WWE Network Conversation

[DangerMark]

For a while his gimmick was "obnoxious star striker of a non-existent football team," although the last time I saw him he was sat in a wheelchair with a vacant stare, so my information may not be up to date.

[Eivion]

40 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

Also, would it be accurate to guess that the WWE announcers have moved away from talking about how Noam Dar is driven by his fandom of Oasis in the 7 years post-CWC?

Yes, yes it is safe to say that. In 205Live Dar became a sleazy prick with Alicia Fox as his girl. Before 205 died he moved back to UK to join NXTUK. After a face run eventually became a general prick with his own brand of dickishness. That has more or less continued with his current NXT character being super narcissistic. He considers the UK Heritage Cup he holds his baby and is broken when his is without it, hence the despondent wheelchair stuff mentioned above. 

Dar got so much better in the ring and as a character after the CWC. 

[Cobra Commander]

I wasn't watching a lot of pandemic-era WWE (as i've certainly typed before) but i'm guessing NXT UK might be the most 'normal' looking empty arena shows that the WWE did, at least if you compare a dark studio to the lit up thunderdome shows.

But before that, there's no shortage of WWE shows that the boss really wasn't paying attention to for guys to try developing characters. A lot of that is probably on the network too.

Also as noted before, I didn't have the network until Peacock, so I can't hate it in comparison to the Network since I didn't use the network, but the things I notice that they could fix (but likely won't) are that (a) the season formatting, which they inherited, isn't great for the annual events and (b) the sorting of various events in the ALL page is inconsistent. Some events will be under the promotion name and others aren't. But if they're not really inclined to fix that after 2 years, then. Probably for the best to not make them think "hey, how many people are watching wXw on this thing anyways"

[Ramo2653]

The season thing is a Peacock thing and can't be helped. The native network app had events separated by years so it flowed much better. If you spent a bunch of time, you could have separate "seasons" of each promotion (like 95-96 WCW could have Nitro and Clash episodes in order then PPVs slotted in there) and have it kind of make sense but they're not going to pay someone to do that.

[Cobra Commander]

probably could have used a better word than "inherited" because I meant "it's a Peacock thing" too

Network needs a Walker Texas Ranger lever to just watch the most random stuff at any moment

[Gorman]

Thoughts on Heat Wave 99

Taz opened the show by saving "I'm going to defend the belt against Tajiri." Great matchup, but it really showed that ECW was losing the talent battle to top two companies. It didn't help Tajiri that Steve Corino said Tajiri would win the belt and hand it over to him in a mini-Andre/DiBiase situation.

Speaking of Corino, he interrupted Tommy Dreamer's promo to declare Dreamer's career over at age 28. Corino said he was only 24 without a scar on his body (not quite true). Corino ended up losing to Francine. It was a great night for the ladies, as Jazz beat Jason earlier in the night to earn the MVP award.

Hey, it's Lita! Before we learned her name, she accepted Danny Doring's marriage proposal. Just when Nova started being serious, his partner, Chris Chetti, decided to be a goofball. Chetti came out with a top hat and cape, and he took a dance break in the middle of the match.  Still, he and Nova managed to beat Doring & Roadkill.

Most of the "ECW" stuff seemed to be concentrated in the Dayton Street Fight with Spike & Balls winning the tag team belts from the Dudleys. It was an absolute bloodbath featuring a balcony dive from Spike (he landed in the dark but came back to keep fighting soon after, @Curt McGirt), Spike getting put through a flaming table after the match, and New Jack cleaning house after the match (literally - he used a vacuum cleaner). 

Taz used some kind of spiky weapon to Tajiri on the rampway before locking on the Tazmission for the win. Remember, FTW rules include falls count anywhere. It was hard to see because Joey Styles begged for a wide shot, because he was afraid ECW would get kicked off pay-per-view. I was surprised he wasn't more concerned about ECW losing its upcoming national TV spot on The Nashville Network. Will that be enough to save the company?

 

[Curt McGirt]

I guess Bischoff or Vince must've called for a wide shot on a prior week's Raw or Nitro. 

[Ramo2653]

I remember Bischoff calling for a wide shot on a Benoit or Regal match on Nitro. Not sure about the timing though.

