Dynamite - 5/24/2023

[twiztor]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

Sabu claims he used to botch moves on purpose. The crowd would chant "You fucked up" and he would be facedown on the floor, grinning to himself, "Got 'em again!".

i saw Sabu do a seminar back in like 2002/03 and he said something similar. So, true or not, he's been saying it for a long time.

[Shartnado]

10 hours ago, Octopus said:

You can’t spell “Undisputed Elite - Adam Cole, Bay Bay and the Backbreaker, Roderick Strong” without the letters “SABU”

"Ndipted Elite -Dm Cole, y y nd the Ckreker Roderick Trong" I'll be damned, the theory checks out. That would be mostly gibberish!

[Evil Otto]

Octopus has nine brains after all, Shartnado.  He selflessly puts them all to good use to provide us one-brainers with such valuable information.  

[jaedmc]

I didn't watch the show. But I did watch Sabu come out. Taz reacting to "suicidal..." popped me. I wish he'd been a little more adversarial with his reaction after that. A little more "This fucking guy..." would've been cool.

Really wish he wasn't in this Jericho/Cole deal, and instead was a "hazard feature" in the Anarchy in the Arena match. Like everyone is fighting but Sabu goes from station to station chucking chairs at anyone and everyone.

I got to meet Sabu at a Dragon Gate USA show where he teemed with AR Fox, and they were great together. That was 12 years ago. So little idea what he's like now.

Here's a match from 3 years ago... he might be good for some wild spots in front of the big crowd.

 

[The Natural]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxhFq5b-Pe8

Sabu's AEW theme.

[Peck]

Going to re-tell my Sabu story that I posted on here back in November 2021.

Quote

Was waiting to board my flight home to Pittsburgh from Vegas yesterday afternoon and happened to notice a slightly older gentleman standing next to me who I thought looked somewhat familiar. But obviously with masks, etc. in airports, it makes it a little tougher to tell. I continued to stand there and went about my business. A few minutes later I saw him adjust his mask for a second out of the corner of my eye so I took a glance over to catch a look at his face. Yep, my suspicions confirmed. Sabu. Standing 3 feet away. I happened to be wearing a Ric Flair shirt(don't judge, the TSA Agents always pop for it...) A couple of minutes passed and I decided I was going to say something to him. I leaned over and nodded my head and simply said "thanks for everything over the years". He looked a little confused and said "for what?" then saw my shirt and chuckled, realizing I recognized who he was. He was super appreciative and we ended up chatting for 5-10 minutes. He's doing a signing with Fonzie in Pittsburgh today. Soft-spoken but nice. Wished each other safe travels and boarded the flight.

Was really sad seeing him limp around. Was a 4-hour flight and he'd have to get up like every 20 minutes just to take a walk. Was clearly in a lot of pain.

Cool experience though. If you would have told 16-year-old me back in 1997 that I'd be shooting the shit with Sabu before a flight my mind would have been blown. 

 

[Kevin Wilson]

23 hours ago, AverageKong said:

I came across a Thunder Rosa interview last week where she mentioned that she actually hasn't been cleared to get back in the ring. I imagine it'll be a few more months before we see anything transpire with her. In the meantime, it is the perfect platform to elevate someone like Willow 

I'm not discounting what you are saying, but I feel the need to point out that wrestlers lie. Every day of their lives. She could still be not cleared, or she could run down the ramp on Sunday and beat up everyone, probably the same odds of both being accurate.

[AxB]

The thing about Wrestlers is, sometimes they say things that aren't true.

[zendragon]

I guess Kaz Hayashi got a payday selling the glacier entrance to Lady Frost…

I get a kick out of the tag rules being such horseshit that HOB actually makes a deal about them being enforced 

Bucks where pretty chickenshit heelish at the end. I’d like them better if they played up that instead of tough guy bucks

I felt all the promos and storyline beats landed but the wrestling being a bit subpar due almost no one being on the same page. Also Taya and Danny doing the Simon Dean curbstomp should have been agented 

[zendragon]

On 5/25/2023 at 2:27 PM, JLowe said:too.

 

 

Sammy is fine with his segment, still a little weird to see him trying to be a face. I presume that’s why Tay has been absent for a while.

 

I feel like All Access has been a bit of a soft face turn for him. To me he comes across as that one lovable but slightly annoying friend we all have

 

On 5/25/2023 at 5:53 PM, Greggulator said:

I did not get to that part of the show yet since I was also watching the Survivor finale. I am also not sure if everyone’s age. But for those of you who were not watching wrestling and ECW in the 90s:

Seeing Sabu being wheeled out in a Hannibal Lecter mask with Paul E. narrating him as the most homicidal, suicidal and genocidal wrestler while he was doing Assai moonsaults into the crowd and jumping through tables literally reinvented wrestling. Sabu blew everyone’s minds. 

