Cobra Commander

usually a guy has a trajectory like that when they go from being the largest guy in ECW to the 19th largest guy in WCW/WWF, but Wardlow didn't even have to switch jobs to get frozen

Figured out a potentially dumb stip match that probably wouldn't get anybody hurt after seeing a photo from last night's NXT with Corbin/Dijak/Melo all in leather jackets A leather jacket on a pole match where you win by incapacitating your opponent so much that you can put on the leather jacket. Gotta make sure the jacket is potentially too small that you have to slowly put the jacket on.

Things I Remember From The Second Hour of Tonight's Dynamite I missed the first hour due to a mix of the cable being out due to a partial power outage, and also there was a period of time when they cut all the power to make sure the connections were good. So whatever happened before Fletcher/Omega, I didn't see almost all of it. I think the women's match was during a period of time when the power came on and they took it back down. Anyways, Omega beats Fletcher. Chucky's in the front row I'm not sure if I've seen Danhausen do any very evil things while in AEW Lance Archer is back for some reason Sting is retiring at Revolution 2024 Nick Wayne's mom sets him up to get ambushed by Darby Gee we're starting this Battle Royal pretty late for a show without an overrun There's some real "oh yeah, he's still around" guys in this match We have two grey tabby kittens around here who are sisters and they spent most of the main event chasing each other around the room here. One of them has already gotten into wrestling with a larger male cat who is only 6 years older than her MJF gets his belt back and then doesn't. Caster watches and then gets KOed. Juice wins the Battle Royal. What a surprise. Let's hear it for the Juice. MJF vs Juice next week for the ring. We end the show at 5 after the hour, just like the old days of TBS.

Blader sounds like a nickname for Moxley Anyways, guessing a certain angle gets pivoted on this week unless Max is just wanting to push things farther and have Juice Robinson dedicate his win to the children of Gaza or something

NXT had 798k viewers this week. So they retained about 87%ish of last weeks viewers (dropping from 921 to 798)

I haven’t listened to “Guts” by Olivia Rodrigo all the way through but I’ve heard some songs off of it and there’s some stuff that could stick around. There’s a 7-5 split between songs with an Explicit label on Spotify and songs without an Explicit label. Not sure how that ratio compares to most super-popular pop music. Especially among female artists. I don’t know if any of the down tempo songs will get to be a single. I guess the unofficial goals for a second album after a breakthrough first album involve doing enough different that the second doesn’t seem like a repeat of the first but not doing too much different. I haven’t checked to see if Olivia’s being accused of any intentional or accidental plagiarism this time around. But obviously music written/recorded with your 19 differs a little from music written/recorded when you’re 17. ”Teenage Dream” was a song that seems like a good outro for being 20 when the song is released. The Nirvana lyric “Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I'm bored and old” comes to mind.

