Technico Support

No more rhymes now! I mean it!

Right! But it's crazy because you could use that to add heat to every title defense. "Jerry has never won the big one and his shot at Ric Flair is in jeopardy every time he defends his Mid South title. Come on down to the Mid South Coliseum and pay to cheer Jerry on! He needs you!" To me, that's how you do it. Not have your top face champion back down for fear of losing his shot. Were these people behind him no matter what? What if they did an angle where he won it and then refused to defend it at all? Or swore to only defend against jobbers? This angle is boggling my mind. I makes no sense but, again, if it worked, so be it.

Pardon the pun I AM TAKING A BLOOD OAT!

That's a crazy angle to work with a babyface. I'd call it misguided or ill thought out, but it was a different time and place and I guess it worked for Memphis. But with 2022 eyes, the idea of a babyface champion backing down from a local company's title match because he might lose and, in turn, lose his shot at a bigger promotion's better title, is crazy. A babyface should never back down from a match, let alone a title defense. Renesto is fully in the right here and Lawler comes off as whiny. That would make an awesome local heel gimmick, though. Heel blows into town, comes right out and professes his dislike for this podunk territory and its low-level title, but admits that he needs that belt as a stepping stone. Wins it by cheating and then uses every trick in the book (intentional DQs, walkouts, cheating to win, etc.) to keep it so he's champ when the NWA champion comes to town. Take it a step further and make it like he's a carpetbagging politician, like he chose this territory specifically for its weak competition.

Is there a term for a marked loss in anticipation between reading a synopsis and seeing a trailer? I read the synopsis of this yesterday, which did not include the word "teens." People in a hospice meet to tell ghost stories, make a pact that the first to die will try to contact them, then weird shit starts happening? And it's made by Mike Flanagan? Nice. Sounds like "Ghost Story." Then I watched the trailer and it's angsty teen bullshit. The very idea of a hospice just for teens is stupid and contrived. So disappointing.

OOOF. Yeah, that's horrible.

In a just world, TK would verbally agree to pay his bills, and then refuse after they've piled up a bit. ?

If anyone is waiting for Punk to be self reflective, take some blame for all this, and apologize to anybody, they'll be waiting a long time.

I figured that. I guess Khan doesn't want bad public reactions, but (as we've talked about here), he needs to do something about jackoffs with huge signs, belts, fatheads, and related unnecessary bullshit ruining his production. Oh man, I was looking at that weird layout last night and thinking how bad it must be in those seats. Seriously. Show her the video of Ruby falling right on her head at the last PPV.

That's tremendous. The real test is if he pronounces "gorilla" as "GAH-RELL-AH."

The constant cuts to the wide shots were driving me nuts. Also, MJF's habit of saying something edgy, then walking off mic to pander to the crowd, is lame as fuck and reminds me way too much of Pete Rose's "HOW BOOOOUUUUT IIIIIIIIIIIT?" after every punchline.

Don't know how new this info is, but somebody on the Cutting Room Floor site posted a bunch of cut content, etc. for Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game. The best part of all this, aside from Adam Bomb originally being set to be in the game and having recorded a lot of his animations, is that Curt Hennig was supposed to be in the game but he no-showed the capture session!

Cool! What was the angle in Memphis?

I went down a sweet YouTube wrestling rabbit hole the other night where I watched: Flair vs George South from 88 (I think this is the “tonight, you’re Steamboat” match) A 12 minute version of the Flair/DiBiase/Murdoch Mid South angle (AWESOME, creative way to use a world champ’s visit to build a completely different angle in your territory that’ll go on after he’s gone) DiBiase vs Duggan tuxedo cage coal miner’s glove loser leaves town match (I’d always heard of it, never seen it. Fun match but I need to know more about the buildup)

I will absolutely watch this on YouTube after Survivor Series! Thanks, all!

Just watch Raw and take the worst finish each week. It’d be easy. Music distraction —> rollup pin. 3 or 4 way where one guy hits his finish and then Jericho steals the pin. DQ for kicking too much ass. All of it. And make sure a ROH title match is never actually booked in advance; rather, it’s always booked after Jericho interrupts a guy’s promo/Jericho is interrupted, leaving you to wonder what had been booked originally.

After looking at the matchups, I'm kinda looking forward to Survivor Series 89. 4 on 4 with tag teams mixed in is so much better than 5 on 5 with tag teams getting their own 5 teams vs 5 teams (so 20 wrestlers overall) match. SS '88 only had 4 matches but the in-ring time was roughly two hours. 89 is 6 matches but the in-ring is less than an hour and a half.

I've cracked the code! Cornette hates 2022 wrestling because the New Breed snubbed him.

MJF's talents on the mic: No MJF's talents as his own publicist who somehow convinced people he has wit and mic skills? Yes That's what kills me about this handwringing/concern trolling about how AEW has the "culture of leaking" and how they'd better fix it. Look, wrestling has improved a lot of things about its awful culture. I just don't see "guys running to the sheets" ever changing. This is a not an AEW problem. Am I paraphrasing Denis Leary here when I say they'd just cremate Herb and then snort his ashes?

