Tag: wwe

Jimmy John’s, Snickers, and Brock Lesnar

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since Brock Lesnar came back to the WWE, there’s really only one thing I couldn’t ever get around. Not the fact that he still can’t cut a promo to save his life, not that he’s obviously using the WWE again for his personal agenda, and not the fact that he doesn’t actually perform in anything other than pay-per-views, but the fact that he has been a walking advertisement for Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches.

I’m guessing that Lesnar has had some sort of pre-existing sponsorship contract with the company that had been grandfathered in and strategically maneuvered into his current WWE deal, because no individual has really pimped a product out like this since X-Pac pimped some energy drink but he had pull with the company then, but the point remains is that it’s unusual for any wrestlers to have sponsorship. The company as a whole, is a different story, but typically you just don’t see individuals having such types of deals, let alone wearing fucking company logos on their apparel, three times larger than their own personal branding.

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The WWE needs to be careful now

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Since the 1,000th episode of RAW, the WWE has gone and made RAW into a three-hour show now, up from the previous format of two hours.  Nowadays, three hours is just way too long to be watching wrestling, and I can’t help but think back to how I did on such a regular basis when I was in high school.  Clearly, this is one of those situations where I feel like I’m showing my age, and I already don’t feel like I have enough time in the days sometimes.  Also, I think the fact that wrestling often conflicts with baseball during the summer has something to do with it as well.

But anyway, the fact that RAW now demands its wrestlers and personnel to be present for a three-hour program, I can’t help but feel a little concern for the direction of the company.  Now I’m sure that the WWE will be fine, because unlike its former competition in WCW, they’re run by smart, competent people.  But the concern does have to do a lot with WCW, because with a three-hour show on Monday, and a two-hour on Friday, WWE is currently riding the same kind of blueprint that essentially ended up being the death of WCW.

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Photos: Meeting Hacksaw Jim Duggan in Frederick

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Without much question, the highlight of my weekend was getting the opportunity to meet WWF legend, Hacksaw Jim Duggan at a minor league game in Frederick.  What made it better was getting to share the experience in the company of good friends who like me, grew up watching Hacksaw punch and clothesline bad guy wrestlers, mostly, before unfortunately jobbing, and pretty often, in the most memorable ways (getting sat on and “injured” by fat guys like the late greats, Earthquake and Yokozuna).  Regardless, the overly patriotic super face has always remained a lifelong favorite amongst us, and a very easy choice to make the trip up to see him, regardless of the baseball game involved.

Prior to going to Frederick, I couldn’t help but wonder of what the meeting was going to be like.  After a great experience meeting Sgt. Slaughter, who was gracious, friendly and great with all the fans, I was sorely disappointed when I met Jerry “the King” Lawler, when he turned out to be a pretty apathetic and obviously money-seeking prick who didn’t so much care about the fans that wanted to see him as much as his head was already wondering when the meet and greet was going to be over.  Honestly, I was just kind of hoping for something in the middle, and hovering more towards Slaughter than Lawler.

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Among other things, the internet ruins wrestling

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When the fans were chanting for Brock Lesnar fifteen minutes before he was supposed to “shock the world” with his return, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in John Cena’s head, since he was the guy in the ring trying to cut a promo, but being drowned out by the Lesnar chants.  Also, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in the minds of WWE upper management and Vince McMahon at what was transpiring before their very eyes and ears – every single person in an arena, completely already in the know of what was probably carefully prepared, scripted and planned to be a big surprise.  I wonder if someone got fired as a result, or even more meta, this was all perhaps an even bigger elaborate ruse!  But I kind of doubt it.

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YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

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There’s nobody I look forward to seeing more when watching WWE right now than Daniel Bryan.  Which in itself is really ironic, considering a year ago, I didn’t really like the guy at all.  He was a boring U.S. Champion, and I wasn’t the least bit bothered when his match was cut from the Wrestlemania card last year.

All it took was a heel turn and belief in the word “YES,” to make the mega-superstar we have today.

I don’t know whose idea it was for him to focus his character around the word YES, but it’s incredible how forcing it in peoples’ faces at first ended up turning it into the biggest chant since “GOLDBERG” or Steve Austin’s “WHAT.”  Admittedly, at first, I still didn’t care about the character when he won the WCW title, but the further Bryan embraced the heel turn, the more entertaining the YESes became.  When a barely conscious Daniel Bryan started chanting YES while on his back, after winning a match by a cheap disqualification, I officially became a Daniel Bryan fan.

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Who did Daniel Bryan piss off?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seriously, 18 seconds?  Did management not see how over Daniel Bryan was with the crowd?  I lost my shit when I saw the entire front row of people with the YES! signs, and I had high hopes for an entertaining opening match.  But for the second year in a row, apparently Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan just isn’t meant to be a Wrestlemania match.  It was completely removed from the card last year, and this year it’s made the opening match, and ended in 18 seconds.  Kind of absurd, and it makes me wonder what Daniel Bryan did to get such an unceremonious job.

But whatever.  In spite of the Daniel Bryan jobbing, Wrestlemania was still an okay show.  Granted, it’s never been about the show as much as it’s always been about the gathering of friends, but when I think back to the show as a whole, it wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t terrible either.  As always, it’s more fun to analyze the crowd, pick out entertaining signs, and criticize the people in the front row than it is to watch the wrestling sometimes.

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Why The Rock has already lost at Wrestlemania XXVIII

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I’m actually looking forward to Wrestlemania again this year.  Since it’s not in Atlanta and I won’t be attending, nor will I be having guests over for it, I’ll be going back to the traditional arrangement of flying up to Virginia to watch it with all of my close friends together, like we had done so for every year since 1999 (with a few exceptions).  The funny thing is that the match listing for the show as a whole seems kind of weak overall, but I guess it doesn’t really need to be that strong, because there are two matches in that are heavily carrying the entire show, and those happen to be the two matches that pretty much I’d assume most people actually give a shit about.  One of them happens to be the year-in-the-making John Cena versus The Rock match.

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