Tag: wrestling

Tony Khan buying Ring of Honor seems pretty notable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a part in the WWE documentary, the Monday Night Wars, where Eric Bischoff talks about how when WCW was on top of the ratings game, they generally felt invincible. They didn’t really care much to what the WWF was doing and didn’t really see a lot of what they were doing as threatening.

Until the WWF got a hold of Mike Tyson to make some appearances and get into a storyline with D-Generation X and Stone Cold Steve Austin.  Bischoff is seen describing finding out about that news as a moment of, oooh, now that is something.

This would embark the WWF into the attitude era, where they would eventually catch and reclaim the ratings war back from WCW and never look back until WCW was dead and bought for pennies on the dollar by Vince McMahon himself.

That’s kind of the feeling I got when I heard that AEW owner/president/rich man child Tony Khan had bought Ring of Honor.  Oooh, now that is something substantial.

Obviously, I don’t think the WWE is ever going to die like WCW did, but in the general war of two between the companies, I do think AEW’s acquisition of ROH is a pretty notable instance that has a lot of potential to swing some momentum.

Aside from the general facts of AEW got something WWE wanted and the forbidden doors that an AEW/ROH association opens up, most people know that the tapes library alone was the primary prize in this whole thing.  WWE ultimately wants every living piece of professional wrestling media to do whatever they want with, but was denied by AEW. 

And with all that back catalog in tow, AEW now has some fuel to open the doors to their own streaming service, much like WWE sold to NBC’s Peacock.  Even prior to the news of the acquisition, news of AEW potentially broadcasting on HBO, as being a Turner product they fall under the same umbrella, was picking up steam.  And with a legitimate back catalog to bolster their own growing library, AEW stands to make some legitimate coin if and when they launch a streaming package.

Because when the day is over, money seems to be the biggest pissing contest between the companies.  Now the WWE isn’t at any risk of losing the dollars game, primarily because of the Saudi blood money they Hoover up every year now, but at least on the domestic front, AEW picking up ROH definitely is denying the E a lot of money in which they won’t be getting, which is a pretty symbolic win against an entity that seems pretty unbeatable.

Otherwise, I don’t think Khan’s purchase of ROH is going to make nearly the splash as wrestling fans might be rubbing themselves over. To me, the smart play is to let ROH operate as-is as long as they can while making small and subtle changes or integration plans.  When it’s not nearly as fresh on people’s minds is when to start firing shots, but that’s just my opinions.

But if I’m Vince McMahon, whether he’ll admit to it or not, seeing ROH dell to Tony Khan, probably is a noteworthy disappointment, and should make him go hmmmm.

Thoughts on Terminus 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the longest time, I’ve been trying to go watch live wrestling.  A few months ago, I went to a really small show, Championship Wrestling From Atlanta, and it turned out to be a lot of fun despite the fact that I knew maybe like two names on the entire card.  The venue was small, the attendance was low, and I was sitting two rows from the ring and had a great view the entire night.  Unbeknownst to me, a lot of the talent featured that night were all fairly notable names on the indy or not-WWE/AEW world of professional wrestling, and I took the time to educate myself and realize just how out of touch I had become with the industry over the years.

The experience ignited a newfound want to seek out smaller shows, because I’ve done Wrestlemania twice, and several other large WWE and WCW shows back in the day, and as much as I appreciate the big times, I’ve learned that it’s just so much more fun at smaller shows.

But after seeing Championship Wrestling, the last few months have been a comedy of errors at trying to go see moar live wrestling.  I had secured tickets to NWA’s Hard Times 2 show, which I was looking forward to immensely due to the card being pretty stacked, but due to the rise of the Omicron coronavirus variant, my tickets were cancelled.  At least I got a pretty cool consolation prize out of it.

Mythical wife had gotten me some really baller tickets to go see WWE’s Day 1 pay-per-view show, and I know I had just said I was kind over big WWE events, but these were some prime seats that probably would’ve made the event worth it, but then my household was exposed, and I had to punt on going to the show that ended up being pretty noteworthy in that Brock Lesnar ended up winning the WWE title that night.

And then I heard about this show that ran in Atlanta, literally the night after it had occurred, called Terminus, which was apparently being run by the current Ring of Honor World Champion, Jonathan Gresham.  Looking at the match list, I was kind of awe-struck at just how stacked of a card it was, and I bemoaned my bad luck at not knowing about it in advance and trying to go check it out.