Since there's no Walker Texas Ranger lever for the Network, let's dig around and watch something like... Monday Night Raw (2/24/1997) We're in the Manhattan Center tonight Our first match is The Godwinns vs the New Blackjacks. Pig farmers vs Cowboys, a feud as old as time. Vince says we have a huge surprise tonight on Raw (well i'd say). Also Marlena vs Sunny in an arm wrestling match. Lawler notes the possibility of ECW wrestlers being here quickly. Barry Windham with short black hair and a mustache sure is a look. Ken Shamrock is in the crowd tonight. The match is pretty much being worked like how you'd expect. I think Windham is the thinnest of the 4 wrestlers in this match. Bradshaw clotheslines Phineas and Windham gets the pin despite Phineas having his foot on the ropes. Another referee comes out to discuss the matter and the Godwinns slop the referee in retaliation. Our heroes! We come out of the break with the Eliminators hitting the Total Elimination on a dude. Also Paul E. Dangerously is here. Hey, Paul E. gets the ECW graphics package (well, part of it, they figure it out better later on) Our ECW Experience match is Little Guido vs Big Stevie Cool. Vince gets a brief description of what the Blue World Order is. People doing a Hall/Nash parody in a promotion where guy's are reusing the Razor/Diesel gimmicks. Hey, it's Raven, and he's standing. Hey, we get a side interview with Goldust that doesn't happen. Meanwhile Paul E. says he'd go home with Goldust. Okay, now we got the Goldust side-interview. UP NEXT, LA FEMME NIKITA. Stevie wins with the Steviekick. Got some words from Sunny about her impending arm wrestling match. Time for Sunny va Marlena in an arm wrestling match. Our guest referee is the Honky Tonk Man. A bit of a show whiplash to have The Godwinns, The Eliminators, The BWO, Women's Arm Wrestling and the Honky Tonk Man in the first 3 segments of the show. Hey, Sunny is doing the most blatant Rick Rude prematch routine for some reason. 8 Days Ago, Chyna choked Marlena. Last week, Chyna shook Marlena. Sunny decides to do the kind thing and offer Marlena a chance to forfeit. Hey, a prostitution joke in response from Marlena. Sunny decides to stall for a bit. Cut to Ken Shamrock watching this and questioning his decisions in life. Sunny throws powder in Marlena's face before she could lose the match. Savio Vega wanders out to the ring for some reason only for Goldust to show up and slam Savio's face off of the arm wrestling table. So I guess we have a Savio Vega vs Goldust match now? Sunny is still hanging around ringside because you don't wanna turn down a chance to watch this matchup. Miguel Perez is at the commentary table for this one. Aw, one of PG13 got a hug from Sunny. Vince does an extended "we got events coming up in these cities" read. We got a huge surprise later tonight, by the way. Miguel Perez reminds us that Savio let down all the Puerto Ricans by turning heel. Another shot of Ken Shamrock in the crowd. Goldust gets an exchange with Crush on the outside. Crush decides to just end this and run-in for the DQ. Miguel Perez hits a top rope dropkick in nice shoes! Miguel Perez looking like Puerto Rican Tommy Dreamer if Tommy actually dressed nice. A huge surprise, coming up! Look, just keep watching the show or you might miss the huge surprise Hey, here's a clip of Tiny Tim on Raw from 1993 (that's presumably not the huge surprise). Tiny Tim only died 2 1/2 months before this Raw. Jerry Lawler walks over to Ken Shamrock to interview him. Ken Shamrock denies that he spent time working out with Jerry Lawler. Normal person Ken Shamrock is a little different than when Shamrock really began to embrace some wrestling shtick. No disrespect to Lawler but just imagine Bobby Heenan claiming he taught Ken Shamrock everything he knows. Let's continue the show whiplash with another ECW match. Mikey Whipwreck takes on Taz. We got some Paul E/Lawler sniping over Lawler referring to Taz as short. Holy fuck, taking a release Tiger Suplex in a WWF ring must have taken a year off of Mikey's life. We got some words from Faarooq on the side because he's taking on the Undertaker later. Sabu shows up and leaps off of the RAW sign onto Team Taz (not the huge surprise). Team Taz drugs Sabu off. Taz chokes out Mikey for the win. Coming up next, we have a huge surprise. We get a replay of Sabu leaping off of the Raw sign from a better angle. Sabu manages to land on some of Team Taz. Our huge surprise is the Legion of Doom, for the record. The matchup is The Headbangers vs the Legion of Doom. This show continues to be all over the damn place. We get a "Nitro Sucks" chant for some reason. There's no censorship in the World Wrestling Federation folks (winking gif). This match is a little too long for an LOD return. We get a "Bischoff sucks" chant too. We get a commercial break as the Headbangers are working over Hawk. This match ends in a fucking countout? a double countout? Mosh flips for the Doomsday Device. Well... of all the ways to bring the Legion of Doom back, this was... one of them. Fortunately the Wrestlemania 13 match was a little more remembered than this match. Here's the Shawn Michaels "Tell Me A Lie" music video. I don't know if this got dubbed or not because I don't know what the actual song sounds like. We get a 3rd ECW match tonight. D-Von Dudley vs Tommy Dreamer. Time for some Tommy Dreamer weapons shots on WWF TV. This show sure does veer hard from segment to segment. We get a Willie Herenton namedrop from Lawler. What a show. The Lawler/Paul E. segments are a bit like the Morton Downey Jr Show. We get an Undertaker interview during the finish of this match. Tommy Dreamer wins, by the way. Bubba Ray runs out and they hit the 3D on Dreamer because the Sandman is slow. Sandman takes on the Dudleys to make the save. Lawler and Paul E do a pull-apart as we go to the break. This is such a weird episode of Raw. Vince says that next week's RAW is the biggest event in Germany since the Wall was torn down. Slow decade in Germany, I guess. Jim Ross and Jim Cornette narrate what happened last week with Bret and Sid on Raw. Did Bret really debut the corner Figure-Four on Sid, because that seems like a way to accidentally fuck yourself up because Sid barely got his legs in position for that move. Anyways, Sid beat Bret Hart for the title last week with the help of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Meanwhile in a WWF Superstars Exclusive, Bret Hart is mad (don't worry, i'm sure he won't get even more angry on live TV in a few weeks). Sid and The Undertaker will meet at Wrestlemania for the WWF title. Todd Pettingill is with Ken Shamrock, which is a bit of a "these two worked for the WWF at the same time" thing. Ken Shamrock's wife has laryngitis. Also, Bob Shamrock is in the crowd for this card. What a show for Bob Shamrock to see live. Ken Shamrock gives the Undertaker the edge over Sid due to technique, which, I guess he's watched the product before. Yesss.. we got PG-13 rapping the Nation theme on this episode. Faarooq has some words for Ken Shamrock. The only way this show could get more wild is if they randomly brought back the Luchadores from the Rumble. Our main event is Faarooq vs the Undertaker. Wait, does the Undertaker have a teardrop tattoo? well, I guess he thought he killed someone until mid-summer 1997. The Nation gimmick is all over the damn place around this time because you have D-Lo in "random dude who hangs out with the Nation of Islam" attire and you have Jamie Dundee providing hype for the Nation. This match gets a chant of "Lets Go Rangers" which should tell you how hot it is with these fans. Meanwhile Jim Ross' dad passed away and that's why he's not here. Which feels like something you mention earlier. There's a "Die Rocky" sign being held by someone disappointed that Rocky Maivia hasn't been on Raw this week. The Undertaker uses a schoolboy rollup. The Undertaker no-sells a Faarooq piledriver, so the rest of the nation runs in. Then the Legion of Doom runs in. Andwe'reouttatimefolks. Well.... that was a real Mixtape of a 2 hour show. You might be able to figure out which half of the roster was working a house show in Germany on February 24th (which might have played a factor in the talent imported to fill out this episode of Raw)

