Jimmy Redman

http://placetobenation.com/stacey-and-elliotts-bogus-journey-4-ken-the-box/ Stacey and Elliott's Bogus Journey #4: Ken the Box Those three little words are all you need to know about this, a super happy special fun time like no other as we not only tackle one of the great NXT Takeover matches, we also take a look at the "man", the myth, the legend that is quite simply, the greatest wrestler of all time: Ken the Box. Today's matches: - Survival Tobita vs Ken the Box - Saitama Pro 8/23/99 - Survival Tobita vs Ken the Box - The Rematch - The Revival vs American Alpha - NXT Takeover Dallas 4/1/16 The Revival vs American Alpha - Dailymotion link

You're not crazy. I think Dave is the one on the island there.

Well without seeing the context, I can imagine she meant it more as "It's just a TV show, don't get so upset about the personal lives of people that you'll never meet" rather than "It's just a TV show, it's a bunch of bullshit".

The words taste awful in my mouth but Jesus, the new NXT theme song sucks. Imsosorry It's just terrible IstillloveyouCFO$ Just the worst kind of nu metal dick waving Donthateme And I actually like nu metal! But this sucks. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. When Roode was droning on I was thinking about Hideo as his next feud so it was nice that they read my mind. This whole thing was adequate until after the break and a backstage promo they cut to the ring and Roode is still knocked the fuck out. I loved that. Crowd singing "Bobby are you OK?" wins them all the points. Enjoyed the little Almas/Drew set up where the guys who were filming themselves training just happened to catch the confrontation. NXT does everything better. Almas still seems like a guy dead in the water though, I'm not sure how they resuscitate him from here. Will enjoy Drew Mac beating the shit out of him next week. Gallagher in NXT having a British style match with that other guy sounds dreamy. All we need now are rounds and Kent Walton. The women's division promo was good, the way they did it made me think they should do a No. 1 Contender's tournament for Asuka's next challenger. There are 8 solid women there, but maybe they don't want to do that so close to the actual Women's Tournament. Tag match was fine, but the faces still seem kind of bland. Billie and Peyton get 6.7 cornettes on the Jim Cornette Wrestling Tantrum Scale. TYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! That was immensely satisfying. You're all welcome. Maybe I'm projecting but Tye did look emotional walking out in Full Sail for the last time. I enjoy super minimalist NXT cage matches, and I liked that it's main function was in fact to try to keep the heels out. They built to the first cage shot well, and I liked the big elbow drop/Tye's finisher I've forgotten the name of nearfalls. And then shenanigans! Sanity are out! They lock the door on him! But wait here come the faces! It's a brawl! Shades of the baseball stadiums of Puerto Rico! I like that they even built up to the heels breaching the cage by having Tye bump the big one off the side, and then the other one off the other side, and then climb up allowing the big one to sneak in the door. Oh no Tye is stuck between the two in the ring and the other guy outside! What will he do? BIG DIVE! YEAH! And he sees the other guy coming for him so he escapes out the door, saves the ref, and then LOCKS THE HEELS INSIDE! Bwahahaha! Victory! He's done it! Justice has prevailed and evil is vanquished! Loved everything about this. Sanity get 7.1 cornettes for the post match. And Tye gets the send off he deserves. I love wrestling.

This is just gross.

