Tag: wwe

I don’t care if it’s a work

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I mean, there’s a 100% chance that this is a work, because things in the WWE universe don’t happen if they aren’t; but anyway, I just wanted to say that I took tremendous enjoyment out of Adam Cole blasting into Pat McAfee during his shitty radio show, because I fucking can’t stand Pat McAfee, and it’s a pleasure to hear a strong talker like Adam Cole tear into him.

Since I’ve devolved into a way more filthy casual wrestling fan over the years, my only real exposure to the WWE product really is down to NXT re-broadcasts once they’re made available on the Network, and PPV events.  Without cable, I can’t watch RAW, I can’t watch NXT live, and frankly I can never find the time or want to watch Smackdown despite the fact that I can watch FOX on Friday nights.  NXT UK is currently shuttered due to coronavirus, and I don’t even think the WWE personnel even watches Main Event or 205 Live.

So occasionally, I’ll have the wherewithal to tune into a WWE PPV, and over the last few years that I’ve been able to intercept a pre-show, my thoughts have often been, who the fuck is this guy??

This ginger, jew-fro’d geek with a receding hairline and a voice that makes me think of the scientist guy from The Simpsons, so having said that, I am naturally referring to Sam Roberts.  I had no idea who he was, and why he got to be on the pre-show panel with guys like Booker T and Renee Young, but all I knew was that I thought he was annoying, and I was not a fan.

But then came along this other guy, some douchebag-looking Chad, who exuded a frat-bro personality tantamount to his appearance, and my brow crinkled even more at the notion that the WWE kept opening their doors to these douchey marks to be on their pre-shows.  Well that turned out to be Pat McAfee, and he immediately gave me X-Pac Heat vibes, and I was really tempted to tune out entirely thanks to him, but I wanted to watch the PPV, so I grit my teeth and soldered through.

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This would be a sad way to go for NXT UK

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: there is speculation that the WWE’s NXT UK brand could get shut down amidst the hashtag-Speaking Out movement

To those of my 0 readers who don’t pay attention to wrestling, to summarize, there’s been an online movement in the industry known as #SpeakingOut in which people (men and women but mostly obviously women) went on social media to identify and post documentation of those in the professional wrestling industry of bad behavior, of the less than fortunate nature.

There hasn’t been a company large or small that hasn’t been named in some sort of capacity, be it a promoter, producer or a talent, and so far the names that have been thrown out have been pretty eye-opening, and the fallout of lots of it is beginning to get big.  The trying-to-rebirth NWA has put themselves on hiatus amidst the allegations, and their VP has outright resigned.  Philadelphia’s Chikara Pro wrestling has outright shut down.  Jim Cornette, the guy who can’t not get involved with anything in wrestling, had a disgusting sexual adventure/fetish unearthed.  Notable names from Ring of Honor, Impact and even AEW have been unearthed as people who have done things as far as being too clingy, not taking no for an answer, to some, little extreme remarks to express physical desire.

But with obviously anything pertaining to the wrestling industry, all eyes eventually seek out what’s going on in the world of the WWE, and believe you me, things have not been easy for the ol’ McMahon family business either, amidst all this.

Numerous names of talent have been named, and you can practically see the WWE machine scrambling to figure out the guys who are above a certain tier to whether they’re safe from losing their job, versus the guys that need to be immediately let go in order to look like they’re doing something about it.

One very alarming and unfortunate pattern that has emerged however, is the volume of reports coming out of the UK, primarily involving guys that are on the NXT UK roster.  As the link above details, guys like Ligero and Travis Banks have been immediately released, with the latter being somewhat of a surprise considering I figured he had a future with at least 205 Live reinforcement.  But guys like Trent Seven, Joe Coffey and Jordan Devlin are also names of accused parties, and regardless of what happens from their individual cases, it’s a frightening notion that already so many names in the British wrestling scene have popped up in such a short amount of time.

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Looks like the WWE was finally ready for Asuka

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I wonder if my posts are too long, mostly on account of me rambling about something in the long form that sets up what I’m actually intending on writing about, and then five paragraphs later, I really actually get to the point of the impetus for writing in the first place.

That being said, I’ll keep it short about how much I cringed like OJ Simpson in court, when fucking Otis won the men’s Money in the Bank briefcase.  Sure, I’ll give the WWE a little bit of credit for actually taking a stab at some pure unpredictability, but based on the lineup of contenders, Otis had to have been the one guy that nobody and their mothers from their basements would have actually considered winning MITB, but here we stand.

Needless to say, I’m disappointed that fucking Otis is going to be the get-out-of-jail-free card for WWE Creative for the next calendar year, and I have to assume that he’ll end up like Damien Sandow or Baron Corbin, as dudes who will inevitably have failed to successfully cash in their championship opportunities; or, they’ll go very radically, and have Otis cash it in on tag titles, or do some revisionist history to where he can cash it on any brand and any title, which might actually make it a little more interesting.