Jerry Lawler looking like Bruce Dern's ghost is possessing him, JR must be horrified

The Honky Tonk MMAn would have been the original MMA Jeff Jarrett

Sounds better than the scenarios where Disco Inferno goes to the WWF to be the Honky Tonk Man’s protege

I didn’t mind the Dreamer theme because I think they used his WWECW theme which was an attempt to knockoff Man In The Box instead of using a distinct knockoff MITB. But someone could tell me if the overdub was a different theme

Aw yes, Honky Tonk Man doing the Superstar Graham martial arts gimmick

mid-80s Watts would be showing Jade Cargill jobbing to Statlander multiple times per show if he was handling AEW TV these days

Time for a League Championship Series two-fer of Dallas and Philadelphia. Don't ask what my League Championship Series wrestling picks would be if Arizona or Houston win some games this week. ECW Hardcore TV (6/10/1997) We open with Joey welcoming us to Wrestlepalooza 97 Nah, we cut to Lance Wright with the Eliminators. One of Perry Saturn's legs is destroyed (he'll be wrestling in WCW within 6 months). So the Eliminators won't be facing the Dudleys. Then we cut to Joey Styles next to Rick Rude. Rick towers over Joey, for the record. We're having the final battle between Raven and Tommy Dreamer tonight. Joel Gertner and the Dudley Boys are in a dimly lit place. We start off with the Final Battle between Raven and Tommy Dreamer. Loud "You Sold Out" chant for Raven, in case anybody had any doubt about who was winning this Loser Leaves ECW match. Raven immediately goes for the door so we can get some crowd brawling. Nice cross section of America at the Arena as Raven flings Dreamer through a merchindise table. This match was originally scheduled for Hardcore Heaven but was moved up for reasons totally not involving one of the wrestlers leaving the company. A shot of Shane Douglas and Francine watching the brawl opens the door for Rick Rude talk about Francine in his usual way. You could almost break some of these tables by breathing on them. After a few rotations around the arena, Finally this match reaches the ring and Tommy Dreamer gets drop toe hold'd into a chair. The first pinfall attempt comes after Raven launches Tommy Dreamer into a chair, which breaks. Dreamer unveils a sign as having a road sign under it, as is tradition. Lupus gets DDTed by Beulah. Dreamer and Beulah pose and Raven lowblows Tommy. Tommy lowblows Raven. Chastity and Beulah catfight. Rick Rude gets an extended bleep. Beulah lowblows Raven and Dreamer gets 2 with a DDT. A second ref bump before another DDT. Hey, Louie Spicolli seems more useful than Lupus. That interference gets a 2 count. DDTs for everybody. Dreamer mixes things up by hitting the Death Valley Driver in front of Spicolli. The finish of this match got replayed a few times. Dreamer defeats Raven and everybody lives happily ever after. Actually, the lights go out and Rob Van Dam hits the Van Daminator on Tommy. Then the lights go out again and Sabu joins the fray. Raven just walks off casually during all this. The lights go out again and Jerry Lawler's in the ring. Ineffective babyfaces try to make a save. Shane Douglas publicly declines to do anything. New Jack and Mustafa show up to remind us that the Natural Born Killers replacement kinda stinks. Eventually the Sandman shows up to make the save for a second. Then Taz comes out to make a save and the heels flee. On the upside for Tommy, at least he didn't get caned directly in the balls. This time. We come out of the commercial break with Taz, Shane Douglas interrupting Taz, and more Taz, before we go to a break. We're also getting the rematch of Sabu vs Taz tonight. Which was also moved up from the PPV because both men couldn't wait. Rick Rude explaining the psychology of working Taz's knee. That moonsault only barely avoids clipping the guardrail. Fuck that whistle must have been annoying to endure live. Taz tries a senton and misses. Sabu puts Taz through a table but Taz puts Sabu in the Tazmission and gets pinned for the loss. Taz beats up the referees because he's mad that he lost. Taz then chokes out Fonzie. We come back from the break as Joey summarizes what happens in 3x speed. If Taz can't choke out Shane Douglas, he