I picked a hell of a week to start watching NXT again. Black's whole deal and entrance and music is money, although I'm going to be begging for him to walk faster in about a month's time. If his theme tune wasn't so repetitive lyrically it would be my new favourite song. And MY GOD THIS SQUASH. Black standing deathly still as the other guy bounces around like a normal wrestler and on commentary they're all like wassup but Nigel is like no no, it's good to be calm, just watch, and then the jobber bounces in and BLAOW, the most perfectly timed spin kick in fucking history kills this fucker dead. Black hasn't blinked. That was so fucking awesome. Speaking of fucking awesome, there's almost nothing I love more in wrestling than the WWE Network of Spies reading my posts and then booking as per my express wishes. Tye Dillinger is out the door but he agrees with me that it comes at the expense of that big NXT win he was chasing, so now he has one more shot at glory with this big blow off cage match against Eric Young next week. You're all welcome. The big ugly dude in the tag match was amazing and this was so great as a showcase for him. Most of all I loved Ciampa going for a clothesline and Miley just running through it like it was nothing. He didn't just no sell a fucking lariat, he acted like it wasn't even there. Scary. And the delayed vertical suplex with added pretend drop and A HOP ON ONE LEG just for the fuck of it! So scary. If you went into CAW with the assignment to make "Guy who gets beat up by his tag partner after they lose", you would probably come up with that guy Miley beat up. Sad Ember Moon moping around the empty arena post-Takeover while one guy slowly sweeps up in the background was strangely effective. It was a much more interesting and creative way to do that speech than the usual promo. Is Kimberly Frankele anyone? I feel like I should know her but I can't place her. Or maybe it's just because she came out to some boss ass banging tune. You've done it again, you magnificent bastards. CFO$ is truly just showing off at this point. ...oh, right. She's Kimber Lee. That's embarrassing how long that took me. It's the same fucking name, fuckwit. Speaking of indy people, we've had these moments so many times in the past 3 years or so that you'd think I'd be over the whole "What a time to be alive" thing, but I'm super not over it. Imagine telling your past self about a WWE card that looks like: - a Tommy End squash - a Gargano and Ciampa squash - Heidi Lovelace vs Kimber Lee while Nikki Cross looks on - Biff Busick vs Drew Mac - Shinsuke Nakamura emptying the locker room as he sails off to become the biggest star in WWE What a time to be alive. Billie and Peyton are awesome. Megapush as the new Laycool please and thank you. I have to admit that I was, and still am, inordinately and irrationally upset that Drew Mac is not coming out to Broken Dreams. This is the one time in my whole life that I will not defer to my homies CFO$. The new tune is good, don't get me wrong, but it ain't no Broken Dreams, On the other hand, I also have to admit that HOLY FUCKING SHITTING SHIT WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS THIS MATCH??! Drew begins his second career by throwing the fastest and most sickest overhead suplex fucking ever, and shit was just on. Biff comes back with some sick stuff and knocks Drew all the way outside. And then WHAT IN THE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, Biff dives from the top rope to the floor and Drew catches him IN A FUCKING GUTWRENCH?!?! That was INNNNNNNNNNNNNSANE. What the fuck. So now Biff is clearly fearing his death so he comes back with these crazy hard slaps, just pasting Drew and reminding me of that time that Drew chopped Trent Barreta right in the face on Smackdown YEARS before puro-like stiffness was even a twinkle in WWE's eye and I instantly fell in love with him that day and that was actually a great little series where Trent did a fucking Swanton right over the ropes to the floor onto no one and splatted on the floor and died and to this day nobody has told him he's dead and where was I? Oh yeah Drew Alabama Slams this poor fucker ON HIS FACE, breaking it in two, and then kills him dead with a Big Boot. What a glorious debut. Drew, my love, my honey, my darling! Fate hath returned you to me, as the gods themselves foretold. And then Shinsuke! Please don't go. You're WAY too good for WWE. I liked how he seemed genuinely moved by the crowds and all the love. It's amazing on so many levels. Here's a guy who is one of the top stars in New Japan after a long career, finally on top of the world and no reason to move a muscle, but at age 36 he goes to America to work for WWE's developmental brand and receive "coaching" on how to wrestle, and it gives him a new lease on life. And for their part, WWE push him like the superstar that he is but you'd never imagine they'd allow themselves to admit, and the fans love him so much that a wacky Japanese guy who can barely speak English is the most over guy on the WWE roster. Imagine if Misawa had decided to sign with WWF in 1997. What a God damn time to be alive. No matter what happens to him on the main roster you can't take his NXT run away, that first entrance that blew the roof off of that and several surrounding buildings, singing his theme song, the crazy violin entrances, everything. Popped for the Balor run in too. How nice. How nice everything is. I just said on the podcast to Elliott that if all I watched was NXT I would be the happiest wrestling fan. So I'm going to try to get back into watching the TV every week, since I fell off when they took it off Australian TV and suddenly effort was required. Effort to watch NXT will always be rewarded.

Before you even get to the big spot, when was the last match that was as good as Braun vs Show? That was the best hoss match since Henry/Show.

OK it's taken me until this skit to remember she exists but how in the fuck did we have a roster shake up and Natalya and Alicia Fox are STILL on opposite shows?! What the fuck is Alicia supposed to even do.

It's a time thing but they've also, like, not really put any effort into giving them a storyline or something to fight over. Like, the Usos cut a cool heel promo or something, but there's no real storyline between them, and certainly not for any team below the title picture either. They could do a 1 minute skit every week and it would help progress a feud better than whatever they're doing with them now. Also, Jinder Mahal is the dirt fucking worst. And has been from the minute he debuted. One of those rare anomalies who works for WWE for years and somehow never improves or has any good matches.