Anyway, the point of this post wasn’t to talk about fucking Otis, but to applaud the WWE for their choice to get back on the Asuka train and actually give her a god damn push.  She went from being one of the hottest talents in the company with an undefeated streak that eclipsed Bill Goldberg, but once the streak came to an end against Charlotte Flair, she was dropped down to the mid-card faster than television ratings during an X-Pac match.  Sure, she had a Smackdown women’s championship in this time, but again was jobbed out to Charlotte Flair, and relegated to tag duties, which she actually spun gold from shit, with Kairi Sane and their cringeworthy Kabuki Warriors name.

Regardless, I was excited to see Asuka win the women’s Money in the Bank briefcase, but before I could even write about it, the following night on RAW occurred, where Becky Lynch announced her pregnancy to the world, and relinquished the RAW women’s championship over to Asuka, for winning the MITB contest.

Now it’s no secret WWE loves to build their company on “moments,” and it was widely reported that absolutely nobody other than Lynch, Seth Rollins (the father) and only a few key creative bigwigs knew about it, and not even Asuka was informed before the segment, so it’s safe to say that Becky’s announcement and the bequeathing of the RAW women’s championship over to Asuka was an entirely unscripted and about as genuinely real moment as one could see in professional wrestling.

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The path to the IWGP World Championship has just been opened up

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When the first wave of future endeavors was announced, my initial thought was, meh, no real loss.  Maybe Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, but anyone with a pulse who follows wrestling knows they’ll be back in Bullet Club t-shirts by the end of the month in Japan, so they’ll be fine.  It sucked for Drake Maverick and Sarah Logan who are/were in championship programs literally right now or weeks ago.  And it also sucked for Heath Slater, who I figured was going to be one of those company lifers, and whose sole shirt was one that said I GOT KIDS | I NEED THIS JOB.

But really, it didn’t seem like anyone particularly consequential was axed from the company in light of coronavirus screwing things up.  That is, until a second wave of future endeavors was announced shortly afterward.

Introduced Alexander Rusev, and then gradually shortened to just Rusev, he was always one of those guys that I was always high on since his ascent to the main roster.  I appreciated that even in spite of being the archetypical evil foreigner, he showed a tremendous amount of respect for the ring itself and the business, and I loved the way he was originally built up, with a different face of the month being put in front of him, before he would ultimately meet them at the next pay-per view and then finish them with the Camel Clutch he called The Accolade.

Riding this burgeoning undefeated streak, Rusev would eventually capture the United States championship from Sheamus and hold it for several months, before having an eventual Wrestlemania program with none other than John Cena, whom he’d lose it to at the Showcase of the Immortals™, but not before having an epic entrance where he rode to the stage in a literal tank.  Seriously, if this moment couldn’t be considered the pinnacle of his WWE career, then I don’t know what else could.

Either way, Rusev maintained a pretty strong presence for a while afterward, and even managed to turn face, when he for whatever reason, started christening every day as a holiday known as Rusev Day.  I mean whatever, the fans ate it up, and it got him over, even if his win-loss record wasn’t nearly as sparkling as it was during his initial run.

Eventually, for reasons I don’t really particularly care to research beyond Wikipedia, WWE seemed to sour on him, and such was easily reflected in how he was treated on screen, if he was even allowed to make it on television.  I’m going to guess there was some sort of contract dispute or something of the sort, and Creative basically took him to the woodshed with his character.

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I thought Ric Flair loved his daughter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The intentions may have been pure, but to me, comparing anyone to Randy Orton may as well be telling them they’re vanilla ice cream, so when Ric Flair said his daughter Charlotte was akin to the female equivalent of Randy Orton, well, that’s not necessarily a compliment as far as I’m concerned.

Frankly, Ric probably should’ve stuck with naming all the attributes he thinks Randy Orton has that he loves, and applied those to Charlotte without actually naming Randy Orton, but what’s done is done.

Ric Flair thinks Charlotte is boring, stale, never-changing, and getting put into a program with her is getting put into the friend zone of WWE Creative for the women’s division.

To which by that logic, is completely untrue and unfair to Charlotte, to compare her to Randy Orton.

Randy Orton, is exactly what I said he is, and he genuinely is the equivalent of being put into the friend zone.  Poor Edge, makes this monumental comeback after nine years of forced retirement, and then is immediately thrown into the slammer of WWE Creative, being forced to run a months-long program with Randy Orton.

Most wrestling fans can only guess the queue of younger guys salivating at the dream of getting to work with Edge, and I can only imagine the potential four-star+ matches that could be had if he got to work with guys like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Johnny Gargano or Tommaso Ciampa.  But instead, the WWE welcomed Edge back with a soul-crushing program with Randy Orton.