Fortunately for me, Terminus already had plans to run a second show in February, and with a main event of Gresham against AEW’s Mike Santana already established, it sounded like the perfect event to scratch the itch for some live, smaller-crowd wrestling.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Terminus 2” →

I’m surprised anyone is surprised about Cody Rhodes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The wrestling internet is abuzz right now with the news that Cody Rhodes has left AEW, just a few years after he basically helped launch the entire promotion from the ground up.  And not just leaving AEW, but also tons of reports about how he’s on the track to returning to the WWE, the promotion that AEW’s cult-minded fans basically think is the antichrist.

Initially, I thought that this could be the start of some elaborate work, but as the last few days have progressed, it’s seemingly like it really is legitimate; unless this too is some Uber-meta working going on, designed to swerve all wrestling fans into oblivion, but as scuttlebutt keeps trickling, this is seemingly not likely.

But when it really comes down to it, I have to say that I’m more surprised that today’s average wrestling fans are actually surprised by this at all.  This is where I’d like to think that I’m wiser and smarter than today’s wrestling fans which isn’t saying that much but I did used to call myself The Oracle among my friends, based on how good I was at predicting wrestling bullshit, but the reality is that I’ve just watched and witnessed a lot of professional wrestling in my lifetime, and there just seemed to be a lot of common patterns and scenarios, and on a long enough timeline, nothing is original or unique and history repeats itself all the time.

When AEW started taking off, I actually made some predictions on which former WWE guys on the roster would eventually make their way back to WWE after some time in AEW.  Chris Jericho, for sure will be in a WWE ring again at some point in his career, as will guys like Shawn Spears, Mark Henry, Big Show, to name a few.  But one guy I didn’t hesitate one bit with was Cody Rhodes, regardless of his standing, position and contributions towards the creation of AEW.

All it took was two episodes of Dynamite, and I stated to varying friends that I could 100% see Cody Rhodes going back to the WWE.  It was just a feeling I had, and maybe it was all the times I’d seen Chris Jericho return to the WWE that fed this hunch, but I just knew that Cody would probably end up back in the WWE himself at some point, no matter how much he meant or accomplished with AEW.

The initial thought process was that in spite of the fact that Cody was a VP of the company, along with Kenny Omega, and Nick and Matt Jackson, the four of those wrestlers were very different personalities.  Whereas Cody clearly had a mind, hungry for the business side of the industry, Omega and Bucks were still too busy circle-jerking over inside jokes and spending way too much time trying to create YouTube content instead of running a company.  Eventually, these approaches to running AEW would clash and when it comes down to it, it’s three versus one.  

There’s been plenty of speculation about rifts and disagreements between the VPs of the company, as well as Tony Khan’s stripping of power from all of them, and I basically said that a time would eventually come where Cody would get tired of all the bullshit of running a company, and would probably prefer to just be a performer, focus on wrestling and make WWE money in the process.

And here we are, just a few years removed from the birth of AEW, and Cody Rhodes has walked away, and appears to be on the fast track back to the WWE.

The thing about the WWE is that there is a 100% never-say-never attitude when it comes to talent returning to the fold.  It doesn’t matter how much anti-WWE shit a guy spews in another promotion, or if they say racist shit (Hulk Hogan), or even admitting to incest and murder (Marty Janetty), if a guy can bring interest, eyes, fans and money to the company, the WWE will open their arms.

Cody Rhodes helping launch the WWE’s most prominent rival since WCW has little bearing on the WWE’s decision to bring him in, because Cody still won titles in the NWA, Ring of Honor, New Japan and AEW since his last departure from the company, so in the spirit of raising one’s own stock and value, Cody has accomplished that.

Sure, I think his ceiling back in the WWE will be no higher than Christian after he came back from TNA, no matter how much creative ideas and influence he’s promised to get him to sign back up, but Cody Rhodes returning to the WWE is a big deal, big name, and a guy with an impressive resume and not just Dusty Rhodes’ kid anymore.

Frankly, anyone who didn’t see this coming at some point is either just too young, hasn’t watched enough wrestling in their lives, or maybe I really am just that more insightful and observant to the industry than other people are.  But Cody going back to the WWE was about as much of a layup as Wilt Chamberlain playing hoops in his own era.

I hope Rousey gets owned by the fans again

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As good as Ronda Rousey was in the Octagon, I’ve never really been sold on Ronda Rousey the professional wrestler.  I don’t think I’m the only wrestling fan that kind of thinks that she’s more or less a wrestling tourist cashing in on her name value, and using professional wrestling to pad her bank account, because for some reason they’re so willing to give her tons of money.  And as good of a MMA fighter she might have been, even to this day she’s still putrid inside the ring.