Well shit, they mentioned Boston like a hundred times today and yet at that moment I completely forgot where they were. Also, can I go back and say just how great the women's stuff on Raw was. Nia beating up Charlotte was pretty fun and using her departure to put over Nia was nice. Then Dana is backstage reading "How To Be Your Own Protege" which has to be like the most subtle joke ever made on WWE television. Emma trying to recruit her again and getting burned, allowing Dana to speak for herself and sound like an actual babyface for the first time. Then in the ring, Sasha makes her most insincere sincere introduction of Bayley possible, then has to stand there and hear Bayley make her heartfelt speech thanking the fans. Lines like "you guys have ALWAYS been on my side" and "I got to have my Wrestlemania Moment ™ " were sure to push all the right buttons on Sasha, the frustrated babyface ace. This is the next evolution in Sasha Banks the character - not only did she fail repeatedly to defend the title against Charlotte, but now Bayley has come in and supplanted her as the babyface champ, not only keeping the title for longer than 3 weeks, not only defending it successfully, but defending it AT MANIA and getting the Wrestlemania Moment ™ that Sasha has been denied two years in a row now. So Bayley is the babyface ace that Sasha wants to be in her dreams but just isn't good enough to be, so all that insecurity and frustration is eating away at her until finally, it's going to make her snap on the best friend she's ever had. I love Sasha. AND THEN WE GET ALEXA BLISS! Bliss and Sasha staring stark sassy death at each other here was the stuff dreams are made of and I hope we get a proper Sasha/Alexa match before she turns. Alexa was the best, cutting that great promo and Jesus the LOOK ON HER FACE when the crowd started cheering for her....I have never seen someone look so disgusted at anything in my life. Alexa DISDAINS cheers. A true heel. And then we get Mickie James to even the score and just when you think you know what's happening BAM MICKIE IS KILLED TO DEATH BY NIA. Alexa LOLing at this was amazing, everything she does reminds me so much of heel Trish and it's glorious. She is the fucking boss. I love the way the next stuff was set up, where Alexa pushes Sasha into Nia, so Bayley goes after Alexa for doing that which allows Nia to kill her too, while Alexa walks off cackling. Alexa looking Nia right in the eye like "Hmm, I could use you" was awesome. She pulled so many strings in the space of like 5 minutes here. Bayley and Mickie are going to have a lot of work to do, Raw will be so top heavy on heels when Sasha turns.

Smackdown thoughts: I like Owens in a suit. I also like the running gag of, even though they have two separate brands and a draft and everything, they still can't keep Owens and Sami away from each other. I also like how booking has become so meta that they used the fact that nobody wanted AJ to leave SD to get a face pop here. JBL shaking Byron's hand and being nice to him for pretty much the entire show has to be some sort of rib on us. Tag team title match ruled. Fight forever. LOOOOOOOOOOVED the Alphas catching the double tope and hitting suplexes. Of all the teams I thought would come out after this, the Colons was not one of them. Jesus they look so much better in jeans! Fucking Jinder. I did laugh at him getting his receipt for knocking Balor the fuck out on Raw. I never knew that I wanted Naomi to forearm the shit out of James Ellsworth until now. Book it Shane! OK I laughed at the Tamina troll, but poor Tamina. Hopefully she gets to work regularly now, because if there was ever a chance for her to improve. "We Want Sasha" chants. I swear this heel turn is going to bomb because they've ruined Bayley and Sasha is still more popular, they're going to choose Sasha. Charlotte getting the big push and coming out here in her fucking PEACOCK ROBE was glorious. Her overpush was grating in the very beginning but now that she's grown into it and become the God damn Queen she fits it like a glove and just comes off on a level above everyone, including most of the men. I liked when we saw Becky's reaction for a split second and she couldn't hide her overwhelming glee that she gets her BFF back. These girls kill me. Audible pop for Rusev coming over. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT AIDEN ENGLISH MUSICAL THEATER PERFORMER~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SPOTLIGHT PLEASE!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! Aiden English vs Tye Dillinger, what a flashback to the glory days of NXT. Dolph. If Seth comes out here I'm going to spew. OH GOD SHINSUKE~!!!! So the furthest possible thing from Seth Rollins then, thank God. Dolph came off like ten times the fuckwit for saying "I don't know who you are" after the crowd was chanting his name for like three hours. SING THAT SONG BITCHES~! NXT is a beautiful pro wrestling dream that I don't ever want to wake up from. So New Day it is. I like these vignettes they've been doing for the main event. It's funny because now that I think about it, when I watch Raw or SD, the point when they start coming out for the main event is usually when I check out for some reason. But they managed to hold my interest for this and it was a super fun main event. My favourite part was Corbin running around the corner and getting KO'd by that knee.