Contrast that with her appearance on commentary during the Rumble earlier in the year! It's amazing. Well look what he had to work with. ?

Wrapping up SummerSlam 89! Duggan and Demolition vs Andre, Akeem, and Bossman A fan has an unfortunate sign that says DEMOLITION WILL TOPPLE THE TWIN TOWERS, complete with hand drawn WTC burning. So either that kid is psychic (albeit a faulty one) or the 9/11 truthers have discovered time travel. Duggan is wearing one of those cheap Halloween hockey masks painted black, with the American flag painted on his face, in an attempt to match Demolition's gear. Jesse, a veteran, is appalled at this disgrace to old glory. The story is that the good guys dominate until Andre gets in and evens the odds. Not bad. Another good way to hide Andre, who is getting less mobile and more hunched over every time I see him. It's funny watching Andre beat up his old partner in The Machines, Bill Eadie. Match ends out of nowhere as there's a schmozz and Duggan gloms Akeem with the 2x4 as the ref is occupied with Andre. Fun little meaningless six man that doesn't overstay its welcome. Greg Valentine vs Hercules Ron Garvin is out there to do the ring announcing, as he has an ongoing beef with Valentine. Valentine apparently beat him in a retirement match, then Garvin became a ref but was fired from that for being biased against Valentine. Garvin makes like this is a Greg Valentine roast and it's cheesy but not horrible. Just back and forth clubbering for a few minutes until Valentine does the Macho Man Wrestling Classic takedown in the corner with his feet on the ropes for the win. Garvin announces Hercules as the winner and Valentine knocks him out of the ring, then Garvin comes back with the HANDS OF STONE. Nothing match that's just a backdrop for the continuation of the Valentine/Garvin program. I like these two from a "dudes who will just clubber dudes" standpoint and am looking forward to their Royal Rumble match. DiBiase vs Snuka Snuka is not as over the hill as I remembered him to be in this run. He could definitely still go here but I'm pretty sure he deteriorated fast over the next few tears. Jesse refers to him as "The Fly" several times and now I can't get that old U2 song out of my head. Good Guy Tony Schiavone, your woke uncle, takes Jesse to task. "Why are you calling him a Neanderthal? Just because he's from the Fiji Islands???" LET HIM KNOW, TONY! Somebody modern needs to steal DiBiase's fistdrop and second rope falling back elbow. I demand it. Nothing happens in this match. Snuka fights with Virgil and is counted out. Then he hits Virgil with the Superfly Leap to send 'em home happy. Hogan & Beefcake vs Savage & THE HUMAN WRECKING MACHINE ZEUS I have to commend Tiny Lister's commitment to the character here. There's a part in the promo package where Hogan hits him with a chair and he slowly, menacingly turns to Hogan like Jason Vorhees. It's fucking awesome. But of course as an actor who's primarily hired for how he looks, he's a great physical actor. He's so fucking good. There's an interview segment where the heels and SHERRI~! are peering into the Cauldron of The Madness to see the babyfaces' future and it's just fucking tremendous. Sherri outdid Randy here and you didn't know that was possible. Hell yeah. Sherri hits the ring and a few hundred prepubescent boys in the crowd spontaneously develop thigh high and garter fetishes. Savage is wearing AWESOME white/silver gear with black writing and stars here and look a million times more like a main eventer. Fun match, of course, with Randy proving his one of the best to ever do it, just traffic copping like his life depended on it. Again, Lister is a revelation here. This is a fucking actor out there and he's doing a passable job, not embarrassing himself. I love when wrestling is a magic trick like this, where they can completely hide a limited worker's weaknesses perfectly. Zeus' weakness is his eyes! He's like a Punch Out villain. Babyfaces win when Zeus is clobbered with Sherri's loaded purse (she'd used it earlier on Beefcake! Psychology!), which puts him down just long enough for the count but not enough that they can't run this back. Hell yeah. So that's SummerSlam 89! I have to say I recommend this show. SURVIVOR SERIES 89 is up next.

I was just about to post that. I'm pretty sure I saw it on Friday Night Videos as a kid.

That may have been me! I watched it on cut rate Baltimore cable, though, not in the theater. And hey, I grew up in a whiter, lower middle class section of the city. Racism was a feature, not a bug. Nick Nolte's character was typical of most middle aged guys there at that time. It's pretty horrifying to reflect on it and realize my parents had absolutely zero awareness of how racist it was as opposed to "that's how we talk." Oof. My wife and I tried to watch it a few years ago (I hadn't seen it since I was a kid) and we turned it off in short order.

They also only had one episode listed for Giancarlo Esposito, who was actually in three different episodes playing three different characters! The Blade Runner fan in me laments the omission of James Wong and Joe Turkel. Wikipedia has a full list of all guest stars, both famous and maybe just famous from playing "that guy" roles.

I figured! Thanks! Two more miracles and we can canonize Rude, right? St. Richard, patron saint of upper body businesses and teaching muscleheads how not to be awful.