[Cobra Commander]

Benoit/Regal with the blood was end of 1996

[zendragon]

I believe the spikey weapon in question is Tazz choking Tajiri with barbwire. Which has me agreeing with Mr. Styles that that is extreme even for ecw

[Cobra Commander]

One more CWC note: one criticism of Kendrick/Ibushi at the time which I noticed after my post was the people saying if Ibushi kicked out of the Burning Hammer, what could beat him

Well, if we wanna use wrestling explanation logic... um... he took a lot of damage from Kendrick in a win and that left him a little weaker vs Perkins than he would have been otherwise. Even if what finished Ibushi was the kneebar and he didn't really do any obvious selling to advance that explanation

But, that would be my kayfabe explanation that isn't "Brian Kendrick is powerful than Kenta Kobashi"

[Cobra Commander]

let's get back to stuff on the Network, it's...

Mid-Atlantic Wrestling (9/17/1983) [presented in the most complete form possible, due to original production technical difficulties]

We start off with Paul Jones and Dory Funk Jr with Bob Caudle. Dory's all fired up (a bold lie by Paul Jones) because of the embarrassment about Rufus R. Jones beating Dory Funk for the Mid-Atlantic title. If you knew how Rufus won the title, you'd slap him. Dory's suit is almost the same color as the Mid-Atlantic background and he's in his usual mood.

Golden Boy Grey vs Charlie Brown: No idea who Charlie Brown is. Several rows of ringside are filled up behind the hard cam. Charlie Brown wins with the Sleeper. Charlie Brown didn't win with an elbow drop, so how could you say he's someone else.

Speaking of mellow people like Dory Funk Jr, Bob Geigel has been lured into the Mid-Atlantic to say that he's fining Dick Slater and Bob Orton $5000 each that must be paid. Slater and Orton came out ahead with the bounty money minus the fine. "A paradox isn't a pair of brain surgeons or where you park two boats". Pretty good line by Bob Orton Jr, I never really thought of Bob Orton Jr's mic skills. Meanwhile, Gary Hart wants an explanation about Charlie Brown from Bob Geigel. Gary Hart is buttering up Bob Geigel in an effort to get bald solidarity. Bob Geigel doesn't know if Charlie Brown is Jimmy Valiant but Gary Hart is perplexed. Bob Geigel has a program that Jimmy Valiant is wrestling in Memphis, so who's to say if Charlie Brown is Jimmy Valiant. But if Gary Hart can prove Charlie Brown is Jimmy Valiant, Bob Geigel will suspend Jimmy Valiant for a year. Gary Hart is still amazed and outraged at this decision. Gary Hart didn't stab Bob Geigel, so Bob got off light.

Bill Howard vs Mark Youngblood: This is our first look at Mark Youngblood, brother of Jay. Can't get over how few people there are in the audience here. Youngblood wins with a running bulldog out of the corner that spikes Howard's head into the mat.

Bob Orton Jr and Dick Slater join Bob Caudle. Bob Orton Jr says he's one of the shrewdest businessmen in the world. "$25,000 worth of business money, daddy!". "Ric Flair thinks he's worth a fortune but he's only worth $5000". Orton and Slater landing verbal bombs. "I'm the only thing besides a plane crash that has put Ric Flair in the hospital". As far as televised victory laps go, This is a good one.

YoungBoat and Mark Youngblood join Bob Caudle for some words. Ricky Steamboat can't believe what Bob Orton Jr did. Mark Youngblood is here to watch Jay and Ricky's back. Jay Youngblood's mullet game is on point.

The Assassins vs Brett Hart and Rip McCord: Gotta pronounce both Ts in Brett to make it clear that it's Barry Horowitz. The fact that nobody is here really does make it obvious how hard the Assassins are hitting Hart. McCord gives up to a hammerlock on the ground to (maybe) the fatter of the two Assassins. I think Jody was noticeably fatter than his partner. But maybe the thinner Assassin got the fall.

Gary Hart joins Bob Caudle and he announces that he is bringing Baron Von Raschke to unmask Charlie Brown. Yes, more bald people!

Now our main event.. Greg Valentine and Dick Slater vs Roddy Piper and Wahoo McDaniel: The several fans here are loud for Piper taking on Valentine. I'd say they should dim the lights but it's possible that's not possible in this high school gym. That inverted atomic drop looked a lot better than the endless applications in WWF matches. Fuck, that Wahoo chop was loud in this venue. That's a "MIC CHECK!" move if there is one. There are some fun combinations of the late 1983 Mid-Atlantic Babyface Superfriends. As you'd expect, Wahoo and Greg Valentine just loudly beat the shit out of each other at a moment's notice. Basically taking loud chops around here is the local version of football drills where you're expected to get spiked practicing tackling as long as you do the same when you tackle. Greg Valentine puts Piper in the sleeper to put him in peril. Piper firing up and facially imitating a horse. Piper makes the hot tag and it's time for Wahoo to beat the shit out of Greg some more. What the hell kind of person are you if you wouldn't see this in your local high school in the 70s/80s. Hot tag from Wahoo to Piper but Slater throws Piper to the floor and Valentine beats up on him before the heels go after Wahoo. You know you're in a rough part of town where you have to ask if 1983 Piper or 1983 Slater are the lightest workers in a tag match. The match ends in a schmozz non-finish. I gotta say that Wahoo and Greg verified that the microphones work.