After reading this story about how WWE heads needed to give her a talking to about cutting promos, most notably the part where she’s the face in this feud with Charlotte Flair, and she needs to act like a heel, especially to the fans, because the formula of wrestling is the timeless tale of good guy versus bad guy, and it doesn’t really work out when a Wrestlemania match is going to be two assholes against each other, it was just another reminder of how much she doesn’t get the wrestling industry from the storytelling perspective either.

Back in 2018, Rousey and Charlotte had a match at Survivor Series, which was pretty decent because Charlotte is basically the greatest female wrestler ever, and Rousey was smart enough to let herself get carried.  But the most memorable part of the match was when Charlotte got herself disqualified by abruptly attacking Rousey with a weapon; but despite the fact that at the time, Rousey was built as a heroic face, while Charlotte was toeing the line as a heel, the dastardly actions by Charlotte were met with explosive cheers from the crowd.  Throughout the match, Rousey was getting somewhat of a lukewarm reception, but when Charlotte went ballistic on her, the line in the sand was pretty drawn – the fans had turned on Rousey.

The thing is, Rousey being so green to the wrestling industry, had no earthly idea how to handle it.  After the match was over, Rousey looked at the crowd with a shocked and appalled look on her face as boos rained down on her.  There was actually a moment where the cameras caught her jawing with a fan, claiming that he was no man, and the whole televised walk to the back was awkward and kind of painful to watch.

Today’s wrestling fans don’t like to be told what to do, which is why they’re so apt to turn on wrestlers in such dynamic manners from time to time.  And the fans at a Survivor Series, which is a tier-1 event for the WWE, tends to draw more hardcore fans, and these are the ones that tend to understand their power as a collective, and know they can fuck with the talent if they work together, and that’s basically what happened with when they turned on Rousey.  And once it’s seen on television, it becomes the truth to all casual fans and before you know it, Rousey is hated by all fans from then on, and next thing you know, she’s jobbing out to Becky Lynch at Wrestlemania to the delight of the fans and then vanishing from the WWE for like, three years.

Well, Rousey is back, and the WWE machine is once again trying to push her as a face.  But the aforementioned promo she cut, mostly on the fans, clearly indicates that she hasn’t forgotten how she was treated by the fans three years ago, and combined with all her shoot-not-shoot remarks about how much she hates wrestling fans, it clear her relationship status with the industry is probably best described as, it’s complicated.

What I’m really hoping for is that come Wrestlemania, when Rousey faces Charlotte for the blue Women’s Championship, I hope that the fans turn on her again.  Not before, not after, but during the match against Charlotte.  Charlotte has been trying to nurture the arrogant heel persona over the last two years and frankly, getting paired against Rousey could be the worst thing to happen to her character, if the smarky fans that show up at Wrestlemania decide to deploy another heel turn on Rousey again.

But I’m all for it, and hope that it happens again.  I’m not sold on Rousey the professional wrestler, and I would be over the moon to see the fans go complete dark side on her again, and see how she reacts to it happening at Wrestlemania of all places.  It doesn’t change the fact that she’s probably going to win the blet because a big name like Rousey isn’t brought in to job, but I just hope the fans definitely let her know that they recognize someone who respects the business, and they’ll definitely let anyone else know what they think about them.

I saw my first GCW show and it was pretty good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much as I like to pretend like I’m some wrestling mark hipster, and know every single indy wrestler out there, I’m not even close.  I don’t even know where half of AEW’s roster originated from, and when guys like Daniel Garcia or Wheeler Yuta show up, I have no fucking clue who they are.  I went to an indy show back in November and saw names like Effy and Marti Belle and had no idea who they were, much less aware that both were title holders in other promotions.

Honestly, up until the episode of Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring about Nick Gage, I had no idea what Game Changers Wrestling was.  And based on the episode, where Nick Gage basically repeatedly killed himself in all sorts of deathmatches, I frankly wasn’t enthralled with GCW, and came away with an impression that they were a promotion that was determined to one-up ECW in terms of violence.

But then after Zack Ryder was fired from the WWE, and Matt Cardona eventually showed up at GCW after a masterful troll job, impersonating Jon Moxley who had been bouncing anywhere and everywhere he wanted, I began to see GCW showing up on the general internet radar of professional wrestling, beyond the exposure they got on Dark Side.  Eventually, Cardona would dethrone Nick Gage as the promotion’s World title, and whether they want to admit it or not, it was off to the races for GCW.