A lot of smart fans used to criticize Sabu matches because of how much stuff he could blow but all of that to me was besides the point — the guy was chaos in human form. 

Absolute Mt. Rushmore wrestler and maybe the most underrated wrestler ever because Sabu was probably the first person people traded tapes for and indie wrestling might not even without him, 

i all ways felt that was the point of Sabu , sure he didn’t have a lot of psychology cause he wrestled like an absolute mad man. His 30 minute draw against Scorpio is great because it’s two guys just throwing absolutely everything including the kitchen sink at each other

[Greggulator]

The Sabu vs. Terry Funk barbed wire match is one of my favorite matches ever. It is less of a match and more of a reflection of the decay of society.

[Octopus]

10 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

The Sabu vs. Terry Funk barbed wire match is one of my favorite matches ever. It is less of a match and more of a reflection of the decay of society.

What are the 10 (or five if you want a smaller number) favorite Greggulator matches?

[elizium]

I didn't realize Gregg wrestled that many matches

[Octopus]

31 minutes ago, elizium said:

I didn't realize Gregg wrestled that many matches

E-Fed legend and 13x behind the Walmart street fight Champion

[Greggulator]

42 minutes ago, Octopus said:

What are the 10 (or five if you want a smaller number) favorite Greggulator matches?

My list is always changing so next week it might be something else. Also going to have a lot of recency bias but here goes:

1) Sami vs. Roman. The most electric atmosphere arguable ever for a match. It might be the last time I ever fully and completely lose myself in a wrestling match on an emotional level. It has the most devastating loss in wrestling history. I do not think I can ever watch the match again knowing how it ends. 

2) Shield vs. Wyatts, Elimination Chamber. This is a perfectly structured and laid out wrestling match. All six guys lay so much shit in and they also really up the character shtick — Dean being the first guy to jump, Harper giving Brat an offering, Roman “seeing the play before it develops” a bunch of times, Seth’s cocky jubilation after a bunch of wild dives, Bray’s look of bewilderment when Roman is about the break free of Sister Abigail. Just a perfect wrestling match. 

3) Revival vs. DIY, 2 out of 3 falls. Tag team wrestling the the best wrestling and this was just an awesome classic between clear good guys and bad guys.

4) Emma/Santino vs. Summer Rae/Fandango. Pure magic comedy match on some random NXT.

5) Sasha/Bayley I and II: Hard to rank these separately. I like the Ironwoman better because that is my favorite gimmick. But each one is just two women hitting a new level by the minute.

6) Raven/Richards vs. The Pitbulls, 2 out of 3 falls dog collar match. This match came at a really weird moment for ECW. The company had to deal with its first wave of people shipping off for WCW (Eddie, Dean, Benoit) and Sabu was also gone. This was the first show after and it felt like a major crossroads to see if ECW would have legs going forward. A ton of great stuff on the card (Rey/Psichosis make their ECW debuts) but this stands out as the ultimate Heyman match where a whole bunch of nonsense happens, Raven nearly gets decapitated, somehow 911 is involved and I think Tommy Dreamer even makes the cover at one point? 

7) Steiners vs. MVC, Clash of Champions 19. This is the Clash where it is the first round of the NWA Tag tournament. One of the best shows in WCW history. It has some crazy shit: Doc/Gordy wrecking dudes in a jobber match, an awesome Jushin/Pillman vs. Benoit/Beef Willington match, an amazingly awful bizarre matchup of The 90s Freebirds (Jimmy Jam Garvin!) against The Silver Kings. But MVC vs. The Steiners is this slept on masterpiece. It feels like the closest thing to a real wrestling match I think I can remember. Just dudes tossing each other around. Absolute must watch.

8 Dustin/Steamboat vs. The Enforcers. One of the most quoted matches between me, my brother and our friends. Everything in it rules, from Dustin’s mystery partner reveal to Arn/Larry doing the most over-the-top selling of Steamboat’s arrival (“He’s just a man!”) and all of that. Epic match.

9 Acclaimed vs Double Jay Lethal: This is probably my favorite AEW match. I know there are “better” matches but I got so caught up in this match. Just a spectacular throwback for the weird kids like us who stayed up to 11 pm on a weekday night to watch wrestling on a sketchy local TV station that only showed wrestling, infomercials and Good Times reruns. 

10 Arcade Anarchy, AEW. Fun brawl with the best ending to a wrestling show in ages. Stat seemingly hiding out in arcade game machinery for weeks, Sue, Best Friends with a group hug as “Where Is My Mind?” plays and Tony screams at everyone to stay tuned for The Accountant.

