December 2022 Wrestling Discussion

[The Natural]

Moving. We love and miss you, Mr. Brodie Lee.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

This Young Rock stuff where they try and revise history for Rocky Johnson being blackballed for going to Saudi Arabia, rather than raping a 19 year old is really messed up, and I'm surprised more hasn't been made of it.

[zendragon]

6 hours ago, PetrolCB said:

re: IYH singles matches

HBK/Double J is pretty solid. 

I've always considered this to be JJ's high water mark. Great secondary champ, didn't need to be doing main events

[Shartnado]

8 hours ago, The Natural said:

I don't know. We didn't get In Your House over here till In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker.

Somehow this reminds me of the awesome line in How I Met Your Mother, about "The 80's didn't get to Canada until 1993", regarding Robin's notorious music video from the mid 90's looking like it was from 1987.

[elizium]

On 12/2/2022 at 8:31 PM, Matt D said:

So… think that applies to our buddy Phil too?

No, Phil Hickerson is free to sign anywhere

[Phantom Lord]

12 hours ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

This Young Rock stuff where they try and revise history for Rocky Johnson being blackballed for going to Saudi Arabia, rather than raping a 19 year old is really messed up, and I'm surprised more hasn't been made of it.

Well it is a sitcom. 

As for the blood, in Bret's book I think he talks about how he hid the blade in his mouth and then played it off as just a really nasty gash when he hit the stairs.

[Dog]

Is there a disconnect between Bret saying "wrestling shouldn't hurt" and then insisting on cutting himself with a saliva-covered metal shard?

[odessasteps]

Lots of folks will tell you blading doesn’t hurt if you do it “right.” 

[Sublime]

And I’d think he would differentiate between hurting himself and his opponents. I’ve seen Lance Storm and others say that in ring is all about keeping your opponent safe even if it means hurting yourself so you can take that ideology to blading pretty easy

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, Phantom Lord said:

Well it is a sitcom. 

As for the blood, in Bret's book I think he talks about how he hid the blade in his mouth and then played it off as just a really nasty gash when he hit the stairs.

 

11 minutes ago, Dog said:

Is there a disconnect between Bret saying "wrestling shouldn't hurt" and then insisting on cutting himself with a saliva-covered metal shard?

Bret Hart: All Ric Flair could do is bleed.

Also Bret Hart: So yeah, there was this one time I wrestled Davey Boy and hid my gig in my mouth like I was Tully Blanchard in Southwest....

[Dog]

26 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Lots of folks will tell you blading doesn’t hurt if you do it “right.” 

I think in that case it's less about pain and more about potentially causing infection.

[SirSmUgly]

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

 

Bret Hart: All Ric Flair could do is bleed.

Also Bret Hart: So yeah, there was this one time I wrestled Davey Boy and hid my gig in my mouth like I was Tully Blanchard in Southwest....

Why would he grind his feet on Ric Flair's couch like it's the thing to do? He's got a little more sense than that. But yeah, he ground his feet on Ric Flair's couch.

[nate]

1 hour ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Why would he grind his feet on Ric Flair's couch like it's the thing to do? He's got a little more sense than that. But yeah, he ground his feet on Ric Flair's couch.

"Fuck yo couch, Naitcha, fuck yo couch!"

[Ziggy]

21 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I just had to look it up, but it is wild to me that Roman Reigns has only had two TV matches in all of 2022. Since we know one day he'll drop the titles, I wonder if HHH will continue this theme with the new champion(s) or he is just staying the course here since it was a situation he was thrown into. I don't think champions need to be wrestling every week of course, but it seems crazy that they'd have champion that is on TV fairly often that if a fan doesn't have Peacock (or the like) they've only seen him wrestle two times this year.

The details of Roman's new contract were known at the time, but its easier to explain when he is the champion why he isn't wrestling more. He's only had nine matches since June total, I assume that storyline-wise, Roman will just permanently be in the Brock or Edge position where he only wrestles for titles or special attraction matches going forward.

Because he's on TV every week it's hard to believe he's only wrestled a short amount of TV matches. He shows up on Raw almost every week too and he goes all out in his matches just as when he was working every week. I don't remember if it was Alvarez or someone on F4Wonline I was listening to a few weeks ago pointed out how Roman could barely stand up out of his chair in a backstage segment indicating why he probably asked to work less matches in his new contract but it's obviously not showing in his match because he definitely brings it. And I'm sure showing up every week ensures his cousins stay in a good slot but I expect him not to be showing up as much when he finally drops those titles. 