Eventually, the actual Jon Moxley would really show up, and beat Cardona for their World title, which brings us to present time, where thanks to a lot of cross-promotion with talents from AEW, Impact, Ring of Honor and whomever else, GCW had drummed up enough exposure and attention to where a filthy casual like me was very intrigued and interested in their supposed major biggest show ever, The Wrld pay-per-view event.  The card looked intriguing, and I was genuinely interested, and excited to catch my first ever GCW show.

Continue reading “I saw my first GCW show and it was pretty good” →

For once, does Billy Corgan not suck?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I went out to the mailbox with one of my kids, I figured it would be more of the same junk mail.  Bullshit about mortgage insurance, solicitations for donations, a random piece of mail offering me a ridiculous amount of money for my home regardless of the fact that I would never be able to parlay that into getting something else remotely close to where I’m living now, etc.

But today, there was an unexpected tube in the box.  I figured it was something mythical wife had ordered because she’s always ordering shit for the kids, but it turns out that it was addressed to me.  A return address from Florida from someone I didn’t know, because it was only signed by initials.  I thought it might’ve been a friend of mine from Virginia whom had similar initials, and I wondered, did they move to Florida?  What did I do to deserve such a considerate friend who sends me random mail even though we hardly speak?

Turns out that it wasn’t this specific friend I had in mind.  Instead, upon opening the tube, was a small 10 x 16 poster from the NWA show that I had missed out on due to the rise of omicron.  And it appeared to be autographed by, presumably all of the performers from the show.

Back in December, I had tickets to the NWA pay-per-view, Hard Times 2.  I had long wanted to go to another live wrestling event, and the card actually looked like it was going to be pretty good.  In fact, I was stoked because I learned that the NWA taped their shows from Atlanta, and I had made a point to try and go to a show, but then coronavirus happened, and those hopes were dashed.  But back to December, the doors were open once again to live NWA wrestling, and I had purchased tickets to Hard Times 2, anticipating a fun night of decent live wrestling. 

The night before the event, I got an email that stated that my tickets were cancelled and I was being issued a full refund.  I thought WTF, and DM’d and emailed the NWA’s twitter account and public email address, but not long afterward, a mass email was sent out.  It turns out that due to the rise of omicron, Hard Times 2 was putting a cap on the attendance, and me being past the cutoff point of tickets that were going to be honored, was instead getting a refund again.

I was quite disappointed.  I understood the circumstances, and frankly respected the venue for making the call, but I was sad that I was going to miss out on a live show, because I was really looking forward to it.

In the email, was also a message that stated responding with mailing addresses, so that the show could send all of us a small gift of appreciation and apology.  I didn’t think much of it, so I sent them my info and didn’t really anything of it.

It should also be mentioned that the NWA is owned now by Billy Corgan, the same Billy Corgan who was the front man for the Smashing Pumpkins.  Turns out he’s a big wrestling mark, and leapt on the opportunity to purchase the NWA when had deteriorated to basically the fifth most prominent organization in the industry.

Getting this signed poster is actually really cool as shit, and definitely softens the blow of not getting to go to the show.  There are lots of guys in the NWA that I do like, but if I had to pick the most notable talent that might have signed it, it would have to be Paola Blaze, whom I’m most familiar with as being THE Paola from 90 Day Fiancé, who somewhere on the road, parlayed her TLC fame into a professional wrestling career and now moonlights for the NWA.

Somewhere on this poster is Paola’s autograph.  And as a fan of professional wrestling and 90 Day Fiancé, that’s the crown jewel of this entire poster.  And I kind of have to credit Billy Corgan for keeping the lights on in the NWA to allow for this to happen, so is this where I actually have to admit that he doesn’t suck, for once?

Nah.  No way this was his idea.  The guy who runs the NWA’s gmail account (lol) seems to be the guy that’s shadow puppeting the promotion, probably.  That guy most definitely doesn’t suck.  But Billy Corgan still does.  Let’s not kid ourselves.

I love what Matt Cardona is doing post-WWE

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t say that I was ever a Zack Ryder fan.  The whole internet schtick, the fist pumps and self-aware but still over-the-top broeyness of his character, he was pretty much no better than Santino Marella, as far as caricatures of wrestlers they were.  I cringed when he had a US title run, and I winced even harder when he actually got a Wrestlemania Moment™ when he won the Intercontinental championship in a ladder match against way more worthy opponents.

