Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown

[Matt D]

Back from vacation and this is days late and I'm sorry for that.

My rant on the 619 and why you're all jerks for doubting it starts at 2:34:04. Feel free to skip to that. Obviously this is a few years out of date (as we did GWE in 2016, I think) but I'm sure Stacey makes an amazing case for Rey right around before then. I haven't relistened to this in a while.

 

 

[Jiji]

Turned it off the second you completely dismissed anybody criticizing it. Bai.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Jiji

[The Man Known as Dan]

Remember when this board would actually debate things, so you had to lay out your opinion and explain your reasoning behind it because this place was supposed to be about actually fucking discussing wrestling? Those were the days.

[odessasteps]

1 minute ago, The Man Known as Dan said:

Remember when this board would actually debate things, so you had to lay out your opinion and explain your reasoning behind it because this place was supposed to be about actually fucking discussing wrestling? Those were the days.

Easier now to post sitcom memes than do any thinking.  

[Jiji]

9 minutes ago, The Man Known as Dan said:

Remember when this board would actually debate things, so you had to lay out your opinion and explain your reasoning behind it because this place was supposed to be about actually fucking discussing wrestling? Those were the days.

Have you changed your opinion on one thing during your "debates" when people disagree with you over the years? I don't see much of a point. I can be snarky too.

9 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Easier now to post sitcom memes than do any thinking.  

Right, when was the last time you laid out a well reasoned argument for anything instead of one liners? 

[The Man Known as Dan]

5 minutes ago, Jiji said:

Have you changed your opinion on one thing during your "debates" when people disagree with you over the years? 

 

Yes. Multiple times. 

[odessasteps]

On the board? Not in a long time. 
 

in my magazine or on my website? I have a book review debuting this week. 
 

On the podcast? Hopefully every episode. 
 

I see the board more as a relief these days. 

Edited August 18, 2020 by odessasteps

[Death From Above]

I'm still baffled partially by Shawn's comeback. How did he go from having a back so bad he had to retire to such a long return? Backs don't just fix themselves.

Then again Daniel Bryan retired due to some pretty serious problems and somehow he's back too. I don't know if it's just wrestlers not taking care of themselves or what.

[PetrolCB]

Well, he did have major back surgery, but I've always believed a large chunk of his absence was less of the injury and more of his terrible addiction. 

There are chunks during his original run where he wasnt around much and I think a lot of that was secret rehab stints. Vince loved the guy so much he tried really hard to help him out all those times.

That's never really been said elsewhere, its just personal opinion. 

Edited August 18, 2020 by PetrolCB

[Dolfan in NYC]

DAY 65

So, last year I got to go to an event called "Sumo + Sushi" where 4 retired pro sumo wrestlers got to display the art of sumo.  It was hosted by former yokozuna Konishiki and it was a very fun way to spend an afternoon, even if the sushi was meh. At least the sake tasting menu was good.

Now, one of the most famous yokozuna of the 1990's was Akebono Taro.  The American-born sumo was the first foreigner (ever?) to get promoted to grand champion status and kept that status for nearly 8 years... a real feat in the land of sumo.  But injuries took their toll, and he finally decided to retire in 2001. So he tried his hand at K-1 where, he did...well, alright is maybe a little too generous, but whatever.  So it's 2005 now and he's apparently got the bug to do pro wrestling, so the WWE is not going to let something like this just pass them by (more on that in a sec), and decided to have him appear in a match with the closest thing to a physical equal,  The Big Show.

And remember what I told you guys about Big John Studd, and the Big Bossman, well, any Gen Z bears/bear lovers have their moment in the sun here.   

All in all, it's a lot of theater, and not much of a match.  They actually prepped the wrestling ring to be like the sumo ring and both did a decent enough job of making it seem like this was a legit sumo match.   But even to the barely trained eye I have, the match lasted a minute, and even I can tell they're kayfabing until about :55 seconds in (if not the whole way).  So Show tries to pick up Akebono, and it gets reversed and Show is thrown out.  

Akebono would go on to make another appearance at a house show until his deal fell apart.  He'd debut in Japan later that year where he'd go on to win the Triple Crown Heavyweight championship twice.  Oh well.  