Charlotte Flair, on the other hand is in my opinion, genuinely the best female superstar in professional wrestling, bar none.  Ric is definitely not wrong about that part, it’s just not fair or cool to compare her to Randy Orton.

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Well that was predictably not great

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unsurprising to me, considering the fact that professional wresting kind of needs fans and atmosphere to really excel at being the spectator event it’s supposed to be, that a Wrestlemania with no fans and no real atmosphere, just was not that great.  It didn’t help that as a result of coronavirus running wild, there were some massive impacts to the card, like Roman Reigns pulling out because as a leukemia survivor, he’s already immunocompromised, and then the Miz pulling out because he had some ailment that scared the shit out of all other roster and personnel and probably gained him a ton of heat, things were becoming a steeper and steeper uphill battle, even before circumstances made the company turn the whole thing into a closed-door private affair.

In spite of their best efforts and making it a two-night event, very little could’ve really been done to have made the event remotely palatable to an old smark like myself.  The importance of crowds and the atmosphere they bring has been completely understated in the last few weeks of both WWE and AEW putting on empty venue shows.  But as much as I don’t like having to praise AEW, I have to give them credit for at least having the wherewithal to put their superstars in the audience so that there’s some sort of crowd noise or interaction to gain.

WWE on the other hand has literally nobody in the stands whatsoever, and it’s almost an eerie silence when matches go on.  I have to imagine as performers, it’s really jarring and awkward to them to have to perform for nobody but the camera, but act like that there’s a crowd at all, and go through with ring entrances and staring out into nothingness like there’s a sold out show.  I imagine those who are WWE grown struggled with it the most, whereas those who worked their ways through independents and alternative federations are probably no stranger to low-attendance or near-empty gates.

Regardless, the show as a whole was pretty weak, and it was entirely too difficult to get into many of the matches.  I fortunately watched each night of the show the day after, so I had the luxury of being able to fast forward and skip the rest holds and extended promos in order to chew up time.  As well as Rob Gronkowski segments, where the only thing I want to see out of him is to team up with Zack Ryder and Matt Riddle and make a douchey white guy bro stable, and have one program with The New Day since they’re a group of black nerds, and then get the fuck out of the WWE forever.

Undertaker vs. AJ Styles was about as bad as I imagined it would be, considering the fact that it was a gimmicky “Boneyard Match” that wasn’t so much of a match as much as it was an episode of WMAC Masters from back in the 90’s.  It hid every bit of the Undertaker’s lack of mobility and stamina, and AJ Styles had to work his ass off to make it look remotely passable.  It wasn’t really entertaining, but more cringeworthy that the WWE went off in this direction, but given the fact that the Undertaker is like 55 and can barely move, they didn’t really have that much of a choice.

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Randy Orton is the WWE’s Friend Zone

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not often where I feel like I’ve hit an analogy home run, but I think I hit the nail on the head with this one.  After watching Edge’s return to the ring in the Royal Rumble, and the subsequent segment on RAW the night afterward, where he was brutally attacked by Randy Orton, it dawned on me much like the sun rising: Randy Orton is basically the friend zone for WWE wrestlers.

I feel like the analogy works so perfectly, because not just in the case of Edge, but any wrestler who has the unfortunate situation of being put into a program with Randy Orton, they have to know it’s a dead-end feud with no gain to be had from doing it, much like any sad schlub of a guy who thinks they have a chance with a girl, but get put into the friend zone, and they’re the only ones who don’t realize that they’re in it.

Randy Orton has just enough name and face value to where anyone stashed with him retains some degree of relevance, but he doesn’t have enough of either to really elevate them beyond the holding pen point of relevance.  He’s basically keeping budding stars warm, but for guys that are trying to re-climb the mountain, or in the case of Edge, come back and rise through the ranks, a feud with Orton is literally being put into the friend zone, where there is no happy ending in sight, but he’ll still work like hell trying to prove something, because he doesn’t realize that he’s in the friend zone.

I mean, just look at the last few guys Orton has been paired up with: AJ Styles’ went nowhere working with Orton. Kofi Kingston not only didn’t go anywhere, all the momentum he had from Kofimania came to a slow stop, and not long after vanquishing Randy Orton, ended up jobbing to Brock Lesnar in 4 seconds to drop the WWE Championship.  It’s debatable that it wouldn’t have mattered who he was paired up against, but Jeff Hardy fell off the wagon after working with Orton.  Rusev will never get a main event push in the WWE, and working with Orton couldn’t have helped that cause, and the list goes on and on, really.

But it really sucks for Edge, considering the nine years he’s been away from the business, and as soon as he gets back, he’s thrust into a feud with Randy Orton.  I mean, this is a feud that could have just as easily happened back in 2011, and in fact have faced each other before several times in the past.  But in a company that’s chock full of young guys and guys from different companies, you’d think they’d try and pair Edge up with any one of them before Randy Orton. 

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