http://placetobenation.com/stacey-elliotts-bogus-journey-3-one-for-the-grapple-fans/ Stacey & Elliott's Bogus Journey #3: One For the Grapple Fans The Journeyers head to World of Sport to take a look at a very underrated British wrestler, and then check out two of the greatest of all time in a match that is so wacky it's hard to believe it actually exists. Stacey promises that she didn't talk about the Divas Invasion...as much as last time. Today's matches: - Pat Roach vs Tom Tyrone - World of Sport 10/11/83 - El Hijo del Santo, Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto vs Negro Casas, Horace Boulder & Tim Patterson - FMW/WWA in Los Angeles 5/16/92 (Match Discussion Archive thread) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T43GSOGIuEY

The rest of Raw should have been Braun tipping over every new vehicle they try to put Roman on to get him out of there. "Quick Braun's gone, we can escape on the ice cream truck! Hurr-" "BRAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

This was always the problem with the Draft,they move way too many people. So instead of "Woah X is moving to SD to face all those guys he's missed out on!" it's a bit more like "Well X, Y and Z are moving from Monday to Tuesday night to continue their matches"

Fuck. Jinder is going to SD isn't he.

It was the magic of the CWC.

And Charlotte puts over Nia on her way out of the territory. I always fantasy booked the Draft to look like this, with no lottery or matches, just Raw draftees coming out on Raw and then SD draftees coming out on SD the next day. So this is cool to me. The only problem is that it's going to look like everyone is on Raw and SD is screwed for 24 hrs until they get people back. I wish Miz and Bryan were still feuding properly, because a great pay-off to all of that would have been this Shake Up. Either Bryan takes the chance to swap Miz for Sami or something, or Bryan finally acknowledges Mia's worth now he's been drafted and does a deal to get him back tomorrow. How Miz would crow.

I expect Charlotte/Alexa and AJ/Seth as (theoretical) swaps. New Day and Sami should probably go. It's hard to think who could move to Raw though since SD is so much thinner.

The problem is that there are really two definitions of "casual fans". The first one tends to mean "people who have a casual or passing interest in WWE". People who see WWE occasionally and watch WM over at someone's house, who know the big stars and remember the good old days of Stone Cold and The Rock (or of Hogan and Savage depending on age). It's definition WWE themselves tend to use, these people are the ones they're thinking about when they book celebrities or Attitude Era stars, things designed to grab the attention of a wider audience. People who could, potentially, spend money/more money on wrestling but don't. My friend Pat I'd put into this class, for example. She likes wrestling when she sees it, if she's visiting her family or something, and she tries to watch Wrestlemania. She loves Undertaker and Triple H, but she wouldn't know Sami Zayn from a bar of soap. She'll go with her cousins to the house show if they're going and love it. But it would never occur to her to watch TV every week, let alone go online and talk about wrestling on social media. Then there's the other definition of "casual fan", where it's used as a binary pair with "hardcore fan", and you're either one or the other. We as smarks tend to use this a lot of the time, when we're trying to distinguish between people like us who talk about wrestling online in a deeper, insider way, and those who don't, when we're discussing indy workers in WWE or a certain type of match that we enjoy that they might not necessarily or why a certain Raw crowd is a "hardcore" crowd. In this sense the definition broadens because it basically includes all the people who do watch Raw and SD and PPVs regularly, who go to shows, but who aren't smarks. I use my mother as my "casual fan" barometer using this definition, where I like to see which workers or gimmicks or whatever are getting over with someone who isn't an insider fan. She watches Raw and SD religiously every week, watches all the PPVs, but that is the limit of her investment. She never feels the need to watch any more wrestling than that, even more things from WWE like NXT. And she'd never have any interest in going online and reading backstage goings on or talking to other fans about da biz. She's happy just watching the shows every week, like any other TV show she follows. Both of these fans still exist, and in large numbers. I see people trying to argue that there's no such thing as a casual fan anymore because the internet, which is silly. Just because the internet and social media exists doesn't mean everyone who watches Raw is going to use it to learn the inner workings of the wrestling business. Lots of Raw viewers don't use the internet to talk about wrestling at all, and even for those who do, one look at wrestling Twitter or Facebook shows you that a LOT of it is kayfabe/casual type "I love you Cena I hope you kick Miz's ass!" stuff. Not everyone posting about wrestling on the internet is necessarily a smark anymore. And on the point about how 5 hours a week is not a casual investment, I'm not so sure. The biggest show in Australia right now is My Kitchen Rules. It's on four nights a week, and the show is 90 minutes long. But you'd call most of those people casual fans because they just watch the shows and never think about them again once it's over. Watching 2-3 football games every weekend is at least a 6 hour commitment, and there are shitloads of casual footy fans. I know it's hard to grasp sometimes because we're so far in the bubble, and the spread of the internet means that internet fans are more visible than they were in the days where you'd have to sign up for a message board to chat to other smarks, but there really are tonnes of people who just watch Raw and/or SD and just stop there, and wouldn't even think to invest any deeper than that.