This list has already changed when I remember Owen/Bret, Bret/Piper, Flair’s Rumble, Midnites/Fantastics at Clash 1, etc.

[zendragon]

5 hours ago, Greggulator said:

The Sabu vs. Terry Funk barbed wire match is one of my favorite matches ever. It is less of a match and more of a reflection of the decay of society.

Some here on called it the first post modern wrestling match. It’s definitely one those “everyone needs to see this once” matches

[Dog]

11 hours ago, zendragon said:

Some here on called it the first post modern wrestling match. It’s definitely one those “everyone needs to see this once” matches

Some have called it too extreme ... EVEN FOR ECW. Judge ... for yourself.

[Brian Fowler]

20 hours ago, Greggulator said:

6) Raven/Richards vs. The Pitbulls, 2 out of 3 falls dog collar match. This match came at a really weird moment for ECW. The company had to deal with its first wave of people shipping off for WCW (Eddie, Dean, Benoit) and Sabu was also gone. This was the first show after and it felt like a major crossroads to see if ECW would have legs going forward. A ton of great stuff on the card (Rey/Psichosis make their ECW debuts) but this stands out as the ultimate Heyman match where a whole bunch of nonsense happens, Raven nearly gets decapitated, somehow 911 is involved and I think Tommy Dreamer even makes the cover at one point? 

He did indeed. One of the Pitbulls got taken out with ether or chloroform on a rag, Dreamer put the collar on himself, pinned Raven, crowd goes nuts. Fonzie, absolutely correctly, overturns the finish because Dreamer wasn't part of the match "you've still never pinned Raven."

Big Dick Dudley gets Tommy in the goozle, Fonzie "unbans" the chokeslam just for this night, Tommy gets chokeslammed, crowd immediately knows what's up and 911 finally gets to chokeslam Fonzie. Ethered Pitbull comes back and they win the belts anyway.

Utter chaos on the surface, but underneath one of the tightest bits of booking Heyman ever did, weaving like three or four major storylines into one match and having all of them either hit a satisfying conclusion or take another notable step forward.

[BEN!]

On 5/25/2023 at 12:10 PM, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Sabu as a manager is an interesting proposition given that he rarely spoke over the years I watched him. Honestly, I'm racking my brain for a Sabu promo without Fonzie and the best I can do is WWECW '06. Maybe it's more of a heater role but instead of being huge, he just clandestinely passes his charge sharp objects. Starts carrying a briefcase full of spikes. It's Sabu in a white suit, someone's gotta bleed right?

Right before Jarrett left TNA, they were looking for writers and I worked myself into a shoot and decided I wanted that job so for a couple of weeks I would just jot down ideas.  One of them was Sabu managing the Briscoes.  One, I wanted the Briscoes in and two, I wanted to work Team 3D out.  So the premise was Sabu was sick of hearing 3D claiming to be the originators of table-based violence so he brings in the Briscoes as his proteges who he taught the intricacies of using tables as weapons.  He was going to wear a suit and smoke a cigar and during promos would blow smoke rings and point up and Borash and Mark would look up at the smoke and then Jay would burst onto the set and start cursing so all you'd hear is a long "BEEP" and JB's eyes would get big and Sabu would pump his fist and nod excitedly in approval and then he'd point to the ring and him and Jay would storm off and JB would nudge Mark who's still looking up and he'd look around and smile at the camera and say something like, "Like my brother and Mr. Sabu were saying, we're in for a good ath-a-letic contest tonight, folks." and then a chair would come flying onto the set and Sabu and Jay would rush back on and Jay would be all, "Naw, man, no handshakes , we done shaking hands.  We gonna put those two through some tables and send them back up north and they ain't gonna take 'em back cause they ain't gonna be cosmetically pleasing no more.  Y'all better MAN UP!"  then Jay and Sabu would leave again and Mark would smile at the camera again and say, "Stay tuned folks for more exciting Total Nonstop Action after these words from our sponsors!"  and Borash would be, "That's my job.  I throw to commercial."

Then I've got Sabu taking the Briscoes out for sushi to celebrate with Borash along to document and they get their food and Jay and Mark would go, "They didn't cook that fish."  "That man just cut that fish up and threw it on our plates."  "Man, you got a grill back there, a hibachi, a Bic, some candles, two sticks I can rub together?  Get over there Chicken, we gotta get some fire under this fish."  Then the chef would be like, "No chicken, just fish, get back, please."  "Man we can't be eating raw fish, we'll get the botulism."  Then the camera pans over to Sabu and he just mutters, "savages" and then pulls a railroad spike out of nowhere and starts snatching sushi off Borash's plate with it while JB's eyes bug out.

Edited May 28, 2023 by BEN!
more good grammar