[John from Cincinnati]

Thanks for sharing that case for the 619, @Matt D. I was personally never bothered by that move in the way so many others seemed to be, but I lacked the ability to make any sort of reasonable counterpoint. Your argument makes a lot of sense, and even though I doubt I'll win many hearts and minds over with it, I'll definitely be able to put it to use when discussing Rey in the future. Much appreciated.

I also thinks there's a case for Rey's WWE work being horribly underrated as people look at the extra weight and the knee problems and the "WWE house style" and compare it unfavorably to his earlier work. I think that's overlooking a lot of quality work by a guy who got to shine in ways WWE house style normally didn't allow prior to his tenure. But after a few pages of this, that feels like a discussion for another day. 

[Eivion]

Akebono/Show was such a weird and random match to pull with Sumo not having any real relevance in the US. A normal match between both in their wrestling primes could have been fun. Akebono formed a nice tag team in SMOP with Ryota Hama.

[DJ Hero Morganti]

Akebono was awesome in Hustle too!

[Death From Above]

Was this at all around the time the WWE got the bug to try and build more global companies/larger brand? I can see trying to bring in Akebono on that front. I know at one point they wanted to make inroads in Japan but I have no concept of the timeline here.

As a relatively recent convert to sumo fandom, it's pretty surreal stuff that Akebono did a Wrestlemania.

Quote

And remember what I told you guys about Big John Studd, and the Big Bossman, well, any Gen Z bears/bear lovers have their moment in the sun here.  

lol There is definitely a subset of sumo fans as well, both men and maybe to some a surprising number of women, who are into some of the boys for the look.

[Dolfan in NYC]

Last year at this time, Eddie Guerrero was defending his newly won WWE Championship in what was a crowning achievement in his career.  He had an opponent in Kurt Angle who could not only keep up with Eddie, but push him, and get him over as a brilliant worker and a delightfully sneaky son of a bitch.  The pressure got to Eddie too much though, and he lost the championship to long time employee John Bradshaw Layfield in a horrific bloodbath of a match. JBL, it was said, was a Vince favorite and held the title for almost a year afterwards. But it's WrestleMania time, and Vince is desperate for a new ace for his pitching staff... well, one is ready. 

John Cena is (basically) a home-grown talent.  Spending time in OVW where he shined as "The Prototype".  Feuding with Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, and many others...  He'd been the champion in waiting for a while, and well... his time is now. 

So JBL enters via a stretch limo, which, since this is an arena, can only get to the base of the entrance. $100 JBL-Bucks are raining from the ceiling (I can't help but think he'd try to sell JblBux as a cryptocurrency scam of some kind).  But he looks notably grumpy.  The announcers chalk it up to "determination", but we know it's "I'm jobbing."   And here comes Cena in a somewhat subdued entrance, well, compared to what would come years ahead. And oddly enough, Cena is the only one to get announced, so to 100% get over the fact that there is zero chance he's losing here.    

And I've noted JBL has been somewhat unprofessional before... the ridiculous headshots of the Hardcore Title match come to mind...  but this is completely different.  JBL is slow, even for himself.  He's clearly not interested in doing anything resembling a good match, and Cena's not doing enough to shake him out of it.  Basically the match is a 10 minute top-of-the-hour Raw match.  JBL has a long heat segment, until Cena makes a comeback, pumps up his shoes, ducks the Clothesline from Hell, and there's the FU.  

1. 2.  3...  

And, that's it?   

Well, Cena has now won his first WWE Championship.  JBL disappears like a fart in the wind. And Cena's celebration is... well, cringe is the wrong word, but it's certainly something he's planned and not really organic.  It's really, really odd.   This whole match was, frankly. 

--

The Hall of Fame segment happens next... The class is Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Bob Horton, Jimmy Hart, Paul Orndorff, Nikolai Volkoff, and Iron Sheik.

And time's not quite up, but I'm pushing the last match to tomorrow since I still have to shower and then log into work.  

End of Day 65. 

