JUNE 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION

[RIPPA]

Per Mike Johnson at PWI regarding WWE and COVID

Quote

For almost every person that we’ve spoken with today (with the exception of one talent who stated the pandemic was just a “big work”), there has been concern at some level about their health and for those with families, that concern was even greater, as there was worry about whether they could bring something back home that they could expose their families to as well.  As one person stated, this is exactly why Roman Reigns has stepped away.  Health has obviously been an unspoken concern since the pandemic started, but having been tested today, for many, it is now back at the forefront of their thoughts in a way it hadn’t been previously.”

Legit - I could think of at least a dozen guys who wouldn't surprise me thought it was a hoax

[AxB]

He didn't say how many WWE wrestlers he spoke to, so it could be a super tiny sample size. But if we're doing a sweepstakes on what WWE wrestler thinks Covid is fake, my money is on AJ Styles.

[Cobra Commander]

Never has there been a riskier time to sneeze around Vince McMahon

[Unnatural]

For an earlier question-

Would have loved Hayabusa in singles action against Raven, Sandman, Balls, Tajiri, Tazz, Bigelow, Candido and tagging with Jinsei against the Dudleys, any combination of the Triple Threat, Smothers/Guido, Dreamer/Sandman. Add Masato Tanaka to Hayabusa and Jinsei for some 6 man tags even, I'd love them against some of the ECW trios

The timelines may not work out for a few matches but just saying that as far as extended runs, for matches I'd love to have seen, these are some I would have at the top of my list 

[MavsFan77]

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

Yeah, Bruce, bullshit artist* that he is, almost always tries to make his booking ideas not sound like shit and like he was the one to discover so much great talent. If you listen to Bruce, he was the one who discovered CM Punk, so of course he would have also wanted to push Scott Steiner to the moon long ago when WCW wanted to do the same exact thing.

Punk was the main one I was getting at too. Never mind the fact that Conrad correctly pointed out that Paul E had a hard on for the guy way before Bruce did. 

Hell anyone in the front office that had seen even a single ROH show should have been able to see mega $$$ while watching Punk, Bryan, Joe, Cesaro (before the WWE f’d him up), and AJ. 

Actually AJ is another one I’ve noticed Bruce tries to take credit for then he talks weird about his time with AJ in TNA. It’s like okay he was obviously on WWE’s radar once back in the day (when they wanted him for developmental), then I’m sure when he left New Japan that was more of a Triple H pushed hard to bring him in move as opposed to anything Prichard did. 

[John from Cincinnati]

9 minutes ago, AxB said:

He didn't say how many WWE wrestlers he spoke to, so it could be a super tiny sample size. But if we're doing a sweepstakes on what WWE wrestler thinks Covid is fake, my money is on AJ Styles.

I'm legit excited for that eventual day after AJ's retired when I can add him to my list of wrestlers who have appeared on InfoWars. 

[MavsFan77]

9 minutes ago, AxB said:

He didn't say how many WWE wrestlers he spoke to, so it could be a super tiny sample size. But if we're doing a sweepstakes on what WWE wrestler thinks Covid is fake, my money is on AJ Styles.

Based on the video posted yesterday Mojo is the only other one I can think of. I’d have said Miz, but considering he’s already got production screwed up, and taken off of TV due to showing up sick I can’t see it being him. 

[The Natural]

15 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Per Mike Johnson at PWI regarding WWE and COVID

Legit - I could think of at least a dozen guys who wouldn't surprise me thought it was a hoax

AJ Styles, AJ Styles and oh, yeah. AJ Styles!

EDIT: Me and @AxB on the same wavelength.

Edited June 17, 2020 by The Natural

[RIPPA]

Yeah - it so is Brian Kendrick

[NoFistsJustFlips]

Idk, seems like Jaxon Ryker or whatever his WWE name is, is a top candidate. When you get pulled from TV because you're so far up Trump's ass, being a flat-earther or Covid denier can't be far behind.

[BurningBeard]

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

So either both companies had the same idea that failed for the same reason

Correct. I’d not heard Bruce talking about the 93 rumble (were they even in WWF then?) I just always remember hearing about the 94 KOTR in the early days of IWC.

I just recently watched the Flair/Steiner COTC match and it’s safe to say Scott would have bombed as champ. Plus Flair totally blew him up.
 

I liken 91 Scott Steiner to Ahmed Johnson: explosive and exciting to watch but reckless and lacking everywhere else 

[LoneWolf&Subs]

So rumors going around that SmackDown tapings have been canceled. Any truth to that? Could be bad corona results.

Edited June 17, 2020 by LoneWolf&Subs

[Technico Support]

2 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Unless there's revisionist history - it was Flair that wanted Scott to win the strap years earlier in NWA/WCW... but Scott didn't want to breakup the tag team. 

 

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

That sounds familiar enough, but it also sounds similar to WCW wanting to push Scott to the moon and have Flair put him over. So either both companies had the same idea that failed for the same reason, or someone from one of the company's, probably Bruce, doesn't have the best memory for that period and is conflating it with what went down in WCW.

