paintedbynumbers

So there is a difference in my eyes between Brandi and Hook or Brandi and Anderson. Brandi has had experience on TV in front of a camera. In WWE. She also had the advantage of being around Cody, Dustin, and Dusty. Dusty was a great promo, Cody can talk, so can Dustin when they let him. There is literally 0 excuse for her to be out there bombing the way she constantly does. Someone should have taken her aside and coached her up. Maybe they tried we will never know. Guys like Brock Anderson and Hook didn't have the time in front of cameras to ply their trade and Hook so far has been impressive. Same with the little I've seen of Brock Anderson and both men have had far less time in front of a camera/audience than Brandi Rhodes. Brandi may do great work behind the scenes and that's great. But she should not be an on air character just because of who her husband is. At this point it's fairly obvious that is the only reason she was getting the screen time she was.

You are right. if they have Brock win it now what's the point? We know brock is a monster. But as you mentioned who else is there to beat Roman? The Rock is the only logical choice but again, why build a guy up for 500+ days to lose it to a part timer that doesn't need the rub?? Do you shock the world and go with Cesaro? The guy hasn't had a meaningful match in ages. Do you go with WALTER? Probably not going to happen considering the name change. There is really nobody on the current roster left. I also don't see them having Cody as the guy to break the 500 day long reign. This to me is the problem with making unstoppable monsters. Eventually there needs to be someone believable to beat them or people just stop caring.

You can always tell when Angle is going to be doing a run because he will go from trying to sell his Health food/drinks at the local gym to actively working out like a madman. Dude is awesome though. One of the nicest guys around. If you ever saw his brother Eric wrestle I have sad news. Eric is in need of a kidney. Kurt has been trying to find donors for him. Had the website posted at some point. I remember my first exposure to Kurt and Eric was when IWC brought them in to do the twin gimmick. I believe @Gormanhad the call on those shows.

We can debate all we want whether Cody drew numbers or not. In my mind AEW is much different than WWE, AEW as a whole seems to have steady ratings for the full 2 hrs or 1 hr (depending on show) WWE Raw will see ratings fluctuate (maybe during MNF more than anything) but AEW shows are pretty steady and I would equate that to the talent on each show. When you have stacked cards each week and a loaded roster that we hadn't seen since Fire Pro wrestling Returns it makes it hard to want to change the channel. Long, stupid rant aside. I don't believe any one person draws ratings when it comes to AEW. No disrespect to Cody or any of the talent. I just think the product as that good that when I watch I watch it for AEW not for "insert wrestler name here" where if I watch Raw it might be to see what AJ is doing and then I turn it off.

The thing about Hogan was he was smart to the business. Say what you want about the guy but he knew how to make money. If he lost a house show match by DQ or countout he knew that meant more heat for the return to that town. He knew people would pay to see him get the pin on Dibiase, Savage, Slaughter, etc. It worked. Vince had the Network pre covid. He could have aired house shows on there so that everyone could watch. Build new stars/try new things. They failed at doing the simplest of things.

Hogan didn't eliminate 15+ people in a rumble. He took a few pinfalls but for the most part wasn't considered a part timer either. You can't fault Brock. Anyone would take that deal. All that money for such little work. And he seems to be having fun now too. Vince has his favorites and he rams them down our throats for years at a time. Say what you want about HBK and his attitude but he really only had 2 years at the top in the mid 90's. Bret had about 4-5 years at the top in WWF. Diesel/Nash 2 or so. Roman has had roughly 7 yrs, Brock has had 6 or so recently Hogan had the 85-88 run, and then the 89-92 era. Even when Warrior was champ Hogan was getting top billing minus Summer Slam 90. It's a pattern for the most part. But with Hogan you had other stars being elevated and made. You had your Savages, Dibiases, Rude's, Perfect, Bossman, Jake, Model, you had a hell of a tag team division. At some point Vince said 'fuck tag teams" "fuck making new stars" and that is where we are today.

I wouldn't be shocked if WWE holds a premium event titled "house money" how many times did the commentators say "he's playing with house money" or "she's playing with house money" Christ even the commentary is stale. Brock coming in and dominating every match he is in is just poor booking. If you can come in and dominate each and every member of the roster does it really make you good? Big fish in a pond full of minnows. Did anyone in the world think Theory had a shot to win? Why not make AJ or Riddle the final guy? Give some chance that an upset could possibly happen. At this point why would anyone want to work WWE? It's the Brock and Roman show for the men and the Charlotte-Becky show for the girls. Don't even get me started on Bianca. Is Liv going to be the Charley Brown of the WWE? Will she ever win the big match? Why bring Alexa back only to job in her first match on return? Charlotte was the one who she had storyline heat with why not have her first match be with her? Hulk Hogan himself wasn't even booked as dominant as Brock. Hell with Hogan at least you thought he had a shot of losing. I don't want to make this AEW vs WWE but AEW would never put out a shit show like this. Lashley is legit hurt. They knew this going in. Why not bring in a replacement once he was taken out? An element of surprise for the fans. Mansoor would have gotten a huge pop. How about Veer? Amos or Orton even. This is just lazy, lazy booking.

I remember you!! I bet you have some fun stories to tell. I remember the heat Dave the Potato had with the Indy boards.

Do you remember when they did the angle where AJ was always getting iced? I wanna say Flair was involved cause why wouldn't he be? But they would hide the Smirnoff ice and AJ would always have to drink it.