has to leave ECW for 45 days. Which is an oddly specific number of days. So we got Shane Douglas vs Taz and Taz has 3 minutes to choke out Shane Douglas. Rick Rude noting how stupid Shane Douglas is for this challenge. Wouldn't you just immediately run for the door to burn the clock. Taz chokes out Shane Douglas and wins the TV title. Play stupid games, win stupid prices. A legendary blowoff, the start of a big feud, a rematch that is sorta just there, and Taz wins the TV title to end the show. Now, let's go to the second half of tonight's Peacock viewing... World Class Championship Wrestling (12/14/1985) We're in Reunion Arena this week. We got some cage matches. Match 1: One Man Gang vs Kamala. One Man Gang gets the first bite in. Bill Mercer takes this opportunity to plug the Christmas card at Reunion. That rope guardrail is very faith-based. I think One Man Gang did his version of hulking up. Babyface (or de facto babyface) One Man Gang has a bit of a Braun Strowman vibe. Both wrestlers get disqualified. This match was worked exactly how you'd expect Kamala vs One Man Gang to be worked. Match 2: Jack Victory vs Brian Adias for the Texas title. Adias is the Texas champion in this match. Somehow Jack Victory got all the masked gimmicks except "stand-in for Bobby Eaton". The doctor who helped Mike Von Erich not die in the hospital gets a mention and a crowd shot. Brian Adias did a heck of a flippy sell of a mid-ring collision. Adias is a house of fire but Victory escapes the spinning toe hold with a rope break. Adias wins with a bodypress off the top rope. Match 3: Hollywood John Tatum (with Missy Hyatt) vs Scott Casey (with Sunshine) in a steel cage Texas Death match. By Texas Death Match, they mean "the match ends when one man cannot stop the other from escaping the cage", which is a cooler way of describing WWF cage match. Holy hell Missy's top tonight is something. The women are in the cage in separate corners. The cage is barely taller than Missy. Doesn't take long for one to notice "hey they put these women inbetween the ropes and the cage". Tatum eats a piledriver but Casey distracts himself by looking at Missy. It looks like Missy could smother someone pretty well tonight. Tatum puts on a chinlock and scoots over so Missy can help him. And Missy jumps Sunshine from behind and runs off. Got a sleephold (which Casey counters by running Tatum into the corner). Tatum counters a piledriver and running bulldog. Tatum tries climbing the 6 and a half foot tall cage but with a little help from Missy, Tatum escapes to the floor. Which means that Sunshine can immediately jump Missy. Escape the cage logic. Kabuki comes in to attack Scott Casey and Sunshine. So Kabuki and Scott Casey fight for a bit. All the unimportant non-Von Erich babyfaces (John Mantell, David Peterson, Brian Adias) rush the cage to get their asses beat by Kabuki. Next week: Kerry Von Erich vs the Smashingly Beautiful Rick Rude for the American Title Match 4: Gino Hernandez and Chris Adams vs Kevin and Kerry Von Erich in a steel cage for the held up Tag Team titles with two special referees (Terry Gordy and Brian Adias). Adias is substituting for Iceman King Parsons. Adams and Gino are wearing masks. Terry Gordy makes sure that no heels get unmasked during this cage match because we got rules damnit. Mercer either figures out which one is Gino and which is Adams due to these unmasking spots. Apparently it's legal to unmask these guys but Gordy doesn't see it that way. Hey it's been a year or two since the last "Freebird was a less than stellar guest referee" angle. The lighting starts flickering slightly. Gordy decks Adias after an extended argument and Gordy departs. Mercer is just defenseless against Adams and Gino wearing masks. Chris Adams gets unmasked and then Gino hits a loaded headbutt on Kerry and the forces of evil win the Tag Team titles. Lance Von Erich shows up to keep Chris Adams away while Kerry and Kevin doubleteam and unmask Gino. Our heroes! Somehow Terry Gordy perpetually getting in the way was the more useful of the two referees. Mercer closes the show to announcing that Missy and Sunshine will be in a mixed tag team match on Christmas. Seeing 1985 Missy in ring attire should be family fun for all ages.