When he was released by the company, I didn’t think anything of it, other than the fact that I figured he’d probably end up in AEW, because at the time everyone who was leaving the WWE whether it was a forced release or future endeavored, was usually bound for AEW at some point.

And as expected, he did show up in AEW, under his real name, Matt Cardona.  However, after a fairly uninspired program where he teamed up with Cody Rhodes, he was quietly gone.  Scuttlebutt said that he was only brought in for a temporary program, but for the most part was not #ALLELITE™

A few months later, Matt Cardona’s name came up again, as he apparently had a massively gruesome deathmatch in a fed that I’d just begun hearing about, GCW, since Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring had just done an episode on GCW godfather, Nick Gage.  And despite Gage’s cult-like popularity in the ultra-violent GCW, he had still done the job to Matt Cardona, and made him the GCW champion.

What was pretty astounding though, was how Cardona introduced himself to GCW, which was under a mask, and pretending to be Jon Moxley, which royally enraged the fans, and GCW fans are already maniacal enough in the first place, but Cardona manufactured a perfect heat bomb that got fans nuclear hot about his existence, and the number one rule of professional wrestling is to elicit a response at all, be it cheers or jeers.

But Cardona became the GCW champion, which I shrugged off, seeing as how GCW would probably rank as like the sixth or seventh noteworthy promotion in North America, so it really didn’t seem like much of a big deal.  However, I did take amusement of this new persona of his where he was apparently feeding off of the hate for Zack Ryder, fans like the ones of GCW were, and basically trolling the entire promotion by doing shit like declaring himself king of death matches, and switching their belt for an obnoxious John Cena-like spinner variant.

Eventually, he’d lose the GCW title to the actual Jon Moxley, who supposedly showed up to an event to watch it, but was somehow roped into performing and then going over as champion, which kind of disappointed me since I was beginning to curry favor with Matt Cardona.

But then he shows up in Impact weeks later, to get involved with a program with their champion, Moose, and the guy who used to be Big Cass in WWE.  Next thing you know, he’s in a world title program on Impact, even if he would eventually lose in a triple threat against Moose and Morrissey, but it was more of the same.  Fans someone have become conditioned to dislike Cardona, for what I’m guessing is because they all still see the obnoxious Zack Ryder character.

Somewhere along the way, Cardona also shows up at an NWA event, to jump their champion, Trevor Murdoch.  When I find out about this, I am salty, because this was actually an event that I had tickets to go to, since it was taped in Atlanta, but due to the rise of omicron, my tickets were cancelled and I didn’t get to go, but again, same story, unexpected appearance, jumps a world champion, gets nuclear heat from the crowd.

Now, I’m a big fan of what Matt Cardona is doing, and I don’t think there’s any wrestler out there that’s capitalizing on a career post-WWE than he is.  Sure, he touched AEW like most guys do, but when that didn’t work out, he didn’t quit and go get a job at Walmart like his old tag team partner did.  Instead he got extremely creative, and is low-key blazing an entertaining trail in lower promotions, but raising his stock all the same.  This is some Chris Jericho-like creativity in reinventing himself; he might not be making WWE money anymore, but he’s definitely in world title pictures in three different promotions, with nobody really being able to predict where else he’ll show up next.

Just a week ago, he was back in GCW, where he defeated Rhino; and because Rhino was the last ever ECW TV and World champion, Cardona declared himself the new ECW TV champion, and I have no fucking clue to where he procured the blet, but he still celebrated with it, all the same.

At this point, I’d lose my shit if Cardona shows up at a New Japan Pro Wrestling show, seeing as they’re currently touring North America right now.  Or maybe he’ll lay low and then show up at Ring of Honor in Dallas in April when they start their shit back up again.  Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t show up at Final Battle in December.  Hell, maybe he should wander down to Mexico and appear at a AAA event, and mix it up with their Mega Campion.

Nobody is embodying the potential for fun and excitement in this current wrestling atmosphere like Matt Cardona is.  The industry isn’t just the WWE and AEW, and their insufferable tribalistic fans.  There are so many other options out there, and with the sheer volume of talent that was cut loose from the WWE primarily, the indy scene is ripe with potential for all sorts of creative, fun and new possibilities, and there’s nobody capitalizing on all this potential than Cardona is.

I never really cared much for Zack Ryder, but I absolutely love what Matt Cardona is doing these days.  He’s trolling fans in promotions left and right, but staying relevant and at the tops of cards everywhere he goes.  And I hope he keeps it going and finds some real success doing it, because I think what he’s doing is awesome.