I hated when AIW did the live commentary. If you are watching a DVD or streaming the show at home it doesn't sound clear at all. It's basically having the ring announcer do commentary through a match. I never could get used to it and questioned why the only promotions I've ever heard do it are Ohio based.

Do you have any of the old DVD's? It's difficult to find the shows. Ray and John used to sell them at their gimmick tables at IWC but I haven't seen them in over a decade.

Matt and Jeff Hardy will be wrestling as a team in April for IWC in Rostraver PA (right outside of Pittsburgh) Could be interesting.

I still have a Firestorm shirt. There was some real bad blood between AIW and Firestorm that went way beyond flyers being torn down. If I remember correctly they had people go to JC shows and bully the guy. They tried to get shows shut down, and it was pretty bad for awhile. Michael Hutter and Jimmy Demarco were in there with this and I remember Ray Rowe, John McChesney, and Shane Taylor as well. Some of the show titles from each promotion were shots on the other. Cleveland could have had 2 strong promotions but they essentially drove JC off to Orlando.

Not sure if it was mentioned yet but Cody could leave, come back under a mask like another Rhodes we all know and love and win the AEW title. Or he could just leave, come back and then compete. Not sure word for word what his "I won't compete for the AEW title if I lose" clause was but maybe they have him embrace the fan hate. Cody leaves and comes back as a Stardust type heel with Brandy as his manager. At this point nothing would shock me anymore.

But did Zack and Slater have the same bond? We all know Screech got the shaft. What about Dawson when Pacey became the mightier of the 2 ducks?

You were so close!! I would have Riddle taken out, have Cody take the spot and win, but....... Have it revealed that Orton took out Riddle. A nod to Legacy and Orton being mad he isn't in the match but his non-serious partner is. It would lead to Orton-Riddle at mania and a fresh match with Cody. Hell have the winner of Orton-Riddle face Cody at night 2 even.

I would pay a pretty penny for Pro-Shot Omni full shows. As a kid I never understood why JR talked up these huge PPV worthy cards at the Omni but I could never watch them. It was confusing to 7 yr old me. 38 yr old me would love to see these (or any pro-shot WCW house show) Sadly the 89 Philly show w Steamboat-Flair is the only early pro-shot house show in circulation. By early I mean Pre-Hogan.

I don't believe Vince owns those tapes. I had a conversation with Lawler right before Covid hit, thinking summer 2019 and I wanted to see about getting all of the USWA on the network. Long story short, Lawler believed that Vince didn't own any Footage from Florida or Oregon. He said something happened with the Stampede footage and was told to pull any of that as well. I haven't watched much of the Network (i hate the peacock app) so Lawler and I could be wrong.

This has to be a swerve. All of the badmouthing he has done publicly going over the top to throw shade at HHH, the WWE not giving him the titles of gimmicks/shows his dad created/etc. If he were to go back it would look bad on him. The guy who trashed the company and built something better only to leave and crawl back. Doesn't sound right to me. The only thing I could see happening is if Tony didn't want Brandi on TV anymore and Cody got pissy over it. He doesn't seem like a guy who would leave over money and I would think Tony would pay to keep him unless the differences were too strong. Really interested to see where this goes.

I swear to god, the second you said Sarasota and Savage I immediately thought Vero Beach and Taylor and Cocoa Beach and Rick The Model Martel.

wasn't Damian Demento from the outer reaches of your mind? Or something like that?

I know a good portion of their shows are on youtube. If you go to cagematch or iwcwrestling.com and look at the cards from 2002-2008 you will be surprised by how amazing each card is. Logan Shulo is Elias, Shima Xion is DJ Z, Back when ROH and TNA had their falling out over RF IWC was one of the only places able to book TNA and ROH talent on the same show. Never left a show feeling like I was ripped off. Met a ton of great guys and girls there and they are the first company to buy a plane ticket for CM Punk. I was watching a lot of CZW and IWA-MS during this time as well. Sadly I didn't hear about MAW until well after. I caught some of their shows on Highspots and love them

I went to an indy show called Super Indy 3 in May of 2004. To this day it's one of my favorite shows ever. A nice 1 night tournament which featured matches such as CM Punk vs Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin Vs CM Punk, Alex Shelley VS Chris Sabin. Non tournament matches like AJ Styles vs Christopher Daniels, Balls Mahoney VS New Jack in a weapons match, Matt Cross and Josh Prohibition VS Southern Comfort, and Corey Graves wrestled as SJK. One of the best nights of wrestling I've seen live to this day and I am fairly certain our own @Gorman did play by play on this show.

Would love to see Best show I ever attended thread Worst show I ever attended thread It's always interesting to hear about shows that may have been missed. Whether it be a house show, indy show, tv, or PPV.

As a kid I wanted to see this so bad. Sting-Nikita had a fun build. Flair-Lex would have been fun if Lex would have finally done the 1 thing he has never been able to do. Beat Flair for the belt. The Missy Hyatt cage main event was stupid and should never have happened. The Scaffold match well, we all know what happened there. I was maybe 10 or 11 and my local video store did not have this to rent but they had it for sale $39.99. I wanted it but that price for a tape was insane. I went back the next week or so and someone had purchased the tape. Years later after seeing the show I still feel sorry for the poor sucker. I am a sucker though for 1989-1993 WCW.