Some words from Jack and Jerry Brisco. Jerry Brisco is having a chuckle at the idea of Jay Youngblood's younger brother watching YoungBoat's back. "You know they call him. dontcha? Mark!" says Jack. Jerry is amazing on the mic here.

Charlie Brown joins Bob. Who could say who this guy really is?

Wahoo and Roddy Piper join Bob. Wahoo came back here to wrestle. He's threatening a strap match which presumably would be amazingly violent. Roddy Piper is his usual energetic self even when he goes directly after Totally-Not Jimmy Valiant.

If I haven't typed this enough, late 83 Mid-Atlantic is some good shit, pal. I have no idea which episodes I've already seen and which ones I haven't. I should just charge through all this stuff and watch the first Starrcade sometime closer to the anniversary when the lack of baseball opens up my viewing schedule.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Cobra Commander

[Curt McGirt]

Man, I have to check that out for myself. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO2KRkDL2WA&ab_channel=ClassicWrestlingstuff

EDIT: That was awesome! The jobber's head going straight in the mat like a lawn dart on the bulldog was crazy and doing the slo-mo on it ruled too. Cowboy Bob yelling "CRUNCH!" and "SPIKE IT!" over the (great) footage of their run-in for Harley on Flair was the best. Valentine and Slater run away so Wahoo and Piper get to show up covered in sweat and swing around dangerous objects. But the absolute pinnacle is the gloriously smug promo from the Briscos. The "mark" in-joke, "Rodney Piper, we put his skirt over his face", "Wahoo McDaniels, the squaw man from Mexico", just those full-of-it grins on both their faces... perfection. 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[Curt McGirt]

You also gotta love that stupid music coming on when Valiant both hits the ring and cuts a promo and neither time does it wanna stop. It's like New Jack showed up. 

[Cobra Commander]

 

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

That was awesome! The jobber's head going straight in the mat like a lawn dart on the bulldog was crazy and doing the slo-mo on it ruled too.

The other thing about that Mark Youngblood squash is that Bill Howard spent some time working in Amarillo against various Romero family members and Mark lawndarts him into the mat anyways.

I don’t know if they ever asked him if he wanted to manage but I’m pretty confident that Jerry Brisco would have been a better mouthpiece than quite a few of the people who got to be WWF managers in the late 80s/early 90s. Agenting is probably a better job than being the 4th most prominent heel manager in the WWF. No idea if Vince’s thing with southern accents applied to Okies too or Jerry could have done good promos next to someone who isn’t Jack Brisco standing still.

[odessasteps]

You wonder if Jack and Jerry had all this heel charisma stored up for decades before getting to do it here. 

[Cobra Commander]

As Oklahoma State guys, maybe Jack and Jerry unintentionally tapped into how OU Sooner fans/alumni acted around Oklahoma? The heel charisma of people who'd never shut up about how great Bud Wilkinson is and how great Barry Switzer is doing while talking down your "little brother" school.

Not sure how many footsteps are necessary to go from being the all-American boys to being the biggest assholes in a small town. Some of the best heels are also the more relatably bad people that you encounter day to day.

[Curt McGirt]

Jerry was a great side part of maybe my favorite Attitude-era WWF match, Dude Love vs. Austin from Over the Edge. It ruled that they managed to have him and Patterson be such great heel pieces of the Mr. McMahon puzzle overall, too. 

[odessasteps]

Greg Klein was discussing some of Brisco’s history on his latest pod, which was about revisiting the Dory Funk JR farm accident. Jerry actually left school to get a job and only came back after the wrestling coach was able to get him a job as a janitor. And then he comes back to lose in ncaa final while OSU a won the team title and then the next year, he wins the ncaas without being beaten all year although OSU lost the team title. 
 

also, given the ribs they would play on people, including the popular spiking of drinks, striping people naked and putting them in a car trunk or leaving them in the woods, you can see how they would be great heels.

[SirSmUgly]

I'm glad that I got back to watching more Mid-South in 1985 because Jake Roberts RULES and is the best.

Terry Taylor's punk ass is ducking him, it's obvious. 