Rangers took an early lead and held it to win by 1 run, expanding their lead to 2-0 Phillies took an early lead and now it's a 2 run lead, so can they hold it to take a 1-0 lead (to be determined)

Siri, play "Is That All There Is" by Cristina

i'm just gonna imagine "Dungeon of Doom" Honky Tonk Man where Sullivan makes HTM believe he's actually Elvis until Wayne tells them all to fuck off and leaves

after my last post, I realized "hey, WCW had the Honky Tonk Man in the fed at the same time as Colonel Robert Parker and they didn't have HTM paired with their Tom Parker knockoff before HTM got himself fired"

Knock on wood, but I think it should go off without much of a hitch. But 3 weeks is awhile for things like this. Not sure if I should just call the Crown Jewel cards "SaudiMania" and give a secondary title to the non-CJ Saudi shows (SaudiSlam?)

Now if they wanted to actually feature Barry Darsow in 1998 for no logical reason, Darsow would be trying to get into the NWO through Adams since Darsow hasn’t done anything in years and he has old tag team ties to Adams So who did their real job less between IRS and the Repo Man? Repo Man at least stole or repossessed some things. IRS didn’t make any tax cheat babyfaces work for him to repay their tax debts. Willie Nelson just barely missed working with the WWF during IRS’s run. Willie was at WM7 and IRS started a month later. Just imagine if Willie was “forced to record” a theme song for IRS in 1991.

The Angel Baby character from the AWF sounds like someone who has kidnapped the Honky Tonk Man and is holding him like it’s the movie Misery Just mentioning that since today’s Between the Sheets has AWF clips

I guess the Marlins aren’t gonna fix their giant hole in the catchers position by trading for Salvador Perez. Which improves the White Sox odds because apparently the Royals are wanting to dump salary for a guy they extended at the beginning of 2021

somehow someway, I remember watching Captain Planet, which was on TBS, but either they didn't air commercials about watching WCW or I didn't notice them then again, Captain Planet and the Power Hour didn't air on the same day

your formula doesn't account for factors such as "is your QB in one commercial for a lot of companies or a lot of commercials for one company". Last play, I don't know if the refs would have called holding if the receiver just bellyflops in reaction to being held.. but it couldn't be any worse than flopping after getting headbutted by a punter (in a different game). One person quotetweeting a clip of that namedropped the Wild Samoans ("Dude flopped like he was taking a headbutt from the Wild Samoans") which is a deeper pull than the usual wrestling reference

i'm sure that DPI has been called on back to back plays several times before, but it's gotta be pretty rare at any point of the game, much less two plays with so little time left you know there's some 1980s Big 8 football enthusiast insisting the Giants should have just run the option at the goal line