This was amazing, perfect and everything it needed to be. Just like the rest of their feud, every time they've interacted, you literally could not have asked for or dreamed up anything better. This was the best possible Goldberg vs Lesnar feud, and somehow it happened in 2016/17. Brock hitting the suplexes and gloating and turning into the SPEAR FROM ABSOLUTE HELL...that camera angle was fucking perfection. Has there ever been a single move shot as well as that? I can't remember one off hand. MOTN easily, well this and the ladder match which was also fun. Everything else either sucked or got bogged down or had some booking or structural issues. There was nothing wrong with this, it was the best Goldberg vs Lesnar it could possibly be.

I dunno guys, I think I may have to start reviewing this show. I've seen bits and pieces before, my mum watches it every week, but I think this was the first time I've sat down to a whole episode. This one was about the Draft, and can be summed up thusly: "I DON'T WANT TO BE SEPARATED FROM MY BOYFRIEND/HUSBAND/BEST FRIENDS/THE CAST OF TOTAL DIVAS IN THE UPCOMING WWE DRAFT!!" I mean, I know a lot of their hysterics are for the show, but the underlying fear and panic of their lives being ripped up and relationships being put in jeopardy because of the draft is real. They used to go through this every year, and now it's starting again. And they don't get told shit just so they get "real" reactions, even though it's TV so they're all going to be "on" and working their characters anyway...fuck this company sometimes man. These are people's lives you're twatting around with just so you can work the boyz, you jerks. One of the highlights of TD is when the peripheral people get involved in the Total Divas bullshit of the day and they give you that "I didn't sign up for this crazy ass bitches nonsense" look. Shayna Bazler gave Nattie that look when she was crying about Nikki taking neckbreakers (They could break her neck again! It says so right in the name!). Nattie is such a blatantly lying twat sometimes, all "If I was your opponent I wouldn't work over your neck." Like, get fucked. Of course you fucking would, every single fucking worker has their real injury worked on in matches once they return. But the thing about Nattie is that she says this shit so emphatically that you believe that she believes it. Anyway, Nia Jax gave Lana that same look when she was whinging all over the place about having no friends on Raw. Just a total "Ho boy, I don't want to be called up just to get stuck babysitting the loser kid because nobody will play with her." Seeing Lana as CJ with an American accent acting like a girl is almost as traumatic to me as Umaga or Awesome Kong speaking for the first time. I want my childhood back. Paige and Alberto broke up at the end of the episode. So I guess that's the end of that guys. But my favourite part of the episode was, amazingly, Eva Marie. Look, normally I don't give a shit about her on TD but here's the thing, my favourite part about her in ring career was that she was stupid. That was her gimmick, that she was a fuckwit! She'd look so incompetent in the ring, she'd piss off anyone she was teaming with, she'd provoke Asuka into killing her...she was just incurably dumb. I loved it. And so here she's whining about the idea of not being drafted all fucking day, whining about not being drafted yet through the whole fucking draft, and then finally at fuck o'clock at night she comes up on the screen as a SD pick, she jumps up and announces to the room "I'm so glad I got drafted to Raw!" And everyone laughs and laughs and they have to tell her that she fucked up and she's eating it, and more and more people come up to her and laugh in her face and it's glorious, it's like her wrestling character has come to life. Live the gimmick brother! This show already has more intrigue and better payoffs than Raw.

Shut up. I am excited about the idea of Charlotte vs Naomi and Mickie James though. I think they're calling it a Shake Up (besides their love of naming things) because they don't want people to confuse it with The Draft that just happened where EVERYONE got drafted. It's more like the drafts they used to have every year with the brand split where a handful of people switch shows to freshen things up. They'll probably keep the same format of having Raw vs SD matches and the winner gets a random pick. I'm guessing.

Like I said, I think they're going to send Rollins to be a top face on Raw. Which is a little gross.

A little I guess, but at least there's a balance: Naomi, Becky & Mickie (& Nikki) as faces vs Alexa, Natalya & Carmella (& Maryse) as heels.

The other imbalance they need to correct is that the Raw women are quite heel heavy. Charlotte, Nia, Emma, Alicia Fox, and soon to be Sasha when she turns, and they'll be left with only Bayley and Dana as faces. Even if they swap Alexa for Charlotte, they need to trade or call up a babyface for Raw.