I assume it will be the Funker's last match (yeah, I know) but I don't think I'll be able to that day. Dreamer loads up the card with stars too, the highlight of this one being GOLDUST in a match that was booked before he went back to WWE.

TNA also has a historical problem of, when they attempt long term angles, managing to mess them up one way or the other, be it creatively or artistically or it doesn't get over or Vince Russo just changes his fucking mind and they drop everything. Take Hogan-Bully Ray for example. Spent MONTHS building around this story, knowing full well Hogan couldn't or shouldn't ever wrestle again, so the payoff is supposed to be Brooke Hogan turning on her dad. Whatever. Hogan won't wrestle so it'll be his proxy vs. Bully with the Hogans in the corners. At least it's something and in theory Hogan is giving a rub to his guy. Then, IRL, Brooke goes and gets engaged, blowing their story out of the water. Then they just release Brooke, Bully ends up with Brooke Tessmacher as his valet as some sort of swerve payoff to the whole thing.....and Hogan is gone. Only in TNA. This also relates to AJ Styles, who I presume would have been Hogan's proxy. They built up his downfall pretty well, where he loses a match where he can't get another title shot for a year, then he loses a Loser Leaves Town match to his arch nemesis and all around dickhead Christopher Daniels. The stuff with Daniels/Kaz fucking with AJ Styles was good for the most part (I'm trying to forget that awful pregnancy angle). So he's off tv for a while and he becomes a brooding loner type. Should be cool, right? But TNA delivers it in such a way that the crowd seems completely confused about whether to cheer or boo him (they were supposed to cheer), so they mostly just greet him with silence. Then Kurt Angle goes and gets yet another DWI (he gets a stern talking to and another trip to rehab on TNA's dime) when he's already been advertised for a big match on TV. So what do they do? They drop Styles' brooding loner gimmick cold turkey and he comes out with his old look and old theme as Kurt Angle's replacement. Ok. The longest story they have going, with one of their top guys, and they just drop it without payoff for a match on F'n Impact. And it definitely wasn't getting over and AJ needed to go back to normal AJ, but at least come up with a reason for it. At least they stuck with their longterm plan and had him win the Bound for Glory series. One other example is how bad they screwed up on James Storm. Built him up forever, wins BFG series, is super over and the fans want the belt on him.....and they don't deliver. He's never recovered from that, and now he's slumming it in the tag division with Gunnar of all people. Not exactly AMW or Beer Money. He also seems pretty disinterested and unmotivated after working his ass off when Beer Money split and he was given the ball only to get it immediately snatched away because Hogan/Bischoff didn't think he fit the image of a world champion or some such bullshit. Great of them to come to that conclusion after he's already been built up for 6 months as the guy who's going to be the next champ

Was the AWA on tv up in Alaska? That's like the only reason I can see for them running shows up there, if they were on TV and getting good ratings. That or maybe Verne just wanted to go up there to fish or something WWE ran two SD tour shows in Alaska January of this year, in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Don't know how they drew. I'd think that it's a state that's so starved for live entertainment that running there every couple of years would be profitable for them. As far as the territory distinction goes, SMW and ECW were the closest modern equivalent to territories. SMW had their regional area carved out and ran a steady loop of towns in several states. I think of them as more than a regional promotion, and they were covered in the magazines and the sheets as more than a regional territory. Talent was cycled in and out whether in between WWF/WCW stints or bouncing around the indys, guys would go there for 3 months/6 months/9 months or whatever and then move on. Cornette ran it like it was a territory in the 80's. They were founded right about the time the AWA died, Global started up out of the ashes of the AWA and World Class, and Portland was on it's last gasps. I don't have a problem calling them one of the last territories, even if the territory system was mostly dead. I'm not even sure what to call ECW. They were a mutant hybrid of a promotion that is hard to define. It started as the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance promoted by Joel Goodhart, ran infrequently, and the cards of those shows are really interesting as Goodhart brought in guys like AWA champ Zbysko and USWA champ Lawler. Not sure how legit but most of their shows appear to have drawn in the 1000-2000 range. I think I'd call it a glorified independent at that point, where they're using some local guys and flying in mercenary talent to do their one show every few months. Funk, Abdullah...guys like that. Then Tod Gordon buys it and turns it into Eastern Championship Wrestling and they start running more regular shows, and at this point it's more of a regional promotion, with NWA affiliation (whatever that was worth). Then they do the deal with Douglas and the title and change the name and suddenly they start to feel bigger than regional, even though they still are. They're covered in mags and sheets from this point on as bigger than a regional, and eventually get world title status from PWI. 95-96 they were definitely bigger than a regional, and by the time they get on PPV they're some sort of underground national/regional thing, like a punk band that outgrew their underground status, signs to a major label but is still niche. How do people classify GWF? They had the national TV with ESPN, but I have a hard time calling them a real national promotion. A promotion like Southwest had national TV in the 80's and I would never consider them a national promotion. Like I said before, GWF had roots in World Class and the AWA and the territory system was on it's last legs when they started in 91, so I'd kind of consider them a territory of sorts, or at least a successor of that. They also had the same problem that all the territories had of having all their best talent poached by the big 2.

Reigns has "future world champion" written all over him, for sure. But he's nowhere near ready for that yet. Not even close, and I'm glad they brought him in the way they did and have protected him so much, because nothing is worse than when they bring in someone with a lot of potential and try to push him into a spot he's not ready for. Ambrose could be a world champion if they wanted to go that route, but it's no sure thing. Whatever happens, I see him being a heel mainstay for years to come. He's a great character and I look forward to seeing him in some prolonged grudge feuds. A CM Punk-Dean Ambrose program? Where do I sign up? Rollins, sad to say, will struggle the most when The Shield is broken up. He's perfect as the workhorse of the 3 man group and tag team with Reigns, and he'll always have a good spot as a utility guy with flashy offense who bumps his ass off for people, but they'll use him to get other guys over. He's not a great promo, which hurts him the most.