WrestlingPower

Loved this show as well, Johnny was on fire.

I attended Omega Championship Wrestling on Friday 5/9 at the Royal Palace Theater in Roanoke Rapids, NC. Attendance estimated at 300. 1-Michael Yamaha b Jake Manning Typical Southern style opening match 2-D’Arcy Dixon b Mia Svensson w/ Special Ref Reby Sky I’ve seen much worse but both seemed rather inexperienced 3-CW Anderson (w/Christopher Carmichael) b Adam Page Decent enough action in between the stalling & playing to the crowd. Carmichael was heavily involved 4-Shane Helms b Lodi (w/Deandre Jackson) Lodi’s bodyguard/trainee/second Jackson attacked after the match but the heels were run off by 2 big dudes from Lizard Lick Towing, whatever that is (low level reality show?) 5-Lee Valiant (sub for Xsiris)/Ric Converse b Caprice Coleman/Sweet Dreams (sub for Cedric Alexander who was called on short notice to fly to the ROH show a day early) Match of the night. Sweet Dreams turned on Caprice after the match, laying him out with a clothesline, because why not? 6-PWI International Hv Champ Zane Dawson b Christian York Part of this was an extended brawl in the crowd, which like in the Helms match, served to excite the crowd without the performers having to actually do a whole lot. 7-Matt Hardy b NWA North American Hv Champ Kahagas (w/Christopher Carmichael) in a non-title match with a Twist of Fate while Kahagas was draped from the top rope. Carmichael hit the ring after and chaos ensued. Somewhere in here, he took the Twist of Fate from Matt, Dawson hit the ring, splashed Matt and speared Matt & Helms. York ran in and brawled out with Dawson. It was a fun end to the show. Overall this show can be judged based on 2 criteria. It seemed to entertain and satisfy the masses, the casual family crowd looking for a fun evening out. The hardcore/workrate crowd seemed quite disappointed in the athleticism delivered for the high ticket prices as it was very much a Southern indy show with more playing to the crowd & smoke & mirrors than a lot of highspots, outside of the tag match and moments in the CW/Page match. Given that OMEGA has traditionally been built around high athleticism and coming off their high point of the Hardys/Briscoes show, this is not an essential DVD.

This week's show is extremely missable. No Alice but we have Bolin as co-host and I think this show proves that will not work. Bolin's whole act here is to just be obnoxious, overbearing & argumentative. I realize that's his usual gimmick but they really have no content to work with this week. And it appears there's an issue with the audio levels as by the end you can barely hear them but the show closing music sounds fine. It could just be my computer's audio levels but I couldn't figure out how to turn it up any further.

I agree with Exposer, aggregating the top research, high traffic posts onto a main site would help make them more timeless instead of a "popping off the front page" situation. I'm thinking about like HOF discussion threads on various candidates, etc.

I was at a convention last week and overheard a conversation that made me think I was transported back 20 years. There was an indy promoter who was saying he was having trouble with one of his workers and was trying to recruit a guy who I assume works stiff to come in and "teach this guy a lesson". I was kind of amazed this kind of crap still goes on in 2014. Why doesn't this guy just stop booking the guy? Why would he feel the need to pay someone to drive in from out of state just to put this guy in his place? Seems to me it would save everyone a lot of time, effort, and money just to stop booking the problem child. Seems really dumb, backwards, and "carny" to me for him to be handling things this way. I guess people in the South still want to play "rasslin promoter".

Paul Orndorff announced as a future guest. And I almost did a spit take at the line "Sally Strothers and the kids with the flies on them."

If you are a fan of Bolin, he will be back on this week. He & Jim have worked out a bit where they will be debating the new gun laws in Kentucky.

I can't even imagine a Piper podcast. I couldn't even make it thru his appearances on Austin's show. His stories are so far-fetched & unbelieveable that even if they are true or mostly true, they are just so out there that he comes across as a guy completely off in his own world.

Bolin has grown on me, his stories are just so preposterous and hilarious, he's grown on me since he's not trying to sell a wrestling gimmick. Even so, once every 4-6 weeks is probably enough of him. If they theoretically replaced Alice with Bolin, to me then it would be unlistenable as then it would just be these 2 guys off in their own world talking about nothing relevant to wrestling past or present. Corny shouldn't buy the network. He's from the old school where once you earned a certain spot in wrestling you shouldn't have to pay for anything wrestling related any longer.