 

[Cobra Commander]

Not sure if we’ve had any good champ ducking a top challenger storylines lately but it would be interesting to have a babyface who keeps getting sidetracked from chasing the title and it turns out that the heel champ is the one behind trying to keep as many top faces busy as possible

[SirSmUgly]

That'd make a great WM-to-WM yearlong story. Have a babyface you want to rocket to the top get a title shot at the World Champ heel on the RAW after WM, have it not happen for whatever reason, and then announce a rematch that the babyface never quite gets because of multiple diversions, each one becoming more violent (or more wacky, depending on the booker) than the last until there's a reveal ten months later that the heel has been dodging that title match by pulling strings, paying heels off, and even bringing in a monster heel on his own dime.

That's probably a much better story in the territory times where you can bring in monsters-of-the-week from other promotions and then let them go elsewhere when their program is over. 

[Cobra Commander]

It would have made for a logical story about why the hell there was a 4 month long Cody/Brock Lesnar feud but they didn’t play it like that.

This concept could have worked even if it was less subtle and involved Hogan throwing NWO members in front of a top babyface to avoid facing that face.

[zendragon]

He kinda did that with Goldberg having to wrestle I think Scott Hall that same night in the Georgia dome

[Cobra Commander]

Let's go back to almost 40 years ago..

Mid-South Wrestling (11/5/1983)

Let's start off by going back to last week when Butch Reed defended the title against the Junkyard Dog with Dusty Rhodes as the guest referee. We cut from the intro directly to the closing moments. Yeah, Watts kept pronouncing "Neidhart" as "Need-heart" multiple times. Everybody else got it right but Bill has to say it however he damn well pleases.

Let's start off with Hacksaw Butch Reed and Jim Neidhart defending the Mid-South Tag Team Titles against Dusty Rhodes and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. We got *five* standby matches today folks. Title matches have precedence over everything because we're using logic for this show layout folks. Casual bragging by Cowboy about how the fans like this show more than Atlanta or New York. Impressive facial expressions by Neidhart to sell Dusty's offense. Lots of meat in this match with 3 different guys who they claimed played in the NFL. Butch Reed also wants to paint a yellow stripe down JYD's back. Dusty with a height on a crossbody block. Butch Reed pulls Dusty out of the ring leaving him wide open to be hit in the head by a 100 pound bag of wheat. Dusty lays motionless due to the sheer amount of wheat as the heels beat down Duggan, only for Magnum TA to make the save and then JYD. Lots of brawling in the ring as Dusty desperately clings to life.

Now on to.. Bobby Duncum vs JYD. During the commercial break, the helpers helped sweep up the wheat so that no more people could be hurt by it. Dusty was hauled to the back. That 100 pound bag of wheat is so immense that only a man like Nikolai Volkoff can hit someone in the head with it. It also split open due to the G-Force of the impact. Meanwhile Bill Watts is ranting about how actually he can't hire Dusty Rhodes to be a full-time referee to help deal with the heels more effectively. The officials aren't here to prevent these things. So sorta like cops. JYD hitting Duncum with less than impressive looking clotheslines before winning with a big slam

Next up... Nicoli Volkoff vs King Cobra. King Cobra is 100% American says Boyd. Dusty Rhodes is on his feet and is badly stunned. Nikolai called the Russian Embassy to get some more Mid-South TV time. Maybe Miro shoulda called the Bulgarian embassy to get more AEW TV time. Watts says that Russia controls 60% of the world. Also there's Russian advisors in Grenada. Also the Russian athletes are the best or else they don't get out of the country. Nikolai with an impressive looking press into a backbreaker and then he wins with a butterfly suplex.

During the commercial break, an unusual incident happened. Butch Reed came out to beat up on a downed King Cobra. Butch Reed paints a yellow strip down King Cobra's back and JYD emerges to make a save. Nice of them to ask JYD to make multiple saves in the same hour. He's getting steps in today.

Back to the ring.. Tom Stanton vs Leaping Lanny Poffo. Both of these guys certainly have distinctive looks. Lanny wins with a moonsault off the top (hey waitaminute) that isn't commented on for the moment.

Let's go to the ring where Nicolai Volkoff is standing with Reeser Bowden to complain that he was stripped of the North American title. Dusty Rhodes emerges from his deathbed to beat up on Nikolai. Dusty gets some words in to remind us that he's an American who loves America.

Our next match: Max The Missing Link vs Iceman King Parsons. We have a Mid-South name for the Butt-Butt, which is not the Butt-Butt but the Rumper-Stumper? Missing Link takes an atomic drop like he's unfamiliar with the concept. Iceman hits Link with the Butt-Butt outta nowhere to end a match that was certainly a way to spend time.

There was one standby match that we didn't get to see. So that's unfortunate.