[zendragon]

On 12/4/2022 at 12:50 AM, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

This Young Rock stuff where they try and revise history for Rocky Johnson being blackballed for going to Saudi Arabia, rather than raping a 19 year old is really messed up, and I'm surprised more hasn't been made of it.

Seems like the Saudia Arabia thing did cause him to get in trouble with Vince, the other issue caused him trouble getting work after that. more of a lie of omission than a rewrite 

[odessasteps]

Apparently 8 inductees this week into the WON HOF.

I'd guess most are tag teams. 

[just drew]

12 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Why would he grind his feet on Ric Flair's couch like it's the thing to do? He's got a little more sense than that. But yeah, he ground his feet on Ric Flair's couch.

Bret: "Yeah, I dug my feet on his coach. Ric could afford another one..."

[AxB]

Barry Windham suffers heart attack, currently in ICU.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/barry-windham-suffers-heart-attack-currently-icu

[Craig H]

Regarding blading, as someone who has accidentally cut themselves multiple times with either kitchen knives, utility knives, or chisels, most if not all of the time I don't notice I've been cut until I'm actually bleeding. Then it's like, oh dammit, I cut myself somehow. So if a wrestler is using a snip of a new razor blade, I wouldn't imagine that should hurt at all especially when you're already in pain elsewhere. Unless you're Abby or Dusty or Lawler or other guys of that ilk and your blading is kept to a small nick to start drawing blood, yeah, it's not going to hurt.

[FourPostMassacre]

5 hours ago, AxB said:

Barry Windham suffers heart attack, currently in ICU.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/barry-windham-suffers-heart-attack-currently-icu

Hopefully a speedy recovery for Windham.

[SirSmUgly]

On 12/4/2022 at 1:27 AM, zendragon said:

I've always considered this to be JJ's high water mark. Great secondary champ, didn't need to be doing main events

I agree with your overall assessment of Jarrett's proper level, but his short WCW stint after this is his high-water mark, IMO. He has good-to-great  matches on TV and on PPV against a wide range of people. Then he goes back to WWF and immediately starts a downhill trend in his work that he never recovered from. 

Edited December 5, 2022 by SirSmellingtonofCascadia

[Dolphman 3000]

7 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

I agree with your overall assessment of Jarrett's proper level, but his short WCW after this is his high-water mark, IMO. He has good-to-great  matches on TV and on PPV against a wide range of people. Then he goes back to WWF and immediately starts a downhill trend in his work that he never recovered from. 

96-97 Jarrett only had good matches with Benoit. Hell, you could argue 99-01 Jarrett only had good matches with Benoit.

His TNA stuff holds up remarkably well if you can put aside the "promoter's son always going over" booking, which back then we absolutely could not

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I think Jarrett's work in WWF isn't as good as there's such a mentality for heels, especially as he wasn't a big guy and low on the card, to show ass and not much else. I find his work leans too much into that and he's not as athletically impressive as a Shawn or a Hennig to make it work beyond being a better talent than the dregs of a 94/95 or late 97 midcard, and he doesn't have the heat in much of his stuff that wasn't with Shawn or Razor to make his Memphis stalling schtique matter. (or look significantly less when Lawler was regularly on the same card and doing it far better).

Once he goes to WCW, he's allowed to take a decent chunk of the match, and get a reaction from the crowd. The match on a PPV with The Giant was a great example of that. Even his stuff with Mongo is far more tolerable because he's not as restricted by, or leaning into shitty cowardly heel tropes.

 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

33 minutes ago, Dolphman 3000 said:

His TNA stuff holds up remarkably well if you can put aside the "promoter's son always going over" booking, which back then we absolutely could not

Ive said this before (to varying reactions) but I think it's not just the 'boss' kid' factor, but also the fact that HHH was doing a similar thing with his reign of terror at the same time (down to the obvious 'boss' kid...in law' factor there, too, along with the constant Evolution/Planet Jarrett chicanery). It's tough to sell your promotion as an alternative when the booking suffers from a near-identical problem.

[SirSmUgly]

26 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Ive said this before (to varying reactions) but I think it's not just the 'boss' kid' factor, but also the fact that HHH was doing a similar thing with his reign of terror at the same time (down to the obvious 'boss' kid...in law' factor there, too, along with the constant Evolution/Planet Jarrett chicanery). It's tough to sell your promotion as an alternative when the booking suffers from a near-identical problem.

TNA Jarrett is unwatchable. He's not a bad worker in a vacuum, but he learned all the wrong lessons from the Attitude/Russo-WCW era. Too many run-ins and gaga to the point that you'd just be waiting for the inevitable and it almost made the twenty minutes you had to sit through almost pointless because who gave a shit until the run-ins/weapon shots started.