I'm sure next week will be skippable for you as I'm sure there will be a Nancy Grace rant.

More unwanted opinions from Alice this week. She intimates that WrestleMania was so highly praised due to "lowered expectations". Granted there are always complaints about the booking & WWE's idea of "building" matches sometimes has the inverse effect. But it seems like this year lots more people, myself included, had a lot more interest in the characters & intrigue in how things were going to go than in past years. And it sounds like the show delivered against those expectations. If the hardest of the hardcore fans with 30 years of following the industry are happy with it, who is she to act like it's being graded on a curve?

My issue with her is that she throws in stories of her own that are completely unwelcome. We listen to the show to hear Jim's stories, not hers. I don't mind her voice or her asking Jim questions or trying to keep the show moving along, it's when she throws in her opinions & stories that it gets a bit much. Bolin is funny but is more entertainment oriented than anything we might actually learn something from. Maybe Jim should go to bi-weekly if he has to fill time with stuff like this or maybe MLW is making him stretch content across 2 shows is the problem, maybe if there weren't a "drive-thru" we would get more wrestling questions on the main show?

Hilarious Bolin segment this week.

This is my first time listening to this show. I stopped listening to Kelly's previous podcasts pretty quickly due to them being shillfests for ROH. And one of the reasons I lost interest in ROH itself was Kelly coming across as a shill. But presentation wise at least early on, this show's intent seems different. But I kinda got to shake my head at this "ROH fever is runnin' wild" talk. Sure NY may be sold out but in the message boards & communities I frequent, there is virtually no buzz or talk about ROH, not the TV, nothing really other than some occassional reporting of news & analysis. I haven't seen much written about these NJPW joint shows aside from people matter-of-factly stating that these are big deal shows & that momentum seems to be building for ROH from a promotional standpoint. I'm not really seeing any mounting passion or emotional engagement from fans at all. Anyone else see a disconnect here too? Maybe the people going to shows just don't have time to pimp it heavily on the internet like in the old days?

Good show this week with a change of pace w/ an interview with Mike Quackenbush. I still am stunned at the irony & lack of self-awareness of Quack sometimes in his whole talking point of Chikara not adhering to the old carny/kayfabe days of wrestling: Examples: --promotion heavily veiled in secrecy with booking, lack of coming clean over shutdown story for instance—how is this different from carny days, trying to "get one over" on the fans? --promotion is heavily kayfabed to the point of staff getting personally offended if anyone tries to question or break mystique of its product/”characters” --his need to control the audience despite feedback (BDK example given on the show) --he criticizes arrogance/need to be smarter than audience of “carny days” promoters yet all his interviews have such pretentious/highly educated language & theoretical talk around the performance art of his product

Alice is back. She apparently quit MLW.com and is now "employed" by Cornette's Collectibles.

I finally had time to dig into these podcasts. LOVING the Austin shows, very easy to listen to & the time just flies by.

I'm with Will here, I would never volunteer the info unless I feel like I know the person pretty well. It just leads to more questions. Given that I haven't regularly watched WWE in like 10 years and that's increasingly been seen as the entire scope of what wrestling is, it's just easier to avoid the subject than try to explain. Sometimes I will just say that I watch old 80s stuff on DVD and don't watch the TV stuff. This oversimplifies things so as not to explain about the indies & Japan. Back when I used to go to Japan regularly, I would use that as saying I preferred that over American wrestling but then that would lead to the inevitable questions about if it was sumo. So yeah, it's a lot easier to stay closeted than to begin opening the door to explain just how of a deep niche you are involved in. Edit: on second thought at my old job where I could wear t-shirts to work, I'd routinely wear ROH or PWG shirts or whatever so I wasn't trying to hide anything. Largely I see it as no one's business as I'm a pretty private person but if someone were to ask or know the significance of what was on the shirt I would engage them. I guess it's pretty complex with me as I would wear some wrestling shirts in public that don't openly have like pictures on them but reading wrestling books in public, probably not, and watching wrestling on a laptop in like an airport or on a plane, most definitely not. In fact when a friend of mine & I were sitting together on a plane going to a wrestling convention, I was a bit embarrassed to be sitting by him just blantantly watching CZW on his laptop, but I guess that was mainly just due it being no one's business what I would be watching. I would read an Observer on a laptop on a plane though but I'd be sure to angle it such that no one was really looking at what I am reading.

Did I miss a post/announcement that she's not on any longer?