Yeah, pretty sure Bruce is making that one up.  I'd always heard the story as Flair wanting to give the title up to Scott, but Scott not wanting to leave Rick with nothing to do.  I have never, in all these years, heard it the McMahon way.  Rule of thumb: if you ever hear a wrestling story whose only source is Prichard, it's definitely a lie.

54 minutes ago, AxB said:

He didn't say how many WWE wrestlers he spoke to, so it could be a super tiny sample size. But if we're doing a sweepstakes on what WWE wrestler thinks Covid is fake, my money is on AJ Styles.

With his big MOLON LABE tattoo, I'd throw Killer Karrion  Kross' hat into the ring as being of the right (pun intended?) type of political bent to believe COVID is a work as well.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Technico Support

[PetrolCB]

30 minutes ago, BurningBeard said:

Correct. I’d not heard Bruce talking about the 93 rumble (were they even in WWF then?)

Yeah, they faced the Beverly's.

[mattdangerously]

11 hours ago, Casey said:

To spin off what I mentioned, and the Steiners in ECW thing, who are some other people that had short runs in promotions that you would have loved to see it last longer?

Ricky Morton; Jake Roberts; PCO; Hector Guerrero; and Marty Janetty all had brief runs in ECW, so that's my answer.

[Death From Above]

Aja Kong was in WWF just long enough to scare people and then leave.

[RIPPA]

29 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

So rumors going around that SmackDown tapings have been canceled. Any truth to that? Could be bad corona results.

PWI says the tapings started basically around 1

However - not everyone is cleared yet as not all the test results are in yet

EDIT - and other folks have confirmed that the tapings were delayed due to waiting for results to come in. So they are starting with Main Event and then will do 205 Live. RAW will be the third thing done

[RIPPA]

Okay I am not triple editing my post but @LoneWolf&Subs appears to be right

Again - that is NEXT week's episode. This week was already taped

[J.T.]

 

 

[Tromatagon]

That looks clean as fuck too.

Bey is a fucking great wrestler, despite what I've said on the podcast after he stole the title from Kross.

[Jiji]

5 hours ago, RolandTHTG said:

I really wish we'd have got Big Poppa Pump in 1994 WWF. 

I've mentioned how Backlund seemed a "ehh no one else" choice. Steiner would have been phenomenal.

One of the dream scenarios is if you mix early '90s Scotty Steiner's athleticism and mobility with late '90s Big Poppa Pump's personality. Fuck off Hulk Hogan. WCW wins the war.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

13 hours ago, Casey said:

To spin off what I mentioned, and the Steiners in ECW thing, who are some other people that had short runs in promotions that you would have loved to see it last longer?

I’m at work, so I’m drawing a bit of a blank, but I’m sure I could come up with some if I really thought about it.

Obviously I love Bull Nakano, and she wasn’t featured all that much in either WWF or WCW. I know she had a lot of house show matches with Alundra Blayze in WWF, but as far as on-screen, it wasn’t but maybe a handful if I’m remembering right

Weird one: does TNA go anywhere if Savage works more than the one tag match in '03? 

[Dewar]

I think you are massively overstating the appeal of Scott Steiner. With the way WWE caught fire during the Austin era, I don't see how WCW wins, especially after their television network decides they don't want them anymore. 

[SorceressKnight]

14 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

what lawsuit / whistleblower thing is this?

The story about the "The Saudi layoff was really a hostage situation!" story from Monday came out as part of a class-action lawsuit from WWE's investors claiming WWE misrepresented how much money the Saudi Arabia deal was going to get them. The Saudi layoff being a hostage situation came from the second of the case's witnesses, one of the wrestlers.

14 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

No because WWF punished him for leaving by having to job in every match.  The few matches he did do he lost and when you see the matches he no-showed, you can tell who was taking the fall.  He disappeared because he wasn't going to be part of that boom.

Even if Sid didn't leave, it's still unlikely he'd be part of the boom anyway.

Sid's possibly one of the weirdest wrestlers in history:

There's a number of wrestlers who you could look at and know "there's no doubt about it. This guy is obviously a main event player and has to be one of the top stars.

There's also a lot of wrestlers- usually failed experiments as main eventers- where it became clear "If THIS GUY is one of your main event players, your promotion is probably in the shitter right now."

Sid was weird, because he might be the only wrestler in history where both of those things were true at the same time: Yes, Sid is absolutely main event-caliber, he always did well enough you couldn't exactly call him a bust as a main eventer...and yet at the same time, people could always kind of know "if Sid's one of the main eventers in this promotion, this promotion has some serious problems." 

[Dolfan in NYC]

37 minutes ago, Dewar said:

I think you are massively overstating the appeal of Scott Steiner. With the way WWE caught fire during the Austin era, I don't see how WCW wins, especially after their television network decides they don't want them anymore. 

WWF/E lucked their way into 4 Hall of Fame caliber, ace main eventers all rising up at the same time.  Austin, Rock, HHH, Foley.  (5 if you count Angle, but he didn't come around until the war was decided. Hell 6 if you count Murder McFuckFace, same caveat though.)  

WCW had Goldberg as their S-Tier level guy.  After that was DDP (who really should have been the one to beat Goldberg)... Steiner, and honestly, not much more beyond that.  Steiner was fine and cut a good promo, but frankly I cannot recall off the top of my head any main event match he was involved in that we could call anything great.