[odessasteps]

5 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Bob Horton

Love his coffee 

[tbarrie]

11 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

And I've noted JBL has been somewhat unprofessional before... the ridiculous headshots of the Hardcore Title match come to mind...  but this is completely different.  JBL is slow, even for himself.  He's clearly not interested in doing anything resembling a good match, and Cena's not doing enough to shake him out of it.  Basically the match is a 10 minute top-of-the-hour Raw match.  JBL has a long heat segment, until Cena makes a comeback, pumps up his shoes, ducks the Clothesline from Hell, and there's the FU.  

1. 2.  3...  

And, that's it?   

Yeah, I had forgotten how disappointing this match was. After JBL Honkytonking the title for a year, with various creative ways for him to escape undethroned, Cena wins the belt not by overcoming JBL's shenanigans, but because there weren't any. It's like JBL just forgot to cheat.

[Curt McGirt]

Was it like the second year of the HoF right there or something?

[PetrolCB]

@Curt McGirt It was the first of THE SPECTACLE, as we know it.

Edited August 19, 2020 by PetrolCB

[clintthecrippler]

A friend of mine that knows I am a huge wrestling fan and have attended multiple Wrestlemania weekends and adjacent shows in recent years, asked me what the most historic wrestling moment I've witnessed live was. I didn't get to start attending live wrestling shows until the late '90s, and even up until Wrestlemania 2005, it had primarily been random RAW and Smackdown tapings that were mostly uneventful in the grand scheme of things (though I did see the Billy & Chuck "proposal" live if that counts for something), original ECW tapings in Detroit (where I did get to see the Dudley Boyz busting out the flaming table for the first time), random Michigan indies pre-2003, and super-early PWG before they truly became a big indie phenomenon.

And I have been to plenty of Wrestlemanias since that have had much better bell-to-bell matches (full list is 2005, 2007, and 2015 through 2019, so sadly I didn't get to see any of the Undertaker vs HBK/HHH matches live, or Daniel Bryan winning in New Orleans), as well as plenty of moments since that could be considered "Internet cool" (the first ECW One Night Stand and Necro Butcher vs Samoa Joe the same weekend, the re-emergence of PCO at Spring Break New Orleans, NJPW/ROH being the first-non McMahon wrestling show at MSG in many decades), the only thing I could say in terms of "most historic that I have witnessed live" was this being the Wrestlemania where John Cena and Batista were officially cemented as bona fide main eventers that would be relied on and have so much of the WWE main event scene centered around them for the next decade. Sure, HHH, Taker, HBK, Randy Orton would stay in that realm, and to a lesser extent CM Punk and Jeff Hardy would emerge over the next few years, but I don't think it's unrealistic to say that for the next five years that John Cena and Batista were an easy #1 Ace and #1a Ace. And though the individual Mania matches themselves weren't super-great, and both feuds would have much better matches in the months that followed (especially the Cena/JBL I Quit match which still holds up as a spectacle to this day, I would 100% rank that as second to Cena vs Umaga as the best "Cena as fighting champion" match), I literally can't imagine what the next five years of WWE look like without Cena and Batista being anointed on that day.

So I responded to "most historic" to my friend that asked the original inquiry, with Cena and Batista ascending to main event/top ace status at Wrestlemania 21.

"2nd most historic" would of course, be the time I went to WCW World War III in 1998, and there was an epic off-camera struggle by arena security to contain a ten-foot-long inflatable penis being passed around the crowd in the upper deck during the DDP/Bret Hart main event.

 

[Zimbra]

Hmm, my most historic live wrestling moment is either Tank Abbott turning on 3 Count or Tajiri winning his first cruiserweight title so, yeah, not great.

[odessasteps]

My #1 would prob be Mania 8, since it was a Mania. #2 is prob Bash 86 in Philly. I dont think any TV taping I went to had anything memorable on them, off the top of my head. 

[DJ Hero Morganti]

Mania at Levi's for me. Or the many superbrawls at the cow palace

[BobbyWhioux]

Superbrawl IX (largely by default), so I've got Rey Mysterio Jr. losing his mask and...um... the debut of Torrie Wilson?
 

[John from Cincinnati]

I've got the McMahon head shaving at the hands of Trump and Orton becoming the youngest champ.